Page:American Syndicalism (Brooks 1913).djvu/16

4 Thus socialism steadily wins its way underneath all these differences. Language, religion, forms of government set no barrier to its growth, because the causes of socialism underlie all these. The causes have their roots in the discovered excesses of a competitive system that fails to meet the minimum of equality which powerful sections in these communities now demand. In no part of the world have these excesses been more riotous than in the United States. Nowhere have they been brought more widely or more directly home to the masses than in this country. The magnitude of our area and of our economic resources have concealed and delayed the exposure. With the opening of the twentieth century the exposure has come.

After three decades of obscure and fitful struggle socialism becomes part and parcel of our political and social structure. It no longer stammers exclusively in a tongue half learned. It is at home in every American dialect. It no longer apologizes, it defies. Almost suddenly it wins a congressman, fifty mayors, and nearly a thousand elected officials.

As has happened in every known country where Socialism has grown strong, its first victories are followed by defeat. Pecuniary interests once alarmed, drop their differences and act together.

Many times this fusion has triumphed with boisterous self congratulation. For the most part the laughter has been premature. It soon turns out that the routed enemy has gathered again in larger numbers, more firmly entrenched and better equipped. In Milwaukee at the close of Mayor Seidel's first