to others concerned with the administration of labor affairs. Labor unionists instinctively resist the domination of the reformer as they have deliberately resisted the domination of the employer. They are embarrassed by the good intentions of the new domination but unable to meet it. They accept positions of vice-presidents while the reformers assume, quite naturally, the positions of presidents. The reformer is equipped for the campaign with a sort of training and experience which is not labor's and with which labor is unfamiliar. The reformers formulate their theories and observations of labor conditions with a marvelous precision which they can execute precisely because they are impersonal. They can formulate and execute their propositions without any of the inhibiting influences which enter into affairs of personal concern.

But for the unionist who is invited to coöperate in the execution, the propositions are filled with personal import; there is something strange and unreal about the precision with which they are handled by the expert reformer. The unionist has his inhibitions. He has not the habit of formulation. He is not practised in directing others. Cases may be cited where labor leaders have dominated a common movement made up of all sorts of citizens, but they are exceptions. The common relation and the common attitude is as I have described it. Reformers recognize their advantageous position, and they make strenuous effort to cover up inherent differences, but labor

is more sensitive to the differences than the reformer, and the efforts to make labor comfortable under such circumstances are not strikingly successful. It is unfair to cite cases where labor representatives dominate a movement of citizens, if it is intended to blind others to the usual position in which labor finds itself either when it enters movements initiated by reformers or where reformers enter the labor movement.

But this being the case, the reformer asks what difference does it make? Is not the elimination of industrial evils the all-important point? The families of wage-earners are suffering from illness, unemployment, under-feeding, and bad housing. What difference is there between one agency and another, except their ability to combat these evils? What difference does it make who secures compensation for the family of a workingman injured while at work, if it is secured? What difference is there between the protection of factory workers against fire whether secured by a safety committee of citizens or by a union? Does not a pension for the sick, the aged, or the unemployed buy food or pay rent, whether secured by sociologists or by labor unionists? Does not an eight-hour day give a woman worker the same leisure if it is granted at the instigation of a woman's club or a woman's union?

There is no question of rivalry between the reform movements and the labor unions. Industrial devastation is wide and deep. Many movements of

national scope operate without crossing. But the difference between labor's activity in its own behalf and the activity of others in labor's interest is not only a matter of results. Immediate results may be served in either case, but whenever labor attacks the evils which beset it, new power is created. Labor reforms initiated outside of labor unions are, in their administration, left to state agents or experts. State administration is conspicuously inadequate, incapable, and indifferent. Experts can successfully handle inanimate things, but the fundamental interests of men are neither successfully nor finally directed from above. A successful administration of labor measures requires labor's own constant, determined interest and attention. No one can fail to realize the truth of this who compares the efficiency of administration of labor union measures within a trade or industry and state labor measures depending on the inspection of state officials. Benevolently imposed measures are weak substitutes for those which are self-imposed and administered.

No one doubts that measures for industrial betterment, as they are initiated by philanthropists or by capital, and administered by experts or state officials, will make large contributions toward minimizing physical waste and disease in modern industry. It is, indeed, a movement for sanitation and conservation. Its full realization would give clean homes, healthy children, and efficient workers. But class-conscious

labor wants much more. It wants citizenship in industry. It is no more willing to submit to the rule of the beneficent and efficient than were the American colonists willing to submit to the rule of the British Parliament. Labor would rather be free than clean.

The reform movement is not co-extensive with democracy but with bureaucracy. The labor unions are group efforts in the direction of democracy. Like the political efforts in the same direction, they become many times stultified and lead up blind alleys. But the effort creates power. While the economic gains are themselves important and are measures of strength, the significance of the labor union is its assertion of the manhood of labor. The labor unionist, who has no theory in regard to the class struggle, is often the most class-conscious of workingmen. His class-consciousness is his innate self-respect extended to his class and intensified in his resentment against the position which society assigns the worker.

CHAPTER II

AMERICAN FEDERATION OF LABOR

Effort to establish its theory of partnership relations with capital-Variations in purpose and methods within the Federation-Minority sentiment-Methods of organization—Fed

eral

character-Conventions-International unions-Variations in policies and government, autonomy, disciplinary powers-Local unions-Departments-Executive councilsState and city branches.

THE theory of the American Federation of Labor, upheld by its national representatives and a majority of its local officers, is that the inevitable dependence of capital on labor and labor on capital creates a moral obligation of partnership relations.

The American Federation of Labor was organized thirty-three years ago to secure, through the method of collective bargaining, a "fair share" in the partnership—a share which capital had failed to grant the workers as individuals.

The Federation claimed that labor's share in a partnership of natural or mutual interests gives it a right to a voice" in determining what is a "fair share" or dividend. As organized groups of workers have demanded a voice in the fixing of their share in the wealth produced, they have been met with the invariable answer from capital, "It is none of your