purposes, from exercising its judgment as to the proper and politic manner of treating an employer, or as to any one of the thousand and one questions of every-day policy.

The danger of submitting a union to the intervention of the courts in its every-day affairs is foreshadowed by J. W. Sullivan of the Typographical Union of New York: “A union has ways of its own in conducting the affairs that relate mainly to itself and its membership. It is a big self-governing family. In periods of strike the prescribed order of written constitution or by-law sometimes proves less desirable than the short cut, obvious as a war measure. The members then become aware that in drawing up their laws they were unable to foresee the situation confronting them, and they may, for example, unconstitutionally confide absolute power temporarily in an officer or a committee. In times of peace a union often reaches conclusions and interpretations dictated by the common sense of a meeting rather than by the statutes as written, leaving the majority either satisfied or in a mood to accept the judgment for better or worse. Such proceedings inay relate to trials of members, to executive session work, to appropriation of funds, to informalities or irregularities in elections or referendum votes, to the opening or closing of books for inspection, to the reading or the silencing of reports, to appointing or dismissing committees, to maintaining discipline, to accepting or rejecting candidates for membership, to suspending or expelling or reinstating members, to passing judgment on aggressions of employers tending to end in strike, to investigating the conduct of members prejudicial to the organization, and to settling questions in which rule or precedent or necessity of a local union conflicts with international union law. In all such proceedings two principles usually govern-self-preservation of the union and good fellowship. A popular employer, in general fair, who in a fit of temper has wilfully violated a clause in a contract or the union scale, will be adjudged innocent. A sound and active union man who has misappropriated a small sum will be found not guilty and given time to refund. In these matters an unincorporated union is in the main a law unto itself. It is free. It may make many changes in its internal

methods and in administration without lessening its responsibility as a contracting party.

"But an incorporated union would in all these steps be subject to much revision and correction through the agencies of the law. Work, here, for judges, lawyers and enemies. The incorporated body, as a creature of the State, must be kept in health by the State. Disturbers, instigated by influences inimical to a union, might kindly aid the State. In incorporating, a union would have admitted non-kins folk as masters at the family table-the judge, of another blood, come to set things right; the sheriff, with keys to a jail and a money-sack for fines; the policeman, with a club and handcuffs.

"These officials occasionally regulate family affairs now in the unions, but the courts, only acting when called upon, refuse to interfere if the union's proceedings are in accordance with its own rules, which are subject to change at the will of the majority. But if these rules depended for regularity upon the terms of incorporation, and if informers were sent into the unions to report infractions, the sins of unions would be multiplied and the lawsuits ensuing would work pleasure to scabs. The knowing are fully conscious of what they are saying when they express a desire for an increase of the authority of the law over trade unions. They would wreck them from within."

It is a fact that while the unions are frequently berated by hostile critics because of their alleged unwillingness "manfully and courageously" to incorporate themselves, the typical capitalist organizations of this country have followed the same course. As has been before stated, the great associations of employers, the National Association of Manufacturers, the Illinois Coal Operators' Association, the National Typothetae, and so forth, are unincorporated. Even the New York Stock Exchange, an organization composed of the richest men in the world, and certainly not lacking the advantage of good legal advice, has always refused to incorporate. Other stock and produce exchanges have adopted the same course. In a certain sense, not entirely fanciful, the New York Stock Exchange is a labor union

--a union of men plying the trade of brokerage. It has at present an initiation fee of about $80,000; it restricts the number of its members, refuses to allow them to divide commissions with non-union brokers, and establishes a minimum piece price for work and a maximum working day of five hours. The reason given by the Stock Exchange for this refusal to incorporate is that it could not, if incorporated, maintain untrammeled powers of discipline and would be liable, in the case of any action which had that object, to interference by the courts and consequent delays. As a matter of fact, no injustice is worked through this refusal of the Stock Exchange to incorporate, and affairs are conducted as honestly and efficiently as though the Exchange were incorporated, and the same is true, upon the whole, of the manufacturers' associations and the labor unions of the country. What the unions desire is not immunity from legal penalties, not a special status under the law, but merely the opportunity to grow up unhampered by the constant oversight of judicial bodies, frequently antagonistic, and to shoulder in the form of trade agreements the responsibility which they believe they should actually assume.

Within a short time the demand for the incorporation of trade unions. will probably grow less persistent and less insistent. Many friends of trade unionism now advocating incorporation are beginning to realize its limitations, and the foes of trade unionism are taking up other weapons closer at hand. It is coming to be realized that incorporation does not necessarily mean the ability to attach union funds, and the enemies of the unions now urge that an ounce of injunction is worth a pound of incorporation.

While, therefore, it is not possible to foresee exactly what will happen if the laws are so amended as to make incorporation a benefit, or what may ensue if hostile enactment or hostile interpretation of the law seeks to drive the unions into incorporation, it is probable that for the time being at least the great mass of workmen will resist a proposal the advantages of which are problematical and the dangers, real and imminent.

CHAPTER XXVII

THE CASE AGAINST THE TRADE UNION

Trade Unionism before the Bar of Public Opinion. Sentence First, Trial Afterwards. For Unions, but against Unionism. Grievances Old as Unionism. Does Trade Unionism "Destroy Individuality?" Does it "Tyrannize?" Does it "Dictate?" Does it "Lower Efficiency?" Does it "Foster Idleness?" Does it "Breed Discontent?" Does it "Monopolize Employment?" Does it "Reduce all Men to a Level?" Machinery and Equality. Minimum Wage and Maximum Wage. Do Trade Unions Run Counter to the Law of Supply and Demand? Recognition and Representation. Recognition a Means to an End. Trade Unions Fallible.

IN

N the eyes of some critics the principal grievance against trade unions is the fact that they exist. From the beginning there have always been men so bigoted, so perverse, so blind to the progress and needs of their age that they can discover nothing but evil in popular movements. It has, it is true, become the fashion of late for men of this class to disguise in a measure their uncompromising hatred of trade unionism. They aver that they "have no objections to labor unions if properly conducted;" but this proviso, correctly analyzed, usually means that the unions must not do any of the things for which they are organized. The attitude of these men is as sensible as would be that of a keeper of a turnpike who, hating and fearing the progress of the age, should disclaim hostility to railroads, provided they did not run trains. These opponents of trade unionism are like the man who was "for the law, but against its enforcement."

There is nothing either good or bad which trade unions do or have done or can do that has not at some time been made the object of attack. They have been assailed because they have been local and because they have been national, because they have been mere fighting organizations without funds and because they have had benefit features and have subsidized their battles at the expense of innocent members desiring insurance, because they

have raised wages and decreased hours and because they have not benefited the workman, because they have been marked by "bossism" and because they have been unable to control their members.

The case against trade unionism may be said to consist of charges against individual persons or organizations and of more sweeping charges against organizations in general. Everyone would resent the charge that the American is a drunken, lying, thieving, cheating, murderous criminal, although individual Americans have been convicted of these various offenses. It is not considered unfair, however, to bring a series of charges against trade unions or against "unionism as at present conducted," because individual unionists have shown that they share the failings and frailties of human kind.

Many of the charges against labor organizations, that they limit or restrict production, that they prevent the introduction of machinery, that they limit apprentices, that they resort to violence and intimidation, that they defraud and delude the workers, are considered in other sections of this book. The argument that trade unions do not keep their contracts is answered in the chapter on the trade agreement and elsewhere, the charge that they shirk responsibility is discussed under the subject of incorporation, and the allegation that they are law breakers is treated in connection with the subject of strikes and of the injunction. Sometimes these charges are made in good, sometimes in bad, faith, but in either case it is easy to show that, as a general rule, they are absolutely and entirely unfounded.

The complaints and grievances urged against trade unions in the present day are not new. Ever since workmen began to seek a higher standard of living through organization, they have been attacked by representatives of the employing classes. Thus, as early as 1741, when the English wool combers sought by organization to improve their condition, it was asserted that these wool combers had "for a number of years past erected themselves into a sort of corporation (though without a charter) their first pretence was to take care of their poor brethren that should fall sick, or be out of work; and this was done by meeting once or twice a week, and each of them