Yet he does not appear to wish to
saddle himself and fellow wage earners with the trouble of running
industry without the employer.
But materialistic though this philosophy appears, it is nevertheless the
product of a long development to which the spiritual contributed no less
than the material. In fact the American labor movement arrived at an
opportunist trade unionism only after an endeavor spread over more than
seventy years to realize a more idealistic program.
American labor started with the "ideology" of the Declaration of
Independence in 1776. Intended as a justification of a political
revolution, the Declaration was worded by the authors as an expression
of faith in a social revolution. To controvert the claims of George III,
Thomas Jefferson quoted Rousseau. To him Rousseau was in all probability
little more than an abstract "beau id?al," but Rousseau's abstractions
were no mere abstractions to the pioneer American farmer. To the latter
the doctrine that all men are born free and equal seemed to have grown
directly out of experience. So it appeared, two or three generations
later, to the young workmen when they for the first time achieved
political consciousness.
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