Knights of Labor

“ In the campaign of 1872 a party of Labor Reformers appeared; and a few years later the Knights of Labor, a grand consolidated union of all trades and grades of workers, came into existence as an active force, conducting an agitation for labor bureaus, an eight hour day, abolition of contract labor systems, and other reforms, and at the same time engineering strikes.
In 1877 occurred the first of the great labor struggles in that long series of campaigns which have marked the relations of capitalists and workingmen during the past four decades. ”

“ Will any unions, guilds, Knights of Labor, help the workingmen to maintain such rights as they have and gain such as they need? Yes, if there are brains behind them. “In union is strength,” but strength may be just as effective in a bad sense as a good one, and the more of it there is the worse will be the showing made if the cause is not just. ”

“ During the '70's and the '80's also the Knights of Labor built up a great following among the wage-workers, largely on the philosophy that if they kept free of “class-conscious” trade unions and went in for a mass movement of all workers, they could by some strange alchemy of the American spirit rise to the status of independent business men. ”

“ The startling figures lately put forth by representatives of the Knights of Labor, which is said to be a powerful and widely extended labor organization, as to the number of unemployed men in the United States, seem incredible in the face of the apparent activity of trade and the general seeming prosperity ”

“ The avowed object of the Knights [201] of Labor was the right of the laborer to a voice in determining the price at which he should part with his labor. It had no suggestion of anything revolutionary or anti-Christian. To have condemned this particular organization would have meant the condemnation of labor unionism everywhere. ”

“ But the difficulties by no means disappeared; the Federal judiciary refusing to accept the findings of the commission on questions of fact, retried the cases; and the Supreme Court overruled the commission on fundamental questions, and narrowed the scope of the act by interpretation.
354. Labour exhibited the tendency to combination shown by capital. The Knights of Labor, founded in 1869, on the Labour Combinations; Industrial and Social Unrest. ”

“ Laughter and jest were on the lips of the men who crowded the Verona, and songs of the One Big Union rang out over the sparkling waters of Puget Sound. Loyal soldiers were these in the great class war, enlightened workers who were willing to give their all in the battle for bread, happiness and liberty. Men of all callings these—logger, carpenter, laborer, railroad clerk, painter, miner, printer, seaman and farmhand, all united with one common aim—the desire to gain for Labor the right of free expression. ”

“ Come into our ranks, ye shirkers, for we now rule this land.
Work or starve, the workers said, for you must earn your bread.
Then into their ranks came the masters and joined the workers' song;
Then into their ranks came the masters and joined the workers' song.
All workers, "The Army of Production," in One Big Union, regardless of age, creed, color or sex, is invincible.
Labor is entitled to all it produces. An injury to one is an injury to all. ”

“ As we advanced up the magestick portal the figgers of miners, with hammers and pans in their hands, seemed to welcome us, and tell us what they had to do with the big show inside; they seemed to be a-sayin' with their still lips, "If it hadn't been for us—for the great Army of Labor, this show would have been a pretty slim one." Yes; the great vanguard of Labor leads the van, and cuts down the trees, so's that Old Civilization and Progress can walk along, and swing their arms, and spread themselves, as they have a way of doin'. ”

“ State-help no less than self-help is needed for securing to the worker the full, undiminished result of his industry, that is, an existence worthy of a man.
The State alone, and only a free State will help the workers!
Let us sum up briefly, the substance of the foregoing:
The system of wages-labor meets the demands of Justice and Humanity as little as did the slavery and servitude of former times. Like slavery and servitude, wages-labor was once a step forward in civilization from which undeniable advantages have accrued to society. ”

“ Now if the wages-laborers of the cities and manufacturing places will be ready to lead the van in the struggle for the interest of labor, the rest of the whole working-class have no right to put themselves in the position of idle, indifferent, or even grudging and hostile spectators. On the contrary. It is the duty of the whole working-class to participate in this struggle, for this war is carried on in the interest of all workers, and the wages-laborers, who have taken up the gauntlet, are the Pioneers for the human race. ”

“ Unless the workers unite in support of these two leaders they may be sent to the electric chair. Should we suffer these brave comrades to fall victims to such a monstrous crime, it would be a foul and indelible blot upon the whole labor movement. Let us arouse the workers of the nation in their behalf and prove to them when their trial takes place that we are as true to them as they were to the wage-slaves in the industrial battle at Lawrence. ”

“ And not only do the masters bear heavily upon him, and his own kind struggle for the morsel at his mouth, but all skilled and organized labor adds to his woe. Union men do not scab on one another, but in strikes, or when work is slack, it is considered "fair" for them to descend and take away the work of the common laborers. ”

“ In such matters the function of the courts, police, and military is to preserve order, and to fill the places of strikers with surplus labor. If there be no surplus labor to instate, there is no function to perform; for disorder arises only during the process of instatement, when the striking labor army and the surplus labor army clash together. That is to say, that which maintains the integrity of the present industrial society more potently than the courts, police, and military is the surplus labor army. ”

“ I am of those who believe that an organization of workingmen, to be efficient, to meet the demands of this hour, must be organized upon a revolutionary basis; must have for its definite object not only the betterment of the condition of workingmen in the wage system, but the absolute overthrow of wage slavery that the workingman may be emancipated and stand forth clothed with the dignity and all other attributes of true manhood. ”

“ Union labor is allowed to conquer at the sword's point a preferential treatment which should never have been refused; and the consequence is that its victory, so far as it is victorious, is that of an industrial faction. ”

“ While encouraging these outgrown divisions among the workers the capitalists carefully adjust themselves to the new conditions. They wipe out all differences among themselves and present a united front in their war upon labor. Through employers’ associations, they seek to crush, with brutal force, by the injunctions of the judiciary, and the use of military power, all efforts at resistance. ”

“ It is evident that all hope of help towards the peaceful solution of the labor question by the capitalist class and the State is illusory. The transition from the Wage-System to the Socialistic organization of society is going on around us and its peaceful consummation clearly rests with the Working Class. The clearer the insight of the workers the speedier and more peaceful the change. ”

“ As one looks back upon the history of the workingman, one finds something impressive, even majestic, in the rise of the fourth estate from a humble place to one of power in this democratic nation. In this rise of fortune the laborer’s union has unquestionably been a moving force, perhaps even the leading cause. At least this homogeneous mass of workingmen, guided by self-developed leadership, has aroused society to safeguard more carefully the individual needs of all its parts. ”

“ They proved themselves to be labor sons
In all of the workers' fights;
They have been hounded by power unbounded
Of capitalists throughout the land,
But all are astounded, our foes are confounded
For we still remain a union grand.
Then hail to this fighting band!
You live on coffee and on doughnuts;
The Boss lives on porterhouse steak.
You work ten hours a day and live in huts;
The Boss lives in the palace you make.
You face starvation, hunger, privation,
But the Boss is always well fed. ”

“ Left to themselves they may become as great a menace to our advancing army as is the army of the unemployed, and for precisely the same reason: they can be used against us, as the craft unions have begun to find out. Surely we should make some effort to enlist them under our banner that they may swell our ranks and help to make us invincible. And we must do this for the same reason that is impelling organized labor to adopt an all-inclusive policy ”

“ What do you think of the labor leader who would sit down, side by side, at the same banquet, with August Belmont, fresh from the field upon which he had slaughtered 6,000 union men? Do you think that a true union leader, a man whose heart was with the working class, could feast and make common cause with a capitalist who had just thrust the dagger of assassination into the heart of his union? Do you think that a real labor leader would fraternize with one whose hands were dripping with the blood of union labor? ”

“ Workers’ control, which was the strongest revolutionary weapon in the hands of the labor organizations in their struggle against economic disruption and the sabotage practised by the employers in their struggle against the proletariat for economic supremacy, has led the working class into direct participation in the organization of production. ”

“ During the twenty years that elapsed between the Homestead and Pullman strikes and the beginning of the world war, the pages of American industrial history are crowded with stories of the labor conflict—on an ever vaster and vaster scale, between nationally organized employers, using the power of the police, the courts and, where necessary, the army; and the nationally organized workers, backed by some show of public sentiment, and armed with the strength of numbers. ”

“ There have been many changes since that great struggle against slavery, degradation and privation. Some of the exploiters of labor prophesied the death of the labor movement and it was down and out for a time, but history has repeated itself. Labor unions have again become a power. They are stronger than ever. Many an honest working man and woman went hungry in 1894 for daring to rebel against the humiliating conditions that existed at Pullman. ”

“ The right of labor combination? It is tempered by the power of your class to subdue the workers leaders by starvation through dismissal.
The right to strike? The witnesses whom you have heard, witnesses from own class in many cases, come to tell you how strikers, even inoffensive strikers, are sabred and horsewhipped, and how, after strikes, even victorious ones, the powerful employers thin out the ringleaders in order to terrify the rest. ”

“ Naturally, as the strikers were prevented by the soldiers from persuading their fellow workers, they lost the strikes.
Although labor-saving machinery was constantly being devised and improved to displace hand labor, and although the skilled worker was consequently producing far more goods than in former years, the masters—as the capitalists were then often termed—insisted that employees must work for the same wages and hours as had long prevailed. ”

“ There were plenty of them indeed who had heard the defendant say that in his opinion the wage system was all wrong, that wealth obtained from the product of labor should be fairly divided between the capitalist and the workman, and that his sympathies in the present industrial conflict were entirely with the men, all of whom should be permitted to resume their old places on their own terms. ”

“ On the other hand, let us not be unjust to labor, for in the American Army in France labor is represented by multitudes of youth upon whose gallantry and steadiness all our hopes of victory depend. No class here at home gives 100 per cent. efficiency or commits itself to 100 per cent. of sacrifice in the winning of the war. Why demand it of the wage earners or the labor unions? ”

“ It is again only natural that labor “unions” of this type, built upon the principle of CLASS PEACE instead of CLASS STRUGGLE, discard the up-to-date ammunition from the arsenal of modern social warfare and persistently train their armies of “organized labor” to use the worse than worthless wooden swords and wooden bullets of conciliation, mediation and arbitration. ”

“ The labor army was like an army made up of a lot of separate regiments and divisions, with no high command to plan the campaign. The result was that the labor army was in grave danger, because the employers were likely to pick a time and a place of attack very unfavorable to labor, provoke a conflict with some separate union, and then draw all the rest into the battle, only to defeat them. The only way to guard against this danger was to create a labor general staff, like the general staff of an army.
The general staff of an army does not consist of a few men who issue orders. ”

“ Never before did labor do these things. After the Great Plague in England, labor, finding itself in demand and innocently obeying the economic law, asked higher wages. But the masters set a maximum wage, restrained workingmen from moving about from place to place, refused to tolerate idlers, and by most barbarous legal methods punished those who disobeyed. But labor is accorded greater respect today. ”

“ But the labour service introduced in Western Europe is as far removed from that which ought to be introduced by us as is heaven from earth. In the Imperialist States such service means the complete subjugation of the working class, its complete enslavement to financial capital and the plundering Government. And why is that? Simply because the workers do not govern themselves but are governed by generals, hankers and big syndicalists and bourgeois politicians. The worker there is a mere pawn in their hands. ”