All these come from the families of workingmen. Their fathers and
mothers are workers for wages. Out of the loins of labor they come
into the world and compel surplus labor to betray labor that is
employed.
Nor is this all. When a workman of superior strength and skill,
protected by his union, manages to maintain a large or moderate sized
family in a degree of comfort, there always comes a time when he must
strike to preserve what he has won. If he is not beaten by unorganized
workers who seek his job, he still has to face the possibility of
listening to the cries of several hungry children. If the strike is a
long one, these cries often down the promptings of loyalty and class
interest--often they defeat him when nothing else could.
Is it any wonder that under handicaps like these labor becomes
confused and flounders? It has been offered a multitude of
remedies--political reforms, wage legislation, statutory regulation of
hours, and so on. It has been invited to embrace craft and industrial
unionism, syndicalism, anarchism, socialism as panaceas for its
liberation. Except in a few countries, it has not attained to
aggressive power, but has been a tool for unscrupulous politicians.
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