5. Employers must be free to employ their work people at wages mutually satisfactory, without interference or dictation on the part of individuals or organizations not directly parties to such contracts.

6. Employers must be unmolested and unhampered in the management of their business, in determining the amount and quality of their product, and in the use of any methods or systems of pay which are just and equitable.

7. In the interest of employes and employers of the country, no limitation should be placed upon the opportunities of any person to learn any trade to which he or she may be adapted.

8. The National Association of Manufacturers disapproves absolutely of strikes and lock-outs, and favors an equitable adjustment of all differences between employers and employes by any amicable method that will preserve the rights of both parties.

9. Employes have the right to contract for their services in at collective capacity, but any contract that contains a stipulation that employment should be denied to men not parties to the contract is an invasion of the constitutional rights of the American workman, is against public policy, and is in violation of the conspiracy laws. This Association declares its unalterable antagonism to the closed shop and insists that the doors of no industry be closed against American workmen because of their membership or nonmembership in any labor organization.

10. The National Association of Manufacturers pledges itself to oppose any and all legislation not in accord with the foregoing

declaration.

b) A Political Creed"

Whereas, The National Association of Manufacturers, in convention assembled in New Orleans, in 1903, adopted, declared and promulgated certain principles governing the work of the association in connection with problems of labor; and

Whereas, The past decade has demonstrated the truth of these declared principles; and

Whereas, During the past ten years new and different problems have also emerged, affecting our governmental, economic and industrial society, upon which we deem it our duty at this time to express our attitude and stand; therefore

'Resolutions adopted at the Eighteenth Annual Convention of the National Association of Manufacturers, Detroit, May, 1913.

Resolved, That in addition to the principles heretofore enunciated and declared at our convention in New Orleans in 1903, we, in convention assembled, declare and promulgate, in addition, the following declaration of principles:

First. We hold that the inherent powers of our courts of equity shall not be abridged in the issuance of injunctions in labor disputes.

Second. We hold that the power vested in our courts to punish for contempt of court should not be abridged by the granting of jury trial for contempt.

Third. We protest against class legislation, whether enacted by state legislatures or congress, and we assert that all forms of class legislation are un-American and detrimental to our common good.

Fourth. We pledge our loyalty to our judiciary, upon the maintenance of which, unswerved by passing clamor, rests the perpetuation of our laws, our institutions and our society.

Fifth. We favor the further enactment of equitable, beneficial, and simplified workingmen's compensation legislation.

Sixth. We denounce the subserviency of representatives of the whole people to the dictation of any class legislation.

Seventh. We affirm, in the light of proven facts, that any compromise, toleration, or identification with the leaders of criminal unionism will stultify our liberties and weaken respect for our laws and their just enforcement.

Eighth. We affirm our approval of the enactment of wise and just laws, necessary to improve conditions of labor.

Ninth. We affirm that our tested, self-controlled, representative democracy is adequate, under our constitutional guarantees, to effectuate the real needs and purposes of our national life.

Tenth. We pledge ourself towards the accomplishment of the spirit and purpose of the foregoing.

C. CHARACTER AND PURPOSES OF TRADE UNIONS 290. The Undemocratic Character of Trade Unions

BY CHARLES W. ELIOT

Trades unionism came into being under undemocratic forms of government shortly after the new developments of mechanical power changed completely the methods and conditions of many

Adapted from The Future of Trades Unionism and Capitalism in a Democracy, 9-29. Copyright by Kenyon College (1909).

fundamental industries. The methods of the new trades unions, organized to improve the condition of the laboring people, were necessarily the methods of fighting, violence, and war. The conflicts of the employed with the employers were often barbarous and cruel on both sides. Nevertheless, the efforts of the unions were gradually successful. Through them higher wages and shorter hours were procured at a time when no disinterested and humane person could doubt that wages were too low and hours too long. This clear success gave the working people confidence in the violent methods. employed. Gradually new policies, looking toward the creation of a monopoly of labor in each particular trade by the union of that trade, came into use.

The first is the limitation in the number of apprentices that shall be employed in a given trade. This limit of the number is ordinarily far below the number which it would be for the interest of the proprietor to employ. The object of this limitation is to keep down the number of journeymen in the trade, so as to prevent the coming into the trade of a number of persons so great as to affect the rate of wages. With a similar intention, trades unions have in general resisted the introduction of trade schools into public school systems, and have also been disposed to interfere with the work of private or endowed trade schools. The policy of limiting the number of apprentices flies in the face of the American doctrine that education should be free to all, and should furnish a useful training for the practice of any art, trade, or profession. Moreover, it is a selfish and monopolistic policy without mitigation.

Furthermore, many unions lay down rules which make it hard for a journeyman to become an employer, prescribing, for example, that no one shall become an employer until he is prepared to employ a specified number of journeymen. Such rules tend to stiffen every class or set of mechanics or operatives. Each class is hard to get into, and still harder to get out of; so that the true democratic mobility between classes or sets of working people is seriously impaired. It is a survival of the fighting times of trades unionism. Every fighting organization is compelled to sacrifice in large measure the individual liberty of its members. Herein unionism and democracy are in absolute opposition.

Two other monopolistic inventions have, within years comparatively recent, been adopted by trades unionism, the boycott and the union label. The boycott is intended to prevent all persons from buying, or even handling commercially, articles not made by union labor; and the union label is intended to support the boycott, and to enable and induce the public to discriminate against articles which

do not bear the label. The object of both policies is to secure all the productive labor in a given trade for union men; to this end articles or goods made by non-union men must find no market. The monopolistic aim of these policies is perfectly plain.

Many unions refuse to handle in their respective trades materials made by non-union labor, or coming from factories which are not conducted exclusively by union rules. This policy, if carried out successfully by a strong union which covers a large area, is capable of forcing the manufacturer to unionize his establishment; where upon the unfortunate consumer is likely to be at the mercy of the manufacturer and the union combined. These monopolistic combinations are often entirely successful in the United States, or in large parts thereof, particularly in the building trades, and their recent successes account for a considerable portion of the great rise of prices which has taken place in this country during the last five years.

The manufacturer of plumbers' supplies, for example, makes an agreement that he will sell only to jobbers and to plumbers. The jobber agrees that he will sell only to plumbers. The plumbers are all union men. The owner of a building under construction cannot buy plumbers' supplies unless from some independent manufacturer who is not in the combination. If he buys of such an independent manufacturer, the plumbers at work in his building will not touch the materials he has bought. In the district covered by such an agreement there is no competition which is really free.

It would be hard to exaggerate the intense opposition between all these monopolistic policies and the individual freedom in education, in family life, in productive labor, and in trade, which is.the object and end of democracy. The limitation of output is a tradesunion practice which combines in an unwholesome way a selfish unfaithfulness to duty in the individual workman with a deceptive notion of philanthropic interest in fellow-workmen.

Another trades-union doctrine that has had a very unfortunate effect on individual character is the doctrine or practice of the minimum wage. In practice that wage turns out to be a uniform maximum wage, and it is ordinarily put at a level above the worth of the less skillful workmen. This practice is for the pecuniary interest of the younger and least skillful workmen, who, as a rule, predominate in the union, or at least are its most assiduous members. The first effect of this practice is to deprive the younger members of a union of all motive for improvement. A youth receives at the start the uniform wage, and the veteran who is a member of the same union is receiving no more. No effort on his part can raise his

wages. The disastrous effect of this policy of the uniform wage on the desirable and happy increase of intelligence, efficiency, and good will as life goes on, is perfectly apparent. Now a true democracy means endless variety of capacity freely developed and appropriately rewarded. Uniformity of wages ignores the diversity of local conditions as well as of personal capacity, obstructs the ambitious workman, cuts off from steady employment those who cannot really earn the minimum wage, and interferes seriously with the workman's prospect of improving his lot.

It is high time it should be generally understood that trades unionism in important respects works against the very best effects. of democracy.

291. An Employer's View of Trade Unions"

BY ANDREW CARNEGIE

The influence of trades-unions upon the relations between the employer and employed has been much discussed. Some establishments in America have refused to recognize the right of the men to form themselves into these unions, although I am not aware that any concern in England would dare to take this position. This policy, however, may be regarded as only a temporary phase of the situation. The right of the workingmen to combine and to form trades-unions is no less sacred than the right of the manufacturer to enter into associations and conferences with his fellows, and it must sooner or later be conceded. Indeed, it gives one but a poor opinion of the American workman if he permits himself to be deprived of a right which his fellow in England long since conquered for himself. My experience has been that trades-unions, upon the whole, are beneficial both to labor and to capital. They certainly educate the working-men, and give them a truer conception of the relations of capital and labor than they could otherwise form. The ablest and best workmen eventually come to the front in these organizations; and it may be laid down as a rule that the more intelligent the workman the fewer the contests with employers. It is not the intelligent workman, who knows that labor without his brother capital is helpless, but the blatant ignorant man, who regards capital as the natural enemy of labor, who does so much to embitter the relations between employer and employed; and the power of this ignorant demagogue arises chiefly from the lack of proper organization among the men through which their real voice

'Adapted from The Gospel of Wealth and Other Timely Essays, 114-116. Copyright by Doubleday, Page & Co. (1906).