56 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XIX. No. 471. 



inal demand, has become the point of con- 

 tract. The corporation and the 'trust' do 

 away with a great deal of dickering be- 

 tween individuals, and in a precisely sim- 

 ilar way the labor organization attempts 

 to substitute a single collective bargain for 

 a multitude of individual bargains. If, 

 however, the corporation and the trust are 

 unreasonable in their demands, every one 

 now knows that the potential competition 

 of smaller concerns, which always exist, is 

 speedily actualized and the productive or- 

 ganizations that have shown their commer- 

 cial incompetence to bargain reasonably 

 with buyers are destroyed. So it should be 

 with labor organizations. Those organiza- 

 tions which are reasonable in their de- 

 mands will usually establish their right to 

 survive by remaining at peace with the 

 employers; those whose frequent strikes 

 and repeated complaints of the alleged 

 tyranny of employers prove their inability 

 to bargain are usually inefficient in their 

 efforts to promote the interests of their 

 members and ought to pass out of exist- 

 ence. Yet the decision as to the terms 

 which they will accept must always be 

 left with the workmen, organized or unor- 

 ganized. The right to strike ought to be 

 used rarely and reluctantly ; its use should 

 always throw the burden of justifying its 

 course at the bar of public sentiment 

 jointly upon the employed and the em- 

 ployer; it can never be necessary except 

 by reason of the grievous fault of one 

 party or the other : yet it may be necessary 

 and the greatest protection against its be- 

 coming so, save that which lies in the devel- 

 opment and spread of a broad and intelli- 

 gent spirit of humanity, lies in its exceed- 

 ingly careful preservation. Generally 

 speaking, however, the union which strikes 

 on small provocation and frequently is to 

 be classed among those which are undesir- 

 able, and the credit of any labor organiza- 

 tion ought to be in inverse proportion to 



the frequency of its resort to this extreme 

 method of enforcing its demands. 



As somewhat justifying the assumption 

 that every strike is evidence of lack of ca- 

 pacity somewhere, and perhaps indicating 

 where the blame more frequently resides, 

 I would call your attention to the very 

 large number of strikes which always at- 

 tend the transition from a period of great 

 industrial prosperity to one of relative de- 

 pression. The interpretation of this phe- 

 nomenon is very simple. From almost the 

 beginning of a period of prosperity the 

 leaders of organized workmen perceive 

 that their position is one of growing 

 strength. The demand for products is a 

 demand for labor, and as the one is ex- 

 pressed in rising prices the other is natur- 

 ally translated into rising wages. Organi- 

 zations formulate their demands, make 

 them, and they are granted. New de- 

 mands and new concessions follow in an 

 alternation which becomes more rapid as 

 prosperity appears more intense, the wil- 

 lingness of employers to grant even seem- 

 ingly extravagant demands as to wages or 

 conditions being based on a confidence in 

 the continuance of heavy demand and high 

 prices which often amounts almost to in- 

 toxication. While this process has been 

 going on the effect of high wages and re- 

 duced efficiency is being transferred to the 

 consumers, always with some addition to 

 make up for the exactions of those in 

 charge of production. Naturally, this can 

 not continue forever. Sooner or later 

 there is a consumers' 'strike.' That is, 

 high prices ultimately reduce the effective 

 demand, orders come less freely, the bubble 

 is about to burst. Employers rather 

 promptly perceive the situation more or 

 less clearly; labor too frequently does not. 

 More wages or less work, or both, are again 

 demanded, and, as this time the employers 

 see that the cost of acquiescence can not be 

 shifted or realize that a curtailment of pro- 



