This view also meets that of the unions in most countries. The President of the American Federation, Mr. Gompers, understands this thoroughly and quotes with approval the action taken recently by the labor unions in Sweden, Hungary, and Italy, which demand the enforcement of this policy of absolute "neutrality." Formerly the federation of the unions of Sweden, for example, agreed to use their efforts to have the local unions become a part of the local organization of the Social Democratic Party. These words providing for this policy were struck out of the constitution by the Convention of 1909, which at the same time adopted (by a considerable majority) a resolution that "by this decision it was not intended to break up the unity and solidarity of labor's forces, for the convention considers the Social Democratic Party as the natural expression of the political ambitions of the Swedish workers." A similar relation prevails in nearly every country of the Continent.
The Secretary of the German Federation (who is its highest officer)—a man who is at the same time an active Socialist,—has defined accurately the relation between the two organizations in that country. He says that the unions cannot accomplish their purposes without securing political representation "through a Party that is active in legislative bodies." This is also the view now of the British unions, which in overwhelming majority support the Labor Party. And they do this for the same purposes mentioned by Legien: to protect the working people from excessive exploitation, to enact into law the advantages already won by the unions, and so to smooth the way for better labor conditions. Similarly, the American Federation of Labor secures representation on legislative bodies, and hesitates to form a national Labor Party, not on principle, but only because American conditions do not in most localities promise that it would be effective.
Mr. Mitchell expresses the position of the American Federation when he says that the "wage earners should in proportion to their strength secure the nomination and the election of a number of representatives to the governing bodies of city, State, and nation," but that "a third Labor Party is not for the present desirable, because it would not obtain a majority and could not therefore force its will upon the community at large." The European Socialists would perhaps not understand the political principle of our governmental system, which requires a plurality in the State or nation in order to obtain immediate results. For in this country the more important branches of the government are the executive and judges, and these, unlike the legislatures, cannot as a rule be divided, and therefore give no opportunity for the representation of minorities, and are necessarily elected by State or national pluralities and usually by majorities. In the monarchical countries of the Continent either such officials are not elected, or their powers are circumscribed, and even England lies in this respect halfway between those countries and the United States. What Mr. Mitchell says is in so far true; it would certainly require a large number of elections before a party beginning on the basis of a minority of representatives in Congress or the legislatures could win enough control over the executive and judges to "force its will upon the community at large." Mr. Mitchell and the other leaders of the Federation are, it is seen, unwilling to undertake a campaign so long and arduous, and, since they have no means of attracting the votes of any but wage-earning voters, so doubtful as to its outcome.
Mr. Mitchell says that the workingmen in a separate party could not even secure a respectable minority of the legislators. The numerical strength of the Unions in proportion to the voting population is scarcely greater than it was when he wrote (1903), and what he said then holds true as ever to-day.
Mr. Gompers has also stated that labor would not be able to secure more than twenty-five or fifty Congressmen by independent political action. This is undoubtedly true, and we may take it for granted, therefore, that, unless the unions most unexpectedly increase their strength, there will be no national or even State-wide Trade Union or Labor Party in this country, though the San Francisco example of a city Labor party may be repeated now and then, and State organizations of the Socialist Party, which enjoy a large measure of autonomy, may occasionally, without changing their present names, reduce themselves to mere trade-union parties in the narrow sense of the term. President Gompers has claimed that 80 per cent of the voting members of the American Federation of Labor followed his advice in the election of 1908, which was, in nearly every case, to vote the Democratic ticket. There were not over 2,000,000 members of the Federation at this time, and of these (allowing for women, minors, and non-voting foreigners) there were not more than 1,500,000 voters. About 60 per cent of this number have always voted Democratic, so that if Mr. Gompers's claim were conceded it would mean a change of no more than 300,000 votes. It is true that such a number of voters could effect the election or defeat of a great many Democrats or Republican Congressmen, but, as Mr. Gompers says, it could only elect a score or two of Independents, a number which, as the example of Populism has shown, would be impotent under our political system. Moreover, as such a Congressional group would be situated politically not in the middle, but at one of the extremes, it could never hold the balance of power in this or any other country until it became a majority.
Mr. Mitchell is careful to qualify his opposition to the third party (or Labor Party) idea. He writes: "I wish it to be understood that this refers only to the immediate policy of the unions. One cannot see what the future of the dominant parties in the United States will be, and should it come to pass that the two great American political parties oppose labor legislation, as they now favor it, it would be the imperative duty of unionists to form a third party in order to secure some measure of reform."[241] Certainly both parties are becoming more and more willing to grant "some measure" of labor reform, so that Mr. Mitchell is unlikely to change his present position.
Whether the unions form a separate party or not, is to them a matter not of principle, but of ways and means, of time and place. Where they are very weak politically they seek only to have their representatives in other parties; where they are stronger they may form a party of their own to coöperate with the other parties and secure a share in government; where they are strongest they will seek to gain control over a party that plays for higher stakes, brings to the unions the support of other elements, and remains in opposition until it can secure undivided control over government, e.g. the Socialist Party. Whether the unions operate through all parties or a Labor Party or a Socialist Party, is of secondary importance also to Socialists; what is of consequence is the character of the unions, and the effect of their political policy on the unions themselves. In all three cases the principles of the unions may be at bottom the same, and in any of the three cases they may be ready to use the Socialist Party for the sole purpose of securing a modest improvement of their wages—even obstructing other Party activities—as some of the German union leaders have done. They may also use a Labor Party for the same purpose—as in Great Britain. Or they may develop a political program without really favoring any political party or having any distinctive political aim—as in the United States.
The labor unions, even the most conservative, have always and everywhere had some kind of a political program. They have naturally favored the right to organize, to strike and boycott, free speech and a free press. They have demanded universal suffrage, democratic constitutions, and other measures to increase the political power of their members. They have favored all economic reform policies of which working people got a share, even if a disproportionately small one, and all forms of taxation that lightened their burdens.[242] And, finally, they have usually centered their attacks on the most powerful of their enemies, whether Emperor, Church, army, landlords, or large capitalists.
In economic and political reform, the American unions, like those of other countries, support all progressive measures, including the whole "State Socialist" program. As to political machinery, they favor, of course, every proposal that can remove constitutional checks and give the majority control over the government, such as the easy amendment of constitutions and the right to recall judges and all other officials by majority vote. Like the Socialists, they welcome the "State Socialist" labor program, government insurance for workingmen against old age, sickness, accidents, and unemployment, a legal eight-hour day, a legal minimum wage, industrial education, the prohibition of child labor, etc.
The unions and the parties they use also join in the effort of the small capitalist investors and borrowers, consumers and producers, to control the large interests—the central feature of the "State Socialist" policy. But the conservative unions do not stop with such progressive, if non-Socialist, measures; they take up the cause of the smaller capitalists also as competitors. The recent attack of the Federation of Labor on the "Steel Trust" is an example. The presidents of the majority of the more important unions, who signed this document, became the partisans not only of small capitalists who buy from the trust, sell to it, or invest in its securities, but also of the unsuccessful competitors that these combinations are eliminating. The Federation here spoke of "the American institution of unrestricted production," which can mean nothing less than unrestricted competition, and condemned the "Steel Trust" because it controls production, whereas the regulation or control of production is precisely the most essential thing to be desired in a progressive industrial society—a control, of course, to be turned as soon as possible to the benefit of all the people.
The Federation's attack was not only economically reactionary, but it was practically disloyal to millions of employees. It applies against the "trust," which happens to be unpopular, arguments which apply even more strongly to competitive business. The trust, it said, corrupts legislative bodies and is responsible for the high tariff. As if all these practices had not begun before the "trusts" came into being, as if the associated manufacturers are not even more strenuous advocates of all the tariffs—which are life and death matters to them—than the "trusts," which might very well get along without them. Finally, the Federation accuses the "Steel Trust" of an especially oppressive policy towards its working people, apparently forgetting its arch enemy, the manufacturer's association. It is notorious, moreover, that the smallest employers, such as the owners of sweat shops, nearly always on the verge of bankruptcy and sometimes on the verge of starvation themselves, are harder on their labor than the industrial combinations, and that in competitive establishments, like textile mills, the periods when employers are forced to close down altogether are far more frequent, making the average wages the year round far below those paid by any of the trusts. The merest glance at the statistics of the United States census will be sufficient evidence to prove this. For not only are weekly wages lower in the textile mills and several other industries than they are in the steel corporation, but also employment year in and year out is much more irregular. Here we see the unions adopting the politics of the small capitalists, not only on its constructive or "State Socialist" side, but also in its reactionary tendency, now being rapidly outgrown, of trying to restore competition, and actually working against their own best interests for this purpose.