the major part of society, as essential in social progress, and from that point of view analyses and evaluates trade unionism.

14

How attitude determines the course of thought is an inquiry that takes us into social processes of feeling and thought, a subject reserved for a future volume. We may note here that the impulses of an attitude affect the imagination which intensifies the impulses, confirms the attitude and causes a tendency to exaggeration. Thus employers exaggerate the evil tendencies of trade union policies,12 especially when they seek to move judges to support them by an injunction against striking or boycotting unions.18 Professor Titchener notes that even the intellectual man has "verbal rushes" in the course of his literary and scientific work, but he is less apt to be the sport of impulse and to be incapable of conscientious introspection than men who have developed an antagonistic attitude to one another. The only way in which these impulses can be controlled is to trace them to their root and show the folly of their verbal expressions. As Lincoln put it, in the first address of his journey from Springfield to Washington, which was delivered at Indianapolis: "Solomon says there is ‘a time to keep silence,' and when men wrangle by the mouth with no certainty that they mean the same thing, while using the same word, it perhaps were as well if they would keep silence. The words 'coercion' and 'invasion' are much used in these days, and often with some temper and hot blood. Let us make sure, if we can, that we do not misunderstand the meaning of those who use them. Let us get the exact definitions of these words, not from dictionaries, but from the men themselves. . . . What, then, is 'coercion'? What is invasion'?" 15

On

Another process of feeling and thought connected with attitude is the tendency to justify an attitude by secondary explanations. These differ from impulsive exaggerations in that they are more under the control of reason and often are clever and seductive. the other hand they may be simply the platitudes with which one class conventionally justifies its antagonism to another. For instance, the individualistic employer justifies his antagonistic attitude toward trade unions by secondary explanations some of which are: "that

12 Read, for instance, the files of the Open Shop Review. 13 Laidler, Boycotts and the Labour Struggle, 232.

14 "In my experience, the verbal flow runs at a white heat; language becomes picturesque and full of metaphor; I achieve sentences that I am heartily sorry to destroy." (Titchener, Experimental Psychology of the Thought Processes, 258.) 15 Nicolay and Hay, Complete Works of Abraham Lincoln, VI: 112-113.

a natural harmony of interests prevails in society and therefore the unions are to be restrained when they use coercive methods; that the employers' interests are always identical with the interests of society and therefore unionism is to be condemned whenever it interferes with their interests; that the interests of the worker and employer are harmonious, and therefore, when unions oppose the employer they are misled by unscrupulous leaders and are to be condemned; that the employer gives work to the labourers and therefore they are ungrateful and immoral and to be condemned when they combine to oppose him; that the employer has an absolute right to manage his own business to suit himself as against his workers, and therefore the unions are to be condemned when they interfere in any way with that right; that the business is his, an absolute property right, and to compel him to bargain with the men collectively, instead of as individuals, is to compel him to deal with men not in his employ, with an irresponsible committee, . . . that every worker has an absolute right to work when, where, and for whom he pleases and therefore the unions are to be condemned when they restrict this right and freedom; that free competition of the workers is always in the interest of society and therefore that any interference by the unions in this is to be condemned; that the greatest possible production is always in the interest of society and therefore the union is to be condemned whenever it interferes with this; that the law, the courts, and the police represent absolute and impartial rights and justice, and therefore the unions are to be condemned whenever they violate the law or oppose the police." 18

The essential point to grasp is, therefore, this fact of attitude and its reinforcement by impulsive exaggerations and secondary explanations. Unless a person grasps and firmly fixes this fact, his opinions will be subconsciously determined by the attitude of the class which exercises the social control, the employing class. If, on the other hand, he turns his attention to the attitude itself, and analyses that, he frees his mind from the control of the attitude that is dominant in the mind of the community, and thus is able to think and behave independently. People not thus independent, who are susceptible to the social control of the employer's attitude, Professor Hoxie addresses as follows: "Is there any more basis for the employers' claim of rights and condemnation of attacks of unions upon them, than the counter-claims of the unions? Is it true that employers give work 18 Hoxie, Trade Unionism in the United States, 195-196.

to labourers any more than that labourers give profits to employers? That the employer has a right to compel men to bargain individually any more than labourers have a right to compel employers to bargain with men collectively? . . . Has every man a right to work where and when and for whom he pleases, regardless of the effects on his fellow workers? ...

"If it is wrong for workers who have no grievances against their particular employer to help other workers who have, then why is it not wrong for employers who have no grievances against their particular workmen to help other employers who have? . . . If we feel that there is a difference, that it is somehow morally worse for the workers to strike in aid of those with whom their employer has no concern, than for employers to aid other employers with whom they have no concern, it means that we have been consciously or unconsciously holding to assumptions underlying the militant employers' interpretation of unionism." "We have come to assume with employers that whatever has been is normal and right, while whatever is becoming is abnormal and wrong; that is, because employers have been able to act so and so, therefore, it is natural, God-given, normal, right, but because workers are only just beginning to be able or are striving to be able to act so and so, therefore, it is unnatural, abnormal and wrong." 17

In this conflict of industrial attitudes the process which will determine which one shall finally prevail is not different from that great process which, from the beginning, has been operative in social evolution. This is the rivalry of social groups. When the working hosts of a national group have become so intelligent as to feel competent to assume a part in the management of industry, there results resistance to the domination of employers and this strife weakens the national group in its rivalry with others. That group will gain the advantage in which the industrial leaders recognize the increasing intelligence of workmen and enlist it in productive work by giving workmen responsible powers commensurate with their intelligence. The nation that thus enlists the efficiency of its working hosts will become superior, in peace or war, to the nation whose employing classes persist in the traditional domination. The process of group rivalry and survival will, then, in the last analysis, determine which of the conflicting attitudes of industrial leaders shall prevail.

The present is, therefore, a time of uncertainty and crisis in the

17 Ibid. 197-199.

great nations. The individualistic attitude prevails in industry and the employing class controls the state and uses the power of the government to protect and strengthen its industrial domination. 18 The words of Justice Brandeis, written in 1912, still remain true: "At present we have, in respect to a very large part of our labour, industrial absolutism. With an increasing understanding of the human problem we are securing an enlightened instead of a harsh and unenlightened despotism, but despotism it is, however benevolent. We can never secure real efficiency without a full development of the individual. We must not only remove the conscious discontent but give the workingman that development of his powers which comes only from freedom and sharing in the responsibilities of the business. "Two lines of development consistent with industrial democracy seem to me possible. Both of them preclude the present arrangement of the so-called individual contract between the employer and employé.

"The one possibility is a great advance in collective bargaining and trade unionism.

"The other possibility is the development of co-operation.

"Co-operation to be effective means something very different from mere profit sharing. It means giving to the workingman not only a share of the profits, but a share of the responsibilities and management, and a utilization of the latent powers in him."19

18 At the time of this writing the nation which has the strongest labour party is dominated by capitalistic interests. The English government, in violation of its pledge to stand by the findings of the commission that recommended nationalization of the coal mines, has returned the mines to the private owners, because as Professor Laski declares, "the mine owners are the men who control government policy," and "they are assured of the support of the business community." (Laski, More Unrest Among British Miners, Survey, Apr. 2, 1921, 10-11.)

19 Brandeis, The Preferential Shop, Human Engineering, Apr., 1912, 179-180.

CHAPTER IX

M

THE NEW ATTITUDE OF LABOUR

'ACHINE industry has been gradually changing the industrial attitudes of workmen. The individual rivalry

1

of farm labour, the distinctive skill of the craftsman is no longer possible for machine workmen. A mass of workmen is divided into numerous branches, which jointly constitute one industrial unit under one management, and the same management may control many such units, perhaps the entire industry. Wherefore, says the progressive labour leader, "Labour in order to meet Capitalism effectively, must. . . be organized at least as compactly as industry itself is organized, not in different operations and branches and crafts, but as one individual unit for the entire industry." Under capitalism the employer controls the machines on the use of which depends the opportunity to earn a living, wherefore, unless effectively organized to deal with the employer, the position of labour is in the highest degree insecure. Labour organization is the "consequence of the physical co-operation which machine industry demands. . . The conscious motive of the average worker is greater security; but it is the commercial control of the machine which makes. insecurity permanent in the life of the worker. Group control . . . and with it the hope of . . . more security is the root of the labour movement.'

Let us look into the insecurity of the present system. Depression and unemployment recur owing to business cycles that are due to the profit seeking of business men and the unsound expansion of credit allowed by financial institutions. The employing class rather than the employed is responsible for depression and unemployment. However, it injures not only that class but especially the workers. During a period of depression the successful employer can take

1 Schlossberg, Problems of Labor Organization (pamphlet No. 2 of Amalgamated Clothing Workers), 27-28. See also, Budish and Soule, The New Unionism, 161-171.

2 Tannenbaum, The Labor Movement, 32. 3 Ibid. 9-22.