history of industrial changes shows beyond cavil or doubt that in this
field, as in others, he who would be free himself must win his
freedom. The basic principle of the Trade Union, the right and
usefulness of collective bargaining, inheres in the conditions of
machine-dominated and capitalized industry. In this form of labor
organization the individual worker cannot bargain individually; his
place in the factory is too infinitesimal and his power measured by
that of his employer too invisible for such personal alignment. This
fact is now not questioned by any but those so enamoured of old
methods of control of the worker by those who hire him that they
cannot see what has really happened both to the employer and the
employed. The labor struggle had to come. The right of workers to
combine and to work together for what seems to them their best
interests is as inherent a part of modern democratic ideals as is the
right of all citizens to vote. And since modern industry has given
enormous power to a few master leaders and requires so many
wage-earners to carry out its enterprises the struggle has necessarily
been hard and long. No one can justly place all good behavior on one
or the other side in this conflict. No one can fail to see that power
attained by the Trade Unions has at times been used as selfishly as
the power of the employers has been. But when we remember that until
the first quarter of the nineteenth century combinations of workmen,
even to respectfully ask an increase of wages or a bettering of work
conditions in lessening of hours and in sanitary and moral provisions
in work-places, was legally a "conspiracy," and liable to harsh
punishments, we must be glad that at any temporary cost the main army
of laborers has been organized from a mob of oppressed individual
workers. But what a cost to the family has been often paid! Mothers
already overworked and under-nourished still further starved by the
"strike relief" that only serves to maintain wretchedness, not to
abolish it. The sufferings of children who miss even the meagre family
comfort which the too small pay of the father when at work was able to
supply. The greater suffering of children shunned and ill-treated by
school mates when the father is called a "scab." The deeper tragedy of
experience of men who take work that their labor comrades have refused
because of the claim of wife and children, and are abused, both in
body and in denial of sympathy and respect, because they are thought
to be traitors to their striking fellows. What is hinted at in these
few words could be made into one of the great dramas of the ages if
only the social imagination could take into understanding and show
without partiality both sides of the picture. The time may come when
it will be seen that in all wars some heroes fall on the side that is
called wrong and have right to meed of deferred praise. When that time
comes, the history of labor conflicts will show that in the struggle
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