e was nothing on the table but one small mutton chop. "What," said
the man in a shocked tone, "have you nothing at all for my wife?"

XIII

TRADE UNION IDEALS AND POLICIES

Trade unionism does not embrace the whole of industrial democracy,
even for organized labor and even were the whole of labor organized,
as we hope one of these days it will be, but it does form one of the
elements in any form of industrial democracy as well as affording one
of the pathways thither.

The most advanced trade unionists are those men and women who
recognize the limitations of industrial organization, but who value
it for its flexibility, for the ease with which it can be transformed
into a training-school, a workers' university, while all the while
it is providing a fortified stronghold from behind whose shelter
the industrial struggle can be successfully carried on, and carried
forward into other fields.

If we believe, as all, even non-socialists, must to some extent admit,
that economic environment is one of the elemental forces moulding
character and deciding conduct, then surely the coming together of
those who earn their bread in the same occupation is one of the most
natural methods of grouping that human beings can adopt.

There are still in the movement in all countries those of such a
conservative type that they look to trade organization as we know
it today as practically the sole factor in solving the industrial
problem.

In order to fulfill its important functions of protecting the workers,
giving to them adequate control over their working conditions, and
the power of bargaining for the disposal of their labor power
through recognized representatives, trade-union organization must be
world-wide. Organizations of capital are so, or are becoming so, and
in order that the workers may bargain upon an equal footing, they must
be in an equally strong position. Now is the first time in the history
of the world that such a plan could be even dreamt of. Rapid means of
communication and easy methods of transport have made it possible for
machine-controlled industry to attract workers from all over the world
to particular centers, and in especial to the United States, and this
has taken place without any regard as to where there was the best
opening for workers of different occupations or as to what might
be the effects upon the standards of living of the workers of
artificially fostered migrations, and haphazard dist