profit-sharing had been tried. That is, the capitalists had striven to
placate the workers by interesting them financially in their work.
But profit-sharing, as a system, was ridiculous and impossible.
Profit-sharing could be successful only in isolated cases in the midst
of a system of industrial strife; for if all labor and all capital
shared profits, the same conditions would obtain as did obtain when
there was no profit-sharing.

So, out of the unpractical idea of profit-sharing, arose the practical
idea of grab-sharing. "Give us more pay and charge it to the public,"
was the slogan of the strong unions.* And here and there this selfish
policy worked successfully. In charging it to the public, it was charged
to the great mass of unorganized labor and of weakly organized labor.
These workers actually paid the increased wages of their stronger
brothers who were members of unions that were labor monopolies. This
idea, as I say, was merely carried to its logical conclusion, on a large
scale, by the combination of the oligarchs and the favored unions.

* All the railroad unions entered into this combination with
the oligarchs, and it is of interest to note that the first
definite application of the policy of profit-grabbing was
made by a railroad union in the nineteenth century A.D.,
namely, the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers. P. M.
Arthur was for twenty years Grand Chief of the Brotherhood.
After the strike on the Pennsylvania Railroad in 1877, he
broached a scheme to have the Locomotive Engineers make
terms with the railroads and to "go it alone" so far as the
rest of the labor unions were concerned. This scheme was
eminently successful. It was as successful as it was
selfish, and out of it was coined the word "arthurization,"