Page:Carl Sandburg - You and Your Job (1910).pdf/25

Rh and try to fool us by passing a few laws that never work out. But if you will look up the records of the State legislatures and the Congress at Washington, you will find no real difference between Republicans and Democrats.

Here's the reason: The big business men of the country are in politics. The men who own the banks, the railroads and the trusts in steel, oil, coal, meat and other things, are in politics all the time. They pay the campaign bills. They run the Republican and Democratic parties. They run the government. They make the laws.

Here is a certainty, though: The workers simply must have their own political party. "If labor will not help itself, then God help labor." The workers must agitate and educate. They must raise their own campaign funds and work out their own salvation. They must organize. They will have to know that without organization, industrial and political, they are damned and helpless, tied and gagged and laughed at. When Marx said, "Workingmen of the world, unite!" he meant: "Get together! Organize!" Alone and apart, some of you Republicans, some Democrats and some Independents, you are divided and powerless. Working together, en masse, planning toward one end, fighting toward one end, you can send the men you choose up into the legislatures and the national Congress to write laws that will get you better working and living conditions right now. This has been done in France, Germany, Belgium, England and other countries.