ASSOCIATION IN ITS RELATION TO LABOR. ^87 



aider it in the relations of organized labor, which include the so-called 

 labor and capital (or capital and labor) disputes. The same principles 

 of association prevail here which dominate all social action. What 

 are the powers, the rights, and the limits of association, whether it 

 be of the employers or the employed ? I shall resolve the question 

 of rights into that of powers. If there be a legitimate power inher- 

 ent in these associations, I will not maintain any vested right against 

 it. This is not strictly accurate, but sufficiently so for this discussion. 



In treating of association we must first consider the materials 

 which make it ; the characteristics of the individuals who associate 

 themselves together. And here we must remember that the individ- 

 ual is a social entity of quite recent growth. The Roman, German, 

 Anfflo-Saxon societies knew nothing of individual men and women. 

 The Roman family, gens, or house and tribe, the German benefice, 

 commendation, and guild, the Anglo-Saxon ceorl and eorl castes, with 

 their tithings and hundreds all these institutions, mingling in the 

 stream of history, made each individual into a part of something 

 other than himself. Society as well as government was classified into 

 groups, which were further classified and subdivided. The single 

 individual had no place ; under the Saxon laws he was outlawed, and 

 might be killed. These groups gradually broke up, under the fric- 

 tion of modern life. America, as we have been frequently told in the 

 centennial reminiscences of this period, for two hundred years received 

 the germinal ideas of Europe. We received, through immigration, 

 the most characteristic and modern ideas, and incorporated them into 

 a new political and social life, freed from many restraints still pre- 

 vailing in the old countries. Politically, the individual was fully rec- 

 ognized for the first time; socially, he was raised into freer activity 

 than any society had ever developed ; yet, socially, the individual was 

 more limited by the influence of the old grouping than he was in his 

 political relations. These distinctions are important, because they 

 modify all the subsequent relations of employers and employed, and 

 control the character of associations in this country. 



The associations of employers in America thus far have been loose- 

 ly formed, and their action on the labor question has been indirect. 

 The associations of laborers have been modeled after those prevailing 

 in England, and known as trades-unions. If we would comprehend 

 the principles of any association of laborers in America, we must 

 first study the history of these English unions, for the results achieved 

 by these powerful organizations govern the movements of all labor 

 agitators, whether they are conscious of it or not. The whole prin- 

 ciple of ti'ades-unionism has been set forth carefully and candidly by 

 Mr. Thornton in his work " On Labor." Mr. Thornton is neither a 

 communist nor a socialist, but an acute and thoughtful Englishman, 

 with large sympathies, who, whenever his sense of justice will allow, 

 leans to the side of labor in its struggles with capital. He sees in 



