Letters from an old railway official/Letter 23
LETTER XXIII.
UNIONISM.
My Dear Boy:—“What will you put in its place, Bob?” was perhaps the hardest query that the brilliant Ingersoll had to answer in his assaults on the Christian religion. Does not the same question confront us in our attacks upon organized labor? We endeavor to tear down, but do we build up? This subject, like the marriage relation, cannot be entered into lightly. It is longer than a train of ore jimmies, and broader than a box vestibule. It is a bridge too close to the track for the telltales to sting your face in time to get off a furniture car. Like the ostrich, believing itself hidden with its head stuck in the sand, we feel that if we call them committees of our employes we are not recognizing the union. Is this consistent? We claim, and justly so, that a high principle is involved; that if we recognize the union we practically force every man to join, regardless of his own inclinations and of his freedom as an American citizen. This is sound doctrine, but its application is very faulty. Our spirit may be willing, but our flesh is damnably weak. Do we give the non-union man a show for his white alley? Not as long as we fail to question the credentials of committees. We know that all their names appear on the payrolls, at least during the time they are not laying off and using our transportation for organizing or grievance work. We do not disturb ourselves to find if they were elected as employes. Did the non-union men have any voice in their selection? Not much; they were elected in the lodge room. We, in effect, say to the non-union man that the way to the band wagon is through the lodge room door. Then we are very much shocked to find that he, like ourselves, is following the lines of least resistance. It is so much easier to run with the current of traffic than to cross over; it takes so much less nerve to open up for trailing points than to keep our hand off the air valve when approaching facing points. When a move is made to run out a non-union man, we are so afraid of being accused of holding somebody up that we put on the man the whole burden of making good.
Unionism, like religion, and like love, is the outgrowth of certain feelings and emotions in the human breast that strive to overcome the limitations of mankind; that seek to make an eternity of time, an ideal of an idea, a solid phalanx out of heterogeneous parts. You may win the strike, down the union, hire your men as individuals; but sooner or later, in the Lord’s own good time, in obedience to natural law, they will organize in some form, under some name or other. Only a few will stand out; some from sheer contrariness; more from strong individuality of temperament. The outsiders, from a lack of organization, have little positive influence, simply a negative conservatism.
Since these things are so, why not, to drop into familiar phrase, be governed accordingly? Instead of letting the men organize the road, why not have the road organize the men? The system of collective bargaining, of labor contracts, has come to stay. It is merely a question of how and with whom we shall deal. It is so easy to let out work by contract, to call on the supply dealer to help us out, that doubt as to our own powers of organization becomes habit of mind. We farm out our rest rooms, our temperance encouraging resorts, to the Railroad Y. M. C. A. Where comes in the company, whose existence makes occupation possible, whose capital is invested, whose property is involved?
Do you think we have made effort enough to let our men organize as employes? Should not all our plans for terminals and headquarters include the excellent investment of a club house and assembly hall? When we have tried this plan and failed have we not been too easily discouraged? Sometimes the cause of failure has been our own mistake in selecting the wrong location, in deferring too much to the convenience of our own land company, in attempting too much official supervision, in allowing our local officials to butt in to ride their pet hobbies. Let us try turning the building over to a committee of our employes and inculcate a feeling of pride and responsibility. Our employes are a high grade of men; many of them are nature’s noblemen. It is true they sometimes worship false gods, indulge in strikes, commit violence, and require vigorous discipline. Although misguided in all this, they are usually honest as individuals. When banded together there results the same tendency that exists in political parties, in churches and in societies, to mistake their own organization for the only defender of the true faith. This same spirit plans religious crusades, gains converts by the sword and destroys freedom in the name of liberty. This spirit run mad breeds anarchy. It may result in a condition, as with us in the strikes of 1894, when cold lead and sharp steel are needed to cool hot blood, when the innocent have to suffer with the guilty. This spirit is unreasonable, but its existence cannot be ignored.
“Men,” says Marcus Aurelius, “exist for one another; teach them then or bear with them.” It is up to us to do more of the teaching act. A prime requisite of a teacher is honesty. Let us be honest. Let us either recognize the unions outright, or else try to teach them that they have not yet attained full age; that as yet they are lacking in the ripe wisdom which permits of a larger participation in affairs. Let us be fair and tell them wherein they are lacking. Capital, from inherent differences in nature, can never surrender itself to the absolute control of labor. Capital can, however, give labor, its poor neighbor, the results of deeper study, of wider view, of larger experience. It can point out the consequences of mistakes of past centuries, as, for example, the shortsighted policies of the trade guilds in England. We can teach the unions that much more than the payment of dues should be essential to membership; that they are in a position to demand high standards of conduct. The unions must learn that if they would be powerful, they must be severe as well as just. If they desire merely benevolent and comfortable care of their members they must put away the ambition for recognition. To be respected they must purge their ranks of the morally unfit. The union must expel the thief and the drunkard, as well as the thug and the ruffian, if justly discharged by the company, before it can hope to be trusted as a judge of capacity. It must learn that the American people will never stand for the closed shop, the restricted output, a limited number of craftsmen.
The failure of the A. R. U. strike in 1894 taught a much-needed lesson. It put many a good man on the hog train, but it was a terrible warning to would-be strikers. Did we maintain our advantage? Did we develop more men and prepare for the great rush of business the years were sure to bring? Perhaps we did the best we could; perhaps in the name of economy we maintained too few officials. Perhaps our officials were so overworked that they did not have time to watch the game. Perhaps the situation got away from us because the unions increased their official payrolls relatively faster than did the railroads. Perhaps the union leaders made relatively greater progress than railway officials in attracting the men with insurance or profit-sharing features. The whole question is interlocked with so many side lines that it is easy to overlook a dwarf signal or two. Be that as it may, we lost our nerve and shut off too far back in the country when we got a meeting order for the flush times of 1902. We were so afraid the other fellow might make a dollar or two if we happened to tie up, that we yielded the inch which has resulted in the ell of union domination. A war, terrible as it it may result in good. There are worse things than strikes to contemplate. We chose peace at any price, and we are paying the price. We blame our statesmen and politicians for not resisting union influence, for being morally responsible for the uncompromising attitude of union leaders. Why should they open our firebox door for us as long as we fear to burn our own fingers? The great comfort in the situation is that we are beginning to wake up. We have walked long enough in our sleep. The slumbering giant, business sense, is aroused. The worst is over if we but do our part. The unions have come to stay. Their extermination, even if desirable, is as impracticable as liquor prohibition. We cannot surrender supinely. The solution lies in wise regulation, in education, in the inculcation of true temperance of thought and action.