Debs in Seattle: The Case for Union, and the Cost of the Wrong Leaders

As an abstract principle the organization of labor for the purpose of mutual protection is not only permissible but it is absolutely essential to the well-being of the laboring class. The profits in all industrial enterprises are necessarily divided between capital and labor. Experience has demonstrated that capital usually takes as large a share of the profits as circumstances will permit. In other words, the smallest amount capital pays to labor is not purely a matter of conscience — it pays as little as it possibly can. There are, of course, exceptional cases where employers of labor allow sentimental considerations to control, but as a rule they go into the market and get their labor at the lowest market price. It is therefore apparent that in the absence of organization labor is very apt to be deprived of its just share of the profits of industrial enterprise. On a rising market the employer would be slow to raise wages, but on a falling market he would anticipate the future and reduce wages unduly unless some check were provided against such action. In union there is strength, and in organization there is safety, provided the union and the organization are wisely utilized.

As a rule it is safe to assume that where labor organizations are poorly managed they gain their ends without resorting to extreme measures. No employer of labor will refuse just wages when he recognizes that such a refusal means dissatisfaction and discontent, with consequent loss of profits and public condemnation.

Eugene V. Debs lectured here on Monday and Tuesday. He admits that so far as railroads are concerned, strikes are a failure as a means of securing correct conditions. It required a severe cost in human life, the loss of millions of dollars' worth of property, the disorganization of trade and business, and the loss to thousands of men of their means of livelihood to convince him of this fact, and the colossal mistake has been proved too late. For several years past Mr. Debs has been endeavoring to secure the means of living for one class or another in connection with organized labor. He is a good talker, a man of some education, and these are essentials to leadership, but his incapacity for wise and conservative leadership must be judged by the results he has achieved. The choice of a leader is left to the laboring classes themselves. If a man is chosen who is sincere and honest, he is the representative of the best interests of the working masses. If, on the other hand, a man is chosen who is selfish and dishonest and impractical, he has the power to work incalculable injury — not to the interests of labor, but to industrial enterprise, to the country, and to organization. The working classes should look carefully to the selection of their leaders.