Abner E. Woodruff

“ All shields and subterfuges are thrown aside—the proletariat resists in its own proper person and wages the class war openly upon the economic field, the only place where exploitation occurs.
The dual slogan of the proletariat, "an injury to one is an injury to all" and "workingmen of all countries—unite," means something when uttered by an Industrial organization. United upon the economic field and without holy contracts, one portion of the workers cannot be used to defeat another portion when the struggle becomes acute. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Only on this basis could a following be secured and power be established. The proletariat is in no different case. It MUST demonstrate its efficiency. To merely destroy modern society without substituting something better would be the most monstrous of crimes. To achieve emancipation only to plunge the world into economic chaos would be the bitterest of travesties upon human intelligence. The proletariat must recognize and be prepared to assume the responsibilities of production and distribution, and of social and industrial administration ”

“ 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 ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 ”

“ 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. ”

“ Machine production, the great leveling influence of the age, looms fierce and gaunt. It is master and decides all things for all men.
Property—either material, or in the form of a specialized skill—has ceased to exist for the Proletarian; access to the machine is the sole basis of his life: and following the loss of the property idea comes a complete revolution in the mental attitude of the worker. MAN becomes the dominant factor and all his problems are again translated in terms of Human Rights. He denies the right of the machine or the owner of the machine to longer hold him in subjection. ”

“ Free trade—free competition in buying and selling commodities—is the basic principle of the Capitalist system of exchange of private property, and it is but natural that the labor-power of the working class should also be regarded as a commodity. In fact it is inevitable that, under a system of production for PROFIT, labor-power should take on such a character and that it should be bought and sold in the open market according to the law of supply and demand of commodities. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The war amongst the capitalists themselves thrusts large numbers of the defeated into the ranks of the proletariat; the invention of new processes and machines deprives whole sections of the craftsmen of their skill; standardization and improved methods of accountancy and management dump numerous intellectual workers into the limbo of the unskilled. ”

“ The handicraftsmen thronged the factories and under the new "divine" (?) right of contract, sold their labor-power at whatever price the Capitalists chose to pay for it. Property in the lands and tools of production still continued. The Wages System was, in essence, another form of servitude, and fiercely aggravated by the fact that the payment of the stipulated wage cancelled all the obligations between the man and his master. The freedom so loudly proclaimed was, for the workers merely a freedom to change from a bad master to a worse one, or at the worst to starve. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The New Working Class—the Machine Proletariat—differs essentially from the Craftsmen. The machine having scattered skill and converted its remnants into mere rapidity of motion and mild manual dexterity, the idea of an exclusive property in skill has disappeared and along with it has gone the contractual notion, the aristocracy of labor idea, pride in production, contempt for foreigners, and intolerance of women and children in industry. ”

“ Despite the organized opposition of the crafts, machinery began more and more to dominate industry; destroying whole crafts as the Glass Bottle Blowers, and bringing others into existence, as the Electricians; but always the tendency has been to sub-divide labor and scatter the skill of the craftsmen into the hands of a number of men working around machines. The despised foreigners, and finally women and children, have, in a large measure, taken the places of the ancient craftsmen through the simplification of industry by the use of the machine instead of the hand tool. ”

“ He looked upon them as inferior beings, and though their condition might sink to the lowest, he was not sufficiently interested in them to feel either sympathy or regret—they must look out for themselves as he did for himself. "It is the misfortune of the craftsman, that, having been compelled to operate in terms of property, the great HUMAN MOVEMENT has been lost upon him." ”

“ Voting EN MASSE at the polls is no evidence whatsoever of such ability, and to teach this class that its way to freedom lies primarily through the ballot box is a most miserable miseducation and paves the way to the most desperate catastrophy that humanity could ever suffer.
The Socialist Philosophy bases itself upon the proletariat. The needs and aspirations of the proletariat are the justification of the Social revolution. ”

“ The future society comes only at the desire and with the consent of the proletariat, for it is evidently the only class able to safeguard humanity by means of a new society; and the revolution can properly occur, only after the proletariat has had sufficient training in voluntary co-operation and self-government to be able to demonstrate its ability to successfully continue production and handle distribution so that all may be fed. ”

“ The machine dominates the lives of the proletariat, therefore the proletarian conception is that, in a society based on universal participation in industry and the benefits of industry, the machine must beneficially influence the lives of all men. ”

“ The completed product was the handiwork of one man—an individual production—and as such, the workman might well take a large measure of pride in this evidence of his patience, industry and skill. But the capitalists introduced the factory system of production, and the journeyman, though still working with hand tools, did only a portion of the labor on an article and passed it on to another to do another portion. ”

“ Working with tools that moved only as he applied his own skill and strength to them, and turning out a product that could be identified as the result of the labor of an individual, he thought strictly in individual terms. His craft was supreme, because all-necessary to his individual existence, and so extreme was this individual viewpoint that it was only when jurisdictional quarrels between the related crafts had become unbearable, that a federation of the craft unions was possible. ”

“ Here then is a basis for the study of the actions of men. Whim and caprice disappear, and the laws of cause and effect are seen operating in an orderly and rational sequence. The individual takes his place as a resultant of the experiences of his forebears and his own contacts with the world around him. His environment and the history of his race have made him what he is. Knowing the intimate history of any man, and with a given human situation, we may confidently predict what his actions will be. ”

“ SIMILAR EXPERIENCES BEGET SIMILAR IDEAS. The average of the experiences of a community, or a class, a nation, or a race begets the central idea of that community, or class, or nation, or race; therefore, in attempting to explain the tendency of any such community, class, nation, or race to gyrate about some central idea, or concertedly move towards some definite goal, we must discover those similarities of experience which furnish the common ground for similarity of thought and unity of action. ”

“ The sciences of Ethnography, Ethnology, Anthropography, Glossology, Technology, History, Archeology, Sociology and Economics are opened up to us. Through them all runs that wonderful law of human development—the Law of Evolution. ”

“ Indeed, the major portion of the questions arising in such a society would be automatically settled by the machines, and, among a people living on the same plane of material interest and subjected to the same economic influences, there must arise such a similarity of psychology, such a singleness of viewpoint and unity of purpose, that the moral and religious lives of the people would all rise to the same high and noble standard. ”

“ The Proletariat proposes the Industrial Democracy—a society based primarily upon production—equality in production coupled with equality in distribution—each necessary industry the equal of every other necessary industry—and it is quite evident that territorial representatives cannot legislate intelligently for the industries. Bureaucratic administration would necessarily result in the Socialist "State"—democratic participation and control by the people would be set aside—a new slavery would ensue, for bureaucrats are inherently despotic. ”

“ The pre-eminent fact of History, from the viewpoint of Economics and Sociology, is the institution of Private Property. Upon it Marx predicated the disestablishment of the Communal Tribes and the rise of the Nations, with the division of the people into classes in the terms of wealth and power—the separation of society into opposing camps—which carry on a continuous warfare among themselves. ”

“ Man's physical structure is a result, traceable to definite and known causes, and the laws of his being are codified. His brain, with its powers of observation, association, co-ordination and determination, is no longer a mysterious thing—the gift of an equally mysterious and baffling "first cause"—but a development of the spinal marrow, the culmination of an infinite series of changes and adjustments to environment taking place through the ages during which the Earth has been the seat of life. ”

“ Ease of initiation and reasonable dues are an inducement to all workers to join—no worker should ever be an industrial outcast. The free and close association of all the workers; their discussion and co-operation for mutual economic and social purposes tend to break down the ancient craft, national and race antagonisms. The universal free transfer card enables the ready adjustment of labor to industrial conditions, and contributes in the highest degree to perfecting the fluidity of the working class. ”

“ The proletariat makes no appeal to any but the wage working class, though it realizes that the growth of the Social Consciousness among all classes must bring thousands to its standard, whose immediate personal interests would be conserved by an opposite course. ”