CHAPTER XII
WILL BIRTH CONTROL HELP THE CAUSE OF LABOR?
Labor seems instinctively to have recognized the fact that its
servitude springs from numbers. Seldom, however, has it applied its
knowledge logically and thoroughly. The basic principle of craft
unionism is limitation of the number of workers in a given trade. This
has been labor's most frequent expedient for righting its wrongs.
Every unionist knows, as a matter of course, that if that number is
kept small enough, his organization can compel increases of wages,
steady employment and decent working conditions. Craft unionism has
succeeded in attaining these insofar as it has been able to apply this
principle. It has failed insofar as it has been unable to apply it.
The weakness of craft unionism is that it does not carry its principle
far enough. It applies its policy of limitation of numbers only to the
trade. In his home, the worker, whether he is a unionist or
non-unionist, goes on producing large numbers of children to compete
with him eventually in the labor market.
"The history of labor," says Teresa Billington-Greig in the _Common
Sense of The Population Question_, "is the history of an ever
unsuccessful effort upon the part of man to bring his productive
ability as a worker up to his reproductive ability.
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