p. 9 | The Industrial Conflict by Francis M. Wilcox

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Nov 7, 1912

The Industrial Conflict

By Francis M. Wilcox

The World's Unrest—No. 3

The Industrial Conflict

In no phase of human endeavor is the fierce, wild unrest taking hold of the minds of men more apparent than in the industrial world. The reason for this is found in the fact that in the industrial relationship are affected most vitally the personal, selfish interests of the human family; that which involves man's temporal benefit as concerns his pleasure, his health, his very life existence.

The great industrial conflict facing the world to-day is probably without a parallel in the history of the human family. Its area and extent are as broad as the habitations of men. On the one side stand capital and invested interests, on the other side labor and the agents of production. Step by step with the advance of the world's civilization has been the education of the masses, and the promulgation of the doctrine of man's equality with his fellows. The doctrine of the divine right of kings to rule and reign, of the superiority of the feudal lord over his serfs, of the inherent right of the nobility and privileged classes over the common people, has given place to a demand for equal rights and equal privileges. Says Mr. Sidney Low, of England, as quoted in the New York Times of Aug. 11, 1912:—

The temper of labor has changed. We have given the workman an education which is not much inferior to that of his “betters;” we complete it when he leaves school by the cheap press, the theater, the free lecture, the public library, the franchise. In the old days there was an outward and physical as well as a clearly marked intellectual distinction between “master” and “man,” between the so-called brain worker and the day-laborer. The “gentleman” was taller, straighter, fairer than the artisan; he washed thrice daily, and the other did not wash at all; he spoke in a different dialect and had finer manners. To-day the workman has his bath-room and cultivates personal hygiene; he has read books and dealt with ideas.

Lord Hugh Cecil, a member of the British Parliament, discusses in the same paper the causes of the great social unrest. Among the chief of these he gives the following:—

Probably the most potent cause of the present unrest is the spread of education. The effect of education is to increase the needs of those educated. An uneducated man wants food, clothes, shelter, and fire sufficient for health and comfort. An educated man wants interests in life, not all of the same kind, and a certain quantity of recreation. The current vogue for amusement which permeates all classes naturally stimulates the uneasiness of an educated man whose wages give him little opportunity for enjoyment. And the vogue for amusement is made to seem even greater than it is by the action of the press, a large part of whose columns is filled with the records of various kinds of sport and entertainment.

The great difference between the two classes is emphasized by the reckless display of wealth seen on every side. Millions of dollars are spent daily for idle pleasure, for needless luxuries, for show and ostentation. These the average working man knows are outside his reach. He has learned to think for himself and to study the economic conditions. He realizes that by his industry and that of his fellows, capital has been created. He can not understand why some of his sisters should labor for a farthing an hour, or why a man with a family should receive but six dollars a week, while the directors of the company are declaring twelve-per-cent dividends. It seems to him that he is unjustly deprived of his rights. He obtains no redress as a result of petition. Those whom he felt represented his interests in legislative halls are outnumbered or themselves fall prey to the lust of money and power. It seems to him that his only redress is in uniting with his fellow workers in declaring an uncompromising warfare upon those who are receiving the lion's share. And this demand on the part of labor is becoming loud and insistent. No longer content to weakly ask for this equality of privilege, the masses are asserting their rights to its enjoyment with no little emphasis.

Increase of Violent Strikes

There was a time when labor contented itself with quiet inactivity to secure its demand. Strikes were infrequent, and when engaged in were not accompanied with violence. But the last decade has wrought a mighty change. A brief review of the press reports for the last few months presents this startling record:—

January 29—A general strike is declared in Lisbon, seriously affecting newspaper publication and transportation facilities.

March 1—Coal-miners in England strike, affecting directly one million men and indirectly one million more.

March 3—Bristol dock workers refuse to handle foreign coal during the British strikes.

March 9—General advance in wages for textile workers in New England announced as a result of threatened strike.

March 11—One hundred seventy-five thousand coal-miners strike in Germany.

March 23—More than three thousand operatives in the textile mills of Passaic, N. J., strike for higher wages.

March 31—More than four hundred thousand bituminous and anthracite coal-miners suspend work pending settlement of their demands.

April 22—Demands of locomotive engineers on Eastern railroads met by offer of arbitration by Commissioner of Labor Neill.

May 24—Strike of transport workers throughout Great Britain, affecting one hundred thousand men, called. Serious riot among striking workmen in Budapest.

June 9—Strike of elevated railroad employees in Boston.

June 10—General strike, affecting three hundred thousand transport workers, called in Great Britain. At the same time a serious strike was going on at Havre, France.

These are but a part of the strikes that actually occurred. Many were accompanied

with rioting, bloodshed, and the loss of life. In a large per cent of the cases the militia or troops were called out to quell disorder, and hold in check the forces of violence. The industrial conflict in England was particularly significant and most unusual in the history of the nation. The government gave long and earnest consideration to the creation of means by which the difficulty might be settled, but it is feared that the understanding effected will be of short duration. Assassination, dynamiting, poisoning, and all the intrigues and weapons of lawless and irresponsible disorganization played a part in the accomplishment of the purposes sought during some of these disorders. Nor have these violent measures been employed by labor alone. Invested capital has resorted to the same methods. Representatives of the labor union in Los Angeles, by the use of explosives, blew into eternity a score or more of their fellows in the dynamiting of the Times Building. Later, in connection with the strike in Lawrence, Mass., the same instrument of death was employed by the mill owners, it was charged, in an effort to discredit union labor, and thus harm the organization.

Employment of Sabotage

And the employment of these violent measures by no means represents an outburst of pent-up passion alone. They constitute a part of the regular program of procedure. Some of the organizations of labor recommend these methods to their members. As Israel in Egypt demanded of Pharaoh the spoil of the land as their rightful due for their long years of service, so many industrial workers to-day feel that to them belongs the fruit of their service, and that it is right to enforce their demands by the agents of violence and destruction if need be.

Years ago when the textile workers of southern France were refused their demands, they drew from their feet their wooden shoes, or sabots, and cast them violently into the delicate mechanism of their looms. From that time to this, this form of reprisal, known as sabotage, has been a common weapon of angered and dissatisfied labor. Its beginning represented a spontaneous outburst of frenzy and despair. To-day it is looked upon as a legitimate method of attack.

Violent Agitators

This is not true of all labor unions, but it is true of those that are recognized as the more advanced. As a representative of this radical class, perhaps the I. W. W., or Industrial Workers of the World, may be counted as worthy of special mention. This labor organization is the one that so successfully engineered the industrial struggle in Lawrence some months ago, and brought the conflict there to so successful a termination in behalf of its own interests. This same order has operated extensively through the West, and is the one to whose charge were laid the many murders confessed by Harry Orchard. It holds a prominent if not a leading place in the labor world, working not so much in the open as quietly and under the surface, in the carrying out of its purpose.

Recently in connection with the labor war in San Diego, Mr. Harris Weinstock, a special government commissioner, made careful investigation of the aims and purposes of the I. W. W. He sums up the doctrines of this order as follows:—

1. That workmen are to use any and all tactics that will give the results sought with the least possible expenditure of time and energy. 2. The question of right or wrong is not to be considered. 3. The avenging sword is to be unsheathed, with all hearts resolved on victory or death. 4. The workman is to help himself when the proper time comes. 5. No agreement with an employer of labor is to be considered by the worker as sacred or inviolable. 6. The worker is to produce inferior goods, and kill time in various ways. 7. The worker is to look forward to the day when he will confiscate the factories and drive out the owners. 8. The worker is to get ready to cause national industrial paralysis, with the view of confiscating all industries, and taking forcible possession of all things he may need. 9. Strikers are to disobey and treat with contempt all judicial injunctions.

And this doctrine of reprisal and sabotage is something more than a theory. In repeated cases it has been put into practical operation. A few instances will serve to illustrate this. At a bakers' strike in France kerosene was poured into the ovens. After three months the odor still permeated the bread, and the ovens had to be torn down. In a strike in Amsterdam bakers worked lumps of salt, soap, rags, mice, and cockroaches into the dough till the master bakers hastened to grant their demands. In a brewery a bottle of kerosene dropped “accidentally” into a vat containing hundreds of barrels of fermenting beer ruined the entire contents. Sulphuric acid sprayed over the looms in textile mills ate through the threads and stopped the machinery. Parisian strikers put hundreds of power plants out of commission by covering the transmission pulleys with soft soap, or by pouring water into the gasoline engines. These are but a few of the individual instances of the outworking of this idea of sabotage which might be enumerated.

And this weapon, as we have already said, is the one that these unions now purpose to use in the enforcement of their demands. The editor of the Socialist Review in a recent number of that journal, directly commends this course of action. According to the Daily Post-Standard of September 3 (Syracuse, N. Y.), the editor is quoted as saying:—

The weapon on which the new socialists rely is the power of the workers peacefully to fold their arms in such numbers as to paralyze industry and force the unconditional surrender of the capitalistic class. There is no necessity for an absolute general strike. A strike falling far short of that would force society to capitulate unconditionally. Direct action includes sabotage. Sabotage may express itself in slow work, in bad work, and even in the destruction of the machinery of production. The American advocates of direct action will almost to a man help the Socialist party in this year's campaign.

The Doctrine of Syndicalism

Of late the doctrine of syndicalism is being extensively proclaimed and adopted by many industrial workers. The root idea of syndicalism is trade ownership and control. This theory, according to the New York Evening Post, would “brush aside all efforts to settle the so-called class differences by peaceful methods, and would by ‘direct action’ force the other side to yield without governmental interference.” By “direct action” is meant such control and manipulation of the forces of labor that in one day all wheels of industry could be stopped, travel and traffic paralyzed, and through dire distress the public be made to unite in the enforcement of labor's demands. This involves not only national, but international strikes. The Literary Digest of April 6, 1912, gives this definition of this new doctrine of labor unionism:—

Syndicalism, therefore, rejects the idea of capturing the bourgeois state by legislative methods. It rejects palliatives and reforms because they do not go to the heart of the situation, which is one of irreconcilable class warfare. Because the state is always bound to be under the control of the propertied classes and the “intellectuals,” syndicalism declares war against the state. It finds in the working men's organizations the only efficient agent for overturning society. It regards the general strike as the lever that will accomplish the overthrow.

This doctrine has the strong indorsement of the I. W. W. They look forward to the time which they believe is not far distant when the industrial worker will control all the products of labor. This they believe will be brought about by a great revolution. Says Vincent St. John, president of the I. W. W., as quoted in the New York Herald of Sept. 15, 1912:—

Revolution is our watchword, and all our efforts are bent toward revolution. Wages, hours of work, interest us only incidentally as they may serve to incite individual strikes; but what we are really about is a campaign of education to teach the working man his power, so that when

the time comes to declare the general strike, he will know his potency, realize that he has the power to coerce the whole world.

The idea of a day's wage is repudiated. Labor is no longer content with that. It demands a part in the dividends. Says one of the labor organizers, as represented by the same paper:—

The craft and labor unions want a fair wage for a day's work. Why should we strike for that? Why should we receive a wage at all while some one else takes the profit? When the great revolution comes, we will own the industries of the world and operate them, and no man will be permitted to do more than enough work to make his living. There will be no accumulation of capital.

The question of moral conduct is not to be considered. According to the doctrine of these agitators, “might makes right,” and they purpose to take whatever forces are put under their control. We quote again from the Herald the words of a prominent labor representative:—

The question of right or wrong does not enter into it. We will take what we are strong enough to take. If the government interferes, we will defy the government. Our flag is the red flag of brotherhood, and when it triumphs we will come into our own. Health, happiness, and prosperity will be realities. No man will work more than another, and no man will enjoy more of the world's benefits than another. The working man will own the world, and he will run it to suit himself. It is a question of what we are strong enough to take, and not what is right for us to take.

That we are facing indeed in the near future this great revolution others than the promoters of these gilds and crafts earnestly believe. The present industrial conditions have occasioned food for serious thought for some of the leading statesmen and economists of the present day. As they recognize the elements at work,—on the one hand the oppression of greed, and on the other the unreasonable demands of long-outraged labor,—they realize that no human power can stay the inevitable conflict that must result. Of what many believe to be a great impending revolution, we shall speak next week. F. M. W.