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Rh easily fooled by agitators. Though in theory you ought to have it, in practice we cannot trust you with its use." Leaving Pittsburg, I wondered what labor would continue to say of this and also what would be the final judgment of the general public. On the train I wrote out, as best I could, some fumbling answers to these questions. Who and what are they who receive wages that they should be excluded and set apart as unworthy to share in this indispensable form of association that is such a tower of strength to those who are already strong? Was it in the least likely that the mass of wage earners, sore under this treatment, would not resent it? If so, what shapes would this resentment assume? With popular agencies of agitation so far developed; with socialism already so vigorous in its rivalry with the unions, the case seemed clear. Capital could gain no victory over labor association that left its pang of felt injustice, without throwing the door wider still to socialism. In what appeared later in The Social Unrest, I wrote:

"It is not probable that employers can destroy unionism in the United States. Adroit and desperate attempts will, however, be made, if we mean by unionism the aggressive fact of vigorous and determined organizations.

"If capital should prove too strong in this struggle, the result is easy to predict. The employers have only to convince organized labor that it cannot hold its own against the capitalist manager, and the whole energy that now goes to the union will turn to an aggressive political socialism. It will not be the harmless sympathy with increased city and state functions which trade unions already feel; it will become a turbulent political force bent upon using every weapon of taxation against the rich."