The electrician—a very competent and quick workman he proved to be—was so sure the trouble could not be in the coil that he did not wish to carry out a new one.
When ready to start, we found the trolley line blocked by a Labor Day parade that was just beginning to move. The procession was unusually long on account of striking trades unionists, who turned out in force. As each section of strikers passed, the electrician explained the cause of their strike, the number of men out, and the length of time they had been out.
It seemed too bad that big, brawny, intelligent men could find no better way of adjusting differences with employers than by striking.
A strike is an expensive luxury. Three parties are losers,—the community in general by being deprived for the time being of productive forces; the employers by loss on capital invested; the employees by loss of wages. The loss to the community, while very real, is little felt. Employers, as a rule, are prepared to stand their losses with equanimity; in fact, when trade is dull, or when an employer desires to make changes in his business, a strike is no inconvenience at all; but the men are the real losers, and especially those with families and with small homes unpaid for; no one can measure their losses, for it may mean the savings of a lifetime. It frequently does mean a change in character from an industrious, frugal, contented workman with everything to live for, to a shiftless and discontented man with nothing to live for but agitation and strife.
It is easy to acquire the strike habit, and impossible to throw it off. A first strike is more dangerous than a first drink; it makes a profound and ineradicable impression. To quit work for the first time at the command of some central organization is an experience so novel that no man can do it without being affected; he will never again be the same steady and indefatigable workman; the spirit of unrest creeps in, the spirit of discontent closely follows; his life is changed; though he never goes through another strike, he can never forget his first.
In the long run it does not matter much which side wins, the effect is very much the same,—strikes are bound to follow strikes. Warfare is so natural to men that it is difficult to declare a lasting peace. But some day the men themselves will see that strikes are far more disastrous to them than to any other class, and they will devise other ways and means; they will use the strength of their organizations to better advantage; above all, they will relegate to impotency the professional organizers and agitators who retain their positions by fomenting strife.
It is singular that workmen do not take a lesson from their shrewder employers, who, if they have organizations of their own, never confer upon any officer or committee of idlers the power to control the trade. An organization of employers is always controlled by those most actively engaged in the business, and not by coteries of paid idlers; no central committee of men, with nothing to do but make trouble, can involve a whole trade in costly controversies. The strength of the employer lies in the fact that each man consults first his own interest, and if the action of the body bids fair to injure his individual interests he not only protests, but threatens to withdraw; the employer cannot be cowed by any association of which he is a member; but the employee is cowed by his union,—that is the essential difference between the two. An association of employers is a union of independent and aggressive units, and the action of the association must meet the approval of each of these units or disruption will follow. Workingmen do not seem to appreciate the value of the unit; they are attracted by masses. They seem to think strength lies only in members; but that is the keynote of militantism, the death-knell of individualism. The real, the only strength of a union lies in the silent, unconsulted units; now and then they rise up and act and the union accomplishes something; for the most part they do not act, but are blindly led, and the union accomplishes nothing.
It was interesting to hear the comments of the intelligent young mechanic as the different trades passed by.
"Those fellows are out on a sympathetic strike; no grievance at all, plenty of work and good wages, but just out because they are told to come out; big fools, I say, to be pulled about by the nose.
"There are the plumbers; their union makes more trouble than any other in the building trades; they are always looking for trouble, and manage to find it when no one else can.