William Z. Foster

“ Instead of advocating the prevailing shameful and demoralizing nonsense about harmonizing the interests of Capital and Labor, it is firing the workers' imagination and releasing their wonderful idealism and energy by propagating the inspiring goal of the abolition of capitalism and the establishment of a workers' republic. The League aggressively favors organization by industry instead of by craft. Although the craft form of union served a useful purpose in the early days of capitalism, it is now entirely out of date. ”

“ It is our calamity and discredit that one has to come to America to find the sad spectacle of a great labor movement which has not yet freed itself intellectually from the bonds of capitalism, and which is still persisting in the foolish and hopeless task of patching up the wage system. ”

“ But the issue with which the League has scored its greatest success is that of industrial unionism through amalgamation. This movement to combine all the craft unions into a series of industrial organizations it as present sweeping the country like a prairie fire. The workers realize that the death knell of craft unionism has sounded and that the way to a higher form of organization lies through amalgamation. ”

“ By the same token, when hard times prevail over the country the labor unions become weak, and the workers, defeated, grow pessimistic and lose all daring and imagination. But when the hard times are succeeded by a wave of "prosperity" the workers' cause picks up at once; the unions, victorious, grow rapidly and, having had a taste of power, they are ready for further conquests, no matter how radical. ”

“ Gompers has never considered any movements of the workers from any other angle except what effect they will have upon his tenure of office.
Like all other labor politicians, but much more pronouncedly, Mr. Gompers shirks responsibility. No matter how burning the need for vigorous action to save some critical situation, he will initiate nothing. The labor world may tumble about his ears, but to protect his own interests, he stands pat. With him everything is all right so long as he does not have to assume responsibility that may breed him enemies. ”

“ Dual unionism is a malignant disease that sickens and devitalizes the whole labor movement. The prime fault of it is that it wastes the efforts of those vigorous elements whose activities determine the fate of all working class organization. It does this by withdrawing these rare and precious militants from the mass trade unions, where they serve as the very mainspring of vitality and progress, and by misdirecting their attention to the barren and hopeless work of building up impossible, utopian industrial organizations. ”

“ But the militants of today, since their great change in opinion and tactics, no longer accept these far-fetched and unjustifiable conclusions. They see the trade unions for what they really are, primitive but genuine attempts of an ignorant working class to organize and fight the exploiters that are harassing it. If the organizations are afflicted by all sorts of capitalist ideas and notions it is because the workers as a whole suffer from them also. Timid and muddled trade unions are a logical throwoff of a timid and muddled working class. ”

“ Our labor journalism is colorless, stupid, and often corrupt; our co-operative movement is in its infancy; our labor leadership is incomparably reactionary. While the labor movements abroad, keeping pace with a growing capitalism, have gone ahead developing new conceptions, consolidating their organizations, and winning new conquests, we have practically stood still, stagnant, unresponsive, unprogressive. ”

“ Industrial unionism comes, not as a new system suddenly applied to the labor movement, but as the culmination of a long and elaborate evolution from the simple craft unions to the complex organizations necessary for the modern struggle. ”

“ He made the fundamental mistake of considering the old trade unions as static, unchangeably conservative bodies, and in concluding that the necessary Socialist unions had to be created as new organizations. He did not know that the labor movement is a growth, intellecually from conservatism to radicalism, and structurally from the craft to the industrial form. DeLeon's industrial program of dual unionism was merely the typical utopian scheme of throwing aside the old, imperfect, evolving social organism and striving to set up in its stead the new, perfect institutions. ”

“ Only in the United States is the labor movement so altogether raw and undeveloped that it still has this fundamental lesson to learn. This is the one modern country where the mass of organized workers have no political party of their own, and where they continue to tail along in the train of the capitalist parties, pursuing the program of "rewarding their friends and punishing their enemies." Everywhere else the labor movements have outgrown this obsolete policy from 15 to 50 years ago. ”

“ The explanation that the backwardness of American Labor is due to too much prosperity will not stand up. The workers as a class do not become enervated by prosperity, they are energized by it and developed into militancy. Because American workers have been comparatively well off is a reason, not that they should have a weak labor movement, but that their organizations, political and industrial, should be powerful, and revolutionary. ”

“ It is the particular misfortune of the American labor movement that just when some trade union is passing through a severe crisis, as a result of industrial depression, internal dissension, a lost strike, or some other weakening influence, the dual union tendency breaks out with unusual virulence and a secession movement develops that completes the havoc already wrought. Exactly at the time the militants are needed the most to hold the organization together is just when they are the busiest pulling it apart. ”

“ This historic movement entranced the working class rebels all over Europe, not only because it was the first modern attempt to win the universal 8-hour workday, but especially because it marked the first successful application of their beloved weapon, the general strike of all trades in all localities. In after years they named as Labor's international holiday the day, May 1st, upon which the strike began. In those stirring times our labor unions stood alone in the world for militancy and fighting spirit. This the international labor movement looked upon as perfectly natural. ”

“ The workers, particularly in a backward labor movement like ours, learn by doing. It is just when they enjoy greatest power and well-being, in times of prosperity, that they are most stimulated to desire and demand more. Because this is the case, because the workers habitually take advantage of every lessening of the pressure upon them by expanding their organizations and increasing their demands, periods of abounding prosperity are periods of danger to capitalism. ”

“ The unions know no such thing as "a fair day's pay for a fair day's work." Consciously or unconsciously, they have used that device as camouflage to conceal from the capitalist enemy the aggressive character of their movement. In reality there is no set limit to their demands. Notwithstanding the hamstringing effects of their conservative bureaucracy, and of their own ignorance and weak organization, the unions constantly improve working conditions and screw up wages as much as they can. ”

“ The whole fabric of Organized Labor is bleeding. The labor movement is in a most critical state. So critical, in fact, that it will never be able to recover unless it quickly and radically changes its policies. The American working class is now imminently confronted with the tragic menace of having its trade union movement obliterated. ”

“ It is one of the saddest facts of American labor history that the Western Federation of Miners was finally destroyed by the very men who originally built it and made it one of the joys of the working class. What the Mine Owners' Association, with all its money and power, was unable to accomplish, the militants, obsessed by dual unionism, brought about with little or no difficulty. Their allegiance to an impractical theory has broken up all organization among the metal miners. ”

“ With eyes that have been opened, Labor abroad is conscious of its revolutionary mission, and it is striving constantly, despite a thousand timidities and mistakes, towards the only way to solve the labor problem, towards the abolition of the capitalist system and the establishment of a proletarian regime. ”

“ No less primitive is American Labor's conception of political action. In this respect also we stand in a class by ourselves, at the foot of the list. In all important foreign countries the labor movements have come to understand that they must carry on the class war in the political as well as the industrial field. With them it is no longer a debatable question as to whether or not the workers should organize politically on class lines. ”

“ Severe though many of the foregoing criticisms of American Labor may be, no truth-seeking worker, free from chauvinistic bias, can deny their correctness. Although the American labor movement has some admirable qualities (which will be indicated as this pamphlet progresses) , nevertheless, in the main, it is miles and miles behind the labor movements of other important capitalist countries. Our labor movement’s non-revolutionary outlook, its lack of social vision, is unique in the international labor world; likewise its want of an organized, mass working class political party. ”

“ Gompers is actually a valiant fighter for things as they are in the labor movement. A curious twist of this policy makes him play the role of a sort of weak king among powerful nobles. The international union presidents are the nobles. Things have conspired to make them into petty despots in their respective spheres. They are little nabobs. With unlimited autonomy and points of view to correspond with their narrow craft interests, they naturally carry on a wrangling, unsolidaric movement fatal to the interests of the working class as a whole. ”

“ But here we are still floundering in the mud of craft unionism, and progressing at only a snail's pace. Disregarding the rapid consolidation of the employers and their wonderful increase in strength, American Labor plods along with the 19th century condition of from 10 to 15 autonomous craft unions in each industry, [5] and considers such a primitive state of unorganization as the acme of trade union accomplishment. There is hardly a breath of progress anywhere. ”

“ American Labor, because of its ignorance of its true goal, is short-sighted and crassly materialistic, It knows nothing of that wonderful spirit of sacrifice and idealism which is always born of the workers' hope for a new day. Mr. Gompers and the others who justify this condition of ignorance and fight relentlessly against every attempt to enlighten the workers about capitalist society and to get them to formulate real working class intellectual conceptions, are as generals of an army who have neither a plan of strategy nor a knowledge of the enemy they have to contend with. ”

“ An apparently incurable blight, traceable to the ignorance, cupidity, and indifference of our labor leaders, has cursed and ruined their efforts. Only within the past few years, with the development of co-operative stores among the miners, the founding of the labor banks, and occasional other ventures here and there, has any real headway been made. Compared with that in Europe, the co-operative movement in the United States is still in its swaddling clothes. ”

“ Never were the workers more prosperous, never were wages higher, job conditions better, and working hours shorter than in this period. But the prosperity, instead of injuring the labor movement, gave it the greatest stimulus, physically and intellectually, in its history. The workers, acting as they always do under such favorable circumstances, poured into the organizations by hundreds of thousands. ”

“ Without belittling the accomplishments of our unions, it is safe to say that the determining factor in the matter is that the United States, as compared with Europe, has long been a bonanza country. Enormously rich and getting from 2 to 20 times greater production from their employees, the capitalists in this country are much more inclined to yield a bit on the wage scale of the workers, unorganized as well as organized, than are the employers in poorer and slower-going Europe. Unquestionably European workers have to fight much harder for wage increases than we do. ”

“ The workers organize in the industrial field not because they hold certain elaborate social beliefs jointly, but because through united action they can protect their common economic interests. Labor unions are built upon the solid rock of the material welfare of the workers, not upon their acceptance of stated political opinions. In the very nature of things labor unions at present must consist of the many sects and factions that go to make up the working class, Republicans, Democrats, Socialists, Communists, Anarchists, Syndicalists, Catholics, Protestants, etc., etc. ”

“ To urge the comparative prosperity of the American working class as an explanation of the backwardness of our labor movement is just as futile as to blame it upon the foreigners. The fact is that exceptional prosperity, instead of being a deterrent, is a direct stimulus to labor organization and radicalism. ”

“ The cries of millions of starving women and children go unheard by him. Not a word has he spoken in their behalf, not a dollar has his organization raised to relieve their sufferings. Mr. Gompers would starve Soviet Russia into re-establishing capitalism. This brutal program, now frankly abandoned even by most capitalistic politicians, is on a par with that of Kolchak and Semenoff. American Labor's policy towards Russia, dictated by the blind hatred of Mr. Gompers, is a disgrace which should make every workingman bow his head in shame. ”