It
means that in the American political and economic system the
organization of labor into unions should be preferred to its
disorganized separation into competing individuals. Complete freedom of
competition among laborers, which is often supposed to be for the
interest of the individual laborer, can only be preserved as an
effective public policy by active discrimination against the unions.
An admission that the recognition of labor unions amounts to a
substantial discrimination in their favor would do much to clear up the
whole labor question. So far as we declare that the labor unions ought
to be recognized, we declare that they ought to be favored; and so far
as we declare that the labor union ought to be favored, we have made a
great advance towards the organization of labor in the national
interest. The labor unions deserve to be favored, because they are the
most effective machinery which has as yet been forged for the economic
and social amelioration of the laboring class. They have helped to raise
the standard of living, to mitigate the rigors of competition among
individual laborers, and in this way to secure for labor a larger share
of the total industrial product.
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