be given to the pioneers who have given their energies in this way.[1]
OPPORTUNITIES FOR VOLUNTEER WORK
But what is an intellectual to do if he is not one of those fortunate individuals who are fitted to serve the labor movement professionally and who find opportunities to do so?
If he is a teacher, an actor, or a journalist, he may join the union of his own trade and work through that; if there is no local in his town, he may organize one.[2] This is a heroic and thankless enough task for anyone. Doubtless there are few of the professions which might not have organizations affiliated with the American Federation of Labor, if their rank and file were sufficiently active and intelligent. Here is a thoroughfare waiting to be built by volunteers and pioneers, through which the intellectuals may join the labor movement en masse. The subject, however, is such a large one that it cannot be adequately discussed outside a special pamphlet.
In politics, too, there is ample room for unpaid activity. Even the established and business-like Republican and Dem-
- ↑ Robert W. Brure of. the Bureau of Industrial Research, while agreeing fundamentally and in the "long run" with the author's contention that the healthy relationship between the trade unions and the technicians is that the latter should be adequately paid, seems to give a somewhat larger place than does Mr. Soule to the pioneers in various lines who have contributed their services to labor without charge. He says:
"The growing interest and faith in the technicians among the workers, as among the rank and file of the common people, is, to a considerable extent, due to the social workers,—including doctors, nurses, housing experts, etc.—who were able, during the pioneer period, to serve without pay. The unpaid services of technicians in public departments—teachers, factory inspectors, compensation experts, doctors, nurses, accountants—as well as the employees of privately supported social agencies, etc., come within this category,
"An intellectual who has no bottom of his own to stand on, even in relation to the labor movement, except the professional fee, is likely to acquire at best the status of the paid attorney rather than that of the competent physician, to say nothing of the ‘detached’ scientist. To what extent is the present strength of the British Labor Movement, e. g., due to the Fabian's respect for their own independent status in the labor movement? Isn't excessive humility a kind of introverted romanticism?"
"Whole areas of the necessary work to be done by intellectuals for and with labor," writes Heber Blankenhorn, "are nowhere near being recognize by labor as worth paying for or by intellectuals as worth doing. Does labor pay for all the civil liberties defenders, writers, researchers, etc., whose work mainly benefits labor, where that work is at all worth while?"
- ↑ For a partial list of such unions, see Appendix.
Mr. Muste deals with the possible value of a public school teacher as follows:
"Emphasis might be placed on the fact that teachers in the public elementary and secondary schools should be able, as labor gains in importance and recognition to render increasing service, negatively, by not communicating an anti-labor attitude to growing children, as is now often done; positively, by presenting accurately some of the facts about the workers and their movement, even though extreme care may need to be taken not to seem to create a pro-labor attitude. Moreover, there are bound to come into existence an increasing number of towns or districts where the industrial worker comes to control the school administration, and where teachers who comprehend him and his needs, can be of considerable service to his children."
17
