Gertrude Ederle Gertrude Ederle
Here's one example of what can happen when women are freed from their corsets.
Aug 18, 1926 / Feature / The Editors
An Inter-Union Labor Struggle An Inter-Union Labor Struggle
Will the entrance of labor into industry as an employer compel a reexamination of union policies?
Mar 18, 1925 / Various Contributors
Workers’ Education in the United States Workers’ Education in the United States
At the convention of the American Federation of Labor in Portland, Oregon, in October, 1923, the subject that attracted most attention, next to the sensational expulsion of the Communist delegate Dunne, workers' education. Spencer Miller, Jr., secretary of the Workers' Education Bureau of America, estimates that during the past season there were 25,000 men and women in this country in attendance upon classes under working-class auspices. Sixty per centof the American Federation of Labor is in organizations that have affiliated themselves with the Workers' Education Bureau. All this is encouraging to friends of the infant movement. They are not, however, deceived by it. They are aware thatonly a small beginning has been made; that the mass of trade-union leaders and members have as yet no genuine interest in workers' education, at least not such as induces them to put money into it; that a city labor college may flourish mightily one year, and the following year practically die out; that the whole movement is in an experimental stage, and that little effort has as yet been made to check up in scientific fashion on the results. It would seem that the most valuable thing to do at this stage is to state some of the problems and issues that are emerging in connection with the work, as to which data require to be collected and analyzed. For one thing, there is the question of control. Shall the various workers' education enterprises be definitely controlled by working-class organizations -- trade unions, political parties, cooperative societies -- or shall they be intrusted to the extension departments of public-school systems, colleges and universities, and private groups of non-working-class composition? In a number of instances institutions or groups such as are here mentioned have evinced a disposition to "offer their services" to the unions under conditions that would imply turning over the workers' education movement, or important parts of it to them. In the main the labor movement has taken the position that while it does not wish to supplant existing educational institutions, the control of the schools and classes that are to train notonly the intelligence but the spiritof the officers and members of the unions (or other workers' organizations) must be in the hands of these unions themselves; and that the labor movement is quite capable of controlling the educational instruments which it is forging for itself. The Workers' Education Bureau admits to affiliation only enterprises definitely controlled by trade unions or cooperative societies. An offer recently made to it by an outside group to carry on teacher training workers' classes was not accepted, and the policy laid down that such training should be carried on under the: auspices of the labor movement, which would welcome the assistance of all individuals desiring to work with it. It will be easier as time goes on to hew a straight line in this matter of control, because of the position being taken on another subject closely bound with it, that of financing. In a considerable number of cases workers' classes avail themselves of public school or church buildings where this does not involve any control over policy or freedom of teaching. In no instance known to the writer has any money "with a string tied to it" been accepted by any workers' educational enterprise. The extension department of the University of California, carrying on adult education among trade-union members, last year sought affiliation with the Workers' Education Bureau, but it was refused. Subsequently the university handed over the $10,000 annual appropriation for this work to a mittee, three-fifths of whom were trade-union representatives. This committee then turned around and engaged as director the man who had previously worked under university direction. T.he reorganized enterprise has been granted affiliation with the W.E.B. However, the great majorityof workers' schools and classes are being wholly financed by local unions, central labor unions, o r internationals, supplemented perhaps by a small fee from students; and the general disposition on the partof trade unionists is to continue this independent and self-respecting method of financing. The time must come when regular dues are levied for educational purposes as well as for more conventional trade-union activities. Who are to be reached by workers' education efforts and how are they to be approached and served? On the one hand, there are organizations that lay emphasis upon what is termed "mass education." The effort is made to get the mass of the workers out to great inspirational meetings at which recognized musical artists provide entertainment, plays are given -- possibly by workers' dramatic groups -- mass singing is developed, and lectures are given or debates staged that serve to place before the masses in popular language the significant issues confronting the particular union or the workers in general. As part of such a program speakers may be sent to local meetings to give educational and inspirational talks. On the other hand, there are the instances where a comparatively small number are brought together to pursue intensive study of trade-union problems, to receive training for specific tasks such as organizing or secretarial work, serious study on the part of the students being required. Such a class is that to which the Executive Board members of Local 25, United Textile Workers of Philadelphia, have belonged for several years. They have studied the problems of the shops and the branch of the textile industry in which they are working, and on the basis of their studies have submitted and argued wage and other demands before employers' associations. A similar type of work is carried on in a resident institution such as Brookwood Labor College. In addition there are a very considerable number of enterprises carried on chiefly by international unions or city central bodies where the classes (in economics, labor problems, psychology, literature; these last usually the best attended) are composed of a somewhat heterogeneous assortment of individuals who for various reasons have some interest in the subject taught; where the lecture method usually obtains, opportunity for asking questions and a certain amount of discussion being provided; but where the students do not put in a great deal of study and such benefit as they derive is general rather than specific preparation or trade union tasks. The first type of education mentioned, "mass education," is a that all important social groups, such as churches, engage in. What may justly be criticized is that the technique of such "mass education" has not been well developed as yet by the labor movement and that sometimes it is mistaken for what it is not and regarded as a substitute for the training of officers and active members in the concrete details of their duties. In particular nothing to speak of has been done in a field that offers, to my mind, golden possibilities, that of training officers to preside at shop and local meetings. Little criticism is offered of the intensive training next referred to, save in so far as here also the technique still requires much development; but of course such training reaches only the few. The most serious questioning at this moment has to do with the classes of the third type. There are certain exceptions, but in the main it is these classes that show astonishing ups and downs from year to year. It is asserted that they are neither "mass education" nor calculated to give intensive technical training, and that consequently they provide only a very mild and vague "culture" to a pseudo-intelligentsia of the trade. Still another matter calling forth no little discussion is that of the aim of workers' education. These are some, it has been said, who "want the workers to be given culture and a background that will enable them to think for themselves," while others "want the workers trained in the science of overthrowing the present industrial order and in building new order in which the working class shall rule." Others would criticize both these statements. They would hold that "culture" is a vague and misleading term in this connection, that those who stand for it are in of attacking the worker's problem at its circumference rather than its center, of trying to impart to the worker an appreciation of Plato, Browning, and the Venus de Milo which he in the mass is not interested in and could not benefit by. They would hold, on the other hand, unions. That whatever may be the correctness or value of the second of the above statements as a generalization, its outdoes not fit American conditions and it is not of much help in solving the concrete problems of workers' education. They would put it that workers' education could aim to train members and officers of the unions and other workers' organizations to meet their problems and tasks as members of the organized working class more intelligently and efficiently. They would have the workers' education movement conceive of itself as an instrument being shaped by the trade unions for their own purposes, would have the movement take its place inside the trade unions, and say: Here are the unions with a standard of living to maintain or achieve, with hours of labor to be shortened, with strikes to be fought, with negotiations to be conducted, with an open-shop campaign o r company unions to combat, with millions of dollars to expend, with injunctions and court decisions to fight, with problems and responsibilities in the field of more efficient production or of politics, and so on, and here are the members and officers of these organizations-now what can be done to enable these people more efficiently to. handle those jobs? They would say that workers' education is not a brand-new thing dropped outof heaven or graciously bestowed upon the trade unions a few years ago by some college professor; on the contrary, unions have carried on educational work, by meetings and their press for example, ever since there were unions; the educational movement is becoming larger and more complex now simply because the unions have larger and more complex tasks to perform; and the educational work must in like fashion continue to develop as the situation confronting the organized workers unfolds. Incidentally, the propounders of this statement of the case would vigorously deny that such an aim is "narrow"; they hold that only that man is "cultured" who knows his place in saciety and can in some measure fill it, and that unto him all other things shall be added as a vital part of his being and not an extraneous trimming. The first organized attempt to deal with the extremely important problem of teaching methods in workers' classes was undertaken by the American Federation of Teachers, which during the past winter called conference on the subject at Brookwood. Among the subjects emphasized at this conference were the psychological approach to social, economic, and political problems; the further developmentof the technique of group discussion with a view, fomr one thing, to securing the important and significant contributions that students can make outof their working-class experience and not permitting classes to be "star" performances by teachers; and the developmentof a curriculum which would not consistof subjects or courses to b e taught by various teachers in well-nigh complete detachment from each other, but of social situations taken up one after another, various teachers sitting in at classes and contributing expert knowledge on various phases of the one living, concrete situation under discussion. The workers' education movement in America is in its infancy ; it has as yet accomplished little; it is in many ways amateurish. But it is not smug and self-satisfied; it is not set and hardened; it is trying hard to improve upon itself; it is fluid, vital, dynamic. The interest on the part of the labor movement is still small, but genuine and on the increase. When the infant American labor movement in the thirties of the last century became interested in the problem of education, it did much for the establishment of our public-school system which, for all that it has been wrested to a considerable extent from its original purpose, has been one of the mightiest forces in our life. Now that American labor is again taking up the problem of education, who knows but it will make another epochmaking contribution?
Oct 1, 1924 / A. J. Muste
Correspondence: RAIC Declares a Dividend Correspondence: RAIC Declares a Dividend
TO THE EDITOR OF THE NATION: SIR: The Russian-American Industrial Corporation has just announced its first dividend of 3 per cent. The investmentof our corporation in the Russian clothing industry has proved to be profitable, the All-Russian Clothing Syndicate having been operated on a sound basis. The results of its work for the past six months indicate quite convincingly that the Russian workers know how to run their clothing factories. The letter from Chairman Bograchev of the Syndicate, referring to the operations of the last half-year, inform us that "from the figures in the balance sheet it is apparent that the expected profits of the Syndicate have been exceeded." So it appears that those doubters who scoffed at the Russian-American Industrial Corporation when it ventured to help build up a branch of industry in the Soviet Republic have now toface facts that show them to have been in error in their opinion concerning the ability of the Russian garment workers to carry on profitable business. It so happens that during the past year the activities of the Syndicate, in which we have invested, have spread over the territories of the Soviet Union. The Syndicate has opened sales agencies and stores in 25 cities, as far south as Tiflls and as far east as Irkutsk in Siberia. The membership in the Syndicate which now employs over 15,000 workers has been increased by the entrance of several new city trusts, so that the Syndicate now comprises, in addition to our corporation, the Supreme Council of National Economy, the Moscow Experimental Factory, and the clothing trusts of the following cities: Petrograd, Moscow, Nizhni Novgorod, Kazan, Xharkov, Tambov, and Egorievsk. During the period of the civil wars in Russia the clothing industries worked almost exclusively on military uniforms and equipment. Now the growing purchasing power of the peasants, stimulated by fair harvests, has increased the demand for the clothes manufactured in the factories, which are now working 90 per centon the wholesale manufacture of civilian clothing. The presence in Russia of several score of ex-members of Amalgamated Clothing Workers -- men who have gained valuable experience in the American needle industry -- has contributed much to the success of the Syndicate's factories. The manager of the Moscow Experimental Factory, one of the,most up-to-date clothing shops on the continent of Europe, was formerly an active Amalgamated member in Baltimore. The representative of our corporation in Russia, Mr. D. Petrovsky, was one of the first organizers of the Amalgamated, having worked in the Rochester market in 1915, later returning to Russia to become the mayor of a city of 80,000 in the Ukraine. The close association of these men with the American industry has contributed much to the splendid technical organization of some of the Russian factories. The efficiency of these factories has risen steadily during the last twelve months. "When I was in Russia last fall it took 16 to 19 hours to make an average quality men's suit (about $25). Now it takes only 12 to 13 hours to complete a suitof this kind. With the introduction of further modern technical equipment in the factories of the Syndicate the efficiency of the shops will be increased still more," writes the Chairman of the Syndicate in a recent letter. When the Amalgamated at its biennial Convention in 1922 voted to help Russia by organizing a one-million-dollar corporation, the American friends of Russia whom we called upon to subscrlbe to stock had the pledge of the highest Soviet authorities that the capital invested in Russian enterprises mould be guaranteed as well as a dividend of 8 per cent payable to our corporation on the capital stock so invested. Now, however, with a year's experience and the announcementof the first dividend, we have something more tangible than even the contract of the Russians, Something that ought to increase confidence in Russian industry and stimulate others to a genuine desire to help her in this very practical way. The capital stock of the corporation has not yet been fully subscribed. There is still some for those who want to join in a movement to give credit rather than charity to the Russlan workers. Approximately five and one half of the thousand shareholders are now participating in our enterprise and will benefit by the first dividend that has been paid out of Russian industry to a large group of investors since the adoption of the new economic policy.
Nov 7, 1923 / Sidney Hillman
Felix Frankfurter: Joining the League Felix Frankfurter: Joining the League
Should America join the League of Nations? The Harvard professor says the slogan "Join the League" offers too simple a solution for a complex question.
May 16, 1923 / The Nation
The Hosts of Black Labor The Hosts of Black Labor
The South must reform its attitude toward the Negro. The North must reform its attitude toward common labor.
May 9, 1923 / W.E.B. Du Bois
Shall Women Be Equal Before the Law? Shall Women Be Equal Before the Law?
The removal of all forms of the subjection of women is the purpose to which the National Woman's Party is dedicated.
Apr 12, 1922 / Elsie Hill and Florence Kelley
Jack Dempsey: In the Driftway Jack Dempsey: In the Driftway
The Drifter has some thoughts on the great fighter in the ring who was nowhere to be found when the call went out for soldiers to fight in the World War.
Feb 7, 1920 / Feature / The Drifter
Report of Lincoln Steffens Report of Lincoln Steffens
The soviet government sprouted and grew out of the habits, the psychology, and the condition of the Russian people.
Oct 4, 1919 / Lincoln Steffens
A Spartacan Manifesto A Spartacan Manifesto
Shortly after the murders of Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht, The Nation published the manifesto of the German Spartacists, a group the pair co-founded to incite a Marxist revol...
Mar 8, 1919 / Clara Zetkin, Rosa Luxemburg, Karl Liebknecht, and Franz Mehring