Although efforts towards a reorganization of the union are practically at an end, because of the opposition of the mill officials, there is earnest thinking going on among some of the men about the great corporation which controls wages and hours, and so much of the rest of life as is dependent upon them. One man, who during the recent hard times was not earning enough to pay his rent, said, "I don't blame the superintendent here for our being out of work, but the men in New York could help it, only they don't know or don't care what a cut in wages means to us."
That the changes in wage scale or the decisions to work but half time last winter, which came to them without explanation, were related to an industrial depression which affected a whole continent, was but dimly understood. They knew of dividends, and they knew of wage-cuts. With the feeling that they are impotent to change conditions, some of the more thoughtful men are turning to socialism for the larger solution it seems to offer. I was surprised to hear socialism advocated by the wife of a mill clerk making two dollars a day. She and her husband were thrifty people who had just succeeded in buying a piece of property,—not at all the typical socialists of a conservative man's fears. But in their twenty years of married life, the clerk's wages had been cut fifteen per cent. With a growing family, needs had increased, and only stringent economies, the cutting out even of five cents for the nickelodeon, had made their home what it was. And now with mills idle and their little savings rapidly going, a sense of social injustice was making itself felt.
GOING HOME FROM WORK.
This picture grimly sums up Homestead—the mill at the left, the Carnegie library on the hill in the center, and the mean houses of the second ward to the right.
Recently considerable agitation in regard to the subject was aroused by the preaching of a minister, who is a Christian-socialist. While many of the men were keenly interested in his theories, there was so much opposition among the conservative members of the congregation, that finally he was obliged to leave. I was told that in one of the first committee meetings to discuss the situation, his position was approved by the workingmen members, while opposition was expressed by two men who served corporations in a professional capacity.
Again, a Scotchman, feeling the capitalist's lack of sympathy for the working man's problems, expressed surprise that a number of wealthy Scotchmen had joined in the celebration of Burns's birthday. "How can they," he said, "when they think of his social theories? I should think they would be ashamed to." To him, Burns was the man who wrote A Man's a Man for A' That.
But men such as these are the exceptions. One of the most intelligent men I know, an ardent socialist, told me of his exasperation because his fellows were, he held, so unintelligent and were so unwilling to talk about social questions. This he thought was due to the long hours and hard work, since it took the other twelve hours to rest from the day's labor. Most of them, truly, are both too tired to think and too conscious of the dominance of the corporation to believe it worth while to seek a solution of these problems. Neither is there much within the mill to develop intellectual keenness. The men, it is true, are encouraged to invent improvements, but though these undoubtedly influence their promotion it is currently reported that the men receive no direct reward. The general feeling, moreover, that promotion is due to favoritism, lessens the stimulus to study and work up. With the attitude of the mill officials toward trade unionism, men are more or less afraid to discuss industrial questions with one another. An old resident gave me this as a current maxim,
"If you want to talk in Homestead you must talk to yourself."