CHAP. If Law Is fare Are their own grain elevators and stockpens. Manufacturers' associations obtain an ordinance against picketing and menace with ruin any employer who signs an agreement with union labor or runs a closed shop. Workingmen by refusing to work alongside non-union men compel them to join the organization. By union labels a special market is created for goods of the "fair" employer, and by sympathetic strike the employer who uses "scab " product is embarrassed, or by boycott the market for his products is curtailed. By "striking on the job," the "Italian strike," or "sabotage," the productiveness of the concern is greatly reduced without the bosses being able to detect who is responsible. Each side has its spies to worm out the secrets of the other. Workingmen intimidate non-strikers and beat strike-breakers or else hire sluggers to do it. Employers hire gunmen, mine guards and watchmen to beat up labor leaders and provoke violence. Struggles They make "plants" of explosives in order to "get something on the labor leaders. Bomb outrages are met by deportations. Each side gets together funds to defend its own law violators and to convict the law violators of the other side. If public sympathy or support is decisive, then the fighting class embarks on a campaign to win the favor of the public. It pleads the purity of its motives and the rightfulness of its claims, demonstrates that they are identical with broad social interests and brands its opponents as predatory, lawless and desperate. In case the class has political representation and can gain some of its ends via politics, it tries to establish a political front and lends its aid to other groups on such terms as to secure from them the utmost possible help in realizing its own purposes. What They THE STAKES OF CLASS STRUGGLE In the economic field the strife of classes rages about rentals, length of lease, ownership of tenant's improvements, prerogatives of landlord, wages, length of the working day, Sunday labor, avoidable risk in industry, " speeding up," method of payment, collective bargaining, the closed shop. In the social field it involves recognition of the union, methods of hiring and "firing," shop discipline, and the question of the workers' share in management. In the political field it concerns itself with: a. Constitutional rights, franchise, sharing of offices, appoint ment or election of officials, remedies for their misconduct, selection and powers of representatives, rights of assemblage, of association, free speech, free press, etc. Composition of army and the courts, position of church and school in the state. b. Class privileges and their abolition. Equality before the law. c. Distribution of public lands, of landed property, of taxes, of tariff benefits; rights of property, of inheritance, of contract, rested rights, legal position of master, of employer, of creditor; nationalization of industries. FACTORS WHICH AGGRAVATE CLASS CONFLICT CHAP. XVII 1. In case the opposing classes include nearly everybody there No Jury is no great impartial public to appeal to. The issue lies with the interested parties themselves, which means that not argument will settle it, but force or threat of force. 2. The interests of two classes may be so intertwined that either is in a position to inflict upon the other extreme economic jury. In this case there is a prompt and unscrupulous resort to drastic measures in order to end an intolerable situation. Compare a mine strike or a dock strike with a mill strike. Domination of the One Class 3. When one of the classes predominates in the state, the opposing class can get no justice and expects no consideration be- State by fore legislatures, courts, or officials. Conscious that the cards are stacked against it, it renounces agitation and from the very outset contemplates resort to ruthless economic pressure or to violence. 4. Inequality of classes before the law and the enjoyment by one class of hereditary rule, of the right to vote or to hold office, while the members of the opposing class lack these rights. 5. The denial to an aggrieved class of free speech, free press, free assemblage, free association and the right of petition, destroys its hope of obtaining redress by lawful means and makes it feel that any weapons and any tactics are justified if they promise success. 6 Control by the intrenched class of the agencies for forming public opinion and influencing the action of the public authorities-the newspapers, the churches, the schools, the clubs, the commercial organizations, the party machinery, the platform, pote society so that the spokesmen of the aggrieved class are -- СНАР. No Path Want of a Loyalty to Nation Competes with Loyalty to Class New Economic Op Soothe cried down and ridiculed, stigmatized as malicious disturbers, wanton trouble makers, adventurers, or professional agitators, while their utterances are twisted and garbled so as to appear foolish, monstrous or dangerous. When one side can get no fair hearing, it dispenses with appeal to the general sense of right and seizes the weapons at hand. 7. Differences in social level, betraying the "better" element into a display of contempt and arrogance which the humbler class bitterly resents. 8. When there are no gangways from the inferior to the superior class, the members of the former may present a solid front, since none of them cherishes the hope of rising some day into the envied class, or seeing his son do so. 9. Loss of religious faith or cultural interests and growth of materialism sharpen oppositions which arise out of clash of economic interests. 10. Weakening of the spiritual ties which hold together and restrain classes whose material interests collide. Such are raceunity, remembrance of common descent, religious fellowship, pride in a common past, patriotism, faith in the nation's mission and devotion to ideal social aims. FACTORS WHICH MITIGATE CLASS CONFLICT 1. A popular war tends to close social seams and chasms. The sharpening of national consciousness dulls class consciousness. Patriotism triumphs over class egoism. As a French soldier puts it," Here we are, peasant and mill hand and marquis, in the trench together, sharing the same hardships and dangers and living like brothers." In the same way common oppression, as in the case of Poles and Bohemians, strengthens the national spirit and delays the growth of class spirit. 2. Any riving of society along other lines racial, tribal, sectional, creedal-lessens its cleavage along the line of class. 3. Class contention abates to the degree that other goods or portunities chances than those contended for come into the focus of attention. Lazarus fraternizes with Dives if abundant opportunities of improving his lot are opened up by conquest, state colonization, emigration, or easy access to public lands. The pushing outward of national frontiers, the discovery of rich and accessible gold deposits, the opening of new markets, the rapid industrial development resulting from heavy investments of capital, damp class strife. Had Germany realized her program of conquest, her class struggles would have died away before the dazzling prospects of loot, dominion and exploitation presented to Germans of every social degree. Failure, on the other hand, quite logically brought on the social revolution. 4. The switching of the people's interest to non-economic varieties of good allays the strife between Haves and Have-nots. When men imagine a rosy future to be won by ridding themselves of wasteful or weakening vices or by achieving good health thru the practice of personal hygiene, their minds are taken off questions of wages and profits. The gospel of "Cut out booze!" soothes labor. The same is true of the pursuit of self-improvement, the quest of culture, etc. Then immersion of both classes in a common current of suggestion and discussion qualifies their antagonism. Attention and like reaction to wars, calamities, adventures, heroic deeds, athletic contests, momentous inventions and discoveries constitute a binder for classes which are being thrust apart by economic developments. 5. Class strife is damped by the shifting of attention to spiritual blessings, which are never "a bone of contention" because there is always enough to go around." A Catholic economist observes that" By equalizing all men, rich and poor, as partakers of the same religious mysteries, it (Christianity) teaches them to regard inequalities of wealth and power as minor matters." Employers do well to finance the evangelist with the message, "Get right with God!" The rich have good reason to want the masses to be deeply concerned about "salvation." A Lower main Quiet if Continu ally Its Leaders into a Class 6. A huge exploited class may be kept inert, provided there are enough ladders by which those who would agitate and lead it may climb out of their class. The American labor movement was retarded by the fact that the frontier afforded haven to the strong discontented spirits among the wage-earners the natural leaders who would have welded and wielded their class had they Higher stayed with it. Then too, in an early day there was a chance for a workingman to "get ahead" and become an employer. The ending of free land and the concentration of industry in the last decade of the nineteenth century closed these exits, altho there is still the chance of being promoted to foreman or superintendent or making a career in politics. The average wage CHAP. XVIII Charity an Emollient Growth of a Mediating Element The State as Impar of the Lists earner, however, has given up hope of becoming a capitalist and has made up his mind that he must remain a wage-earner. Here is the secret of the great growth of class consciousness among wage-earners in the last twenty-five years. Knighthood or ennoblement of a few successful commoners has a magical effect in tranquillizing a commonalty. Educational opportunities, politics, access to the professions, facilitate the escape, from peasantry or working class, of individuals who would have been its inspirers, organizers and leaders. Moreover, for one who escapes upward there will be ten hopers making no outcry over their lot. There is, then, nothing like diffusion of opportunity to keep questions of social justice from being raised. 7. Undoubtedly the practice of charity, the relief of distressed members of one class by philanthropic members of the opposing class, has a mollifying effect. A great capitalist testifying in 1914 before the Federal Commission on Industrial Relations said, "If it were not for what has been done and what is being done we would have revolution in this country." 8. As society becomes complex there are more on-lookers to inject impartial mediating opinion into class struggles. In the European Dark Ages a trading class interposed itself between lords and serfs. Later the growth of the town burghers blurred the clear-cut distinctions of the feudal system. Formerly the Christian Church as arbiter between contending classes exerted a restraining influence. In modern times the conflict between proprietors and laborers has become like a law suit before a jury, owing to the rise of the liberal professions, the coming up of the "fourth estate," i.e., the newspapers, the formation of an army of educators and the appearance of a corps of independent moulders of opinion-writers, lecturers and artists. This causes the issue to turn less on economic or physical power and more on reason and justice. Still, there is no denying that such juror groups as newspapermen, lawyers and engineers, are more or less dependent on the capitalists. 9. The social tension is relieved when law and State rise above tial Keeper the suspicion of being the tool of any class. Manhood suffrage ends the open political advantage of one class over another. The servants of the state instead of being drawn from the favored class are now trained men recruited from every social level and therefore in some degree impartial. As umpire the democratic |