membership as compared with the total
population, leaves them without the power to accomplish legally by
themselves the results which they desire in their own interest. Hence
they are tempted at times to usurp public authority over the field of
private rights in industry.[13] In other cases, when they have come
to the end of their unaided powers, they invoke the aid of the law to
accomplish their objects. But the appeal of organized labor to the law
is special and qualified, being confined to cases where the actions
of others are controlled to the advantage of the union, such as
regulating the work of women and children, controlling the acts of
employers in respect to construction of factories, and limiting the
length of trains. This does not imply a peculiarly selfish attitude
on the part of organized labor. Action together in any social group
always develops in men their loyalty and spirit of cooeperation without
always making them more considerate to those outside of their group.
Indeed, often men acting through their chosen officials, private or
public, are more selfish collectively than they are individually.
The leaders of any group of men, whether of wage workers, merchants,
manufacturers, or political constituents, find it necessary to
show that the interest of their supporters rather than a broader
"sentimentality" is uppermost in their thought. And further, the
jealousy of any limitation of their power is as powerful a motive in
one group of men as in another. All are made of the same human clay.
But the stronger and more successful a labor organization is, the
more vigorously do its leaders resist any legislation that limits the
functions and field of action of the labor leaders, or that settles
labor troubles in a way that makes the voluntary labor organization
less necessary to the individual worker. Of course self-help, as a
spirit and as a policy, is a virtue, if it does not sacrifice the
rights of others. But if the facts above suggested are borne in mind
they will help to explain the otherwise often puzzling attitudes of
organized labor toward different measures of social legislation.

Sec. 14. #Organized labor's opposition to compulsory arbitration.#
Organized labor in America has attained to a highly influential
position. On the whole it constitutes an "aristocracy of labor,"
consisting largely of skilled workers that obtain a wage exceeding
that of unskilled workers to a degree not seen anywhere els