Page:William Z. Foster - The Revolutionary Crisis of 1918-1921 (1921).djvu/24

 plicated evolution of the old trade unions making it up. It has been constructed literally brick by brick. Its evolutionary chain of development stretches back to the very beginning of its three great component unions. The miners were originally organized by districts, each coal county having an independent organization of its own. But finally an expanding capitalism compelled the welding together of this score of separate organizations into the present national unions, naturally with a great increase in power and efficiency to the workers. The railwaymen were likewise split into many weak and squabbling sections in their earlier periods of unionism. Eventually, however, three of these sections, the Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants, the General Railway Workers' Union, and the United Signalmen and Pointsmen, fused together and formed the National Union of Railwaymen. This organization, dominating the railroad labor field, at once launched into a sphere of great activity and power. Like the miners and the railwaymen, the transport workers have also built their national organization of a lot of craft fragments. Their present federation represents the practical amalgamation of a large number of national and local unions of seamen, waterside workers, and vehicle workers. And the same forces that compelled the formation of the three national unions of miners, railwaymen, and transport workers, viz.: the increasing pressure from the employers and the expanding intelligence of the workers, eventually forced these three great bodies to federate together into the Triple Alliance. This immense union is a striking illustration of the evolutionary manner in which the workers of the world construct their labor organizations. It is a standing refutation of the theory of those who base their tactics upon the expectation that the workers will throw aside all their old trade unions and realign themselves into new organizations sketched out upon idealistic principles.

The evolution leading to the creation of the Triple Alliance and other large British labor organizations has been greatly facilitated by the fact that English progress-