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 Labor Irresistible

(From "Violence and the Labor Movement")

(American Socialist writer, born 1874)

Here it is, "the self-conscious, independent movement of the immense majority, in the interest of the immense majority," already with its eleven million voters and its fifty million souls. It has slowly, patiently, painfully toiled up to a height where it is beginning to see visions of victory. It has faith in itself and in its cause. It believes it has the power of deliverance for all society and for all humanity. It does not expect the powerful to have faith in it; but, as Jesus came out of despised Nazareth, so the new world is coming out of the multitude, amid the toil and sweat and anguish of the mills, mines, and factories of the world. It has endured much; suffered long ages of slavery and serfdom. From being mere animals of production, the workers have become the "hands" of production; and they are now reaching out to become the masters of production. And, while in other periods of the world their intolerable misery led them again and again to strike out in a kind of torrential anarchy that pulled down society itself, they have in our time, for the first time in the history of the world, patiently and persistently organized themselves into a world power. Where shall we find in all history another instance of the organization in less than half a century of eleven million people into a compact force for the avowed purpose of peacefully and legally taking possession of the world? They have refused to hurry. They have declined all short cuts.