Page:American Syndicalism (Brooks 1913).djvu/90

78 of frontier warfare with every characteristic of war except its public and official sanction. It is a story that reads like the vandalisms connected with our early "Whiskey Rebellion" as recorded in McMaster's second volume of his History.

The men owning large mining properties and transportation systems in those regions did not propose to have groups of socialistic trade unions endanger these values. Millions were listed on the stock market liable to tumble if investors were frightened and credit impaired. Nothing is more cruel or more lawless than great properties if thoroughly intimidated. In the midst of this struggle a lawyer, fighting for these interests, said openly, "Law or no law, we will not have a lot of thugs interfere with our business."

There is no such study of social guilt as that revealed very generally in this country during serious strikes. Police duties which belong strictly to public authorities are turned over to owners of private property. Thus instantly appear upon the scene detectives, spies, and imported strike-breakers, among whom (as in this instance) are lawless and desperate characters. Deliberately, we permit and sanction this procedure, certain to create upon the spot every condition out of which insane hatreds and violence are bred. Both origin and cause are thus to large extent social rather than individual. This burden of guilt and responsibility society must bear, with every unhappy consequence, until these private agencies are replaced by adequate and impartial authority.

Here, then, is the high temperature of lawlessness out of which our American Syndicalism directly