Industrial Conspiracies Part 1

Industrial Conspiracies.

by Clarence S. Darrow.

Mr. Darrow said:

I feel very grateful to you for the warmth and earnestness of your reception. It makes me feel sure that I am amongst friends. If I had to be tried again, I would not mind taking a change of venue to Portland (applause); although I think I can get along where I am without much difficulty.

The subject for tonight's talk was not chosen by me but was chosen for me. I don't know who chose it, nor just what they expected me to say, but there is not much in a name, and I suppose what I say tonight would be just about the same under any t.i.tle that anybody saw fit to give.

I am told that I am going to talk about "Industrial Conspiracies." I ought to know something about them. And I won't tell you all I know tonight, but I will tell you some things that I know tonight.

The conspiracy laws, you know, are very old. As one prominent laboring man said on the witness stand down in Los Angeles a few weeks ago when they asked him if he was not under indictment and what for, he said he was under indictment for the charge they always made against working men when they hadn't done anything--conspiracy. And that is the charge they always make. It is the one they have always made against everybody when they wanted them, and particularly against working men, because they want them oftener than they do anybody else. (Applause).

When they want a working man for anything excepting work they want him for conspiracy. (Laughter). And the greatest conspiracy that is possible for a working man to be guilty of is not to work--a conspiracy the other fellows are always guilty of. (Applause). The conspiracy laws are very old. They were very much in favor in the Star Chamber days in England. If any king or ruler wanted to get rid of someone, and that someone had not done anything, they indicted him for what he was thinking about; that is, for conspiracy; and under it they could prove anything that he ever said or did, and anything that anybody else ever said or did to prove what he was thinking about; and therefore that he was guilty. And, of course, if anybody was thinking, it was a conspiracy against the king; for you can't think without thinking against a king. (Applause). The trouble is most people don't think. (Laughter and applause). And therefore they are not guilty of conspiracy. (Laughter and applause).

The conspiracy laws in England were especially used against working men, and in the early days, not much more than a hundred years ago, for one working man to go to another and suggest that he ask for higher wages was a conspiracy, punishable by imprisonment. For a few men to come together and form a labor organization in England was a conspiracy. It is not here. Even the employer is willing to let you form labor organizations, if you don't do anything but pa.s.s resolutions. (Laughter and applause).

But the formation of unions in the early days in England was a conspiracy, and so they used to meet in the forests and in the rocks and in the caves and waste places and hide their records in the earth where the informers and detectives and Burnes' men of those days could not get hold of them. (Applause). It used to be a crime for a working man to leave the county without the consent of the employer; and they never gave their consent. They were bought and sold with the land.

Some of them are now. It reached that pa.s.s in England after labor unions were formed, that anything they did was a conspiracy, and to belong to one was practically a criminal offense. These laws were not made by Parliament; of course they were not made by the people. No law was ever made by the people; they are made for the people (applause); and it does not matter whether the people have a right to vote or not, they never make the laws. (Applause).

These laws, however, were made by judges, the same officials who make the laws in the United States today. (Applause).

We send men to the Legislature to make law, but they don't make them.

I don't care who makes a law, if you will let me interpret it.

(Laughter). I would be willing to let the Steel Trust make a law if they would let me tell what it meant after they got it made.

(Laughter). That has been the job of the judges, and that is the reason the powerful interests of the world always want the courts.

They let you have the members of the Legislature, and the Aldermen and the Constable, if they can have the judges.

And so in England the judges by their decisions tied the working man hand and foot until he was a criminal if he did anything but work, as many people think he is today. He actually was at that time, until finally Parliament, through the revolution of the people, repealed all these laws that judges had made, wiped them all out of existence, and did, for a time at least, leave the working man free; and then they began to organize, and it has gone on to that extent in England today, that labor organizations are as firmly established as Parliament itself. Much better established there than here.

We in this country got our early laws from England. We took pretty much everything that was bad from England and left most that was good.

(Applause). At first, when labor organizations were started they had a fair chance; they were left comparatively free; but when they began to grow the American judges got busy. They got busy with injunctions, with conspiracy laws, and there was scarcely anything that a labor organization could do that was not an industrial conspiracy.

Congress took a hand, not against labor; but to ill.u.s.trate what I said about the difference between making a law and telling what the law means, we might refer to the act which was considered a great law at the time of its pa.s.sage, a law defining conspiracy and combinations in reference to trade, the Sherman anti-trust law. In the meantime, the combinations of capital had grown so large that even respectable people began to be afraid of them, farmers and others who never learn anything until everybody else has forgotten it (laughter); they began to be afraid of them. They found the great industrial organizations of the country controlling everything they used. One powerful organization owned all the oil there was in the United States; another handful of men owned all the anthracite coal there was in the United States; a few men owned all the iron mines in the United States; and the people began to be alarmed about it. And so they pa.s.sed a law punishing conspiracies against trade. The father of the law was Senator Sherman of Ohio. The law was debated long in Congress and the Senate. Every man spoke of it as a law against the trusts and monopolies, conspiracies in restraint of trade and commerce. Every newspaper in the country discussed it as that; every labor organization so considered it.

Congress pa.s.sed it and the President signed it, and then an indictment was found against a corporation, and it went to the Supreme Court of the United States for the Supreme Court to say what the law meant. Of course Congress can't pa.s.s a law that you and I can understand.

(Laughter). They may use words that are only found in the primer, but we don't know what they mean. n.o.body but the Supreme Court can tell what they mean.

Everybody supposed this law was plain and simple and easily understood, but when they indicted a combination of capital for a conspiracy in restraint of trade, the Supreme Court said this law did not apply to them at all; that it was never meant to fit that particular case. So they tried another one, and they indicted another combination engaged in the business of cornering markets, engaged in the business of trade, rich people, good people. It means the same thing. (Laughter). And the Supreme Court decided that this law did not fit their case, and every one began to wonder what the law did mean anyhow. And after awhile there came along the strike of a body of laboring men, the American Railway Union. They didn't have a dollar in the world altogether, because they were laboring men and they were not engaged in trade; they were working; but they hadn't found anything else that the Sherman anti-trust act applied to, so they indicted Debs and his followers for a conspiracy in restraint of trade; and they carried this case to the Supreme Court. I was one of the attorneys who carried it to the Supreme Court. Most lawyers only tell you about the cases they win. I can tell you about some I lose. (Applause). A lawyer who wins all his cases does not have many. (Laughter).

Debs was indicted for a conspiracy in restraint of trade. It is not quite fair to say that I lost that case, because he was indicted and fearing he might get out on the indictment the judge issued an injunction against him. (Laughter). The facts were the same as if a man were suspected of killing somebody and a judge would issue an injunction against him for shooting his neighbor and he would kill his neighbor with a pistol shot and then they would send him to jail for injuring his clothes for violating an injunction. (Laughter). Well, they indicted him and they issued an injunction against him for the same thing. Of course, we tried the indictment before a jury, and that we won. You can generally trust a part of a jury anyhow, and very often all of them. But the court pa.s.sed on the injunction case, and while the facts were just the same and the law was just the same, the jury found him innocent, but the court found him guilty. (Laughter).

And Judge Wood said that he had violated the injunction. Then we carried it to the Supreme Court on the ground that the Sherman anti-trust law, which was a law to punish conspiracies in restraint of trade, was not meant for labor unions but it was meant for people who are trading, just as an ordinary common man would understand the meaning of language, but the Supreme Court said we didn't know anything about the meaning of language and that they had at last found what the Sherman anti-trust law meant and that it was to break up labor unions; and they sent Mr. Debs to jail under that law (laughter and applause), and n.o.body, excepting someone connected with the union had ever been sent to jail under that law, and probably never will be.

So of course, even the employer, the Merchants' and Manufacturers'

a.s.sociation and the Steel Trust, even they would be willing to let the Socialists go to the Legislature and make the laws, as long as they can get the judges to tell what the law means. (Loud applause). For the courts are the bulwarks of property, property rights and property interests, and they always have been. I don't know whether they always will be. I suppose they will always be, because before a man can be elected a judge he must be a lawyer.

They did patch up the laws against combinations in restraint of trade.

Even the fellows who interpreted it, were ashamed of it and they fixed it up so they might catch somebody else, and they brought a case against the Tobacco Trust, and after long argument and years of delay the Supreme Court decided on the Tobacco Trust and they decided that this was a combination in restraint of trade, but they didn't send anybody to jail. They didn't even fine them. They gave them six months--not in jail, but six months in which to remodel their business so it would conform to the law, which they did. (Applause and laughter). But plug tobacco is selling just as high as it ever was, and higher.

They brought an action against the Standard Oil Trust--Mr. Roosevelt's enemy. (Laughter and applause). That is what he says. (Laughter and applause). They brought an action against the Standard Oil Trust to dissolve the Trust and they listened patiently for a few years--the Supreme Court is made up of old men, and they have got lots of time (laughter)--and after a few years they found out what the people had known for twenty-five years, that it was a trust, and they so decided that this great corporation had been a conspiracy in restraint of trade for years, had been fleecing the American people. I don't suppose anybody would have brought an action against them, excepting that they had a corner on gasoline and the rich people didn't like to pay so much for gasoline to run their automobiles. (Laughter and applause). They found out that the Standard Oil Company was guilty of a conspiracy under the Sherman anti-trust law, and they gave them six months in which to change the form of their business, and Standard Oil stock today is worth more than it ever was before in the history of the world, and gasoline has not been reduced in price, nor anything else that they have to sell. There never has been an instance since that law was pa.s.sed where it has ever had the slightest effect upon any combination of capital, but under it working men are promptly sent to jail; and it was pa.s.sed to protect the working man and the consumer against the trusts of the United States. So, you see, it does not make much difference what kind of a law we make as long as the judges tell us what it means.

The Steel Trust has not been hurt. They are allowed to go their way, and they have taken property, which at the most, is worth three hundred million dollars and have capitalized it and bonded it for a billion and a half, or five dollars for every one that it represents, and the interests and dividends which have been promptly paid year by year have come from the toil and the sweat and the life of the American workingman. (Applause). And n.o.body interferes with the Steel Trust; at least, n.o.body but the direct action men. (Laughter and applause). The courts are silent, the states' attorneys are silent; the governors are silent; all the officers of the law are silent, while a great monster combination of crooks and criminals are riding rough-shod over the American people. (Applause). But it is the working man who is guilty of the industrial conspiracy. They and their friends are the ones who are sent to jail. It is the powerful and the strong who have the keys to the jails and the penitentiaries, and there is not much danger of their locking themselves in jails and penitentiaries. The working man never did have the keys. Their business has been to build them and to fill them.

There have been other industrial conspiracies, however, which are the ones that interest me most, and it is about these and what you can do about them and what you can't do about them that I wish to talk tonight.

The real industrial conspiracies are by the other fellow. It is strange that the people who have no property have been guilty of all of the industrial conspiracies, and the people who own all the earth have not been guilty of any industrial conspiracy. It is like our criminal law. Nearly all the laws are made to protect property; nearly all the crimes are crimes against property, and yet only the poor go to jail. That is, all the people in our jail have committed crimes against property, and yet they have not got a cent. The people outside have so much property they don't know what to do with it, and they have committed no crime against property. So with the industrial conspiracies, those who are not in trade or commerce are the ones who have been guilty of a conspiracy to restrict trade and commerce, and those who are in trade and commerce that have all the money have not been guilty of anything. Their business is prosecuting other people so they can keep what they have got and get what little there is left.

But there are real industrial conspiracies. They began long ages ago, and they began by direct action, when the first capitalist took his club and knocked the brains out of somebody who wanted a part of it for himself. That is direct action. They got the land by direct action. They went out and took it. If anybody was there, they drove them off or killed them, as the case might be. It is only the other fellow that can't have direct action. They got all their t.i.tle to the earth by direct action. Of course, they have swapped it more or less, since, but the origin is there. They just went out and took possession of it, and it is theirs. And the strong have always done it; they have reached out and taken possession of the earth.

A few men today can control all the industry and do control all of the industry of this country. A dozen men sitting around the table in a big city can bring famine if they wish; they can paralyze the wheels of industry from one end of the United States to the other, and the prosperity of villages, cities and towns, and the wages of its people depends almost entirely upon the wills of a dozen men.

They have taken the mines; and all the coal there is in the United States, or practically all, is controlled today by a few railroad companies who can tell us just what we must pay, and if we are not willing to pay it, we can freeze; and we respect private property so much that we will stand around and freeze rather than take the coal that nature placed in the earth for all mankind. (Applause).

All the iron ore in the United States that is worth taking is owned and controlled by the Steel Trust, one combination with a very few men managing the business; not more than a half a dozen absolutely controlling it have their will; and n.o.body can have any iron ore, or mold it or use it, excepting at the will of a few men who have taken possession of what nature placed there for all of us, if we were wise enough to use it and understand it. And the great forests of the United States, what is left of them--and there is not so very much left. We are a wise people. We pa.s.s laws now for the protection of timber in the United States, so it won't be destroyed too fast, and at the same time, we put a tariff duty of two dollars a thousand on lumber that comes from somewhere else so that it will be destroyed at a high price. (Laughter and applause). We are the wisest set of people of any land that the sun ever shone upon. And if you don't believe it, ask Roosevelt when he comes here. (Laughter and applause).

A few men control what is left of the forests, a few men and a few great corporations have taken the earth, what is good of it. They have left the arid lands, the desert and the mountains which n.o.body can use,--the desert for sand heaps and the mountains for scenery. They are now taxing the people to build reservoirs so that the desert will blossom; and after it begins to blossom, they will take that.

(Applause). And even if they didn't own the land, they own all the ways there are of getting to it, and they are able to take from the farmer just so much of his grain as they see fit to take, and so far as the farmer is concerned, I wish they would take it all (laughter and applause), because he always has been against the interests of every man that toils, including himself. (Applause). And they are able to say to the working man engaged in industry just how much of his product they will take, and from him they take just enough to leave him alive. They have got to leave him alive, or he can't work, and they have got to leave him enough strength and ambition to propagate his species or the rich people can't get their work done in the next generation. And that is all that they are bound to leave him.

They own the railroads, the mills, the factories, and all the tools and implements of trade and commerce, and the workingman has only one thing to sell. That is his labor, his life; and he has to sell that to the highest bidder.

There are only a few of these men who own the earth and all of its fullness. There are millions and millions of the people who do the work, and if you can keep these millions and millions disorganized and competing with each other, they will keep wages down themselves without any help from the bosses. (Loud applause). On the other hand, there are so few men who own the earth and the tools that they find it perfectly easy to combine with each other and regulate the price of their products, and they have learned better than to compete, and there is no way for the wit of man to make and interpret any law which will ever set them to competing again. They have managed to control the price of their products, and charge what they see fit and all they need is to buy their raw material in the open markets of the world as cheaply as they can, and labor is the princ.i.p.al raw material that they use. So of course they want free trade in labor, and protection in commodities; and they have always had it, and our wise Americans that are the marvel of the day, including the working people, have cheerfully given them protection in the commodities that they sell and free trade in the labor which they buy. (Applause). And they thought by protecting the Steel Trust, so there can't be any foreign compet.i.tion that it will make the Steel Trust so rich that they can afford to pay high prices to their working men. It is one thing to make a man rich enough so he can afford to pay high wages; it is another thing to make him pay. (Laughter).

So the employer and the capitalist have combined in all industry, and they fix the price to suit themselves and insist that the workingman shall come to them individually and unorganized and compete with each other for a day's labor, so they can buy labor at the smallest cost and if, perchance, there are not working men enough here, they want the ports of the world opened so they can draw on China or j.a.pan or any other country on the face of the earth, and get working men there to work for them at the smallest price.

The game is simple and easy. It seems as if it were simple enough for an American farmer to understand; but he doesn't. (Laughter).

Now, the original conspiracy, industrial conspiracy, has been on the part of the strong to take the earth, and they have got it. They own it, and all they need now is to get enough working men and women at a low enough price to make them as much wealth as they want. It is pretty hard to fill that market, they want so much; but that is all they need. And the conspiracy on the other side of the workingman of the United States is the same conspiracy as the conspiracy of the workingman of the world, and it has only one object. We may temporize; we may be content with a little; we may stop at half measures, but in the end it only has one object, and that is for the workers of the world to take back the earth that has been taken from us. (Cries of hurrah and loud cheering).

Take it back, and have all the products of their toil, not part of it, but all of it. Now, it is a long road. It is a universal, world-wide conspiracy by the intelligent working people and by their friends the world over to get back the earth that has been stolen by direct action. (Applause).

Now, no one who understands this question wants anything less and the employer is right when he says if workingmen are permitted to organize they won't stop with that; and they won't. (Applause). You may place every lawyer on the bench and you may place a jail in every block and a penitentiary in every ward, and the workingmen won't stop.

(Applause). If they will, they deserve to be workingmen forever.

(Applause).

The employer understands that if workingmen organize something will be doing; and so he does not believe in organization. Sometimes he says he does, but he does not. If workingmen must organize, then the thing is to keep them as quiet as they can, to turn their labor meetings into prayer meetings. (Laughter and applause). They are entirely harmless. They don't help the people who pray, and the Lord has always been so far away from the workingman that it doesn't bother Him either. (Laughter). They are willing even, as I have said, to let them pa.s.s resolutions, but that is about the limit. (Laughter). They understand that one thing leads to another, and if they concede higher wages today, next year they will want another raise and so they will.

There is no danger of raising it too high for a long while to come.

And if they concede shorter hours today, next year they may want them shorter still. Everybody is working for shorter hours, especially the people who don't work. And they are all working for bigger pay; even those who get all there is, they want more. And of course, there will be no stopping, there will be no end to the demand, until we get it all, and that is a long way off.

And the question is how? And that is not so easy. It is easier to tell how you can't get it than to tell how you can get it. It is easier to tell how you haven't got it than how you are going to get it.

There is another thing that they are fairly well satisfied with: They don't worry much about voting. They have been satisfied to let all the men vote, and they have still kept their property. (Laughter). They will be satisfied to let all the women vote, and they will still keep their property. Voting has not done very much. We have been practicing at it for more than a hundred years, and it is a nice little toy to keep people satisfied, but that is all it has done so far. (Applause).

Of course, here and there we have been able to pa.s.s a few laws. For instance, we have statutes which forbid women from working in a factory more than ten hours a day. (Laughter). Now, we have done something. (Laughter and applause). We have statutes forbidding men to labor more than a certain number of hours a day. That is, people like to work; they love it so dearly that you have to pa.s.s a law to keep a working man from working. (Laughter).

When we pa.s.s laws to keep men and women from working it ought to show the stupidest mind that there is something terribly wrong with the industrial conditions under which we live. If men had a chance to work and get all the proceeds of their work, you would not have to pa.s.s laws to keep them from working. They would stop soon enough. And if every man could employ his own labor and receive the full product of his toil it would make no difference how hard your neighbor worked, it would not hurt you in the least, and you could let him work himself to death if he wanted to.