But the same critic of the trade union might find equal causes of complaint against individual employers of labor, or even against great associations of manufacturers.

He might find many instances of an unwarranted cutting of wages, of flagrant violations of factory laws and tenement house laws, of the deliberate and systematic cheating of employees by means of truck stores, of the speeding up of work to a point which is fatal to the health of the workman, of the sweating of foreign-born workers, of the drafting of feeble little children into dusty workshops, of black-listing, of putting spies into union meetings and of the employment in strike times of vicious and desperate ruffians, who are neither better nor worse than are the thugs who are occasionally employed by unions under the sinister name, "entertainment committees." I believe that the overwhelming majority, both of workmen and of employers, are law-abiding peaceful, and honorable citizens, and I do not think that it is just to lay up the errors and wrongs of individuals to the entire group to which they belong.

I also think--and this is a belief which has been borne upon me through many years of practical experience--that the trade union is growing constantly in wisdom as well as in power, and is becoming one of the most efficient agencies toward the solution of our industrial problems, the elimination of poverty and of industrial disease and accidents, the lessening of unemployment, the achievement of industrial democracy and the attainment of a larger measure of social and industrial justice.
If I were a factory employee, a workman on the railroads or a wage-earner of any sort, I would undoubtedly join the union of my trade.
If I disapproved of its policy, I would join in order to fight that policy; if the union leaders were dishonest, I would join in order to put them out.

I believe in the union and I believe that all men who are benefited by the union are morally bound to help to the extent of their power in the common interests advanced by the union.

Nevertheless, irrespective of whether a man should or should not, and does or does not, join the union of his trade, all the rights, privileges and immunities of that man as an American and as a citizen should be safeguarded and upheld by the law.