The Great Steel Strike and its LessonsFoster, William Z.
History
The Great Steel Strike and its Lessons
Foster, William Z.
Steel Strike, U.S., 1919-1920; United States Steel Corporation
Why, then, have these strongly anti-capitalistic qualities been so long
and generally ignored and the trade unions considered merely as
palliative bodies? In my opinion it is because they, like various other
aggressive social movements, have more or less instinctively surrounded
themselves with a sort of camouflage or protective coloring, designed to
disguise the movement and thus to pacify and disarm the opposition. This
is the function of such expressions as, "A fair day's pay for a fair
day's work," "The interests of Capital and Labor are identical," etc. In
actual practice little or no attention is paid to them. They are for
foreign consumption. The fact that those who utter them may actually
believe what they say does not change the situation a particle. Most
movements are blind to their own goals anyway. The important thing is
the real trend of the movement, which is indisputably as I have stated
above, on the one hand constantly expanding organization, and on the
other constantly increasing demands. The trade unions will not _become_
anti-capitalistic through the conversion of their members to a certain
point of view or by the adoption of certain preambles; they _are_ that
by their very makeup and methods. The most that can be done is to
clarify their aims and intensify their efforts towards freedom.
If the trade unions instinctively throw dust in the eyes of their
enemies, they do it for an altogether worthy purpose, the elevation of
the standard of well-being for the mass of the people. In the case of
the capitalist class we see the same principle applied to an utterly
vicious end. The whole trend of the great employing interests is to set
up an oligarchy of wealthy parasites, neither toiling nor spinning, yet
for whom the whole body of workers would be compelled to labor in
degradation and poverty. And if unopposed, they would not only bring
about this condition, but in so doing would rob the people of every
right they have--free speech, free press, free assemblage, legislative
representation, trial by jury, and all the rest. But do they openly avow
their purpose? Most assuredly not, for they know that powerful though
they are they would be swept away by a wave of popular opposition.
Therefore, through their newspapers and innumerable other propaganda
agencies, they proceed to cover up their nefarious schemes of
exploitation and oppression with hypocritical cloaks of patriotism,
religion, benevolence, and the like. Their practice is one thing, their
preaching something entirely different. Thus we have Garys and
Rockefellers actually enslaving their workers by the most brutal
methods and at the same time seeking to convince the public that what
they are trying to do is to protect these workers from union domination,
to preserve to them their sacred right to work for whomever they please,
etc. Men such as these are knifing America and doing it in the name of
100 per cent. Americanism. They are social camouflagers par excellence.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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