Nor can it be denied.The evidence is with him.The previous centuries, and more notably the nineteenth, have marked the rise of the common man.From chattel slavery to serfdom, and from serfdom to what he bitterly terms "wage slavery," he has risen.Never was he so strong as he is today, and never so menacing.He does the work of the world, and he is beginning to know it.The world cannot get along without him, and this also he is beginning to know.All the human knowledge of the past, all the scientific discovery, governmental experiment, and invention of machinery, have tended to his advancement.His standard of living is higher.His common school education would shame princes ten centuries past.His civil and religious liberty makes him a free man, and his ballot the peer of his betters.And all this has tended to make him conscious, conscious of himself, conscious of his class.He looks about him and questions that ancient law of development.It is cruel and wrong, he is beginning to declare.It is an anachronism.Let it be abolished.Why should there be one empty belly in all the world, when the work of ten men can feed a hundred? What if my brother be not so strong as I? He has not sinned.Wherefore should he hunger--he and his sinless little ones? Away with the old law.There is food and shelter for all, therefore let all receive food and shelter.
As fast as labor has become conscious it has organized.The ambition of these class-conscious men is that the movement shall become general, that all labor shall become conscious of itself and its class interests.And the day that witnesses the solidarity of labor, they triumphantly affirm, will be a day when labor dominates the world.This growing consciousness has led to the organization of two movements, both separate and distinct, but both converging toward a common goal--one, the labor movement, known as Trade Unionism; the other, the political movement, known as Socialism.
Both are grim and silent forces, unheralded and virtually unknown to the general public save in moments of stress.The sleeping labor giant receives little notice from the capitalistic press, and when he stirs uneasily, a column of surprise, indignation, and horror suffices.
It is only now and then, after long periods of silence, that the labor movement puts in its claim for notice.All is quiet.The kind old world spins on, and the bourgeois masters clip their coupons in smug complacency.But the grim and silent forces are at work.
Suddenly, like a clap of thunder from a clear sky, comes a disruption of industry.From ocean to ocean the wheels of a great chain of railroads cease to run.A quarter of a million miners throw down pick and shovel and outrage the sun with their pale, bleached faces.The street railways of a swarming metropolis stand idle, or the rumble of machinery in vast manufactories dies away to silence.There is alarm and panic.Arson and homicide stalk forth.
There is a cry in the night, and quick anger and sudden death.
Peaceful cities are affrighted by the crack of rifles and the snarl of machine-guns, and the hearts of the shuddering are shaken by the roar of dynamite.There is hurrying and skurrying.The wires are kept hot between the centre of government and the seat of trouble.
The chiefs of state ponder gravely and advise, and governors of states implore.There is assembling of militia and massing of troops, and the streets resound to the tramp of armed men.There are separate and joint conferences between the captains of industry and the captains of labor.And then, finally, all is quiet again, and the memory of it is like the memory of a bad dream.
But these strikes become olympiads, things to date from; and common on the lips of men become such phrases as "The Great Dock Strike,""The Great Coal Strike," "The Great Railroad Strike." Never before did labor do these things.After the Great Plague in England, labor, finding itself in demand and innocently obeying the economic law, asked higher wages.But the masters set a maximum wage, restrained workingmen from moving about from place to place, refused to tolerate idlers, and by most barbarous legal methods punished those who disobeyed.But labor is accorded greater respect today.
Such a policy, put into effect in this the first decade of the twentieth century, would sweep the masters from their seats in one mighty crash.And the masters know it and are respectful.
A fair instance of the growing solidarity of labor is afforded by an unimportant recent strike in San Francisco.The restaurant cooks and waiters were completely unorganized, working at any and all hours for whatever wages they could get.A representative of the American Federation of Labor went among them and organized them.
Within a few weeks nearly two thousand men were enrolled, and they had five thousand dollars on deposit.Then they put in their demand for increased wages and shorter hours.Forthwith their employers organized.The demand was denied, and the Cooks' and Waiters' Union walked out.
All organized employers stood back of the restaurant owners, in sympathy with them and willing to aid them if they dared.And at the back of the Cooks' and Waiters' Union stood the organized labor of the city, 40,000 strong.If a business man was caught patronizing an "unfair" restaurant, he was boycotted; if a union man was caught, he was fined heavily by his union or expelled.The oyster companies and the slaughter houses made an attempt to refuse to sell oysters and meat to union restaurants.The Butchers and Meat Cutters, and the Teamsters, in retaliation, refused to work for or to deliver to non-union restaurants.Upon this the oyster companies and slaughter houses acknowledged themselves beaten and peace reigned.But the Restaurant Bakers in non-union places were ordered out, and the Bakery Wagon Drivers declined to deliver to unfair houses.
