:ORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY NEW YORK STATE SCHOOL OF INDUSTRIAL AND LABOR RELATIONS THE GIFT OF The Family of Morris and Vera Hillquit Cornell University Library HX 86.S3 The labor amendment our next great job, 3 1924 002 673 964 Cornell University Library The original of tliis book is in tine Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924002673964 THE LABOR AMENDMENT OUR NEXT GREAT JOB BY ALEXANDER SCHLESINGER ii' AUTHOK OF "FERDINAND LASSALLE." ' 'GOMPElRSISM AND SO- CIALISTS," "THE ABOLITION OF WAGE SLAVERY," ETC., PUBLISHED UNDER THE AUSPICES OP THE AMERICAN ANTI-WAGE-SLAVERY SOCIETY. NEW YORK NBIV TORK MEDICAL. BOOK COMFANT, 45 EAST FORTY-SECOND STREET. 1910. Copyright, 1910, by ALBXANDBR SCHLESINGER. AU Rights Reserved. Published November 12. 1910. TO THE SOVEREIGN PEOPLE OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA WHOSE GOVERNMENT DERIVES ITS JUST POWERS FROM THE CONSENT OF THE GOVERNED THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED. OBJECTIONS MUST BE OVERCOME BY BUSINESS SENSE, NOT WITH MERE ELOQUENCE AND ENTHU- SIASM. — President Taft, addressing the Deep Water-Ways pro- moters at Memphis. Tenn., October 27, 1909. SOME OLD ROMAN SAID ONCE THAT IT WAS SWEET TO DIE FOR ONE'S COUNTRY. THAT IS TRUE, BUT IT IS A MIGHTY FINE THING TO LIVE FOR ONE'S COUNTRY— AND SOMETIMES A BLAMED SIGHT HARDER THAN DYING.— Colonel William F. Cody (Buffalo Bill), New York World, November 14, 1909. CONVINCE ME THAT A PRINCIPLE IS RIGHT IN THE ABSTRACT, AND I WILL REDUCE IT TO PRAC- TICE, IF I CAN.— \A^illiam Legget, the abolitionist. WHERE KNOWLEDGE IS A DUTY, IGNORANCE IS A CRIME.— Thomas Paine. EMANCIPATION WOULD COME LIKE HEAVEN'S DEW. — Abraham Lincoln. CONTENTS. The Labor Amendment Our Mext Great Job CONTENTS. PAGE. PREFACE 1 American views on Socialism thirty years 3go.- — The Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. — Socialism, the paramount issue before the people of the United States. — ^The Labor Movement and the Socialist Movement are One and Indivisible. — The Saturday Evening Post of Philadelphia. — Is there such a thing as Practical Socialism. — Trans- . ferring private property to public ownership. — Real revolutions have been constructive. — Basic Socialist legislation. — Abraham Lincoln, on "Ending the G^eat Job." — The Thirteenth Amendment. — Abolition of slavery and involuntary servitude. — The fight for the abolition of Wage-Slavery and Voluntary Servi- tude. — A title chosen in memory of Abraham Lin- coln. — ^Acknowledgements. THE THIRD ERA OF AMENDMENT President Taft's address at Champlain Lake. — First Era of Amendment : 12 Amendments. — Second Era of Amendment: 3 Amendments. — President Taft in- augurated the Third Era of Amendment. — -The pro- posed Sixteenth Amendment. — Article V of the Con- stitution. — What produces the growing tendency to- ward Socialism. — ^What is Socialism. — A foot-note in the Communist Manifesto, by Karl Marx and Fried- rich Engels. — The United States lead in political development. — The Constitution guarantees a Repub- lican form of Government. — "Das Kapital," by Karl Marx. — A letter of Marx to F. A. Sorge. — Marx on the American War of Independence and the Civil War. — Legislation of, for, and by the working peo- ple. — America is destined to lead in Socialism. vi CONTENTS. , , ■ : PAGE. II. THE LABOR AMENDMENT.... 16 Proposed Sections : Section 1, one clause ; Sec- tion 2„ eight clauses. III. THE FORM OF AMENDMENT 18 A layman invading the reservation of the legal fra- ternity. — The first labor bills and labor laws. — The first Bureau of Statistics and Labor. — Drawing of bills by workingmen. — ^Workingmen's bills put in shape by judiciary committees of legislatures. — The form in which the demands of Labor are pre- sented. — Authorities for the form of the proposed amendment. — To accomplish the legislative intent. — The Peonage Act of 1867. — The Constitution is "short, simple, direct." — The object of the proposed amendment. IV. WAGE- SLAVERY 22 Frederick Williams Evans. — Editor George Henry Evans. — "Abolition of wages slavery," the tenth of the twelve demands in "Young America." — The Con- stitution, a compromise.— The design of the founders of the Government. — How long an acknowledged wrong shall be permitted. — Locofoco Party, and its influence upon lawmakers. — Wage-Slavery, as de- fined by Arthur Brisbane. — Arthur Brisbane on the right of suffrage. — Wage-Slavery as defined by John Mitchell. — If it were ultimately to be shown that the wage-system is incompatible. — Socialist definition of wage-slavery. — The unemployed, or workless worker. — ^The industrial army in reserve. — Organized Labor in the defensive. — Organized Capital in the aggressive. — United States Supreme Court decisions on Employers' Liability, Erdman and Sherman Anti- Trust Acts. — The contentions of Labor. — The Buck's Stove and Range Company case. — ^The decisions of the courts of the District of Columbia. — Gompers, Mitchell and Morrison sentenced to imprisonment fw contempt of the court. — Dissenting opinions of CONTENTS. I Chief Justice Shepard. — The Danbury Hatter case. — Other Supreme Court decisions. — Trade unionism outlawed. — The Danbury hatters to pay $240,000 in damages and cost. — Davenport's interview. — The heroic struggle of the workmen against being out- lawed. — Constitutional barriers to laws protecting the toiler. — The institution of the Supreme Court, a revolutionary act. — The Supreme Court, the guardian of the Constitution. — Congress must be looked to for relief. — Only an amendment to the Constitution can bring relief. — Trade unionism in the fight for an V. THE ABOLITION OF WAGE-SLAVERY 45 Proposed Section L — Preamble to the constitution of the American Federation of Labor. — Timothy Walker on Master and Servant. — Contract and per- sonal relations. — Compensation, wages or salary. — Abolition of the capitalistic wage-system. — The Great Army of the Unemployed. — What is Voluntary Scrviludc, — Private and public contracts. — The pri- vate contract is Voluntary Servitude. — The compul- sory public contract. — Centralization and State rights. — Capitalistic irreverence for State rights. — Legisla- ti\ e elections and sessions. — Popular elections con- fisc:itcd. — Wall Street does not shy at centraliza- tion. — Industrial Emancipation. — Emancipation of the wage-slave. VL COXFISCATION OR COMPENSATION? 52 Proposed Section II, Clause 1. — Socialist platforms, silent on the mode of acquiring the means of pro- duction and exchange. — Lasalle's Producers' Asso- ciation. — Communist Manifesto. — Saturday Evening Post of Philadelphia. — Debs, Berger, Wilshire, Chase, Barnes, Mailly and Berlyn. — "The Big Muddy." — Appropriation or confiscation is indefi- nite. — A vigorous master class has a Constitution to defend. — Legislation is definite. — Compensated viii CONTENTS. PAGE. Emancipation. — Article VI, Section 2; Amendment V; Amendment XIV, Section 5, of tlie Constitu- tion. — Peace legislation. VII. THE COST OF COMPENSATED EMANCIPA- TION ' 58 The power of Congress to acquire land. — -Acquisi- tions of, first, Louisiana and, last, the Canal Zone. — Constitutional scruples of President Jefiferson. — Pri- vate and Government ownership in land. — The pro- posed power to acquire all lands. — The Fifth Amend- ment. — Eminent domain. — Power to take property for commercial use. — What it may cost. — Census classification of National Wealth. — New confiscation of National Wealth.— The Capitalist Bill of Sale. VII I. THE ABOLITION OF THE UXEiNl PLOYED. . . 66 Proposed Section II, Clause 2. — Commerce as de- fined by the Supreme Court. — The power to regulate commerce with foreign nations and among the sev- eral States. — The power to regulate commerce be- tween man and man in a State. — Andrew Furuseth on the taking care of the employers by law and of the employees by the employers. — Occupation as classified in the Census. — A new classification of oc- cupations. — Who is unable to work. — Who is able to work. — New Specification of services. — Economic equality. — Co-operative and Individual Workers. — Co-operative services for wages. — Individual serv- ices. — The individual worker, an independent busi- ness man. — The nature of the service as the basis for ' legislative action. — Public, Agricultural, Industrial, Commercial, Professional and Private Services. — Definition of Services. — The Co-operative Producer and Uisiributor Union. — President's Proclamation to enlist in the industrial army. IX. THE NATIONAL DOLLAR-HOUR 79 Proposed Section II, Clause 3. — Marx assumed gold as the money commodity. — Price of labor time to be CONTEXTS. ix PAGE. established. — Labor power to be removed from the commodity market. — Distinction between prices of commodities and compensation for work and serv- ices. — Our Money is the Dolkir. — The hour as the unit of labor time. — Who establishes the prices to- day. — The seller of commodities and the buyer of labor power. — Supply and demand, a fiction. — ^Prices are established arbitrarily. — The trusts, the agency of the money lenders. X. THE NATIONAL WORK-DAY 83. Section II, Clause 3, continued. — Organized Labor in the fight for the reduction of working hours. — ■ Eight-hour workday. — The number of hours which shall constitute a National Workday. — Annual esti- mate of national demand and sui^ply. — Annual esti- mate of national work hour.s required. — Vacations of workmen. XI. THE GRADED COMPENSATION FOR WORK AND SERVICES 8& Proposed Section II, Clause 3, continued. — A uni- form scale of compensation. — ^One hour common la- bor time equal to one dollar. — Compensation for re- sponsibility added to common labor time. Compen- sation for artistic, literary, and scientific value added to common labor time. — The highest compensation for the highest responsibility and for the highest • work or service in art, literature, and science. XII.— THE ABOLITION OF CHILD LABOR 91 Proposed Section, II, Clause 3, continued. — The sys- tem of education. — School statistics. — Exploitation of children in lender years. — Gompers' report on child labor, 1909. — National Child Labor Committee. — • Love joy's report, 1909. — Laws for the protection of children fought- by greedy capitalists. — The tradi" tional right of the child to work itself to death. — ' The National Child Labor Day and the clergy. — X CONTENTS. PAGE. Child Labor Acts in the District of Columbia and in South Carolina. — ^Model laws of capitalistic in- humanity. XIII.— THE NATIONAL WORK INSPECTION 102 Proposed Section II, Clause 3, continued. — The usurped power of Congress to enact public health laws. — Interstate Quarantine Act. — Government care of sick and disabled seamen in capitalistic employ. — Jeopardy of life and limb while engaged in vocational pursuits. — Frederick L. Hoffman on accident risk. — International classification on causes of death. — Mortality statistics in registration area. — Industrial accident statistics. — Civil War casualties. — New York accident statistics. — Perpetual Industrial Peace. XIV. INDIVIDUAL LIBERTY 108 Proposed Section II, Clause 3, concluded. — The pro- hibition movement, the enemy of individual liberty and of the economic interests of millions. — Organized Labor understands the danger. — Source of revenue. — Prohibition does not prohibit. — The prohibition movement, the curse of American Liberty. — Breed- ing hypocrisy and political corruption. — The cloak of graft and legislative boodling. — The Pilgrims. — The Fathers of the Revolution. — George Washington. — The Prohibition movement in 1904 and in 1909. — ■ The World Almanac. — State prohibition and its en- forcement. — The Prohibition Platform of 1900. — - President McKinley denounced. — The army can- teen. — Labor bills and prohibition bills. — Capitalistic auxiliary. — A lightning rod to protect corruptionista from public indign.ntion, and a Klondyke. — A milch cow. — Mista4cen good :^'."n and women. — An eco- nomic disaster and ii polilica! crime. — The Labor . I Movement, a temperance movement. — The Prohibi- tionists demand an amendment to the Constitution. — - The issue is joined. CONTENTS. xi PAGB. XV. THE ABOLITION OF,THE PRIVATE MONEY POWER 12L Proposed Section II, Clause 4. — "The country's financial system is a misfit," says Elihu Root. — The stupendous magnitude of the money power under pri- vate control. — The resources of bank and insurance institutions. — The world's stock of money. — The country's stock of money. — Uncovered paper money. — The people prefer paper to hard cash in their business transactions. — Substitute for money. — James G. Cannon on clearing houses. — Ninety-seven per centum of the banking business. — Charles J. Bullock on the monetary history. — Paper money basis'. — The true nature and proper basis of credit is the productive labor power of the toiler. — The power of the money lender is maintained by law. — The stock of metallic money shall be jealously guarded. — E-xport of United States gold coin. — Early prohibitions of the exportation of gold and silver. — The consumption of gold and silver in the arts. — Restriction of the exportation of gold and sil- ver. — Equal ^*alue of paper money with gold and silver money. — Clearing house certificates. — Their restricted use. — The functions of the money insti- tutions. — Private money institutions. — Stock and other exchanges. — The postal savings banks. — The encouragemertt of thrift. — Taking money out of circulation. — The basis of National Bank notes. — The fight of the money lenders for graft. — Legal tender notes. — The Hazzard Circular, 1862. — The "European Plan."— The fight of the New York Her- ald against the Wall Street bankers.— Shall the Government control the banks, or the banks con- trot the Government.- The "best banking system in the world." — The Greenback movement. — James G. Blaine on President Andrew Jackson.— The "finan- cial heresy." — The sacred soldier's grave, — The Haz- zard Circular is still working.— The Emergency Currency Act. — A very prosperous business. — The Weaver Platform of 1892.— What constitutes the .xii CONTENTS. PlAQE. ' banking business to-day. — Bank loans, pawnbroker loans and usurer loans. — Weaver's proposed loan in legal tender issue to citizens. — Government issue of legal tender to be loaned to the unemployed. — A free loan association of Yiddish philanthropists. — The re- demption of the starving unemployed as an ulti- mate consumer. — Continental currency.— Futile ef- forts to keep up the credit of this currency. — Thomas Paine on paper money. — Governor Ward, of Rhode Island, on paper money. — Paper issue in- stead of taxation. — Paper issue to facilitate the daily business. — -The per capita circulation. — The toiler re- lieved from exploitation, as a taxpayer. — The ratifica- tion of the Sixteenth (Taft's) Amendment. — An emergency measure for the relief of the unem- ployed. — The unemployed borrower. — The luxury of enduring the grip of the money lender. — Civil lists in Europe. — American royalty to money kings. — What the money lenders do for the American royalties. — Relief for the unemployed pending the industrial reconstruction. — All who are unable to work not to be classified as unemployed. — Congress the only and absolute money power. XVL— THE ABOLITION OF THE MONEY LENDER ISO / Proposed Section II, Clause S. — Interest on loans. — Aristotle on interest. — The Mosaic law. — The canonic law. — Federal and State laws. — The legal rate of interest. — The rate of interest allowed by contract. — The interest-bearing public debt of the United States. — Market price of Government loans. — United States loans at two per centum. — Market rates of interest below two per centum. — The credit of the Government. — Paper bearing and not bearing in- terest — Interest on combined paper, covered and un- covered. — A rate of interest in conformity with the international law of commerce. — The net debt out- standing of Slates and municipal divisions.^ — The total annual royalty to the money lenders. — States not CONTENTS. 1 protected by a Government guarantee are mulcted. — Registered and Coupon bonds. — Registered Compen- sation bonds. — The restoration of gold surreptitiously taken away. — Statutes of limitation. — The Communist Manifesto on Emancipation. — Ferdinand Lassalle on the war cry of love.- — An American reason for com- pensated emancipation. — The adaptation of the pres- ent generation to the reconstruction. — The ci- devant capitalist. — The redemption of the public debt. — ^American bonds abroad. — Excess of export of merchandise above import. — The balance of our for- eign trade. — The grip of the foreign money lender. — The New York World on national extravagance. — No fresh borrowings. — The conversion of legal ten- der notes into merchandise for ultimate use. — The producers will produce the goods. XVII. THE RESTORATION OF LAND AND FRAN- CHISES 166 Proposed Section II, Clause 6. — The Jeflferson doc- trines : "The land belongs to man in usufruct only." — Territory acquired under treaty of 1783, — Homestead Ordinances of the General Congress. — • Homestead Acts of the United States Congress. — Policy of grants inaugurated. — Cession of public lands to railroa'ds. — Large railroad grants re- covered. — Homestead laws enacted during the Civil War. — Timber Culture and Desert Acts. — The pub- lic domain. — President Taft's special message on the conservation of national resources. — Difficulties to Government control of private ownership. — Good and bad investors of capital in the public domain. — The friends of Government control. — A court of compen- sation.-^Lands acquired by purchase, or grants, or thievery. — Franchises given away in consideration of valuable services to be rendered. — Restoration of land and franchises under rules based upon the jnode of their alienation. xiv CONTENTS. PAGE. XVIII. THE GENERAL SUFFRAGE 174 Proposed Section II, Clause 7. — Amendment XIV, Section 1, and Amendment XV, of the Constitu- tion. — Recent suffrage laws in the South. — -Amend- ment XIV, Section 2, of the Constitution.— The Colored and White voter. — Suffrage and State rights. — The functions of a Sovereign State. — State laws to protect employees as voters. — The female voters. — Early woman suffrage in New Jersey.^ Woman rights conventions. — First petition on woman suffrage to Congress. — ^Woman suffrage "in foreign countries and in the United States. — ^Woman suffrage- in trade unions, in corporations, and in the Socialist Party. — Industrial suffrage in France, and in the United States. — Discipline and Democracy. — The cap- tain of industry. — President Taft on National powers not exercised. XIX. THE SOCIALIST RECONSTRUCTION 180 Proposed Section II, Clause 8. — ^Amendment XIV, Section S. — ^A school authority on the enforcing clause. — The "Elastic or Sweeping Clause." — Thomas Paine on government by precedent, and on lawyer's law and legislative law. — ^The workman's law is an evolution of the existing law. — Establishing a new precedent — ^The language of the new Labor Constitu- tion. — The most urgent laws of reconstruction. — Em- ployment on public contracts. — Declaration of gold and silver coin of bullion. — Care of all who are able to work. — Registration for work. — Government's loans. — ^Authority of the President pending recon- struction. — Compensation for common labor time. — IsTational workday. — Courts and appeal court of com- pensation. — Employers who have complied with the reconstruction laws, to act as receivers pending recon- struction. — Treasury Department to issue Compensa- tion bonds and treasury notes. — General amnesty by proclamation of the President. — General election law. — Felony, confiscation, imprisonment. — New depart- CONTENTS, XV PAGE. ments and bureaus of department of the Government. — Initiative and Referendum. — Recall. — Demands in Socialist, Populist and Independent party platforms.— Article V of the Constitution.— The First State con- stitutions. — ^Amendments to State constitutions. — Gompers' reports to and actions of the American Federation of Labor. — The present political partisan ■form. — Initiative and Referendum, a palliative. — The Union Label. — Labor laws of the United States. — The Referendum, a labor demand of recent date, and an old Prohibition demand. — ^Thomas Paine on reciprocal suspicion and disposition to misinterpret each other. — The right of recall is unquestioned. — Article II, Section 4, and Article I, Section 3, Clause 7, of the Constitution. — Eight trials of impeachment. — Malfeasance in office. — Recall of elected officials. — Civil Service reform. — Socialist Party in relation to civil service positions. — ^Arbitrary recall. — No So- cialist party is a party of office seekers. — ^A Job for all all the time. — Emancipation of the political serf. — Politician's law and workman's law, — Short term of office. — ^Adjustment of power between Nation and States. — Encroachments upon State rights. — ^The wards of the Nation. — Foreign-born population. — Immigration. — Organized Labor on immigration. — The alien. — ^Work for one generation. — ^First things first. XX. PRACTICABLE SOCIALISM 202 Charles R-. Miller on Socialism. — The international Socialist movements. — The source of revenue. — The source of national wealth. — National wealth of prop- erty. — National wealth of productive labor power. — Progressive income tax. — ^The nature of man. — Lazi- ness and improvidence. — Voluntary and involuntary surrender. — ^The Lincoln campaign, I860. — ^The Til- den-Hayes campaign, 1876. — ^The Southern drebm. — The territory of the capitalists. — The Border States. — Business failures in the United States. — Movable xvi CONTEXTS. PAGE. and immovable capital. — Settlement in bankruptcy. — The seating of a duly elected President, an American question.— Profit, peace and patriotism. — No confisca- tion by insolvency. — The ballot and the Milwaukee election. XXI. THE ERA OF SOCIALISM _'10 The Mark Hanna policy. — Legislative Committee of the Workingmen's Federation of the State of Nev; York. — Labor bills in the New York Legislature. — Legislative. Committee of the American Federation of Labor. — Arthur E. Holder's reports. — Labor bills in Congress. — Enactment of a bill into law. — A good bill and a bad bill. — "Begging for legislation." — Politeness, the virtue of diplomats. — Diplomats of Organized Labor. — Elements forming an army. — Elements making up the Labor Movement. — Thomas Paine on wrong and right. — The American Federa- tion of Labor in the orunt of the battle. — Barriers in the way. — Confidence of strength. — No detnand that the lich get poor. — Insistence that all the poor get rich. — Do you want to be rich? — Morganized money power. — The Trillionaire Uncle Sam. — Insur- ance policy against Want, War, and Confiscation.^ Uniform State Legislation Movement. — The freedom of labor power. — Change from Capitalism to Social- ism, a business transaction. — Our Next Great Job. TKe Labor Amendment Our Next Great Job PREFACE. The author of this book has learned his SociaHst A-B-C in the school of Ferdinand Lassalle, his grammar in eco- nomics in the school of Karl Marx, politics in public life in America, and law in the American Labor Movement. The memorable year of 1878 found him in editorial charge of a daily and two weekly Socialist papers pub- lished in Magdeburg, Prussia. The onslaughts upon Emperor William I by Hoedel, on May 11, and by Nobeling,on June 2, in that year, were followed by a wholesale slaughter of trade union and labor papers in Prussia under the government of Reichs- kanzler Prince Bismarck, by the enactment of the Anti- Socialist laws of the German Reichstag, and by the "Dec- ade of White Terror." Having had his share of persecution, raging in those days, the writer landed in New York on December 2, 1878, being, as it happened, the first Socialist editor from Germany thrown upon the hospitable shores of this country. The great American editors commenting upon his ar- rival were all agreed that there might be some justifi'ca- 2 THE LABOR AMENDMENT. tion for a Socialist movement in the old countries ruled by effete monarchies, but that never, never, never would there be any necessity, or even excuse, let alone any pos- sibility, for SocialJfim in this country, with its elbow room for hundred m.illions of population, with its unlimited nat- ural resources, a/id with its glorious Republican institu- tions, based upon the immortal Declaration of Independ- ence and perpetuated by the Constitution, the greatest and best ever devised by human wisdom : The Declaration, that "All men are createl equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness, and. that to secure these rights, govern- ments are instituted among men, deriving their just pow- ers from the consent of the governed." The Constitution, ordained and established, "In order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welface, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity." That was thirty-two }'ears ago. Times have changed. Within the last three years the treatment of the subject of Socialism by highest political tribunes and tribunals has demonstrated that SOCIALISM is the paramount issue before the people of the United States. The national platform of the Republican party, adopted in 1908, devotes a plank to Socialism. Two Presidents of the United States have taken cogni- zance of the Socialist movement. Mr. Theolore Roosevelt preached against Soci.?.Iism during his second Presidential term, and on his return to private life inaugurated his jorrnali«(ic career with an at- tack upon Socialism in the Outlook. PREFACE. 3 Mr. William Howard Taft was virtually proclaimed the standard bearer in the fight against Socialistic tendencies in the Presidential campaign preceding his election. Since his elevation to the Presidency of the United States he has been faithful to his mission. There is an apparent division of the militant Labor forces in two armies, marching separately on economic and on political lines. At no time in his life has the writer believed that the Labor Movement and the Socialistic Movement were two distinct movements. He always held, and holds now, that they are One and Indivisible. The capitalist class and our rulers understand that. All workingmen who are indifferent or trade unionists pure and simple, and all Socialist theorists pure and sim- ple, who mean well, ^vill be compelled by the logic of coming events to understand that, too. Desirous to learn whether there is "such a thing as Practical Socialism," the Saturday Evening Post of Phil- adelphia of May 9. [909, printed the answers of ten well- known members of the Socialist Party to the questions asked of them : "How will the co-operative common- wealth be brought about? Suppose that you should elect a Socialist President and Congress, how would you go about transferring private property to public ownership ?" If it may not be amiss to take part in this controversy unasked, it may be suggested to refer the first question to the surviving veteran seers who predicted at the outbreak of the Civil War that it would be but a picnic. As to the second question, it ma)' be said that the ten answers by Socialists as published in said Weekly were theoretical, speculative, general and non-responsive. But, then, the question as put is misleading. 4 THE LABOR AMENDMENT. Spcialists should be asked, not what they would, WHAT THEY COULD DO ? Our modern Socialist writers have pictured the misery under capitalism, or propounded a philosophy. In substance they are preaching the gospel of a Happy Hereafter on this earth under SociaHstic institutions. It is not the object of this book to be emotional or sen- sational. Bloody historical events, vulgarly called "revolutions," have been destructive. The real revolutions were accom- plished without bloodshed, and have been constructive. What they accomplished was brought about by legislative action. If you ask the question, "What could Sociahsts do?" you ■ practically ask, "What legislation do Socialists propose ?" This book will be confined to basic Socialist legislation indispensible to lead us out of the willerness of Capital- istic Anarchy into the promised land of Socialistic Order. Abraham Lincoln signed the Thirteenth Amendment on February r, 1865, at four o'clock in the afternoon when it reached him.** At night when serenaded by a vast mul- titude of white and colored people, he said: "At last the great job is ended. I can not but congratu- late all present to-night, myself, the country and the entire world upon this magnificent moraL victory. . . . So ends this job !" The Thirteenth Amendment, which was ratified before ' the close of that calendar year, ordains' that: ' ' ■ "Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have^been duly convicted^ shall exist within the United States, nr anjr place subject to their jurisdiction," PREFACE. S The fight is on for the ABOLITION OF WAGE- SLAVERY OR VOLUNTARY SERVITUDE. In memory of the great Emancipator of four million Colored bondsmen, in the centenary year of his birth, the title chosen for this book is: "The Labor Amendment Our Next Great Job." The author thankfully acknowledges his obligations for courtesies received from Mr. Samuel Gompers, Mr. Frank Morrison, Mr. Herman Robinson, of the American Fed- eration of Labor ; Mrs. F. A. Sorge ; Mr. Owen R. Love- joy, general secretary National Child Labor Committee; Hon. William S. Bennet, United States Representative; Hon. Joseph A. Gouldcn, United States Representative; Hon. S. N. D. North, former Director of the Census ; Hon. Chas. P. Neill, Labor Commissioner ; Hon. Chas. A. Piatt Andrew, Director of the Mint; Hon. Lawrence P. Murray, Comptroller of the Currency ; and the Assistant Librarians of the Astor and Lenox Libraries of New York. New York, October i, 1910. [. THE THIRD ERA OF AMENDMENT. Presideni Taft, as reported in the New York World, said in one of his speeches at the Champlain Lake Ter- centenary, "That in view of the growing tendency toward SociaHsm he beheved the conservatism of this country a most important factor to be emphasized ; that he believed entirely in the Constitution ; that from time to time amend- ments may be needed to meet conditions that even the most vivid imaginations of the Constitution's framers could not encompass ; that these amendments would al- ways be, to a certain extent, of minor importance; that he had every confidence that the Constitution — short, sim- ple, direct — would be sufficient to guide the country in the right direction for years to come ; that he did not mean to say that our form of government was perfect; he knew that reforms were necessary, for instance, a reform in the criminal law must come about, also enlargement of the executive power in some detail seemed necessary." The original Constitution, "Done in Convention by the Unanimous Consent of the (12) States present the Seven- teenth Day of September in the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and Eighty-seven and of the In- dependence of the United States of America the Twelfth," has Seven Articles. The First Era of Amendment falls in the days of the Fathers of the Constitution. R THE LABOR AMENDMENT. The First Ten Amendments— the "Bill of Rights" — proposed by the First Congress, were added within two years after the ratification of the Constitution. The Eleventh Amendment, involving the principle of State rights, and proposed by the Third Congress, and the Twelfth Amendment, solving a question of expediency in the mode of electing the Vice-President, and proposed by the Eighth Congress, followed within seven and thir- teen years thereafter. The Second Era of Ainoidvient came sixty years later. It brought the Thirteenth (Lincoln's Emancipation) Amendment, proposed by the Thirty-eighth Congress; the Fourteenth (Reconstruction) Amendment, proposed by the Thirty-ninth Congress; and the Fifteenth (Negro Citizenship) Amendment, proposed by the Fortieth Con- gress. President Taft has inaitgurated THE THIRD ERA OF AMENDMENT. In his message to the Sixty-first Congress — an epoch- making event in the Constitutional history of our country — he recommended, and by Joint Resolution the Congress proposed, the Sixteenth Amendment, which ordains: "The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, withovit apportionment among the several States and without re- gard to any census or enumeration." There has never been a time when the trade unionists uf this country have not expressed their belief in the Con- .■^titution, by words and actions, as strongly as President Taft did in his speech referred to. It is true that neither the Socialistic Labor Party nor the Socialist Party ever expressed in their national plat- forms their belief in the Constitution. But what they omitted in expressing in so many words 'I'HK TIURO KRA OF AMENDMKN'l'. 9 was supplied by their actions in taking part in elections under the Constitution, and in presenting their noininees for President and for Congress to the vote of the people. There is one Article of the Constitutionj however, in which all Socialists have the strongest belief, namely. Article Fifth, ordaining that amendments to the Consti- tution may be made. Socialists may agree with the President, "that from time to time amendments may be needed," but they will differ from him as to what constitutes the most important "mat- ter of minor importance" that requires mimediate atten- tion. What produces "the growing tendency toward Social- ism"? The ever growing tendency toward concentration of capital in fewer hands ! The ever growing pauperization of greater masses ! The uncertainty of the Daily Bread ! The uncertainty whether the man with a job to-day may be without one to-morrow ! Youth without childhood, old age without rest! Hopelessness staring in the face of the old worker ! Capitalistic exploitation and oppression in the mines, mills, shops, factories, yards, quarries, stores, ofifices, and in employment of all kinds ! The ever present wrecking of the small business man or manufacturer who awakens in the morning to find his check for the payroll drawn on a bank which has closed its doors over night, or to learn that some trust has de- cided to and has put him out of business ! The ever growing greedy grasp of the tiusts upon the throats and the pockets of the people! U) THE LABOR AMENDMENT. High prices and low wages by dictation of the money power ! The enslaving of the farmer by usurers and monopolies ! The arrogance of thieving corporations! The usurpation of power by the few to curb the Ameri- can spirit of independence, and to club the American toiler into submission to Capitalistic Over-lordship! The shooting, clubbing and enjoining of workingmen anl workingwomen striking for their rights! The unlawful kidnapping of trade union officials, with the sanction of the courts! The persecution of labor editors for maintaining the Constitutional rights of the toilers ! Hunger and cold, destitution and starvation among plenty ! The Great Army of the Unemployed, starving and shel- terless ! The tramp facing the billionaire! Court decisions, limiting the right of the workmen to the "right to be maimed and killed without employer's liability, to be discharged for belonging to a trade union, and to work as mcmy hours as the employers please, and under any condition which they may impose! Court decisions, protecting the property of the capital- ists, and confiscating the property of the workmen ! Court decisions, denying the workmen the right of prop- erty in his own labor power ! Court decisions, restricting the freedom of the workmen to use their wages in trading with or withholding their trade from whomsoever they may choose ! Court injunctions, forbidding the exercise of free speech, free press, freedom of assemblage, and the right of petition, and revolutionizing our Anglo-Saxon judicial system and sense of justice! THE THIRD ERA OF AMENDMENT. 1 1 The divisioiv of the people, by legislation and by high- est judicial decrees, into two classes — MASTERS and SERVANTS ! Thence the growing tendency toward Socialism ! ! ! What is Socialism? It has been facetiously said that there are "fifty-seven varieties" of Socialism. A lawyer has called it a subhme religion; Socialist speakers, a philosophy; others, a social economy. There may be ten million varieties of Socialists, inas- much as every Socialist has his individuality, and as there are no two individuals in the world who are agreed upon all subjects. But there can be but one Socialism. Socialism, the ultimate aim of the working class move- ment, is the highest form of civilisation. This country, with barely half a million Socialist votes polled at the Presidential election in 1908, and without even a solitary Socialist spokesman in Congress, is des- tined to lead all other countries on the Road to Socialism. European Socialists, not familiar with American his- tory and institutions or with current events in America, believe in and proclaim the European leadership in So- cialism, That belief is deep seated. Responsible for it is a foot note of the famous Communist Manifesto — Manifesto of the Communist Party, by Karl Marx and Friedrich lingels, first published in German in 1848, since then pub- lished in many languages, editions and reprints — wherein the authors say : ■'Generally speaking, for the economical development of the bourgeoisie, England is taken as the typical coun- try ; for its political development, France." 12 THE LABOR AMENDMENT. European immigrants do not emancipate themselves from the conception that France is the typical country for political development, until they study American history and learn that the United States has been and still is lead- ing all nations in political development. The lead of the United States dates from the Fourth of July, 1776, the day of the Declaration of Independence. France was then in the second year of the reign of King Louis XVI. The United States, in the midst of the Revolutionary War, had a Federal Government under the "Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union," which had been rat- ified by all the States on March i, 1781. The Revoluntionary War had been successfully ended by the surrender of Lord Cornwallis at Yorktown on October 19, 1781, and by the Peace at Versailles on September 3^ 1783. The Constitutional Convention had convened on March 14, 1787, for the purpose of supplanting a weak Confed- eration by a strong Union. The Constitution which they had framed had been ratified by ten States on July 26, 1788, and on September 13, 1788, national elections had been ordered by the Con- gress of the Confederation. On April 30, 1789 — two and a half months prior to the fall of the Bastille in Paris, France, which occurred on July 14, 1789 — George Washington had been inaugurated the first President under the Constitution, which guar- anteed the thirteen original States, and all other States thereafter to be admitted into the Union, a Republican Form of Government. One hundred and twenty years ago America already liad a long lead in political development over France. THE THIRD ERA OF AMENDMENT. 13 In economical development, however^ England had a long lead over all other countries. But that has changed. Karl Marx saw it coming. His eyes were upon America. In his master work, Das Kapital — first published in 1867— Marx called England "the classic ground of tlie capitalist mode of production, and the condition of pro- duction and excliange corresponding to that mode." Thirteen years later — in a letter addressed to F. A. Sorge in Hoboken, New Jersey — Marx, asking for Amer- ican litei'ature, said : "I would be very pleased if you would get me some- thing good, substantial, on economic conditions in Cali- fornia. California is very important. Nowhere else the reyolutio'n through capitalistic concentration has been ef- fected in that most shameless matter and in such haste." Socialists in America are dazzled by the millions of Socialist votes polled and the number of Socialist repre- sentatives elected to the parliaments and municipalities in Europe.' The American election returns as contrasted with the numeric strength abroad does not look very bright. The American Socialists, therefore, are inclined to con- cede the Socialist leadership to Europe. Yet they may profitably keep in mind the following passage from the Preface of Das Kapital: "As in the Eighteenth Century the American War of Independence sounded the tocsin for the European middle class, so in the Nineteenth Century the American Civil War sounded it for the European working class." It may be safely added : "And so in the Twentieth Century American Legisla- tion of, for and by the working people, in fact and not in name only, and the transformation of the capitalistic 14 THE LABOR AMENDMENT. Republic into a Socialistic Republic will sound the tocsin for the working class of every nation 1" The "growing tendency toward Socialism in America" has been acknowledge^ by the highest authority in the land — the President of the United States. Why is America destined to lead in Socialism? Because there is nothing to stop the people of the United States in having Socialism when it so wills. Its political revolution is history. Forced to the Declaration of Independence — in itself a very peaceable action — by the echoes from the battles of Lexington, Concord and Bunker Hill, the Fathers of the Revolution firmly established the Republican Form of .Government on the battlefields of Trenton, Princeton, Mdnmonth, and at Yorktown, one and a third of a cen- tury ago. There is no throne, no nobility, no priesthood, no mili- tary establishment, that stands between the people and Socialism. The people when it so wills can decide at the ballot box for Socialism — within a year at the next Congres- sional election, or within two years at the next Presi- dential election. Not even the money powers of the world can prevent that. They might, and will, try to delay the decision of the people by trickery, bribery, corruption, intimidation and usurpation of power. But they are powerless to put a stop to the wrath of an outraged people when ripe to vote for a change, or to prevent that change from taking effect. The people, however, will not vote for Socialism until the scope of the legislation to bring it about is clearlv THE THIRD ERA OF AMENDMENT. IS understood, or, as the saying- goes, until public opinion is for Socialism. Vicious contentions have filled the air that Socialists are not good but bad people, and that Socialism is not the salvation of mankind, as the Socialists claim, but perdition and the ruin of the state and the family. The subject is changed. The proposed amendment to the Constitution deals with legislation to be decided upon by the people. Is the proposed legislation good or bad for the people? If bad, why so? Tf good, why not have it forthwith? To have, or not to have, that is the question. II. THE LABOR AMENDMENT. SIXTY-FIRST CONGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES. Ai the third session, begun and held at the city of Washington, in the District of Columbia, on Monday, the fifth of December, one thousand nine hundred and ten. Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, Two-thirds of both Houses concurring, That the follow- ing Article be proposed to the Legislatures of the several States, as an amendment to the Constitution of the United States; which, when ratified by three-fourths of the said Legislatures, shall be valid to all intents and purposes, as part of the said Constitution, to wit : ARTICLE XVII. Section I. Neither wage-slavery nor voluntary serv- itude shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction. .Section II. The Congress shall have power: T. To acquire all lands, forests, watersheds, lakes, rivers, mines, oil wells, quarries, railroads, ferries, bridges, marines, telegraphs, telephones, express services, and all movable, and immovable, means of production, transport, exchange, distribution and communication. 2. To regulate private services, agriculture, intrastate THE LABOR AMENDMENT. 17 commerce, imports and exports; and to provide for the occupation of all who are able to work in such work as they are qualified to perform, and for the care of all who. are unable to work. 3. To establish the prices of all commodities, a uni- form work day, a uniform scale of compensation for \\'ork and services, a uniform educational, and sanitary, system, so as to prevent the jeopardy of life and limb, and to protect the health, of all persons engaged in agricultural, industrial, commercial, and vocational, pursuits; but sumptuary legislation shall be prohibited within the jurisdiction of the United States. 4. To regulate all money, banking, savings, and insur- ance, institutions; but the delegation of power to issue currency shall be prohibited, and all treasury notes of the United States shall be legal tender. 5. To establish a uniform rate of interest not exceed- ing two per centum per annual, and to regulate the pay- ment of all interest-bearing public, and private, debts, loans, liens, and nlortgages ; and thereafter all interest- bearing debts, loans, liens, and mortgages, shall be pro- hibited. 6. To restore to the people all lands and franchises alienated from the people; and thereafter the alienation of lands and franchises from the people shall be pro- hibited. 7. To establish uniform rules for all National, State, County, Communal, and Industrial, elections; but the right of the citizens of the United States, being twenty- one years of age, to vote shall not be denied or abridged on^account of race, color, creed, or sex. 8. To make all laws which shall be necessary and proper fot carrying into execution the foregoing powers, and for enforcing the provisions of this article. III. THE FORM OF AMENDMENT. .\ bill, or a constitutional amendment, framed by a legal authority, is accepted by all other learned jurists as to correctness of form, unless some glaring blunder invites criticism. .\ layman who pr'isumos to invade the reservation of the legal fraternity, must, if he expects a hearing, strengthen his case by quoting authorities. It may be strange news, yet it is a fact nevertheless, that many labor bills introduced in the legislatures, have not been framed by jurists, but by workmen. Who, in 1845, drew the first labor bill providing for a ten-hour day in Massachusetts factories, which failed to I)ass ; or who drew the first labor laws — one law limiting the hours of labor in all cotton, woolen, silk, paper, bag- ging and flax factories to ten hours per day, passed b)' the Legislature of Pennsylvania on March 28, 1848: and another law, enacted in Massachusetts in 1852, reduc- ing the working hours in factories from sixty-eight to sixty-six hours a week — the writer cannot tell. Neither does he know who drew the bill under which the first Bureau of Statistics and Labor m this country was established, in Massachusetts in 1869 ; nor who di'ew the first Eight-Hour Act of Congress of July 6, 1869, introduced, by General Banks, whose wife was once a factory girl in Lowell, Mass. THE FORM OF AMENDMENT. 19 Three decades ago, when the representatives of organ- ized labor had discovered an assemblyman, or a senator, friendly to labor and willing to promote its cause, they were told: "Bring me a bill; I will introduce it." Having found the man to father a bill, but being with- out money to engage legal talent, the workmen put their heads together and framed a bill the best they knew how. When afterward such a bill came out of a judiciary comntittee of a House, it had been put in shape by the learned committee. Many labor bills, would not have been enacted, if the organized workmen had not framed the bills. The form in which the demands of labor are represented is, therefore, of secondary consideration, as long as the demands are made clear. In dividing the proposed Labor amendment into sec- tions, the precedent of the Fourteenth Amendment is fol- lowed. The fathers of that addition to the Constitution could have made four amendments instead of one. They did not. In their wisdom they chose to tie the vote on negro citizenship to the votes on excluding rebels from. federal offices, on validity of the public debt of the United States, on making illegal the payment of debts incurred in aid of the rebellion against the United States, and on making illegal any compensation for the loss or emancipation of any slave. Thereby they accomplished their legislative intent when the Fourteenth Amendment was up for ratification. But that ratification is another story. The language of Section I of the proposed amendment is taken from the Thirteenth Amendment, which is in the language of the ordinance proposed by Thomas JeflFerson 20 TflE LASOR AMENDMENT. ifi 1784, of the Sixth Section of the famous Ohio Ordi- nance of 1787, and of the anti-slavery plank of the Re- publican Platform of i860, drawn by Abraham Lincoln. WAGE-SLAVERY is substituted for Slavery, and VOLUNTARY SERVITUDE for Involuntary Serv- itude. The precedent for legislation against Voluntary Serv- itude is found in the Peonage Act of March 2, 1867 — Compiled Statutes of the United States, 1901, Section 1990: ■■'The holding of any person to service or labor under the system known as peonage, is abolished and forever prohibited in the Territory of New Mexico, or in an>' otlier Territory or State of the United States ; and all acts, laws, resolutions, orders, regulations, or usages of the Territory of New Mexico, or any other Territory or State of the United States, which have heretofore estab- lished, maintained, or enforced, or by virtue of which an\' attempt may hereafter be made to estabUsh, maintain, or enforce, directly or indirectly, the VOLUNTARY or in- voluntary service or labor of ANY PERSONS or peons, in liquidation of any debt or obligation, OR OTHER- WISE, be and the same are hereby declared null and void." The language of Section II of the proposed amendment is taken from Section 8 of Article I of the Constitution, wherein the powers of Congress are enumerated, from the Fifth Amendment, and from Section 5 of the Four- teenth Amendment. The Constitution and the first Twelve Amendments thereto are quoted from W. Hickey's edition of the "Con- stitution of the United States," certified by Jame?. Buchanan, Secretary of Slate, July 20, 1846. as follows : "This Constitution & amendments has been criticalh 'J'lIJi I'ORM OF AMENDMENT. 21 compared with the originals in this Department & found to be correct , in text, letter & punctuations . It may, there- fore, be relied upon as a standard edition." The Thirteenth, Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments are quoted from T. F. Fitzgerald's Manual of the Legis- lature of New Jersey. President Taft holds that the Constitution is short, simple, direct. It does not seem to be so simple, however. It is a fact that the volumes containing the construc- tions of the Constitution of the United States Supreme Court make a library of such a size that few mortals are privileged to grasp them ; that there have been loose and and strict constructionists of the Constitution, who have filled the pages of history with contradictory contentions ; and that conflicting constructions have been made by the Supreme Court, when a former decision of that Court was reversed by a later one. Whether or not the suggested form of the proposed Labor Amendment will answer its purpose remains for constitutional authorities to say. It is the object of the amendment which we will have to deal with. IV. WAGE-SLAVERY. The abolition of wage-slavery was demanded, long be- fore the Civil War, in the first third of the last centurj'. In his Autobiography of a Shaker, written in 1867, Frederick William Evans, the Shaker Elder, tells of an early demand for the abolition of wage-slavery. His mem- ory seems defective as to historical dates, yet his presenta- tion of principles deserves to be saved from oblivion Referring to his brother, the editor, George Henry Evans, who was two years older than he, the famous Communist says: "We were Radicals in civil government, and in religion we were Materialists. . . . George has made his mark upon the page of history, which has recorded the current of thought as it flowed down from the founders of the American Government to the election of Grant as Presi- dent of these United Reconstructing States, upon prin- ciples more nearly realizing the abstract truisms affirmed in the Declaration of Independence than were ever before reduced to practice. . . . George started the Land Reform movement in this country, on the basis of the principle laid down by Jefferson, that 'the land belongs to man in usufruct only.' And that idea was, doubtless, entertained by all the signers of the.Declatation of Inde- pendence. . . . The right to be and the right to land; WAGE-SLAVERY. 23 each included the other ; we held that they were identical ; and hence we waged a fierce and relentless war against all forms of property accumulation that owed their origin to land monopoly, speculation, or usury." Speaking of the periodicals, "The Man," "The Work- ing Man's Advocate," "The Daily Sentinel," "Young America," and others published by his brother George, the Shaker Elder relates: "That these publications had a controlling influence upon the American press may be inferred from the very frequent quotations in other papers from the editorials of "Young America," and also from the fact that six hun- dred papers indorsed the following measures, which were printed at the head of "Young America" : ■ "First. — The right of man to the soil : 'Vote yourself a farm.' "Second. — Down with monopolies, especially the United States Bank. "Third. — Freedom of the public lands. "Fourth. — Homesteads made inalienable. "Fifth. — Abolition of all laws for the collection of debts. "Sixth. — A general bankrupt law. "Seventh. — A lien of the labourer upon his own work for wages. "Eighth. — ^Abolition of imprisonment for debt. "Ninth. — Equal rights for women with men in all re- spects. "r^M^A.— ABOLITION OF CHATTEL SLAVERY, AND OF WAGES SLAVERY. "Eleventh. — Land limitation to one hundred and sixty acres ; no person, after passage of the law, to become possessed of more than that amount of land. But, when a land monopolist died, his h«irs were to take each his 24 THE LABOR AMENDMENJ'. legal number of acres, and be compelled to sell the sur- plus, using the proceeds as they pleased. "Twelfth. — Mails in the United States to run on the Sabbath. "These and similar views and principles, we held and propagated to the very best of our ability ; for our whole hearts and souls were in them. "This Spartan band was few in number, but there were deep thinkers among them; and all were earnest, prac- tical workers in behalf of the down-trodden masses of humanity. "Tt was war between abstract right and conventional rights. "We held the Constitution to be only a compromise be- tween the first principles of the American Government, as they were set forth in the Declaration of Independ- ence, drawn up by Jefferson, and the then 'existing vested rights of property-holders and conservatives of all sorts, secular and religious ; and we contended that the mutual, well understood intention and design of the founders of the government 7ms, that, as soon as possible, the Consti- tution should be amended, so as to conform more and more to the ideal pattern set forth in the declaration of rights inherent in humanity, it being a question only, AS TO HOW LONG AN ACKNOWLEDGED WRONG SHOULD BE PERMITTED. "Our little party gradually and steadily increased and acquired the title of the Locofoco Party in the following manner : "On the evening of the 29th of October, 1825, a great mass meeting was to be held in Tammany Hall, by the Democratic party, which was -then and there split into two, and in which the Radical Land Reformers triumphed, taking with them a large portion of the party. The Con- WAGli-SLAVliRV. iS servative leaders came up the back stairs into the hall, and secured the fore part of the meeting, and elected a chairman and committee. But these were finally entirely outvoted by the thousands of workingmen who crowded into and filled the hall, ejecting Isaac L. Varian, whom the monopolists had installed, and putting in Joel Curtis as chairman. Then the Conservatives retired in disgust down the back stairs as they came in, and revengefully turned ofif the gas, leaving the densely packed hall in total darkness. The cry was raised, 'Let there be light,' and 'there was light'; for locofoco matches were ignited all over the room, and applied to candles, when a fine illumination ensued, creating great enthusiasm, which finally resulted in the election of Andrew Jackson and R. M. Johnson as President and Vice-President of the United States. For it was soon found that the Locofoco party held the balance of power; and they offered their entire vote to whichever of the parties would put at the head of their great party papers the twelve measures above enumerated, and the offer was accepted by the Democratic party. ■■'Tlius during the last thirty-eight years (meaning from 1829 to 1867) have been accomplished the following among our progressive purposes, to wit : "Second.— The United States Bank overthrown. "Third. — Freedom of public lands to actual settlers secured. "Fourth. — Homestead laws in nearly all of the States. "Sixth. — General bankrupt laws passed by the United. States. ".Seventh. — Lien of labourers upon work to a great ex- tent secured: "Eighth. — Abolition of imprisonment for debt in most of the States. 26 J HE LABOR AMENDMENT. "Tenth. — ^Abolition of chattle slavery in the UniteU States entire." • It may be noted, that the meeting of the Locofoco Party took place in 1835, not 1825; that Andrew Jackson was elected President in 1829, and re-elected in 1832; and that Richard M. Johnson was elected Vice-President, by the Senate, March 4, 1837. A definition of what was called "Wages Slavery" by these early fighters for its abolition, is found in a stirring address, ehthasiastically received, which was made by Mr. Albert Brisbane before the National Reform Associa- tion, in New York City, on Febrtiary 19, 1845, "He had himself been engaged' for a number of years," said Mr. Brisbane, as reported in the New York Herald and in the Working Man's Advocate, "in another cause — a reform whose accomplishment was far off, which was not to arrive to-morrow or the next day, or the next year, or the year after — but it would comej and when it came, it would be the grand and final reform of society, and would put an end forever to poverty and ignorance, the parents of want and crime, throughout the world. "The points to which he would direct attention were: ■'1st — the slavery of the working classes in its differ- ent forms, throughout all past ages. "2d — the importance of the laboring and producing classes. "3d — the rights of man embracing those which had been taken from and those conceded to him. "4th — the policy which the National Reformei-s should pursue to accomplish their objects. "The history of the past showed us that there had been in existence three kinds of slavery — the slavery of man WAGE-SLAVifiRY. 27 by man; serfdom, or man belonging to the soil; and the slavery of hired labor, or the slavery of capital. "This is the form of slavery at present most generally in existence, and is the result of the accumulation of cap- ital in the hands of a few, the introduction of free com- petition, by which the price of labor is reduced through the necessities of labor, and the invention of labor-saving machinery. "The laboring classes are the producers of all wealth, and the products of their labor are taken froni them by accumulated capital, by financial organizations, by com- merce, and by their forced competition against each other. ■'Labor is the poor man's only property ; but while the laws have fenced in the right of all other kinds of property — the sacredness of ownership in real estate, in chattels and all kinds of goods — the property of the poor man — his labor — is mercilessly taken from him by every species of fraudulent connivance, and yet the laws have no pity, no security for him. "Civilization does not actually guarantee to the labor- ing man so many of his rights as are secured in savage life. "Tlie Indian has the right of gathering the fruits of the field, of fishing, of liunting, and of pasturage — and these four rights are equivalent to the right of the soil and the right of labor — which the poor man in civilization does not possess. "Some rights have been extended to the people, and they are with one exception either illsuory or negative. 'The only practical, real right they have, is the right of suffrage; and with the exercise of this, intelligently directed, they have it in their power to secure all the others. "The present tendency of things is toward a commercial -!X THE LABOR AMENDMENT. find industrial feudalism, more fatal than the feudalism of middle ages. Already, manufactures had been brought under this system, and in a few years agriculture would he in the same situation." A modern definition of wage-slavery is given in John Mitchell's Organised Labor. "By the phrase wage-slavery" says the rrade union leader, '"is usually meant the condition of a practical en- slavement, brought about not by laws, but by the pangs of hunger." Mr. Mitchell preceded the definition by this statement : "Trade unionism is not based upon a necessary oppo- sition to the so-called wage-slavery." .'\nd he added : "The trade unionist recognizes that in certain sections of the country and in certain industries, the wage earners, especially women and children, are in a condition so de- based and degraded, and are so subject to oppression and exploitation, that it practically amounts to slavery. Where such wage-slavery exists, however, trade unionism is opposed to the slavery as such, and not to wages as such. Trade unionism is not irrevocably committed to its aboli- tion. It demands the constant improvement of the con- dition of the workingmen, if possible, by the maintenance of the present wage system, if not possible, by its ulti- mate abolition. . . . If it were ultimately to be shown that the wage system is incompatible with a high stand- ard of living and a full development of the capabilities of the American workingman, the host of organized labor would unite in an effort to secure its abolition." That book has recently figured in the proceedings in the courts of the District of Columbia against its author and other officers of the American Federation of Labor for contempt of the court. It was published in 1903. WAGE-SLAVERY. 29 Mr. Mitchell, as may be implied, then believed that there are wage workers who are wage slaves, and others who are not. In these views the Socialists differ from him. Every wagfe worker is a wage slave. He slaves for wages. Capitalism holds him in wage-slavery. ^Vage-slavery is not confined to the laborer working for wages. ■■• The farmer whose' lands and crops are mortgaged, and ^\■ho must accept for the crops and farm products an}- low price dictated by the commission merchants, is a \\age-slave. The storekeeper who depends upon the credit of the wholesale merchant or manufacturer is a wage-slave. The farmer and the storekeeper may have wage-slaves ill their own employ, yet when they look upon their work and the compensation therefor they find that they are wage-slaves, not in name, in fact. The wage-slave is not the property of an individual master, he is the slave of the capitalistic society. The wage-slave is a capitalistic slave. The capitalistic slave is a wage-slave. The centralization or trustification of capital has enor- mously increased the Great Army of the Unemployed. The workless workers, as Mr. Samuel Gompers styled them, are the worst wage-slaves of them all. The workless worker objects to neither wages nor wage-slavery to earn the daily bread. But the unemployed have no chance to slave for wages and to earn the daily bread. Trade unionism has raised the wages and reduced the hours of labor, always with a view of creating work for the unemployed. 30 THE LABOR AMENDMENT. The invention and introduction of improved machinery and the flow of immigration of unorganized labor have al- ways acted as a check upon these wholesome efforts of trade unionism. All the obstacles in its way to the contrary notwith- standing trade unionism has accomplished great good. But a financial panic like the trust-mad^ one of 1907 swells the rangs of the Great Army of the Unemployed — the industrial army in reserve, Karl Marx called it — and that army has come to stay. The standing army of the millions permanently un- employed want bread. Trade unionism can, and did, organize the workers who are employed. But no help can come to the Great Standing Army of the Unemployed from trade unionism. Only the legislative power of the people can help them. And that power will not be exerted unless trade union- ism is behind it. Trade unionism has heretofore been ORGANIZED LABOR IN THE DEFENSIVE. The "workmen have organized against oppression. All their lobbying in the legislative halls for labor laws, and their strikes in the mine%, mills, shops, factories, and commercial establishments, for higher wages, shorter hours, better treatment, better sanitary conditions, as well as their boycotts and their resistance in lockouts, were fights to protect their health, life, limb and offspring. They defended themselves against hunger, starvation, accidents, and untimely death. First despised and outlawed, trade unionism has fought inch for inch, but always in the defensive, for recognition from the capitnlistic employers. The organized workmen succeeded in making trade WAGE-SLAVERY. 31 agreements, in meeting legislators, congressmen, senators, governors, and Presidents, as peers of their capitalistic employers. The trade unionists accepted the invitation to organize the Civic Federation, thereby meeting the great, capitalistic powers, "the captains of industry" as peers. And yet the trade unionists were always in the defen- sive — non-committal on the abolition of wage-slavery, non-committal on the present system under which the workmen creating the wealth of to-day are robbed of the I'ruit of their labor by the possessors of the wealth or fruit of labor stolen yesterda)'. But the trade union organization of the workmen grew and the sums paid in dues into the union treasury grew accordingly; labor papers increased in number, and under Iheir trade agreements labor organizations enjoyed short periods of rest and peace, beneficial to a large number of workingmen. The growth and the benefits derived therefrom deceived many trade unionists into a sense of security. ORGANIZED CAPITAL, however, has always been IN THE AGGRESSIVE. The emplojers are not only the masters of their serv- ants, but the masters of the situation. Since the publication of Mr. Mitchell's book certain events have taken place, which have made the abolition of wage-slavery a live issue that cannot be relegated to a dim, distant future. The capitalist masters are now giving the organized workmen a fight in the courts. The judges, even where they are subjected to a pop- ular election, as in New York and Pennsylvania, are by the system of nomination as practically removed from the will of the people, as they are in New Jersey, where their 32 THE LABOR AMENDMENT. appointment lies with the Governor, or in the United States Courts, where they are appointed by the President, with the advice nnd consent of the Senate. Three recent decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States and a decision of the Supreme Court of the District of Columbia have put organized labor, trade unionism and the unorganized wage workers up in the air. While the country was still in the throes of the Finan- cial Panic of 1907 the Employers' Liability Act of Con- gress of July II, 1906, was declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Cotirt of the United States. That decision, published on January 6, 1908, left the railroad employees, or their families, dependent upon them, without a claim for damages in case of accident 01- death, which may result from the negligence of any other railroad employee, or h\ reason of any defect due lo the negligence in railroad cars, engines, etc. On top of this decision on January 27, 1908, came an- other one which declared Section 10 of tlie Arbitration Act of Congress of June i, 1898, known as the Erdman Act, unconstitutional. This section was intended to protect the workmen in their rights to join a trade union, and to prohibit the dis- crimination against union men and the blacklisting of workmen. Stunned by these two decisions, organized labor re- ceived a third shock from the decision of February 3, 1908, in the cause Dietrich Loewe et al. vs. Martin Lawlor et al., known as the Danbury Hatter case, brought under Sec- tion 7 of the Anti-Trust Act of July 2, 1890, known as the Sherman Act. That decision of the Court declares Ihe United Hatters of North America — a national trade union of workmen — to be a "combination to restrain and destroy interstate trade and commerce." \\'A(JIC-SLAVia^V. 33 Which means, the equal of a trust — a capitalistic trust. The Supreme Court assessed the damages to the busi- ness and property of the plaintifif at $80,000. "Under the Court's decision," said President Samuel Gompers in his annual report to the twenty-eighth annual convention of the American Federation of Labor, held at Denver, Colorado, in 1908, "all the labor organizations are held to be trusts, combinations, and conspiracies ip illegal restraint of trade, and they and each of their mem- bers are not only liable to three-fold damages claimed by any one, but also each member may be punished by a fine of $S,ooo and imprisonment for one year." This decision placed the property of the workmen at the discretion of the capitalistic master. Meanwhile the Buck's Stove and Range Company of St. Louis, Missouri, whose president, the late James W. \'an Cleave, was also president of the National Associa- tion of Manufacturers, had brought suit in the Supreme Court of the District of Columbia, and on December 18, 1907, secured an order from Mr. Justice Gould against the American Federation of Labor, its- officers, affiliated unions, and their members, to show cause, why an in- junction should not be issued restraining them from pub- lishing the Buck's Stove and Range Company upon the "We Don't Patronize" list of the American Federation of Labor. That temporary injunction became effective on Decem- ber 23, 1907, and was made permanent by Mr. Justice Clabaugh of the same court on March 26, 1908. That injunction prohibited the officers of the American Federation of Labor, the officers and members of all affil- iated unions, their agents, friends, sympathizers, counsel, conspirators and co-conspifators, either as officers or in- 34 THE LABOR AMENDMENT. dividuals, from making any reference whatsoever to the fact that the company has ever been regarded as unfair, or has ever been on any unfair list, or upon a "We Don't Patronize" list of the American Federation of Labor, or of any other organization. This injunction prohibited, furthermore, any and all persons from either directly or indirectly referring to any such controversy. " Such reference was also prohibited, by printed, written, or spoken word. "Shall we be denied the right of free press and free speech simply because we are workmen? The right to freely print and to speak has grown up through centuries of freedom. It has its basis in the fundamental guaran- tees of human liberty. It has been advocated and upheld by the ablest minds. Tremendous sacrifices have been made in its establishment. These rights must, cannot, and will not be complacently surrendered — they must not be forbidden by a court's injunction. Now it is the American Federation of Labor and the American Federa- tionist which are enjoined from the exercise of the right of free speech and the liberty of the press. In the future it may be another publication, and this injunction will then be quoted as a sacred precedent for future and future encroachments upon the rights and liberties of the people. The contention of labor zvith the Buck's Stove and Range Company sings into comparative insignificance contrasted with the great principles that are at stake." Such was the contention of Mr. Samuel Gompers on behalf of the American Federation of Labor, and an ap- peal was taken to the Court of Appeals of the, District of Columbia. In obedience to the order of the Court, however, the name of the Buck's Stove and Range Company was taken WAGE-SLA^'iiRV. 35 off the "We Don't Patronize" list in tlie official Monthly, The American Federationist, at once. Tliie publication of the list in its entirety was discon- tinued in all later issues of the American Federationist. In July, 1909 — this appeal still pending — a petition was presented by the Buck's Stove and Range Company and an order issued by the Supreme Court of the District of CoIumbSa against Samuel iGompers' .president; Frank Morrison, secretary, and John Mitchell, second vice-pres- ident, of the American Federation of Labor, to show cause why they should not be punished for contempt of the court. Before the appeal from this injunction was decided in the upper court these trade union officers were tried for contempt of this very injunction in the lower court, and on December 23, 1908, were sentenced by Mr. Jiistice Wright to imprisonment, Samuel Gompers for twelve months, John Mitchell for nine months, and Frank Mor- rison for six months. On March 11, 1909, the Court of Appeals of the Dis- trict of Columbia rendered a decision, Mr. Justice Van Orsdell delivering the opinion of the Court. Mr. Justice Robb who concurred in the conclusion gave dififerent rea- sons. Mr. Chief Justice Shepard dissented from the con- clusion of the Court. That decision greatly modified the original injunction, and eliminated the prohibition of free press and free speech as to the printing or discussing anything in rela- tion to the Buck's Stove and Range Company, or the dis- cussion of the injunction itself. This modification, by the way, permits to tell this story, without committing con tempt, of the court. 36 THE LABOR AMKNDMENl'. The appeal decision, however, still restrained the free- dom of the press in that it forbade the publication of the "We Don't Patronize" list, and enjoined the boycott. An appeal against these premature sentences for con- tempt of the court was taken. On November 2, 1909, the Court of Appeals of the Dis- trict of Columbia rendered a decision. Mr. Justice Van Orsdell delivering the opinion of the Court, Mr. Chief Justice Shepard dissenting. The judgment of the lower Court was ccaifirmed. In his opinion Mr. Justice Van Orsdell said : "Individual interests dwindle into insignificance -ivhen compared with the higher principle involved in this cause. The fundamental issue is whether the constitutional agen- cies of government shall be obeyed or defied." In his dissenting opinion Mr. Chief Justice Shepard said : "Convinced that the Court was without authority to make the only order which the defendants, Gompers, Mitchell and Morrison, can be said to have disobeyed, I can have no other opinion than that the decree should be reversed. ... I have heretofore expressed the opinion that much of the injunction order was null and void because opposed to the constitutional provision con- cerning the freedom of speech and of the press. Subse- quent reflection has confirmed the view. I can see that the Court had jurisdiction of the subject matter of the controversy and of the parties, but I cannot agree that the decree was rendered in accordance with the power of the court— a power limited by express provision of the Constitution is merely erroneous and not absolutely void." The whole cause has been taken to the highest court in the land. On December 6, 1909, the late Chief Justice Fuller WAGE-SLAVERY. 37 granted a petition for a writ of certiorari in the contempt case which will be passed upon by the Supreme Court of the United States in due course of time. The industrial dispute between organized labor and the Buck's Stove and Range Company came to an end after Air. Van Cleave, who died on May 15, 1910, was suc- ceeded by Mr. Frederick W. Gardiner as manager of that company. On July 19 a conference was held in Cincinnati, Ohio, in which the following participated: William H. Cribben and Thomas J. Hogan, representing the Buck's Stove and Range Company and the Founders' National Defense .Vssociation ; Joseph F. Valentine and John P.Frey, repre- senting the International Molders' Union of North Amer- ica : J. H. Daly and Charles R. Atherton, representing the Metal Polishers, Buffers, Platers and Brass Workers' In- ternational Union of North America; Frank Grimshaw and J. H. Kaefer, representing the Stove Mounters' In- ternational Union ; George Bechtold, representing the In- ternational Brotherhood of Foundry Employees, and Samuel Gompers, representing the American Federation of Labor. A agreement was made in conformity of which the labor organizations in interest had to make known and publicly declare — and Mr. Gompers did publish the glad news — ^that "all controversy arid differences with the Buck's Stove and Range Company has been satisfactorily and honorably adjusted." But — on August 1 1 a vicious attack was made upon Mr. Samuel Gompers and Mr. Frank W. Gardiner in a pam- phlet issued by American Industries, the official organ of the National Manufacturers' Association. Therein the de- cision of Justice Wright is quoted, setting forth his find- ings against the labor leaders; the death of James W- 38 THE LABOR AMENDMENT. Van Cleave, the former head of the Buck's Company and relentless enemy of the labor unions, is deplored as the cause of the change in front of that company; and then we read : "Samuel Gompers relied upon the forgetfulness when he perpetrated this despicable lie (meaning his giving the news of the agreement just related) ; he also built upon the fact that the man who dragged him and his asso- ciates in crime (meaning their devotion to the cause of labor) before the courts of justice is dead, and he thought that none was left to tell the truth." Furthermore, on September 3, Mr. C. W. Post, of Battle Creek, Michigan, a minority stockholder of the Buck's concern and a prominent promoter of the Anti- Boycott Association, made two new moves against organ- ized labor in the Federal Courts. He sought to obtain an injunction in Iowa, and filed a suit in equity in Missouri. In both cases the American Federation of Labor and the Buck's Stove and Range Company were made co-defend- ants. The petition to restrain the officers of the latter from carrying out an alleged tentative agreement with the offi- cers of the former to make the St. Louis establishment a closed shop, was heard by District Judge Smith McPher- son at Red Oak, Iowa, on September 5. The Court de- clined to issue an injunction, giving his reasons therefor, the most efficient being that the persons sought to be. enjoined had not been served with a notice. The suit in the Circuit Court of the Eastern Division, Judicial District of Missouri, is brought under the Sher- man Anti-Trust Act. The damages claimed are $750,000. .A.nd the trtide unions are compelled to spend their time ;md money in fighting^ off this frivolous raid upon their treasury, WAGE- SLAVERY. 39 ORGANIZED CAPITAL IS IN THE AGGRESS- IVE. The Danbury Hatter decision of the United States Supreme Court is undoubtedly the heaviest of all the heavy blows that rained upon the heads of the organized workmen. "No more sweeping, far-reaching, important, and un- just decision has ever been issued by a court," was the official comment of Mr. Gompers. "The Dred-Scott de- cision did not approach it in scope ; that decision involved comparatively few — those slaves who could make good their escape from a slave holding state. The decision of the Supreme Court in the Hatter's case involves every wage worker in our country — man and woman, white or black — who associate themselves permanently or tempo- rarily to protect or advance their human rights. "Free men's ownership of themselves involves their labor power, none but themselves are owners of their labor power. Hence it is essential that the product of a free man is his own. If he, by choice or by reason of his environment, sells his labor power to another and is paid a wage in return therefor, this wage is his own. . The free man's ownership of himself and his labor powei- implies that he may sell it to another or withhold it; that he may with others similarly situated sell their labor power or withhold it ; that no man has even an implied property right in the labor of another ; that free men may sell their labor power under stress of their needs, or they may with- hold it to obtain more advantageous returns. Any legis- lation or court construction dealing with the subject of organizations, corporations, or trusts which curtail or corner the products of labor, can have no true application to the association of free men in the disposition or with- holding of their labor power. ... In the disposition 40 THE LABOR AMENDMENT. of the wages returned from the sale of labor power, man is also his own free agent. All things he may lawfully buy, he may also lawfully abstain from buying. He may purchase from whomsoever he will, or he may give his patronage to another. ... No corporation or com- pany has a vested interest in the patronage of free men." Since the Supreme Court of the United States handed down the decision in the Danbury Hatter case, seventy-five workmen in New Orleans have been indicted for violation of the Sherman Anti-Trust Lay; the Supreme Court of Massachusetts has decided that it is illegal for workmen to engage in a strike in support of their fellow workmen, and that they are thereby liable to fine and imprison- ment; and the highest court in Massachusetts has sus- tained an injunction against a bricklayers' union, enjoin- ing the union from fining two of its members who vio- lated the rules of the union to become strike breakers. The Supreme Court of the United States has also re- cently declared unconstitutional : The law of the State of New York, limiting the hours of workmen in bakeshops to ten per day ; The Act of Congres, limiting the hours of telegraphers and other railroad employees of common carriers engaged in interstate commerce ; The Eight Hour Act so far as it applies to dredgemen in government employ. In the "Arrago" case, Robertson vs. Barry Baldwin, the Supreme Court has decided, that seamen may be forcibly brought to their vessels and forced against their will, notwithstanding the vessels may be in safe harbors. In short, trade unionism has again become outlawed. The firm of D. E. Loewe & Co., Danbury, Connecticut, has followed up its victory in the Supreme Court by suing the United Hatters of North America in the United States WAGE-SLAVERY. 41 District Court at Hartford, Connecticut, for $340,000, and by attaching the homes and personal savings of two hun- dred and fifty members of that union. On February 4, 1910, after a trial lasting four months, ■d jury brought in a verdict for the plaintiff of $74,000, which is automatically tripled by the Sherman Anti-Trust Act to $222,000, and with costs amounts to about $240,000. "Aside from the great principle laid down by this case, which for hundreds of years will be cited as a precedent and deterrent against both capital and labor," was the comment of Mr. Daniel Davenport, counsel for the hat- ter's firm, in the joy of his new victory, "the greatest question determined is that to which we have held, that every member who pays a dollar to his union, which in turn supports the national bodies, which form the Ameri- can Federation of Labor, is responsible for the acts and statements of the officers. Every union man in this coun- try is responsible, because he pays and, by proxies, votes for officeis, for what they do with their tremendous ma- chine, which would in time have ruined every independent merchant or manufacturer in the country, had this case of conspiracy gone against Mr. Loewe. It is a new declara- t ion of independence." ( Sic ! ) In the course of the trial it was brought out that D. E. Loewe & Co. were but the nominal plaintiffs, as the suit was backed by the capitalistic Anti-Boycott Association, with a member in every State, and a "defense fund" of millions. The Capitalistic Master is in the Aggressive. The workers may be maimed and killed without liabil- ity to the employer. They may be discharged and blacklisted for belonging lo a union. 42 THE LABOR AMENDMENT. They may be worked as many hours as employers please and under any conditions which they may impose. Strike and boycott are illegal. The homes and personal savings of the workers max- be attached, if it so pleases their employers. Jail threatens the spokesmen of the workmen and the editors of labor papers. Trade unionism, in the defensive, '\s outlawed. The story of the litigations, in which organized labor is involved, is a story of a Constitutional Barrier to laws protecting the labor and labor power of the toilers, for- tified by court injunctions against labor organizations, and of a heroic struggle of the organized workmen in the defensive against being outlawed. There is a tendency to find fault with the Supreme Court for declaring labor laws unconstitutional. It is lost sight of that the institution of the Supreme Court was a revolutionary act. Prior to the adoption of the Constitution of the United States had neither a President, nor a Senate, nor a Su- preme Court. There was but one House, the General Congress, whose President — merely a presiding officer — was elected at every session. "Congress reigned, but did not rule." The Congress was without power to impose taxes, but had assuipj^d power to incur debts. Historians contend that the debt incurred to carry on the Revolutionary War, for which the credit of the United States was pledged, kept the loosely confederated States together. By the division of the Government in three co-ordinate branches — Legislative, Executive, and Judiciary — the WAGE-SLAVERY. 43 people have in the Supreme Court — ^the highest judicial tribunal with jurisdiction above the State courts — a guardian of the Constitution. In monarchical countries, the courts — ^the mouthpieces of the crown — speak law in the name of the king or lord of the realm. In our country the Supreme Court watches over the Constitution which guarantees to every State in the Union a Republican Form of Government. When the Supreme Court declares that the Sherman Act puts labor organizations on an equality with capital- istic corporations, and that the boycott is illegal, the fault does not lie with the Supreme Court, but with Congress. It was Congress who handed the workmen a stone when the people cried for bread and relief from the rapacious trusts and greedy monopolies. Congress must be looked to for relief. Congress must amend the Anti-Trust law. When the Supreme Court declares, that it is unconsti- futional to pass a Liability Act allowing damages to the maimed, crippled, or killed railroad employees, and those dependent upon them, and that it is unconstitutional to stop employers from blacklisting workmen, the fault does not He with the Supreme Court, but zvith the Constitution. In these cases only an amendment to the Constitution can bring relief. And still Congress must act. But while the amendment to an act requires but a sim- ple majority of both Houses of Congress and the con- sent of the President, an amendment to the Constitution requires a two-thirds majority of both Houses and the ratification of three-fourths of the State Legislatures, 44 THE LABOR AMENDMENT. The Supreme Court decisions in the Employers' Lia- hilitv and Arbitration Act cases make it clear that TRADE UNIONISM AIUST FIGKT FOR AMEND- AFENTS TO THE CONSTITUTION. This fight cannot be made by Organised Labor in the Defensive. This fight puts Orgaiiirscd Labor IN THE AGGRESS- IVE. This is a popular fight, a fight in which the whole ]jeople must take part. It is a gigantic fight. Why, then, ask only for damages to railroad employees when maimed or killed while at work ? Or for the right to belong to a trade union without being blacklisted by the employer? Or for the right to boycott without fear of being strippel by a sheriff of meagre earnings ? When a fight to amend the Constitution must be made. \\ liy not for the purpose of restoring to the workman his inalienable exclusive right in and excluding the robbery of the fruits of his labor power? The time has come "when it is ultimately shown that the capitalistic wage system is incompatible with a high standard of living and a full development of the capa- bilities of the American workingman." The time has come "for the host of organized labor to unite in an effort to secure the abolition of the capitalistic wage-system." The time has come to demand the whole labor loaf and to stop pleading for a morsel. The time has come for the Abolition of Voluntary Servitude. V. THE ABOLITION OF WAGE-SLAVERY. Section I. Neither wage-slavery nor voluntary serv- itude shall exist within the United States, or any place mbject to their jurisdiction. s Trade unionism, we have been informed, does not ob- ject to wages as such, but to slavery as such. The preamble to the constitution of the American Fed- . eration of Labor reads as follows : ''Whereas, A struggle is going on in all the nations of the civilized world between the oppressors and the op- pressed of all coimtries, a struggle between the capitalist and the laborer, which grows in intensity from year to year, and will work disastrous results to the toiling mil- lions if they are not combined for mutual protection and benefit ; "It, therefore, behooves the representatives of the Trade and Labor Unions of America, in Convention assembled, to adopt such measures and disseminate such principles among the mechanics and laborers of our country as will permanently unite them to secure the recognition of rights to which they are justly entitled." The right to which any mechanic or laborer is justly entitled, is the fruit of his labor — ^the full equivalent of the vailiJe of his share of labor in the product of his labor. 46 THE LABOR AMENUTVIENJ'. When you go to the treasury with a twenty dollar treas- ury note to exchange it for coin, you are justly entitled to twenty dollars in change. If you get only five dollars in change back, you are cheated out of fifteen dollars belonging to you. When the laborer, mechanic, or farmer, produces twenty dollars' worth by his labor power, he is justly entitled to a compensation of twenty dollars in money. When the buyer of twenty dollars' worth of labor power gives the laborer, mechanic, or farmer, only five dollars in money, the toiler is cheated. When the law makes such transactions legal, the, toiler is a slave. He must bow to his master and say: "Thank you, sir. you might have been less generous." It is proposed to abolish wage-slavery or voluntary servitude. The people of the United States are divided into two classes, MASTERS and SERVANTS. In all labor cases pending in the United States Supreme Court, the relation between master and servant is the sub- ject of deliberation. Timothy Walker in Introduction to Amertcan Law, Lecture xvii, par. 115 — ^first published in 1837, in the days of negro slavery — ^says : "The title of master and servant does not sound very harmoniously in republican ears. In fact, we understand by relation of master and servant, nothing more or less than that of employer and employed. It is, therefore, created by contract; and might properly be treated under contracts; but custom has placed it among the personal relations." Here is an authority, that custom, custom only, has placed the telation of master and servant among the per- Till-: ABOLITION OF WAGE-SLAV ERV. 47 soiial relations, and that, created by contract, it might properly be treated under contracts, and, let us add, as contracts. To-day tlie master employs the servant, and the em- ployed looks to the master for a compensation for services rendered. That compensation is called zvages or salary. The amount of the compensation does not make a dis- tinction, j;^ The clerk who gets twelve dollars a week may call it salary. The bricklayer who earns thirty dollars a week calls it wages. The salary of the clerk and the wages of the bricklayer are pay for work done. It is the pay for work done, whether you call it wages or otherwise, which is not objected to. It is the slavery under the present mode of production, which, forming the system of earning wages, is ob- jected to. "But," is frequently asked, "if there is no wage-system, how will the laborer be compensated for work done?" The writer is not aware of a Socialist demand for the abolition of wage-systevi which might mean the abolition of compensation for labor. The abolition of the capitalistic Tvage-system or wage- slavery under the capitalistic rule is demanded. In the proposed Section wage-slavery is defined as Voluntary Servitude. What is voluntary servitude? The chattle slave and the serf are in mvoluntary servitude. They are not free to work or rest. They are driven to work by the lash. Physical force keeps them at work. The peon or debt-slave, at the beginning of his work -18 iHK LAHOR AMKNIJAU'-.NI'. under contract, is in voluntary servitude; thereafter he is in involuntary servitude. The Peonage Act of Congress makes this form of vol- untary servitude criminal and punishable by a fine of five thousand dollars, or by imprisonment of five years, or both. The laborer, mechanic and clerk are in voluntary servitude. Apparently they are at liberty to work or to loaf. Apparently their work hours, the condition of their work place, their treatment, and their pay, are accepted by their free will and consent. In reality, however, they are compelled to serve at the master's terms by a natural force, the pangs of hunger. The lash of the individual master is replaced by the lash of the law. The law provides penalties against vagrancy, begging, non-support of kin depending upon a bread earner. In reality, hunger and the law lash the worker into voluntary servitude. But while the law drives the working class into vol- untary servitude, it does not compel the master class to employ servants. Thus the system of voluntary servitude creates the Great Army of the Unemployed — ^the workless workers snuggling for bread in "the great struggle now going on in all the nations of the civilized world between the op- pressor and the oppressed, between the capitalist and the laborer." After the abolition of voluntary servitude, what? To-day the mechanic, laborer, clerk, or servant, is working under a private contract. That contract is private even if it has been made for THE ABOLITION OF WAGE-SLAVERY A9 him or her by a trade agreement of the union he ,9r ^she may belong to. Both parties to the contract, master and servant, are free and equal in law. But they remain master and servant. The worker remains in voluntary servitude, subject to the orders and whims of the master. > The private contract between master and servant, writ- ten or verbal, expressed or implied — ^voluntary on the part of the master, apparently voluntary, in reality involun- tary on the part of the servant — is Voluntary Servitude. When wage-slavery or voluntary servitude is abolished there is neither master nor servant. There are branches of occupations — they will be con- sidered later on — in which individual employers will need the services of individual employees. But their relation shall be subject to a public contract. Private contracts are regulated by law. By law the terms of the public contracts shall be regu- lated. They must be compulsoiy. Both contracting parties shall be peers, not by custom, not by implication, not by construction, but in reality. Through the development of capitalism the former pa- triarchal or personal relation between employer and em- ployed has disappeared to a large extent and is gradually becoming extinct. •, While there niaj{, still, be many cpncerns where the em- ployment of help is done by the eqiployer or an irrespon- sible agency of his, there are many others who get their employees through a trade union. W^hen they want "hands," the union sends them. The employer does not care who they are as long as they turn (Oijit the work required of them. ., • These labor coiitrac!ts' are quisi^^uWi<:i ; 50 THE LABOR AMENDMENT. Some responsible body — the trade union— rwatches over the interest of those employed under these contracts. After the abolition of wage-slavery the law shall watch over the interests of all employed. Unless that is done there is no abolition of wage- slavery. The proposed Secticxi I may be called by the "Demo- crats of the old school" another "invasion of the rights of the States," another "long step in the direction of cen- tralization, conferring upon the National Government a power that may be abused." Capitalistic interests have no reverence for State rights. Wall Street likes the legiriatures best when they are adjourned. There are now but six States wherein annual sessions of the legislature are held — Georgia, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island and South Carolina. All the other States hold biennial sessions, except Ala- bama, whose legislature holds quadrennial sessions. In but sixteen States there is no limit to legislative session. In the other States and Territories the session is limited to forty-five, fifty, sixty, seventy-fi!ve, or ninety days. Annual elections for State Legislatures take place in Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York and Rhode Island. All the other States have biennial elections, except Ala- tmma, where the legislature is elected every four years. The popular elections diminished at the dictation of corporations and capitalistic interests. The popular elections have been cut in half, and one- half has been confiscated. There has been a continu»us iayasion ,qf the rights of the people of I the Stilus. "^,, Tl-lli AliOl.lJIoX OF WyVGii-SLAVKRY. 51 U'hat is more deplorable than the invasion of the rights of the States, Wall Street does not shy at "centralization" or at "con- ferring upon the National Government a power that may be abused," as long as it directs that power. The power conferred upon the National Government liy the Thirteenth Amendment to abolish slavery or in- voluntary servitude will be extended by Section I of the proposed amendment to the abolition of wage-slavery or voluntary servitude. That is not "a long step in the direction of centrali- zation," it is THE CENTRALIZATION. It is the centralization, conferring upon the National Government a power, heretofore exercised by the irre- sponsible money kings of the world, partly identified, partly unidentified, known in our country as Wall Street, in London as Lombard Street, in Piaris as La Bourse, in Berlin as Die Boerse; a power that heretofore has been, and still is, abused, and whose abuse can only be stopped by the National Gjoyernment, Republican in Form — a Government responsible to the people of the United States. It is the centralization, conferring upon the National Government the power to master the industrial "condition that confronts us," to make all citizens, now equal in law, henceforth equal in indinstry, and to enforce industrial democracjs througjhojut the jurisdiction of the United States. It is the centralization which brings Socialist Order out of the industrial chaos under capitalism, and which means Industrial Emancipation — ^the Emancipation of the Wage- Slave. VI. CONFISCATION OR COMPENSATION ? Section II. The Congress shall have power: I. To acquire all lands, forests, watersheds, lakes, rivers, mines, oil wells, quarries-, railroads, ferries, bridges, marines, telegraphs, telephones, express services, and all movable, and immovable, means of production, transport, exchange, distribution, and commimication. The Socialist platforms are silent on the mode of ac- quiring the means of production and exchange. The National Platform of the Socialist Party, adopted at Chicago, May 13, 1908, composed of a declaration of principles, a preamble, and a program specifying six gen- eral, seven industrial, and eleven political demands, reads, as follows: "The private ownership of land and means of produc- tion used for exploitation, is the rock upon which class rule is built; political government is its indispensible in- strument. The wage-workers cannot be freed from ex- ploitation without conquering the political power and substituting collective for private ownership of the land and means of production used for exploitation." The mode of "substituting collective for private owner- ship" is not defined. The National Platform of the Socialistic Labor Party, adopted at New York, July, 1908, reads, as follows : CONFISCATION OR COMPENSATION. 53 "And now we also call upon all intelligent citizens to place themselves squarely upon the ground of working class interests, and join us in this mighty and noble work of Human emancipation, so that we put a summary end to the existing barbarous class conflict by placing the land and all the means of production, transportation, and dis- tribution into the hands of the people as a collective body, and substituting the co-operative commonwealth for the present state of planless production, industrial war, and social disorder, a commonwealth in which every worker shall have the free exercise and full beneh't of his faculties, multiplied by all the modern factors of civili- zation." Tlie mode of "placing the land and all the means of production, transportation, and distribution in the hands of the people as a collective body" is not defined, either. Ferdinand I^assalle, the Father of the German Social- ist Democracy, although a disciple of Marx and standing upon the Communist Manifesto, inaugurated his propa- gandism in 1862, by demanding a State credit of one hundred rriillion thalers ($75,ooo,ckx)) for the establish- ment of "Producers' Associations" or co-operative work- shops, as a nucleus for the gradual socialization of in dustry. Karl Marx did not look kindly upon the stand taken by Lassalle. He was to the end of his life an uncompro- mising adherent to this early declaration in the Com- munist Manifesto : "The Communists disdain to conceal their views and aims. They openly declare that their ends can be attained only by the forcible overthrow of all existing social con- ditions." "The practical application of the principles," says the Joint Preface by the Authors to the German edition of 54 THE LABOR AMENDMENT. the Manifesto, in 1872, "will depend everywhere and all times on the historical conditions for the time being. . . The working class cannot simply lay hold of the readymade state machinery, and wield it for its own pur- poses." The following quotations from the article in the Satur- day Evening Post, above referred to, will show that the American Socialist writers are likewise indefinite on the mode of acquisition. "The Socialists," says Eugene V. Debs, the nominee of the Socialist Party in two campaigns, 1904 and 1908, "will doubtless proceed to take over, as rapidly as may consistently be done, the essential means of social produc- 'tion and distribution, begmning with the most highly centralized and monopolized and miost perfectly organ- zed." "If we should elect a President and a majority of Con- gress," says Victor Berger, the Milwaukee editor, "we'd simply take possession of the trusts and let the nation own them. . . If our people learn from history, they'll pay for the means of production. It is the cheapest way, the best way." "The only way to adapt ourselves to a monopolistic control of industry," says Gaylord Wilshire, of Wilshire's Magazine, "is to have th» nsonopolies taken over by the State." "We may proceed in either of two ways," says John C. Chase, the former Socialist Mayor of Haverhill, Mas- sachusetts. "We may take over the means of production by purchase — pay so many dollars and cents for them — or we may take possession of them by force. . , . The people will have to take possession gradually." "Personally," says J. Mahlon Barnes, the National Secretary of the Socialist Party, "I'd use the power of CONFISCATION OR COMPENSATION, 55 taxation^-to the limit of confiscation, if you please — to change the ownership of wealth from private to public. The taxing power of the Government is right here now. It would not require even a constitutional amendment." "If conditions," says William Mailly, a Socialist writer, "are such that complete and immediate assumption of in- dustry is not possible at the time, we will gradually take possession of those industries which are best organized and most highly developed. . . We may do this by purchase or by appropriation. Myself, I favor abso- lute appropriation." "The working class interest being dominant in the Government," says Bernard Berlyn, a member of the National Committee of the Socialist Party from Chicago, "would work out the details just as the opportunities de- mand. The most pressing things would present them- selves first. The complete transformation might take a generation. And it might be hastened, not by any action of the then dominant working class, but through the continued resistance of the beaten capitalist class." The American disciples of Karl Marx, like their great teacher, adhere to the policy so forcibly illustrated by .Abraham Lincoln's characteristic anecdote of the young preacher who was exhorted "not to cross the Big Muddy before he reached it." The demand for appropriation of confiscation has one advantage. It is "short, simple, direct." But it is very indefinite. In our great country, comprising forty-eight sovereign State governments and a continental domain, mostly thinly populated, of 3,616,484 square miles, and an insular pos- session of 125,671 square miles, there are political and geographical obstacles jn the waj^ of confiscation. 56 THE LABOR AMENDMENT. Tlie make-up and frame of mind of our people offer another obstacle. We have a vigorous master class, not an effeminate idler class, to deal with. And they have a Constitution to defend. Confiscation is just as indefinite as speculation or dream. It is the prerogative of the philosopher to speculate, and of the wage-slave to dream of appropriating or con- fiscating what he feels belongs to him. Legislation, however, is definite. The legislator inay neither speculate nor dream. The legislator must make up his mind and say what he wants. He must write down his legislative intent without ambiguity. With the legislator it cannot be either one or another thing. It can be only one thing; He must act. That is why a law is called An Act. Section I of the proposed amendment ordains the eman- cipation of the wage-slaves. Section II of the proposed amendment ordains the acquisition, which means the purchase, of all" means of production and exchange. Section II means COMPENSATED EMANCIPA- TION. Attention must be called to the following provisions of the Constitution : "ARTICLE VI, Section 2. The Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pur- suance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the L?ind ; and the Judges in every State CONFISCATION OR COMPENSATION. 57 ihall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding. "Amendment V. No person shall be ... . de- prived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law ; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation. ■'Amendment XIV, Section 5. The validity of the pub- lic debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insiuTection and rebellion, shall not be questioned." Here are the treaties with foreign nations, private prop- erty, and the public debt of the United States, which are protected by the Constitution. To disregard these constitutional provisions would mean to invite' a war with all foreign nations with whom we have' treaties, and a worse calamity-^<;ivil war. The proposed Labor amendment is Peace, not War, legislaition". VII. THE COST OF COMPENSATED EMANCI- PATION. The power of Congress to acquire land is unques- tioned. But it was not always so. The Louisiana country, Florida, the Gadsden purchase and Alaska were peaceably acquired and paid for. Peaceably acquired, too, were Oregon, by the right of discovery ; Texas, by Joint Resolution of the Congress of the United States and of the Republic of Texas; the Hawaiian Islands and the Panama Canal Zone, by an- nexation treaties; and a part of the Samoa Islands, by convention treaties. Porto Rico, Guam and the Philippine Islands were ac- quired by conquest in the war with Spain. The annexation of Texas led to the Mexican War. Mexico received for its lost Territory !$i8,2So,ooo. Spain was indemnified with $20,100,000. These acquisi- tions are, therefore, purchases. The United States evidently acted in conformity with the Fifth Amendment, and allowed Mexico and Spain ■'a just compensation for private property taken for pub- lic use." President Thomas Jefferson considered his action of acquiring the Louisiana country unconstitutional, and even drew an amendment tn the Constitution so as to COST OF COMPENSATED EMANCIPATION. 59 legalize the purchase from Napoleon Bonaparte. He was dissuaded from sending this amendment to Congress. Since that time the power of Congress to acquire land by purchase is one of the unwritten supreme laws of our country. The acquisition under Thomas Jefferson and all later ones — likewise unconstitutional — were expansions of the national domain. They did not meddle with the private property of the people residing in these territories. Other land acquisitions by the Government are the Dis- trict of Columbia, which was ceded by the States of Vir- ginia and Maryland, the territories formerly owned b)' Indian tribes, and the plots located in the several States. These acquisitions furnished the seat of the Govern- ment, homesteads for settlers, and sites for Government reservations, such as postoffices, under-treasuries, custom houses, lighthouses, immigrant stations, quarantines, na tional cemeteries, post roads, soldiers' homes, navy yards, military and naval schools and stations, fortifications, forts, magazines, arsenals, dock yards, and "other need- ful buildings." We have now both private and Government ownership in land acquired by Congress. Under the homestead laws and. the acts rewarding mili- tary service for the country. Government land was sold or given away and became private property. The heaviest cut into the Government ownership of land was made by the land grant to corporations. Now it is proposed that Congress shall have powei to acquire "ALL lands and all movable and immovable means of production and exchange." It means that Congress shall acquire all private prop- (=rtv known as "capital investment" or "business property." 60 THE LABOR AMENDMENT. The Government ownership of mmes, raih-oads, tele- graphs," telephones and express services^ — an issue, but not a Socialist issue in the United States, the Socialist Part}' demanding co-operative ownership — is an established fact in foreign countries. Prussia owns coal mines; Austria, salt mines; Russia, gold and silver mines. In Germany and other countries, the railroads, tele- graphs and telephones are under government control; and the parcel transportation, our private express service, is a department of the postal service. These government mines, telegraphs, telephones and parcel posts are run for reasons of state, financial and military. They are not run for the benefit of the employees. The acquisitions of railroads, mines and other property of public service corporations for the Government- does not oflfer any difficulty! An exchange of corporation stocks and bonds for Gov- errimeiit bonds would accomplish it. That mode of acquisition for such private property may be adopted, we should think, without any further consti- tutional amendment. The Fifth Amendment ordains : "Nor shall private property be taken for public use without just compensa- tion." To the lay mind it means that Congress has power to determine what private property is needed for public use, to take it, and to fix a just compensation. That power is called the "eminent domain." Congress, however, has no expressed power to take private property for commercial use. Section II of the proposed amendment will confer that power, r(_)Sr OF rOMFENSATKD I'.MANCIPATIOiN. 61 What may it cost to acquire ALL means of production and exchange? A report of the United States Census Bureau in 1907 presented the following classification of the forms in which the National Wealth of the United States in the year 1904 is divided, with their valuations : NATIONAL WEALTH, UNITED STATES, 1904. Real property and improved taxed $55,510,228,057 Real property and improvements exempt 6,831,244,570 Live stock 4,073,791,736 Farm implements and machinery ,. 844,989,863 Manufacturing machinery, tools and implements.. 3,297,754,180 Gold and silver coin and bullion 1,998,603,303 Railroads and their equipment 11,244,752,000 Street railways 2,219,966,000 Telegraph systems 227,400,000 Telephone systems 585,840,000 Pullman and private cars 123,000,000 Shipping and canals 846,489,804 Privately owned water works 275,000,000 Privately owned central electric light and power stations 562,851,105 Agricultural products 1,899,379,652 Manufactureid products 7,409,291,668 Imported .ipercliaridise, 495,543,685 Mining produrts.. .......... . .............:.. 408,066,787 Clothing and personal adornments 2,500,.000,000 Furniture, carriages and-k-indrisd-propertyiiV:-. .. .^ Sj750}000,000 Total ^^ ..... . .$107,10^192,410 Twenty .fprms of national ,^ea,lt^ ^aggr.egating^^bre than Qne Hundred Seven. Binijon,E)plJars:^;: .,.._...■ . .. ^ . f.J THE LABOR AMENDMENT. This classification shows but in a general way what private property may be "movable anl immovable means of production, transport, exchange, distribution, and com- munication" ; or "marketable merchandise in possession of the capitalist, or marketable merchandise in possession of the toiler who produced it"; or may be "in possession of the consumer or owner for ultimate use". For a better understanding let us rearrange the official table by classes, and speak in round sums of Million Dollars. NEW CLASSIFICATION OF NATIONAL WEALTH. CLASS A. Gold and silver bullion, 1,998 ; clothing and personal adornments, 2,500; furniture, carriages and kin- dred property, 5,750 million dollars. Coin and bullion — partly in public treasuries, partly privately owned — ^are a medium of circulation. ' Clothing and furniture, let us assume, have reached the ultimate owner — the consumer enjoying their use value. Neither coin and bullion, nor clothing and furniture will appear in the bill of sale to be presented by the pres- ent owners when the acquisition shall take place. CLASS B. Agricultural products, 1,899; manufac- tured products, 7,409 ; imported merchandise, 495 million dollars. These home and foreign products will not figure in the acquisition account. They are in the market now. Let the owners do, as they always did, sell the products in the open market. COST OF COMPENSATED EMANCIPATION, 63 CLASS C. Railroads and their equipment, 11,244; telegraph systems, 227 ; telephone systems, 585 ; Pullman cars, 123; mining products, 408; shipping anl canals, 846 million dollars. State canals do not require acquisition. All the other private property in this class, being means of exchange, must be acquired for the Government. Government ownership will replace private ownership. The workers, now servants of corporations or individ- ual masters, will become employees of the Government or public servants. CLASS D. Street railways, 2,219; water works, 275; electric light and power stations, 562 million dollars. This property is means of exchange, and — excepting all now owned by States and municipalities, not requiring ac- quisition — is to be acquired for the States and munici- palities wherein it is located. CLASS E. Manufacturing machinery, tools and im- plements, 3,297 million dollars. They are means of production, to be acquired for the producers and workers engaged in manufacturing. CLASS F. Live stock, 4.073; farm implements and machinery, 844 million dollars. Live stock and farm implements, the product of labor of the farmer tilling the soil and breeding the stock, does not require acquisition. The farmer is a producer entitled to the fruit of his labor and the means of production, required by him. Monster ranches and farms owned by private corpora- tions monopolizing means of production and exchange, require acquisition. 04 THE LABOR AMENDMENT. CLASS G. Real property and improvements exempt, 6.831 ; real property and improvements taxed, 55,510 mil- lion dollars. The exempt real property — Government, State, munici- pal, charitable institutions, homes of veterans — do not re- quire acquisition. The real property and improvements taxed require a classification for acquisition purposes. There are 5,739,657 farms (Census of 1900) ; they, do not require acquisition unless they class tmder monster ranches and farms monopolized by corporations or other exploiters. Neither does the modest home of the worker nor tlie splendid mansion of the rich, wherein each houses his family, require acquisition. There were 7,218,755 persons owning their homes in 1900. There are 7,266,222 dwellings, improved factory sites which are means of production and exchange, and tene- ments now in possession of the greedy landlord, which are means of extortion. These dwellings require acquisi- tion. In recapitulating, let us assume, for argument sake, tha,t the valuations in Qasses C, D, E and G may be the purchase price when the acquisition takes place. Mr. Capitalist wilL present smiling — or, maybe, with a sour face — the following bill of sale : COST OF COMPENSATED EMANCIPATION. 6S THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, TO THE CAPITALIST CLASS, Dcbtor : Railroads and their equipments $11,244,000,000 Telegraph systems 227.000,000 Telephone systems 585,000,000 Pullman cars 123,000,000 Mining products 408,000,000 Shipping and canals 846,000,000 Street railways 2,219,000,000 Water works 275,000,000 Electric light and power stations 562,000,000 Manufacturing machinery, tools and im- plements 3,297,000,000 Real property and improvements taxed.. 55,510,000,000 Total $75,296,000,000 Please remit. Seventy-Five Billion Dollars ! Where is all the money to come from to pay that bill ? "Where did all the money come from, enabling the cap- italist class to present that bill?" the adherent to the doc- trine of confiscation will ask in reply. "Issue registered interest-bearing United States bonds redeemable in twenty years in legal tender of the United States," is the answer of the Compensationist. The bonds, their redemption and the rate of interest will be discussed in another chapter. Seventy-five billion dollars and twenty years' accumu- lated interest for the abolition of wage-slavery! Compensated emancipation comes high, but wc must have it. VIII. THE ABOLITION OF THE UNEMPLOYED. Section II. The Congress shall have power : 2. To regulate private services, agriculture, intrastate commerce, imports, and exports; and to provide for the occupation of all who are able to work in such work as they are qualified to perform, and for the care of all who are unable to work. The regulation ordained by the proposed Clause 2 of Section II invades a field heretofore reserved to the States and the capitalist class. In the decision of the United States Supreme Court in William Adair vs. United States, declaring Section lo of the Erdman Act sinconstitutional, Mr. Justice Harlan, delivering the opinion of the Court, said : "Let us inquire what is commerce, the power to regu- late which is given to Congress ? This question has been frequently propounded in this court, and the answer has been — and no more specific answer could well have been given^hat commerce among the several States compre- hends traffic, navigation, communication, the transit of persons and the transmission of messages by telegraph — indeed, every species of commercial intercourse among the several States, but not to that commerce completely in- ternal, which is carried on bt-twccn man and man- in a Sute, 01' hct-w ci'ii (lifTcriiUt parts of the same Stale, and THE ABOLITION OF THE UNEMPLOYED. 67 which does not extend to or affect other States. The Ijower to regulate interstate commerce is the power to prescribe rules by which such commerce must be gov- erned."' Tn the decision, declaring tlie Employers' Liability Act unconstitutional, Mr. Justice While, delivering the opin- ion of the Court, quoted from Chief Justice Marshall: "If, as has always been understood, the sovereignity of Congress, though limited to specified objects, is plenary as to those objects, the power over commerce with for- eign nations, and among the several States, is vested in Congress as absolutely, as it would be in a single govern- ment, having in its constitution the same restrictions on (he exercise of the power as are found in the Constitution of the United States." The power of Congress to regulate commerce with for- eign nations ;ind among the several States is, therefore, imquestioned. But it has been decided by the Supreme Court that Congress has not the power to regulate the purely inter- nal commerce of llie States — the Intrastate Commerce. It is now proposed to extend the power of Congress tn the regulation of intrastate commerce, "which is carried on between man and man in a State. Expressing the views of the workingmen in a Labor Day article in the American Federationist, Mr. Andrew Furuseth, president of the International Seamen's Union of America, said: "Take care of the employers, and let the employers take care of their employees — seems to be the rule by which it is endeavored to create a working class that shall feel itself as a working class, and in all humility be sat- isfied with whatever the employer thinks he can afford f<> give or to do." 68 THE LABOR AMENDMENT. It is now proposed that the employees shall be directly taken care of. The Census of 1900 divides the persons of 10 years (!) of age and over iu the United States engaged in 303 specific occupations — 29/287,070 in number — as' follows : PERSONS ENGAGED IN 303 OCCUPATIONS, UNITED STATES, 1900. 10,438,218 in agricultural pursuits. 1 264,536 in professional service. .1.639,778 in domestic and personal service. 4,778,233 in trade and transportation. 7,112,304 in manufacturing, and mechanical pur.suils. .'V new classification of occupations is made by Clause 1 of Section II of the proposed amendment. That clause divides the people in two new classes — All zvlio are able to ivork and All who are unable to ivork. Unable to work are the very young and the very old, the sick and the incapacitated, who do not, and can not, render services. All who are able to work render services — services to be specified. The new specification of services discards the old clas- sification by the economists in productive and non-pro- ductive workers, in workers who create wealth or render useful or ornamental services, in skilled and unskilled labor, in common laborers and distinguished gentlemen "who are working, too." Economic equality is established. All who render services form the working eoninion- wealth based upon the democratic principle of individual liberty. tHE ABOLFUON iM' THK UNEMPLOYED. (.y But there will be Co-operative Workers and Individual Workers. The co-operative worker will render Co-operative Serv- ices for which he will receive wages. The individual worker, who prefers to stay outside the fold o£ co-operation, will render Individual Services. He receives no zvages, and depends for a living upon his "business." The Individual Worker remains an independent busi- ness man. Then these questions will arise: '"Does a person render co-operative or individual serv- ices?" "What work is a person qualified to perform V "To what Service does that work belong?" The nature of the Service forms the basis of legislative action. The service in and for the commonwealth may be sub- divided in Public, Agriculttiral, Industrial, Commercial., Professional, and Private Services — rearranging the thirty million persons engaged as given by the Census of 1900, in figures of round thousands — as follows: A. PUBLIC SERVICE. 40,595 officials (national government). 28,378 mail letter carriers (national government) . 4,345 officials (state government). 22,^^7 officials (county government). 22,573 officials (city or town government). 105,894 United States soldiers. 18,450 United States sailors. 4,392 United States marines. 1.16,6125 watchmen, policemen and detectives. ■n THE LABOR AMENDMENT. 14,576 firemen (Fire Department). 439,522 teachers (public schools, etc.). 7,275 professors in colleges and universities. 4,184 librarians and assistants. 35,000 actors, theatrical managers. 30,000 archit€!cts, designers, draftsmen. 25,000 artists and teachers of art. 15,000 chemical workers (fertilizer makers, powder and cartridge makers, salt works employees, starch makers). 9,000 chemists, assayers and metallurgists. 20,000 civil engineers. 30,000 dentists. 504,000 draymen, teamsters and expressmen. 36,000 carriage and hack drivers. 15,000 electrical and mechanical engineers. 50,000 electricians. 6,000 electric light and p6wer »ompany employees. 12,000 elevator tenders. 73,000 fishermen and oystermen. 35,000 foremen and overseers (steam railroad). 1,000 foremen and overseer-s (street railways). 7,000 gas works employees. IT, 000 hunters, trappers, guides and scouts 51,000 janitors.. 33,000 livery stable l*eepers. 20,000 longshoremen. 115,000 lawyers. 9,000 laborers in coal yards. 345,000 miners (coal). 60,000 miners (gold and silver). 133,000 miners (not specified). 3,000 mining engineers. 92,000 musicians and teachers of music. THE ABOLITION OF THE UNEMPLOYED. 71 121,000 nurses and midwives. 54,000 officials and cashiers (bank^ insurance, trust, transportation companies). T 8,000 officials (mining and quarrying companies). 25,000 oil well and oil works employees. 132,000. physicians and surgeons. 35,000 quarrymen. 80,000 boatmen, canalmen, pilots, sailors. 582,000 steam railroad employees.. 69,000 street railway employees. 6,000 surveyors. 15,000 tdegraph and telephone linemen. 75,000 telegraph and telephone operators. 16,00® undertakers. 8,000 veterinary surgeons. 6,000 weighers, gangers and measurers. B. AGRICULTURAI, SERVICE. 5,663,000 farmers and planters. 2,366,000 farm laborers (members of family). 85,000 stock raisers, herders andd rovers. 72,000 lumbermen and raftsmen. 62,000 gardeners, florists and laborers. 36,000 wood choppers. 25,000 turpentine farmers and laborers.. 18,000 farm and plantation overseers. .T 1,000 dairymen and dairy woraen. 6,000 other agricultural pursuits. 2,045,000 agricultural laborers. C. INDUSTRIAL SERVICE. 158,000 manufacturers and officials. 20,000 foremen and overseers in industries. /_' THE LABOR AMKNJDMKN T. S7,ooo builders and contractors. 1,215,000 building trades — carpenters and joiners, ship carpenters, brick and stone masons, mascai's laborers, painters, glaziers, varnishers, paper hangers, plasterers, plumbers, gas and steam fitters, roofers, slaters, and other mechanics not specified. 170,000 clay, glass and stone products — brick and tile makers, terra cotta workers, glass workers, marble and stone cutters, potters. 225,000 engineers and firemen (not locomotive). 317,000 food and kindred products — ^bakers, butchers, butter and cheese makers, fish curers and pack- ers, confectionery, meat and fruit canners and presei-vers; meat packers, curers and pick- lers; sugar makers and refiners, millers, and other food preparers. 907,000 iron and steel and their products — ^blacksmiths, iron and steel workers, machinists, steam boiler makers; stove, furnace and grate makers; tool and cutlery makers, wheelwrights, wire workers. 306,000 leather and its finished products— boot and shoe factory operatives, other shoemakers and repairers, leather curriers and tanners, trunk makers, leather-case and pocketbook makers, glove makers. 45,000 liquor and beverages — bottlers and soda- water makers, brewers and majsters, distillers and rectifiers. 356,000 lumber and its manufactures — cabinet makers, coopers, furniture manufactory employees, lum- ber yard employees, piano and organ makers, saw and planing mill employees. IHli AbOLiTiON OK THK UNEMPLOYED. n 204,000 metal and metal products other than iron and steel — ^brass workers, molders, helpers; clock and watch factory operatives, clock and watch- makers and repairers, copper workers, electro- typers, lead and zinc workers, jewelry manu- factory employees, gunsmiths, locksmiths, bell hangers, tinplate makers^ tinners and tinware makers, tinsmiths, other metal workers. 233,000 paper and printing — ^bookbinders, compositors, electrotypers and stereotypers, engravers, paper box makers, paper and pulp mill operatives, printers, lithographers, and pressmen. 1,480,000 textiles— artificial flower makers, bleachery and dye works operatives, cotton ginners; carpet factory, cotton mill, hosiery and knitting mill, silk mill, woolen mill, hemp and jute mill, linen mill, print works, rope and cordage factory, worsted mill, and other textile mill operatives; dress makers, hat and cap makers, milliners, seamstresses; shirt, collar and cuff makers; tailors and tailoresses, rag carpet makers, lace and embroidery makers; sail, awning and tent makers; sewing machine operatives, and other textile workers. 131,000 tobacco and cigar factory operatives. 565,000 miscellaneous industries — broom and brush makers, button makers; candle, soap and tal- low makers ; charcoal, coke, and lime burners ; corset makers, model and pattern makers, piano and organ tuners, rubber factory operatives, umbrella and parasol makers, upholsterers, straw workers, well borers, whitewashers, and others not specified. -I THE LABOR AMENDMENT. D. COMMERCIAL SERVICE. 119,000 agents (insurance and real estate). 122,000 agents (not specified). 3,000 auctioneers. 66,000 bankers and brokers (money and stocks). 7,000 brokers (commercial). 255,000 bookkeepers and accountants. 603,000 clerks and copyists. 92,000 commercial travelers. 3,000 decorators, drapers and window dressers. 76,000 hucksters and peddlers. 792,000 merchants and dealers (retail) — drugs and medicines ; dry goods, fancy goods and notions ; groceries, liquors and wines, boot and shoes, cigars and tobacco, clothing and men's furnish- ings, coal and wood, general store, lumber, produce and provisions, others not specified. 42,000 merchants and dealers (wholesale) — including importers and shipping mercliants (exporters). 72,000 messenger, errand, bundle, cash and ofiice boys and girls. 7,000 newspaper carriers and newsboys. 20,000 officials in trade companies. 104,000 packers, shippers, porters, helpers (in stores, etc.). 27,000 photographers. 611,000 salesmen and saleswomen. 113,000 stenographers and typewriters. E. PROFESSIONAL SERVICE. 36,000 authors, scientists, journalists. 112,000 clergymen. THE ABOLTTTON OF THR UNEMPLOYED. 75 li,ooo publishers of' books, maps and newspaper's, 5,000 others not specified. ' F. PRIVATE SERVICE. 131,000 barbers and hair dressers. 89,000 bartenders. 8,000 bootblacks. 71,000 boarding and lodging-house keepers. 55,000 hotel keepers. 34,000 restaurant keepers. 84,000 saloon keepers. 65,000 hostlers. 155,000 housekeepers and stewards.. 1,458,000 servants. 6,000 sextons. 107,000 waiters. 2,588,000 laborers in domestic and personal service not specified. Let us consider first the Individual Worker. You MAY FIND HIM IN ANY OF THE NEWLY CLASSIFIED SERVICES. Artists and musicians, teachers of art or music, and doctors and professors of medicine and surgery of an established reputation and practice may prefer to be in- dividual workers, not enlisting in the Public Service of the Government, State or municipality, to which they belong. The millions of farmers, cultivating their lands, with the help of their famihes, will remain individual workers in the Agricultural Service. In the Industrial Service co-operation will be the rule. There may be exceptions. The inventor, for instance, may choose to drift for himself. The Commercial Service will furnish, even after the /■ft JHK LABOR AMENDMENT. complete organization of the co-operative distribution, a very large number of individual workers — ^agents, brokers, hucksters, peddlers, retail and wholesale merchants and dealers, importers and exporters. The Professional Service comprises all who are pro- tected by the First Amendment, ordaining that: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establish- ment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof ; or abridging the freedom of the speech, or of the press ; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances." Clergymen, editors and lecturers are and will remain individual workers. Authors, scientists, journalists and publishers may have a choice between individual and co-operative work. In the Private Service we find individual and co-oper- ative workers. Hotel, saloon, restaurant and boarding and lodging- house keepers, rendering a semi-public service, are in- dividual workers, who have been subject to legislative regulation reserved to the States, for the protection against imposters, and of the public, for raising revenue, and from motives of oppression, bigotry and hypocrisy. They may become co-operative workers, forming munici- pal departments of the Public Service. Barbers, bartenders, bootblacks, hairdressers, hostlers, housekeepers, stewards, servants, sextons, waiters and the domestic and personal laborers not specified, although co-operative workers, may furnish a quota of individual workers. The individual worker who needs help, must get it from among the co-operative workers, unless he is helped by a member or members of his family, or by a partner or partners sharing the fruits of their labor in common. THE ABOLITION OF THE UNEMPLOYED. 77 The individual worker, helped by a co-operative worker nut in partnership witli him, is an Employer. His help is an Employee. The employees of the individual workers render private services, whether the nature of their work is public, agri- cultural, industrial, commercial, professional, domestic or personal. Now let us consider tlie Co-operative Worker. Under Public S^r■:'icc there are 829,576 public em- ployees who ha\e a station in the commonwealth, fixed by IclW. All the workers in that class shall be assigned to ser- vice for the Government, State, county or municipality, in the proper department of art, banking, building, chem- istry, communication, education, entertainment, fishing, health, judiciary, library, lighting, mining, navigation, police, quarrying, streets, supply, surveys, trafific, or other department. The co-operative workers in the Industrial and Com- mercial Services- will attend to the production and dis- tribution. The trade union of to-day will be the Co-operative Pro- ducer and Distributor Union of to-morrow. The laiorganized worker without a protecting trade union roof over his head will find a shelter in the new organization for co-operation. The co-operative workers in the Agricultural and Private Services shall form Service Unions — the Agricul- tural Service Union and the Private Service Union, pat- terned after the existing trade unions. All who are able to work — the unemployed now starv- ing, and the compensated former capitalist who hates to lie idle and offers his services — shall be provided with such work as they are qualified to perform. 78 THE LABOR AMENDMENT, All who are unable to work — if they have no natural protectors to take care of them — must be cared for at the expense of the tax-paying workers. When Fort Sumpter was fired upon, the response to President Lincoln's proclamation, asking for seventy-five thousand volunteers, was instantaneous. When the war with Spain was declared and President McKinley issued a proclamation, asking for one hundred and twenty-five thousand volunteers, the 30ung men promptly flocked around the Stars and Stripes. A military army was created out of nothing in less than no time at these critical junctures in the history of our country. Our volunteers of 1861 and 1898 offered their services, ready to die. A Proclamation of the President, asking the workers lo enlist in the Industrial Army of the country — to come forward. Ready to Lix'C, will find a response just as in- stantaneous, and even more enthusiastic. The living generation of unhappy toilers and the un- born millions of happy posterity will revere and bless the name, and in golden letters history will relate the eternal fame of the President who will issue that Proclamation. The industrial army will then swallow up the unem- ployed. The problem of the unemployed will then liave found its solution. Unemployment will then be abolished. In the place of the Great Army of the Unemployed will arise a GREATER NATION OF WORKERS. IX. THE NATIONAL DOLLAR-HOUR. Section 11. The Congress shall have poivcr: 3. To establish the prices of all commodities, a uni- form work-day, a uniform scale of compensation for work and services, a uniform educational, and sanitary, system, so as to prevent the jeopardy of life and limb, and to pro-- tcct the health, of all persons engaged in agricultural, iii- ilustrial, commercial, and vocational, pursuits; but sump- luary legislation shall be prohibited within the jufisdic- lion of the United States. In this chapter the power to establish the prices of com- modities will be discussed. Karl Marx, assuming throughout Das Kapital — as he states, "for the sake of simplicity" — gold as the money commodity, says: "It is not money that renders commodities coiiimenstir- able. Just the contrary. It is because all commodities, as values, are realized human labor, and therefore com- mensurable, that their value can be measured by one and the same special commodity, and the latter be converted into the common measure of their value, that is money. Money as a measure of value, is the phenomenal form that must of necessity be assumed by that measure of value which is imminent in commodities, labor lime." 80 THE LABOR AMENDMENT. To establish the price of all commodities, the price of labor time must be established. Under capitalism the labor power, our and our fellow man's and woman's brain and brawn, is considered a com- modity and sold and purchased in the open market at fluctuating prices. The abolition of wage-slavery removes the labor power from the commodity market. The product of brain and brawn, not brain and brawn itself, remains in the market. The proposed Clause 3, therefore, makes a distinction between "prices of commodities" and "compensation for work and services." Both, however, must be measured by labor time. Marx assumed in his analysis of capital gold as the money commodity. In discussing legislation for the United States we do not have to assume a money commodity. Our money is The Dollar. The value of the Dollar is fixed by law. A dollar is a gold coin 25.8 grains troy and nine-tenths fineness; or a silver coin 412.5 grains troy and nine-tenths fineness ; or a paper, a certificate or note, that the United States will pay the bearer one dollar. The price of labor time appears as annual or monthly salary, weekly wages, pay for piece-work, or pay per hour. But the basis is the number of workdays constituting a week's work, and the number of hours constituting a workday, in which to render the service, or do the piece. The Hour is, and may be made legally, the unit of labor time. Let us assume Tfic Dollar-Hour as the measure of labor time. THE NATIONAL DOLLAR-HOUR. 81 The price of a commodity is to be established by the number of dollar-hours of labor time contained in the finished product from its start until it reaches the ultimate consumer, and by adding thereto the taxation required for the Government and Government obligations. Who establishes the prices of all commodities to-day ? The chorus of economists will reply that "Prices are not established; that they are regulated by supply and demand, a natural law just like spring, summer, fall and winter; just like sunshine, rain and snow; just like ebb and flow." That doctrine lias been preached in all tunes, tongues and countries, since the working class has begun to study political economy, and has deemed this science the most vital part of its education in the struggle for the uplift of humanity. "Supply and demand" may depress and raise prices of some commodities at some time. Yet the price has always been made, as to products, by the seller of the product ; as to labor power, by the buyer of the labor power. That fact is not changed by bargaining, or by pro- tective influences. The buyer of a product, who succeeds in buying at a lower price than first asked for, always pays the seller's price. The seller of labor power, the worker, who succeeds in getting a higher price or higher wages than it was first intended to concede to him, always sells or hires out at the buyer's or employer's price. The prices of connnodities are established arbitrarily. By whom? Behind each price is one who demands it. Behind all who demand prices stand the money powers 82 THE LABOR AMENDMENT. of the world— the MONEY LENDERS, relatively few ill number, known as the English, French, German and, recently, Ainerican bankers. These money lenders control the trusts, and the trusts control the markets. When we are told that "the coffee price is made at Havre, and the tea pi'ice at London" it means that the money power controlling the respective market makes the price of coffee at Havre, and of tea at London. The prices are fixed for oil by the .Standard Oil C'oin- paii)', for steel products by the United States Steel CVir- poration, for meat by tlie Beef Trust, and for every com niodity by, some trust.. I'heir prices have the force of law. TIk' trusts have annihilated the bargainiui;- power of the consumer, just as they have crushed the bargaining power of the tiller of the soil. The trusts have destroyed the law of supply and de- mand. Who supplies the demand? The trusts ! Who demands the supply? The trusts! Arbitrarily ! No demand is supplied, no supply demanded, if it does not please the trusts. The trusts^ the agency of the money lenders, have arro- gated the power to establish the prices of all commodities. Under the above section of fhe proposed, amendment (liat power, heretofore reserved tO; the capitalist class, is conferred upon Congress. X. THE NATIONAL WORKDAY. The Congress shall have the power to establish a uni- form zvorkday. Organized labor, so-calI«d, has beat all its energies to the reduction of the hours of daily labor and the establish- ment of a uniform eight-hour workday. The fight was made against the employers in numerous trade controversies, and in .the lobbies and on the floors of the legislative halls m nearly all the States and Ter- ritories. The eight-hour workday has been generally established, as stated in President Gompers' Annual Report in 1908, by the carpenters (who also secured generally the Satur- day half-holiday), the electrical workers, plasterers, dec- orators, paperhangers, plumbers, gas fitters, steam and hot water fitters, tile layers, roofers, building laborers and hot carriers, compositors on afternoon papers, com- positors on book and job work, stereotypers and electro- typers on newspapers, coal miners in bituminpus regions, cigar makers, coopers, iron and steel workers, fifty per centum of the stationary firemen, paper makers and book- binders. The coal miners in the anthracite regions have the iiine-liour clay; the brewers^ eight hottrs on the Pacific coast, nine hours elsewhere. 84 THE LABOR AMENDMENT. The plasterers have in some places seven hours; the compositors on morning papers, seven and one-half hours ; the German compositors, eight hours, five days constitut- ing a week's work. Eight hours constitute by law a day's labor : In all underground mines and workings, in Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Missouri, Montana, Nevada, Ohio, Utah and Wyoming. In smelters, in Idaho, Missouri, Montana, Nevada, and Utah. On public highways, in Arkansas, Indiana, Iowa, Ken- tucky, Mississippi, Nebraska, Nevada, New Alexico, New York, North Dakota, Pennsylvania, Philippine Islands, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, and Wisconsin. On public works in Alaska, California, District of (-'olumbia, Hawaii, Idaho, Kansas, Massachusetts, Minne- sota, Montana, Nebraska (in cities of the first class only), Nevada, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Porto Rico, Utah, Washington, and West Virginia. For railway telegraph operators and train dispatchers in Arkansas, Connecticut, Missouri, Nevada, North Caro- lina, Texas, West Virginia, and Wisconsin. For municipal employees in Delaware (in Washington only), and in Maryland (in Baltimore only). On all manufacturing and mechanical employments in Illinois, Indiana, Missouri, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wis- consin; and for all employees in New York. The eight-hour laws do not apply to farm and domestic labor, or may be made ineffective by private agreement, or do contain other provisions which make the law illu- sory, in Illinois, Indiana, Missouri, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. A Uniform Workday meaps a "maximum number of hours constituting a workday.'" - THE NATIONAL WORKDAY. 85 If eight hours constitute the uniform workday, it shall be unlawful to make a day's work more than eight hours. A shorter day must be lawful, and should be adopted whenever the welfare of the commonwealth be thereby Ijest served. There is no good reason why the farm or domestic laborer should work more than eight hours in any one day, except in cases of emergency. In some industrial establishments work never stops, and it done by two or three shifts per day. Agricultural and domestic labor may, and in the well- regulated Socialistic Republic shall be done by shifts, unless emergencies require an extraoTtdinaryj effort in individual overtime. How many hours shall constitute a National Workday f The answer must be given by the statistician. Take the United States Census of Manufactures of 1905, for instance. The value of products, including custom work and re- pairing, of nearly $15,000,000,000 was done by 6,000,000 wage earners, including salaried officials. Ascertain the number of work hours required to pro- duce the value of $15,000,000,000, divide by 6,000,000, and the quotient obtained is the number of workhours re- quired from each of the six million workers per year as his share of labor time in manufacturing. In this calculation the unemployed does not figure, who starves and perishes, while the luckier brother or sister slaves and produces profit for the capitalist. Annual estimates are now made to ascertain the taxa- {ion and the budget of appropriations which are necessary to carry on the Government. Annual Economic Estimates shall be made to ascertain the national demand and supply, as well as the number of 86 THE LABOR AMENDMKiMT. work hours required for the national production (agricul- ture, mining, manufacturings transportation and distribu- tion) in the ensuing year. Divide the sum total of work hours within a year by the number of persons able and registered to work, and you will have the annual number of work hours to be allotted to each worker. Regulate the annual number of work hours of each person by weeks and days, arid you will find the number of work hours constituting the National Workday^ The term "National Demand" is here used in its broadest sense. It means the demand upon the nation for the home supply and tlie supply of foreign markets buying our products. The National Workday cannot be properly regulated by the mere application of arithmetics. The question of vacations between work must be con- sidered. Generally, the first experience in life of a happj child is his acquaintance with a teacher. A teacher does not work more than eight months per year, five days per week and five hours per day. The teacher, putting in not more than 800 work hours per year, is blessed with a rest of two days per week, a short vacation at Christmas and at Easter, and a vacation of two to three months in summer. The judge is similarly privileged, although he spends many work hours in reading briefs aiKl writing decisions over and above the court hours known to the public. The vacations of the teachar and the judge are fixed by law. Both en^'oy their vacations. So can the public official a shorter vacation allowed him by law. THE NA rtONAl. WORK-DAY K7 So does the fortunate bookkeeper or clerk in commer- cial employ, whose humane boss grants him or her a week off with pay. The workman in general gets a vacation, but can not enjoy it. His vacation is accidental. It is forced upon him by dull seasons or "bad times." He cannot even escape a compulsory vacation in "times of prosperity," because capitalism creates the Great Army of the Unemployed. The vacation of the workman and workwoman is the time that must be devoted to hunting for a job. There are many workmen who are compelled to report daily for work. If there is work they are employed; if there is none they remain unemployed. There may be no work for days, weeks or months ; the woikmen have to report or they lose the employer. That is a drudgery without compensation, a wage- slavery without wages. The law establishing a National Workday shall provide for the vacations between workdays. It has been figured out that all national produ»tion could be done by the workers of the nation in four hours of daily toil, and that the perfection of labor-saving machinery would reduce that working time. On the basis of allotting i,ooo work hours per year to each person able to work, it may be decreed that a maximum of five hours work shall constitute a Workday, Five Days a Week's Work, Forty Weeks a Year's Work. XI. THE GRADED COMPENSATION FOR WORK AND SERVICES. The Congress shall have power to establish a uniform scale of compensation for work and services. A "uniform scale of compensation" does not mean a "uniform compensation." It means a regular gradation of services. If the Dollar-Hour prevails, it means that the compen- sation for one hour common labor time is fixed at one dollar. For one dollar we get realized common human labor in one hour's time. The laborer gives one hour's worth of common human labor ; no more. More valuable is that hour's work, if a responsibility rests upon the worker. The foreman who is responsible that the work of the seTcral workers under him be done well, deserves a com- pensation for his responsibility, in addition to the com- pensation for his labor time. The superior of several foremen, who has a higher responsibility than a foreman, deserves a higher compen- sation than a foreman. The person in charge of several superiors, who has a higher responsibility than a superior, deserves a higher compensation than the superior. THK GRA.DED COMPENSATION. K'l A dangerous occupation deserves a higher compensa- tion, based upon the responsibility involved in exposing life, health and limb to danger. Another feature adding to the value of common labor time is the artistic, literary or scientific value of the work done. The painter who whitewashes a ceiling, and the painter whose brush creates a piece of art on the canvass put in common labor time. The whitewash on the ceiling has no artistic value. The painting on the canvass has an artistic value above common labor time. The journalist who writes a vulgar story for an even- ing paper, and the genius who contributes a great story of fiction for a magazine, put in common labor time. The work of each writer has a literary value above common labor time. But the values differ. Tavo scientists are at work, putting in common labor time. Their productions have a scientific value above common labor time. But the values differ. One work does not rise above mediocrity, while the other one is a revelation, enriching science. ^ A commission of art, literature and science can deter- mine the relative value above common labor time of the work done by each artist, journalist and scientist. "The higher the responsibility, or the artistic or scien- tific value, the higher the compensation to be added to the pay for common labor time!" ■'The highest compensation for the highest responsi- bility, and for the highest work or service in art, literature and science !" That shall be the scale. 90 THE LABOR AMENDMENT. Every worker shall receive a minimum coinpensation equal to "The High Standard of American Wagies." The pay for common labor time shall be sufficient to provide good foodj good garments and a good home for every American workingman and workingwoman. No more starvation, rags, destitution, inhabitable shan- ties and shelterless vagrancy! A higher pay shall come on merits. The ambitious and artist, scientist and strong, inventor and instructor, supervisor and superintendent, executive ability and excellency in generalship may strive for and shall deserve the higher and highest grade of the scale. There will always be room on the top of the ladder. XT[. THE ABOLITION OF CHILD LABOR. The Congress shall have power to establish a uniform educational system. The system of education is highly developed in the United States. We have primary, grammar, high, normal, city, even- ing, vacation, business, denominational, theological, law, medical, dental, veterinary, technological, nurse, training, orphan and Indian schools. We have kindergartens, academies, colleges, univer- sities, schools of pharmacy, schools for the deaf, blind, feeble minded, for art and music. We have even reform schools. An army of more than half a million teachers instructs an army of more than seventeen million pupils at public expense. In 1908, 17,685,191 pupils were enrolled in the public schools, colleges and universities in the several States and Territories of Continental United States, besides 1,885,041 who were enrolled in private schools and institutes. The public school buildings are the pride of each locality. In 464 universities, colleges and technological schools, 195,391 male and 70,575 female students were educated in buildings valued at $214,353,951, filled with scientific 'L' THE LABOR AMENDMENT. apparatus valued at $28,000,000, and with libraries con- taining 12,636,656 bound volumes. That is the bright side of the picture. But less than two per cent, of the pupils received a university, college or technological school education. More than ninety-eight per cent, went without it. In a population of more than 47,000,000 of school and voting age there are more than 6,000,000 illiterate per- sons. (Census of 1900.) Or, to be more exact, 1,287,135 foreign white, 25,396 Chinese, and 4,386 Japanese, for whose lacking school training no responsibility rests upon the United States. And 1,913,611 native white and 2,853,194 persons of negro descent, aggregating 4,766,805 illiterates, for whose neglected education our country cannot shift the blame. Nearly two million children of the tender age of 10 to 15 years exploited by capital cry for the protection of the Gbvernment, as shown by the following figures given by the Census of 1900 : CHILDREN ENGAGED IN 140 GROUPS OF GAINFUL OCCUPATIONS, 1900. Age. Male. Female Total 10 years 105,580 36,525 142,105 11 .vears 119,628 39,150 158.788 !? .vears 163,649 57,664 221,313 13 years 196,830 71,597 268.427 14 years 289,655 117,040 406,701 iS years 389,069 163,785 552,854 Total 1,264,441 485,767 1,750.178. One and three-fourths of a million American children ! 1,264,411 little boys and 485,767 little girls! Their feeble bodies coined into dollars ! THE ABOLITION OF CHILt) LABOR 93 Their childhood destroyed and their manhood and womanhood withered to enrich capitalists! 1,750,178 — the population of each of the States of Cali- fornia, Kansas and Louisiana ! Or more than the population of each of the States of y\rkansas, Connecticut, Nebraska, South Carolina, Wash- ington and West Virginia! ' Or the combined population of New Mexico, North Dakota and Oregon 1 Or the combined population of New Hampshire, Rhode Island, South Carolina and Utah! Or the combined population of. Alabama, Arizona, Dela- A\ are, the District of Columbia, Idaho, Mississippi, Mon- tana, Nevada and Wyoming ! Bunch these little victims of the cormoi'ant, whose young lives are sapped in the mills and mines and on the cotton fields, and put them all into the States named, and > ou will see whole States depopulated within ten years. This is the child flesh fed to the capitalistic ogre iij one year. The number of the young ones — 18.2 per cent, of all children from 10 to 15 years of age who were at work in 1900 — is undoubtedly larger than as given by the Census, which gives no account whatever of the exploited children below ten. The Census reports speak of "inherent difficulties" and "causes of perplexity," which "make entirely satisfactory (read, 'reliable') reports not possible," and it is distinctly stated that "there is an uncertainty of the return of chil- dren at work." The fact, however, is made clear that capitalism picks up every fifth or sixth child from 10 to 15 years of age, and grinds it into profit. 94 tHE LABOR AMENDMENT. We read with a shudder the story of a general who lined up mutinous soldiers, picked out every tenth man and had them shot Capitalism in America lines up the children from any age up to IS years of age, picks up every fifth child and puts them to industrial torture and into an early grave. One of the greatest "inherent difficulties" and gravest "causes of perplexity" in the way of learning the whole truth in regard to child exploitation is the Census legis- lation. The Thirteenth Census of the United States of 1910 will not throw any light upon the real condition of the exploitation of children. The instructijns given the Census enumerators as to tlie occupations of childi^en state as follows: "If any child, of whatever age, is regularly earning money, the employment which he (or she) follows should be returned as an occupation. This applies also to a child working for his board away from home. . . If any person attending school or college or any educational in- stitution, and at the same time is regularly earning money at some gainful occupation, return that occupation. . . Children who work for their parents in any employment merely at odd times or in doing chores, should be re- ported as having no occupation. But children who work for their parents regularly during half or more of the year should be reported as having the occupation in which they are so employed, even though they receive no wages." Therefore, children not regularly earning money, or working for their parents less than six nienths in the year, will not be reported. On the subject of child labor. President Gompers' an- nual report to the twent) -ninth annual convention of the THE ABOLITION OF CHILD LABOR 95 American Federation of Labor, held at Toronto, Canada, in 1909, contains the following passage: "The most precious heritage of a nation is its children. This truth is scarcely yet fully realized. One of the greatest clangers lo the health and patriotic hie of a coun- try has been the exploitation of our helpless children. Children are the wards of the nation, the responsibility of which can not and must not he shifted. The century past was noted for many renmrkable discoveries, but none was greater than that of the great economic and social power of woman. Our present century will be noted for much greater and more signilicant advance, the importance of ihe discovery of child nurture, tl.e value of childhood. The science of raising and training children has only just begun to appeal to the great mass of the people :is a serious proposition. When the young heads, hearts and minds are trained in an intelligent, scientific and humane course the era of the industrial slaughter of the innocents will have been obliterated, and they will in their inno- cence be preserved, cultivated and developed to their fullest mental, moral and social welfare." "Due to the patient and persistent effort of the men and women in the great army or organized labor,"' continues the report, "the dawn of the emancipation of children from the workshop, in all its forms, where their tender bodies are stunted to satisfy rapacity, is now clearly discernible. In 42 States and the District of Columbia laws now obtafn to control and pi-otect children in some form or other, particularly in reference to their employ- ment. The tendency of legislation on this .subject is to effectiveness. In connection therewith it is necessary that your attention, and through \ on the attention of the rank and file of the workers ajid the people generally, be called to the n9ed not only of improved laws upon the subject 96 THE LABOR AMENDMENT. of children, but that every effort be made so that as near as possible greater uniformity in the laws of the States may be obtained." No uniformity in child labor legislation can be obtained unless Congress is given the power to establish a uniform educational system, under which child labor is abolished. By Act of Congress (Acts of 1906-7, chapter 1180), "Felix Adler, Francis J. Cafifey, Robert W. DeForest, Edward T. Devine, Homer Folks^ William E. Harmon, John S. Huyler, Mrs. Florence Kelley, James H. Kirk- land, V. Everitt Macy, Edgar Gardner Murphy, Isaac W. Seligman, Miss Lillian D. Wald, Paul M. Warburg and John W. Wood, and their successors and associates," were incorporated in the District of Columbia under the name of "National Child Labor Committee." The Act provided that the object of the corporation shall be: "To promote the welfare of society with respect to the employment of children in gainful occupations ; to investi- gate and report the facts concerning child labor ; to raise the standard of parental responsibility with respect to the employment of children; to assist in protecting children, by suitable legislation, against premature or otherwise in- jurious employment, and thus to aid in securing for them an opportunity for elementary education and physical development sufficient for the demands of citizenship and the reqiiirements of industrial sufficiency; to aid in pro- moting the enforcement of laws relating to child labor; to co-ordinate, unify and supplement the work of State or local child labor committees, and to encourage the forma- tion of such committees Avh.ere they do not exist." The National Child Labor Committee has undoubtedly contributed its noble share to a tendency of more effective child labor laws since the -Census of 1900 was taken. THE Al'.OLTTION OF CHILD LABOK 97 The Committee has been very active. Last year, for in- stance, it had bills introduced in 24 States. It took part in many conferences. It secretaries traveled 50,000 miles to attend legislative heariilgs and to give lectures in half the States of the Union. The total number of pages published for distribution during the year aggregated 3,740,000, the letters issued from their oifice over 175,000. (Fifth Annual Report for the fiscal year ended September 30, 1909, by Owen R. Lovejoy, General Secretary.) Yet this report is the story of capitalistic greed's ten- acious grip upon, the child workers, and of gains few and far between, and of defeats thick and fast. ■'Agriculture," the report admits, "is a form of industry thus far beyond the pale of labor legislation. The farm in many sections of the country is rapidly reproducing evils that have required regulation in the factory — over- work, overcrowding and the exploitation of little children, not by the family at home, but in gi'oups of scores and hundreds." A system of factory inspection enacted in South Caro- lina "has been coupled to a workday of eleven hours !" The cotton manufacturers of North Carolina, Florida and Georgia, the glass manufacturers of Pennsylvania, New Jersey, West Virginia and Indiana, the fruit and vegetable canners of Michigan, Delaware and New York 'blocked effectually the humane efforts of the Committee to bring them within the scot>ie of the law." New York passed a bill specifying a list of dangerous occupations, but "again failed to throw any protection about the small children and babies who work inhuman liours in the cannery sheds of the State." Connecticut defeated "the street trades bill and the bill to regulate hours" ; Rhode Island "everything except 98 THE LABOR AMENDMENT. regulation of hours for minors and women"; Indiana, New Jersey and Pennsylvania "restriction of night work" ; West Virginia "bill regulating hours, age limit and in- spection" ; Georgia and Florida '.'bill to reduce hours and regulate age"; Missouri "everything except the compul- sory education law"; -North Carolina "bill to raise age limit and reduce hours." "Tn a number of cities," says the Report, "minor officials, truant officers, police and municipal judges show a disposition to ignore laws regulating street trades, which betrays belief in the tradition that street vending and mes- senger service are ideal occupatiiens for the little child and that any ordinance interfering with them is an impert- inence." "A vigorous efifort has been made by the factory in- spector of New York State," the Report also states, "to prosecute for employment of very young children in can- nery sheds. Defeat has been the result. Cases have been either thrown out of court, or local juries, under the spell of the dominant industry and of the traditional sanctity of the right of the child to work itself to death, have refused to render a verdict." These facts stand out bold : No age limit and no limit of work hours exists as to child labor in agricultural and household work in any State ! The orphan and dependent child is mercilessly exposed to exploitation and is exploited in every State!. There is no uniform restriction as to the employment of children in mines, mills, factories, workshops and mer- cantile establishments, nor as to night work, cleaning of machinery while in motion, dangerous occupations, work hours, street trades or school education ! Compulsory education laws tend not to improve, but THE ABOLITION OF CHILD LABOR. 99 rather to make more, uiiserable the lives of the young workers ! . In many cases the children must attend night schools after a hard day's W9rk in order to make their "gainful employment" lawful ! .A school vacation means to many httle ones the com- mencement of the drudgery in factories or on the fields in the burning rays of the sun, while a school session means a vacation from the slavery for the capitalistic master ! Most, of the child labor laws contain provisos which make the. whole law illusory. .Factory inspection is, as a rule, inadequate, or, where it is creditably enforced, frequently made inadequate by the rulings of the courts ! ."'The traditional .sanctity of the right of the child to work itself to death" seems to be upheld where wc may expect it the least. "The fourth Sunday of January, 1909" — says Mr. Lovejoy's Report — "was designated as Child Labor Day and invitations sent to a select hst of 18,000 clergymen requesting them to observe the day with appropriate exer- cises or addresses. The same request was sent to the religious press. One thousand seventeen hundred and fifteen clergymen responded and spoke on the subject, either on that day or at the nearest available date." This goes to show that 16,285 clergymen of the selected list^— the. total number of clergymen of all denominations in the United States in 1908 being 156,107 — did not respond. These preachers of the Gospel may profitably be re- minded of .St. Matthew xix, 14 : "But Jesus said, Suffer little children, and forbid them not, to come unto me : for of such is th» kingdotn .of heaven." 100 THE LAaOR AMENDMENT. That verse of the Holy Writ is not composed of but six words and does not read : "But Jesus said. Suffer, little children !" There is a wide difiference between the Child Labor Act of the District of Columbia of May 28, 1908,. the so-called model law, and the Labor Law of South Carolina of 1903. The South Carolina law provides that after May i, 1903, no child under ten, after May i, 1904, no child under eleven, and after May i, 1905, no child under twelve years of age shall be employed in any factory, mine or textile establishment of this State; except as hereinafter provided. After May i, 1903, no child under twelve shall be permitted to work between the hours of 8 o'clock p. m. and 6 o'clock a. m. ; provided, that they may work until 9 o'clock p. m. "to make up lost time." Children of a widowed mother or a totally disabled father, or orphan children, who are dependent upon their own labor for their support, may be permitted to work. The unfortunate children who happened to be born before May i, 1903, and to be in "gainful employment" at the tender age of ten, when that law took effect, were not intended to have nor had any relief through that law. There is no age limit protecting the poor little orphan children "who depend upon their own labor for their sup- port." They may be put into the mines at any age under ten. The worst feature of the South Carolina law is the provision that a child who has attended scho6l liot less than four months during the year and can rea funds for withdrawals as nearly as practicable in the im- mediate neighborhood in which the funds are received. That did not find favor with those who wished these funds to wend their way to Wall Street. Senator Burton's amendment furthermore provided to permit the purchase of the securities of the National Gov- ernment, and the investment in State or city bonds author- ized by the Vreeland-Aldrich Emergency Currency Act and in loans to banks on approved security. The bill, in the shape is passed the Senate March 5. 1910, contained Senator Borah's amendment, which ex- cluded the investment of postal bank funds in Govern- ment bonds bearing less than 234 per cent, interest per annum. (The new Government loans to be issued bear 2 per cent, interest only.) The money lenders won the hrst round in their price fight for graft. The House was the scene of the second round. For a better understanding of this fight let us go back fifty years. In the first year of the Civil War, on December 30, 1861, E. G. Spaulding, a banker from Buffalo, New York, in- troduced the first legal tender bill in the House. The original bill, making treasury notes, popularly known as "greenbacks," receivable for all debts and dues, including duties on imports, passed tlic House February ' 2, 1862. The Senate amended the bill, making the notes partial legal tender, and in that form the bill passed the House February 25, 1862. The Legal Tender Act created a Government debt by issuing not interest-bearing paper money, without paying tribute to the money lenders. In opposition to the bill then pending in Congress the 134 THE LAROR AMENDMENT. notorious Hdssard Circular of 1862 appeared. It influ- enced thirty-seven members of the House to change their votes and to support the Senate amendment — enough votes to cripple, but not td defeat the bill. The Hazznrd Circular, which was sent by European capitalists through their agent Hazzard to the banker.* ot the United States, contained the following "never to be forgotten" statements : "The European plan, led on by England, is capital- control of labor, by controlling wages. This can be done by controlling the money. The great debt that capitalists will see to it is made out of the war, must be used as a measure to control the volume of money. To accomplish this the bonds must be used as a banking basis. We are now waiting to get the Secretary of the Treasury to make this recommendation to Congress." The New York Herald was foremo.st in exposing and fighting this "Conspiracy of the Wall Street bankers against Secretary Chase and the Government" and against the "Jacobin Faction in Congress." "Shall the Government control the banks, or the banks control the Government?" the Herald asked lanuarv 14, 1862. "The banks " said the Herald January 20, 1862. "de- sire the control of the currency, by which they could make fortunes at public expense. They could depreciate it at pleasure, and they would do so, thus making the finances of the Government a source of fraudulent gambling, in \vhich they would have the cards stacked and be sure to win." The Hazzard Circular and the bankers accomplished their object in the passage of the National Bank Act of June 3, 1864. ABOLITION OF PRIVATE MONEY POWER. 135 Since that time the gates of the United States Treasury l:ave stood ajar for the international looters. "The best banking system of the world," as it used to he called in the times of the Greenback movement which spnmg up to oppose it, gave the banks, chartered by the Government, authority to buy United States bonds, which once were far below par and an investment paying high interest, to deposit these bonds with the Treasury, and to issue bank notes for 90 per cent, of their face value. In that way the National Bank business was made, as Mr. John D. Rockefeller would say, "very prosperous." Ninety per cent, of the ^bank capital invested in United States bonds was restored in self-made currency, on which a profitable banking business was done. President Andrew Johnson — who, as James G. Blaine in T'i^'enty Years of Congress tells, was impeached for one series of misden:eanors and tried for another series — would have had no warmer defenders than the money lenders, if he had not committed the unpardonable mis- demeanor to insist that the war debt should be redeemed in legal tender notes. The "financial heresy," which favored the issue of not interest-bearing legal tender notes to wipe out the interest- bearing war debt and the perpetuating burden upon the American toiler, led to the organization of the Greenback parties which were in evidence in the campaigns of 1876, 1880 and 1884, with the philanthropist Peter Cooper of New York, General James B. Weaver of Iowa, and Gen- eral Benjamin F. Butler of Massachusetts as their nomi- nees for President. The money lenders, however, had the best of the argu- ment with the masses of the voters who like to be hum- bugged. "For every dollar of the national debt," said General 136 THE LABOR AMENDMENT. Hawley, chairman of the Republican Convention, 1868, in his opening address, "the blood of the soldier is pledged. Every bond, in letter and in spirit, must be as sacred as a soldier's grave." What is a sacred soldier's grave between money lenders? Forty-five years have passed since the surrender of Lee to Grant at Appomatox Court House. Yet that legacy of the Civil War, the oppressive "European plan of capital- control of labor by controlling wages and the volume of money," as laid down in the Hazzard Circular, is still working for the glory of the money lender, like the Tes- tament of Peter the Great for the glory of Russia. Our own leaders, born under the perfected "European plan," have taken the leadership away from England. The European immigrant is now naturalized. The size of the graft at stake for the money lenders in connection with the postal banks is better understood when considering the advantageous position obtained by the National Banks under the Emergency Currency Act of May 30, 1908. The main features of that Act are : "First. — Ten National Banks, each having an unim- paired capital and a surplus of 20 per cent., and having an aggregate capital and surplus of $5,000,000, may form a National Currency Association. "Second. — A currency association may, under the direc- ticm and control of the Secretary of the Treasury, deposit nny security and commercial paper, and issue circulation notes for 75 per cent, of the cash value of the deposit. 'Commercial paper' is held to include only notes repre- senting astual commercial transactions, indorsed by tv?o responsible parties, and not exceeding four months to run. "Third. — Additional circulation notes may be secured Abolition of private moIstey power. i.!7 by bonds other than bonds of the United States. (That means railroad .and industrial bonds.) "Fourth. — ^Additional circulation notes may be secured by the deposits of bonds issued by cities, towns, counties, municipalities, or districts of the United States. "Fifth. — The total amount of circulation notes issued under this act shall not be more than $500,000,000. "Sixth. — The tax shall be on notes secured with Pan- n.nia Canal bonds one-half of i per cent., on bonds se- cured with United States bonds bearing- more than 2 per cent, per aniuim 1 per cent., and on notes secured other- wise 10 per cent, per annum. The notes secured other- wise, if issued for one month, pay a tax of only 5 per cent, per annum. Another i per cent, per annum is added monthly until the high emergency tax of 10 per cent, per annum is reached." Circulation notes issued under this Act and secured ^v■■.th State, city and railroad bonds, amounted March i, 19TO, to $2,082,000. When Senator Carter's Postal Savings Bank bill came to the House, a substitute, which President Taft Avas ile- termined to Jiave, (H. R. 25,986) was introduced by Rep- resentative John J. Gardner of New Jersey, on May 17. The bill passed the House June 9, prevailed in confer- ence, was approved by the President, and is now the Postal Savings Bank Act of Jime 23, T9T0, which provides as follows: , "A system of postal savings banks shall be organized by a board of trustees, consisting of the postmaster-gen- eral, the secretary of the Treasury, and the atfomey-gen- eral. The board will designate the postoffices where money will be received. "Accounts may lie opened by any person over ten years of age. The smallest deposit will be one dollar, but l.W THE LABOR AMENDMENT. stamps foi- lesser amounts will be sold, in order to enable the buyer to save the amount necessary to open an ac- count. "The rate of interest for deposits is 2 per cent, per annum, but not more than $ioo may be deposited in any one month, and accounts of more than $500 are barred. "A depositor by surrendering his deposit in sums from $20 to $500 may secure bonds bearing interest at the rate of two and one-half of i per cent, per annum. "Sixty-five per cent, of the funds received at the postal , banks shall be redeposited in state and national banks, which shall pay two and one-fourth of i per cent, pei' annum interest, and will be required to give as security lionds or other securities approved by the board and sub- ject to the taxing power. "The funds deposited in the local banks may be with- drawn by the President if he deems it necessary for the welfare of the nation. "Five per cent, of the funds shall be deposited in the treasury of the United States as a reserve fund, and the remaining 30 per cent, may be invested by the board in recurities of the United States. "A special issue of bonds- bearing two and one-half of T per cent, per annum interest is authorized, which by specific provision do not carr} the circulation privilege. "Whenever any outstanding bonds are subject to call they may be repjaced by the new authorized 2% per cent, bonds." The banks and money lenders have won their fight for new graft. The Government must place with them the coming issues of the 2 per cent. Government bonds, bearing in- terest amounting to fifteen million dollars annually, and ABOLITION OF PRIVATE MONEY POWER. 139 they can have their investment in these bonds reimbursed in circulation notes taxed at only ^ per cent. They have the grip upon 65 per cent, of the postal savings funds, at 2)4 per cent., which may be secured by any kind of security. They have limited the individual depositor in postal banks to $500, and have excluded the holders of $500 postal bonds of getting together and establishing competi- tion banks, and using the postal bonds as security for the privilege of issuing circulation notes. They have surreptitiously jumped the rate of interest on Government bonds of 2 per cent, to 2% per cent. There are $64,000,000 of 3 per cent, bonds and $118,000,- 000 of 4 per cent, now outstanding, which must be re- funded by the new 2% per cent, bonds. They have compelled the Government to pay 2^ per cent, on postal bonds, while the Government will receive only 2'4 per cent, from the banks receiving jxjstal bank funds. They have, l^y thus inviting a deficit in the man- agement of the postal banks, laid the foundation for their unpopularity at some future time, when it will be to the interest of the grabbers to recall Senator Bailey's prophecy that the. postal bank system '"will produce more harm than good by its practical operation." The banks and the money lenders can continue to do l)usiness at the old stand at "$8.72 per" and more. They have stopped kicking. They have been heavy buyers of securities in Wall Street, and made purchases that have not been for the purpose of giving temporary support to the market, but were of an investment character. They had Secretary of Treasury MacVeagh to suggest some- what urgently to them; and made haste to form national currency associations. They are singing "Hallelujah" in praise of their "enconragement of thrift" through the 1-10 THE LAROR AMF.NDMliMT. postal bank system, which will draw millions in sums of from I cent up to $500 from the hiding places of the toilers. That is where the "encouragement of thrift" comes in. The "thrift" shall be abolished by prohibiting the dele- gation of power to issue currency. The "Weaver Platform of 1892," adopted by the Popu- list party when General James B. Weaver was its nominee for President against Benjamin Harrison and Grover Cleveland, called for a national currency, "safe, sound and flexible, to be issued by the Government, and to have a volume of $50 per capita, in payment for public im- provements, and also to be loaned to citizens at 2 per cent. interest." That was not a very radical demand. But its adoption would have loosened the grip of the money lender upon the "capital-control of labor by con- trolling money." Even to-day under the capitalistic mode of production and exchange, the Weaver plank, if enacted into law and literally enforced, would solve the problem of the Un- employed for the time being. What constitutes the banking business as conducted by the National Banks to-day? First, a capital which is loaned to the Government by the purchaser of low interest-bearing bonds. Second, the authorization to manufacture paper money and to re- plenish the capital so loaned, at a tax leaving a profit on the loan. Third, the receiving of deposits without paying interest for the use of that money. Fourth, the power to create a substitute for money in the form of bank checks and drafts. Fifth, the loaning of money, which is kept in the vaults of the banks, at interest. And, sixth, the pocketing of the profit at "$8.27 per." ABOLITION OF PRIVATE MONEY POWER. 141 The number of the privileged who may get a loan from the National Banks is very limited. ^'one but an owner of securities or a business man with a vvorkins;- capital will get a loan. National Bank loans arc made at legal rates. The "citizen" not an owner of securities or a solvent business man must go to tlie pawnbroker and pawn his vahiables at pawnbroker rates. Or he may get a loan at extortion rates from the thiev- ing- usurer making him "stiictly confidential" a debt-slave for life. Suppose a law as demanded by the Weaver platform had been in force in the financial jianic of 1907, \vhen the ( Ireat Army of tlie Unemployed numbered 3.150,000. Suppose the Giovernment had issued $160,000,000 Emer- .!.;eiicy treasury notes, which is a million less than we pav annually for pensions to veterans and their widows and orphans. Suppose the Government had loaned to every unem- ployed without security fifty dollars at two per cent, per annum, payable in easy instalments. The misery and starvation of the imeniployed and their little ones would have been at an end. Their baker, grocer and butcher bills would have been promptly met. Busi- ness would have again prospered. Manufacturing would have been resumed. The temporary workless worker would have found a job waiting- for him and faithfully paid his Government loan. The financial panic would have vanished like magic. An association organized by Yiddish philanthropists on the lower East Side of New York, the "Hebrew Free T.oan Association," has gi\en relief to the needy by mak- iiii^ loans without security of $1 up to $100. Ten years' experience of llit'se benelactors has shown an insignifi- 142 THE LABOR AMENDMENT. cant loss from non-paying borrowers. Every one they assisted made haste to pay that debt of honor as soon as he or she was able to do so. The funds of the assopia- lion have steadily increased from donations of thankful people, and its power for good hiis grown. Even under the capitalistic reign the Great Army of the Unemployed, which is always in evidence, although, maybe, far below the high-water mark of 1907, could and should be relieved by a direct cash loan of the Govern- ment to the unemployed. The redemption of the starving unemployed as an ulti- mate consumer would give business a boom, and thus in- directly help him to a job. The inauguration of public works for the relief of the unemployed, as now demanded b)'' labor»organizations, is a slow process of bridging industrial or financial panics over. The preparations for public works are tedious. They require, first, legislative, and, then, executive action. They require the floating of bonds, the preparing of plans and specifications, and unnecessarv red tape. When finally the work is begun no power on earth can revive those who committed suicide or died from starva- tioti, nor restore to healtli those who have lost their capa- liility for work through destitution. • Mechanics in the building trades or laborers physical!)- fit to work on roads may be relieved through employment on public works. All other workers are not relieved. A cash loan by the Government to all unemployed will bring a speedy relief when most needed. The money lent the unemployed will flow into all chan- nels and fructify the general business. Under our pension laws every Civil War veteran or his widow on a declaration that he or she needs it, receives a ABOLITION OF PRIVATE MONEY POWER. 143 pension from the Government for services he alone ren- dered that the country may hve. Why should not the unemployed on a declaration that lie or she needs it, receive a loan from the Government to keep him or her capacitated for work to he rendered that the country may prosper? The Revolutionary Fathers were opposed to paying taxes just as much as bur present multi-millonah-es are. They rather issued paper money. Uncovered paper, although hated by the money lenders, was very popular with the State governments. The Continental Congress authorized the "Continental Currency" on Jtme 22, 1775, the day on which the Con- gress received the news of the battle of Bunker Hill. The amount was not to exceed $2,000,000, but at the close of 1779 aggregated $242,000,000. That year $too in specie would buy $2,600 in paper money. Strenuous efforts were made by the States and by Con- gress to keep up the credit of this currency. B)' a resolution of Congress all persons refusing to lake, in all payments, trades and dealings, the bills of credit and deem them ec]ual in value to the same nominal sum in Spanish dollars, were branded as enemies of the United States, on whom forfeitures and other penalties ought to be inflicted by the local authorities. The depreciation was not checked. In 1781 $100 in specie would buy $7,500 in Continental paper. Thomas Paine was opposed to the issue of paper by authority of a mere State. He was a stout defender of the Bank of North America and of commercial paper. The author of Common Sense held in his Dissertations on Government, which was dated February 18, 1786, that "the only proper use for paper, in the room of money, is 144 THE LABOR AMENDMENT. to write promissory notes and obligations of payment in specie upon." "A piece of paper thus written and signed," said Paine, who then considered that gold and silver were not the productions of North America, but articles of importa- tions, "is worth the sum it is given for. if the person who gives, it is able to pay it; because in this case the law will oblige him. But if he is worth nothing, the paper note is worth nothing. The value, therefore, of such a note is not in the note itself, for it is but paper and promise, but in the man who is obliged to redeem it with gold and silver. Paper circulating in this manner, and for this jHU-pose, continually points to the place and person where, and of whom, the money is to be had, and at last finds his home ; and, as it were, unlocks its master's chest and pays the bearer." "Paper money," he further explained, "operates as an anticipation of next year's taxes. The same quantity of produce, or goods, that would produce a paper dollar to pay taxes with, would procure a silver one for the same purpose." In defending a State issue of paper money Governor \Vard of Rhode Island argued that the money had been expended for public buildings, fortifications, and the like. No better argument could be offered to-day for making real products of labor the basis of paper issues. An improvement like the Panama Canal is deemed a good enough security by the cautious and timid money lender to loan money at 2 per cent, interest. The people must pay that interest with the product of the toiler. Why is not such an improvement a good enough secu- r'ity for the people to take paper money issued, for its payment ? Abolition of private money power, us llie issue of paper money not bearing interest will save the 2 per cent, per annum. Tliat means the people will earn the interest and keep the toiler's product, and stop feeding the money lender. What is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. Only, in this instance, the gander gets the sauce and the goose stays dry. (jovernor Ward of Rhode Island, we are inclined to Ijelieve, understood and endeavored to make his con- temporaries understand that for a permanent product of labor the people's money is not spent, but invested, and that it amounts to the same thing whether the work is paid for with uncovered paper which loses its money value gradually, thus taking the money out of the people's pocket in a roundabout way; or whether the work was paid for with the revenue from taxes taken out of the people's |)ocket in the most direct way. There is a difference whether paper is issued 'to take the place of taxes, or to create the means of circulation neces- sary to facilitate the daily business ; provided that the (iovernment — as Paine said of the person — which give^ the paper is able to pay when it' falls due. We have seen that 97 per cent, of the whole business of the nation is done on substitute for money, to the joy of the banking a^d money lender fraternity. The circulation per capita in the United States Marcli i, 1910, was $34.87, based on a population estimated at 89,- 883,000. That means we have $34.87 money in circulation for every man, woman and child. Among the nations France leads with a circulation per capita of $40.68. Then 'follow Australasia with $35.27. the United States with $34.87, Germany with $25.49, Netherlands ;with 146 THE LABOR AMENDMENT. $25.41, Belgium with $24.54, Canada with $22,37, Cuba with $21.60, Portugal witli $19.11, and the United King- dom "of Great Britain and Ireland "with $17.90. The circulation per capita in our country may safely be increased by uncovered paper issued by the Government to an extent necessary for the transaction of business. 'I'he toiler relieved from exploitation and receiving the full product of his labor, that is, receiving the 75 to 80 ]icr cent, of the surplus value of his labor product he is now rolibed of under capitalism, will be a willing taxpayer. 'J1ie Sixteenth (Taft's) Amendment will give Congress the unrestricted power to lay and collect taxes from what- ever source received. The ratification of this Amendment may be dela}^e(l !)y artificial arguments pleasing the rich tax dodgers, such as have been advanced by Governor Hughes of New '^^ork, who spoke as the Executive of a State burdened >\'it!i a State debt and a State tax, while Governor Fort of -New Jersey, the Executive of a State without a Stale debt and a State tax, could afford to favor tlie ratification. The ratification may be delayed, but the time will come when the Tax Amendmeht will be ratified. The history of the ratification of the amendments to llie Constitution teaches that in some States, after their legis- latures had already acted on an amendment, a succeeding legislature acted again and reversed the vote of their pre- decessors. No time is set in the Constitution when an amendment once proposed must be ratified or defeated. Tlie tax on incomes will come and forever remove the danger nf an issue of paper to take tlie place of taxes. The increase of the circulation per capita b\ paper as an ejnergency measure for (lie relief of the unemployed offers no danger. ABOLITION OF PRIVATE MONEY POWER. 147 But it is an emergency measure, nothing else, and will bring relief for a comparative short period only. The unemployed borrower will pay for the accommo- dation, and that emergency measure will not add to the burden of taxation. The luxury of enduring the grip of the money lender is. however, a heavy tax upon the toiler. In ten European monarchies the people pay their rulers an annual "Civil List," the designation by which the com- pensation for kings and emperors and their families is known, as follows: Emperor of Austria $3,875,000 King of Bavaria 1,350,000 King of Belginm: 660,000 King of Great Britain and Ireland 3,810,000 King of Italy 3,670,000 Queen .of Netherlands 312,500 King of Prussia 3,846,121 King of Saxony 852,000 King of Spain..". 2,365,000 King of Wurttemberg 500,000 A total civil list of $21,240,621 We pay the money lenders, our rulers, in interest on consols and bonds an annual royalty of $21,275,602. We pay our uncrowned money kings annually twenty- one million dollars for what? For nothing! The reigning emperors and kings, by the traditions of their dynasties and in the interest of their Houses, or under the constitutions of their countries, have to work for the welfare of their people. If they do not, something happens. The fate of Charles TI of England and of Loiiis XVI of France is ancient history. 148 THE LABOR AMENDMENT, The political revolutions in Norway, Russia, Turke)', Persia, Portugal and Spain, and the popular demonstra- tions in England and Prussia are recent events. What do the' money lenders dq for the welfare of the people of the United States ? What family traditions do they have to uphold ? What constitutional mandates do they have to obey for earning an annual royalty of twenty-one million dollars from the Treasury of the United States? They have not even the legal obligation to employ the unemployed. For that reason an emergency issue of paper money can bring but a temporary relief to the unemployed for the time being. We will have the unemployed so long as he must de- pend upon the capitalistic employer for a job. The relief measure under discussion would give the general business a boom. But that boom would be of a short duration unless a guarantee for a job awaiting the unemployed goes with the Government loan. As a transient measure for the relief of the unem- ployed, pending the industrial reconstruction under the proposed amendment, a Government loan would follow the precedent established in the Civil War. Cash boun- ties-were paid to the recruits enlisting in the Union ranks. A loan — not a bounty — shall be made to all unemployed who are able to work, and who register for work. Such loan shall be redeemed after the unemployed has been provided '"with occupation in such work as he is qualified to perform." All who are unable to work are not classified as un- employed. They must be taken care of in another way. All treasin-y notes of the Ignited States shall be legal tender. ABOLLTION OF PRIVATE MONEY POWER. 149 A constitutional provision must forever exclude any possible unfavorable construction by the Supreme Court, questioning or vetoing the power of Congress to issue legal tender notes in times of peace. The power vested in Congress to regulate all money institutions, the prohibition to delegate the power to issue currency, and the decree that treasury notes shall be legal tender, will inaugurate the prohibition, of tlie private money power in the United States. The Congress shall be the only money power^ilnd the Cqngress is elected by the people. XVI. THE ABOLITION OF THE MONEY LENDER. .Section II. The Congress shall have pozver: 5. To establish a uniform rate of interest not exceed- ing two per centum per annum, and to regulate the pay- ment of all interest-hearing public, and private, debts, loans, liens, and mortgages ; and therefore all interest- bearing debts, loans. Hens, and mortgages, shall be pro- hibited. Tiie interest on loans has been deemed contemptible usury since ancient times. Aristotle, the Greek philosopher and preceptor of Kinf^ Alexander the Great of Macedonia, who was born 384 and died 322 before Christ, has already denounced the taking ot interest as an unnatural profit, because money by its very nature is unproductive. The Mosaic law allowed the Jews to take interest from foreigners only, and exhorted the rich to grant loans gratuitously to the poor of their own faith. The Canonic law of the Middle Ages, as well as tjie laic laws, inhibited the ri^ht of taking interest altogether. Modern laws have made the taking of interest 'within limitations lawful, and beyond these limitations unlawful usury. In our country a lawful rate of interest has been es- ABOLITION OF THE MONEY LENDER LSI tablishecl by acts of Congress and by State and Territo- rial lawSj wliich differ in the several States of the Union. Two rates of interest are known — a legal rate and a rate allowed by contract. A legal rate forbids an agreement for any rate of in- terest higher ihan 1 he one established by law, but permits agreements at a lower rate. A rate allowed In contract makes the rate of interest lawfully optional with the lender and borrower within the limit allowed by law. A uniform legal rate of interest of 6 per cent., above which no agreement is a lawful contract, is established in Connecticut, Delaware, Kentucky, Maryland, New Hamp- shire, New Jersey, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Ten- nes.see, Vermont, Virgiilia, and West Virginia. Alabama has a uniform legal and contract rate of 8 per cent. In all the other States wheretn a rate is allowed by con- tract, the legal rate is fictitious. The established legal rate is -S per cent, in Illinois, Louisiana and Michigan; 6 ])er cent, in Arkansas, Ari- zona, District of Columbia, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Maine, Mi'.ssachusetts, Mississippi, Missouri, New Mexico, New York, Oklahoma, Oregon, Rhode Island, Texas, Wash- ington and Wisconsin; 7 per cent, in California, Georgia, Idaho, Minnesota, Nebraska, Nevada, North Dakota, South Carolina and South Dakota ; and 8 per cent, in Colorado, Florida, Montana, Utafh and Wyoming. A contract rate of 7 per cent, is lawful in Illinois and ^Michigan ; cfi 8 per cent, in Georgia, Indiana, Iowa, Lou- isiana, Missouri, Ohio and South Carolina ; of 10 per cent, in Arkansas, District of Columliia, Florida, Kansas, Min- nesota, Mississippi, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Texas and Wis- consin; and of 12 per cent, in Arizona, Idaho, New Mex- 15_' TtlE LABOR AMENDMENT. ico, North Dakota, South Dakota, Utah, Washington anays the Coiiummist Manifesto, "can not obtain its eman- cipation from the sway of the exploiting and ruling class without, at the same time, and once for all, emaMcipatinm society at large from all exploitation, oppression, class distinctions and class struggles." "The Fourth Estate" — says Ferdinand Lassalle, mean- ing the working class, in Arbeiterprogramm, 1862 — con- tains no more embryo for a new form of privileges and, therefore, embodies the whole human race. Its catise is in reality the cause of all. Its liberty is fr.c liberty of r'.l humanity. Its rule is the rule of all. Whosoever demanls that the idea of the working class be the ruling p-inciple of society does not utter a cry to sever and separate the different classes of society, but rather a ory of roncilia- iioii; a cry on behalf of all society; a cry uf cliniinatidn of all social contrasts; a cry of rally, in whicli all sliould join who do not favor privileges and oppression oi tlio people by the privileged classes; a cry of lox'e whk-li, since it first ABOLITION OP THE MONEY LENDER. 161 rang out from the hearts of all people, will forever be the true cry of the people, and will, for what it stands, re- main a cry of love even when sounded as the war cry of the people." The Socialist lawmaker, to be consistent, must have the intent "to emancipate society at large once for all" and "to make the cause of the working class in reality the cause of all." That legislative intent can be accomplished only by humane transient measures, whose enactment into law does not entail any hardships upon anybody. The American reason for compensated emancipation is the desire to perfect the Constitution in conformity with the Declaration of Independence, and to accomplish All set forth in the Preamble: "To form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquillity, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity." Twenty years is a sufficient period to reconciliate the present generation of the favored few grown up under capitalism to the new order of things. During these twenty years the compensated ci-devant capitalist will have two per cent, per year, or forty per cent, of his wealth acquired under capitalism, to live on. At the end of that period he shall receive his capital in legal tender of the United States. If the ex-capitalist continues to spend thereof two per cent., per year — eating up his capital — ^he will have fifty more years to Hve on his compensation. He will practically have seventy years without work 162 THE LABOR AMENDMRNT. and without staryation — long enough for any one reach- iag the ripe old age of Methuselah to live down the past and die in peace. What about the foreign money lender who has pur- chased our bonds ? National, State and municipal bonds shall be paid whta due, and retired. No more public bonds shall be issued. Industrial bonds are permanent investments and run indefinitely. No reliable figures caw be obtained of the aggregate value of American bonds held in foreign countries. The statistics of ©ur foreign trade passing the custom houses is available. During the ten fiscal years ending June 30, 1909, the Exports of Merchandise aggregated 15,812 million, the Imports 10,878 million, the total Exports and Imports 26,690 million, and the Excess of Exports of Merchandise 4,934 million dollars. During the same period the Exports of the United States Gold coin exceeded the Imports nearly 120 million dollars. Striking the balanca of our foreign trade, our foreign customers owe us 4,934 million for merchandise and 120 million for gold coin, a total of 5,054 million dollars. How did they pay the balance due us? It is said that they have sent us our own industrial bonds back in settlement — the bonds which they had pur- chased for investment. If that is true we decreased our obligation to and have become independent of the European money lender to the extent of five billion dollars within the first decade of the Twentieth Century. ABOLITION OF THE ilONEY LENDER. 163 The annual Excess of Export was as follows : 1900 $544,541,898 1901 664,592,826 1902 478,398,453 1903 394,422,442 1904 469,739,900 1905 401,048,595 1906 517,300,657 , 1907 446,429,650 1908 666,430,554 1909 351,090,«8O Total $4,933,995,855 At this speed the grip of tlie foreign money lender upon our people is rapidly loosening, and we would wipe out all our obligations abroad and shake off the yoke of the foreign money lender, even under capitalism, perhaps within another decade. In that case our final settlement Avith the foreign money lender will take care of itself. But it is said, too, that our excess of. exports is not a trade balance in our favor, and that to the contrary it is a payment for debts we owe. "Six hundred million dollars"— says, under the caption "The National Sin — Extravagance,'' the New York World, March 27, 1910 — "was needed last year to pay our balance due foreign nations. Money spent by tourists abroad, the dowries of American wives of noblemen, r«- niittances home by immigrants, the interests and dividends on our foreign-owned securities, liiust all be paid in an excess of exports over imports. When the purchase of foreign silks and wines and automobiles and furs and jewels grow rapidly, exports must also grow, or we fall behind. A princely husband in Paris costs sc^many million 164 T.BE LABOR AMENDMENT. pounds of mess pork. A dog collar of pearls imported calls for a cargo of cotton in return. Exports in 1909 fall nearly $40x5,000,000 short of meeting our require- ments. The bounty of our gold and silver mines reduced the deficit to $300,000,000. So we have $300,000,000 of fresh borrowings." "Extravagance the national sin," committed by the non- producers, will be somewhat limited as soon as the "$8.27 per" on bank investments, the fat oil, steel and other divi- dends, and the opulent land and house rents will have stopped, and when "$2 per" on a final ''pile" made will be the only resource of the extravagant. There will be no fresh borrowings under the proposed amendment. The final settlement with the foreign money lender will come in due course of time and in the regular order of business by the excess of exports of merchandise over imports. That means the foreign money lender will ul- timately take his pay in goods. The home money lender will mainly have to be reck- oned with. He is an American citizen amenable to our laws. If the law gives him legal tender notes as a compensa- tion — wl.ich is more liberal than confiscation — he will have to be content. The ex-capitalist can not dine on or dress with fiat money, nor can he dine on or dress with specie or gold certificates. After the industrial emancipation he will need dinners and garments and all other commodities just as he did before. The legal tender notes he will receive will be converted into merchandise for ultimate use. The home money lender, too, will ultimately /afes his pay in goods. ABOLITION OF THE MONEY LENDER. 165 And the working nation of producers will produce the goods. After the regulation and final payment ot the public and private debt within twenty years all interest-bearing loans shall be prohibited. That is the abolition of the money lender in the United States. XVII. THE RESTORATION OF LAND AND FRANCHISES. Section II. The Congress shall have power: 6. To restore to the people all lands and franchises alienated from the people; and thereafter the alienation of lands and franchises from the people shall he pro- hibited. '"The land belongs to man in usufruct only." That was the battle cry of the National Land Reform- ers and Freesoilers of old, who were stout believers in that Jeffersonian doctrine, in their fights for homestead laws. The United States acquired under the Peace treaty of J 783 the territory extending westward from the Atlantic Ocean to the Mississippi River. A large part of the land, claimed by our States, was ceded to Congress when the Confederation was formed. The disposition of the land was inaugurated by an Ordinance of Congress in 1785, directing the Secretary of War to draw by lot certain townships in the surveyed portion for bounties to soldiers in the Continental army. The remainder was to be sold for not less than $1.00 per acre. That price did not attract purchasers. "Squatters" set- Hod on the public _hn District Court Judges have been impeached THE SOCIALIST RECONSTRUCTION. 193 by the House of Representatives and tried by the Senate sitting as High Court of Impeachment, namely : In 1798, Senator William Blount, from Tennessee. He was expelled from the Senate on July 8, 1797, impeached by the House a year later, and acquitted by the Senate for want of jurisdiction. In 1803, United States District Judge John Pickering, of New Hampshire. He was convicted and removed from office. In 1805, Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court Samuel Chase, from Maryland. The largest vole for conviction on one of the several articles of impeach- ment was 19 to 15, being less than a two-thirds majority. He was acquitted. In 1830, United States District Judge James H. Peck, of Missouri, The vote stood 2X for conviction and 24 for acquittal. He was acquitted. In 1862, United States District Judge West H. Humph- reys, of Tennessee. He engaged on the Confederate side during the Civil War, and was convicted by a unanimous vote. In 1868, United States President Andrew Johnson, from Tennessee. The House impeached him^on February 24 by a vote which stood : Years 126,. nays 47, not voting 17. The Senate took a vote on May 26. The vote stood 35 for conviction and 19 for acquittal, lacking one of a sufficient number to convict. A verdict of acquittal was entered. In 1876, William W. Belknap, of Iowa, Secretary of War under Grant. The vote stood 37 for and 25 against conviction on one of the three articles of impeachment. As the necessary two-thirds vote was not ohtamed he was acquitted. 194 THE LABOR AMENDMENT. In 1905, Charles Swayne, United States District Judge of Florida. He was acquitted. Two of the eight civil ofificers, from President down to District Court Judge, who came within the danger zone of impeachment, were recalled under the Constitution. Impeachment of State ofificers is provided for b} the State constitutions. Mal'feasancc in office, not subject to impeachment, is a •criminal offence under Federal and State laws, a:nd is prosecuted according to law. The accused officer is indicted by a grand jury on suffi- cient evidence that a crime has been committed. The defendant is arraigned to plead guilty or not guilty. His legal rights are protected by counsel. He is tried before Iwelvc of his peers, and considered innocent until found Siiilty. If found guilty he has the right of appeal. .V public official is thus protected under the present form of recall against whims, public clamor and injustice under pretense of law. The attacks Upon him may hurt his feel- ings, but do not deprive him of his livelihood. The right of recall is in force to appointed as well as to elected officers. When the term of an elected officer expires, he must face his constituency, and if they elect him tu stay at home he is recalled. The recall in itself, without due process of law, is prac- tically a return to the old spoils system against which the civil service reform movement is directed. The civil service reformers maintain that pubHc office is a public trust ; that only persons who are duly qualified should be appointed to office, and be promoted as they show themselves worthy, and be removed only for mis- conduct and inefficiency. The national constitution of the Socialist partv. adopted THE SOCIALIST RECONSTRUCTION. 19S in 1908, provides, "that any person occupying a position lionorary or remunerative, by gift of any party other than the SociaHst party (civil service positions excepted) shall not be elected to membership in the Socialist Party." Tliis provision shows that the Socialist party is in full accord witli the contentions of the civil service reformers. An arbitrary recall would give the incoming party the power to dismiss all officials for political reasons, and fill the vacated offices with their partisans. That, however, is not the Socialist conception. No So- cialist party is a party of office seekers. They do not have to be. A party whose aim is to assure "Jobs for All all the time" is not after the comparatively few political jobs, of which William L. Marcy said : "To the victor belong the spoils of the enemy." L'nder the proposed Labor Amendment every one who is occupied shall continue to work or render services in his occupation at a comjiensation fixed by law. Work shall be provided for the Unemployed. The State, county, parish, city, town, township, village, borough, ward, and precinct administrations shall be con- tinued as heretofore, unless changed by law. The economic reconstruction after the industrial eman- cipation does not mean the advent of the unemployed office Seekers and the forcing of unemployment upon the pres- ent office holders. It rather means the emancipation of the political serf, who belongs to a party machine and is owned by a politi- cal boss, just as the Russian serf belonged to the land and was owned by a landlord. It means the emancipation of the office seeker, who wants and slaves for a job, and of the office holder, who slaves, in permanent fear of Idsing his job. The political yoke shall be thrown off. The party Avhip 196 THE LABOR AMENDMENT. shall lose its terrors. The political tool shall become a free and independent public servant, or a free and inde- pendent co-operative worker. Favoritism and sinecures for commanders, who glory in tlieir "records" while the nameless subaltern must do their bidding, shall be at an end. Merit and efficiency shall be rewarded. The public officials sliall hold office without wire-pull- ing and subserviency. They shall be free to do right by the people, and to deserve well of the people. ' The demand of recall may look good in a platform to catch votes, but it has no real meaning. If it is meant seriously, it has a tendency to create confusion in the minds of the minor public officers who are of the working class. The demand of initiative and referendum is a palliative to cripple the power of the capitalist lawmakers and to re- place politician's law by workman's law. It is a political question which may be settled one way or another wi^h- init affecting industrial emancipation. The toilers of the nation will not have the power to make laws by initiative and referendum before they have not had the power to compel the capitalist lawmakers to concede that right. When that right will be conceded the toilers will be in ]3ower and have the lawmakers who will make the laws which the toilers want. The protection against a present and future abuse of power by elected lawmakers and officials lies in short terms of office. In Massachusetts and Rhode Island the term-of office of Governor, State Senator and- Assemblyman is one yenr only. THE SOCIALIST ]iE(JONS t'RUCTlON. 19; There is in, no State a longer term of office for gov- ernors and senators than four years. The term of the President is four years, of the United States Representative two years. The term of the United States Senator is six years, but the term of one-third of the Senate expires every two years, so that in two Congressional campaigns a complete change in the complexion of the Senate to a controlling two-thirds majority may be efifected. AVithin four years, therefore, the toilers of America can be in complete control of the Government whenever they will unite to accomplish it. The proposed amendment will complete the work of the adjustment of povv'er begun by the Fathers of the Constitution. "Tlie power vested in the government of the several States by state constitutions," says Thomas Paine in Rights of Man, Part II, "were found, upon experience^ to be too great ; and those vested in the federal government, l)y the Act of Confederation, too little. The defect was not in the principle, but in the distribution of power." Upon further experience the power vested in the gov- ernment of the several States was still found to be too great. A new distribution of power waS made to remedy tlie defect. The Thirteenth, Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments were adopted. The political problem was solved, that every citizen owes paramount allegiance to the National, not to the State, Government. And, still, upon further experience the power vested in the government of the several States is found to be too great. The industrial problem must be solved. Another distribution of power to remedy the defect is in order. That distribution of power will be another encroach- ment upon the State rights, which began with the ratifica- 198. THE LABOR AMENDMENT. tion of the Constitution and ended in the period of Re- construction after the Civil War. The right of the people to Home Rule in the States and communities- shall not be interfered with. A State or community shall only feel the National Authority when its officers shall fail or neglect to obey the National Work regulations relating to hours, working conditions, and compensation for work or services. To-day the capitalistic Government sends Federal troops into a State to assist the oppressors of the workers. That is not deemed an encroachment upon State rights. Under the proposed amendment the Government shall only use its military arm and supreme police power to suppress the oppressors of the workers. That will not be deemed an enci-oachment upon the State rights of the people. The States and communities, relieved from tlie grip of the money lender, shall have at their disposal the enormous sums paid in interest, which are now swallowing up a large share of their annual appropriations. They shall be able to pay standard compensations to their officials and laborers, and to make all the much needed improvements for the good and welfare of the people. The toiler, relieved from exploitation, may rival with each other in making their own State and their own com- munity the jewel of all States and communities. So far we ha\e only considered the welfare of the citi- zens of the United States under the proposed amendment. We have, furthermore, the "Wards of the Nation," Avho are not citizens — the Indians and the inhabitants of Gin- insular possessions. The Indian population was 298,472 in 1907, as reported by the. United States Bureau of Indian Affairs. That is THE SOCIALIST RECONSTRUCTION. 199 an increase of 31,712 above the number of Indians taxed and untaxed as given by the Census of 1900, The population of the Phih'ppine Islands, Porto Rico, Hawaii, Guam, Tutulla, Samoa, and Wake Islands is about 9,000,000. Of this number about 600,000 inhabi- tants in the Philippines are not civilized. Some of these possessions are unorganized territories and under the direct control of Congress. Hawaii, the Philippines and Porto Rico are organized territories with the privilege of sending Delegates to Congress. The proposed amendment confers the right of suffrage upon all citizens being twenty-one years of age, whether they are white, black, brown or yellow. Residence in a State carries the citizenship under the State laws. When an unorganized territory evolves itself to an organized Territory and afterward to a State, its inhabitants become automatically voters. The power of Congress to admit States and thereby to confer citizenship is unquestioned. The population of Continental United States, including .Vlaska, on January 1, 1910, as estimated in the New York World Almanac, was 93,163,802. The Census of 1900 reports 76,303,387 population. Of that number 10,460,085, including 119,050 Chinese and 85,986 Japanese, were foreign born. The foreign born who comes with the intention to be- come naturalized, and who declares his intention to become a citizen, shall be treated as a citizen and enjoy all rights and privileges of a citizen, except the right to vote in political elections. The vexed immigration problem will find its solution under the proposed amendment. The total immigration from 1789 to 1821 was but 260.000. 200 THE LABOR AMENDMENT". From that time up to and including June 30, 1908, it aggregated nearly 27,000,000. Within the last twelve years 8,743,312 immigrants landed. The number within the last five years was 4,947^239 — ■ a round five million. The views of organized labor on iftimigration are ex- pressed in President Gompers' report to the twenty- seventh convention in 1907, wherein he said: "Recognizing the influQice for good and evil of the large number of immigrants brought to our shores, the American Federation of Labor years ago impressed upon the public mind and upon Congress the necessity for bet- ter regulation and restriction of immigration. Surely such portentous figures of a conglomerate people brought to our country by various devices must cause us to pause and reflect whether this influx can long continue with its ap- parent enormous increase without in a large measure tend- ing to tear down, or to make it additionally difficult to maintain the American standard of life, American asper- ations for industrial and commercial progress and moral advancement as well as the perpetuation of the purity of our republic." The stand taken by organized labor is easily understood when we consider that the immigration of twenty-four months brings a competition upon the so-called "labor market" in number equal to the total membership of the American Federation of Labor. ' It is butter and bread they are fighting for. Nine million immigrants are nine million consumers, but they are first felt as the competitors for jobs, adding to the difficulties of the trade unions to maintain the American standard of life. The immigrant who produces wealth and renders use- I'TIE SOCIALIST RECONSTRUCTION. 201 ful services is just as much entitled to the fruit of his labor as the native who is a descendant from an immi- grant. Here, too, we may say with Thomas Paine that "the defect is not in the principle, but in the distribution of power." Abolish wage-slavery, and the immigrant, the unwel- come competitor of to-day, will be the hospitably received co-worker hereafter. A percentage of the seventeen million foreign bom — the figure which the Census of 1910 is likely to report — may remain aliens. The alien h protected by treaty. So is his property. Unless an alien wishes to sell and the Govemrnent agrees I0 purchase his property, no acquisition shall take' place. The alien may reside here and trade or work among us, but he shall neither be an employer of wage-slaves nor liire out as a wage-slave. Nor shall he export any metallic money without a permit of the Government. The work laid out under the proposed amendment will keep our generation busy. Tt is enough of work for one generation. Let our posterity accomplish the mission of their gen- erations. "First things first" is the policy of the American Fed- eration of Labor. "The first thing first" now in order is a campaign for the reconstruction of our industrial life, a campaign for The Socialist Reconstruction. XX. PRACTICABLE SOCIALISM. This work, planned for years, was begun under the influence of the panic of 1907 and of the three Supreme Court decisions on January 6 and 27, and February 3, 1908, whereby organized labor was outlawed, and their legislative victories of three decades were smashed into smithereens. The psychological moment for formulating the demands of the toiler in the shape of an amendment to the Constitu- tion had arrived. The polite question asked by the Saturday Evening Post, while this work was progressing, whether there is stich a thing as practical socialism, has been superseded, in time to note it, by a positive assertion, that Socialism is impracticable. Under the caption, "Why Socialism is impracticable," a contribution by Mr. Charles R. Miller, editor of the New York Times, appeared in the April, 1910, number of the Century Illustrated Monthly Magazine. "T am not sure," says Brother Miller, "that the Social- ists ever attempt to picture forth, even for themselves, the actual conditions under which the Socialistic state would take up and carry on its work. I have nowhere found such a projection of the programme of the socialization of industry and production. A balance sheet of Socialism, PRACTICABLE SOCIALISM. 2(M a Socialist budget, is a thing unknown. No Socialist writer has told us, how much the ideal government would cost, or has disclosed to us the source of revenue. . . There are no canonical books of the socialistic faith and practice, no body of doctrine anywhere proclaimed that is in all its parts everywhere accepted by the Socialists as orthodox. Of current writers no two are in such agree- ment that it is possible to quote one as an authority on the 'faith and morals' of Socialism, save at the risk of being reproached for misrepresentation by most of the others. . . . There is no source from which the So- cialist government could get revenue enough to pay its bills. Its bonds would be worthless. . The chief of all the many unconquerable conditions which the So- cialists ignore is the nature of man. . . Brains, in- dustry, capacity, foresight,' would assert themselves in a So<':ialist state as in any other, and laziness and improvi- dence would bring want and dependence, as they now bring and always have brought them. . In no Socialist writing that has ever come under my observa- tion has any attempt been made to count the cost of collec- tive ownership, or to show how the bill would be paid. .-\ny candid inquiry into the problem leads to bui one con- clusion that the bill would not and could not be paid at all. Collective confiscation must necessarily precede collective ownership. We may therefore ask by what means the owners of half of the national wealth are to be made to part with it for the common behoof. Evidently not bv ()ersuasion. Nothing in human experience, nothing in history supports the theory of voluntary surrender. The Socialists say that the change is to come with the ballot." If it will ease the mind of anyone it can be stated that for forty years the Socialists of Germany have been dis- cussing for themselves what they shall do if they were JM 'J-HE LAKOR AMENDMENT. suddenly called upon to assume the responsibility of gov- ernment. The Socialist movement is an international movement, directed against capitalism, which is an international power — in fact, the great international power. The Socialist problem cannot be solved by a simulta- neous international action, because the nations differ in capitalistic development, in political institutions, and in the education of their people. Every nation must solve the problem of Socialism for itself. The i'lternational solution of the problem depends, therefore, upon the action of one nation after another, each one taking its own time. The Socialist movement of any nation, to be practicable and successful, must be a national movement, first, last; and all the time. For that reason Socahst writers differ, severally and collectively, as to details — as President Taft would say— "of minor importance". The Socialist movement in America just begins to as- sume noticeable proportions as a national movement. For that reason there was heretofore no necessity for a Socialist budget, which is now respectfully submitted. For the same reason the official demands in the Social- ist Platform of 1908 differ from the individual sugges- tions, presented herein at a later date. Brother Miller's computation of "the initial liabilities of the Socialist government," as he calls it, places arbi- trarily tlie sum at Seventy Billion. Our "Capitalist Bill of Sale" is estimated, arbitraril>% too, but more specific nevertheless — at Seventy-five Billion. Brothw- Miller's assertion that "in this account a matter PRACTICABLE SOCIALISM. 205 of a few billions more or less is quite negligible," is in- dorsed. "The source of revenue" and "national wealth" have the same source — the productive labor power of the toiler. "National Wealth" — as used by the economists of the past — means "real and personal property within a nation". The productive labor power does not figure. "National ^^'ealth," as understood by the economists of the future, will mean, not property, but "land and the ()roductive labor power within a nation." The "source of i-evenuc" from times immemorial has been the productive labor power of the toiler. The "source of revenue" will be in the future what it has been in the past, the productive labor power of the toiler. The compensation bonds would not be worthless miles'! you aljolish the power of taxation. The Socialists of every nation, having adopted the doc- trine of Thomas Paine, demanded a progressive income tax.. Tlie opponents to the paxinent of taxes are found in the ranks of the capitalists, not of the Socialists, and not of the trade unionists, who tax themselves heavily and vol- untarily to uplift humanity. "Millions for bribery and corruption! Millions for charity ! Not one dollar for taxes !" That is the capitalist, not the SociaHst, ■'faith and morals." The "nature of man," as a worker as well as on oppres- sor, has not been lost sight of. The compensation to be fixed for common labor time, and for responsibility, and artistic, scientific, and literary value, added thereto, is adapted to the "nature of man" as a workw. 206 THE LABOR AMENDMENT. The measures proposed for the abolition of the private money power and of the money lender are adapted to the "nature of man'' as an exploiter. His '"nature"' shall be tamed, and his power shall be broken. Thus "'brains, industry, capacity, foresight," alias "thrift,' has been duly considered. ■'Laziness and improvidence would bring want anl de- pendence," says Brother Miller. Of course ! The improvident, able to work and too lazy to M'ork, will deserve want and dependence — starvation or jail — as a punishment. This punishment is now meted out undeserved to the improvident who is neither lazy nor unwilling to work, but has been very injudicious in the selection of his pro- genitors, and who has not been smart enough to come into this world from parents who are rich. As to the "voluntary surrender" — well, voluntary or involuntary, history has spelled in capital letters the word SURRENDER. George the Third of England surrendered. The Slavocracy of the South surrendered. The capitalists will surrender when the ballot will com- pc\ them to. The fight will center in the election of a President. The election of Lincoln in i860 brought on Secession and the Civil War. The Tilden-Hayes campaign of 1876 brought the coun- try to the verge of a civil war, which was avoided by Samuel Tilden's acquiescence in the result as declared by the Electoral Commission. .\s a jurist Tilden must have felt in his inner heart, al- though he had a majority of the popular vote, that his opponent had, technically, a legal majorilv. Tilden surrendered. PRACTICABLE SOCIALISM. 207 The slaveholders of the South had a territory of their own. They dreamt of constituting a nation among nations. What territory of their own do the capitalists have ? Lincoln offered — aye, urged — the Border States to ac- cept compensated emancipation. They missed their opportunity for voluntary surrender, and the luck of war forced their slaveholders to involun- tary surrender. If the capitalists will choose not to accept compensated emancipation, as proposed, they will be confronted with bankruptcy — and that may be a consolation* in their pre- ilicament — bankruptcy in the most approved capitalistic fashion. There were 407,324 recorded failures in the United States, from January i, [866, to October 30, 1909, in- volving liabilities of $6,431,857,660. - That means, not counting the millions of small failures which are not recorded, that 407,324 capitalists went un- der during the lifetime of this generation. Flowers were omitted. The money in circulation — 3,135 million dollars — is the only property that could be taken to foreign countries without help. Machinery may be taken away if you find the help to ship it. Land and buildings are immovable. The industrial bonds may be moved. But they repre- sent investment in land and the earning power of the plant, based upon the exploitation of labor. Industrial bonds may be not worth moving. If the capitalists refuse to sell out, the productive labor power of the country can reproduce all constructions, ma- chinery and tools. The land can be seized under the old capitalistic law?, and be appraised by commissioners to be 208 THE LABOR AMENDMENT. appointed by the toilers 'without dictation from the cap- italistic interests. The toilers will be in a position to force a settlement, and the creditors will take the percentage offered him and rejoice in saving out of the wreck what he can. The capitalists will then have the satisfaction — owing to their "laziness" in making up their mind, and to their "impi-ovidence" not to understand that the jig is up — to charge many billions to profit and loss. Even if then there is something amiss in their strong box, their business books will be all right. The trial balance will tally. The "lazy and improvident" capitalists will thus have been their own confiscators. Many toilers may object to compensation. To this sort ' of confiscation no toiler will object. The owners of one-half of the national wealth — prop- erty—may do as they please, part or not part, with it for the common behoof. The owners of tlie other half of the national wealth — productive labor power — can afford to watch ihe capital- ists and calmly wait for their surrender. Whatever doubt there may exist in any one's mind as to whether in any near or far future, or not at all, a Social- ist nominee for President may be elected, there can be no doubt that, if elected, he will take his office. It is unthinkable that any President, duly elected, should be kept out of office by any usurper. That is not a Socialist question. That is an American question. The Army and Navy, from the general and admiral in command down to the youngest recruit, will obey the orders of the duly elected President. PRACTICABLE SOCIALISM. 209 The Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States will take his oath or affirmation. The eight or ten million voters who elected the Presi- dent will seat him. The defeated capitalist nominee will do as Tilden did — surrender. There is no profit in riot and rebellion where there is no assurance to collect a padded claiin -for damages. In the contrary course, however, there is profit, peace, and patriotism. We have conclusively shown that collective confiscation must not necessarily precede collective ownership. The compensation bonds will be the obligation of a sol- vent creditor. Their issue is ndt confiscation by insol- vency. "The Socialists say that the change is to come with the ballot," states Brother Miller, dubiously. How is a President elected ? With the ballot. How did the Socialists of Milwaukee on April s, igio, elect a mayor, a city comptroller, a eity treasurer, a city attorney, two civil judges, twenty-one aldermen and nine- teen supervisors? With the ballot. The Socialists say such things, and they do such things. Two days after "the election that made Milwaukee fa- mous," a meeting was held at the historic Cooper Union in New York. Eugene V. Debs spoke on the persecution of Fred D. Warren, editor of the Appeal to Reason, a Socialist weekly published in Girard, Kansas. Mr. Charles Edward Russell, the chairman of the meet- ing, said in his introductory address : "If we are told that Socialism is impracticable the an- swer will be — Milwaukee!" XXI. THE ERA OF SOCIALISM. "We know our business," said Mark Hanna, the politi- cal manager of Governor William McKinley during the National Republican Convention in 1896. They did know their business. McKinley was nominated and elected President. Hanna was chosen campaign manager, and afterward elected United States Senator from Ohio. "It has been said that we know our business; let us, therefore, proceed with our business," said Hanna, then the supreme national boss of the Republican- party, four years later, in inaugurating the Presidential campaign of 1900, which led to the re-election of President McKinley. They have been proceeding with their business ever since. The toilers 'of America should learn and know the Hanna policy by heart. The farmers and the workers, organized and unorgan- ized, should know their business and proceed with their business. Labor laws galore have been enacted, many more have been framed and defeated. The Legislative Committee of the-Workingmen's Fede- ration of the State of New York, Thomas D. Fitzgerald, chairman, reported to the State Convention, held at Troy, THE ERA OF SOCIALISM. 211 in September, 1909, the work of the New York Legisla- ture on labor legislation in that year. The labor men took care of 102 bills during that ses- sion of the Legislature. Active support and co-operation was given them by many forces, notably by President Daniel Harris and Sec- retary-treasurer Edward A. Bates of the State Federa- tion; the chairmen of the legislative boards, John P. Ogden and Arthur W. Evans of the Railroad Trainmen, Thomas E. Ryan of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Fire- men and Enginemen, M. Fiannery of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers, Fiank Vincent of the Brotherhood of Railroad Conductors, Herman Robinson of the Ameri- can Federation of Labor, President Morley Williams and Secretary Hall of tlie Child Labor Committee, Commis- sioner of Labor John Williams, his Deputies W. W. Walling and John Lundrigan, and Statistician Leonard W. Hatch; and the Members of Assembly, who are trade union card-holders, Edward D. Jackson of Bufifalo, John J. Schutta of Brooklyn, George W. Baumann of Manhat- tan, Joseph A. Jordan of North Tonowanda, Thomas J. Lanahan of Staten Island, and Harry W. Haines of Yonkers. The Calendar of Labor Legislation Results, Session 1910 of the New York Legislature— as reported in the Legislative Labor News, Albany, New York, July, 1910, J. M. O'Hanlon, publisher — shows that the Legislative Committee of the State Workingmen's Federation was looking after 61 bills, namely, 20 measures originating with the State Workingmen's Federation, 8 State Lafeor Department measures, 6 bills submitted by the Wain- wright-C. W. Phillips Commission, 10 bills opposed by the State Workingmen's Federation, and 17 miscellaneous bills' affecting labor interests. 212 THE LABOR AMENDMENT. What was the fate of the 163 bills? 86 bills were killed by the opposition to labor. 6 bills passed both houses, but were killed by vetoes. That was a setback. 3 bills dangerous to labor were satisfactorily amended. 36 bills dangerous to labor were killed by the opposi- tion of the labor forces. That was a success. 32 bills demanded by labor passed — 12 in 1909, 26 in 1910. The labor men were kept busy in pushing 92 bills which were lost in the shuffle, and the 32 bills which they put upon the statute book, and in crushing the 39 bills which endangered the ground gained in the past. The capitalists know their business. In the Sixty-first Congress — as reported by Arthur E. Holder, Legislative Committee, American Federation of Labor, in the March, May, July and August, 1910, num- bers of the American Federationist — 136 measures were introduced that affected the interest of labor, namely, to6 House bills, 28 Senate bills and 2 Joint Resolutions. These measures deal — and that shows the wide sco"pe of the activity of the American Federation of Labor in demanding and watching legislation — with amendments to the Sherman Anti-Trust law, accident reports and acci- dent reliiefs, boiler inspection, compulsory investigation of strikes, child labor, civil service riegulations, contempt bilfe, convict labor. Department of Labor, eight-hour day or forty-eight hour week for Postoffice Clerks, employers' liability and workmen's compensation for injuries, immi- svation, industrial education, injunctions, Lincoln'^s birth- day, mijies and mining, old age pensions, postal iaviBjjs f ttR Kra ot^ Socialism. 2v.i banks, !Porto Rico citizenship, regulation of commerce, safety appliances, second class mail, seamen — to prevent under-manning of ships, etc.; ship subsidy, and Sunday as a day of rest. Eleven bills only, 7 in the House and 4 in the Senate, were indorsed by the American Federation of Labor. At the time of Mr. Holder's report, which is dated Feb- ruary, 1910, one solitary labor bill, introduced by Repre- sentative William B. Wilson from Pennsylvania, a trade union card-holder, to amend the defective model child labor law of the District of Columbia, had passed the House and Senate, and was in conference. When the second session of Congress adjourned, June 25, 1910, 2 Joint' Jlesolutions and 11 Bills affecting the workmen had passed and become laws. The most essential measures in the interest of labor that are before Congress — the amendment to the Anti-Trust Act and the Anti-Injunction Bill — had not advanced to final passage. The cool indifference of the capitalist lawmakers proves how easy it is to endure the misery of other people. The stupendous work done by the legislative commit- tees of the American Federation of Labor in Congress and of their affiliated State Federations in the legislatures of our forty-six States and six Territories, is understood by very fe\y people, hardly realized by organized labor, and not appreciated by the toilers of America. It is a continuous performance to watch the price of liberty, A labor law! How is a labor law made? First, like Captain Marryat's hero Japhet, you are in search of a father of the bill. When you have found a father, the bill is introduced in a House of Lawmakers, has its first reading, that is, the reading of the titl^,^ and is 2l4 THE LABOR AMENDM-ENi'. referred to a committee. The committee is watched, and urged to give a hearing on the bill. The hearing or hear- ings are attended to. A report is urged. If successfully, the report is made. The bill has seen daylight, and is placed upon the calendar. It has a second reading in the House, by sections, and is open to amendments. Amend- ments are offered. The bill is reprinted ; that is a delay. Conflicting amendments are offered; the bill is recom- mitted. Then the old trouble begins anew to get the bill out of committee. Every vote is spoken to, noses are counted. Ah, th» bill has a majority on third reading. The bill passed, and is followed up to the engrossing clerk, and in the Committee on Engrossed Bills, and on its way to the other House, until it is there, safe. The same whole trouble, minus the search of a father, begins and has to be gone through all over again in the other House. The bill is referred to a committee, which reports, if at all, with or without recommendation, with or without amendments. No amendment is an unusual exception. The bill passes the second House, with amend- ment, and goes back to the first House. The first House does not concur in the amendment. The bill is referred to a Joint Conference Committee. Its decision is final. If no agreement is reached in conference the bill is dead. If an agreement as to amendments is reached, but not con- curred in by either house, that is the end of the bill. All your trouble was for nothing. Your bill, of course, is "a good bill that ought to pass." But there is also such a thing as "a bad bill that ought not to pass." With a bad bill the same trouble is gone through. The only difference is that you block the progress of the bill at each stage of the game. The bill, as patched up in conference, has passed. It is THE ERA OF SOCIALISM. 21S followed up in the Committee on Passed Bills, until it is safe in the Executive Chamber. Then the Executive is beleagured to sign the bill or let it become law without his signature, or veto it, as the case may be. That is what some well-meaning, but poorly informed, friends call "begging for legislation." That is the story of one bill. The story of all the bills looked after by the American Federation of Labor is the same tale fifty thousand fold told, in which no account is given of the time, labor, worriment, nervous strain, traveling expenses and hotel bills, spent in the cause of labor. All writers and lecturers on the subject of "begging for legislation" would serve, with profit to themselves and their readers and hearers, an apprenticeship on a legisla- tive committee. They would learn that a bill, before being enacted into law, passes the scrutiny of the leaders or caucus of the majority and minority party in the body of lawmakers; that every bill has its friends and its enemies; that a bill requires the assent and action of two Houses and the ap- proval of the Executive; that the attention of the law- makers is engaged by a pressure of favorite bills from all quarters at one and the same time ; that any one bill, how- ever meritorious or pernicious it may be, is not the only pebble on the beach ; and that no bill is passed unless there is with it profit or pleasure to the lawmakers, or behind it votes and influences that count on election day. In short, they would learn that there is not, and never has been, any possible begging for legislation. Politeness is the virtue of the diplomats. The representatives of organized labor who are serving on committees on trade agreements, or on boarfls of arbi- 216 THE LABOk AMENDMliN'l'. tration, and on le^slative committees, are the diplomats of the labor movement, chosen by their fellow workers. PpHteness of the representatives of organized labor when asking for labor legislation is not subiserviency. The rank and file may not understand as yet that the workman has risen as a power whose diplomats are djily accredited at the capitalistic courts. It is time that the workmen should know their business. The labor movement is made up of many elements, just as the army is formed of many elements. In the army there is infantry, cavalry and artillery — the troups on foot marching slowly, those on horseback moving swiftly, and those who lire heavy shot at the enemy. There are the generals, always polite, and cool and collected, even when the smoke of the battle fills their throats and lungs, the groaning of the wounded and dying pierces their ears, and the sight of the dead sickens their hearts. There are the low ofificers who drill the recruits, and the high officers who inspire courage and devotion to the service. There are the boys who beat the drum, the trumpeters who blow the buglehorn, and the military band who plays ill joy and sorrow, and gladdens the hearts of the soldiers when marching into battle, There is the commander-in-chief who is cautious, but not timid, and his council of war who deliberates on at- tacks, retreats, or truces, as the day may demand. And there is the rank and file of swearing troupers, rough, ready, and eager for the affray. There is the chaplain who prays for the victory of the colors. Sometimes he prays in vain, defeat follows. The general command may have been injudicious, or the arma- THE 1'RA of socialism, 2l^ nient and ammunition insufficient and inferior, or the time and the field of the battle ill chosen. Or the chaplain may have been no good, or the cause which he prayed for abominably bad. Many elements go into the formation of an, army. But one spirit, common devotion to the flag, rules supreme. When the army is set in motion there are the camp fol- lowers, the deserters, the spies, and the vultures. There, too, are the non-combatant friends and the angels of the Red Cross. There is the enemy. Petty jealousies which filled the idle life of the garri- sons, barracks and forts are forgotten in the common de- sire to down the enemy. The victory is won by discipline. Many elements — incongruous, perhaps, yet indispensible — ^make up the labor movement. There are those who know they are Socialists, and there are others who believe they are Socialists, and there are many _ who are Socialists and do not know it. To what class do you belong, gentle reader ? To the rank and file,, to their indifference and griev- ances, and to the bickerings of their leaders, applies what Thomas Paine said long, long ago: "A long habit of not thinking a thing wrong gives it a superficial appearance of being right, and raises at first a formidable outcry in defense of custom. But the tumult soon subsides. Time makes more convert than reason." In the fight for the rights of labor the American Fed-, eration of Labor has stood the brunt of the battle. They proceeded with the business of the wage-worker in a businesslike way. Now let us all know and proceed with our business. Let us enact all our laws which are demanded by the 2IS IHE LABOR AMENDMENT. toiler, and enforce all the laws which have been enacted by the toiler. A Constitutional barrier is in the way of the enactment and enforcement? Remove the barrier. Capitalist lawmakers stand in the way of removing the barrier ? Remove the capitalistic lawmakers. How shall we remove them ? The law gives us the power to elect others. What chance do poor and hungry people have against the rich? Once in a year — on election day — the door is opened to the dining room. Open your eyes and walk through the open door. The table is spread. Sit down and eat. You hesitate ? You are not used to eat yourself ail the good things which you are producing? Get the appetite. You have the appetite all right, but you are too bashful ? Get the sense of your numerical strength. The toilers are the many, the despoilers are the few. Get the confidence of strength, the defiant sense of power. Confidence of strength is half the victory'over money trusts and charity trusts, over public bribery by public charity. t, Let us count the few who are rich, and contrast their number with the many who are poor. We do not demand that the rich get poor, but we do in- sist that the poor get rich. Do you want to be rich? If you were free from want and from fear of want — free from the anxiety to pay rent, interest, mortgage, THK era op socialism. 21') taxes, notes and bills when due — free from worry of see- ing your sons and daughters well educated, well equipped for a start in life, and equally forever free from want and the fear of want — and if you had a permanent occupa- tion, under excellent working conditions, with the full compensation for the fruit of your labor, with an annual vacation that is a vacation, including the means to enjoy it; and with the assurance of a happy old age — would you consider yourself rich ? Would you consider yourself rich if you were a stock- holder in a corporation with a paid-up capital of $75,000,- 000,000 and a reserve fund of untold riches, and with an annual earning power of $500,000,000,000, even if you had to work for the corporation jointly with 100,000,000 fellow workers, shareholders like yourself and with you sharing in the dividends? If you want to be rich know your business, and then proceed with your business. The farmer and the small business men were pressed into the yoke of the corporations. The corporations were swallowed up by the trusts. The trusts were swallowed up by the holding compa- nies ; and the holding companies are swallowed up by the — it may be so called in recognition of the bankers J. P. Morgan & Co., who control one-tenth of all property in America — Morganized Money Power. But now comes a capitalist — greater, richer, stronger and mightier than all of them — who will swallow them all up. Now comes the conquering and invincible TrUlionaire — UNCLE SAM. The good Uncle Sam will find employment for you and your children and children's children for all time to conie. 220 THE LABOk AMICNDM-EN l". The good Uncle Sam will insure you and yours against want and fear of want. The good Uncle Sam will settle with your creditors, pay your debts, and keep you forever out of debt. The good Uncle Sam will care for your tender youth, your feeble age, and for your sick and helpless. The good Uncle Sam will be good to you if you are good to yourself, know your business and proceed vyith your business. The Message of Uncle Sam is addressed not only to you, the Wage- Worker and the Unemployed, but to you, Mr. Farmer, and to you, Mr. Businessman, both of you slaving for the money lender. It is also addressed to you, Mr. American Citizen, who wishes to destroy the germ of civil war. In particular it is addressed to you, Mr. Capitalist, who may wish for an insurance policy against fconfiscation — say, an endowment policy payable during lifetime in in- terest-bearing compensation bonds. You know, Mr. Capitalist — ^better than the less informed masses — that the Uniform State Legislation movement, which was begun in 1878 for the benefit of the practicing lawyers by the leaders of the Bar from fourteen States, and has recently crystallized into a permanent Confer- ence of Governors of the several States, is^ but a groping for National legislation over the head of Congress and without Constitutional authority. Organized labor ie in this movement, of course. Any old or young movement that may be of the slight- est benefit to the workingmen is patiently supported by organized labor. But the toilers cannot be deceived by "the ways that are dark and intricate, puzzled with mazes and perplexed with error." THE ERA OF SOCIALISM. 221 The toilers shall and will know their business and pro- ceed with their business. The compromise between the capitalist forces and the forces of the toilers — ^the oppressor and the oppressed — is coming to an end. With the adoption of the Thirteenth Amendment the freedom of the person became a matter of national concern. With the adoption of the proposed Labor Amendment the freedom of the labor power of the person will become a matter of national concern. We face a three-fdld problem — an educational campaign all the time, a political campaign at election times, and a legislative battle in Congress and in the State Legisla- tures. The debate will soon be removed from the universities, lecture rooms, platforms and soap boxes to the floors of the lawmaking bodies. The toilers will take part in these debates with the greatest faith in the natural, economic and legislative re- sources of our country. The leaders of Economic Reconstruction, who are des.- tiued to act in the final struggle for the Industrial Eman- cipation of the toilers of America have not yet arrived upon the stage of public responsibility — in the Congress and in the White House. Who will be the John Quincy Adams, the unterrified father and defender of the petitions for the Abolition of Wage-Slavery, who shall pour into Congress. Who will be the Abraham Lincoln, the liberator of ope hundred million bonded wage-slaves? History will tell. The Era of Socialism will produce the men, 222 THE LABOR AMENDMENT. T/he change from capitalism to Socialism will be a busi- ness transaction. "With malice toward none, with charity to all," it is now proposed to proceed with our business. That is — Our Next Great Job. iii!Hwwii^iiaiiiafeife^{3iii^wii5wi^^