Failure, however, was inherent in the method, for success depended upon
unanimity, and the greater the membership of the unions and the more
serious their menace to the industries of the country, the higher was the
premium for defection; and at last strike-breaking became a regular
employment, organized, officered and equipped for the service required by
the wealth and intelligence that directed it. From that moment the doom of
labor unionism was decreed and inevitable. But labor unionism did not live
long enough to die that way.
Naturally combinations of labor entailed combinations of capital. These
were at first purely protective. They were brought into being by the
necessity of resisting the aggressions of the others. But the trick of
combination once learned, it was seen to have possibilities of profit in
directions not dreamed of by its early promoters; its activities were not
long confined to fighting the labor unions with their own weapons and with
superior cunning and address. The shrewd and energetic men whose capacity
and commercial experience had made them rich while the laborers remained
poor were not slow to discern the advantages of cooeperation over their own
former method of competition among themselves. They continued to fight the
labor unions, but ceased to fight one another. The result was that in the
brief period of two generations almost the entire business of the country
fell into the hands of a few gigantic corporations controlled by bold and
unscrupulous men, who, by daring and ingenious methods, made the body of
the people pay tribute to their greed.
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