Page:American Syndicalism (Brooks 1913).djvu/109

Rh But syndicalist criticism goes much further. We have, for example, taken the Post Office away from the private profit maker to manage it democratically and directly for public uses. Most of the world's railroads have been taken by the State; a large part of trolley lines, gas, telephone, telegraph; a good deal of private insurance, mines and water powers, together with a long list of municipal hotels, restaurants, milk, supplies; all these have already been "socialized," "taken over" for public administration "in the interests of all." These are for the most part imperfectly managed, but their intent is socialistic, because they lessen the area of private investment. Are we to continue in this direction by carrying out this same process to its supposed logical completeness? When it is applied to banks, land, shipping, mills, mines, and the entire body of more important industries, shall we have the essentials of the Socialist State?

In every advanced country, this is the express claim of a most influential part of the active and disciplined leadership among Socialists. At the points where they secure political power and responsibility, this opinion steadily gains in influence. This view assumes that the evils of capitalism are slowly being lessened and that the way to diminish them further still, is to extend the whole regulating and "socializing" process now under way.

The hot protest against the above is not confined to the I. W. W. Hosts of more revolutionary spirits reject these "bourgeois conciliations," but none reject them with more contemptuous unanimity than Syndicalists in general. They tell us that our