Page:American Syndicalism (Brooks 1913).djvu/229

217 In the resounding victory which the I. W. W. claim at Lawrence, the very success forced its petty compromises with employers and with the wage system, closely after the manner of ordinary trade union dickering. Instead of "No compromise with employer or with wage-slavery," there was the same opportunist give-and-take. Superintendents were waited upon, and others of the strike committee held counsel with Boston officials of the American Company, to argue out the demands for fifteen per cent advance, discontinuance of the premium system and extra pay for overtime. This is the world-old story—the quick reaction of responsibility upon behavior. As it falls upon the I. W. W., the leaders begin to substitute some degree of cautious calculation for impulsive action. This reverses much eloquent theorizing upon the vices of the reason and the virtues of instinct which marks so much syndicalist speculation. When urgent and conflicting duties face us for immediate decisions, every conscious and rational faculty must act.

On the first approach of definite responsibility the I. W. W. reflect, compare and balance. They act as the politician acts. In the high flights of agitation, demands are sweeping and all things promised. "There shall be no compromise with the wage system because it is robbery," are words I heard from a speaker in the Lawrence strike. But on the first assurance that the battle was to be won, compromise was a necessity. With as much shrewdness as haste, the strikers took to the ordinary bartering of practical men. As the theory passed into a situation that must be met, they met it in the spirit of a sensible trade