family responsibilities, and could at any moment respond to the call of duty. In a report of this year's Convention (1912) "the predominance of young blood" is noted with approval. "Ninety per cent were under thirty years of age," which means a large percentage of very young. But of most importance in this breezy commotion is the extreme and even frantic assertion of its main ideas and practices.
Only a small and unknown fraction of labor in any country has any conscious relation to what is distinctive in Syndicalism, but this defect is more than made up by daring and dramatic assertion of its "principles." These in the main are not new, except in changes wrought by the technical revolution of modern industry. The dream of throwing the labor masses into one all-embracing Union is at least as old as the "Grand National Consolidated Trade Unions" of 1834, with the addition, moreover, of the "General Strike" as its great weapon. We have seen how much of Syndicalism was a propelling force in the meteoric career of the Knights of Labor. As this streak of fire burned out in the early nineties, Syndicalism reappears in France. It appears in action, in metaphysical quiddities, and in literary rhapsodies. In action, it rebels against the halting ineffectiveness of legislative reforms in cities and government. It is noted that every law and ordinance to improve things socially has to be amended year after year before it works at all, and even then, it works but lamely for the general good. Against these discouragements, the more fiery and headlong spirits among Socialists rebel and intellectually fraternize with anarchists. They rebel
