Page:Traveler from Altruria, Howells, 1894.djvu/84

78 yours do, that they were forced into existence by the necessities of the case; that without union the workingman was unable to meet the capitalist on anything like equal terms, or to withstand his encroachments and oppressions. But to maintain themselves they had to extinguish industrial liberty among the workingmen themselves, and they had to practice great cruelties against those who refused to join them or who rebelled against them."

"They simply destroy them here," said the professor.

"Well," said the lawyer, from his judicial mind, "the great syndicates have no scruples in destroying a capitalist who won't come into them, or who tries to go out. They don't club him or stone him, but they undersell him and freeze him out; they don't break his head, but they bankrupt him. The principle is the same."

"Don't interrupt Mr. Homos," the banker entreated. "I am very curious to know just how they got rid of labor unions in Altruria."

"We had syndicates, too, and finally we had the reductio ad absurdum—we had a federation of labor unions and a federation of syndicates, that divided