While declaring that employers and employees had much in common,the Federation strongly opposed company unions.Employers,it argued,were affiliated with the National Manufacturers'Association or with similar employers'organizations;every important industry was now national in scope;and wages and hours,in view of competition with other shops,could not be determined in a single factory,no matter how amicable might be the relations of the company and its workers in that particular plant.For these reasons,the Federation declared company unions and local shop committees inherently weak;it insisted that hours,wages,and other labor standards should be fixed by general trade agreements applicable to all the plants of a given industry,even if subject to local modifications.
At the same time,the Federation,far from deliberately antagonizing employers,sought to enlist their co?peration and support.It affiliated with the National Civic Federation,an association of business men,financiers,and professional men,founded in 1900to promote friendly relations in the industrial world.In brief,the American Federation of Labor accepted the modern industrial system and,by organization within it,endeavored to secure certain definite terms and conditions for trade unionists.
The Wider Relations of Organized Labor
The Socialists.-The trade unionism "pure and simple,"espoused by the American Federation of Labor,seemed to involve at first glance nothing but businesslike negotiations with employers.In practice it did not work out that way.The Federation was only six years old when a new organization,appealing directly for the labor vote-namely,the Socialist Labor Party-nominated a can-didate for President,launched into a national campaign,and called upon trade unionists to desert the older parties and enter its fold.
The socialistic idea,introduced into national politics in 1892,had been long in germination.Before the Civil War,a number of reformers,including Nathaniel Hawthorne,Horace Greeley,and Wendell Phillips,deeply moved by the poverty of the great industrial cities,had earnestly sought relief in the establishment of co?perative or communistic colonies.They believed that people should go into the country,secure land and tools,own them in common so that no one could profit from exclusive ownership,and produce by common labor the food and clothing necessary for their support.For a time this movement attracted wide interest,but it had little vitality.Nearly all the colonies failed.Selfishness and indolence usually disrupted the best of them.
In the course of time this "Utopian"idea was abandoned,and another set of socialist doctrines,claiming to be more "scientific,"appeared instead.The newschool of socialists,adopting the principles of a German writer and agitator,Karl Marx,appealed directly to workingmen.It urged them to unite against the capitalists,to get possession of the machinery of government,and to introduce collective or public ownership of railways,land,mines,mills,and other means of production.The Marxian socialists,therefore,became political.They sought to organize labor and to win elections.Like the other parties they put forward candidates and platforms.The Socialist Labor party in 1892,for example,declared in favor of government ownership of utilities,free school books,woman suffrage,heavy income taxes,and the referendum.The Socialist party,founded in 1900,with Eugene V.Debs,the leader of the Pullman strike,as its candidate,called for public ownership of all trusts,monopolies,mines,railways;and the chief means of production.In the course of time the vote of the latter organization rose to considerable proportions,reaching almost a million in 1912.It declined four years later and then rose in 1920to about the same figure.
In their appeal for votes,the socialists of every type turned first to labor.At the annual conventions of the American Federation of Labor they besought the delegates to endorse socialism.The president of the Federation,Samuel Gompers,on each occasion took the floor against them.He repudiated socialism and the socialists,on both theoretical and practical grounds.He opposed too much public ownership,declaring that the government was as likely as any private employer to oppress labor.The approval of socialism,he maintained,would split the Federation on the rock of politics,weaken it in its fight for higher wages and shorter hours,and prejudice the public against it.At every turn he was able to vanquish the socialists in the Federation,although he could not prevent it from endorsing public ownership of the railways at the convention of 1920.
The Extreme Radicals.-Some of the socialists,defeated in their efforts to capture organized labor and seeing that the gains in elections were very meager,broke away from both trade unionism and politics.One faction,the Industrial Workers of the World,founded in 1905,declared themselves opposed to all capi-talists,the wages system,and craft unions.They asserted that the "working class and the employing class have nothing in common"and that trade unions only pitted one set of workers against another set.They repudiated all government ownership and the government itself,boldly proclaiming their intention to unite all employees into one big union and seize the railways,mines,and mills of the country.This doctrine,so revolutionary in tone,called down upon the extremists the condemnation of the American Federation of Labor as well as of the general public.At its convention in 1919,the Federation went on record as "opposed to Bolshevism,I.W.W.-ism,and the irresponsible leadership that encourages such a policy."It announced its "firm adherence to American ideals."