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  AMI2THE CRAFTSMAN
         PUBLISHED BY THE CRAFTSMAN PUBLISHING CO.
         VOLUME XXV  OCTOBER, 1913  NUMBER 1 4
THE DEMOCRACY OF THE CARPENTER:
THE LABORER'S NEED OF AN "INDUSTRIAL
PHILOSOPHY:" BY BOUCK WHITE
HE labor movement needs to get a philosophy of the
universe. A man's philosophy is the most important
thing about him. It determines everything he does.
For it is the mold from which his thoughts take their
shape; and thoughts are deeds in the gristle. A wrong
philosophy will, in the slow, sure grindings of destiny,
              work itself into a wrong career. And likewise a no-
philosophy of life, soon or late, will work itself into a no-career. Show
me a man who has no philosophy of life, and I will show you a man
who is on a wide sea with neither compass nor chart nor pole star; in
derelict condition, the sport of every gust, without steerage way or
sailing orders.
   The privileged class has had in every age a philosophy of the uni-
verse. And thereby has raised up a massive rampart of systems and
creeds and laws and institutions which fortify it with an incalculable
security. Labor has lacked a philosophy of the universe. According-
ly, it has not captivated the thinkers of the world, but only the dream-
ers. It has been rather an emotion of the heart than a clarity of the
head; a hope, mighty to stir the imaginations of men; but lacking in
coherence of thought, or the logical compulsions that mold the will
into constancy and marshal transient generations into fixed purpose-
ful array through a long succession of ages. Labor has permitted
property rights to boast itself to be The Establishment, with its own
rights merely a protest, a criticism, a negation; a body of unorgan-
ized despair, making sallies upon a foe secure behind many outworks.
Against a regular army, guerrilla tactics have never yet been abidingly
prosperous.
   Jesus had a philosophy of the universe. And, with slight alter-
ations which are demanded by the scientific advance since his day,
it is the philosophy which labor in all time must cherish, as the main-
spring of its hope and the replenisher of its idealism. Stripped of its
unessentials, his philosophy was this: The universe has a meaning;
and it is an industrial meaning.
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