Page:Class Unionism.pdf/26

26 thousand wage workers may become a capitalist, to be pointed out as a man worth a million who used to be a clerk, but he is the exception that proves the rule. The wage worker in the capitalist system remains the wage worker.

There is no escape for you from wage-slavery by yourself, but while you cannot alone break your fetters, if you will unite with all other workers who are in the same position that you are; that is, if instead of being bound up in a little union of a score, or a hundred, or thousand, that is almost as helpless to do anything for you as you are to do anything by yourself—if you will join the organization that represents our whole class, you can develop the power that will achieve your freedom and the equal freedom of all.

The working-man who does this is a missionary in the field of sound working class organization; he wears the badge of the Industrial Workers; he has a new idea of unionism. Instead of being satisfied with the ancient, out-of-date, reactionary methods, he will have the advanced and progressive ideas of industrial revolutionism. That is to say, he will understand that when the workers are united in one great economic organization and one great political organization; when they strike together and vote together, they can put their class in power in every council, in every legislature and in the national congress; they can abolish the capitalist system, take over the industries to themselves, and rule the land forevermore.

The Industrial Workers propose first to unite all workers within one organization, classified in the various departments representing their several trades and occupations, to bring them all into harmonious economic relation with