454 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. LIV. No. 1402 



ISTot long ago the American Federation of 

 Labor in convention assembled resolved ' that 

 a broad programme of scientific and technical 

 research is of major importance to the 

 national welfare,' and in a noteworthy docu- 

 ment insisted upon its essential value in the 

 development of industries, increased produc- 

 tion, and the general welfare of the workers. 

 The British Labor Party has also stated that 

 it places the ' advancement of science in the 

 forefront of its political programme,' but its 

 manifesto refers particularly to the ' unde- 

 veloped science of society ' rather than to the 

 science of material things; and whatever 

 labor may declare officially, it is scarcely too 

 much to say that artisans in general show 

 less active interest in scientific knowledge 

 now than they did fifty years ago. Not by 

 the study of science does a manual worker 

 become a leader among his fellows but by 

 the discovery of vsrrongs to be remedied or 

 rights to be established, and by fertility of 

 resource in disputations concerning them. 

 This is natural enough, yet when we remem- 

 ber that many of the greatest pioneers in the 

 fields of pure and applied science were of 

 humble origin it is surprising that labor 

 makes no effort to keep men of this type with- 

 in its lodges. 



If trades unions were true to their title, 

 and not merely wage unions, their members 

 would give as much attention to papers on 

 scientific principles of their industry, crafts- 

 manship, and possible new developments as 

 they do to the consideration of the uttermost 

 they can claim and secure for their members. 

 Not a single labor organization concerns 

 itself with actual means of industrial prog- 

 ress, but only with the sharing of the profits 

 from processes or machinery devised by others. 

 Labor may express approval of scientific and 

 technical research, but if it wishes to be a 

 creative force it should take part in this work 

 instead of limiting itself to getting the great- 

 est possible advantage from the results. Under 

 present conditions an artisan with original 

 ideas or inventive genius has to go outside 

 the circle of his union to describe his work, 

 and he thus becomes separated from his 



fellows through no fault of his own. His con- 

 tributions are judged by a scientific or tech- 

 nical society purely on their merit and with- 

 out any consideration as to his social posi- 

 tion. Labor can never be great until it af- 

 fords like opportunities to its own original 

 men by accepting and issuing papers upon 

 discoveries of value to science and industry. 

 When it does this, and its publications oc- 

 cupy an honored place among those of scien- 

 tific and technical societies, it will be able 

 to command a position in national polity 

 which can never be justly conceded to any 

 organization concerned solely with the rights 

 and privileges of a single class in the com- 

 munity. 



We know, of course, that few wcirkmen can 

 be expected to possess sufficient knowledge 

 and originality to make developments im- 

 portant enough to be recorded in papers for 

 the benefit of science or industry generally, 

 but every such contribution published by a 

 trade union or other labor organization, 

 federated or otherwise, would do far more to 

 command respect than sheaves of pamphlets 

 upon economic aspects of industry from the 

 point of view of workpeople. If no funda- 

 mental or suggestive papers of this kind are 

 forthcoming, or if organized labor persists in 

 its policy of letting its men of practical 

 genius find elsewhere the people who know 

 how to appreciate them, it is tacitly acknowl- 

 edged that others are expected to provide the 

 seeds of industrial developments while labor 

 concerns itself solely with the distribution of 

 the fruits derived from them. 



It is true that some of the leaders of the 

 labor movement realize that close associa- 

 tion with progressive science is essential to 

 the expansion of industry and the conse- 

 quent provision of wages in the future. What 

 is here urged is that labor should itself take 

 part in the scientific and industrial research 

 which it acknowledges is necessary for exist- 

 ence, and should show by its own contribu- 

 tions that it possesses the power to produce 

 useful knowledge as well as the dexterity to 

 apply it. The machinery of trade unionism 

 is capable of much more extensive use than 



