Others are so extreme in their so-called socialism that they
border on Bolshevism and anarchism--their union salaries liberating them
from the necessity of work so that they can devote their energies to
subversive propaganda. All of them enjoy a certain prestige and power
which, in the natural course of competition, they could not otherwise
have won.
If the official personnel of the labour unions were as strong, as
honest, as decent, and as plainly wise as the bulk of the men who make
up the membership, the whole movement would have taken on a different
complexion these last few years. But this official personnel, in the
main--there are notable exceptions--has not devoted itself to an
alliance with the naturally strong qualities of the workingman; it has
rather devoted itself to playing upon his weaknesses, principally upon
the weaknesses of that newly arrived portion of the population which
does not yet know what Americanism is, and which never will know if left
to the tutelage of their local union leaders.
The workingmen, except those few who have been inoculated with the
fallacious doctrine of "the class war" and who have accepted the
philosophy that progress consists in fomenting discord in industry
("When you get your $12 a day, don't stop at that.
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