94 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



injustice and oppression of the merchant guild, and were strong enough 

 and persistent enough to assert themselves, and as long as the craft 

 guilds were democratic in spirit and were true to the needs for which 

 they were organized they flourished. But with age and success came 

 narrowness and bigotry and opposition to progress. They became 

 monopolies of employment and societies of greedy capitalists, and in 

 England withered away before the growth of the modern vast in- 

 dustrial establishment. 



I have ventured to give this general sketch of these guilds because 

 the same spirit and necessities which inspired them brought the trades 

 union into being. The trades union or labor organization was created 

 to protect the laborer and gain for him a better position in life, to 

 raise his standard of living. It is like the old guilds in being subject 

 to the same dangers as they were, and when it proves false to its true 

 objects it will pass away as did the old guilds. It will last only so long 

 as there is a necessity for its existence, as long as it does the work it 

 is born to do. And when it has come to deny freedom, to refuse an- 

 other's rights, and to repress industry, the seeds of dissolution are 

 already sown. 



Trades unions or labor unions arose from the necessity of organi- 

 zation among the laborers or wage-earners if they were to hold their 

 own against the aggregation of capital. The craft guild arose at a 

 time when trading and manufacturing concerns were small, when 

 the interest of both master and workman in a business were alike 

 joined in opposition to the exactions of a superior class the merchant 

 guild; while the trades union came upon the field to protect the laborer 

 against his employer. Whatever other objects and aims it may have 

 had do not enter into my purposes in this paper. The personal rela- 

 tion which had existed between the master and servant, the employer 

 and his few employees, the manufacturer and his half dozen work- 

 men or apprentices, no longer existed when the workers became 

 scores and hundreds, and the owner of the business was replaced by 

 the manager or superintendent. That personal relation was in some 

 measure a protection for both, but when that disappeared the tempta- 

 tion to gratify owners and stockholders with big dividends became 

 too strong to be overcome. Against organized capital there was abso- 

 lute need of organized labor, and trades unions and labor unions and 

 such organizations came into existence. 



There was no possibility of their existence until the laborer had 

 become intellectually and socially capable of organization, and until 

 the divine spirit of discontent drove him to association with his brother 

 worker. During all the years from the time of his serfdom up to 

 the time these organizations began he had been slowly growing in 

 development and gaining something in political position, but it was 



