Oklahoma Labor Unit (Oklahoma City, Okla.), Vol. 7, No. 12, Ed. 1 Saturday, September 5, 1914 Page: 2 of 16
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Page Four
THE OKLAHOMA LABOR UNIT
September 5, 1914
| SYSTEMATIC FINANCING OF LABOR CONFLICTS j
—
By C. J.
(The first paper of this series ap-
peared in our issue of Aug. 28.)
There is need for united action by
organized labor—in defense—in poli-
tics—in- development within—in ex-
tension into the field of the unorgan-
ized. Some have dreamed of one big
union of all workers, and think it
feasible now. Others think the union
of the future will be highly develop-
ed craft guilds composed of the most
skilled and intelligent workers in
each calling—students, scholars as
well—broad minded men and women
who have developed the best in them,
humanely, as well as intellectually in
craft skill, the purpose of these vol-
untary associations being to seek the
means of accomplishing the greatest
possible results in their respective
lines, for the good of all, with the
least labor. Be that as it may, the
present status is several scores of in-
dependent crafts unions, each seeking
the betterment of its own group of
workers, and to that end sometimes
co-operating with, at other times con-
tending against, its fellow organiza-
tions, even in the same industr, but
all loosely joined for common purpose
in the American Federation. Consti-
tuted as they are, it would at this time
be too much to expect a single corpor-
ate union or amalgamation. We are
not yet accustomed to the thought
that general economic principles are
of more import than the small inter i
ests peculiar to our individual crafts;
nor do we recognize that the process
of specialization and labor division
will eventually work to the oblitera-
tion of craft lines and result, on one
hand, In a great body of workers each
capable of doing perhaps many sim-
ple operations well, but none having
the combined knowledge of the skilled
artisan, and on the other hand the
few highly trained, skilled, planners,
engineers, directors—officers in the
industrial field—whose services are
valuable, but no more so than those
SCHOTT.
of the great army of specialized work-
ers. The trend is rapidly toward this
condition; and this emphasizes the
need of unity. And this unity can
come without actual amalgamation.
If union labor can unitedly defend
itself against the encroachments sure
to follow in the wake of changing con-
ditions, and potently sustain its de-
mands for a larger share in the bene-
fits of advancing efficiency in produc-
tion, then these changes will bring it
no harm. This it must recognize:
that all unions must unite in financing
conflicts with the employing class.
Every member of union labor must
be back of every great strike or lock-
out, prepared to do his part, and to
do it promptly. Thus supported no
just strike could fail, no unjust war
could be waged upon us.
When we have worked out this fin-
ancing of strikes through the Federa-
tion the members of union labor will
find themselves much closer together
on parliamentation, or political, meth-
ods of procedure. Moreover, the fu-
ture—and that not distant—has in
store not only the opportunity but
the necessity for development within.
Knowledge will increase. Great co-
operative enterprises will spring up,
benefitting the employed, reducing un-
employment, and in their effects fur-
nishing to the unorganized the strong-
est incentive to respond to the appeals
to join the union labor forces.
The solution of the problem of ex-
tending organization work out into
the great mass of unorganized—and
largely unskilled—workers hangs up-
on the question of what protection can
be afforded them, and, second, what
opportunities.
The need of organized labor is bet-
ter protection for itself; from pro-
tection, strength; from strength op-
portunity and protection etxended the
non-unionist, then effective organiza-
tion can go on apace.
(To be Continued Next Week.)
NO ROOM FOR DISTRUCTIONIST
Pessimists to the contrary, there is
joy in achievement; in work well
done, if only in the accomplishment.
We realize, none better, that those
who are doing the useful work of
this world are not receiving, even ap-
proximately, a fair return for their
labor, manual or mental.
It is the mission of the workers
themselves to change these unjust
conditions; and to accomplish this
will take years of patient striving,
of education, of organization and co
operation.
In the meantime, the results of the
labor of the workers is all good.
Room for improvement? We will
grant that, too, but even under pres
ent-day conditions we are ever finding
the better way.
The approach to industrial justice
will be led by the most efficient of
the workers. The intelligence that
makes for their efficiency as producers
of wealth will solve the living problem
of more equitable distribution.
The real reactionaries are the de-
stroyers; the men who would express
their discontent by inefficiency in their
work; by destroying the results of
their labor.
We hold that we have an interest
in every mine that has been de-
veloped. The men who would advo-
cate a policy that means the destruc-
tion of these mines through calling off
the pumpmen or other men whose la-
bor only conserves the mine itself are
on a par with their fellow destruc-
tionists in Butte City, who dynamited
their own property; the only way,
they apparently thought, to empha-
size their discontent.
As we have expressed ourselves in
previous articles, we more than doubt
even the sincerity, the common hon-
esty of the so-called leaders who ad-
vocate such destructive policies, the
success of which could only end to
the advantage of such operators as
have adopted the rule of force; have
refused the workers any expression
aw to what should be their conditions
of employment, kept them in absolute
serfdom through their hired armies
of spies and thugs.
The amicable relationship that has
existed for years between the oper-
ators and miners of the organized
fields is by them recognized as an
ever-present threat against their des
potic rule over their own employes.
And, in our opinion, they are being
ably aided by the pretended friends
of the workers in the fields where
temporary difficulties exict toward the
permanent breaking off of such friend-
ly relationship.
The result that could be expected
from the success of their program
was ably described by Ignatius Don-
nelly in his "Caesar's Column;" would
only mean that humanity would again
have to begin its slow, painful climb
from savagery to barbarism, through
feudalism and all the horrible condi-
tions that accompany capitalism from
its beginning. Their success would
mean that all the sacrifices of all the
patient, forward looking builders must
be repeated. That humanity must
suffer on the scaffold and in the pris-
on for every step to the recovery of
even present-day conditions.
Evolution is with us. Education
must make for Justice.
The way may be long, but it must
be traveled. We cannot go forward
by destruction; that inevitably leads
to reaction.—United Mine Workers!
Journal.
ROBERT L. HENRY, Pre..
Chicago
T. F. SULLIVAN, Sec'y-Trea..
Oklahoma City
The Henry Lumber Company
Wholesale and Retail
Phone Walnut 2081
600 West Second Street
OKLAHOMA CITY
Have Your Laundry Done
The Velvet Way
AT (I
Towler's Laundry
16-18 North Lee Street
Phone Walnut 6730
A. E. MUNN, Manager
Phone Walnut 2020
Davidson & Case Lumber Co.
Dealers in High Grade
BUILDING MATERIAL
24 West Reno
Oklahoma City
Alexander Drug Co.
Wholesale Druggists
Oklahoma City, Okla.
u
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Zeigler, C. C. Oklahoma Labor Unit (Oklahoma City, Okla.), Vol. 7, No. 12, Ed. 1 Saturday, September 5, 1914, newspaper, September 5, 1914; Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. (https://gateway.okhistory.org/ark:/67531/metadc157216/m1/2/: accessed April 23, 2024), The Gateway to Oklahoma History, https://gateway.okhistory.org; crediting Oklahoma Historical Society.