The labor question, as it is called, has come to be recognized as the foremost of our time. In some form it thrusts itself into every human relation, and directly or indirectly has a part in every controversy.
A thousand “solutions” of the labor question find their way into print, but the question not only remains unsolved, but steadily assumes greater and graver proportions. The nostrums have no effect other than to prove their own inefficacy.
There has always been a labor question since man first exploited man in the struggle for existence, but not until its true meaning was revealed in the development of modern industry did it command serious thought or intelligent consideration, and only then came any adequate conception of its importance to the race.
Man has always sought the mastery of his fellow-man. To enslave his fellow in some form and to live out of his labor has been the mainspring of human action.
To escape submission, not in freedom, but in mastery over others, has been the controlling desire, and this has filled the world with slavery and crime.
In all the ages of the past, human society has been organized and maintained upon the basis of the exploitation and degradation of those who toil. And so it is today.
The chief end of government has been and is to keep the victims of oppression and injustice in subjection.
The men and women who toil and produce have been and are at the mercy of those who wax fat and scornful upon the fruit of their labor.
The labor question was born of the first pang of protest that died unvoiced in the breast of unrequited toil.
The labor movement of modern times is the product of past ages. It has come down to us for the impetus of our day, in pursuit of its world-wide mission of emancipation.
Unionism, as applied to labor in the modern sense, is the fruit and flower of the last century.
In the United States, as in other countries, the trade union dates from the beginning of industrial society.
During the colonial period of our history, when agriculture was the principal pursuit, when the shop was small and work was done by hand with simple tools, and the worker could virtually employ himself, there was no unionism among the workers.