Page:William Zebulon Foster - The Bankruptcy of the American Labor Movement (1922).djvu/24

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The weakness of the American labor movement, its lack of social vision and its general backwardness politically and industrially, as compared with the labor movements of other countries, has long been a matter of common knowledge. It cannot be denied or disputed, nor do real labor students try to do either. Their aim is to explain it, to find out the reasons for the paradoxical situation of the world's most advanced capitalistic country possessing such a primitive working class movement, Two explanations for this condition, widely accepted among labor men and students generally, are (1) that the influx of so many millions of immigrants, with their innumerable racial, language, national, and religious differences, has enormously complicated the problems confronting the labor movement and hindered the work of unionization and education by bringing together a practically unorganizable mass in the industries, and (2) that the workers of America, because of the existence of the free land for so long and the opportunities presented by the unexampled industrial expansion, have been better able to make a living, and consequently have not felt the need for organization and a revolutionary spirit to such an extent as the oppressed workers of Europe. Or, in other words, that too many immigrants and too much prosperity are to blame for the extreme backwardness of Organized Labor in the United States.

Regarding the first of the explanations: Although, undoubtedly, the presence of so many nationalities in the industries makes the problem of organization more difficult, it is by no means an insurmontable obstacle. The situation is not nearly so bad as it has beet painted. The "unorganizability" of the foreign-born workers is a very convenient cloak for labor leaders to cover up their inefficiency and the weaknesses of an unfit craft unionism. The fact is, the immigrant workers are distinctly organizable, often even more so than the native Americans. This has been demonstrated time and again in strikes during the past 10 years. In the big Lawrence strike of 1912 it was the immigrant workers, a score of different nationalities, who were the backbone of the great struggle. Likewise in the packing house