Page:William Zebulon Foster - The Railroaders' Next Step, Amalgamation (1922).djvu/37

Rh For industrial unionists the facts cited in these two chapters should bear an important lesson. They make it clear as day that the dual unions have failed utterly, and that the trade unions provide the means for the realization of industrial unionism on the railroads. Not only have the latter organized the vast bulk of all railroad workers; but they are also constantly closing up their ranks in a manner that can only end in transforming them all into one organization. The part of wisdom then is to give up dual unionism and to devote all our efforts to the development of the trade unions.

The worst of the dual industrial unions is not so much that they have failed of themselves, but rather that they have greatly retarded the progress of the trade unions. In the first place, they have discredited the very name of industrial unionism by associating it with secession, disruption and failure. And, then by pulling thousands of live wires out of the trade unions they have robbed these organizations of tremendous support. It is safe to assume that if the large body of industrial unionists, for all these years, had stayed in the old unions, set up their ideal of industrial unionism there, and then worked for every practical measure making in that direction, we would have had an industrial union of railroad workers by now. But better late than never. This sensible policy should be followed henceforth, and a lasting goodbye said to dual unionism.