You are only the common herd. They don’t have anything to do with you, and they don’t need to have anything to do with you. They deal with your leaders and between them they fix things, and all you have to do is to work and put up the money and they will attend to the rest.
Last fall, a year ago, when I was in New York, there came near being a strike on the Interborough railway lines. The employes had been outraged by the management of the Interborough under an agreement that had been shamefully violated by the company. They threatened to go out on strike. It happened to be a national election year, and under the pressure that was brought to bear upon him, Mr. Belmont, the president of the system, on the eve of the election, settled with the men and averted the strike. In a speech I made in New York that night I predicted that the settlement was temporary and for political effect, and that soon after the election was over the corporation would begin to violate agreement and goad the men to strike. And so it came to pass.
After the election was over the corporation renewed its offensive tactics until at last 6,000 of the men went out on strike. And now we behold an exhibition of the impotency, if not the crime, of outgrown unionism. When these 6,000 men went out on strike August Belmont already had James Farley and his army of professional strikebreakers on the ground; had them there weeks in advance. And they were getting their pay, $5 a day and expenses, while Farley got an advance payment, said to have been $10,000.
August Belmont, the president of the Interborough, was photographed with Farley, the strikebreaker. They were pictured side by side; they occupied the first page of the New York newspapers; they were represented as the modern strikebreakers, August Belmont, the capitalist, and James Farley, his mercenary minion.
The strike was soon defeated and the places of the men filled with scabs.
The union men who were in the power houses, who could and who should have shut off the power, kept those great plants in operation. They said, “We are in sympathy with you and would like to help you, but we cannot go out on strike without violating our contract.” And so, to preserve the sanctity of their craft contract, they cut the throats of their 6,000 fellow unionists, virtually scabbing on them, so far as the effect of their action was concerned. These union men might as well have stepped out of the power houses and taken the places that were vacated by the strikers.
Now comes the closing chapter of this story, the blackest of all. A little while after the 6,000 union men had gone out on strike and had been defeated by strike-breakers under Farley, the lieutenant of Belmont, the Civic Federation held its banquet. August Belmont attended this banquet, being the president of the Federation. So also did the labor leaders. In their regular order came President Gompers, President Mitchell, President O’Connell, President Duncan and the rest of the presidents. They surrounded the banqueting board and sat and feasted and laughed and made joy together. The labor question was speedily settled, so far as they were concerned.
What do you think of the labor leader who would sit down, side by side, at the same banquet, with August Belmont, fresh from the field upon which he had slaughtered 6,000 union men? Do you think that a true union leader, a man whose heart was with the working class, could feast and make common cause with a capitalist who had just thrust the dagger of assassination into the heart of his union? Do you think that a real labor leader would fraternize with one whose hands were dripping with the blood of union labor?
I say that a labor leader who attends that kind of a banquet and who greets in social fellowship an arch-enemy of labor, is himself a Belmont at heart and the foe of the working class.
You may feel assured that there is no officer of the Industrial Workers who will ever banquet with the Civic Federation.