Page:Essays on the Social Problem.pdf/14

 The philosopher may think out a better plan for carrying on a certain work, or the scientist may make discoveries that do not accord with accepted notions. A few will be found to give each of them a hearing and to adopt the new method or accept the newly discovered fact, but the majority will be a long time in doing either. If it were put to vote to determine whether the new method should be adopted, or the newly discovered fact be accepted, in nearly every instance the majority would vote "no." If the will of majority, in this instance, becomes the rule of action, then it would become tyranny.

Thus we could elaborate indefinitely, and in every instance it will be found that majority rule is tyranny. It is always the expression of the thought and will of those who lag behind; of the conservative ones.

It is evident, then, that all argument in favor of majority rule is only an argument in favor of one form of tyranny, and all our "reform" friends who call so loudly for true majority rule, are calling merely for a change in the form of what they complain of—tyranny—and not its abolition. Why not stop demanding another form of tyranny and demand the abolition of all tyranny—all rule?

The present stir in political and economic fields of activity is rapidly becoming one of conquest. For years Labor Unions and Workingmen's Associations of various kinds have sought to bind the toilers together for purposes of mutual assistance. Generally they only proposed to assist each other in time of need and to present an unbroken front when called upon to resist the encroachments of employer or scab. But in the evolution of industry, and the growth and intensification of present conditions, they have found that they must become conquerors, or be driven from their last refuge and made the abject slaves of their oppressors—their conquerors. Dimly recognizing this, the question of political action has been more and more noticed, and gained more influence among the various labor organizations as the years went by, and the necessity of a decisive struggle grew upon them.

Here was the politician's chance, and true to his instinct he saw it and began his operations to foist upon the workers the necessity of political action, never forgetting that he was the man best qualified to guide them in the attempts to conquer the powers of the State. "New Trades Unionism," as it is called, pushed on by the rulers of the S. L. P., appeared upon the scene, destined as its promoters believed, to take the place of the old Trades Unionism. Its purpose is the same as that of the old style Unionism with the "conquest of power" attached. Should the fond hopes of the promoters of this kind of workingmen's association be realized, the entire body of union men would be organized in a close corporation ready to march to the polls on election-day with banners flying, drums beating, and deposit their ballots according to the dictates of their union—in other words for the Socialist Labor Party.

As industrial evolution has progressed, the displacement of human labor by machinery, the substitution of child labor and woman labor in occupations once exclusively the occupations of men, the monopolization of all lands and all the machinery of production, as well as the growth of intelligence, has tended to point out to the more thoughtful that the conquest before them must be the conquest of bread. "Bread is freedom, freedom—bread," has been said, and many there are who recognize this saying as a fact and wish to conquer for bread, not for power. They see the hard struggle necessary to gain possession of the powers of the State, and the many pitfalls and snares into some of which the victorious politician, be he ever so honest, is sure to fall. Seeing that power can be upheld only by violence, and that the instruments of power must ever be a constant drain upon the