A Despotic Principle by L. A. S.

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Washington, D.C. · Oct 15, 1903

A Despotic Principle

By L. A. S.

The Executive Council of the American Federation of Labor has published a statement saying that in view of the publicity of the government’s attitude toward the “open shop,” as announced by President Roosevelt, it “takes this opportunity to say that the trades union movement stands for a strictly union shop, experience having proved that where the ‘open shop’ system has been tried, reduction in wages and profits have ensued, with general disaster to the industry practising that system; and therefore declares that the best interests of the labor movement call for the employment of union workers, and discourage in every way, shape, and form the deteriorating effects which follow the recognition of the ‘open shop.’”

This declaration is in strict harmony with trades union practise wherever the union has dealt with the question of allowing employment to non-union workmen. The effort of the labor trust has always been to prohibit non-union men from working, and in many places it has become an established rule that no person shall be employed who is not a union member. The union dictates to the employer and to the non-union laborer, telling the former whom he may employ, and forbidding the latter to work at all, so long as he remains outside the union ranks. This practise the unions have enforced by strikes and intimidation and violence.

If this announced policy of the labor federation shall prevail and become an established fact in this country, it will amount to the institution of a new system of government—a government by trades unions. For it must be evident that whatever can control the industries of the country has become the paramount thing in the country. Every other right or privilege must necessarily be involved in the right to transact business. Of what use to a man are the guarantees of “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” accorded by this republican government, so long as he is everywhere feels confronted by a power which forbids him the right to work?

What benefit can a man derive from contemplating the personal liberty provided for by the Constitution and principles of this republic, when his family is starving, and he is cut off from all means of providing himself or them with the necessaries of life? Such a system of things as the American Federation of Labor has announced that it stands for, nullifies entirely all the provisions for free government that exist in this country to-day. Free government means nothing without freedom to do and obtain those things upon which individual welfare, and even life itself, depend. There is no freedom where a power exists which can dictate to the individual in such matters. Almost any form of monarchy in the world offers better opportunities for the enjoyment of “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” than would be offered by a theoretically free republican government where industry is dominated by trades unions.

No government ever becomes so despotic as to undertake to dictate to an individual in the matter of obtaining work. But the Federation of Labor says that the man who does not belong to the union must not be allowed to work at all. It is now attempting to force the government to sanction this despotic principle. By and by another period of industrial depression will be reached in this country. The present methods of trades unionism are hastening its coming. At that time many establishments now running will be closed, and many laborers will be thrown out of work. Then membership in a labor union will not secure work for an individual, while non-membership will bar him from obtaining work. The great mass of the unemployed will become desperate, and a struggle between them and the labor unions will be the result, attended by terrible rioting and destruction of property and life. The labor federation will be unable to provide many of its members with work, and then by its principles it will be bound to prevent these very ones from obtaining work; and many who are supporting it now will find it their chief enemy later on. And while the executive council of this federation thus announces that it aims to dictate to every person in this country how he shall exercise the right to work, or whether he shall exercise it at all or not, almost in the same breath it asserts that “the hope for right and justice hereafter, as well as the perpetuation of liberty and our republican institutions, lies in organized labor.” What is to be expected as regards the preservation of liberty and justice, from such conceptions of them? And how much longer is liberty to remain anything more than a theory in this republic? L. A. S.