The Incorporation of Trade Unions.
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THE INCORPORATION OF TRADE UNIONS.' Bv Louis D. BRANDEIS. LEST what I say on the advisability of in corporating trade unions be misunder stood, it seems wise to state at the outset my views of their value to the community. They have been largely instrumental in securing reasonable hours of labor and proper conditions of work; in raising mate rially the scale of wages, and in protecting women and children from industrial oppres sion. The trade unions have done this, not for. the workingmen alone, but for all of us; since the conditions under which so large a part of our fellow" citizens work and live will determine, in great measure, the future of our country for good or for evil. This improvement in the condition of the -.vorkingmen lias been almost a net profit to the community. Here and there individuals have been sacrificed to the movement, but the instances have been comparatively few, and the gain to the employe has not been at tended by a corresponding loss to the em ployer. In many instances, the employer's interests have been directly advanced as an incident to improving the conditions of labor; and perhaps in no respect more than in that expressed by a very wise and able railroad president in a neighboring state, who said: "I need the labor union to protect me from my own arbitrariness." It is true that the struggle to attain these iireat ends has often been attended by intolerable acts of violence, intimidation and oppression; but the spirit which underlies the labor movement has 'been essentially noble. The spirit which subordinates the interests ' An address delivered at a meeting of the Economic Club of Boston, December 4, 1902, and followed by an address on the same subject by Samuel Gompers, president of the American Federation of Labor. This latter address will be printed in the February number THE GREEN BAC..— T/K Editor.
of the individual to that of the class is the spirit of brotherhood—a near approach to altruism; it reaches pure altruism when it involves a sacrifice of present interests for the welfare of others in the distant future. Modern civilization affords no instance of enlightened self-sacrifice on so large a scale as that presented when great bodies of men calmly and voluntarily give up steady work, at satisfactory wages and under proper con ditions, for the sole reason that the employer refuses the recognition of their union, which they believe to be essential to the ultimate good of the workingmen. If you search for the heroes of peace, you will find many of them among those obscure and humble workmen who have braved idleness and pov erty in devotion to the principle for which thdr union stands. And because the trade unions have ac complished much, and because their funda mental principle is noble, it is our duty, where the unions misconduct themselves, not to attack the unions, not—ostrich like—to refuse to recognize them, but to attack the abuses to which the unions, in common with other human institutions, are subject, and with which they are afflicted; to remember that a bad act is no worse, as it is no 'better, because it has been done by a labor union and not by a partnership or a business cor poration. If unions are lawless, restrain and punish their lawlessness; if they are arbitrary, re press their arbitrariness; if their demands are unreasonable or unjust, resist them; but do not oppose the unions as such. Now, the best friends of labor unions must and should admit that their action is fre quently hasty and ill-considered, the result of emotion rather than of reason; that their action is frequently arbitrary, the natural re
