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Chapter 17
Capital and Labor
The prudent, penniless beginner in the world labors for wages awhile, saves a surplus with which to buy tools or land for himself, and then labors on his own account another while, and at length hires another new beginner to help him. This . . . is free labor—the just and generous and prosperous system, which opens the way for all, gives hope to all, and energy, and progress, and improvement of condition to all. (Abraham Lincoln, Speech, Milwaukee, September 30, 1859)
Sensible Labor Organizations. Labor combinations founded on any other basis than that of justice and good sense, with a view to the best interests of both capital and labor, are built upon wrong principles, and will fail, even as unjust combinations of capital against labor should and must be brought to naught . . . .
If we are to have labor organizations among us, and there is no good reason why our young men might not be so organized, they should be formed on a sensible basis, and officered by men who have their families and all their interests around them. The spirit of goodwill and brotherhood, such as we have in the gospel of Christ, should characterize their conduct and organizations. For be it known, the religious note is and should remain the dominant note of our character and of all our actions . . . .
In this country no combination which seeks to deprive men of their liberties can long flourish, and if the labor unions are to do a mission of good for the workmen, all tendency to restrict the liberties and rights of either their fellow-workmen or of the employer must be eliminated from their program of proceedings. Our brethren should not join in any scheme to commit wrong; they should do their own thinking, and refuse to be parties to any action that is contrary to justice and liberty and the spirit of the gospel . . . .
While there is no reason why workmen should not join together for their own mutual protection and benefit, there is every reason why in so doing they should regard [p. 392] the rights of their fellows, be jealous of the protection of property, and eliminate from their methods of warfare, boycotts, sympathetic strikes, and the walking delegate. (President Joseph F. Smith, 1903, E-6:783-5)
There are three clearly defined principles that should be well understood and carefully observed in the relationship which men occupy to their employers. In the first place, employers should be made to feel secure in the conduct of their business, and that no violence shall be done them, and that property rights shall be held sacred. In the second place, workmen, even when they are not members of the union, should be made to feel secure in their work. When men give way to the passion of hatred toward their fellowmen who have not seen fit to become members of some union, they are simply sowing to the wind and in the end will reap the whirlwind. The third principle is one that has been brought into prominence, and one that is likely to play an important part in the future: it is the right of the public to rely upon the integrity of labor as well as upon the integrity of capital.
Whenever an organization unnecessarily inflicts a great wrong upon the public by stopping the wheels of commerce, and by bringing suffering to multitudes of their fellowmen, the soundest principles of humanity are outraged. It is wrong for men to assume that employers are at heart unfair and unscrupulous, and that they are therefore justified in saying to the public at large we shall visit upon you the evil consequences of our suspicions. Capital is naturally shy, and if it is forced to hide itself by a wild irrational agitation, the agitators will find in the end that they have been the victims of one of the most horrible social maladies that ever afflicted any age . . . . (President Joseph F. Smith, 1903, MS-65:418)
Fair Dealing Needed. Labor unions will find that the same eternal law of justice applies to unions that applies to individuals, that fair dealing and rational conduct must be maintained if financial misfortunes are averted. Where there are Latter-day Saints in unions they should assume a conservative attitude and never arouse men’s prejudices by inflaming their passions. There can be no objections to a firm and persistent contention for the [p. 393] right of labor, if the contention is maintained in the spirit of reason and fairness. Above all things, the Latter-day Saints should hold sacred the life and liberty of their fellow- men, as also their rights of property and maintain inviolate every right to which humanity is entitled . . . .
The unions are forcing our people into an inconsistent and dangerous attitude when they compel Latter-day Saints within the union to make war upon their brethren who are without the union, and thereby denying the most sacred and God-given rights of one class of Saints that another class may gain some advantage over a third person, their employer. Such conduct is destructive of the liberty which every man is entitled to enjoy, and will lead in the end to the spirit of contention and apostasy.
It is not easy to see how the Latter-day Saints can endorse the methods of modern labor unions. As a people we have suffered too much from irrational class prejudice and class hatred to participate in violent and unjust agitations. No one denies the rights of laborers to unite in demanding a just share of the prosperity of our country, provided the union is governed by the same spirit that should actuate men who profess the guidance of a Christian conscience.
In the present status of capital and labor there should be mutual interests; and at the same time workmen should realize that there is a limit to the pressure which capital can endure by the demands made upon it. Competition has always given some measure of relief to the laborer by the demands of capital for human service, and men should not therefore abandon themselves to the supposed power of arbitrary demands which labor unions are now making in many cases upon their employers. (President Joseph F. Smith, 1903, JI-38:370)
Inequality of Capital and Labor. It is obvious that capital and labor are in certain matters grossly unequal. In a free market capital is always able to discharge one laborer and hire another, often to capital’s advantage; but labor cannot, in normal times, discharge capital, that is, capriciously leave one employer, and immediately pick up another. That results from the fact that capital does not need day by day wages; it can live on credit. It can wait. [p. 394]Whereas labor lives largely from payday to payday; it has little, if any, credit. It may not wait. Furthermore, capital may always enlist labor to carry forward its plans because it has that which purchases the livelihood which labor must have or die; but labor may not always enlist capital so that labor may earn a livelihood, because capital does not always wish to go ahead, for a variety of reasons. This inequality must be recognized and provided for. There will be no peace until it is done, and peace is indispensable to growth, both of the individual and of the nation . . . .
Just Compensation. All men are entitled to the fruits of their own labors. The Lord started men out on this basis. Laborers are entitled to the value of what they produce, minus what might be calculated as adequate rent for the quarters in which they work to produce, due compensation for the tools they use, plus depreciation, obsolescence, repairs, and replacement charges on quarters and tools, as well as compensation for the services incident to the marketing of the product from which come the funds to compensate labor. On its side, capital has a right to this adequate rent for quarters, for tools, and to compensation and reimbursement for the other items mentioned, as also for the services which it renders in marketing the product.
Each, in supplying its contribution to the joint product, affords to the other its opportunity for service, and each extends to the other, in due measure, the consideration and reward it asks for itself. This is a fair and just operation, for each extends to his neighbors the love he has for himself, since each grants to the other equal opportunity with himself. This, I repeat, is the most a free government can guarantee and a mass free economic system yield. In passing, I may remark that Jesus said, “. . . the laborer is worthy of his hire.” (Luke 10:7); but He did not say the laborer was entitled to the master’s house or his vineyard because he labored therein . . . .
Profit Sharing Needed. We simply cannot go forward nor preserve what we have if we shall gear down our speed to the least competent and the idler. Surely we need no more demonstration than our present sad situation [p. 395] gives, to show that to maintain our standards we must produce. Yet, tragically enough, this down gearing of production speed is just what certain labor agitators now advocate and plan for, under the alluring, but wholly specious, plea of thereby protecting the weak. You cannot care for the weak by having little or nothing produced on which they may live. These leader-agitators really plot our social and economic destruction.
Now do not misunderstand me, I am not intimating that men should be bowed down by work. Overwork can reduce achievement just as effectively as underwork, and it can easily become tragically inhuman. Slave labor is never fully efficient, even in the most menial tasks. Capital has never learned that, but it must learn it if it is to survive. Our American capital has more nearly learned and applied it than has the capital of any other land, as witness the superior standard of living of our labor. And yet curiously the American working man turns a listening ear to representatives of economic systems in other countries, where the standards of living are now and always have been far below our own, and our men sometimes seem ready to adopt the plans of these aliens who glibly tell us how to do here, the things they could not do at home.
Now it cannot be denied that capital has enslaved labor in the past. On the other hand labor has never enslaved capital in a capitalistic system; it cannot. When capital is enslaved, capitalism disappears and communism or socialism comes.
Capital must not only not enslave labor, but it must not exploit labor as the term exploit is usually used. Capital and labor must come to a condition of industrial partnership, not necessarily a partnership as understood in law, though it might be that, I think; but they must come to what might be, shall I say, the social equivalent of such a partnership. I am very sure there must be between capital and labor, a just sharing of the proceeds, the profits of such a joint industry. I have always thought that this could be done on a capitalistic basis, if only capital had the will to do it. I am sure it has the brains to devise a workable plan . . . . [p. 396]
A Joint Labor-Capital Enterprise. The labor cost in any industry can be accurately determined. Why not consider something like this; there may be a germ of reason in it: Capitalize a reasonable labor cost as one part of a joint labor-capital enterprise. Then add to that sum the reasonable value of the plant and equipment. The two would make the joint capital investment. Then the labor costs, a reasonable rent charge for plant and equipment, the costs of management and marketing, the charge for obsolescence and depreciation, for replacement, repairs, insurance, workmen’s compensation, social security, together with surpluses and reserves necessary for the joint undertaking, would be first taken from the proceeds of the operation, after which the balance of the proceeds would be divided between the workers and the stockholders in the ratio the respective capital accounts bore, one to the other. It will be said there will not be much to divide. Well maybe not, but what there is could be divided; and it might not be too bad a situation if there was little to divide after labor and capital had each received a reasonable return for their service. Then we, the people who pay this reasonable return to capital and labor, shall receive some consideration and relief. We have borne the burden for now too long a time.
Of course, there would be problems and difficulties in such a plan, and it will not be so simple to work out as it is to state. But think what troubles, strikes, disputes, mistrust, and hate you would escape, what rival militant greediness you would do away with on the part of capital and labor; think how much more cheaply the business could be carried on; think how much better and more reasonably the public could be served; think how even-keeled our whole industrial life could move along.
I am sure something like this can be done, and I am also certain that something like it must be done, if we are even to retain our present industrial achievement. Sharing profits proportionately to contribution in production is fair, it will implement the God-given principle of loving one’s neighbor. And certainly in one view, such a sharing is the only decent, manly thing for men to do, particularly the men with the upper hand. [p. 397]
Now, I am not wholly unfamiliar with capital’s past experience with labor in attempted profit sharing. Labor has been willing to share profits, but not losses. Moreover, labor was not willing, in a British experiment, to launch out and increase the business; labor was satisfied to go along with what they were getting without running the risk involved in making more. This bit of temperament presents a problem, but it is not insoluble.
Now, I also know that capital will have a score of reasons, maybe more, why what I am suggesting cannot be done. It may be they will all be good reasons—then again, it may be none of them will be any good. I might note one rather inclusive objection that capital will make—the plan suggested will bring labor into management, and this would be unworkable. To that I may briefly say: You capitalists already have that, and better a friendly, co-interested participation in management, than the existing hostile intrusion. But this I do know: Capital would better get some equality principle into operation, or else it will be confiscated
Capital is largely to blame for its present difficulties. Speaking generally, it has rarely yielded anything to labor except it was brought face to face with labor’s clenched fist. I have been saying this for more than twenty-five years.
So far as I am concerned, my sympathies have always been, and are now, with the laboring man in his unequal struggle with capital. I have always stood for due and proper compensation for labor, fully adequate for the service rendered. But I have not approved of the laboring man’s implements in waging his fight for a reasonable existence—I refer to the closed shop, intimidation, sabotage, sympathetic strikes, violence, destruction or pro perty, arson, and, at times, even man-slaughter.
Labor Expecting Too Much. Furthermore, labor at the present time is demanding a larger share of the proceeds of production than capital can stand If this demand be continued and increased, industry must fold up, because the time will come when capital can no longer pass on to the public the excess labor costs, and unless it can it will be bankrupt. We common people cannot indefinitely [p. 398] pay this ever mounting tribute to labor and capital; there is not enough left in the economic reservoir to feed, clothe, shelter, and keep us warm. Our backs will break under the burden. Then the alternative will be either a shutting down of industry—the goose that lays the golden egg will die—or the State must take over and operate, and this is socialism which will bring communism in its wake, a reduction of all of us to near the present lowest standard of living, if not worse. Now personally I am convinced that this last alternative, closing down industry and our pauperization, is just what our alien labor agi tators have aimed and are now aiming at. Then they plan to have the State seize and operate industrial plants, and thus bring socialism. Labor must abate something of its attempted “’take” if our system is to survive.
On the other hand I have not approved and do not approve of capital’s weapons—the blacklist, lockouts, the grinding out of the maximum returns for the minimum of wage outlay, even the imposition of starvation wages that too often have been capital’s means of dealing with labor in the past. These have worked great injustices that must not be repeated. They have been the stimulants that have produced labor’s present state of mind.
Labor and capital must quit waging war against one another with a hate each against the other that leads easily to an actual bloodlust that is sometimes gratified.
But, by and large, labor’s demands of today are the inevitable consequence of capital’s extortions of yesterday. Both capital and labor forget that we are all one people and part of a great brotherhood of men. Capital conceives of labor, and labor conceives of capital, as an inanimate, impersonal, devilish abstraction whose sole aim is the destruction of the other; and then each deals with the other on that basis, each determined to crush the other, each of them forgetting and ignoring that their respective ranks are made of men of flesh and blood, and that all of us taken together make one industrial, social whole, and that if one body of us suffers, the whole of us are in distress . . . .
Do Labor Agitators Want Peace? Returning to my suggested plan: I further know this: The alien labor [p. 399] agitators now so powerful in this country, would not, for the considerations I have mentioned, want this plan, or any other plan, that would bring labor and capital together in a peaceful and harmonious production, because I repeat, their ultimate aim is communism, to be fastened upon us through virtual chaos. They will always be behind anything that makes for disturbances and the paralyzing of production. If we are communized, we shall look to Moscow for our direction. Do laboring men like this picture, or don’t they see it? . . .
Personally I have always, in principle, believed in labor unions. Under our existing system, I do not believe the laboring man can protect himself in any other way than through unions. But also personally I am just as firmly against the excesses of labor unions. Especially do I deprecate their unwillingness to be bound by the contracts they sign, which they seem to repudiate as their leaders direct. There must be integrity if men are to deal together . . . .
Sensible Conclusions. I shall not be surprised if by this time, some of you are asking—Where does this man really stand? Should this question be in the minds of any of you, to you I will say:
First: Our present capital-labor relationship will surely lead us to economic destruction, and when that comes all the rest of our achievement will also disappear. Lincoln said we could not exist half slave and half free. He spoke politically. So we cannot exist half near-slave and half free economically. This principle operates against capital and against labor. Nor can we go forward with half of us hating the other half, because the conflicts this will engender will destroy us. Each must live and let five; all must recognize the brotherhood of man.
Second: There are amongst us agents of an alien communistic ideology, and probably these agents are also, in considerable proportion, the paid agents of a foreign government. The purpose of these is to foment dissatisfaction, then disputes, then strikes and violence, then bloodshed, to the end of creating a condition of chaotic disorder, and then taking over our government and making [p. 400] us a member of a sovietized world.(1) It is the duty of every citizen to do his utmost to see that this perversion of our free institutions, and this destruction of our national welfare, with its blessings to our citizenry—blessings unequalled anywhere else in the world, and, among western powers, unequaled least of all in sovietized Russia—shall not come to pass.
Third: Some plan of better equalizing the distribution of the proceeds of production must be found, and I have suggested a principle of economic partnership, which the communists would surely oppose, but which labor and capital should try to work out on some basis, for the welfare, indeed salvation, of each of them, and for the preservation of our civilization. In this economic partnership neither partner must have more than his proportionate share of the profits. Neither must be grasping, greedy, swinish; each must be fair. This applies to capital and to labor. There must be no overreaching. Such a plan can be worked out if we have mutual forbearance, patience, and a desire to deal justly, both sides approaching the matter as one of mutual, interdependent interest.
Fourth: That the underlying, guiding principle for this labor-capital rapprochement is the Divine command, “Love thy neighbor as thyself,” and that both groups, guided by this God-given principle will move into an era of prosperity and goodwill that the world has never before witnessed and that will insure the preservation and advancement of our economic achievements and our unparalleled blessings of mass civilization. There is no visible limit to our achievement if this shall be the motif of our industrial, economic life. We would really move into a true millennium that would make us the peaceful masters of the world. (J. Reuben Clark, CN-12/14/46) [p. 401]
Employer-Employee Relationships. In the field of dishonest traits we inevitably come to the employer-employee relationships which have evidently been a problem since time began. Selfishness seems to be a ruling passion in the human breast. Unwillingness to share and to cooperate have caused many conflicts. To the children of Israel the Lord spoke sharply:
Thou shalt not defraud thy neighbor, neither rob him. The wages of him that is hired shall not abide with thee all night until the morning.
Thou shalt not oppress an hired servant that is poor and needy whether he be of thy brethren or of thy strangers. at this day thou shalt give him his hire . . . . (Deut. 24:14–15)
And John the Baptist speaking to those who came to hear him preach charges: “Exact no more than that which is appointed you.”
And through Malachi the prophet came these words:
I will be swift witness against the sorcerers, and against the adulterers, and against false accusers, and AGAINST THOSE THAT OPPRESS THE HIRELING IN HIS WAGES, the widow and the fatherless. (Mal. 3:5)
James lashes forth as a warning to the unjust employer:
Go to now, ye rich men, weep and howl for your miseries that shall come upon you.
Your riches are corrupted, and your garments are moth-eaten.
Your gold and silver is cankered; and the rust of them shall be a witness against you, and shall eat your flesh as it were fire. Ye have heaped treasure together for the last days.
Behold, the hire of the labourers who have reaped down your fields, which is of you kept back by fraud, crieth: and the cries of them which have reaped are entered into the ears of the Lord of sabaoth. (James 5:1–4)
Not all employers are rich; numerous are kind and cooperative but always there are those who oppress the employee if they can. The Golden Rule is good. If the employer and the employee could govern their attitudes and relationships by this eternal guide, how many problems would be averted! The pendulum swings in one direction, then the other. It seems that the employers had their day—a long one, wherein countless underlings suffered. Indignation and resentment awakened the employed [p. 402] to rebel and make enforceable demands. The pendulum has swung a long way to the other side. And the workers must be sure they do not carry their demands too far until the righteous indignation of not only the management but the public who are also affected shall start the pendulum on its return journey. And Paul speaking to the Colossian Saints said”
Masters, give unto your servants that which is just equal; knowing that ye also have a Master in Heaven. (Col. 4:1)
And Paul says pointedly: “. . . nor extortioners shall inherit the kingdom of God.” (I Cor. 6:10)
We are frequently shocked at the unconcern for right exhibited by employees. An example is the statement of a young employee, laughing, boasting” “I didn’t work an hour all day, but I got my pay.” To limit one’s production is unfair.
Some clockwatchers seem to be interested only in time and not in their employer’s interests. Word from foremen to workers to keep out of sight when the big boss comes around seems wholly dishonest. In our own dispensation the Lord has said to him who steals:
Wo unto you poor men whose hearts are not broken, whose spirits are not contrite and whose bellies are not satisfied, and whose hands are not stayed from laying hold upon other men’s goods, whose eyes are full of greediness, and who will not labor with your own hands. (D&C 56:17)
And Paul urges the Ephesians:
Servants, be obedient to them that are your masters according to the flesh, with fear and trembling, in singleness of your heart, as unto Christ. (Eph. 6:5)
The Lord, realizing the cupidity of man warned also the hireling, the wage earner, the employee. He seemed to realize that with the power to do so, many workers would defraud, kill time, do inferior work, collect more than earned. The story oft told tells of a man asking for employment. The job-seeker next asked: “What will you pay me?” The answer was: “I’ll pay you what you are worth.” Whereupon the job-seeker indignantly replied: “I certainly will not work for that.”
In Luke we read the charges of John the Baptist to [p. 403] the soldiers who asked what they should do: “Do violence to no man, neither accuse any falsely, and be content with your wages.” (Luke 3:14)
Paul teaching Titus said for him to:
Exhort servants to be obedient unto their own masters, and to please them well in all things; not answering again;
Not purloining, (stealing, filching) but shewing all good fidelity; that they may adorn the doctrine of God our Saviour in all things. (Titus 2:9–10)
That employer who oppresses the workman is under condemnation. Undoubtedly the strict and demanding requirements made by the laborer these days are when Paul states that extortioners shall not inherit the kingdom of God; he was likely thinking also of the employed who will not work, who will be disloyal, who will kill time and reduce productivity.
And we cannot forget the incrimination of the writer of the Proverbs of those who use unfair tactics, make a heavy bargain, indulge in sharp practices, overcharge for services or commodities to accumulate too fast. “. . . he that maketh haste to be rich shall not be innocent.” (Proverbs 28:20.) (Spencer W. Kimball, BYU, 1958)
Alien Agitators. Whatever the wrongs of the workingmen may be—and no doubt they have their side of the case to tell—it is not possible, as long as this country is governed by law, for them to proceed to the lengths which many of their number advocate. Men have the right to quit work when the labor does not suit them, or when the pay is insufficient; but have they the right to say that others shall not work?(2) Or have they the right to take possession of the premises of their employers and by force of arms keep the owners from exercising control over their own property, or from employing men who may be objectionable [p. 404] to the strikers? . . .
It is alleged that a great many dissatisfied foreigners have left Europe and come to this country, and are circulating among the working people the doctrines of anarchy, and teaching them that perfect equality in the matter of this world’s goods should prevail. Such doctrines appeal strongly to the ignorant masses, and their spread is attended with danger. They produce envy and discontent. They have the effect to array one class against another, and to destroy all harmony and co-operation. If these doctrines continue to spread, they will be attended with very serious consequences, and rich men will stand in jeopardy. (George Q. Cannon, 1892, JI-27:498)
Oppression by Labor. Oppression is no more tolerable when imposed by the many than it is when inflicted by the few. It is tyranny from either source. The despotism, actual and threatened, from the few—that is, from capital—is now pretty well destroyed and the laws now on the books, reasonably enforced, sufficiently guarantee us against future aggression; indeed, there will be need for some abatement of existing restrictions and levies against capital, particularly in the matter of taxes, for these are passed on to the people and we already have all the burden we can bear without getting any more load from capital.
But labor is now imposing upon the people a greater oppression, one that more intimately affects every individual, than capital ever loaded upon us.(3) (J. Reuben Clark, CN-12/14/46)
Force is Satan’s Weapon. Two years ago [1936], a great industrial disturbance of the Pacific Coast began about this time of the year. It continued for 98 days, and [p. 405] cost, it was said, about seven hundred millions of dollars. What came out of it? Ill-will, misery and hatred. What was the weapon used in the struggle? Force. And force is, and always has been the weapon of Satan and his helpers.(4) It was the weapon he proposed in the great council in heaven that he would use to save all the Father’s children. It is the weapon still used by all the Father’s children who permit themselves to be influenced by this crafty enemy of all righteousness . . . .
Force as an instrument in human relations is absolutely banned by the teachings of the Master.(5) Satan’s proposal to use it to bring back to heaven all the earth-children of the Father was rejected and the doctrine of free agency proclaimed. In Christ’s Church compulsion of the human will is unknown. (Joseph F. Merrill, CR-10/38:81-2)
Dictators in America. We do not need to go to Europe or to Russia to find absolute dictators. We have them here in America. Probably not as mayors and governors and presidents, but we do have them in organizations in which members have no voice in their own affairs, for fear of reprisal, and in which “taxes” are levied and “dues” collected on a compulsory basis . . . .(6) [p. 406]
Each one of us must see to it that we do not become a party to setting up any dictatorships in America, in business or labor or politics or education or in any other walk of life.
Our destiny is to be free. Our religion teaches us to be free. Dictatorships wipe out freedom. (Mark E. Petersen, CN-5/9/59)
Strikes—Labor’s Enemy. There is no doubt that strikes, as generally conducted, have been of little benefit except to the so-called walking delegate, and to the transient organizer, officer and collector of dues. What labor wants is good wages and industrial activity, but a strike is the worst possible enemy to labor(7), because it stops activity. Arbitration direct by the interested parties would appear to be the right course, and this can never be established under the old system of sympathetic strikes and walking delegates. There must be a greater grievance than some disgruntled workman with a petty or perhaps vindictive complaint against his employer, at the bottom of a strike. The good sense of capital and labor face to face are best prepared to say what a cause for grievance, on either side, may be. (President Joseph F. Smith, 1903, E-6:783)
Strikes Are Uncivilized. I have no hesitancy in saying that the strike is a totally uncivilized way of dealing with industrial disputes. Strikes arise out of disagreements . . . . I am not here trying to fix the blame or to say who is in the right or to what extent. But I do say that such a situation breeds lawlessness, eventuates in anarchy, and will destroy any government or society that does not find an effective way of dealing with it.
There is no more excuse for permitting those with an [p. 407] industrial complaint, real or fancied, sincerely entertained or shammed, to cover up a sinister purpose, to take into their own hands the redressing of their own grievances, than there is for permitting any private individual to take upon himself the satisfaction of his own wrongs of whatsoever nature without regard to the good order and welfare of the whole society . . . . (8)
An Age of Barbarism? There is no greater right in an organized body to obstruct public streets or to throw picket lines in front of entrances to places of work and hold others out by violence, intimidation, threat, and injury than there is in any person whose property has been stolen to retrieve it by force of arms, killing or maiming if need be in the process.
Neither does it help the cause any to say, even though true, that workers have in the past suffered gross wrongs. An evil is never cured by transferring the power to perpetrate it from one set of hands over into the hands of those on the opposite side. Wrong is just as sinister and just as fatal to orderly living when perpetrated by one side to a controversy as if perpetrated by the other. Former wrongs are not righted by the commission of new ones by the other party.
Our method of handling these industrial disputes belongs to the age of barbarism and is a national disgrace. So long as we tolerate law defiance, disorder, private usurpation of the right to redress wrongs, we have no right to be castigating other nations for their delinquencies or to assume the role of instructor to them. If we cannot maintain domestic order, how may we hope to achieve international order, or to have persuasive influence in establishing it? [p. 408]
The crying need of this age is for men of stature and character in the seats of power—men who have the intelligence to discern the right and the courage to pursue it without regard to personal consequences to themselves or their ambitions, men who will not succumb to the lure of expediency, but who dare to stand on principle though they stand alone. There are too many favor-currying little men sloshing around in positions requiring big men of unwavering integrity to fill them.
Why should great cities be thrown into darkness and their citizens exposed to the marauder because two contending parties choose to be belligerent? Why should water shipping and land transportation be stopped and whole innocent populations be reduced to hunger and cold and privation because two private parties, or perhaps only one of them, sets up its imperious will regardless of the good of the law-abiding public?
If laws are needed to define the rights, privileges, and obligations of the respective contenders, let such laws be passed, but let them be fair, impartial, and unbiased laws. You will never cure the evil with laws that shackle one of the disputents while leaving the other to roam at large with unrestrained license to do evil. If tribunals be needed to administer and enforce the laws, let them be impartially constituted, not packed with personnel so biased that their decision may with certainty be predicted before the cause is heard. And when a judgment has been rendered by a duly constituted tribunal, let that body not be dissolved and its judgment vacated under pressure and another tribunal set up to render the kind of decision the dissatisfied party wants. That practice only brings the whole system into disrepute and the government itself into contempt.
The authority of law must be preserved, orderly procedure maintained, the rights of the unoffending but suffering public made secure regardless of the wishes of the contending parties or the pressures they may bring to bear. (Albert E. Bowen, CR- 10/46:49-51)
Compulsory Unionism Condemned.(9) I want to say that men shall join labor unions, that they shall band together for the purpose of protecting their rights, provided they do not interfere with the rights of other people. [p. 409] Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness belong to all people in the United States, according to the laws of our country, and should, upon all the face of the earth; and I say that, to my mind, a provision in a labor union is all wrong that favors boycotting and the laying down of tools or the quitting of employment because a non-union man obtains employment while exercising his God-given right to stay out of a union. Men who have that kind of a rule have a rule that is in direct opposition to the laws of God. There was a battle fought in heaven—for what? To give to man his individual liberty. An attempt to take the agency of man away is made when he does not see fit to join a union, when men in that union, without any complaint, or grievance, strike, because a non-union man is employed.
Now I’d better not say any more, perhaps, on this question, or I may offend somebody. I may hurt somebody’s feelings; but it is the God-given right of men to earn their livelihood. The Savior said it was the first great law or commandment to love the Lord with all our hearts, and the second was like unto it, to love thy neighbor as thyself. That is the doctrine for every true Latter-day Saint. How much love is there in starving your neighbor because he will not surrender his manhood and his individuality, and allow a labor union to direct his labor? Mighty little love, mighty little of the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ in any such a rule! I hope to see the day when no Latter-day Saint will join a union unless the union eliminate that clause from its rules. I am not going to ask them to leave their union. I am not going to lay it down that they must, that it is the mind and the will of the Lord for them to leave a union. I want, as I [p. 410] said here two weeks ago, to give every man his free agency, to give every man the right to act as he thinks proper, but I cannot see how a Latter-day Saint who is a member of such a union can get down on his knees and pray for God to inspire and bless him, to bless the Saints and to protect them, and then be a party to allowing one of his own brethren to go, year after year, without employment, because that brother will not surrender his manhood and join a union with him. There is none of the Spirit of the Lord in that, to my mind. That is exactly the way I see it. (President Heber J. Grant, CR-10/19:13-4)
The Attitude Of The Church. Latter-day Saints should avoid affiliation with any committee, any group, any union that would, through coercion of force, deprive a person of the free exercise of his or her freedom of choice. It is understood, of course, that any person is free to join a union, when to do so favors his best interests; but no one should be compelled to join, or be deprived of any right as a citizen, including the right to honest labor, if he chooses not to become a member of a union or especially organized group. (David O. McKay, CR-4/40:118)
We are facing a crisis. You brethren and sisters should know the attitude of the Church regarding efforts of some so-called labor organizations toward coercing members of our Church into unions. I think we need not quibble. We have no apology to offer. It is un-American when five percent of this nation attempts to force ninety-five percent along a particular line of action. It is undemocratic. Yet that is just what is being attempted.
I sympathize with labor, too. So do you. We are in favor of paying the highest wages that the employer or the business man employing labor can afford to pay.(10) There is nobody in this Church who wants to cut down wages, but we do resent the un-American attempt to say, for example, to one of our young boys who has given two years of his life to the Church and who has returned to [p. 411] work: “You can’t remain on this job unless you pay the dues and join our union.”
It isn’t right. No matter what difficulties we may face, let us stand for what is right. I repeat, it is not a matter of reducing wages; it is just a question of having individual liberty to work as well as to “worship God according to the dictates of our own conscience.” We will make no discrimination against a man who is or is not a member of a union, but request that a good day’s work be given for compensation received. No man shall be discriminated against in regard to these things. (David O. McKay, 1937, E- 40:496)
Closed Shop Condemned. (Note: The following remarks by Joseph F. Merrill were commented on by Pres. Heber J. Grant, who said: “I endorse what Brother Merrill has said here today.”)
The very foundations upon which this country has been builded to become great and mighty are gravely threatened and her basic principles of personal liberty are fast fading away. Time will permit of mentioning only one of these. But it is the most basic of all, the one emphasized in the Declaration of Independence—“The right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” When we deny an able-bodied man “the right to work” we rob him of his independence and destroy his happiness. It is this denial that faces myriads of willing workers in America today, because a new tyranny—one never dreamed of by the founders—has arisen, that of the “closed shop” including the check-off system . . . .
A vast majority of our laboring men are outside of Unions. A vast majority of those inside are decent, honest, law-abiding citizens. Most of those inside and outside of Unions are liberty-loving. But all of them are held under a tyranny utterly un-American both in its origin and in its effects. It is a tyranny which denies to American workers their most fundamental rights, limits their freedom, stifles their initiative, checks their energies and holds them down to the low level of their less competent and less diligent fellows. It is a tyranny which preserves the right to strike . . . while denying to the many the “right to work.” It places moderately paid workers at [p. 412] the mercy of highly paid agitators. Most of all it saps the independence of the worker, dampens his ambition and shuts for him the door of hope of a better future, lock-stepping him with indolent, less competent and less ambitious associates.
Thus while the American laborer has gained much from the Union movement, which no one would wish to see him lose, he has also lost much . . . . We all know the situation, at least in a general way, and we know it is rapidly spreading. This is a system of force that places plants and institutions employing labor in the hands of selfish, irresponsible, labor leaders, agitators and organizers who force owners, managements, labors, the public and even government officials to do their unrighteous bidding. Thus freedom is crushed and the guarantees of our inspired Constitution are thrown to the winds. Where the “closed shop” comes in freedom goes out, and the inalienable right to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” vanishes.
Now of one thing I feel sure. The vast majority of the patriotic liberty-loving people of America want the guarantees of our inspired Constitution maintained. They want this choice land still to be and to remain the “land of the free and the home of the brave.”
I have presented briefly and inadequately only one aspect of the gravely threatening situation. I hasten to say that the “closed shop” did not arise from nothing. It is seemingly the natural end result of many contributing factors. Capital and management are far from blameless in their treatment of labor and the public. Iniquitous ambition, unrestrained selfishness, rank injustice, severe oppression and cruel wrong have characterized both sides of the relations of capital and labor. “The pot cannot call the kettle black.” But many laws have been passed to control capital and management. None has yet been passed to control labor, strange to say. What then is needed if liberty and right are to be preserved? Action, and still more action. The Lord helps those engaged in a good cause.
Right to Work Laws Needed. Obviously both capital and labor should be controlled in the interest of the public [p. 413] welfare and human freedom, which certainly includes the “right to work.” To secure this right why not let every one opposed to the tyranny and evils of the “closed shop” join a right-to-work league which shall secure through suitable legislative action an opening of the gates of opportunity to every one who is able and willing to work, independent of membership in any labor union or other organization. In other words, let us unite without delay to secure the laws and regulations necessary to insure to every worker the “right to work” without which the noble declaration that each of us has the inalienable right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness becomes an idle mockery.
But a far better, much quicker, more desirable and vastly simpler plan is, under existing conditions, apparently in the realm of the ideal and therefore it must await the coming of better days. I refer to the Golden Rule plan.
Golden Rule Plan. There is a disagreement between employer and employee. In the light of Christ’s teachings what is the right thing to do? Obviously these two parties should sit down and talk things over, each strongly motivated to treat the other as he would like to be treated if all the circumstances were reversed. Let each one try hard to put himself in the other’s shoes. To do this each one would have to recognize the other as a brother, and both should keep in mind their obligations to the public. Love and right, not hate and force, must be the means employed to determine what is fair, honest, just and humane. Neither will ask for nor expect anything the Golden Rule could not award.
In a full sense of brotherhood, actuated by the real spirit of the Golden Rule were in the mind and heart of every employer and of every employee in America, and of every one else who has any kind of relations with his fellowmen, then industrial, social, and economic peace in America would be born in a day. But alas this ideal condition is not in the offing. Instead we are faced with reality and a condition so pregnant with evil that we can save ourselves only by immediate, unceasing, wise, and powerful efforts. The preservation of our inherited liberties [p. 414] and of our God-given free agencies is worth everything necessary for us to give in order that we might re-possess and maintain them. Otherwise, will not the America of the future be devoid of the essentials that have made the America we inherited, a land of glorious promise?
Latter-day Saints, is not our beautiful doctrine of eternal progression absolutely opposed to that of the “closed shop”? Force is the weapon used to bring about the “closed shop.” But force when used as a weapon is Satan’s club and therefore destructive of human rights. (Joseph F. Merrill, CR-10/41:132-5)
Freedom To Work. There is another force right in our midst which is subverting that individual freedom too. I will illustrate. A few years ago a man in one of our cities here in the United States was asked to give a week’s wages to raise a half million dollars, I think, to defeat the Taft-Hartley bill. The worker refused. He did not want to do it, and his fellow union members said to the manufacturer, “You have to discharge him,” and he was discharged.
Freedom to work was denied him, although he was a good man. His employer said so, and for 23 years he had rendered satisfactory service, and by honest efforts had supported his wife and five children, but because he did not propose to take a week’s wage to contribute to a fund to defeat a bill passed by your representatives, he was discharged and denied the right to work.
Is this the free country for which George Washington asked the American people 164 years ago to thank God for the recent Constitution established? (President David O. McKay, CN-11/21/53)
Right To Work Laws. It disturbs me that in our great nation it is necessary to legislate that which is a basic human right. I have always felt that our system of government and way of life have succeeded so well because it has been based on freedom of the individual . . . .
I believe that freedom is the very key to an individual’s rights. Individual rights of men are the very bedrock of our republic, and freedom of choice is certainly one of the cornerstones of a free society. [p. 415]
I am fully sympathetic with the problems of the laboring man. His rights should be protected.
When Congress has had under consideration important labor legislation, the right of a worker to walk off the job at will has been carefully protected. The right to walk on the job without the limitation of requiring that a worker join a union or any other organization should be equally protected.
It is my firm conviction that persons should get and keep a job on the basis of his ability and performance. This is fair. It is the American Way.
Americans can’t like bossism whether from Washington, the State Capitol or from ruthless labor leaders. (Ezra Taft Benson, 10/31/58)
We stand for the Constitution of the United States and for all rights thereby to both sovereign states of the union and to the individual citizen.
We believe it is fundamental that the right to voluntary unionism should once again be reestablished in this nation and that state right to work laws should be maintained inviolate.
At the very basis of all our doctrines stands the right to the free agency of man. We are in favor of maintaining this free agency to the greatest extent possible. We look adversely upon any infringement thereof not essential to the proper exercise of police power of the state. (President David O. McKay, Salt Lake Tribune, 9/17/61)
Dangers of Labor Monopolies. It is not of war between nations and the danger of it that I desire to speak further, for I feel that an immediate greater danger of destruction of the best interests of the people in the United States lies within our borders rather than beyond them. And these dangers are rooted in the unreasonable and damnable selfishness that is manifest on every level of our society by individuals, groups, and organizations.
For many years this country has had anti-monopoly laws to govern business corporations. The federal government and the states have set up controls and boards and commissions to administer these laws, the purpose being to protect the public against unfair commercial practices [p. 416] and unreasonable charges for the goods and services of corporations.
The intent of these laws has met with overwhelming public approval. But during recent years another form of monopoly has been developing that, if not controlled, imposes a type of slavery on the country unknown and undreamed of by the founders of our glorious republic, which, from its beginning, has served as a cherished ensign to all the world of personal liberty and free enterprise.
But these two essentials of a free people are being more and more restricted in this country . . . . Recent experiences have convinced us that some labor unions have a monopolistic power that, if fully exercised, would spell ruin to industrial America.(11) The exercise of this power employs a method that is a twin brother to that used by the bank robber. The corporation hands over just as the cashier does. In the case of the corporation, you and I—that is, the public—pays the bill. (Joseph F. Merrill, CR-4/50:59-60)
Taft-Hartley Law Protects Workers. The monopoly of selfish labor leaders must be broken. Freedom and personal liberty—the pride and boast of America, the achievement of centuries of human sacrifice and bloody struggle are in great danger due to the rise of this destructive movement, engineered and directed by smart and misguided leaders in whose minds and hearts right, fairness, and justice apparently are given little or no consideration. Their followers apparently have had confidence in their leaders and have accepted as true the false and misleading statements and claims of certain men relative to the provisions of the Taft-Hartley labor law. So in the minds of many workers this law is oppressive, unfair, unjust, and robs workers of their rightful gains, made under the pro visions of the repealed Wagner labor act.
But let me ask how many of these workers and other people have ever read the Taft- Hartley law and fully [p. 417] understand what its provisions are? My understanding is that this law was designed to protect the rights and freedom of employees and employers alike, and make unions and corporations equally responsible before the law for their contracts, obligations, etc. What right-minded citizen would have any other kind of law? In any case, two thirds of the members of each branch of the United States Congress believe the Taft-Hartley bill would be at least a fairly good law, for they passed it over the president’s veto. Is this not significant in the light of the fact that many members of his party voted to override the veto? . . .
But the outlook is none too encouraging, for unjustifiable and insatiable selfishness has already made deep inroads into the economy of this country and is still unsatisfied. The desire to get more and more for less, spurred on by some politicians, has been growing stronger and stronger among different groups of people, especially among labor unions . . . .
Educational Campaign Needed. What can be done in the matter? Let a campaign for educating the public be vigorously carried on for the purpose of inducing all voters to make a careful study of all pertinent facts—not fancies and propaganda—relative to the “gimmes” craze. There are scholarly, experienced experts who talk and write on the situation for the worthy purpose of giving the truth to us. In our study let us go to them and avoid crackpots and propagandists, even truculent officials. I will trust an informed American public. I am sure that a vast number of members of organized groups are loyal American citizens and would vote against men and measures that by word and act would tend to destroy America’s free enterprise system and that would imperil the right of “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” to loyal Americans.
But the situation, I repeat, is threatening, critical . . . . (12) [p. 418]
Why do I speak of these things? Because our religion, as I understand it, requires us to stand for the divinely inspired Constitution of the United States and to refuse support of all candidates and measures that would bring about a condition foreign to the spirit of that instrument and that would turn our government and country over to the control and dictates of autocratic bosses, whoever they may be. (Joseph F. Merrill, CR-10/49:35-39)
Apply Anti-Trust Laws to Labor. Two simple things might be done: First, the present labor laws might be so amended that labor and capital would be placed on an equal basis. Labor has a throttling advantage now. Employers should be able to discuss their relationship with their employees without the danger of a term in the penitentiary. The open shop should be established. A sane, workable plan providing for mass bargaining through a representative group should be evolved.
Second, labor unions should be made subject to the anti-trust statutes. It is fundamentally unsound government policy to enact laws, particularly with penal pro visions, that apply to some citizens and not to others. No person or group must be above or outside the law. This Constitution of ours was intended to set up a Government under which all men stood equal before the law. This principle must be preserved if we are to remain a free people, and American Free Enterprise be a reality. (J. Reuben Clark, CN- 12/14/46)
Minimum Wage. The very idea of a minimum wage recognizes that there shall be opposite to it a maximum wage. The principle does not at all involve a uniform or level wage for everyone. My conductor would be the last man to say, for instance, that he should receive only the wages that are paid to the Pullman porter. So under the minimum wage principle, not all of us can ride in Cadillacs of the latest model; some must use Fords; some, the street cars; some must still walk. Yet are we sure that the minimum wage men themselves understand this? Are they not thinking of an equal wage?(13)
But in a practical world unequal wages are inevitable, because not all work is of equal value to the mass of the people; and, after all, until the Master comes to rule and [p. 419] administer eternal right and justice, the wage paid for the work of a man must have some proper relation to the value of the man’s service to society.(14) (J. Reuben Clark, CN- 12/14/46)
Dictators in America. America has its dictators, just as do other countries. Not politically, necessarily, but otherwise as well. We have our labor dictators, and they set a pattern, for instance. And some Americans fit into the pattern of those dictators without using their own agency at all. They surrender their all to the dictators.(15) They work or they strike, they slow down or sit down, according to what they are told. And they do this regardless of religion, or home ties, or company loyalty. That pattern even puts Christianity in a secondary place. Is it a good pattern? (Mark E. Petersen, CN-2/1/58) [p. 420]
Seek for Union of Capital and Labor. Ye toiling millions who, in the sweat of your faces, earn your daily bread, look up and greet the power from above which shall lift you from bondage! The day of your redemption draweth nigh. Cease to waste your wages in that which helps to keep you in want. Regard not wealth as your enemy and your employers as your oppressors. Seek for the union of capital and labor. Be provident when in prosperity. Do not become a prey to designing men who seek to stir up strife for their own selfish ends. Strive for your rights by lawful means, and desist from violence and destruction. Anarchism and lawlessness are your deadly foes. Dissipation and vice are chains that bind you to slavery. Freedom is coming for you, its light approaches as the century dawns.
Men and women of wealth, use your riches to give employment to the laborer! Take the idle from the crowded centers of population and place them on the untilled areas that await the hand of industry. Unlock your vaults, unloose your purses, and embark in enterprises that will give work to the unemployed, and relieve the wretchedness that leads to the vice and crime which curse your great cities, and that poison the moral atmosphere around you. Make others happy, and you will be happy yourselves. (President Lorenzo Snow, 1901, E-4:302)
1. “The American labor unions have long been singled out by the Communist Party as a primary object of infiltration. A desired goal of the Communist is the domination of the labor movement in our country. Infiltration into labor leadership is their stratagem; their weapons are lies, trickery and deceit . . . . The Communists seek the cover of labor unions and the support of the laborer solely to carry out their aims of communizing and regimenting the lives of the workers . . . . The work of the Communists in labor organizations is part of the same international scheme of conquest as is their aggression on foreign fields by force of arms.” (J. Edgar Hoover, A.F.L. Labor Guide, Preview Issue, Fall, 1953)
2. “The present laws of the United States recognize the right to strike; it is legal to strike. However, as in the case of many other legal actions, it is impossible to find moral sanction for strikes in any creditable ethical or moral code.
“This is not to question the moral right of a worker to quit a job or the right of any number of workers to quit in unison. Quitting is not striking, unless force or the threat of force is used to keep others from filling the jobs vacated. The essence of the strike, then, is the resort to coercion to force unwilling exchange or to inhibit willing exchange. No person, nor any combination of persons, has a moral right to force them-selves—at their price—on any employer, or to forcibly preclude his hiring others.” (Leonard E. Read, Cliches of Socialism No. 4)
3. “The truth about the big unions is that they have done great social harm in the past and that they constitute at present a threat to our survival as a good and strong nation. Unions have a function to perform, a decidedly useful one; and some unions, especially small unions which have been formed voluntarily by employees, are doing this job ably and well. But the big affiliated unions are not doing the job which there is for unions to do in an enterprise economy. They are not doing that job because their leaders have been intent on other things. In giving union leaders powers and privileges to which no one is entitled, government has caused conditions in the big industry-wide unions which not only critically imperil society, but also drag union leaders farther and farther away from any hope that they will be able to do the job properly, even if they set their minds to it.” (Sylvester Petro, Power Unlimited: The Corruption of Union Leadership, P. 266)
4. “To say that one believes in the right to strike is comparable to saying that one endorses monopoly power to exclude business competitors; it is saying, in effect, that government-like control is preferable to voluntary exchange between buyers and sellers, each of whom is free to accept or reject the other’s best offer. In other words, to sanction a right to strike is to declare that might makes right—which is to reject the only foundation upon which civilization can stand.” (Leonard E. Read, Cliches of Socialism No. 4)
5. “The main reason for the poor performance of many American trade unions is that they alone, among the ‘voluntary’ associations of this society, have tended to use violent and coercive methods at every stage of their operations. No other species of private association has displayed as much corruption and arrogance as some trade unions have. No other private association has so habitually terrorized and exploited both members and non-members, or so institutionalized the practice of compelling persons to become members. The combination of poor performance and coercive practices is no mere coincidence. The poor performance of trade unions and their coercive practices are interacting causes and consequences.” (Sylvester Petro, The Labor Policy of the Free Society, P. 109)
6. “America is in danger—not so much from without as from within. The threat from Soviet Russia, serious as it is, need not panic us so long as our free institutions survive, for the freedom which has made us strong will, if preserved, make us stronger still. Our danger lies basically in the abandonment of our main strength—the principle of freedom under law. More immediately, it lies in the excessive power and special privileges of the big unions. Exploiting those privileges to form socially abusive industry-wide monopolies which they incorrectly call trade unions, the union leaders have brought about a state of affairs so menacing as to demand the immediate attention of all citizens and their representatives in Congress.” (Sylvester Petro, Power Unlimited, Preface)
7. “Communists view the strikes of trade-unions as dress rehearsals for violent revolu tion, and have said so in their official pronouncements. A textbook in use at the Com munist Party’s workers school, entitled, “Marx and the Trade-Unions” by A. Lozovsky, formerly head of the Red International of Labor Unions, quoted Marx as saying in regard to strikes, ‘They are the school of war of the working man in which they prepare themselves for the great struggle which cannot be avoided . . . and as schools of war they are unexcelled.’ According to Lozovsky, strikes constitute an important method of sabo taging the Capitalist system.” (Martin Dies, Martin Dies’ Story, P. 45)
8. “Some perspective may be had On what is involved by imagining an application of the techniques of the labor market in some other field. If A is bargaining with B over the sale of his house, and if A were given the privileges of a modern labor union, he would be able (1) to conspire with all other owners of houses not to make any alternative offer to B, using violence or the threat of violence if necessary to prevent them, (2) to deprive B himself of access to any alternative offers, (3) to surround the house of B and cut off all deliveries, including food (except by parcel post), (4) to stop all movement from B’s house, so that if he were for instance a doctor he could not sell his services and make a living, and (5) to institute a boycott of B’s business. All of these privileges, ff he were capable of carrying them out, would no doubt strengthen A’s position. But they would not be regarded by anyone as a part of ‘bargaining’—unless A were a labor union.” (Edward H. Chamberlin, The Economic Analysis of Labor Union Power, P. 41)
9. “Compulsory unionism means that an employee must be a union member and keep up his union membership if he wishes to be given a job or to be maintained in employment. It is the logical counterpart of the condition in which employees are compelled by an employer to refuse to join unions if they wish to secure or to maintain employment. If it is economically coercive for an employer to refuse employment to men who insist on joining unions, good sense and logic require that union insistence upon union membership as a condition of employment be likewise characterized as economically coercive. There is no basis of distinction, in fact or in theory. Indeed, insistence upon nonunionism as a condition of employment is much easier to justify than compulsory unionism. For the employer who insists upon nonunionism is providing a job in return. But a union which makes union membership a condition of employment is usually offering no job in return.” (Sylvester Petro, The Labor Policy of the Free Society, P. 155)
10. “There is no other method to make wage rates rise than by investing more capital per worker. More investment of capital means: to give to the laborer more efficient tools. With the aid of better tools and machines, the quantity of the products increases and their quality improves. As the employer consequently will be in a position to obtain from the consumers more for what the employee has produced in one hour of work, he is able—and, by the competition of other employers, forced—to pay a higher price for the man’s work.” (Ludwig von Mises, The Freeman, Aug., 1963, P. 31)
11. “What is most needed at the present time is not the drafting of a lot of laws that will curb the economic and physical violence of labor union activities. What is most needed, and first needed, is an education of the so-called intellectual stratum of American life to a clear-eyed comprehension of the grave menace to our free economy and our free government in the unchecked growth and continuous spread of labor union monopolies.” (Donald R. Richberg, Labor Union Monopoly, P. 174)
12. “The truth about the big industry-wide trade unions is that they threaten the health, the well-being, and the survival of American society to a degree never before approached by either internal or external enemies. They are spreading corruption of every kind and at every level: corruption of truth and of ideas; moral corruption; corruption of business; and corruption of government. Freedom is the victim, freedom as an idea and freedom as a way of life.” (Sylvester Petro, Power Unlimited, P. 270)
13. “Minimum wage rates, whether decreed and enforced by the government or by labor union pressure and violence, result in mass unemployment prolonged year after year as soon as they try to raise wage rates above the height of the unhampered market. . . . The only means to increase a nation’s welfare is to increase and to improve the output of products. The only means to raise wage rates permanently for all those eager to earn wages is to raise the productivity of labor by increasing the per-head quota of capital invested and improving the methods of production.” (Ludwig von Mises, Planning For Freedom, P. 6, 27)
14. “Whenever government raises wages by force it lifts millions of workers right out of the labor market. Without mercy or consideration it makes all those men and women unemployable whose personal productivity is lower than the minimum wage . . . .
“Minimum wage legislation is a cruel hoax that not only fools the people but also deprives them of employment. It is one of the most vicious tools of collectivism inasmuch as it demoralizes and radicalizes its victims, breeding conflict and inviting more radical government intervention.” (Hans Sennholz, American Opinion, Nov., 1963, P. 12)
15. “I am convinced that the great masses of union men and women are patriotic American citizens interested chiefly in security for their families and themselves. They have no use for the American Communists, but in those instances where Communists have taken control of unions, it has been because too many union men and women have been outwitted, outmaneuvered, and outwaited by Communists.
“The Communists have never relied on numerical strength to dominate a labor organization. Through infiltration tactics they have in too many instances captured positions of authority. Communists have boasted that with five percent of the membership the Communists, with their militancy, superior organizational ability and discipline, could control the union . . . .
“I do fear so long as American labor groups are infiltrated, dominated, or saturated with the virus of communism. I do fear the palliation and weasel-worded gestures against communism indulged in by some of our labor leaders who should know better, but who have become pawns in the hands of sinister but astute manipulators for the Communist cause.” (J. Edgar Hoover, Menace of Communism, House Committee on Un-American Activities, P. 7, 12) [p. 421]
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