In their statement of fundamental principles are the opening words: "The working class and the employing class have nothing in common." Here is not even an attempt to distinguish "between employer and capitalist." Even if the distinction is implied, the rank and file will not make it. It is the proclaimed excellence of the movement that its following is from the ranks of those far down in the social scale; those excluded from trade unions. Even "the man in the gutter," is to be taken in as Mr. Haywood insists. There is much generous-mindedness in this large brotherhood, but all the more have those who lead it responsibilities of instruction and explanation. Haywood's ideal organization includes also the working children and the blacks.[1] How would this general mass—all the polyglot intermixture of our textile, mining and iron industries—interpret passages like those just quoted by their chief instructors? To teach such as these anything so exhaustively silly as that manual labor—labor like their own—"produces all wealth," is so childish as to excite suspicion of its motive.
If inflammatory appeals like this are really believed by the leaders, the explanation must lie in the fact that the birth-pangs of this Colorado strike left emotional hatreds so intense as to make clear thinking or constructive work impossible. In private conversations, I have found that "labor," as used by leaders, included far more than the wage earner, but that it
- ↑ The General Strike, p. 13.
