Frederick Elwin Smith Birkenhead Quotes
We are asked to permit a hundred men to go round to the house of a man who wishes to exercise the common law right in this country to sell his labour where and when he chooses, and to 'advise' him or 'peacefully persuade' him not to work. If peaceful persuasion is the real object, why are a hundred men required to do it? ... Every honest man knows why trade unions insist on the right to a strong numerical picket. It is because they rely for their objects neither on peacefulness nor persuasion. Those whom they picket cannot be peacefully persuaded. They understand with great precision their own objects, and their own interests, and they are not in the least likely to be persuaded by the representatives of trade unions, with different objects and different interests. But, though arguments may never persuade them, numbers may easily intimidate them. And it is just because argument has failed, and intimidation has succeeded, that the Labour Party insists upon its right to picket unlimited in respect of numbers.
This is a fascinating historical quotation about labor disputes and strikes. The conservatives at the beginning of the 20th century were horrified at the idea of a strike of any kind. Their idea of a labor dispute with picketing would allow one or two protesters with signs stating their case to stand outside the factory. Or one person visiting a worker and suggesting that the worker not work during the strike. However, when the degree of passion was expressed by many people picketing they were opposed. At the time, the working class and the unions had no other resources other than the bodies of their workers. They could not advertise, publish newspapers, hire lobbyists to explain their point of view to Parliament. The conservatives then were then very undemocratic and believed that the monarchy with a responsible aristocracy of the upper class should run the nation for all. They WERE actually intimidated by a large number of people doing anything that was not endorsed by or approved by the ruling class. Women in large protest marches for the right to vote were intimidating also. The threat was, as they saw it, “Do as we demand or we will bring down the world as you know it.” In a sense that is what happened. There is no conservative in England who would today deny a union the right to picket with many people.
Frederick Elwin Smith Birkenhead, 1872-1930, 1st Earl of Birkenhead, British Member of Parliament & Attorney General (Conservative), Speech in the House of Commons against the Trade Disputes Bill, March 30, 1906
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
While Ray was very sympathetic towards the strike, his father’s attitude was typical of that of business men across the nation. A picket line or demonstration was a “mob” and mobs should be broken up before they do physical damage to people or property. “Grape” and “canister” were types of ammunition for cannon that was used against personnel in war. One shell could kill 20-30 men in a crowd.
This was praise indeed as Wellman was generally very conservative.
With the large number of jobs that are going overseas, and the increasing productivity, the economics of the late 20th century and early 21st century made job security an anachronism. Therefore the unions were weakened.
After a CIO retail clerks’ union led a strike against Montgomery Ward, Bridges’ union declared that their union and other unions should oppose any labor strikes during World War II.
Ironically, this view was also held by many of the capitalist “Captains of American Industry” who believed that all unions were revolutionist regardless of the views of the union’s membership or leadership. Even today, there are some who still equate trade unionism with communism and revolution. The majority of the unions and the left never believed that, but the extreme communists and extreme capitalists did than and some do today.
It was fairly common at the time for the management of a company undergoing a strike to hire goons and gunmen to beat up and even murdering strikers to intimidate the strikers. But some state and locall governments supporting private companies began to do that as well. Sometimes they even used the police and the state national guard.
