I suppose no unbiased observer would to-day question that the political machines of Colorado had sold themselves body and soul to the mine owners. There can surely be no other explanation for their violation of their pledges to the people and to the miners. And further evidence of their perfidy was given on the night of September 3, 1903, at a conference between some of the State officials and certain officers of the Mine Owners' Association. Although the strike up to this time had been conducted without any violence, the State officials agreed that the mine owners could have the aid of the militia, provided they would pay the expenses of the soldiers while they remained in the strike district. Two days later over one thousand men were encamped in Cripple Creek. All the strike districts were at once put under martial law; the duly elected officials of the people were commanded to resign from office; hundreds of unoffending citizens were arrested and thrown into "bull pens"; the whole working force of a newspaper was apprehended and taken to the "bull pen"; all the news that went out concerning the strike was censored, the manager of one of the mines acting as official censor. At the same time this man, together with other mine managers and friends, organized mobs to terrorize union miners and to force out of town anyone whom they thought to be in sympathy with the strikers.

In the effort to determine whether the courts or the military powers were supreme, a writ of habeas corpus was obtained for four men who had been sent by the military authorities to the "bull pen." The court sent an order to produce the men. Ninety cavalrymen were then sent to the court house. They surrounded it, permitting no person to pass through the lines unless he was an officer of the court, a member of the bar, a county official, or a press representative. A company of infantrymen then escorted the four prisoners to the court, while fourteen soldiers with loaded guns and fixed bayonets guarded the prisoners until the court was called to order. When the court was adjourned, after an argument upon the motion to quash the return of the writ, the soldiers took the prisoners back to the "bull pen." The next day Judge Seeds was forced to adjourn the court, because the prisoners were not present. An officer of the militia was ordered to have them in court at two o'clock in the afternoon, but, as they did not appear at that time, a continuance was granted until the following day. On September 23 a large number of soldiers, cavalry and infantry, surrounded the court house. A Gatling gun was placed in position nearby, and a detail of sharpshooters was stationed where they could command the streets. The court, in the face of this military display, cited the Constitution of Colorado, which declares that the military shall always be in strict subordination to the civil power, and pointed out that this did not specify sometimes but always, declaring: "There could be no plainer statement that the military should never be permitted to rise superior to the civil power within the limits of Colorado."[38] The judge then ordered the military authorities to release the prisoners, but this they refused to do.

At Victor certain mine owners commanded the sheriff to come to their club rooms, where his resignation was demanded. When he refused to resign, guns were produced, a coiled rope was dangled before him, and on the outside several shots were fired. He was told that unless he resigned the mob outside the building would be admitted and he would be taken out and hanged. He then signed a written resignation, and a member of the Mine Owners' Association was appointed sheriff. With this new sheriff in charge, the mine owners, mine managers, and all they could employ for the purpose arrested on all hands everybody that seemed unfriendly to their anarchy. The new sheriff and a militia officer commanded the Portland mine, which was then having no trouble with its employees, to shut down. By this order four hundred and seventy-five men were thrown out of employment. In these various ways the mobs organized by the mine owners were allowed to obliterate the Government and abolish republican institutions, under the immediate protection of their leased military forces.

At Telluride, also, the military overpowered the civil authorities. When Judge Theron Stevens came there to hold the regular session of court he was met by soldiers and a mob of three hundred persons. Seeing that it was impossible for the civil authorities to exercise any power, he decided to adjourn the court until the next term, declaring: "The demonstration at the depot last night upon the arrival of the train could only have been planned and executed for the purpose of showing the contempt of the militia and a certain portion of this community for the civil authority of the State and the civil authority of this district. I had always been led to suppose from such research as I have been able to make that in a republic like ours the people were supreme; that the people had expressed their will in a constitution which was enacted for the government of all in authority in this State. That constitution provides that the military shall always be in strict subordination to the civil authorities."[39]

While this terrorism of the powerful was in full sway in Colorado, the entire world was being told through the newspapers of the infamous crimes being committed daily by the Western Federation of Miners. Countless newspaper stories were sent out telling in detail of mines blown up, of trains wrecked, of men murdered through agents of this federation of toilers engaged day in and day out at a dangerous occupation in the bowels of the earth. Not loafers, idlers, or drunkards, but men with calloused hands and bent backs. Stories were sent around the world of these laborers being arraigned in court charged with the most infamous and dastardly crimes. Yet hardly once has it been reported in the press of the world that in "every trial that has been held in the State of Colorado during the present strike where the membership has been charged with almost every perfidy in the catalogue of crime, a jury has brought in a verdict of acquittal."[40] On the other hand, a multitude of murders, wrecks, and dynamite explosions have been brought to the door of the detectives employed by the Mine Owners' Association. It was found that many ex-convicts and other desperate characters were employed by the detective agencies to commit crimes that could be laid upon the working miners. The story of Orchard and the recital of his atrocious crimes have occupied columns of every newspaper, but the fact is rarely mentioned that many of the crimes that he committed, and which the world to-day attributes to the officials of the Western Federation of Miners, were paid for by detective agencies. The special detective of one of the railroads and a detective of the Mine Owners' Association were known to have employed Orchard and other criminals. When Orchard first went to Denver to seek work from the officials of the Western Federation of Miners he was given a railroad pass by these detectives and the money to pay his expenses.[41] During the three months preceding the blowing up of the Independence depot Orchard had been seen at least eighteen or twenty times entering at night by stealth the rooms of a detective attached to the Mine Owners' Association, and at least seven meetings were held between him and the railroad detective already mentioned.

Previous to all this—in September and in November, 1903—attempts were made to wreck trains. A delinquent member of the Western Federation of Miners was charged with these crimes. He involved in his confession several prominent members of the Western Federation of Miners. On cross-examination he testified that he had formerly been a prize-fighter and that he had come to Cripple Creek under an assumed name. He further testified that $250 was his price for wrecking a train carrying two hundred to three hundred people, but that he had asked $500 for this job, as another man would have to work with him. Two detectives had promised him that amount. An associate of this man was discovered to have been a detective who had later joined the Western Federation of Miners. He testified that he had kept the detective agencies informed as to the progress of the plot to derail the train. The detective of the Mine Owners' Association admitted that he and the other detectives had endeavored to induce members of the miners' union to enter into the plot; while the railroad detective testified that he and another detective were standing only a few feet away when men were at work pulling the spikes from the rails. An engineer on the Florence and Cripple Creek Railroad testified that the railroad detective had, a few days before, asked him where there was a good place for wrecking the train. The result of the case was that all were acquitted except the ex-prize-fighter, who was held for a time, but eventually released on $300 bond, furnished by representatives of the mine owners.[42]

On June 6, 1904, when about twenty-five non-union miners were waiting at the Independence depot for a train, there was a terrible explosion which resulted in great loss of life. It has never been discovered who committed the crime, though the mine owners lost no time in attributing the explosion to the work of "the assassins" of the Federation of Miners. When, however, bloodhounds were put on the trail, they went directly to the home of one of the detectives in the employ of the Mine Owners' Association. They were taken back to the scene of the disaster and again followed the trail to the same place. A third attempt was made with the hounds and they followed a trail to the powder magazine of a nearby mine. The Western Federation of Miners offered a reward of $5,000 for evidence which would lead to the arrest and conviction of the criminal who had perpetrated the outrage at Independence. Unfortunately, the criminal was never found. Orchard, a year or so later, confessed that he had committed the crime and was paid for it by the officials of the Western Federation of Miners. The absurdity of that statement becomes clear when it is known that the court in Denver was at the very moment of the explosion deciding the habeas corpus case of Moyer, President of the Western Federation of Miners. In fact, a few hours after the explosion the decision of the court was handed down. As the action of the court was vital not only to Moyer but to the entire trade-union movement, and, indeed, to republican institutions, it is inconceivable that he or his friends should have organized an outrage that would certainly have prejudiced the court at the very moment it was writing its decision. On the other hand, there was every reason why the mine owners should have profited by such an outrage and that their detectives should have planned one for that moment.[AF]

The atrocities of the Congo occurred in a country without law, in the interest of a great property, and in a series of battles with a half-savage people. History has somewhat accustomed us to such barbarity; but when, in a civilized country, with a written constitution, with duly established courts, with popularly elected representatives, and apparently with all the necessary machinery for dealing out equal justice, one suddenly sees a feudal despotism arise, as if by magic, to usurp the political, judicial, and military powers of a great state, and to use them to arrest hundreds without warrant and throw them into "bull pens"; to drive hundreds of others out of their homes and at the point of the bayonet out of the state; to force others to labor against their will or to be beaten; to depose the duly elected officials of the community; to insult the courts; to destroy the property of those who protest; and even to murder those who show signs of revolt—one stands aghast. It makes one wonder just how far in reality we are removed from barbarism. Is it possible that the likelihood of the workers achieving an eight-hour day—which was all that was wanted in Colorado—could lead to civil war? Yet that is what might and perhaps should have happened in Colorado in 1904, when, for a few months, a military despotism took from the people there all that had been won by centuries of democratic striving and thrust them back into the Middle Ages.

Chaotic political and industrial conditions are, of course, occasionally inevitable in modern society—torn as it is by the very bitter struggle going on constantly between capital and labor. When this struggle breaks into war, as it often does, we are bound to suffer some of the evils that invariably attend war. Certainly, it is to be expected that the owners of property will exercise every power they possess to safeguard their property. They will, whenever possible, use the State and all its coercive powers in order to retain their mastery over men and things. The only question is this, must people in general continue to be the victims of a commerce which has for its purpose the creation of situations that force nearly every industrial dispute to become a bloody conflict? When men combine to commit depredations, destroy property, and murder individuals, society must deal with them—no matter how harshly. But it is an altogether different matter to permit privately paid criminals to create whenever desired a state of anarchy, in order to force the military to carry out ferocious measures of repression against those who have been in no wise responsible for disorder.

If we will look into this matter a little, we shall discover certain sinister motives back of this work of the detective agencies. It is well enough understood by them that violence creates a state of reaction. One very keen observer has pointed out that "the anarchist tactics are so serviceable to the reactionaries that, whenever a draconic, reactionary law is required, they themselves manufacture an anarchist plot or attempted crime."[43] Kropotkin himself, in telling the story of "The Terror in Russia," points out that a certain Azeff, who for sixteen years was an agent of the Russian police, was also the chief organizer of acts of terrorism among the social revolutionists.[44] Every conceivable crime was committed under his direct instigation, including even the murder of some officials and nobles. The purpose of the work of this police agent was, of course, to serve the Russian reactionaries and to furnish them a pretext and excuse for the most bloody measures of repression. In America "hireling assassins," ex-convicts, and thugs in the employ of detective agencies commit very much the same crimes for the same purpose. And the men on strike, who have neither planned nor dreamed of planning an outrage, suddenly find themselves faced by the military forces, who have not infrequently in the past shot them down. That the lawless situations which make these infamous acts possible, and to the general public often excusable, are the deliberate work of mercenaries, is, to my mind, open to no question whatever.

Anyone who cares to look up the history of the labor movement for the last hundred years will find that in every great strike private detectives and police agents have been at work provoking violence. It is almost incredible what a large number of criminal operations can be traced to these paid agents. From 1815 to the present day the bitterness of nearly every industrial conflict of importance has been intensified by the work of these spies, thugs, and provocateurs. "It was not until we became infested by spies, incendiaries, and their dupes—distracting, misleading, and betraying—that physical force was mentioned among us," says Bamford, speaking of the trade-union activity of 1815-1816. "After that our moral power waned, and what we gained by the accession of demagogues we lost by their criminal violence and the estrangement of real friends."[45] Some of the notable police agents that appear in the history of labor are Powell, Mitchell, Legg, Stieber, Greif, Fleury, Baron von Ungern-Sternberg, Schroeder-Brennwald, Krueger, Kaufmann, Peukert, Haupt, Von Ehrenberg, Friedeman, Weiss, Schmidt, and Ihring-Mahlow. In addition we find Andre, Andrieux, Pourbaix, Melville, and scores of other high police officials directing the work of these agents. In America, McPartland, Schaack, and Orchard—to mention the most notorious only—have played infamous roles in provoking others, or in undertaking themselves, to commit outrages. There were and are, of course, thousands of others besides those mentioned, but these are historic characters, who planned and executed the most dastardly deeds in order to discredit the trade-union and socialist movements. The space here is too limited to go into the historic details of this commerce in violence. But he who is curious to pursue the study further will find a list of references at the end of the volume directing him to some of the sources of information.[46] He will there discover an appalling record of crime, for, as Thomas Beet points out, hardly a strike occurs where these special officers are not sent to make trouble. There are sometimes thousands of them at work, and, if one undertook to go into the various trials that have arisen as a result of labor disputes, one could prepare a long list of murders committed by these "hireling assassins."

The pecuniary interest of the detective agencies in provoking crime is immense. It is obvious enough, if one will but think of it, that these detective agencies depend for their profit on the existence, the extension, and the promotion of criminal operations. The more that people are frightened by the prospect of danger to their property or menace to their lives, the more they seek the aid of detectives. Nothing proves so advantageous to detectives as epidemics of strikes and even of robberies and murders. The heyday of their prosperity comes in that moment when assaults upon men and property are most frequent. Nothing would seem to be clearer, then, than that it is to the interest of these agencies to create alarm, to arouse terror, and, through these means, to enlarge their patronage. When a trade or profession has not only every pecuniary incentive to create trouble, but when it is also largely promoted by notorious criminals and other vicious elements, the amount of mischief that is certain to result from the combination may well exceed the powers of imagination.

And it must not be forgotten that this trade has developed into a great and growing business, actuated by exactly the same economic interests as any other business. With the agencies making so much per day for each man employed, the way to improve business is to get more men employed. Rumors of trouble or actual deeds, such as an explosion of dynamite or an assault, help to make the detective indispensable to the employer. It is with an eye to business, therefore, that the private detective creates trouble. It is with a keen sense of his own material interest that he keeps the employer in a state of anxiety regarding what may be expected from the men. And, naturally enough, the modern employer, unlike a trained ruler such as Bismarck, never seems to realize that most of the alarming reports sent him are masses of lies. Nothing appears to have been clearer to the Iron Chancellor than that his own police forces, in order to gain favor, "lie and exaggerate in the most shameful manner."[47] But such an idea seems never to enter the minds of the great American employers, who, although becoming more and more like the ruling classes of Europe, are not yet so wise. However, the great employer, like the great ruler, is unable now to meet his employees in person and to find out their real views. Consequently, he must depend upon paid agents to report to him the views of his men. This might all be very well if the returns were true. But, when it happens that evil reports are very much to the pecuniary advantage of the man who makes them, is it likely that there will be any other kind of report? Thousands of employers, therefore, are coming more and more to be convinced that their workmen spend most of their time plotting against them. It seems unreasonable that sane men could believe that their employees, who are regularly at work every day striving with might and main to support and bring up decently their families, should be at the same time planning the most diabolical outrages. Nothing is rarer than to find criminals among workingmen, for if they were given to crime they would not be at work. But with the great modern evil—the separation of the classes—there comes so much of misunderstanding and of mistrust that the employer seems only too willing to believe any paid villain who tells him that his tired and worn laborers have murder in their hearts. The class struggle is a terrible fact; but the class hatred and the personal enmity that are growing among both masters and men in the United States are natural and inevitable results of this system of spies and informers.

How widespread this evil has become is shown by the fact that nearly every large corporation now employs numerous spies, informers, and special officers, from whom they receive daily reports concerning the conversations among their men and the plans of the unions. Thousands of these detectives are, in fact, members of the unions. The employers are, of course, under the impression that they are thus protecting themselves from misinformation and also from the possibility of injury, but, as we have seen, they are in reality placing themselves at the mercy of these spies in the same manner as every despot in the past has placed himself at the mercy of those who brought him information. It may, perhaps, be possible that the Carnegie Company in 1892, the railroads in 1894, and the mine owners in 1904 were convinced that their employees were under the influence of dangerous men. Very likely they were told that their workmen were planning assaults upon their lives and property. It would not be strange if these large owners of property had been so informed. Indeed, the economics of this whole wretched commerce becomes clear only when we realize that the terror that results from such reports leads these capitalists to employ more and more hirelings, to pay them larger and larger fees, and in this manner to reward lies and to make even assaults prove immensely profitable to the detectives. So it happens that the great employers are chiefly responsible for introducing among their men the very elements that are making for riot, crime, and anarchy.

Close and intimate relations with the employers and with the men during several fiercely fought industrial conflicts have convinced me that the struggle between them rarely degenerates to that plane of barbarism in which either the men or the masters deliberately resort to, or encourage, murder, arson, and similar crimes. So far as the men are concerned, they have every reason in the world to discourage violence, and nothing is clearer to most of them than the solemn fact that every time property is destroyed, or men injured, the employers win public support, the aid of the press, the pulpit, the police, the courts, and all the powers of the State. Men do not knowingly injure themselves or persist in a course adverse to their material interests. It is true, as I think I have made clear in the previous chapters, that some of the workers do advocate violence, and, in a few cases that instantly became notorious, labor leaders have been found guilty of serious crimes. That these instances are comparatively rare is explained, of course, by the fact that violence is known invariably to injure the cause of the worker. It would be strange, therefore, if the workers did systematically plan outrages. On the other hand, it would be strange if the employers did not at times rejoice that somebody—the workmen, the detectives, or others—had committed some outrage and thus brought the public sentiment and the State's power to the aid of the employers. One cannot escape the thought that the employers would hardly finance so readily these so-called detectives, and inquire so little into their actual deeds, if they were not convinced that violence at the time of a strike materially aids the employer. Yet, despite evidence to the contrary, it may, I think, be said with truth that the lawlessness attending strikes is not, as a rule, the result of deliberate planning on the part of the men or of the masters.

There are, of course, numerous exceptions, and if we find the McNamaras on the one side, we also find some unscrupulous employers on the other. To the latter, violence becomes of the greatest service, in that it enables them to say with apparent truth that they are not fighting reasonable, law-abiding workmen, but assassins and incendiaries. No course is easier for the employer who does not seek to deal honestly with his men, and none more secure for that employer whose position is wholly indefensible on the subject of hours and wages, than to sidetrack all these issues by hypocritically declaring that he refuses to deal with men who are led by criminals. And it is quite beyond question that some such employers have deliberately urged their "detectives" to create trouble. Positive evidence is at hand that a few such employers have themselves directed the work of incendiaries, thugs, and rioters. With such amazing evidence as we have recently had concerning the systematically lawless work of the Manufacturers' Association, it is impossible to free the employers of all personal responsibility for the outrages committed by their criminal agents. There are many different ways in which violence benefits the employer, and it may even be said that in all cases it is only to the interest of the employer. As a matter of fact, with the systems of insurance now existing, any injury to the property of the employer means no loss to him whatever. The only possible loss that he can suffer is through the prolongation and success of the strike. If the workers can be discredited and the strike broken through the aid of violence, the ordinary employer is not likely to make too rigid an investigation into whether or not his "detectives" had a hand in it.

Curiously enough, the general public never dreams that special officers are responsible for most of the violence at times of strike, and, while the men loudly accuse the employers, the employers loudly accuse the men. The employers are, of course, informed by the detectives that the outrages have been committed by the strikers, and the detectives have seen to it that the employers are prepared to believe that the strikers are capable of anything. On the other hand, the men are convinced that the employers are personally responsible. They see hundreds and sometimes thousands of special officers swarming throughout the district. They know that these men are paid by somebody, and they are convinced that their bullying, insulting talk and actions represent the personal wishes of the employers. When they knock down strikers, beat them up, arrest them, or even shoot them, the men believe that all these acts are dictated by the employers. It is utterly impossible to describe the bitterness that is aroused among the men by the presence of these thugs. And the testimony taken by various commissions regarding strikes proves clearly enough that strikes are not only embittered but prolonged by the presence of detectives. Again and again, mediators have declared that, as soon as thugs are brought into the conflict, the settlement of a strike is made impossible until either the employers or the men are exhausted by the struggle. A number of reputable detectives have testified that the chief object of those who engage in "strike-breaking" is to prolong strikes in order to keep themselves employed as long as possible. Thus, the employers as well as the men are the victims of this commerce in violence.

It will, I am sure, be obvious to the reader that it would require a very large volume to deal with all the various phases of the work of the detective in the numerous great strikes that have occurred in recent years. I have endeavored merely to mention a few instances where their activities have led to the breaking down of all civil government. It is important, however, to emphasize the fact that there is no strike of any magnitude in which these hirelings are not employed. I have taken the following quotation as typical of numerous circulars which I have seen, that have been issued by detective agencies: "This bureau has made a specialty of handling strikes for over half a century, and our clients are among the largest corporations in the world. During the recent trouble between the steamboat companies and the striking longshoremen in New York City this office ... supplied one thousand guards.... Our charges for guards, motormen, conductors, and all classes of men during the time of trouble is $5.00 per day, your company to pay transportation, board, and lodge the men."[48] Here is another agency that has been engaged in this business for half a century, and there are thousands of others engaged in it now. One of them is known to have in its employ constantly five thousand men. And, if we look into the deeds of these great armies of mercenaries, we find that there is not a state in the Union in which they have not committed assault, arson, robbery, and murder. Several years ago at Lattimer, Pennsylvania, a perfectly peaceable parade of two hundred and fifty miners was attacked by guards armed with Winchester rifles, with the result that twenty-nine workers were killed and thirty others seriously injured. This was deliberate and unprovoked slaughter. Recently, in the Westmoreland mining district, no less than twenty striking miners have been murdered, while several hundred have been seriously injured. On one occasion deputies and strike-breakers became intoxicated and "shot up the town" of Latrobe. In the recent strike against the Lake Carriers' Association six union men were killed by private detectives. In Tampa, Florida, in Columbus, Ohio, in Birmingham, Alabama, in Lawrence, Massachusetts, in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, in the mining districts of West Virginia, and in innumerable other places many workingmen have been murdered, not by officers of the law, but by privately paid assassins.

Even while writing these lines I notice a telegram to the Appeal to Reason from Adolph Germer, an official of the United Mine Workers of America, that some thugs, formerly in West Virginia, are now in Colorado, and that their first work there was to shoot down in cold blood a well-known miner. John Walker, a district president of the United Mine Workers of America, telegraphs the same day to the labor press that two of the strikers in the copper mines in Michigan were shot down by detectives, in the effort, he says, to provoke the men to violence. Anyone who cares to follow the labor press for but a short period will be astonished to find how frequently such outrages occur, and he will marvel that men can be so self-controlled as the strikers usually are under such terrible provocation. I mention hastily these facts in order to emphasize the point that the cases in which I have gone into detail in this chapter are more or less typical of the bloody character of many of the great strikes because of the deeds of the so-called detectives.

Brief, however, as this statement is of the work of these anarchists "without phrase" and of the great commerce they have built up, it must, nevertheless, convince anyone that republican institutions cannot long exist in a country which tolerates such an extensive private commerce in lawlessness and crime. Government by law cannot prevail in the same field with a widespread and profitable traffic in disorder, thuggery, arson, and murder. Here is a whole brood of mercenaries, the output of hundreds of great penitentiaries, that has been organized and systematized into a great commerce to serve the rich and powerful. Here is a whole mess of infamy developed into a great private enterprise that militates against all law and order. It has already brought the United States on more than one occasion to the verge of civil war. And, despite the fact that numerous judges have publicly condemned the work of these agencies, and that various governmental commissions have deprecated in the most solemn words this traffic in crime, it continues to grow and prosper in the most alarming manner. Certainly, no student of history will doubt that, if this commerce is permitted to continue, it will not be long until no man's life, honor, or property will be secure. And it is a question, even at this moment, whether the legislators have the courage to attack this powerful American Mafia that has already developed into a "vested interest."

As I said at the beginning, no other country has this form of anarchy to contend with. In all countries, no doubt, there are associations of criminals, and everywhere, perhaps, it is possible for wealthy men to employ criminals to work for them. But even the Mafia, the Camorra, and the Black Hand do not exist for the purpose of collecting and organizing mercenaries to serve the rich and powerful. Nor anywhere else in the world are these criminals made special officers, deputy sheriffs, deputy marshals, and thus given the authority of the State itself. The assumption is so general that the State invariably stands behind the private detective that few seem to question it, and even the courts frequently recognize them as quasi-public officials. Thus, the State itself aids and abets these mercenary anarchists, while it sends to the gallows idealist anarchists, such as Henry, Vaillant, Lingg, and their like. That the State fosters this "infant industry" is the only possible explanation for the fact that in every industrial conflict of the past the real provokers and executors of arson, riot, and murder have escaped prison, while in every case labor leaders have been put in jail—often without warrant—and in many cases kept there for many months without trial. Even the writ of habeas corpus has been denied them repeatedly. Without the active connivance of the State such conditions could not exist. However, the State goes even further in its opposition to labor. The power of a state governor to call out the militia, to declare even a peaceful district in a state of insurrection, and to abolish the writ of habeas corpus is a very great power indeed and one that is unquestionably an anomaly in a republic. If that power were used with equal justice, it might not create the intense bitterness that has been so frequently aroused among the workers by its exercise. Again and again it has been used in the interest of capital, but there is not one single case in all the records where this extraordinary prerogative has been exercised to protect the interest of the workers. It is not, then, either unreasonable or unjustifiable that among workmen the sentiment is almost unanimous that the State stands invariably against them. The three instances which I have dealt with here at some length prove conclusively that there is now no penalty inflicted upon the capitalist who hires thugs to invade a community and shoot down its citizens, or upon those who hire him these assassins, or upon the assassins themselves. Nor are the powerful punished when they collect a great army of criminals, drunkards, and hoodlums and make them officials of the United States to insult and bully decent citizens. Nor does there seem to be any punishment inflicted upon those who manage to transform the Government itself into a shield to protect toughs and criminals in their assaults upon men and property, when those assaults are in the interest of capital. Moreover, what could be more humiliating in a republic than the fact that a governor who has leased to his friends the military forces of an entire state should end his term of office unimpeached?

These various phases of the class conflict reveal a distressing state of industrial and political anarchy, and there can be no question that, if continued, it has in it the power of making many McNamaras, if not Bakounins. It will be fortunate, indeed, if there do not arise new Johann Mosts, and if the United States escapes the general use in time of that terrible, secretive, and deadly weapon of sabotage. Sabotage is the arm of the slave or the coward, who dares neither to speak his views nor to fight an open fight. As someone has said, it may merely mean the kicking of the master's dog. Yet no one is so cruel as the weak and the cowardly. And should it ever come about that millions and millions of men have all other avenues closed to them, there is still left to them sabotage, assassination, and civil war. These can neither be outlawed nor even effectively guarded against if there are individuals enough who are disposed to wield them. And it is not by any means idle speculation that a country which can sit calmly by and face such evils as are perpetrated by this vast commerce in violence, by this class use of the State, and by such monstrous outrages as were committed in Homestead, in Chicago, and in Colorado, will find one day its composure interrupted by a working class that has suffered more than human endurance can stand.

The fact is that society—the big body of us—is now menaced by two sets of anarchists. There are those among the poor and the weak who preach arson, dynamite, and sabotage. They are the products of conditions such as existed in Colorado—as Bakounin was the product of the conditions in Russia. These, after all, are relatively few, and their power is almost nothing. They are listened to now, but not heeded, because there yet exist among the people faith in the ultimate victory of peaceable means and the hope that men and not property will one day rule the State. The other set of anarchists are those powerful, influential terrorists who talk hypocritically of their devotion to the State, the law, the Constitution, and the courts, but who, when the slightest obstacle stands in the path of their greed, seize from their corrupt tools the reins of government, in order to rule society with the black-jack and the "bull pen." The idealist anarchist and even the more practical syndicalist, preaching openly and frankly that there is nothing left to the poor but war, are, after all, few in number and weak in action. Yet how many to-day despair of peaceable methods when they see all these outrages committed by mercenaries, protected and abetted by the official State, in the interest of the most sordid anarchism!

As a matter of fact, the socialist is to-day almost alone, among those watching intently this industrial strife, in keeping buoyant his abiding faith in the ultimate victory of the people. He has fought successfully against Bakounin. He is overcoming the newest anarchists, and he is already measuring swords with the oldest anarchists. He is confident as to the issue. He has more than dreams; he knows, and has all the comfort of that knowledge, that anarchy in government like anarchy in production is reaching the end of its rope. Outlawry for profit, as well as production for profit, are soon to be things of the past. The socialist feels himself a part of the growing power that is soon to rule society. He is conscious of being an agent of a world-wide movement that is massing into an irresistible human force millions upon millions of the disinherited. He has unbounded faith that through that mass power industry will be socialized and the State democratized. No longer will its use be merely to serve and promote private enterprise in foul tenements, in sweatshops, and in all the products that are necessary to life and to death. All these vast commercial enterprises that exist not to serve society but to enrich the rich—including even this sordid traffic in thuggery and in murder—are soon to pass into history as part of a terrible, culminating epoch in commercial, financial, and political anarchy. The socialist, who sees the root of all anti-social individualism in the predominance of private material interests over communal material interests, knows that the hour is arriving when the social instincts and the life interests of practically all the people will be arrayed against anarchy in all its forms. Commerce in violence, like commerce in the necessaries of life, is but a part of a social regime that is disappearing, and, while most others in society seem to see only phases of this gigantic conflict between capital and labor, and, while most others look upon it as something irremediable, the socialist, standing amidst millions upon millions of his comrades, is even now beginning to see visions of victory.

FOOTNOTE:

[AF] The Supreme Court sustained the action of the military authorities, Chief Justice William H. Gabbert, Associate justice John Campbell, concurring, Associate Justice Robert W. Steele dissenting. The dissenting opinion of Justice Steele deserves a wider reading than it has received, and no doubt it will rank among the most important statements that have been made against the anarchy of the powerful and the tyranny of class government. See Report, U. S. Bureau of Labor, 1905, p. 243.



CHAPTER XII

VISIONS OF VICTORY

We left the socialists, on September 30, 1890, in the midst of jubilation over the great victory they had just won in Germany. The Iron Chancellor, with all the power of State and society in his hands, had capitulated before the moral force and mass power of the German working class. And, when the sensational news went out to all countries that the German socialists had polled 1,427,000 votes, the impulse given to the political organizations of the working class was immense. Once again the thought of labor throughout the world was centered upon those stirring words of Marx and Engels: "Workingmen of all countries, Unite!" First uttered by them in '47, repeated in '64, and pleaded for once again in '72, this call to unity began to appear in the nineties as the one supreme commandment of the labor movement. And, in truth, it is an epitome of all their teachings. It is the pith of their program and the marrow of their principles. Nearly all else can be waived. Other principles can be altered; other programs abandoned; other methods revolutionized; but this principle, program, and method must not be tampered with. It is the one and only unalterable law. In unity, and in unity alone, is the power of salvation. And under the inspiration of this call more and more millions have come together, until to-day, in every portion of the world, there are multitudes affiliated to the one and only international army. In '47 it was not yet born. In '64 efforts were made to bring it into being. In '72 it was broken into fragments. In '90 it won its first battle—its right to exist. Now, twenty-three years later, nothing could be so eloquent and impressive as the figures themselves of the rising tide of international socialism.

THE SOCIALIST AND LABOR VOTE, 1887-1913.

——————————————————————————————————— ——————————————————————————————————— 1887 1892 1897 1903 1913 ——————————————————————————————————— Germany 763,000 1,786,000 2,107,000 3,010,000 4,250,329 France 47,000 440,000 790,000 805,000 1,125,877 Austria 750,000 780,000 1,081,441 United States 2,000 21,000 55,000 223,494 931,406 Italy 26,000 135,000 300,000 825,280 Australia 678,012 Belgium 320,000 457,000 464,000[AG] 600,000 Great Britain 55,000 100,000 373,645 Finland 10,000 320,289 Russia 200,000 Sweden 723 10,000 170,299 Norway 7,000 30,000 124,594 Denmark 8,000 20,000 32,000 53,000 107,015 Switzerland 2,000 39,000 40,000 70,000 105,000 Holland 1,500 13,000 38,000 82,494 New Zealand 44,960 Spain 5,000 14,000 23,000 40,725 Bulgaria 25,565 Argentina 54,000 Chile 18,000 Greece 26,000 Canada 10,780 Servia 9,000 Luxembourg 4,000 Portugal 3,308 Roumania 2,057 ———- ————- ————- ————- ————— Total 823,500 2,657,723 4,455,000 5,916,494 11,214,076 ——————————————————————————————————— ———————————————————————————————————

The above table explains, in no small measure, the quiet patience and supreme confidence of the socialist. He looks upon that wonderful array of figures as the one most significant fact in the modern world. Within a quarter of a century his force has grown from 800,000 to 11,000,000. And, while no other movement in history has grown so rapidly and traversed the entire world with such speed, the socialist knows that even this table inadequately indicates his real power. For instance, in Great Britain the Labor Party has over one million dues-paying members, yet its vote is here placed at 373,645. Owing to the peculiar political conditions existing in that country, it is almost impossible for the Labor Party to put up its candidates in all districts, and these figures include only that small proportion of workingmen who have been able to cast their votes for their own candidates. The two hundred thousand socialist votes in Russia do not at all represent the sentiment in that country. Everything there militates against the open expression, and, indeed, the possibility of any expression, of the actual socialist sentiment. In addition, great masses of workingmen in many countries are still deprived of the suffrage, and in nearly all countries the wives of these men are deprived of the suffrage. Leaving, however, all this aside, and taking the common reckoning of five persons to each voter, the socialist strength of the world to-day cannot be estimated at less than fifty million souls.

Coming to the parliamentary strength of the socialists, we find the table on the following page illuminating.

SOCIALIST AND LABOR REPRESENTATIVES IN PARLIAMENT.

Number of Seats Per in Lower House. Cent. Total Socialist. Socialist ——————————————————————— Australia 75 41 54.61 Finland 200 90 45.00 Sweden 165 64 38.79 Denmark 114 32 28.07 Germany 397 110 27.71 Belgium 186 39 20.96 Norway 123 23 18.70 Holland 100 17 17.00 Austria 516 82 15.89 Italy 508 78 15.35 Luxembourg 53 7 13.21 France 597 75 12.56 Switzerland 170 15 8.82 Great Britain 670 41 6.12 Russia 442 16 3.62 Greece 207 4 2.00 Argentina 120 2 1.67 Servia 160 1 .62 Portugal 164 1 .61 Bulgaria 189 1 .53 Spain 404 1 .25 ——————————————————————— ———————————————————————

It appears that labor is in control of Australia, that 45 per cent. of the Finnish Parliament is socialist, while in Sweden more than a third, and in Germany and Denmark somewhat less than a third, is socialist. In several of the Northern countries of Europe the parliamentary position of the socialists is stronger than that of any other single party. In addition to the representatives here listed, Belgium has seven senators, Denmark four, and Sweden twelve, while in the state legislatures Austria has thirty-one, Germany one hundred and eighty-five, and the United States twenty. Here again the strength of socialism is greatly understated. In the United States, for instance, the astonishing fact appears that, with a vote of nearly a million, the socialist party has not one representative in Congress. On the basis of proportional representation it would have at least twenty-five Congressmen; and, if it were a sectional party, it could, with its million votes, control all the Southern states and elect every Congressman and Senator from those states. The socialists in the German Reichstag are numerous, but on a fair system of representation they would have two or three score more representatives than at present. However, this, too, is of little consequence, and in no wise disturbs the thoughtful socialist. The immense progress of his cause completely satisfies him, and, if the rate of advance continues, it can be only a few years until a world victory is at hand.

If, now, we turn from the political aspects of the labor movement to examine the growth of cooeperatives and of trade unions, we find a progress no less striking. In actual membership the trade unions of twenty nations in 1911 had amassed over eleven million men and women. And the figures sent out by the international secretary do not include countries so strongly organized as Canada, New Zealand, and Australia. Unfortunately, it is impossible to add here reliable figures regarding the wealth of the great and growing cooeperative movement. In Britain, Germany, Belgium, France, Italy, and Switzerland, as well as in the Northern countries of Central Europe, the cooeperative movement has made enormous headway in recent years. The British cooeperators, according to the report of the Federation of Cooeperative Societies, had in 1912 a turnover amounting to over six hundred millions of dollars. They have over twenty-four hundred stores scattered throughout the cities of Great Britain. The Cooeperative Productive Society and the Cooeperative Wholesale Society produced goods in their own shops to a value of over sixty-five millions of dollars; while the goods produced by the Cooeperative Provision Stores amounted to over forty million dollars. Seven hundred and sixty societies have Children's Penny Banks, with a total balance in hand of about eight million dollars. The members of these various cooeperative societies number approximately three million.[AH] Throughout all Europe, through cooeperative effort, there have been erected hundreds of splendid "Houses of the People," "Labor Temples," and similar places of meeting and recreation. The entire labor, socialist, and cooeperative press, numbering many thousands of monthly and weekly journals, and hundreds of daily papers, is also usually owned cooeperatively. Unfortunately, the statistics dealing with this phase of the labor movement have never been gathered with any idea of completeness, and there is little use in trying even to estimate the immense wealth that is now owned by these organizations of workingmen.

America lags somewhat behind the other countries, but nowhere else have such difficulties faced the labor movement. With a working class made up of many races, nationalities, and creeds, trade-union organization is excessively difficult. Moreover, where the railroads secretly rebate certain industries and help to destroy the competitors of those industries, and where the trusts exercise enormous power, a cooeperative movement is well-nigh impossible. Furthermore, where vast numbers of the working class are still disfranchised, and where elections are notoriously corrupt and more or less under the control of a hireling class of professional political manipulators, an independent political movement faces almost insurmountable obstacles. Nor is this all. No other country allows its ruling classes to employ private armies, thugs, and assassins; and no other country makes such an effort to prevent the working classes from acting peaceably and legally. While nearly everywhere else the unions may strike, picket, and boycott, in America there are laws to prevent both picketing and boycotting, and even some forms of strikes. The most extraordinary despotic judicial powers are exercised to crush the unions, to break strikes, and to imprison union men. And, if paid professional armies of detectives deal with the unions, so paid professional armies of politicians deal with the socialists. By every form of debauchery, lawlessness, and corruption they are beaten back, and, although it is absolutely incredible, not a single representative of a great party polling nearly a million votes sits in the Congress of the United States.

Nevertheless, the American socialist and labor movement is making headway, and the day is not far distant when it will exercise the power its strength merits. Although somewhat more belated, the various elements of the working class are coming closer and closer together, and it cannot be long until there will be perfect harmony throughout the entire movement. In many other countries this harmony already exists. The trade-union, cooeperative, and socialist movements are so closely tied together that they move in every industrial, political, and commercial conflict in complete accord. So far as the immediate aims of labor are concerned, they may be said to be almost identical in all countries. Professor Werner Sombart, who for years has watched the world movement more carefully perhaps than anyone else, has pointed out that there is a strong tendency to uniformity in all countries—a "tendency," in his own words, "of the movement in all lands toward socialism."[1] Indeed, nothing so much astonishes careful observers of the labor movement as the extraordinary rapidity with which the whole world of labor is becoming unified, in its program of principles, in its form of organization, and in its methods of action. The books of Marx and Engels are now translated into every important language and are read with eagerness in all parts of the world. The Communist Manifesto of 1847 is issued by the socialist parties of all countries as the text-book of the movement. Indeed, it is not uncommon nowadays to see a socialist book translated immediately into all the chief languages and circulated by millions of copies. And, if one will take up the political programs of the party in the twenty chief nations of the world, he will find them reading almost word for word alike. For these various reasons no informed person to-day questions the claims of the socialist as to the international, world-wide character of the movement.

Perhaps there is no experience quite like that of the socialist who attends one of the great periodical gatherings of the international movement. He sees there a thousand or more delegates, with credentials from organizations numbering approximately ten million adherents. They come from all parts of the world—from mills, mines, factories, and fields—to meet together, and, in the recent congresses, to pass in utmost harmony their resolutions in opposition to the existing regime and their suggestions for remedial action. Not only the countries of Western Europe, but Russia, Japan, China, and the South American Republics send their representatives, and, although the delegates speak as many as thirty different languages, they manage to assemble in a common meeting, and, with hardly a dissenting voice, transact their business. When we consider all the jealousy, rivalry, and hatred that have been whipped up for hundreds of years among the peoples of the various nations, races, and creeds, these international congresses of workingmen become in themselves one of the greatest achievements of modern times.

Although Marx was, as I think I have made clear, and still is, the guiding spirit of modern socialism, the huge structure of the present labor movement has not been erected by any great architect who saw it all in advance, nor has any great leader molded its varied and wonderful lines. It is the work of a multitude, who have quarreled among themselves at every stage of its building. They differed as to the purpose of the structure, as to the materials to be used, and, indeed, upon every detail, big and little, that has had to do with it. At times all building has been stopped in order that the different views might be harmonized or the quarrels fought to a finish. Again and again portions have been built only to be torn down and thrown aside. Some have seen more clearly than others the work to be done, and one, at least, of the architects must be recognized as a kind of prophet who, in the main, outlined the structure. But the architects were not the builders, and among the multitude engaged in that work there have been years of quarrels and decades of strife. The story of terrorism, as told, is that of a group who had no conception of the structure to be erected. They were a band of dissidents, without patience to build. They and their kind have never been absent from the labor movement, and, in fact, for nearly one hundred years a battle has raged in one form or another between those few of the workers who were urging, with passionate fire, what they called "action" and that multitude of others who day and night were laying stone upon stone.

No individual—in fact, nothing but a force as strong and compelling as a natural law—could have brought into existence such a vast solidarity as now exists in the world of labor. Like food and drink, the organization of labor satisfies an inherent necessity. The workers crave its protection, seek its guidance, and possess a sense of security only when supported by its solidarity. Only something as intuitively impelling as the desire for life could have called forth the labor and love and sacrifice that have been lavishly expended in the disheartening and incredibly tedious work of labor organization. The upbuilding of the labor movement has seemed at times like constructing a house of cards: often it was hardly begun before some ill wind cast it down. It has cost many of its creators exile, imprisonment, starvation, and death. With one mighty assault its opponents have often razed to the ground the work of years. Yet, as soon as the eyes of its destroyers were turned, a multitude of loving hands and broken hearts set to work to patch up its scattered fragments and build it anew. The labor movement is unconquerable.

Unlike many other aggregations, associations, and benevolent orders, unlike the Church, to which it is frequently compared, the labor movement is not a purely voluntary union. No doubt there is a camaraderie in that movement, and unquestionably the warmest spirit of fellowship often prevails, but the really effective cause for working-class unity is economic necessity. The workers have been driven together. The unions subsist not because of leaders and agitators, but because of the compelling economic interests of their members. They are efforts to allay the deadly strife among workers, as organizations of capital are efforts to allay the deadly strife among capitalists. The cooeperative movement has grown into a vast commerce wholly because it served the self-interest of the workers. The trade unions have grown big in all countries because of the protection, they offer and the insurance they provide against low wages, long hours, and poverty. The socialist parties have grown great because they express the highest social aspirations of the workers and their antagonism toward the present regime. Moreover, they offer an opportunity to put forward, in the most authoritative places, the demands of the workers for political, social, and economic reform. The whole is a struggle for democracy, both political and industrial, that is by no means founded merely on whim or caprice. It has gradually become a religion, an imperative religion, of millions of workingmen and women. Chiefly because of their economic subjection, they are striving in the most heroic manner to make their voice heard in those places where the rules of the game of life are decided. Thus, every phase of the labor movement has arisen in response to actual material needs.

And, if the labor movement has arisen in response to actual material needs, it is now a very great and material actuality. The workingmen of the world are, as we have seen, uniting at a pace so rapid as to be almost unbelievable. There are to-day not only great national organizations of labor in nearly every country, but these national movements are bound closely together into one unified international power. The great world-wide movement of labor, which Marx and Engels prophesied would come, is now here. And, if they were living to-day, they could not but be astonished at the real and mighty manifestation of their early dreams. To be sure, Engels lived long enough to be jubilant over the massing of labor's forces, but Marx saw little of it, and even the German socialists, who started out so brilliantly, were at the time of his death fighting desperately for existence under the anti-socialist law. Indeed, in 1883, the year of his death, the labor movement was still torn by quarrels and dissensions over problems of tactics, and in America, France, and Austria the terrorists were more active than at any time in their history. It was still a question whether the German movement could survive, while in the other countries the socialists were still little more than sects. That was just thirty years ago, while to-day, as we have seen, over ten millions of workingmen, scattered throughout the entire world, fight every one of their battles on the lines laid down by Marx. The tactics and principles he outlined are now theirs. The unity of the workers he pleaded for is rapidly being achieved throughout the entire world, and everywhere these armies are marching toward the goal made clear by his life and labor. "Although I have seen him to-night," writes Engels to Liebknecht, March 14, 1883, "stretched out on his bed, the face rigid in death, I cannot grasp the thought that this genius should have ceased to fertilize with his powerful thoughts the proletarian movement of both worlds. Whatever we all are, we are through him; and whatever the movement of to-day is, it is through his theoretical and practical work; without him we should still be stuck in the mire of confusion."[2]

What was this mire? If we will cast our eyes back to the middle of last century we cannot but realize that the ideas of the world have undergone a complete revolution. When Marx began his work with the labor movement there was absolute ignorance among both masters and men concerning the nature of capitalism. It was a great and terrible enigma which no one understood. The working class itself was broken up into innumerable guerilla bands fighting hopelessly, aimlessly, with the most antiquated and ineffectual weapons. They were in misery; but why, they knew not. They left their work to riot for days and weeks, without aim and without purpose. They were bitter and sullen. They smashed machines and burned factories, chiefly because they were totally ignorant of the causes of their misery or of the nature of their real antagonist. Not seldom in those days there were meetings of hundreds of thousands of laborers, and not infrequently mysterious epidemics of fires and of machine-breaking occurred throughout all the factory districts. Again and again the soldiers were brought out to massacre the laborers. In all England—then the most advanced industrially—there were few who understood capitalism, and among masters or men there was hardly one who knew the real source of all the immense, intolerable economic evils.

The class struggle was there, and it was being fought more furiously and violently than ever before or since. The most striking rebels of the time were those that Marx called the "bourgeois democrats." They were forever preaching open and violent revolution. They were dreaming of the glorious day when, amid insurrection and riot, they should stand at the barricades, fighting the battle for freedom. In their little circles they "were laying plans for the overthrow of the world and intoxicating themselves day by day, evening by evening, with the hasheesh-drink of: 'To-morrow it will start;'"[3] Before and after the revolutionary period of '48 there were innumerable thousands of these fugitives, exiles, and men of action obsessed with the dream that a great revolutionary cataclysm was soon to occur which would lay in ruins the old society. That a crisis was impending everyone believed, including even Marx and Engels. In fact, for over twenty years, from 1847 to 1871, the "extemporizers of revolutions" fretfully awaited the supreme hour. Toward the end of the period appeared Bakounin and Nechayeff with their robber worship, conspiratory secret societies, and international network of revolutionists. Wherever capitalism made headway the workers grew more and more rebellious, but neither they nor those who sought to lead them, and often did, in fact, lead them, had much of any program beyond destruction. Bakounin was not far wrong, at the time, in thinking that he was "spreading among the masses ideas corresponding to the instincts of the masses,"[4] when he advocated the destruction of the Government, the Church, the mills, the factories, and the palaces, to the end that "not a stone should be left upon a stone."

This was the mire of confusion that Engels speaks of. There was not one with any program at all adequate to meet the problem. The aim of the rebels went little beyond retaliation and destruction. What were the weapons employed by the warriors of this period? Street riots and barricades were those of the "bourgeois democrats"; strikes, machine-breaking, and incendiarism were those of the workers; and later the terrorists came with their robber worship and Propaganda of the Deed. In the midst of this veritable passion for destruction Marx and Engels found themselves. Here was a period when direct action was supreme. There was nothing else, and no one dreamed of anything else. The enemies of the existing order were employing exactly the same means and methods used by the upholders of that order. Among the workers, for instance, the only weapons used were general strikes, boycotts, and what is now called sabotage. These were wholly imitative and retaliative. It is clear that the strike is, after all, only an inverted lockout; and as early as 1833 a general strike was parried by a general lockout. The boycott is identical with the blacklist. The employer boycotts union leaders and union men. The employees boycott the non-union products of the employer; while sabotage, the most ancient weapon of labor, answers poor pay with poor work, and broken machines for broken lives. And, if the working class was striking back with the same weapons that were being used against it, so, too, were the "pan-destroyers," except that for the most part their weapons were incredibly inadequate and ridiculous. Sticks and stones and barricades were their method of combating rifles and trained armies. All this again is more evidence of the mire of confusion.

However, if the weapons of the rebellious were utterly futile and ineffectual, there were no others, for every move the workers or their friends made was considered lawless. All political and trades associations were against the law. Peaceable assembly was sedition. Strikes were treason. Picketing was intimidation; and the boycott was conspiracy in restraint of trade. Such associations as existed were forced to become secret societies, and, even if a working-class newspaper appeared, it was almost immediately suppressed. And, if all forms of trade-union activity were criminal, political activity was impossible where the vast majority of toilers had no votes. With methods mainly imitative, retaliative, and revengeful; with no program of what was wanted; in total ignorance of the causes of their misery; and with little appreciation that in unity there is strength, the workers and their friends, in the middle of the last century, were stuck in the mire—of ignorance, helplessness, and confusion.

This was the world in which Marx and Engels began their labor. Direct action was at its zenith, and the struggle of the classes was ferocious. Indeed, all Europe was soon to see barricades in every city, and thrones and governments tumbling into apparent ruin. Yet in the midst of all this wild confusion, and even touching elbows with the leaders of these revolutionary storms, Marx and Engels outlined in clear, simple, and powerful language the nature of capitalism—what it was, how it came into being, and what it was yet destined to become. They pointed out that it was not individual employers or individual statesmen or the Government or even kings and princes who were responsible for the evils of society, but that unemployment, misery, and oppression were due to an economic system, and that so long as capitalism existed the mass of humanity would be sunk in poverty. They called attention to the long evolutionary processes that had been necessary to change the entire world from a state of feudalism into a state of capitalism; and how it was not due to man's will-power that the great industrial revolution occurred, but to the growth of machines, of steam, and of electrical power; and that it was these that have made the modern world, with its intense and terrible contrasts of riches and of poverty. They also pointed out that little individual owners of property were giving way to joint-stock companies, and that these would in turn give way to even greater aggregations of capital. An economic law was driving the big capitalists to eat up the little capitalists. It was forcing them to take from the workers their hand tools and to drive them out of their home workshops; it was forcing them also to take from the small property owners their little properties and to appropriate the wealth of the world into their own hands. As a result of this economic process, "private property," they said, "is already done away with for nine-tenths of the population."[5] But they also pointed out that capitalism had within itself the seeds of its own dissolution, that it was creating a new class, made up of the overwhelming majority, that was destined in time to overthrow capitalism. "What the bourgeoisie therefore produces, above all, are its own grave diggers."[6] In the interest of society the nine-tenths would force the one-tenth to yield up its private property, that is to say, its "power to subjugate the labor of others."[7]

Taking their stand on this careful analysis of historic progress and of economic evolution, they viewed with contempt the older fighting methods of the revolutionists, and turned their vials of satire and wrath upon Herwegh, Willich, Schapper, Kinkel, Ledru-Rollin, Bakounin, and all kinds and species of revolution-makers. They deplored incendiarism, machine destruction, and all the purely retaliative acts of the laborers. They even ridiculed the general strike.[AI] And, while for thirty years they assailed anarchists, terrorists, and direct-actionists, they never lost an opportunity to impress upon the workers of Europe the only possible method of effectually combating capitalism. There must first be unity—world-wide, international unity—among all the forces of labor. And, secondly, all the energies of a united labor movement must be centered upon the all-important contest for control of political power. They fought incessantly with their pens to bring home the great truth that every class struggle is a political struggle; and, while they were working to emphasize that fact, they began in 1864 actually to organize the workers of Europe to fight that struggle. The first great practical work of the International was to get votes for workingmen. It was the chief thought and labor of Marx during the first years of that organization to win for the English workers the suffrage, while in Germany all his followers—including Lassalle as well as Bebel and Liebknecht—labored throughout the sixties to that end. Up to the present the main work of the socialist movement throughout the world has been to fight for, and its main achievement to obtain, the legal weapons essential for its battles.

Let us try to grasp the immensity of the task actually executed by Marx. First, consider his scientific work. During all the period of these many battles every leisure moment was spent in study. While others were engaged in organizing what they were pleased to call the "Revolution" and waiting about for it to start, Marx, Engels, Liebknecht, and all this group were spending innumerable hours in the library. We see the result of that labor in the three great volumes of "Capital," in many pamphlets, and in other writings. By this painstaking scientific work of Marx the nature of capitalism was made known and, consequently, what it was that should be combated, and how the battle should be waged. In addition to these studies, which have been of such priceless value to the labor and socialist movements of the world, Marx, by his pitiless logic and incessant warfare, destroyed every revolution-maker, and then, by an act of surgery that many declared would prove fatal, cut out of the labor movement the "pan-destroyers." Once more, by a supreme effort, he turned the thought of labor throughout the world to the one end and aim of winning its political weapons, of organizing its political armies, and of uniting the working classes of all lands. Here, then, is a brief summary of the work of this genius, who fertilized with his powerful thoughts the proletarian movements of both worlds. The most wonderful thing of all is that, in his brief lifetime, he should not only have planned this gigantic task, but that he should have obtained the essentials for its complete accomplishment.

And, as we look out upon the world to-day, we find it actually a different world, almost a new world. The present-day conflict between capital and labor has no more the character of the guerilla warfare of half a century ago. It is now a struggle between immense organizations of capital and immense organizations of labor. And not only has there been a revolution in ideas concerning the nature of capitalism but there has been as a consequence a revolution in the methods of combat between labor and capital. While all the earlier and more brutal forms of warfare are still used, the conflict as a whole is to-day conducted on a different plane. The struggle of the classes is no longer a vague, undefined, and embittered battle. It is no longer merely a contest between the violent of both classes. It is now a deliberate, and largely legal, tug-of-war between two great social categories over the ends of a social revolution that both are beginning to recognize as inevitable. The representative workers to-day understand capitalism, and labor now faces capital with a program, clear, comprehensive, world-changing; with an international army of so many millions that it is almost past contending with; while its tactics and methods of action can neither be assailed nor effectively combated. From one end of the earth to the other we see capital with its gigantic associations of bankers, merchants, manufacturers, mine owners, and mill owners striving to forward and to protect its economic interests. On the other hand, we see labor with its millions upon millions of organized men all but united and solidified under the flag of international socialism.

And, most strange and wondrous of all—as a result of the logic of things and of the logic of Marx—the actual positions of the two classes have been completely transposed. Marx persuaded the workers to take up a weapon which they alone can use. Like Siegfried, they have taken the fragments of a sword and welded them into a mighty weapon—so mighty, indeed, that the working class alone, with its innumerable millions, is capable of wielding it. The workers are the only class in society with the numerical strength to become the majority and the only class which, by unity and organization, can employ the suffrage effectively. While fifty years ago the workers had every legal and peaceable means denied them, to-day they are the only class which can assuredly profit through legal and peaceable means. It is obvious that the beneficiaries of special privilege can hope to retain their power only so long as the working class is divided and too ignorant to recognize its own interests. As soon as its eyes open, the privileged classes must lose its political support and, with that political support, everything else. That is absolutely inevitable. The interests of mass and class are too fundamentally opposed to permit of permanent political harmony.

Nobody sees this more clearly than the intelligent capitalist. As the workers become more and more conscious of their collective power and more and more convinced that through solidarity they can quietly take possession of the world, their opponents become increasingly conscious of their growing weakness, and already in Europe there is developing a kind of upper-class syndicalism, that despairs of Parliaments, deplores the bungling work of politics, and ridicules the general incompetence of democratic institutions. At the same time, however, they exercise stupendous efforts, in the most devious and questionable ways, to retain their political power. Facing the inevitable, and realizing that potentially at least the suffrages of the immense majority stand over them as a menace, they are beginning to seek other methods of action. Of course, in all the more democratic countries the power of democracy has already made itself felt, and in America, at any rate, the powerful have long had resort to bribery, corruption, and all sorts of political conspiracy in order to retain their power. Much as we may deplore the debauchery of public servants, it nevertheless yields us a certain degree of satisfaction, in that it is eloquent testimony of this agreeable fact, that the oldest anarchists are losing their control over the State. They hold their sway over it more and more feebly, and even when the State is entirely obedient to their will, it is not infrequently because they have temporarily purchased that power. When the manufacturers, the trusts, and the beneficiaries of special privilege generally are forced periodically to go out and purchase the State from the Robin Hoods of politics, when they are compelled to finance lavishly every political campaign, and then abjectly go to the very men whom their money has put into power and buy them again, their bleeding misery becomes an object of pity.

This really amounts to an almost absolute transposition of the classes. In the early nineties Engels saw the beginning of this change, and, in what Sombart rightly says may be looked upon as a kind of "political last will and testament" to the movement, Engels writes: "The time for small minorities to place themselves at the head of the ignorant masses and resort to force in order to bring about revolutions is gone. A complete change in the organization of society can be brought about only by the conscious cooeperation of the masses; they must be alive to the aim in view; they must know what they want. The history of the last fifty years has taught that. But, if the masses are to understand the line of action that is necessary, we must work hard and continuously to bring it home to them. That, indeed, is what we are now engaged upon, and our success is driving our opponents to despair. The irony of destiny is turning everything topsy-turvy. We, the 'revolutionaries,' are profiting more by lawful than by unlawful and revolutionary means. The parties of order, as they call themselves, are being slowly destroyed by their own weapons. Their cry is that of Odilon Barrot: 'Lawful means are killing us.'... We, on the contrary, are thriving on them, our muscles are strong, and our cheeks are red, and we look as though we intend to live forever!"[8]

And if lawful means are killing them, so are science and democracy. We no longer live in an age when any suggestion of change is deemed a sacrilege. The period has gone by when political, social, and industrial institutions are supposed to be unalterable. No one believes them fashioned by Divinity, and there is nothing so sacred in the worldly affairs of men that it cannot be questioned. There is no law, or judicial decision, or decree, or form of property, or social status that cannot be critically examined; and, if men can agree, none is so firmly established that it cannot be changed. It is agreed that men shall be allowed to speak, write, and propagate their views on all questions, whether religious, political, or industrial. In theory, at least, all authority, law, administrative institutions, and property relations are decided ultimately in the court of the people. Through their press these things may be discussed. On their platform these things may be approved or denounced. In their assemblies there is freedom to make any declaration for or against things as they are. And through their votes and representatives there is not one institution that cannot be molded, changed, or even abolished. Upon this theory modern society is held together. It is a belief so firmly rooted in the popular mind that, although everything goes against the people, they peacefully submit. So firmly established, indeed, is this tradition that even the most irate admit that where wrong exists the chief fault lies with the people themselves.

Whatever may be said concerning its limitations and its perversions, this, then, is an age of democracy, founded upon a widespread faith in majority rule. Whether it be true or not, the conviction is almost universal that the majority can, through its political power, accomplish any and every change, no matter how revolutionary. Our whole Western civilization has had bred into it the belief that those who are dissatisfied with things as they are can agitate to change them, are even free to organize for the purpose of changing them, and can, in fact, change them whenever the majority is won over to stand with them. This, again, is the theory, although there is no one of us, of course, but will admit that a thousand ways are found to defeat the will of the majority. There are bribery, fraudulent elections, and an infinite variety of corrupting methods. There is the control of parliaments, of courts, and of political parties by special privilege. There are oppressive and unjust laws obtained through trickery. There is the overwhelming power exercised by the wealthy through their control of the press and of nearly all means of enlightenment. Through their power and the means they have to corrupt, the majority is indeed so constantly deceived that, when one dwells only on this side of our political life, it is easy to arrive at the conviction that democracy is a myth and that, in fact, the end may never come of this power of the few to divert and pervert the institutions for expressing the popular will.

But there is no way of achieving democracy in any form except through democracy, and we have found that he who rejects political action finds himself irresistibly drawn into the use of means that are both indefensible and abortive. Curiously enough, in this use of methods, as in other ways, extremes meet. Both the despot and the terrorist are anti-democrats. Neither the anarchist of Bakounin's type nor the anarchist of the Wall Street type trusts the people. With their cliques and inner circles plotting their conspiracies, they are forced to travel the same subterranean passages. The one through corruption impresses the will of the wealthy and powerful upon the community. The other hopes that by some dash upon authority a spirited, daring, and reckless minority can overturn existing society and establish a new social order. The method of the political boss, the aristocrat, the self-seeker, the monopolist—even in the use of thugs, private armies, spies, and provocateurs—differs little from the methods proposed by Bakounin in his Alliance. And it is not in the least strange that much of the lawlessness and violence of the last half-century has had its origin in these two sources. In all the unutterably despicable work of detective agencies and police spies that has led to the destruction of property, to riots and minor rebellions that have cost the lives of many thousands in recent decades, we find the sordid materialism of special privilege seeking to gain its secret ends. In all the unutterably tragic work of the terrorists that has cost so many lives we find the rage and despair of self-styled revolutionists seeking to gain their secret ends. After all, it matters little whether the aim of a group of conspirators is purely selfish or wholly altruistic. It matters little whether their program is to build into a system private monopoly or to save the world from that monopoly. Their methods outrage democracy, even when they are not actually criminal. The oldest anarchist believes that the people must be deceived into a worse social order, and that at least is a tribute to their intelligence. On the other hand, the Bakouninists, old and new, believe that the people must be deceived into a better social order, and that is founded upon their complete distrust of the people.