Richard T. Ely and Thomas Sewall Adams

“ Historically considered, the labor organization is distinguished from the trade union by an absence of exclusiveness, by the effort to secure the benefits of organization for the unskilled workers, by a more emphatic note of altruism, by a decided preference for coöperation, for legislative and political action over strikes and boycotts, and, it must be admitted, by a general tendency to take short cuts to universal reform. On the whole, the labor organization has been far less productive of tangible results than the trade union. ”

“ The trade union of to-day is far less exclusive, far less monopolistic than it was before the appearance of the Knights of Labor and the new unions of England. Most important of all, the trade union now realizes the truth of that fundamental thesis of the Knights of Labor—that machinery is fast obliterating the line between the skilled and unskilled trades—and devotes a large share of its strength and funds to the organization of the lower classes of labor. ”

“ Among labor leaders the struggle centred largely about the control of the Trade Union Congress; in the world at large, the efforts of the new unionists were characterized by the attempt to organize the unskilled workers of the cities, with the ultimate object of forming a large party in favor of municipal ownership, and later of introducing municipal socialism. ”