Page:George Soule - The Intellectual and the Labor Movement.djvu/16

 properly to render a genuine professional service. The intellectual can better aid the union by doing his own job well for the union than by trying to do the union’s job for it.

Here again I must record dissent on the part of a number of intellectuals. The best way to understand the labor movement and to help it, they say, is first to become a manual worker and to join a union as a member of the rank and file.

A small number of intellectuals have done this with great profit to themselves and have subsequently been able to interpret labor's attitude with much more sympathy than they could otherwise have done. Manual labor is salutary for anybody, whether he is to work with the labor movement or not; and any intellectual worker will derive benefit from an occasional vacation from his desk and typewriter. As a preparation for professional service this course has much to recommend it. In dealing with possibilities along these lines, Powers Hapgood, a Harvard graduate, who has spent the last few years as a miner in Pennsylvania and other states, and who more recently has done effective work as an organizer for the miners in Somerset County, has the following to say:

"I believe that the most important way for intellectuals to be of service to the labor movement is for them to become part of the group which they wish to help, to start life as manual workers, to take part in the affairs of their local unions, and to take their chances on being elected or appointed to administrative offices in their unions. This way, of course, applies largely to men and women who are not many years out of college and who have normal health and strength.

"It is true that men and women who have not risen from the ranks are in most unions neither eligible to handle nor capable of handling such important affairs of the unions as the formation of new policies, the making of contracts with employers, the managing of strikes, or the extension of the jurisdiction of the unions to unorganized fields. This does not mean, however, that college graduates are incapable of managing the basic functions of trade unionism if they go through the same training—though of less duration—as do all union officials. When once they rise to a position of leadership, they can be far more effective in the administration of their unions than if they performed professional services alone. Investigations, the preparation of briefs and statistics for arbitration cases, publicity and other services which intellectuals now render to the labor movement are important and necessary. Those trained along these lines can, however, function far more effectively as union officials, or at least as members of the rank and file of the labor movement, than if they did specific pieces of work as outsiders. They would also be more influential than the isolated intellectual in his advocacy of nationalization, consolidating the power of the A. F. of L., etc.

"A few years spent as a manual laborer in a mine, mill or factory is in no way wasted, In the first place, the experience of earning a living in industry. and the opportunity which life like this gives for the understanding of human beings is the best kind of a post-graduate course. In the second place, and more important, it is from the rank and file of labor that progressive union policy most often comes. One or two active members of the rank and file of a local union, expressing their opinions at meetings or as delegates debating on the floor of district or national conventions, can do an immense amount of good, unappreciated it is true, but still worth while. And who can be more influential in arousing interest in workers' education, cooperative stores, labor papers, than active men working at their trades? The opportunity is there. Any man or woman with normal health can find a job after a little searching in mine, mill or factory and can serve the labor movement from the inside in many ways. Let him do his job, not worrying about 'leadership' and he will find plenty of things worth while doing."