The working class and the employing class have nothing in common.
There can be no peace so long as hunger and want are found
among millions of working people and the few, who
make up the employing class, have
all the good things of life
Sunday August 5, 1906
From The Worker: Debs on Leaving the A. F. of L.
Over the past few days we have been offering the response made by Eugene V. Debs to questions posed by the New York Worker regarding the debate on the relation of the Socialist Party of America to the trades unions. Today’s installment is part three of four parts.
The Worker introduces what it calls a symposium:
The question of the relation of the Socialist Party to the trade unions having again attracted attention within our ranks, The Worker has inaugurated a symposium to which representative comrades are being invited to contribute, setting forth various points view.
Questions are set forth for the comrades to address which cover the subject of industrial unionism versus craft unionism, working from within the existing trade unions versus forming new organizations, and the last question:
What do you think ought to be the attitude of the Socialist Party, as such, toward the organizations of labor on the economic field?
From The Worker of July 28, 1906:
The Socialist Party and the Trade Unions.-XI.
by Eugene V. Debs
[Part III]
In leaving the A. F. of L. after being long identified with it, we had good reason, and if time and space were not limited nothing would give me more pleasure than to go into detail upon this important point. A thousand evidences of the decadent state of pure and simple unionism appear on every hand, not the least of which is its abnormal growth under capitalistic patronage.
The United Mine Workers is dominated by the capitalist mine owners. The latter constitutes the financial agent of the former, collecting its dues and assessments, and if a member protests against this pure and simple arrangement he is expelled form the union and discharged by the mine owner.
A beautiful relation this is for a Socialist to sanction and the Socialist Party to endorse.
The grip of the mine owners upon the organized mine workers under the old regime will never be broken; only revolt will accomplish that end and revolt it will be in spite of the interposition of reactionists.
The railway unions specifically declare that their interests and those of the corporations are identical and only a few weeks ago their grand officers and committees were before the President and Congress protesting against legislation on the ground that “an injury to the corporation is an injury to its employees.”
The railway unions are the auxiliaries of the corporations and do their bidding, and this relation is fixed and will never be altered or broken except by revolt. The same is true to a greater or less extent of all the unions affiliated with the A. F. of L. and they who support that body in its present attitude, honest though they be, are opposing and not advancing the true interests of the working class.
The Civic Federation is another excrescence in evidence of the rank growth of the A. F. of L. in capitalist favor, and of its alignment with capitalist interests, and this state of affairs is possible only at the price of treason to the working class.
The scores of separate national and international unions, the thousands of locals, the great army of big and little “labor lieutenants,” ward heelers, and petty grafters, the conflicting jurisdictions and interminable wranglings, the monotonous round of defeated strikes and depleted treasuries, all bear testimony to the moribund state of the A. F. of L.; and all of this vast array of officeholders, walking delegates, and local “leaders” who are fastened upon the union and feeding upon its body are opposed to any change, and the mere mention of the I. W. W. is sufficient to fan their hostility into a mad frenzy.
The workers, at least, are getting wise and “onto” the game, and if there are not some serious breaks and radical departures in the coming twelve-month I shall certainly miss my prediction.
Our opponents have no right to charge us with “dividing” the working class. We are guilty of no such offense against unionism. To divide the workers implies preceding unity, and this never existed. Instead of dividing them, we are arousing them from their slavish submission to capitalist domination under the form and in the name of unionism.
Better a thousand times that labor is divided fighting for freedom than united in the bonds of slavery.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
SOURCE
The Worker
(New York, New York)
-July 28, 1906, page 6
http://www.genealogybank.com
IMAGE
Eugene Debs, Wilshire’s Magazine, Nov 1905
pdf! https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/parties/spusa/1905/1100-debs-winningaworld.pdf
See also:
The article at Debs Internet Archive
pdf! https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/parties/spusa/1906/0728-debs-spandunions.pdf
IWW Constitution and By-Laws, 1905
https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015079028836;page=root;view=image;size=75;seq=1;orient=0
Fountain Filled With Blood – May Day Chorus of Asheville