Labor combines into its unions, capital into partnerships, associations, corporations, and trusts.A group-struggle is the result, in which the individuals, as individuals, play no part.The Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners, for instance, serves notice on the Master Builders' Association that it demands an increase of the wage of its members from $3.50 a day to $4, and a Saturday half-holiday without pay.This means that the carpenters are trying to give less for more.Where they received $21 for six full days, they are endeavoring to get $22 for five days and a half,--that is, they will work half a day less each week and receive a dollar more.
Also, they expect the Saturday half-holiday to give work to one additional man for each eleven previously employed.This last affords a splendid example of the development of the group idea.In this particular struggle the individual has no chance at all for life.The individual carpenter would be crushed like a mote by the Master Builders' Association, and like a mote the individual master builder would be crushed by the Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners.
In the group-struggle over the division of the joint product, labor utilizes the union with its two great weapons, the strike and the boycott; while capital utilizes the trust and the association, the weapons of which are the black-list, the lockout, and the scab.The scab is by far the most formidable weapon of the three.He is the man who breaks strikes and causes all the trouble.Without him there would be no trouble, for the strikers are willing to remain out peacefully and indefinitely so long as other men are not in their places, and so long as the particular aggregation of capital with which they are fighting is eating its head off in enforced idleness.
But both warring groups have reserve weapons.Were it not for the scab, these weapons would not be brought into play.But the scab takes the place of the striker, who begins at once to wield a most powerful weapon, terrorism.The will "to live" of the scab recoils from the menace of broken bones and violent death.With all due respect to the labor leaders, who are not to be blamed for volubly asseverating otherwise, terrorism is a well-defined and eminently successful policy of the labor unions.It has probably won them more strikes than all the rest of the weapons in their arsenal.
This terrorism, however, must be clearly understood.It is directed solely against the scab, placing him in such fear for life and limb as to drive him out of the contest.But when terrorism gets out of hand and inoffensive non-combatants are injured, law and order threatened, and property destroyed, it becomes an edged tool that cuts both ways.This sort of terrorism is sincerely deplored by the labor leaders, for it has probably lost them as many strikes as have been lost by any other single cause.
The scab is powerless under terrorism.As a rule, he is not so good nor gritty a man as the men he is displacing, and he lacks their fighting organization.He stands in dire need of stiffening and backing.His employers, the capitalists, draw their two remaining weapons, the ownership of which is debatable, but which they for the time being happen to control.These two weapons may be called the political and judicial machinery of society.When the scab crumples up and is ready to go down before the fists, bricks, and bullets of the labor group, the capitalist group puts the police and soldiers into the field, and begins a general bombardment of injunctions.
Victory usually follows, for the labor group cannot withstand the combined assault of gatling guns and injunctions.
But it has been noted that the ownership of the political and judicial machinery of society is debatable.In the Titanic struggle over the division of the joint product, each group reaches out for every available weapon.Nor are they blinded by the smoke of conflict.They fight their battles as coolly and collectedly as ever battles were fought on paper.The capitalist group has long since realized the immense importance of controlling the political and judicial machinery of society.
Taught by gatlings and injunctions, which have smashed many an otherwise successful strike, the labor group is beginning to realize that it all depends upon who is behind and who is before the gatlings and the injunctions.And he who knows the labor movement knows that there is slowly growing up and being formulated a clear and definite policy for the capture of the political and judicial machinery.
