Bob Taylor's Magazine, Vol. I, No. 1, April 1905

by Various

What is needed in the North is also needed in the South; namely, wise and well informed teachers who are able to illumine the great problem of labor to the masses, in order that they may distinguish between anarchy or socialism on the one hand and the accepted political principles of our country on the other. But there is one thing to be truly said about the South that will always commend itself to employers contemplating a change of base or the establishment of themselves for the first time—and it will commend itself to labor whether organized or unorganized—and that is the doctrines of the socialist have found no encouragement there. Such doctrines cannot thrive in the South any more than tropical plants can survive in the polar regions. Labor leaders should rejoice—in fact wise, educated, far-seeing labor leaders do rejoice—that this spirit prevails in the South, for only so can they hold their own against the radical, trouble-making element in their own ranks.

Thinking too much of established institutions and guarding them too zealously may at times be a disadvantage, but as a general thing that community is most law-abiding and most conservative in maintaining the rights and privileges of all where due reverence is cherished for old established institutions; and yet the wisest conservatism is that which steadily, no matter how slowly, prepares itself for changes that are inevitable. Labor conditions in the South cannot endure as they now exist, unless the South is to lose all that she has gained since the overthrow of slavery, and is to stand and view the triumphal march of the country without participating in it.

The South should not seek to rest under present conditions for they cannot continue. If the present labor of the South becomes educated and then improves, it will organize. And if it does not improve, new labor will come in either already organized or to organize immediately on its arrival. I know this view will be contested by many able employers, but, believing it to be true, I deem it best to say it. It is a great deal better to make yourself strong so that you may trust in your strength when the certain change comes than to rely upon the fairness of the other side—and this is equally true of the employer and the employe.

Experience has taught the South much on the question of labor, but so far as a thorough understanding of the matter goes, the South is barely at the threshold. The first and greatest thing that the South has to realize, which as yet is not realized there at all, is this: In the South as elsewhere, it will be found that cheap labor is the most expensive. To secure good results is the desired end of all industry and the experience of older industrial communities has taught that the best results are, have been, and will ever be obtained by the employment of the best labor. The best labor is and will always be that labor which receives the highest wages and which is most nearly satisfied with surrounding conditions. We can therefore set ourselves no more important task, no more sacred duty, than that of finding the most nearly perfect system under which the highest wages can be paid in return for the most efficient service. And, aside from the justice of this course, aside from the material benefit to the employer, there is no investment that brings its returns so quickly to the community at large, as money paid for good labor. Money so paid is at once spent for the necessities of life, for all the comforts that can be afforded by the family receiving it, and so is circulated almost automatically.

Labor organizations have made small headway in the South for other reasons than the preponderance of negro cheap labor; the first to be stated being the advantages of climate and of cheap living possessed by the Southern worker. The winters are short, the summers long. Outdoor vocations can be pursued in comparative comfort almost the entire year. Fuel bills are smaller, the cost of clothing less, and the cheapness of land opens the way for the workman of even moderate means to possess his own home, if frugal and industrious. He can be his own landlord on easier terms than in the North. But on the other hand, while the climatic and other conditions favor the workman of the South, it must also be remembered that the housing of workmen in the sparsely settled communities or in mining camps is not as good as in the North where legislation and the agitation of the labor leaders have brought about greatly improved conditions.

In the cities of the North the conditions and surroundings of the workmen are even more noticeably superior to those of the workmen in Southern cities. The comforts of such flats as workingmen occupy in the large cities of the North, notably in Chicago, are practically, if not altogether, unknown in the South, where conveniences are fewer. This very custom of living without comforts and conveniences has operated to keep wages down and consequently to offer a check to the spread of unionism. The homes of many skilled Northern workmen belonging to the union would be a revelation to the workman in the South equally skilled but not a member of any labor organization, and receiving less pay for his services.

The organization of labor in the South has also proceeded more slowly as compared with the North because of the more rapid growth and development of the North. It is a fact at once apparent that cities where the unions are strong are the cities that are growing most rapidly. Another cause is the scarcity of manufacturing interests in the South and the consequent small demand for skilled workmen, who are therefore not in the South in sufficient number to organize effectively against the mass of unskilled and partly skilled labor. The lack of numerous large manufacturing enterprises, and of enormous mercantile interests, also causes a lack of sharpness in competition and has made employes less ready or able to exact the utmost that could be paid them in wages.

The difficulties of organizing labor in the South are such as always mark the initial efforts at organization. The union men are out of the Alabama mines, just at this time, for instance, and new men have their places. The new men are being trained to their work, and are receiving practically, if not exactly, the wages asked for by the union. As the number of these skilled workmen increases, the necessity of organization will become more apparent to them all, and the larger the number of men trained for the work, the more effective the union will become. The union wins victories for others oftentimes where it is itself nominally defeated.

The question is asked, and with propriety, of the leaders of organized labor, why it is, if organized labor offers or promises the best workmen, that employers constantly resist its encroachment and turn it out and replace it with unorganized labor if they can. There are several reasons why this is so. It is not, as the labor leader frequently answers, because the employer is short-sighted and imagines that when he can get cheap labor he is making money, although it is at times due to the want of discernment and enlightenment on the part of the employer. The objection made to organized labor by its very best friends among the employers is the short-sighted policy of the organization in winking at or permitting the well-known tyranny of the unions, and also that air of proprietorship which petty labor leaders so often assume.

I have never denied the right of labor to organize, nor can I deny the necessity for labor to organize; and, in the very nature of things, it seems to me that it is best that capital deal with labor as a unit. But at the same time I have, in pursuing my duties in adjusting labor disputes, been brought in contact with labor leaders here and there whose insolence and arrogance, whose absurd claim of being labor’s unselfish and only friend,—made me wish the whole world of organized laborers and their leaders at the bottom of the sea. More than one true friend of organized labor has been lost to a worthy and noble cause for no other reason than that they have been grossly offended and outraged by unworthy representatives of labor organizations.