The mechanic and the laborer have come to believe
that they must meet organization with organization, and discipline with
discipline. Their object in forming trade associations has been
militant. Their purpose has been to conquer a larger share of the
economic product by aggressive associated action.
They have been very successful in accomplishing their object. In spite
of the flood of alien immigration the American laborer has been able to
earn an almost constantly increasing wage, and he devoutly thinks that
his unions have been the chief agency of his stronger economic position.
He believes in unionism, consequently, as he believes in nothing else.
He is, indeed, far more aggressively preoccupied with his class, as
contrasted with his individual interests, than are his employers. He has
no respect for the traditional American individualism as applied to his
own social and economic standing. Whenever he has had the power, he has
suppressed competition as ruthlessly as have his employers. Every kind
of contumelious reproach is heaped on the heads of the working men who
dare to replace him when he strikes; and he does not scruple to use
under such conditions weapons more convincing than the most opprobrious
epithets.
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