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30 THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.
THE QUESTION, " HOW FAR DOES ASSO­
CIATED EFFORT IN INDUSTRY INVOLVE
THE CURTAILMENT OF INDIVIDUAL
LIBERTY ?" AS TREATED BY CHAIRMAN-
PRESIDENT FRANCIS L. ROBBINS OF THE
PITTSBURGH COAL CO., BEFORE THE
RECENT MEETING OF THE NATIONAL
CIVIC FEDERATION IN NEW YORK.
In considering the query presented to us this
evening, "How far does associated effort in industry
involve the curtailment of individual liberty?"
I have been led to the general reply that no associated
effort in any field of human activity is at
all possible without the voluntary surrender or
modification of some measure of individual freedom
of action. This proposition is supported by
all human experience in attaining progress in any
direction. Whether it be in the formation of governments,
from the family to the clan, the tribe,
the township, the county, the state; whether it be
in the promotion of a religion, through missions,
parishes, dioceses, national and international ecclesiastical
bodies or federations of denominations;
whether it be the sustaining of national autonomy
and rights against other powers, through the ramifications
of diplomacy or by war, with all its sacrifice,
discipline and many branches of organization;
whether it be the advancement of morality, the
prevention of crime, the reformation of the depraved,
the rescue of the oppressed—whatever the
effort, from the elimination of the "white plague"
to the creation of a new republic, both history
and current activities show the instinctive resort
of all humanity to the union of many units for a
common purpose.
INDUSTRIAL ASSOCIATION REQUIRES SACRIFICE.
Our topic is confined to the restraint upon individual
liberty involved in association in industry;
and to my mind, observation and experience
both sho wthat industrial association involves, for
its success, a considerable degree of willing sacrifice
of the theoretical right to do as one pleases,
so long as one does not infringe upon the rights
of otners. This is true, whether the association
be one of employers or of wage earners; and it
becomes conspicuously true in the collective contract
between organized employers and organized
wage earners in any industry, or group of allied
industries, known as the trade agreement. Any
such contract involves a series of acceptances of
restraint of individual freedom, beginning with
the individual employer or the individual share
holder in an employing corporation on the one
side, and with the individual wage earner and
his local union on the other. This series of successive
waiving of individual freedom proceeds in
the case of an employing industry, from the formation
of a simple partnership to the organization
of a corporation and to the merging of several
constituent corporations. It proceeds in a parallel
way in the case of the employed in an industry,
from the acceptance of mutual obligations
by individual wage earners in a local union to the
combination of such unions in city, state, national
and international federations. At every step, on
either side, there must be some acceptance of restriction
of individual liberty for the sake of concerted
action for the common benefit.
TRADE AGREEMENTS DEFENDED.
There undoubtedly exists a good deal of misunderstanding
as to this necessity of the curtailment
of personal rights through trade agreements.
There are some employers who still protest that
the signing of a trade agreement regulating hours,
wages and conditions of work infringes on his
personal right to conduct his business as he sees
fit. Such an employer forgets that he is continually
making contracts, other than with labor, and
entering combinations, that restain and modify his
conduct of business.
An example of this adverse attitude to the trade
agreement is found in the following quotation
from a recent issue of the Industrial Independent,
the official organ of the national organization, that
practically opposes all dealings with organized
labor:
"The trade agreement would form a monopoly
of employers, form a monopoly of labor, and induce
them to make terms with each other to the
advantage of both monopolies. It would deprive
the individual of his constitutional right to work
for whom and what he pleases, compelling him
to surrender his allegiance as a free American
citizen before he could work and live. The right
to do with one's labor as one pleases is guaranteed
by this free government of ours, but under
trade agreements this guarantee would not be
sufficient. It would have to receive the stamp of
organized employers and employes before it would
be considered good."
This is an exaggerated and perverted statement.
The trade agreement involves no "surrender of
allegiance as a free American citizen," and deprives
the individual of no constitutional rights.
The individual exercises his constitutional right,
whether an employer or a wage earner, when he
enters voluntarily into association with others for
the attainment of advantages which he could not
secure by individual effort. When two such associations
deal with each other, it is for the purpose
of increasing the efficiency and productivity
of an industry, which necessarily implies that
their agreement is for the good of all the community.
It is indeed the benefit of society at large that
inspires and justifies sacrifice of individual liberty.
I regard the trade agreement, involving as
it does a voluntary adjustment of personal free-