Part 9

It is not to be argued that the manufacturers were especially worse than the general run of men in taking this action. It is the most natural thing in the world that a man who has all his life been used to making enormous profits in his business should come to think that he had an inalienable right to make them; and that when competition became so sharp that he had to lower his prices, it was due to an unnatural condition of affairs glibly designated as "over-production," for which the trust was an appropriate and wise remedy.

It is thus plain how, in a secondary way, the tariff is a cause of the trusts. The fat profits which the former gave have made men covetous enough to engage in the latter.

We are, perhaps, not yet prepared to discuss the question of the proper remedies for trusts; but it is too obvious to call for comment that an easy and most effective remedy is to cut away the protection from foreign competition, under which they flourish, and let them sink or swim as they best can. At the least it will be wise to reduce their protection to a point where any attempt to tax the nation of consumers and reap exorbitant profits by putting up prices so that profits of twenty-five per cent. or more can be reaped, will be counteracted by foreign competition.

It is only fair to point out at the same time that this remedy is far from being a panacea against all trusts and monopolies. The monopolies in the peculiar products of this country will be unaffected by it, and the combinations which embrace the whole globe in their plan of operations are quite beyond its power. The copper syndicate and the salt trust, and according to Mr. Carnegie a steel rail trust, are the only actual examples of international combinations which have ever been attempted, and it will probably be many years yet before the constant movement towards Tennyson's "Federation of the World" permits the general formation of effective industrial combinations which shall embrace all commercial nations.

We have finally to consider the monopolies carried on directly by the government. The carriage of the mails is the most important monopoly carried on by the government, and we may find some facts of interest by enquiring the reasons why it is for the public welfare that it should be so conducted rather than by private enterprise. In the first place, if it were left to private enterprise to furnish us with postal facilities, the postal service would be much more limited than now; many places of small importance being left without postal facilities or charged a much higher rate for service than now. On the other hand--and this is an important point--there would, perhaps, be in and between the large cities competition between different companies; in which case there would be duplicate sets of postal facilities, including buildings, mail-boxes, furniture, and employees of every grade. It is plain that all this would be a waste. One set of facilities is better for the public than two or three or more, and is ample to carry all the mails. To put another set of men at the work that others are already able to do, is to waste just so much of the working force of the world, as well as the capital necessary to furnish tools and buildings for its use. The matter of rates, too, would vary with the competition. One could never be sure what his postage bill for the coming year was to be. The receipts of the companies would be uncertain, and they would be obliged to pay a high rate of interest on the capital invested in their plant, thus making it necessary for them to charge high rates for their service. The intense competition between rival companies would lead to the bankruptcy of the weaker, and the final result would be the establishment of a single corporation in the control of the whole system. Rates would then be put up to the point where the greatest profit would accrue to the corporation.

Under the existing system, then, we save in cost of service over competing systems under private direction, in that the existing facilities are all made use of. There is no waste by setting two men to do the work of one, or by renting two offices to do the business which one could accommodate, neither is any energy wasted in soliciting business. The capital invested by the government in its plant for carrying on the postal service would bear interest, if the money were borrowed, of not more than two or three per cent. But if a private company borrowed money to carry a similar business, they would have to pay five to seven per cent., which they would have to make up for by charging a higher rate of postage.

Other monopolies which have been carried on by the government are the business of transportation, and the provision of roads, bridges, and canals therefor; monopolies in mining; and in the case of municipal governments, as already noted, the supply of water, gas, and electric service, and street railway transportation.

VIII.

MONOPOLIES IN THE LABOR MARKET.

It should be said at the outset of this chapter that, in a very true sense, practically all men are laborers. That into which a man puts his energy and by which he earns his living, is his labor, whether it be work of the hand or the head. But the labor we are to consider in this chapter is that of the men who work for wages; and we will also make the arbitrary distinction that it is that of the men who work for wages in some branch of manufacturing, mining, trade, or transportation, the great divisions of modern industry which we have thus far considered.

Almost all these monopolies employ large amounts of capital in carrying on their business; and in the popular speech, "monopolist" and "capitalist" are often used interchangeably. It is a very common belief that monopolies are confined to the capitalized industries of production, transportation, and trade, which we have already considered; but we are now confronted by the fact that the wage-workers in the various trades of the country are engaged in exactly the same monopolistic schemes, in which they have exactly the same ends in view as have the monopolists who combine millions of dollars' worth of capital to effect their purposes. On the one hand we have the Standard Oil Trust and the Railroad pools and the hundreds of other capitalistic combinations striving to benefit the producer at the expense of the consumer; while among those whose only capital is their strength and skill, we find the workers in all the various trades, and even some of the lower grades of laborers firmly banded together with the avowed purpose of raising their wages above those which they would receive if competition alone determined the rate. And they are successful, too. Notwithstanding the fact that they deal with tens of thousands of producing units where the combiner of capitalized interests deals with tens, the success achieved by the combinations of labor is quite comparable with that reached by combinations of capital. It speaks volumes for the intelligence and ability of the wage-workers of the present day--yes, and for the growth of the spirit of fraternity; that in the advancement of what they deem a just and righteous cause, they should voluntarily put themselves under discipline and endure patiently the untold hardships of uncounted strikes, often brought on in the unselfish work of aiding their brother laborers against what they deem a common enemy.

The modes in which the combinations of skilled laborers attain their desired ends are akin to those which obtain in a well organized manufacturers' trust. The former allow only a certain number of apprentices to learn their trade. The latter permit the establishment of only such additional mills as shall not unduly increase the market supply. The former fix a standard scale of wages below which no member of the union shall work; the latter fix a minimum price for the goods sold in the market. If there are more laborers in the union than can be employed at the advanced rate of wages, some must be idle. If there are more mills in the trust than the lessened demand for the goods will keep busy, some must be shut down. The trade-union boycotts competing workmen outside its ranks, and stigmatizes them as "scabs." The trusts endeavor to punish every outside manufacturer, sometimes by forcing upon him such a competition as shall cause his ruin; sometimes by means as illegal and criminal as are the riotous acts of a mob of hungry workmen, and far less defensible. But let us not yet bring up the question of relative blame. The main point which must impress every candid observer is that the means employed for the monopolies of capital and the monopolies of labor are identical in principle and motive. Nor are we confined to manufacturers' trusts to show that the spirit of rule or ruin characterizes capital as well as labor. Railroad monopolies, in the words of the president of one of the greatest corporations of the country, "strive eagerly to protect themselves while entirely indifferent as to what shall befall their rivals." How many weak corporations have been deliberately ruined by the cut rates of stronger competitors? If the laborer has "scab" in his vocabulary, has not the railroad manager his "scalper" and "guerilla"?

The close relationship, viewed in many different aspects, of the monopolies of labor and the monopolies in production generally has hardly received the notice its importance deserves. Still, it is an evidence that people are thinking of and discussing the matter when such a writer as W. D. Howells, who is popularly supposed to cater to the tastes of those who have very little in common with the laboring classes, puts into the mouth of one of his characters a defence of workingmen for executing a boycott on a non-union workingman, on the ground that they "did only once just what the big manufacturing trusts do every day."

Perhaps it was never so forcibly realized how thoroughly effective these labor combinations have become, and how completely they hold the country at their mercy, as in the strike of the locomotive engineers on the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad system in March, 1888. Here were, perhaps two thirds of the men in the country qualified for the responsible and onerous work of running a locomotive engine, firmly banded together to advance their own interests and secure assent to their demands. Granted the will, the courage, the discipline, and it was possible, yes, easy, for them to have obliged the railroads to raise the wages of every engineer in the brotherhood to $10.00 per day, for on a refusal they could have enforced the extreme penalty of bringing down a total paralysis upon the business of the country. It speaks volumes for the good sense, the honesty and moderation of the men and their leaders, that, notwithstanding the fact that their demands were not immoderate, and that the failure which came permanently deprived of a remunerative position a thousand members of their brotherhood, they refrained from the extreme to which they might easily have gone, and permitted themselves to be defeated, when they had the power to have forced a different result.

Organized workers in many trades have the power to force wages much higher than they have done. Would that the Sugar Refineries Company, and some other monopolies of production, were as moderate in their demands upon the public as are the workingmen. But though their demands are in one sense moderate, it is yet true that in so far as they exceed the amount which the laborer would receive when the market for labor is open to free competition, they are the direct result of the artificial monopoly which the laborers have created by their combination, and, in effect, levy a tax upon the community. To illustrate: let us suppose that if every man were permitted to follow the trade of bricklaying who wished to do so, the equilibrium between supply and demand would be found at a rate of wages of $3.00 per day. At that rate, if the price rose, more men would wish to follow the trade and at the same time less people could afford to build houses, thus raising the supply above the demand. If the price fell, some of the men would prefer to work at some other trade and more people would conclude they could afford to build houses. But when the rate, which, without prejudice, we call the natural rate, is at $3.00 per day, suppose the men belonging to the trade form a union and resolve to charge $5.00 a day for their work. Then it is very evident that the cost of building is increased, and every one has to pay more for construction and ask a higher rent to repay himself afterward. Evidently, then, by this action of the bricklayers every man in the trade receives $2.00 more per day for each day's work, which must be paid, directly by their employers, but indirectly by the whole community. It would be easy to prove that the tax on the community when the wages are raised in any trade, affects the whole public as well as those directly employing the workers in that trade; but it seems too plain to require proof. The main point we now wish to show, is that any increase in the wages of labor over that received under ordinary competition must be paid by the community, just as much as any increase in the price of coal, iron, copper, wood, wheat, or any other commodity must be paid by consumers at large. Nor does the injury to the community stop here, by any means. We saw that the advance of prices by the linseed oil trust was an injury to all those who, on that account, were obliged to forego painting; and that it thus caused a further injury to painters, paint-makers, and even those employed in the building trade. But the increase in the price of the bricklayers' work has results no less important. Not only is injury done to those who build and have to pay more for their buildings, but many are prevented from building on account of the increased cost. If we argue according to a prevalent method, we may say that this reduced activity in the building trade will cause stagnation among allied trades with corresponding loss of employment. Again, as a less number of houses are built, and those which are built are more expensive, rents are certain to rise, which means that the poor man must pay out a still greater part of his earnings for his shelter, or else must put up with poorer and meaner quarters.

It is a strange thing to trace, in connection with this, the history of labor, and see how recent it is that the natural right of a man to sell his services for such a price as he could obtain has been acknowledged. History shows that until modern times, compulsory personal servitude has been in every age and country the lot of a large part of the human race. And when wages began to be paid for service, conditions were not much improved. In England, in the fourteenth century, in the reign of Edward III., a pestilence seriously depopulated the country, and reduced the supply of laborers so much that it was not equal to the demand for labor, and wages began to rise. Laws were therefore enacted that each able-bodied man and woman in the realm, not over three score, "not living in merchandise, nor exercising any craft, nor having of his own whereof to live, nor land about whose tillage he might employ himself, nor serving any other," should be bound to serve at the wages accustomed to be given five years previously. No persons were allowed to pay an advance on these wages, on pain of forfeiting to the Crown double what they had paid. Previous to the fifteenth century, workmen in various occupations were impressed into the service of the king at wages regardless of their will as to the terms and place of employment. Indeed, all through the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, there were continual attempts to fix the rate of wages arbitrarily by law, and also the hours of labor. These, by one old statute, were decreed to last from 5 A.M. to 7 or 8 P.M.

These acts, and others of similar nature, were intended for the subjugation of laborers and the benefit of the employers of labor. It is only since the era of popular government that legislation for an opposite purpose has come in vogue. Gradually the right of the workingman to have the price of his labor fixed as is the price of other commodities, by the law of supply and demand, came to be recognized, although the progress was pitifully slow. The old ideas of the relation between "master" and "servant" were very tenacious of life, and the substitution of the terms "workman" and "employer" is a change which has taken place in England during the present generation.

It was the petty tyranny and the grinding extortion which the laborers had begun to feel, even though they were far better paid and better treated than their fathers, that caused the formation of the original trade unions. Laborers saw that each was helpless alone, but that combined they were a power which their employers need not despise. The old craft guilds furnished them an example of effective combination among those engaged in the same trade; and as men everywhere in every age, when a common danger or misfortune has confronted them, have come together for mutual help and defence, these ignorant laborers, in violation of stringent statutes, but following blindly their human instincts of self-defence, came together and organized the first trade unions.

The common law has always held trade unions to be "illegal combinations in restraint of trade." Between the reigns of Edward I. and George IV., the common law was affirmed and made more effective by the passage of over thirty acts of Parliament, all intended to abolish the trade unions. In 1800 a stringent law was passed, by which all persons combining to advance their wages or decrease the quantity of their work, or in any way affect or control those who carried on the business in which they were employed, might be committed to jail by a justice for not more than three months, or to work in the house of correction for not more than two months. Not till 1824 was an act passed slightly ameliorating this stringent law, and even then the trade unions remained for the most part secret organizations. At last, in 1871 and 1876, laws were passed under which no person can be prosecuted for conspiracy to commit an act which would not be criminal if committed by him singly; and the trade unions, thus legalized, were taken in common with other benefit societies under the protection of the law.

We have already pointed out the main fact that the chief end and aim of the trade unions is the advancement of wages by securing a monopoly of the supply of labor in some particular trade. It is now fair to explain, as we have for other monopolies, the labor monopoly from the standpoint of the laborer himself.

It is a sound axiom of business that a forced sale is apt to be an unprofitable one to the seller; and that when a man's needs are so great that he is absolutely obliged to sell at any price, he is quite certain not to get the full worth of his goods. Now it is an undeniable fact that the condition of many of the wage-workers of the country approximates to this: They must have food, shelter, and clothing for themselves and their families, and the only thing they can offer in exchange for it is their labor. Suppose an honest and industrious man has some misfortune, as an accident, or illness, and loses employment. When once more able to work, he finds his old place filled and new places hard to find; but at last he finds a mercenary employer who agrees to give him half wages. Disheartened at his prospects, he thinks half a loaf is better than no bread, especially when those dearest to him are hungry, and so takes the place. But his employer takes care that his constant work shall leave him no time to hunt for a better position. Indeed, by a few judicious threats from his employer, the man may be put in terror of losing the pittance he already has, and seeing those dependent on him in absolute starvation. Such cases are amply provided for by the trade union. Ill treatment of any one of its members may be avenged by the organization as a whole, on the principle, whose spirit of fraternity and self-sacrifice all must admire, that "an injury to one is the concern of all." More than this, by means of the benefit feature of the fraternity, the member unfortunate, or in distress, is properly cared for. No member is obliged to feel, when seeking for employment, that his food or shelter is at stake if his attempts fail, and he need never be at the mercy of employers who drive sharp bargains.

It is often charged as an evil of trade-unions interfering with wages, that they tend to bring all their members to the same level, and are opposed to the payment of wages in proportion to the varying abilities of the men working at the same employment. But with unorganized labor, and employers who were none too just in their ideas, it was not uncommon to see the necessity of the laborer, or his inability to drive a good bargain, taken advantage of. Thus the workmen whose necessities were greatest, and who were the most docile and obedient, received lower wages than the men who were not particular whether they were busy or idle, and were inclined to pay more attention to their own rights and prerogatives than to the work for which they were hired. While the tendency toward non-recognition of the varying abilities and ambitions of workmen by the trade unions must be deprecated, it has largely grown from the reform of this worse abuse.

There is another benefit which the organization of labor has effected which may, perhaps, be thought an evil by some, but which every broad and generous man must gratefully recognize as a gain to the whole community; and in a self-governed nation like our own, it is a benefit whose importance it is difficult to over-estimate. This is the maintenance of the laborer's dignity and self-respect. We have but to look back to the times we have already mentioned, to see the laborer hardly better than a dog, a cringing dependent, kicked and beaten on slight pretext, and with almost every vestige of manhood worked and bullied out of him. We have come upon far happier times to-day, and there are few corners of the civilized world where conditions so evil prevail now. But without the organization of labor, the status of workingmen would be much farther removed from what is just and right than it now is. Every employer who is wise and honest, and who has the true spirit of a gentleman, will see that his workmen are treated with the respect that is their just due. Discipline there must be, but it is a wrong view of discipline that makes it consist of oaths and brutal insults delivered according to the prevalent good temper or ugliness of the overseer. Unfortunately, not every man who is placed in authority is wise, honest, and a gentleman. Bodily violence is no longer permitted by law, but too often the curses and insults which are heaped on men with no due cause are a violence which is more severe to many a man than actual cuffs and kicks. No man can take such treatment without resentment, and maintain his dignity and self-respect. Yet in how many places is petty tyranny of this sort still active, and its victims are cowed into submission for fear of taking the bread from their children's mouths.

But the member of a strong labor organization need not be cowed or tamely accept insult. He has the right to resent it, and has the power of his fraternity to support him. He knows this, and his employer knows it. Overseers, big with their importance, and inclined to show it by attacking the self-respect of the men under them are no longer in demand.

It is very unfortunate that many people misconstrue this result of the organization of labor as a move toward the abolition of all social ranks and grades. It is nothing of the kind. Social gradations cannot be created or brushed away by any legislative enactment, or the acts of any single class. The combination of the workmen to secure their right to protect themselves from insult is indeed a movement toward making them better and nobler men, just as the abolition of slavery in all its forms was a move in this direction. But no man is truly free if he is not secure in his right to immunity from personal insult as well as from bodily violence. It is not strange, however, that the workman, conscious of the strength of the fraternity behind him, sometimes grows arrogant and insolent toward those who must necessarily be in authority over him. Unaccustomed for generations past to other government than fear of one sort or other, he is all unused to self-control. But it is hardly possible that this should be a great evil. The body of workmen will, eventually, if not now, refuse to sanction and defend their members in any thing which their innate sense of justice must teach them is wrong. Few workingmen will causelessly ask their brotherhood to undertake the hardships and loss of prestige which accompany a strike. And even when insolence is shown toward employers or overseers, they have at least equal power to resent it, and are not, as was the laborer of a half-century ago, forced to submit to insults with outward humility.

We have already noticed the condition of the laws in reference to the laborer in former times: but the repeal of the laws oppressing the workman, and making him a servant to a master instead of a workman for an employer, has been largely due to the organized efforts of the trade unions. To them, also, we owe the passage of many acts like those for the guarding of machinery in factories, the restrictions upon the employment of child labor, and the proper care for the health, comfort, and convenience of employes in general. It cannot be said that the labor interests have always shown great wisdom in all their advocacy of new legislation, and too many acts, like those in reference to the employment of convict labor, show a lamentable retrogression. On the whole, however, there is every reason to believe that the general course of justice has been aided by the influence of the trade unions--something which can be said of very few special interests for whose benefit our legislatures have enacted laws.

All the above facts we must admit in defence of the organizations which have, to a large degree, killed competition in the labor market. But in defence of the especial action of the labor monopolists in forcing wages up to a point above that which competition alone would determine, there is also much to be said. Those who are unwilling to concede that there is any justice in the claim of the wage-workers that full justice is not yet awarded them, are accustomed to expand on the theme of the improved condition of the laborer over that in which he was a century ago. How this can be taken for argument is a mystery. No one thinks of disputing or diminifying the well-known fact that many workmen of to-day have more comforts than the princes of the Middle Ages. The single point in dispute is this: Of the total wealth which is being produced in the world to-day, is the laborer receiving his fair share? There are not wanting men of judgment and ability who answer this question with a decided No. And the greater share of the blame for this injustice they lay upon the monopolies which we have been discussing. They charge, and they verify their charge with ample and sound testimony, that of the wealth which the united brains, and strength, and skill of the world daily produces, the lion's share is taken by men who render the world no proportionate service. This is partly due to existing laws, which the public is not yet wise enough to better; partly to the inertia of public opinion, which is still prone to cling in many points to the idea of past generations that the workman was necessarily a slave; and partly to the narrow selfishness and grasping ambition of many men in the business world. This is not arguing for the reduction of all to a dead level, as is so often absurdly claimed. It is arguing that the inequalities which exist at the present day are not held securely in place by agreement with the inflexible laws of justice and right. Instead they are abrupt and uneven, and contrary to these laws; and there is great danger that the readjustment, which must inevitably take place to bring them in accord with these laws, will come, not as a gradual change, but as a series of terrible social catastrophes, involving us in a wreck which will require a century of civilization to repair.

Only fanatics preach absolute equality. As men differ in their ability and their power to serve the world, so is it just that the reward which the world metes out to them should differ in like proportion. But if we stretch to the utmost the benefit which we conceive the world to derive from the life of many of its men who reap the richest harvest from its production, we cannot in any way make out that their services are so valuable as to deserve such munificent reward. Indeed, it is not very far from the truth to say of some of our most wealthy men that their wealth was won instead of earned; and many place a much worse term in the place of "won."