VII
THE I. W. W.
Like the sound of a bell in the night, the "Industrial Workers of the World" strike an alarm note that seems as new and strange to us as if some unknown enemy were at the gate. Both the purpose and the weapons used are alien and uncanny to our thought. We are just becoming half wonted to Socialism, but the defiant, riotous ways of this American Syndicalism are past understanding. For its field of action it selects most unexpected points; hotels and restaurants with petrifying hints that concern the stomach of the public; then the camp of lumberjacks, north and south; small self-confident cities on the Pacific Coast, West Virginia mines, Pittsburg industries and New England textile cities, hitherto proud of their orderly records. More disconcerting still is its attack on Socialism, as we have known it. This is beset by the new comers with as much acrimony as capitalism itself. A prolific I. W. W. literature has more acrid abuse of the many prominent socialist leaders than anything appearing in capitalistic sheets.
Tit for tat, against the I. W. W. and its prevailing tactics, socialist authorities the world over are writing by far the most scathing and contemptuous criticism. This is true even in Germany where Syndicalism has secured the least hold upon the movement. A Marxian dignitary as prominent as Karl Kautsky has just
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