This purpose, which has from the first been the prompter
of union activity, was clearly enunciated in the testimony of
Adolph Strasser, a converted socialist, one of the leading trade
unionists, and president of the Cigar-makers' Union, before a
Senate Committee in 1883:
Chairman: You are seeking to improve home matters first?
Witness: Yes sir, I look first to the trade I represent: I look
first to cigars, to the interests of men, who employ me to
represent their interests.
Chairman: I was only asking you in regard to your ultimate ends.
Witness: We have no ultimate ends. We are going on from day to
day. We are fighting only for immediate objects, objects that can
be realized in a few years.
Chairman: You want something better to eat and to wear, and
better houses to live in?
Witness: Yes, we want to dress better and to live better, and
become better citizens generally.
Chairman: I see that you are a little sensitive lest it should
be thought that you are a mere theorizer. I do not look upon you
in that light at all.
Witness: Well, we say in our constitution that we are opposed to
theorists, and I have to represent the organization here. We are
all practical men.
This remains substantially the trade union platform today. Trade
unionists all aim to be "practical men."
The trade union has been the training school for the labor
leader, that comparatively new and increasingly important
personage who is a product of modern industrial society.
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