<h2>CHAPTER XXIV</h2>
<h3>INDUSTRIAL DEMOCRACY</h3>
<p><b>The New Economic Age.</b>—The spirit of criticism and the measures of
reform designed to meet it, which characterized the opening years of the
twentieth century, were merely the signs of a new age. The nation had
definitely passed into industrialism. The number of city dwellers
employed for wages as contrasted with the farmers working on their own
land was steadily mounting. The free land, once the refuge of restless
workingmen of the East and the immigrants from Europe, was a thing of
the past. As President Roosevelt later said in speaking of the great
coal strike, "a few generations ago, the American workman could have
saved money, gone West, and taken up a homestead. Now the free lands
were gone. In earlier days, a man who began with a pick and shovel might
come to own a mine. That outlet was now closed as regards the immense
majority.... The majority of men who earned wages in the coal industry,
if they wished to progress at all, were compelled to progress not by
ceasing to be wage-earners but by improving the conditions under which
all the wage-earners of the country lived and worked."</p>
<p>The disappearance of the free land, President Roosevelt went on to say,
also produced "a crass inequality in the bargaining relation of the
employer and the individual employee standing alone. The great
coal-mining and coal-carrying companies which employed their tens of
thousands could easily dispense with the services of any particular
miner. The miner, on the other hand, however expert, could not dispense
with the companies. He needed a job; his wife and children would starve
if he did not get one.... Individually the miners <SPAN name="Page_571" id="Page_571"></SPAN>were impotent when
they sought to enter a wage contract with the great companies; they
could make fair terms only by uniting into trade unions to bargain
collectively." It was of this state of affairs that President Taft spoke
when he favored the modification of the common law "so as to put
employees of little power and means on a level with their employers in
adjusting and agreeing upon their mutual obligations."</p>
<p>John D. Rockefeller, Jr., on the side of the great captains of industry,
recognized the same facts. He said: "In the early days of the
development of industry, the employer and capital investor were
frequently one. Daily contact was had between him and his employees, who
were his friends and neighbors.... Because of the proportions which
modern industry has attained, employers and employees are too often
strangers to each other.... Personal relations can be revived only
through adequate representation of the employees. Representation is a
principle which is fundamentally just and vital to the successful
conduct of industry.... It is not consistent for us as Americans to
demand democracy in government and practice autocracy in industry....
With the developments what they are in industry to-day, there is sure to
come a progressive evolution from aristocratic single control, whether
by capital, labor, or the state, to democratic, coöperative control by
all three."</p>
<h3><span class="smcap">Coöperation between Employers and Employees</span></h3>
<p><b>Company Unions.</b>—The changed economic life described by the three
eminent men just quoted was acknowledged by several great companies and
business concerns. All over the country decided efforts were made to
bridge the gulf which industry and the corporation had created. Among
the devices adopted was that of the "company union." In one of the
Western lumber mills, for example, all the employees were invited to
join a company organization; they held monthly meetings to discuss
matters of common concern; they elected a "shop committee" to confer
with the representatives of the <SPAN name="Page_572" id="Page_572"></SPAN>company; and periodically the agents of
the employers attended the conferences of the men to talk over matters
of mutual interest. The function of the shop committee was to consider
wages, hours, safety rules, sanitation, recreation and other problems.
Whenever any employee had a grievance he took it up with the foreman
and, if it was not settled to his satisfaction, he brought it before the
shop committee. If the members of the shop committee decided in favor of
the man with a grievance, they attempted to settle the matter with the
company's agents. All these things failing, the dispute was transferred
to a grand meeting of all the employees with the employers'
representatives, in common council. A deadlock, if it ensued from such a
conference, was broken by calling in impartial arbitrators selected by
both sides from among citizens outside the mill. Thus the employees were
given a voice in all decisions affecting their work and welfare; rights
and grievances were treated as matters of mutual interest rather than
individual concern. Representatives of trade unions from outside,
however, were rigidly excluded from all negotiations between employers
and the employees.</p>
<p><b>Profit-sharing.</b>—Another proposal for drawing capital and labor
together was to supplement the wage system by other ties. Sometimes lump
sums were paid to employees who remained in a company's service for a
definite period of years. Again they were given a certain percentage of
the annual profits. In other instances, employees were allowed to buy
stock on easy terms and thus become part owners in the concern. This
last plan was carried so far by a large soap manufacturing company that
the employees, besides becoming stockholders, secured the right to elect
representatives to serve on the board of directors who managed the
entire business. So extensive had profit-sharing become by 1914 that the
Federal Industrial Relations Committee, appointed by the President,
deemed it worthy of a special study. Though opposed by regular trade
unions, it was undoubtedly growing in popularity.<SPAN name="Page_573" id="Page_573"></SPAN></p>
<p><b>Labor Managers and Welfare Work.</b>—Another effort of employers to meet
the problems of the new age appeared in the appointment of specialists,
known as employment managers, whose task it was to study the relations
existing between masters and workers and discover practical methods for
dealing with each grievance as it arose. By 1918, hundreds of big
companies had recognized this modern "profession" and universities were
giving courses of instruction on the subject to young men and women. In
that year a national conference of employment managers was held at
Rochester, New York. The discussion revealed a wide range of duties
assigned to managers, including questions of wages, hours, sanitation,
rest rooms, recreational facilities, and welfare work of every kind
designed to make the conditions in mills and factories safer and more
humane. Thus it was evident that hundreds of employers had abandoned the
old idea that they were dealing merely with individual employees and
that their obligations ended with the payment of any wages they saw fit
to fix. In short, they were seeking to develop a spirit of coöperation
to take the place of competition and enmity; and to increase the
production of commodities by promoting the efficiency and happiness of
the producers.</p>
<h3><span class="smcap">The Rise and Growth of Organized Labor</span></h3>
<p><b>The American Federation of Labor.</b>—Meanwhile a powerful association of
workers representing all the leading trades and crafts, organized into
unions of their own, had been built up outside the control of employers.
This was the American Federation of Labor, a nation-wide union of
unions, founded in 1886 on the basis of beginnings made five years
before. At the time of its establishment it had approximately 150,000
members. Its growth up to the end of the century was slow, for the total
enrollment in 1900 was only 300,000. At that point the increase became
marked. The membership reached 1,650,000 in 1904 and more than 3,000,000
in 1919. To be counted in the ranks of organized labor were several
strong <SPAN name="Page_574" id="Page_574"></SPAN>unions, friendly to the Federation, though not affiliated with
it. Such, for example, were the Railway Brotherhoods with more than half
a million members. By the opening of 1920 the total strength of
organized labor was put at about 4,000,000 members, meaning, if we
include their families, that nearly one-fifth of the people of the
United States were in some positive way dependent upon the operations of
trade unions.</p>
<p><b>Historical Background.</b>—This was the culmination of a long and
significant history. Before the end of the eighteenth century, the
skilled workmen—printers, shoemakers, tailors, and carpenters—had, as
we have seen, formed local unions in the large cities. Between 1830 and
1860, several aggressive steps were taken in the American labor
movement. For one thing, the number of local unions increased by leaps
and bounds in all the industrial towns. For another, there was
established in every large manufacturing city a central labor body
composed of delegates from the unions of the separate trades. In the
local union the printers or the cordwainers, for example, considered
only their special trade problems. In the central labor union, printers,
cordwainers, iron molders, and other craftsmen considered common
problems and learned to coöperate with one another in enforcing the
demands of each craft. A third step was the federation of the unions of
the same craftsmen in different cities. The printers of New York,
Philadelphia, Boston, and other towns, for instance, drew together and
formed a national trade union of printers built upon the local unions of
that craft. By the eve of the Civil War there were four or five powerful
national unions of this character. The expansion of the railway made
travel and correspondence easier and national conventions possible even
for workmen of small means. About 1834 an attempt was made to federate
the unions of all the different crafts into a national organization; but
the effort was premature.</p>
<p><i>The National Labor Union.</i>—The plan which failed in 1834 was tried
again in the sixties. During the war, industries <SPAN name="Page_575" id="Page_575"></SPAN>and railways had
flourished as never before; prices had risen rapidly; the demand for
labor had increased; wages had mounted slowly, but steadily. Hundreds of
new local unions had been founded and eight or ten national trade unions
had sprung into being. The time was ripe, it seemed, for a national
consolidation of all labor's forces; and in 1866, the year after the
surrender of General Lee at Appomattox, the "National Labor Union" was
formed at Baltimore under the leadership of an experienced organizer,
W.H. Sylvis of the iron molders. The purpose of the National Labor Union
was not merely to secure labor's standard demands touching hours, wages,
and conditions of work or to maintain the gains already won. It leaned
toward political action and radical opinions. Above all, it sought to
eliminate the conflict between capital and labor by making workingmen
the owners of shops through the formation of coöperative industries. For
six years the National Labor Union continued to hold conferences and
carry on its propaganda; but most of the coöperative enterprises failed,
political dissensions arose, and by 1872 the experiment had come to an
end.</p>
<p><i>The Knights of Labor.</i>—While the National Labor Union was
experimenting, there grew up in the industrial world a more radical
organization known as the "Noble Order of the Knights of Labor." It was
founded in Philadelphia in 1869, first as a secret society with rituals,
signs, and pass words; "so that no spy of the boss can find his way into
the lodge room to betray his fellows," as the Knights put it. In form
the new organization was simple. It sought to bring all laborers,
skilled and unskilled, men and women, white and colored, into a mighty
body of local and national unions without distinction of trade or craft.
By 1885, ten years after the national organization was established, it
boasted a membership of over 700,000. In philosophy, the Knights of
Labor were socialistic, for they advocated public ownership of the
railways and other utilities and the formation of coöperative societies
to own and manage stores and factories.<SPAN name="Page_576" id="Page_576"></SPAN></p>
<p>As the Knights were radical in spirit and their strikes, numerous and
prolonged, were often accompanied by violence, the organization alarmed
employers and the general public, raising up against itself a vigorous
opposition. Weaknesses within, as well as foes from without, started the
Knights on the path to dissolution. They waged more strikes than they
could carry on successfully; their coöperative experiments failed as
those of other labor groups before them had failed; and the rank and
file could not be kept in line. The majority of the members wanted
immediate gains in wages or the reduction of hours; when their hopes
were not realized they drifted away from the order. The troubles were
increased by the appearance of the American Federation of Labor, a still
mightier organization composed mainly of skilled workers who held
strategic positions in industry. When they failed to secure the
effective support of the Federation in their efforts to organize the
unskilled, the employers closed in upon them; then the Knights declined
rapidly in power. By 1890 they were a negligible factor and in a short
time they passed into the limbo of dead experiments.</p>
<p><b>The Policies of the American Federation.</b>—Unlike the Knights of Labor,
the American Federation of Labor sought, first of all, to be very
practical in its objects and methods. It avoided all kinds of
socialistic theories and attended strictly to the business of organizing
unions for the purpose of increasing wages, shortening hours, and
improving working conditions for its members. It did not try to include
everybody in one big union but brought together the employees of each
particular craft whose interests were clearly the same. To prepare for
strikes and periods of unemployment, it raised large funds by imposing
heavy dues and created a benefit system to hold men loyally to the
union. In order to permit action on a national scale, it gave the
superior officers extensive powers over local unions.</p>
<p>While declaring that employers and employees had much in common, the
Federation strongly opposed company unions.<SPAN name="Page_577" id="Page_577"></SPAN> Employers, it argued, were
affiliated with the National Manufacturers' Association or with similar
employers' organizations; every important industry was now national in
scope; and wages and hours, in view of competition with other shops,
could not be determined in a single factory, no matter how amicable
might be the relations of the company and its workers in that particular
plant. For these reasons, the Federation declared company unions and
local shop committees inherently weak; it insisted that hours, wages,
and other labor standards should be fixed by general trade agreements
applicable to all the plants of a given industry, even if subject to
local modifications.</p>
<p>At the same time, the Federation, far from deliberately antagonizing
employers, sought to enlist their coöperation and support. It affiliated
with the National Civic Federation, an association of business men,
financiers, and professional men, founded in 1900 to promote friendly
relations in the industrial world. In brief, the American Federation of
Labor accepted the modern industrial system and, by organization within
it, endeavored to secure certain definite terms and conditions for trade
unionists.</p>
<h3><span class="smcap">The Wider Relations of Organized Labor</span></h3>
<p><b>The Socialists.</b>—The trade unionism "pure and simple," espoused by the
American Federation of Labor, seemed to involve at first glance nothing
but businesslike negotiations with employers. In practice it did not
work out that way. The Federation was only six years old when a new
organization, appealing directly for the labor vote—namely, the
Socialist Labor Party—nominated a candidate for President, launched
into a national campaign, and called upon trade unionists to desert the
older parties and enter its fold.</p>
<p>The socialistic idea, introduced into national politics in 1892, had
been long in germination. Before the Civil War, a number of reformers,
including Nathaniel Hawthorne, Horace Greeley, and Wendell Phillips,
deeply moved by the poverty of the <SPAN name="Page_578" id="Page_578"></SPAN>great industrial cities, had
earnestly sought relief in the establishment of coöperative or
communistic colonies. They believed that people should go into the
country, secure land and tools, own them in common so that no one could
profit from exclusive ownership, and produce by common labor the food
and clothing necessary for their support. For a time this movement
attracted wide interest, but it had little vitality. Nearly all the
colonies failed. Selfishness and indolence usually disrupted the best of
them.</p>
<p>In the course of time this "Utopian" idea was abandoned, and another set
of socialist doctrines, claiming to be more "scientific," appeared
instead. The new school of socialists, adopting the principles of a
German writer and agitator, Karl Marx, appealed directly to workingmen.
It urged them to unite against the capitalists, to get possession of the
machinery of government, and to introduce collective or public ownership
of railways, land, mines, mills, and other means of production. The
Marxian socialists, therefore, became political. They sought to organize
labor and to win elections. Like the other parties they put forward
candidates and platforms. The Socialist Labor party in 1892, for
example, declared in favor of government ownership of utilities, free
school books, woman suffrage, heavy income taxes, and the referendum.
The Socialist party, founded in 1900, with Eugene V. Debs, the leader of
the Pullman strike, as its candidate, called for public ownership of all
trusts, monopolies, mines, railways; and the chief means of production.
In the course of time the vote of the latter organization rose to
considerable proportions, reaching almost a million in 1912. It declined
four years later and then rose in 1920 to about the same figure.</p>
<p>In their appeal for votes, the socialists of every type turned first to
labor. At the annual conventions of the American Federation of Labor
they besought the delegates to endorse socialism. The president of the
Federation, Samuel Gompers, on each occasion took the floor against
them. He repudiated socialism and the socialists, on both theoretical
and practical <SPAN name="Page_579" id="Page_579"></SPAN>grounds. He opposed too much public ownership, declaring
that the government was as likely as any private employer to oppress
labor. The approval of socialism, he maintained, would split the
Federation on the rock of politics, weaken it in its fight for higher
wages and shorter hours, and prejudice the public against it. At every
turn he was able to vanquish the socialists in the Federation, although
he could not prevent it from endorsing public ownership of the railways
at the convention of 1920.</p>
<p><b>The Extreme Radicals.</b>—Some of the socialists, defeated in their
efforts to capture organized labor and seeing that the gains in
elections were very meager, broke away from both trade unionism and
politics. One faction, the Industrial Workers of the World, founded in
1905, declared themselves opposed to all capitalists, the wages system,
and craft unions. They asserted that the "working class and the
employing class have nothing in common" and that trade unions only
pitted one set of workers against another set. They repudiated all
government ownership and the government itself, boldly proclaiming their
intention to unite all employees into one big union and seize the
railways, mines, and mills of the country. This doctrine, so
revolutionary in tone, called down upon the extremists the condemnation
of the American Federation of Labor as well as of the general public. At
its convention in 1919, the Federation went on record as "opposed to
Bolshevism, I.W.W.-ism, and the irresponsible leadership that encourages
such a policy." It announced its "firm adherence to American ideals."</p>
<p><b>The Federation and Political Issues.</b>—The hostility of the Federation
to the socialists did not mean, however, that it was indifferent to
political issues or political parties. On the contrary, from time to
time, at its annual conventions, it endorsed political and social
reforms, such as the initiative, referendum, and recall, the abolition
of child labor, the exclusion of Oriental labor, old-age pensions, and
government ownership. Moreover it adopted the policy of "rewarding
friends and punishing enemies" by advising members to vote for or
against <SPAN name="Page_580" id="Page_580"></SPAN>candidates according to their stand on the demands of organized
labor.</p>
<div><SPAN name="gompers" id="gompers" /></div>
<div class="figcenter"><SPAN href="./images/614.jpg"><ANTIMG src="./images/614-tb.jpg" alt="Samuel Gompers and Other Labor Leaders" title="Samuel Gompers and Other Labor Leaders" /></SPAN></div>
<div class='caption'><i><small>Copyright by Underwood and Underwood, N.Y.</small></i><br/>
<span class="smcap">Samuel Gompers and Other Labor Leaders</span></div>
<p>This policy was pursued with especial zeal in connection with disputes
over the use of injunctions in labor controversies. An injunction is a
bill or writ issued by a judge ordering some person or corporation to do
or to refrain from doing something. For example, a judge may order a
trade union to refrain from interfering with non-union men or to
continue at work handling goods made by non-union labor; and he may fine
or imprison those who disobey his injunction, the penalty being
inflicted for "contempt of court." This ancient legal device came into
<SPAN name="Page_581" id="Page_581"></SPAN>prominence in connection with nation-wide railway strikes in 1877. It
was applied with increasing frequency after its effective use against
Eugene V. Debs in the Pullman strike of 1894.</p>
<p>Aroused by the extensive use of the writ, organized labor demanded that
the power of judges to issue injunctions in labor disputes be limited by
law. Representatives of the unions sought support from the Democrats and
the Republicans; they received from the former very specific and cordial
endorsement. In 1896 the Democratic platform denounced "government by
injunction as a new and highly dangerous form of oppression." Mr.
Gompers, while refusing to commit the Federation to Democratic politics,
privately supported Mr. Bryan. In 1908, he came out openly and boasted
that eighty per cent of the votes of the Federation had been cast for
the Democratic candidate. Again in 1912 the same policy was pursued. The
reward was the enactment in 1914 of a federal law exempting trade unions
from prosecution as combinations in restraint of trade, limiting the use
of the injunction in labor disputes, and prescribing trial by jury in
case of contempt of court. This measure was hailed by Mr. Gompers as the
"Magna Carta of Labor" and a vindication of his policy. As a matter of
fact, however, it did not prevent the continued use of injunctions
against trade unions. Nevertheless Mr. Gompers was unshaken in his
conviction that organized labor should not attempt to form an
independent political party or endorse socialist or other radical
economic theories.</p>
<p><b>Organized Labor and the Public.</b>—Besides its relations to employers,
radicals within its own ranks, and political questions, the Federation
had to face responsibilities to the general public. With the passing of
time these became heavy and grave. While industries were small and
conflicts were local in character, a strike seldom affected anybody but
the employer and the employees immediately involved in it. When,
however, industries and trade unions became organized on a national
scale and a strike could paralyze a basic enterprise like coal mining or
railways, the vital interests of all citizens were put in jeopardy.<SPAN name="Page_582" id="Page_582"></SPAN>
Moreover, as increases in wages and reductions in hours often added
directly to the cost of living, the action of the unions affected the
well-being of all—the food, clothing, and shelter of the whole people.</p>
<p>For the purpose of meeting the issue raised by this state of affairs, it
was suggested that employers and employees should lay their disputes
before commissions of arbitration for decision and settlement. President
Cleveland, in a message of April 2, 1886, proposed such a method for
disposing of industrial controversies, and two years later Congress
enacted a voluntary arbitration law applicable to the railways. The
principle was extended in 1898 and again in 1913, and under the
authority of the federal government many contentions in the railway
world were settled by arbitration.</p>
<p>The success of such legislation induced some students of industrial
questions to urge that unions and employers should be compelled to
submit all disputes to official tribunals of arbitration. Kansas
actually passed such a law in 1920. Congress in the Esch-Cummins railway
bill of the same year created a federal board of nine members to which
all railway controversies, not settled by negotiation, must be
submitted. Strikes, however, were not absolutely forbidden. Generally
speaking, both employers and employees opposed compulsory adjustments
without offering any substitute in case voluntary arbitration should not
be accepted by both parties to a dispute.</p>
<h3><span class="smcap">Immigration and Americanization</span></h3>
<p><b>The Problems of Immigration.</b>—From its very inception, the American
Federation of Labor, like the Knights of Labor before it, was confronted
by numerous questions raised by the ever swelling tide of aliens coming
to our shores. In its effort to make each trade union all-inclusive, it
had to wrestle with a score or more languages. When it succeeded in
thoroughly organizing a craft, it often found its purposes defeated by
an influx of foreigners ready to work for lower wages and thus undermine
the foundations of the union.<SPAN name="Page_583" id="Page_583"></SPAN></p>
<p>At the same time, persons outside the labor movement began to be
apprehensive as they contemplated the undoubted evil, as well as the
good, that seemed to be associated with the "alien invasion." They saw
whole sections of great cities occupied by people speaking foreign
tongues, reading only foreign newspapers, and looking to the Old World
alone for their ideas and their customs. They witnessed an expanding
army of total illiterates, men and women who could read and write no
language at all; while among those aliens who could read few there were
who knew anything of American history, traditions, and ideals. Official
reports revealed that over twenty per cent of the men of the draft army
during the World War could not read a newspaper or write a letter home.
Perhaps most alarming of all was the discovery that thousands of alien
men are in the United States only on a temporary sojourn, solely to make
money and return home with their savings. These men, willing to work for
low wages and live in places unfit for human beings, have no stake in
this country and do not care what becomes of it.</p>
<p><b>The Restriction of Immigration.</b>—In all this there was, strictly
speaking, no cause for surprise. Since the foundation of our republic
the policy of the government had been to encourage the coming of the
alien. For nearly one hundred years no restraining act was passed by
Congress, while two important laws positively encouraged it; namely, the
homestead act of 1862 and the contract immigration law of 1864. Not
until American workingmen came into open collision with cheap Chinese
labor on the Pacific Coast did the federal government spread the first
measure of limitation on the statute books. After the discovery of gold,
and particularly after the opening of the railway construction era, a
horde of laborers from China descended upon California. Accustomed to
starvation wages and indifferent to the conditions of living, they
threatened to cut the American standard to the point of subsistence. By
1876 the protest of American labor was loud and long and both the
Republicans and the Democrats gave heed to it. In 1882<SPAN name="Page_584" id="Page_584"></SPAN> Congress enacted
a law prohibiting the admission of Chinese laborers to the United States
for a term of ten years—later extended by legislation. In a little
while the demand arose for the exclusion of the Japanese as well. In
this case no exclusion law was passed; but an understanding was reached
by which Japan agreed not to issue passports to her laborers authorizing
them to come to the United States. By act of Congress in 1907 the
President was empowered to exclude any laborers who, having passports to
Canada, Hawaii, or Mexico, attempted to enter our country.</p>
<p>These laws and agreements, however, did not remove all grounds for the
agitation of the subject. They were difficult to enforce and it was
claimed by residents of the Coast that in spite of federal authority
Oriental laborers were finding their way into American ports. Moreover,
several Western states, anxious to preserve the soil for American
ownership, enacted laws making it impossible for Chinese and Japanese to
buy land outright; and in other ways they discriminated against
Orientals. Such proceedings placed the federal government in an
embarrassing position. By treaty it had guaranteed specific rights to
Japanese citizens in the United States, and the government at Tokyo
contended that the state laws just cited violated the terms of the
international agreement. The Western states were fixed in their
determination to control Oriental residents; Japan was equally
persistent in asking that no badge of inferiority be attached to her
citizens. Subjected to pressure on both sides, the federal government
sought a way out of the deadlock.</p>
<p>Having embarked upon the policy of restriction in 1882, Congress readily
extended it. In that same year it barred paupers, criminals, convicts,
and the insane. Three years later, mainly owing to the pressure of the
Knights of Labor, it forbade any person, company, or association to
import aliens under contract. By an act of 1887, the contract labor
restriction was made even more severe. In 1903, anarchists were excluded
and the bureau of immigration was transferred from the Treasury
Department to the Department of Commerce <SPAN name="Page_585" id="Page_585"></SPAN>and Labor, in order to provide
for a more rigid execution of the law. In 1907 the classes of persons
denied admission were widened to embrace those suffering from physical
and mental defects and otherwise unfit for effective citizenship. When
the Department of Labor was established in 1913 the enforcement of the
law was placed in the hands of the Secretary of Labor, W.B. Wilson, who
was a former leader in the American Federation of Labor.</p>
<p><b>The Literacy Test.</b>—Still the advocates of restriction were not
satisfied. Still organized labor protested and demanded more protection
against the competition of immigrants. In 1917 it won a thirty-year
battle in the passage of a bill excluding "all aliens over sixteen years
of age, physically capable of reading, who cannot read the English
language or some other language or dialect, including Hebrew or
Yiddish." Even President Wilson could not block it, for a two-thirds
vote to overcome his veto was mustered in Congress.</p>
<p>This act, while it served to exclude illiterates, made no drastic cut in
the volume of immigration. Indeed a material reduction was resolutely
opposed in many quarters. People of certain nationalities already in the
United States objected to every barrier that shut out their own kinsmen.
Some Americans of the old stock still held to the idea that the United
States should continue to be an asylum for "the oppressed of the earth."
Many employers looked upon an increased labor supply as the means of
escaping what they called "the domination of trade unions." In the babel
of countless voices, the discussion of these vital matters went on in
town and country.</p>
<p><b>Americanization.</b>—Intimately connected with the subject of immigration
was a call for the "Americanization" of the alien already within our
gates. The revelation of the illiteracy in the army raised the cry and
the demand was intensified when it was found that many of the leaders
among the extreme radicals were foreign in birth and citizenship.
Innumerable programs for assimilating the alien to American life were
drawn up, and in 1919 a national conference on the subject was held in
Wash<SPAN name="Page_586" id="Page_586"></SPAN>ington under the auspices of the Department of the Interior. All
were agreed that the foreigner should be taught to speak and write the
language and understand the government of our country. Congress was
urged to lend aid in this vast undertaking. America, as ex-President
Roosevelt had said, was to find out "whether it was a nation or a
boarding-house."</p>
<p><b>General References</b></p>
<p>J.R. Commons and Associates, <i>History of Labor in the United States</i> (2
vols.).</p>
<p>Samuel Gompers, <i>Labor and the Common Welfare</i>.</p>
<p>W.E. Walling, <i>Socialism as It Is</i>.</p>
<p>W.E. Walling (and Others), <i>The Socialism of Today</i>.</p>
<p>R.T. Ely, <i>The Labor Movement in America</i>.</p>
<p>T.S. Adams and H. Sumner, <i>Labor Problems</i>.</p>
<p>J.G. Brooks, <i>American Syndicalism</i> and <i>Social Unrest</i>.</p>
<p>P.F. Hall, <i>Immigration and Its Effects on the United States</i>.</p>
<h4>Research Topics</h4>
<p><b>The Rise of Trade Unionism.</b>—Mary Beard, <i>Short History of the
American Labor Movement</i>, pp. 10-18, 47-53, 62-79; Carlton, <i>Organized
Labor in American History</i>, pp. 11-44.</p>
<p><b>Labor and Politics.</b>—Beard, <i>Short History</i>, pp. 33-46, 54-61,
103-112; Carlton, pp. 169-197; Ogg, <i>National Progress</i> (American Nation
Series), pp. 76-85.</p>
<p><b>The Knights of Labor.</b>—Beard, <i>Short History</i>, pp. 116-126; Dewey,
<i>National Problems</i> (American Nation Series), pp. 40-49.</p>
<p><b>The American Federation of Labor—Organization and Policies.</b>—Beard,
<i>Short History</i>, pp. 86-112.</p>
<p><b>Organized Labor and the Socialists.</b>—Beard, <i>Short History</i>, pp.
126-149.</p>
<p><b>Labor and the Great War.</b>—Carlton, pp. 282-306; Beard, <i>Short
History</i>, pp. 150-170.</p>
<h4>Questions</h4>
<p>1. What are the striking features of the new economic age?</p>
<p>2. Give Mr. Rockefeller's view of industrial democracy.</p>
<p>3. Outline the efforts made by employers to establish closer relations
with their employees.</p>
<p>4. Sketch the rise and growth of the American Federation of Labor.</p>
<p>5. How far back in our history does the labor movement extend?<SPAN name="Page_587" id="Page_587"></SPAN></p>
<p>6. Describe the purposes and outcome of the National Labor Union and the
Knights of Labor.</p>
<p>7. State the chief policies of the American Federation of Labor.</p>
<p>8. How does organized labor become involved with outside forces?</p>
<p>9. Outline the rise of the socialist movement. How did it come into
contact with the American Federation?</p>
<p>10. What was the relation of the Federation to the extreme radicals? To
national politics? To the public?</p>
<p>11. Explain the injunction.</p>
<p>12. Why are labor and immigration closely related?</p>
<p>13. Outline the history of restrictions on immigration.</p>
<p>14. What problems arise in connection with the assimilation of the alien
to American life?<SPAN name="Page_588" id="Page_588"></SPAN></p>
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