Page:William Zebulon Foster - The Railroaders' Next Step, Amalgamation (1922).djvu/64

Rh other factor. Few officials can rise above it. No matter how badly amalgamation may be needed, the almost invariable attitude of officialdom is to fight against it relentlessly. This is so well-known as to be a commonplace of the labor movement. Therefore, all over the world genuine amalgamation movements have to surge up from the rank and file.

Unquestionably there would be considerable justification for some of this job-fear in a general railroad amalgamation. Instead of sixteen presidents, as now, then there would be only one. The rest would have to play second fiddle, with a certain restriction of their power and prestige, and also a very probable trimming of their salaries down to more modest sizes. But as for an actual reduction in the number of officials, that does not usually occur in amalgamations. There is always so much work to be done in an organizing and administering way, and the amalgamated unions are so much better able to go ahead with it than were the individual unions, that the tendency is rather to increase the staff than to decrease it. But let that be as it may, earnest railroad union men will never let such considerations stand in the way of the combination of our many weak organizations into one strong one.