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 Although the complete solution of the use of the state and the employers' private forces against the workers awaits conquest of power by the latter, nevertheless much can be done under present conditions to ward off, counter, prevent, and weaken such attacks of the employers. The strike strategist must learn to move courageously and intelligently in this most crucial matter. The history of the American labor movement is replete with the militant defense made by workers driven desperate by fierce employers' attacks, such as in Homestead, Colorado, West Virginia, McKees Rocks, Herrin, etc.

When dealing with such open ruptures, the left-wing must stir the whole labor movement to its depths to lend its maximum support, moral, financial, industrial, and political to the attacked workers. If this is done the capitalists will often find the game not worth the candle, to provoke a costly upheaval among the broad masses for the sake of brutally oppressing one small section. A skillfully cultivated "public opinion" will, under existing American conditions, aid in meeting such situations. Liberal organizations will help to create this. The employers in Passaic, for example, learned that their tear bombs and police clubbings, in the face of a thorogoing exposure, an aggressive attitude by the workers, and a determined strike leadership, were not breaking the strike but putting life into it.

Arbitrary restrictions upon the right to strike, such as the issuance of injunctions, adoption of Industrial Court no-strike laws, etc., the workers can break down by a display of militancy. They are nettles. Touch them lightly and they stick you, but grasp them firmly and they lose their sharpness.

The hesitating way the conservatives handle these is