Part 1

_OFFICIAL ORGAN SOCIALIST LABOR PARTY_

A revolutionary Socialist journal. Dedicated to the idea that the emancipation of the working class must be the class-conscious work of that class. The WEEKLY PEOPLE teaches that a political victory of the working class is “moonshine” unless the might of the workers in the shape of a revolutionary industrial union is behind that victory. It teaches further that the organization of the working class can not be accomplished by dragging the revolutionary movement into the ratholes of anarchists and “pure and simple” physical forcists generally. The WEEKLY PEOPLE ruthlessly exposes the scheming “pure and simple” politician as well as the “pure and simple” physical forcist. In doing this it at the same time imparts sound information regarding Marxian or scientific Socialism. It is a journal which, read a few times, becomes indispensable.

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International May Day ..and.. American Labor Day

BY BORIS REINSTEIN

A HOLIDAY Expressing Working Class Emancipation Versus A HOLIDAY Exalting Labor’s Chains

Published by National Executive Committee Socialist Labor Party 45 Rose Street, New York City

PREFACE.

During the period in history that the present generation is going through the struggle for supremacy between Capital and Labor is occupying a more and more prominent position at the front of the stage. Here in America the material conditions necessary for the triumph of Labor in this struggle,—for the realization of Socialism—are by far more ripe than in any other country.

The old system of wealth production in small shops, with crude tools, by the application of the labor of one, two or a handful of workers, is practically extinct. Through the use of up-to-date improved machinery, through co-operation of thousands and sometimes tens of thousands of workers employed by one concern, and the consequent subdivision and specialization of labor enhancing its productivity; through capitalist concentration and amalgamation of individual concerns into corporations and trusts, eliminating waste of labor incidental to competition and anarchy in production, through all that the productivity of labor became plentiful to the point of being marvelous. After centuries of struggle society at last has within its grasp the means of assured, carefree existence and untrammeled progress.

With regard to the power of the political State and the political rights of the people the historical development of the civilized nations was along the lines of concentration of political powers in the hands of an oligarchy, small in numbers, and finally in the person of a single individual, the political autocrat, while on the other hand the masses of the people were concentrating in the camp of the politically disfranchised and disinherited. In France, for instance, after a struggle running through a long series of generations, concentrating the political powers in fewer and fewer hands, the point of autocracy was finally reached. The former “peers” were reduced to the position of mere dependents and hangers-on at the court of the autocrat; the mass of the people, politically absolutely disinherited, could only bend its neck, and the autocrat, Louis XIV, with boots and spurs on and whip in hand, could proclaim haughtily and defiantly, “l’état c’est moi!” (The government, it is I!) and could sway the destinies of the nation with the stroke of his pen.

From this point it was only a comparatively short step to the point when the millions of “subjects of the autocrat,” concentrated in the camp of the disinherited, realized that they had only one head to chop off, and did literally chop it off in the person of Louis XVI, in order to assert their rights by establishing the political democratic republic.

Similarly in the realm of economic development. The difference only is that in this enlightened age, with the modern press and other means of disseminating knowledge and information all over the globe in a few minutes, bigger strides along the path of progress are made within decades and years than were made formerly within centuries and generations.

In this country, under the eyes of a single generation,—the present generation—a veritable Social Revolution has taken place. When the gray-haired men of to-day were young the overwhelming majority of inhabitants in this country belonged to the property-holding class and were consequently self-sustaining. They had some farming, commercial, or industrial property. They did not have much but enough of it to be able to eke out a living without being compelled to hunt for and beg some employer for a job to save themselves from starvation. To-day what remains of the independent farmers and middle class are hanging by the skin of their teeth to their little property, the source of their “economic independence,” as they feel that property slipping through their hands. It begins to dawn on them that even those of them who still retain some business property are rapidly becoming mere dependents and hangers-on at the court of enthroned capital.

But already a big percentage of formerly independent American citizens and the sons and daughters of a still bigger percentage of them, are found to be stripped of all income-bearing property, driven into and concentrated in the camp of the proletariat,—the propertyless wage-earning class—towards which, like iron filings towards a powerful magnet, are gravitating the rapidly increasing millions of ruined, formerly independent citizens, the modern proletariat. According to recently published figures to the camp of the wage-earning class belong now no less than thirty-three and a half millions of men, women, and children, not younger than fifteen years of age. This gigantic army, with the little children, the wives of some of the workmen and other dependents, whom the capitalists so far have not succeeded in hitching up to the machinery in their factories, constitutes already the overwhelming majority of the entire population of the country.

The forces of social evolution have thus already created, as far at least as this country is concerned, that other indispensable factor for the success of the impending Social Revolution. They have created that class, the proletariat, whose mission it is and which is strong enough to free itself and the whole of mankind from exploitation and oppression by the capitalists, the master class of our time.

While these forces of social evolution were thus decomposing the present social order, divorcing the wealth-producers from the sources of wealth-production, driving the millions of these wealth producers into the camp of the proletariat, there was at the same time another process of concentration going on, the concentration of the wealth of the formerly independent American citizens in the hands of a small number of gigantic capitalist concerns. Out of their ranks the industrial autocrat is to rise,—the “one head” that the disinherited millions are to “chop off” in order to come to their own by the institution of the Industrial Democratic Republic.

The rapid progress towards this stage of industrial autocracy was already marked, and not a few years ago at that, by the historical Vanderbilt exclamation, “The public be damned!”—the modern version of Louis XIV’s “The government, it is I!”

Still more light on the progress made in that direction under the very eyes of the present generation is thrown by the figures which recently made the rounds of the daily press. They deal with the growth of the volume of business and power wielded by one single capitalist concern, the J. Pierpont Morgan banking firm in Wall Street, New York. The figures show that the business capital of that concern alone, the stocks and bonds of all the innumerable enterprises, commercial, industrial, etc., controlled by it represented the amount of $527,282,564. But that was 21 years ago, in 1892. Gigantic as this mass of capital was it was insignificant compared with the proportions it reached in subsequent years. In 1897 it was $1,396,506,231; in 1902, $3,852,940,908, and in 1912 it was estimated to be $26,854,254,628. In other words, nearly TWENTY-SEVEN THOUSAND MILLION dollars of business capital are controlled by the one man at the head of this single concern, whose mere stroke of pen would suffice, if he saw fit, to turn the key in the lock of the door of thousands of factories and other business concerns where millions of workers must earn their daily bread. The lives of millions of workers and of many more millions of members of their families actually depending upon the will and the whim of a single individual! How much more is needed to complete the evolution towards industrial autocracy, the gate to Industrial Democracy? The power of political autocrats, of Czar Nicholas of Russia, of Louis XIV of France, etc., is like that of children, compared with the economic power wielded by this colossus of Twentieth Century capitalism. It will not require, it cannot require, centuries or generations for the thirty-three and a half millions of wage-slaves to realize that they can have the power and must,—to save their own lives—throw off from their necks the Iron Heel of modern Industrial Autocracy!

In point of development of all these material conditions, as prerequisites for a successful Social Revolution, America leads the procession of all modern nations. In one important respect, however, America lags far behind the procession. It is with regard to the economic organization of labor, with regard to the labor union movement. As yet this strategically vital and determining field is in the possession of the reactionary forces of the American Federation of Labor, the organization that is doing all in its power to check the growth of Socialism in this country, to perpetuate the capitalist system of wage labor.

The supremacy of this organization in the economic field of the labor movement exercises upon the American working class, eagerly though that class is seeking its own emancipation, an influence which, in the political field likewise, prevents it from organizing and fighting on proper lines. The baneful influence of the American Federation of Labor thus threatens to render nought the otherwise ripe material conditions, and to render abortive the impending Social Revolution.

Whether the coming crisis in the life of this nation will result in the rearing of the Dome of Socialism and Industrial Democracy, or whether it will lead only to a most stupendous slaughter of the working class, to the erection of a “Caesar’s Column,” and to complete and hopeless subjugation of the masses depends largely on reorganization of the union movement from the craft union basis of the American Federation of Labor to a correct and sound industrial union basis.

Unfortunately among the Socialists of America the vital importance of the educational work needed as a prerequisite for the reorganization of the labor union movement of the land is very little recognized. Only too frequently one meets Socialists who innocently assure themselves and others that they “believe in industrial unionism” and are “opposed to the A. F. of L.” merely because they try to hit back when Gompers attacks their party. The knowledge possessed by such Socialists as to the essential features of the A. F. of L. unionism, which makes of that organization a veritable trap that holds the working masses fast and helpless against the capitalist exploiters, is very indistinct. The literature, the press, the lectures, etc., that mold the views of such Socialists avoid, for sundry reasons, the dissecting and exposing of the dangerous features of craft unionism. As a rule, in the minds of such Socialists there is only a vague idea that “there is something wrong with the American Federation of Labor,” and they are mostly inclined to find that “wrong” in the opposition of the A. F. of L. leaders to the political work of the Socialists. Most of them are only too ready to forget and forgive the “mistakes” of that organization if it would only “leave the Socialists alone.”

It is to stimulate the study of the essential and distinct features of A. F. of L. craft unionism, and as a contribution towards that study that this pamphlet is offered to the working class.

BORIS REINSTEIN.

MAY DAY AND LABOR DAY—A CONTRAST.

The workers who are more or less familiar with the Labor and Socialist Movement in this country and especially in European countries, often wonder why most American workingmen celebrate “Labor Day” on the first Monday of September instead of May Day, on the first of May.

We shall endeavor, in this pamphlet, to give a sketch of the difference in the character and effect of these two holidays of Labor.

Except that both these holidays are dedicated to Labor and are primarily participated in by working people, there is nothing in common between them. In fact, they contradict and stand in opposition to each other, the same as the organized International Socialist and Labor Movement, which established the May Day, contradicts in all essentials and stands in opposition to the American Federation of Labor,—the organization under whose auspices the American Labor Day is celebrated.

May Day was created by a resolution adopted, upon the initiative of American Socialists, at the International Socialist Congress held in Paris, France, in July, 1889. The resolution had for its prime object to get the workingmen of all countries, races, climes and nationalities, speaking all the innumerable languages of the earth, to celebrate on the same fixed day their own holiday, and thus graphically to demonstrate to the world that, in spite of all the differences in language, nationality, etc., they are all members of the same class, the proletariat,—the propertyless wage-earning class—that their interests are the same and, like members of the same family, they stand for the Workers’ Brotherhood, International Solidarity and Universal Peace.

May Day was thus created by the workingmen themselves, in defiance of the capitalist class and its governments, and up to the present time the working people in many countries are compelled on the First of May to fight for their holiday at the sacrifice of their jobs, liberty, blood, and even life. When the police and cossacks of different countries appear on the scene on May Day it is always for the purpose of clubbing, maiming, arresting, and killing working people; for the police and cossacks recognize that May Day is the drilling day for the Social Revolution.

The American Labor Day, on the contrary, was a “gift” which the workers received from their masters, the capitalists, through the capitalist politicians. That first Monday in the month of September was made a legal holiday under the name of Labor Day, at first by the legislature of one state some thirty years ago; the politicians of other states followed the clever example, so that at present Labor Day is a legal holiday all over the country.

A vampire, when he settles down upon the body of a sleeping person and sucks its blood, is known to fan his victim with his wings, to soothe the victim’s pain, and to prevent him from waking up and driving the vampire away. So was the Labor Day created by the political agents of the American capitalists to fan the sleeping giant, the American working class, while the capitalists are sucking its blood.

American Labor Day can also be considered as a modern, capitalist version of the ancient custom of the days of serfdom and slavery. In those days the masters, for recreation and amusement, often-times set aside one day to celebrate the “enthronement of slaves.” They would take a slave, take the chains off his limbs, put him on a mock throne, put a mock crown on his head and, bowing to him in mock humility and obedience, would humbly serve him and overwhelm him with flattery. And the Silly Pool on the mock throne would throw out his chest and swell with pride. But the day of mockery over, the chains were again clapped on his limbs, and the miserable slave, groaning, would resume his life of a beast of burden.

Likewise with the unawakened American workman on Labor Day. On that day the chains of wage-slavery are, figuratively speaking, taken off his limbs; he is made the hero of the day; his masters, the capitalists, stand before him in mock humility; their spokesmen in the press, pulpit and on their political platforms, overwhelm him with flattery; and the modern Silly Fool, likewise, throws out his chest and swells with pride. But, the day of mockery and of the Fool’s Paradise over, the masters,—who during this day are only slyly smiling—break out into sardonic laughter—though unheard by the slave—clap the chains back on his limbs and he again hears only the crack of the whip of Hunger and Slavery.

It is only natural, therefore, that when the capitalist masters send out on Labor Day their hired bodyguard—the police and militia—they send them not to molest or injure the workingmen, but to march, as honorary escort, at the head of their Labor Day parades.

And why shouldn’t they? Don’t they know that the American Labor Day is only a day for the annual injection of a new dose of narcotic “dope,” of the antidote against the Social Revolution?!

What, indeed, is the key-note to the speeches delivered at Labor Day gatherings in America by the capitalist politicians, clergymen and professional “labor-lieutenants” of the capitalist class—the Gomperses, the Mitchells, the Duncans, the O’Connells, the Lennons, etc.? It is the biggest Lie of the Age, the lie that wealth is the joint product of Brother Capital and Brother Labor, that is, of the capitalist class and of the working class; that the interests of both are identical or reciprocal, that the two can and should live in harmony, peace and brotherhood with each other, and that the aim of the Labor Movement is to maintain indefinitely that harmonious equilibrium, and thus perpetuate the capitalist wage system by securing for the workers “a fair day’s pay for a fair day’s work” by means of an “equitable division” of that “joint product of Brother Capital and Brother Labor.”

Craft Union “Organization” and Spirit.

For this purpose the American Federation of Labor—the celebrant of Labor Day—gathers the masses of the workers, who in their blindness, ignorance and anxiety to secure immediate relief, respond to its luring call and flock to its banner. The gathered masses are then cut up into innumerable “independent and autonomous” craft divisions. They are taught to respect the claim of “Brother Capital” and to be guided in their actions not by the consideration of solidarity and identity of interests of all workers of the world, not even of those of the working class of America, not even of those of the American workers belonging to the same craft, but merely by the consideration of the interests of their personal jobs.

Accordingly, to monopolize their jobs they proclaim the principle of “America for Americans,” and try to build a Great Chinese Wall around America by means of reactionary anti-immigration laws and, in the meanwhile, build innumerable small Chinese walls around their unions by means of high, often prohibitive, initiation fees, dues and assessments; apprenticeship rules, catchy, tripping examinations of applicants for membership; system of “closing books” to all new applicants; forcing “troublesome” members out of the union and jobs by unjust and excessive fines, etc.

It is again only natural that labor “unions” of this type, built upon the principle of CLASS PEACE instead of CLASS STRUGGLE, discard the up-to-date ammunition from the arsenal of modern social warfare and persistently train their armies of “organized labor” to use the worse than worthless wooden swords and wooden bullets of conciliation, mediation and arbitration. Every careful observer of the American Labor Movement knows that the only effect of these weapons always was to break the aroused fighting spirit of the workers; to lead the electricity of the social storm into the ground; to make workers lose the advantageous position and opportune moments for securing substantial gains; to put them, broken in power and demoralized in spirit, at the mercy of their masters, and to give their false leaders the opportunity they so much crave for “settling the strike” and,—feathering their own nests financially, politically, or both.

Likewise is it only in keeping with this spirit and character of the heroine of Labor Day, the American Federation of Labor, that much of its time and energy is spent in fratricidal jurisdiction fights, fights over the question whether it should be the exclusive privilege of this, that or the other union to control certain kinds of jobs.

These jurisdiction fights, together with the system of agreements and contracts concluded by separate craft unions with the employers, without consideration of the interests of the other unions, and of the welfare of the labor movement generally,—contracts by means of which the members of the contracting unions are delivered over to the employers tied hand and foot and deprived even of the right to strike,—lead in innumerable cases to acts of betrayal and even of direct scabbing of members of one union against those of another.

Labor Day and Politics.

If the American Labor Day does not represent real unity and solidarity of the workers in their immediate field—the economic field—what wonder that it represents the same disruption and betrayal in the political field? That Labor Day plays a considerable part in the politics of the country no person familiar with the question can deny.

It must be remembered that America is a county where most of the workingmen, and now a rapidly growing number of working women, have a right to vote, and, as the working class—in America, of all countries—is the class to which the overwhelming majority of the people belong, no politician can get his fingers into the public pie, and the capitalist class cannot secure the control over the powers of government they need so badly, without employing some means of fooling the working people out of their votes.

American Labor Day is one of the institutions that is made to serve that purpose, too. The capitalist politicians have conveniently fixed it for the early part of September, about two months before Election Day, the season when the politicians make or prepare to make their nominations of candidates. The big gatherings of union men, voters, at Labor Day parades, mass meetings and picnics, supply splendid opportunities for advertising the candidacy of some capitalist politician claiming to be a “friend of Labor.” They give the false and treacherous leaders of the unions a chance, in expectation of good reward, to render these politicians a good service by securing them as speakers at these gatherings, and otherwise advertising them. They also give these false and ambitious union leaders a chance to boost their own stock on the political market by demonstrating to the politicians what a big crowd of voters the leader can influence for the one or the other political party of capitalism. It is in this respect both surprising and amusing how easily the labor fakers bluff and swindle at this game the politicians, who are otherwise supposed to be such shrewd men.