"A nation-wide antagonism to trade-unions, to the idea of collective
bargaining between men and employer, cannot spring from a temperamental
aversion of a mere individual, however powerful, be he Carnegie, Parry,
or Post, or from the common opinion in a group such as the so-called
Beef Trust, or the directorate of the United States Steel Corporation.
Such a hostility, characterizing as it does one of the vitally important
relationships in industrial production, must seek its reason-to-be in
economic causes. Profits, market, financing, are placed in certain
jeopardy by such a labor policy, and this risk is not continued,
generation after generation, as a casual indulgence in temper. Deep
below the strong charges against the unions of narrow self-interest and
un-American limitation of output, dressed by the Citizens' Alliance in
the language of the Declaration of Independence, lies a quiet economic
reason for the hostility. Just as slavery was about to go because it did
not pay, and America stopped building a merchant marine because it was
cheaper to hire England to transport American goods, so the American
Trust, as soon as it had power, abolished the American trade-union
because it found it costly. What then are these economic causes which
account for the hostility?

"What did the union stand in the way of? What conditions did the trust
desire to establish with which the union would interfere? Or did a labor
condition arise which allowed the employer to wreck the union with such
ease, that he turned aside for a moment to do it, to commit an act
desirable only if its performance cost little danger or money?

"The answer can be found only after an analysis of certain factors in
industrial production. These are three:--