political functions belong with the elected officials. They are the ones to assume responsibility for policies, they are the ones to take action.[1] The technician's business is to arrange and interpret facts, to give advice, to practice his own profession. He can, in doing so, accept as much, but no more responsibility than a professional man would. accept in working for a corporation. So far as his science is concerned, his duty is complete scientific detachment.
Another desirable aspect of the relationship between labor and the technician is that the latter should be adequately paid for his services. There is nothing labor dislikes more than philanthropy. There is nobody whom the union official despises more in his heart than the "parlor socialist" who is so anxious to help that he will do so for nothing, and whose help is so valueless that it is not worth paying for. Fair professional fees symbolize a sound relationship between the union and the technician—they establish the fact that the technician is there to serve, not to patronize, the union, and thus have a salutary effect on both parties. This does not mean, of course, that unions can or should pay the large salaries and fees that may be earned by professional men from private businesses. Technicians who work with the labor movement must often do so at a considerable financial sacrifice. But it does mean that the technical and professional functions of the labor movement can operate in health, and can grow as they should, only if labor pays the technicians wages commensurate with their skill and training.
In the beginning the value of technical services has often been demonstrated by free service, and due recognition should
- ↑ "I am in hearty agreement with the author about leaving the 'political' work of the unions to union officials (the determination of policies, etc.)," writes Mr. Muste, who, leaving the ministry, became secretary-treasurer of the Amalgamated Textile Workers. "My experience and observation lead me to think, however, that some intellectuals can find places for themselves as union organizers. I know a number who have done good work in this line. It is a terrifically hard, straining job. As a rule, one who wants to try to make a place for himself or herself in this field should actually work in some industrial establishment and serve as a plain member of a union for some time."
cal leadership of an educated man who perhaps belongs to the trade union membership of the city or town as the representative of an insignificant little union of intellectuals," writes Mr. Lasker, "may be very valuable indeed. Thus officers of the teachers' union or (in England) of the clerks and shop assistants or of newspaper employees have assumed, or rather have been given through the recognition of their gifts by the organized workers, a leadership to which the importance of their union in itself would not entitle them. In other cases, the legal representatives of a union have, rightly, become the interpreters of the union’s policies beyound their professional duties."
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