Abner E. Woodruff

“ If slavery stopped the gap to immigration in the South, there was no such obstacle in the North, and from 1785 until almost the close of the nineteenth century the great exodus of the peoples poured Westward—the most wonderful and inspiring fact in all American history. ”

“ Is it then strange that he despises governments, despises courts, rebukes teachers, loathes editors, abhors priests and seeks only to seize the materials and machinery of production, that thereby he may turn them to his own advantage and, through them, destroy the domination of class and the governments, laws, schools, presses and pulpits that uphold class domination?
The machine proletariat attacks private property as a human institution. ”

“ The Industrial Unions group all the workers in a given industrial plant in one industrial union without reference to any other consideration than this, that they take part in the production of the plant's output. Laborers, craftsmen, office force and salesmen—all are eligible, because all are necessary to efficient production. No one is so great or so humble that he should be excluded. No one is of finer clay than another—all function in industry, therefore all are equal. All work in the same plant; all draw their pay from the same window; the labor of all is wrapped up in the same product ”

“ The discovery and use of fire is the great turning point in the history of man. It sets him completely apart from the other animals and opens the way to all the social progress he has made. No fire—no family; no family—no domestic arts, no domestication of the animals, no progress, no civilization—nothing—only just beastly conditions. No wonder the Savage worshiped the fire! ”

“ We have seen that TO FUNCTION AT THE MACHINES IS THE BASIS OF THE PROLETARIAN RELATIONS TO MODERN SOCIETY, and it must now be borne in upon our minds that, THE BASIS OF PROLETARIAN RELATIONS TO THE FUTURE SOCIETY WILL BE FUNCTIONING AT THE MACHINES. The future society will produce and distribute its living by machinery just as we do now, except that the machinery will be greatly improved; therefore it is a perfectly natural and a highly necessary step for the Proletariat to organize at the machines and in the terms of modern industry. ”

“ As slavery had thrived on tobacco in the early days of the colonial period, it now thrived on cotton in the early days of the national existence. Undoubtedly slavery would have died a natural death but for this development of the cotton growing industry. And yet, slavery stifled the South by preventing immigration into that region. Free labor cannot exist comfortably alongside the slave, because it is called upon to help bear the stigma that is cast upon labor by the fact of slavery. ”

“ He must be quick of body and alert of intellect—only as a trained man is he useful to the masters—therefore his reactions on his environment are more intelligent and more vigorous than those of any servile worker that has preceded him. He takes up the cudgel to defend himself. All the knowledge of the world is at his command and he quickly learns that labor power applied to the materials of the earth is the source of all wealth, and that the source of the master's riches lies in his appropriation of the surplus of wealth remaining after the workers are miserably fed, clothed and housed. ”

“ His dread has always been that he might become "as one of these," for no matter how great his skill, or how close-knit his brotherhood, capitalism, through machine production, continually threatened the security of his position. Any economic system built upon the RIGHTS OF PROPERTY is a confiscatory system, and little property disappears before big property. The property of the craftsman—his skill—tends to evaporate. ”

“ Almost a century and a half have passed since the making of the first steam engine and practically all of our vast, complex civilization has been made over in that time. America (the land of the free and the home of the brave) has grown from a wilderness to the first of the capitalistic nations. No greater monument to the unbounded faith and energy of a ruling class has ever been so rapidly erected—no more wonderful triumph of the man and the machine can be imagined. ”

“ These facts appeal with irresistible force to the proletariat, which finds itself in the midst of a continuous and cumulative economic warfare, requiring the constant and harmonious efforts of all its units. Back of the political skirmishers lies a vast economic army and it can only be opposed with organized economic power. Organization on the field of production is therefore the proletariat's means of expression—there is where it functions—there is where it daily meets its enemy. ”

“ The free workingman sold his labor-power for a price, therefore he was said to work for himself, and he took this price, or wage, and went into the open market where he bought food, clothing and shelter. In each event—whether as slave, serf or freeman—all the worker really got was food, clothing and shelter.
In truth, the freeman was not a free man. The lands and tools of production were still privately owned. The workman possessed no property on which he might employ himself—he had merely labor power and he must sell that power in order to live. ”

“ The proletariat cannot conceive of an acceptable society without machine production. It cannot conceive of men producing efficiently except in groups around machines. Consequently its form of organization to carry on the class struggle and build the society of the future must preserve the unity of the groups now working about the machines. Any other method would be foreign to it and doomed to failure because inconsistent with proletarian experience.
No class ever yet successfully dominated society unless it demonstrated its ability to direct industry. ”

“ Is it amazing that this class, having the wealth of society within its grasp, should seek to take possession?
History teaches us that, in each epoch of the world since the advent of private property, some one class has been dominant; that the civilization of each epoch was the product of the then ruling class; and that a subject class grew and expanded within that civilization and finally made itself the dominant class. The new class created a new society and, in its turn, was displaced by yet another class which set up another society in its turn. ”

“ Clearly then, the craft union, with its circumscribed property and contractual notions, its acceptance of capitalist proprietorshop, its lack of a constructive policy, cannot function for the proletariat.
Political parties, with their methods of nose counting, are not acceptable to the proletariat; not only because the economically powerful are prone to disregard the noses of slaves, but because the methods of the ballot box are too much the methods of the mob ”

“ Collective bargaining is a principle with the craftsmen and, since they choose to accept the laws and standards of the master class, it is but natural that they should regard their bargains, or contracts, as holy and sacred, even when such contracts force them to work alongside of men who are "scabbing" or "black-legging" on other craft unionists who may be out on strike. They are thus forced into the paradoxical position of paying strike benefit assessments with one hand while they filch away wages with the other by working with the scab or black-leg and aiding the boss to break the strike. ”

“ The small factory of the early capitalist has become the great industrial plant of a group of Plutocrats, and the small group of fairly skilled mechanics has become a veritable army of industry. Where formerly the individual touch might be seen upon an article, now the raw material passes in at one end of the machine and the finished product pours out at the other. Everything is thoroughly standardized and no man can say, "I did this—I did that." The individual effort is completely swallowed up—obliterated in the process of production. ”

“ The machine proletariat recognizes itself as the product of the machine, and, just as the craftsmen organized into craft unions on the basis of the hand tool, because it was the source of their living, so do the proletarians organize into industrial unions, on the basis of the machine—that being the source of life. They do not recognize skill as a property, giving anyone an aristocratic standing in labor, for the conquering machine rapidly destroys such skill as yet survives. ”

“ Mere physical revolution against an irksome environment cannot be called a revolutionary spirit, and while the slaves and serfs indulged in rebellions, they were usually planless and contained no germ of a constructive nature. At the most some measure of participation in the benefits of the existing system was all they sought. There was no idea of the establishment of a new order of society, which should promote a greater diffusion of culture, and thereby create a better and nobler race. Success upon their part would have meant only social chaos and a recession in the scale of civilization. ”

“ We justify the existence of an institution by showing that it meets the needs of a class in society and then determine the means by which it was established. All social institutions are rooted in economic necessity and we need only to know the mode of wealth production and distribution prevailing in any historical period to be able to explain all the social phenomena of that time. ”

“ The method of getting the proletariat's living determines its thoughts and actions. Machine production—group effort—scientific team work—class experience—these are the determining factors, and all the fine-spun theories go glimmering when confronted with these. Middle class meddling and interference with the proletariat—giving it a program tainted with middle class traditions—is an impertinence that is excusable only on the grounds of misguided but philanthropic zeal. ”

“ Without doubt, they continue to accept the wage system as a finality and seek only to maintain themselves as integral parts of that system. While they struggle and fight for a larger wage, there is no apparent knowledge that the wage is merely a portion of the worker's production and not a reward for services rendered—their cry is "a fair day's wage for a fair day's work," the only question being "what is fair"? ”

“ In savage times the bodies of prisoners taken in battle were sometimes eaten by the victors, but when barbarism came into vogue and it was found that a man could produce from the earth more than enough to feed himself these prisoners were enslaved. They were the property of the tribe and, as such, produced for the tribe. But when private property came into existence it was quite normal that the slaves should also become private property. Indeed, so profitable was the labor of slaves that, in the course of time, we find nations waging war to enslave other nations. ”

“ The law of supply and demand of commodities sets itself up in the affairs of men.
Next to the discovery of the use of fire, the institution of private property has probably had the most effect upon the progress of mankind. The individual, thrust again upon his own resources; every incentive to "get ahead," to accumulate a supply against the rainy day or old age when he may no longer be productive, held before him, suffers a revival of every base and cruel primitive instinct. ”

“ Knowledge of every kind must be collected and they applied themselves to the task with the greatest enthusiasm. Gathering and garnering from every possible source, they built up the noble sciences. Chemistry, engineering, invention, processes, machinery—the iron slave with steel fingers took his place in the factory with a human slave as his groom. ”

“ Industrial Democracy comes only by the desire and with the consent of a conscious class—an organic division of the people—and that class is the machine proletariat; the workers trained in the processes of industry, experienced in social production, living and working on an identical plane of material interest, subjected to the same economic influences, constant, stable, harmonious, and capable of discipline and responsibility. ”

“ The very nature of capitalist production forces him to think and, thereby, his wits are exercised and sharpened. The "Machine proletariat" as this class is now beginning to call itself, is not to be measured by the old slave or serf standards, but by standards of its own. ”