A History of Organized Felony and Folly - The Clarence Darrow ...

A History of Organized Felony and Folly
The Grand Chief has never explained why he was so bent
on electric headlights that he was willing to bring the most
onerous forms of tyranny to bear on expert witnesses who
opposed them. Rother and his associates were along in years,
had devoted most of their lives to their profession and were
fitted for little else. The Grand Chief's action took the bread
and butter from their mouths and the mouths of their families
—a m.ellifluous phrase in union mouths.
This action, it may be fairly stated, consisted not only
in abridging the right of free speech, but in intimidating
witnesses and even in influencing a union jury by threats of
great injury and harm.
Monopolization of Industry
Ultra-exclusiveness killed the trade guilds of the medieval
period, and the unions of today employ every device of
monopoly kno^Ti to the earlier period. Whether a similar
result will follow, it is not necessary to prophesy, but the
first principle of American unionism is the limitation of mem-
bership, either directly or through limitation of apprentices.
Of course, labor leaders represent that their organizations are
open to all, but their statements will not square with the
facts.
Again, it is desirable to quote the greatest authority in
the labor union movement— Sam.uel Gompers. On page 8 of
his "The Union Shop And Its Antithesis," he says:
"Any wage worker can join a trade union. All are open,
wide open to all wage workers qualified at the occupation
organized. They pay an entrance fee barely sufficient to
equalize the payments of unions' benevolent benefits and
current cost of adm.inistration. No union ever asks a nonunionist
to pay for the slightest percentage of the damage he
has done as a disniptionist. It is literally and positively true,
without evasion or equivocation, that trade unions, and consequently
union shops, are open for all wage workers whom
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