Eugene Wood

“ We sell our labor-power to an enemy of ours; we all know that. We also buy from enemies of ours; we all know that. Now suppose we unite to sell to each other, so that, instead of enemies of ours getting the profit, we get the profit, you and I and the union plumber, and the union hat-maker and so on. That increases the amount of comforts we can bring into the house just as effectively as a union does at its end of the game. ”

“ When a union fails, you see wages go 'way, 'way down and the hours of labor stretch out like a rubber band. So we join a labor union and pay dues, and go out on strike when necessary and stay out on strike as long as necessary, suffering some little inconvenience at the time so that we and our families may have more of the comforts of life. ”

“ When you fight the bosses to make them give you more wages, you attack them where they are strongest and most used to fight. To be sure, they have been losing for the last century, nearly. It used to be that a laborer who quit one employer to work for wages with another, could be lawfully put into jail; it used to be that a man that could work and wouldn't work—was out on strike—could be branded in the forehead with a red-hot iron, so that a capital letter V stayed with him till he rotted in the grave. ”

“ Let the American Wholesale Co-operative supply him with an outlet, and he'll unionize his works; he'll sell to it as cheaply as to a middleman, if he gets his money just the same. He'll betray his competitors in a holy minute if he can make a sale. ”

“ If workingmen aren't practical business men it isn't because they haven't got the head for it, but because they haven't had the experience. But that's something they've got to have in the near future, because one of these days before long the Co-operative Commonwealth is going to arrive and bring its trunk for an extended stay with us. Workingmen will have to run this Co-operative Commonwealth, and they've got to learn how. ”

“ After all, it isn't the dollar more a week or the five dollars more a week that we want—that is, it isn't the extra pieces of paper in the pay-envelope that we want so much as it is what those pieces of paper will bring into the house, grub, and clothes, and shoes and all such. ”