Page:American Syndicalism (Brooks 1913).djvu/187

Rh moral poltroonery of forcing a standard upon the weak which the strong will not recognize or obey.

The element of anarchy peculiar to the I. W. W. is its inherent dislike of organic restraint. No one uses the word "organization" oftener or practices it less. All organization to be effective puts a curb upon its members. It standardizes conduct and sets definite limits to individual eccentricity, but the essence of anarchy is to reject group constraints. A century of trade unionism has brought about in its better membership a degree of organization that acts with great power upon individual whim and waywardness. Socialism has already acquired a great deal of organization that submits the individual to severe and continuous schooling. There are bickerings and wrangling enough in the socialist camps, but, at its best, it has established the fact of group-training which ranks it among the conserving social forces. Of the I. W. W. this cannot be said. It is held together by the yeasty dramatic commotions in which it is engaged. From its first convention eight years ago, it has been rent by temperamental dissensions. Such "organization" as it has, is a fitful and fluctuating quantity, ever ready to escape from the slightest real and steadying constraint which organization implies. Only by desperate efforts has the General Confederation in France held a minority membership that is always threatened by withdrawal of unions that have gained the least real stability.

To state the facts of this anarchistic tendency is not wholly to condemn the movement. It only defines its guerrilla character and its limitations. It only