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The Attitude of Akbhicah Intellectual0 Toward The THE ATTITUDE OF AKBHICAH INTELLECTUAL0 TOWARD THE LABOR KOTEKiSHT , 1390 ~ 1900 DISSERT AT I ON Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State Unitersi ty By JOHH L, SHOVSR, P. A,, A. K, * * * * The Ohio State University 1957 Approved by; Advi ser Department of History TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION......................................................................................................................... i i i I. THE LABOR SCENE........................................................................................ 1 II. THE LABOR INTELLECTUALS............................................................................... lU III. LAISSEZ-FAIRS THEORISTS............................................................................. ty) IV. m a n a g e m e n t a t t i t u d e s ................................................................................. So V. THE PATRICIANS AID LABOR.......................................................................... SO VI. THE SOCIAL GOSPEL AND LABOR.............................................................. 109 VII. THE NEW ECONO!!ICS AND LABOR................................................................. l>tp VIII. THE CHANGING MIND OF THE SOCIAL REFORMERS................................. 172 IX. THE SOCIALIST ALTERNATIVE.......................................................................... 191 X. JOHN A. COMMONS, THE TRIUMPH OF REALISM........................................ 21S CONCLUSION. .................................................................................................................... 2U0 BIBLIOGRAPHY. ............................................................................................................... pUfi ii INTRODUCTION This study, unlike more general works in intellectual history, seeks to examine the underlying assumptions and beliefs of a critical decade by exploring the responses of loading thinkers to a single challenge to the social and economic status quo. The focus of the study is upon the decade 1890-1900; the problem is the attempt of laboring men to better their economic status through organized union pressure. The nineties have been chosen in the belief that they constitute a climax point in both intellectual and economic history. The accen­ tuation in the gradual economic development that had been taking place since the Civil War - the growing power of industrial concentrations, the rise of cities, the continuing flow of immigrants, the decline of the independent farmer - emphasized the failure of traditional American thought to keep pace with the far-reaching social changes. If the eighties were a period of awakening, by the nineties reformers of all kinds stood ready with programs to readjust social and political cir­ cumstances to the facts of a new age. Radicalism stirred in the West and in major cities; sincere reformers like George and Bellamy offered panaceas for social salvation; in religion, in economics, and in social work, prophets of the new day attacked traditionalism and called for ideological and practical reorientation. i i i iv Ho decade, Save perhaps the thirties, has been so significant in American labor history. A new pragmatic theory, the foundation of the labor movement for forty years to come, was built from the failure of idealism, socialism, and political participation. The American Fed­ eration of Labor proved its strength by surviving a degression, the first labor organization ever to do so, and it withstood attempts at redirection by both friends and enemies. Violent counteroffensives of capital, climaxing in the strikes and outbursts at Coeur d'Alene, Homestead, or Pullman, failed to check the advance in power of an increasingly united working class. This study assumes that an intellectu al is an individual whose primary concern is with ideas, and if perchance individuals mentioned may have gained prominence in other field s such as p o litic s , they are included on the assumption that despite their importance elsewhere, their intellectual contribution, of itself, would have been significant. Again, the study is confined to in tellectu als who directly discussed the labor question, eliminating philosophers or economic theorists whose contributions to the issue were secondary to more theoretical considerati ons. While the nineties are a time base, there has been no attempt to bracket ideas within the confines of this decade. It has frequently been necessary to look to earlier periods to establish the patterns of traditional thought in the nineties. Likewise, in several cases where conclusions have been subsequently drawn from the particular situation in the nineties, or when ideas suggested in the nineties have V not "been developed, or synthesized until later, there has been no hesi­ tation to project the study into subsequent decades. The hypothesis of this study is that the American intellectual in the nineties failed to come to grips with the labor problem. Save for a few significant exceptions, the intellectual was encumbered by a pattern of thought springing from Locke's doctrine of natural rights, Puritan "success” philosophy, and reinforced by t*e American frontier tradition, While such a group of ideas cannot easily be defined, the following components, more or less exclusive, may b« noted, First, it was assumed that there was in America unlimited opportunity for economic advancement. Just as land had always been available, so other possibilities were always available for the resourceful and enterprising man; second, there was free opportunity to rise in life, there were no rigid class distinctions based on economic status. Any worker might become a capitalist. Third, success in exploiting this boundless opportunity was the result of Individual effort unassisted by government, by sub sid ies, or by communal a c tiv ity . I n itia tiv e and effort were expended fully only when an individual labored upon his own property. Since success was individual, any failure was due to individual defect, not lack of opportunity. Fourth, society was a unity, in that the pursuit of the individual's personal gain resulted in the general welfare. Fifth, the uninhibited workings of this private enterprise system caused automatically a continuous material progress of society. From this fund of ideas the American derived his political beliefs, particularly that the least government was the best; he found in it v i his favorite folk-hero - the self-made man of material wealth; hie defense of free enterprise was simply a rationalization of the ideas translated into economic terms. For the opponent of labor organiza­ tion, this pattern of ideas was an effective buttress to an intransi­ gent attitude of defiance and non-recognition* The reformers who framed the social gospel or built a new ethical economics sought a middle ground which would reject the most extreme application of laissez-faire, but retaining individualism, self-help and claselessness, would find for the worker a new unity in the natural corporate harmony of the business community. In no sense would the reformers accept economic class organization of the laboring men0 This ideology shaped in Jeffersonian pre-industrial America had no relevance to the world-wise pragmatic union leaders who faced the critical problems of large-»cale industrialism* The practical, con­ servative union leaders had no alternative but to erect firm barriers against all intellectuals, and thus to assure a separation of intel­ lectuals from the labor movement which has persisted to the present day* Accordingly, this study begins with the question; What did labor want? It seeks to answer this through examination of the objectives outlined by union leaders and by the intellectual spokesman within the labor movement. Second, it will examine those patterns of traditional thought developed before the nineties and employed during the decade by academians, business leaders, and aristocrats in their v i i opposition to labor* Third, it will turn to the reform compromise as expressed in the social gospel and the new economics. Tourth, it will discuss the radicals who would project the revolt against traditional thinking into a revolt against capitalism; and fifth, it will conclude with an examination of those intellectuals who attempted to interpret the new function of trade unionism within a capitalistic structure, and to redefine economic theory in terms of a new role both for business and labor combination. chapter one THE LABOR SCENE "The lahor troubles, their causeB, course, and cure, took lead of all other topics in the public prints, and in serious conversation," Edward Bellamy wrote in the introductory chapter of his Looking Backward, 13&7~2000.^ While the American economy moved forward with giant strides in the decades after the Civil War and poured forth from its seemingly boundless industrial cornucopia rails and steel, flour, meat, and oil in ever increasing abundance, the expanding class of Americans who depended upon wages for their living shared leas and less in the bountiful rewards capitalism had to give, Henry George stated the dilerana succinctly: progress and poverty seemed to advance together0 The workingman's economic position had improved, but the Btiffly colonnaded income figures alone did not reveal the true picture. They did not t e l l th at the nature of the economy had changed from agrarian to industrial, and that with the security of the land gone,
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