gaining hinges upon the solidarity
and integrity of the union which makes the bargain. A union capable of
enforcing an agreement is a necessary antecedent condition to such a
contract. With this fact in mind, one can believe that John Mitchell was
not unduly sanguine in stating that "the tendency is toward the growth
of compulsory membership ... and the time will doubtless come when this
compulsion will be as general and will be considered as little of a
grievance as the compulsory attendance of children at school." There
are certain industries so well centralized, however, that their coercive
power is greater than that of the labor union, and these have maintained
a consistent hostility to the closed shop. The question of the closed
shop is, indeed, the most stubborn issue confronting the union. The
principle involves the employment of only union men in a shop; it means
a monopoly of jobs by members of the union. The issue is as old as the
unions themselves and as perplexing as human nature. As early as 1806
it was contended for by the Philadelphia cordwainers and by 1860 it had
become an established union policy. While wages and hours are now, in
the greater industrial fields, the subject of a collective contract,
this question of union monopoly is still open, though there has been
some progress towards an adjustment. Wherever the trade agreement
provides for a closed shop, the union, through its proper committees and
officers, assumes at least part of the responsibility of the discipline.
The agreement also includes methods for arbitrating differences.
The acid test of the union is its capacity to live up to this trade
agreement.

For the purpose of forcing its policies upon its employers and society
the unions have resorted to the strike and picketing, the boycott, and
the union label. When violence occurs, it usually is the concomitant of
a strike; but violence unaccompanied by a strike is sometimes used as a
union weapon.

The strike is the oldest and most spectacular weapon in the hands of
labor. For many years it was thought a necessary concomitant of machine
industry. The strike, however, antedates machinery and was a practical
method of protest long before there were unions. Men in a shop simply
agreed not to work further and walked out. The earliest strike in the
United States, as disclosed by the United States Department of Labor
occurred in 1741 among the journeymen bakers in New York City. In
1792 the co