Page:Jay Fox - Amalgamation (1923).pdf/23

Rh jumped into the new forms created for them right out of the intellect. The new "scientific" unions covering all industries were doomed to failure from the start. Amalgamation appeals to the worker because it is something close by. He doesn't have to give up his union that has become part of his life through years of association. He can understand the program of amalgamation, which is simply to fuse together the existing mass organizations in his industry. Instinctively he realizes that this is a step in harmony with normal labor union development.

If we look over into Europe we will see that our brother unionists have got quite a start on us in the matter of industrial unions, and in every case their method has been that of Amalgamation. The old craft unions are being lashed together, yea, rivited, never to be torn asunder. Over there industrialism is more clear to them than it is to us. And there is a reason. Over there they haven't had any "intellectuals" charting fancy scientific universal industrial unions with which to lure the militants away from the unions; and as a consequence real industrial unionism is well on its way. Amalgamation is the only method they think about over there; and Amalgamation is doing the work, .as it will here just as soon as we get down to business. There is no excuse for us now not to go right along and put this big job over. What others can do we surely can, and now that the militants are coming back to the ranks there is no doubt that the big Amalgamation drive will sweep the country clean of craft unions and bring our labor movement up to the intellectual level of other countries. Industrial unionism, through amalgamation, will soon be a reality in America.