The influence of radical and socialist ideas in the labor
movement is evident in the following document. It is the "Declaration of
Principles of the United Brewery Workmen of the United States," published
in St. Louis Labor, January 24, 1903. Though the Brewery Workers were in
the American Federation of Labor, they traced their lineage to the Knights of
Labor, believed in industrial unionism and class conflict, and were dominated
for years by socialists.
DECLARATION OF PRINCIPLES OF THE UNITED BREWERY WORKMEN OF THE UNITED STATES
In our
society of to-day there are two classes whose interests are directly opposed to
each other. On the one side stands the propertied class, that owns almost all
the lands, all the houses, the factories, the means of communication, all the
machines and raw material; all the means of life. Compared with the nation at
large this class is only a small minority.
On the
other side stand the workers, who possess nothing but their physical and
intellectual labor power, and this they are compelled to sell to those who own
the means of production. The workers number millions.
It is to
the interest of the propertied class to "buy labor at the cheapest
possible price; to produce as much as can be produced, and to heap up wealth.
The few hundreds of thousands who compose the propertied class take from the
workers the greater part of the wealth they have created.
Of all the
product of their toil the millions of workers receive only just as much as
enables them to eke out a miserable existence.
Every new
invention in machinery, every new discovery of natural forces, inures to the
benefit of the propertied class alone, which is still further enriched thereby.
Human labor is, as a consequence, being constantly more and more displaced.
The
superfluous workers have to live, and therefore have to sell their labor at a
price they can get. Labor falls more and more in value; the working people
become all the time more and more impoverished; their consumptive capacity
continually declines; they are able to buy less and less of the products they
have produced; the sale of goods stops, production is checked, and in places it
comes altogether to an end. The crisis has come.
The
propertied class has taken into its service the state, the police and the
militia, the press, and the pulpit, whose task is to declare the sanctity of
and to defend the possessions that others have created for them.
On the
other side stand the workers in their millions; without the means of life;
without rights; defenseless; betrayed and sold out by the state, press and
pulpit. It is against them that the weapons of the police and the militia are
directed.
Taking all
these facts into consideration, we declare:
1. That in
order to emancipate themselves from the influence of the class that is
hostilely arrayed against them, the working class must organize locally,
nationally and internationally; must oppose the power of capital with the power
of organized labor; and must champion their own interests in the workshops, and
in municipal, state and national affairs.
2. National
and international unions are in a position to exercise a great influence on
production, on wages, on the hours of labor; to regulate the questions of
apprenticeship; to uphold their members in various emergencies.
3. The
struggles which they naturally have to wage with the organized power of capital
bring them to a recognition of the fact that individual unions must unite in
one large league, which shall proclaim the solidarity of the interests of all,
and give mutual support. Soon thereafter will come the recognition of the fact
that our whole system of production rests exclusively upon the shoulders of the
working class, and that this latter can, by simply choosing to do so, introduce
another, a more just system.
The
self-conscious power of capital, with all its camp-followers, is confronted
with the self-conscious power of labor.
4. There is no power on earth strong enough to
thwart the will of such a majority, conscious of itself. It will irresistably
tend toward its goal. It has natural right upon its side. The earth and all its
wealth belong to all. All the conquests of civilization are an edifice, to the
rearing of which all nations for thousands of years past have contributed their
labor. The results belong to the community at large. It is organized labor that
will finally succeed in putting these principles into actual practice, and
introducing a condition of things in which each shall enjoy the full product of
his toil.
The emancipation
of the working people will be achieved only when the economic and political
movements have joined hands.
AIMS
AND OBJECTS
The
organization seeks to promote the material and intellectual welfare of the
United Brewery Workers of the country, by means of :
1.
Organization
2.
Education and enlightenment by word and pen.
3.
Reduction of the hours of toil, and increase of wages.
4. Active
participation in the political labor movement of the country, on independent
labor class lines.