Page:Class Unionism.pdf/27

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CLASS UNIONISM.
27

each other. The next thing is to co-ordinate them within their several industries with an eye to operating these industries when they secure control of them. That is the central function of the new union, and by far the most important one.

The old union never makes any reference to industrial self-control, because, so far as the old union is concerned, wage-slavery is to prevail forever.

The Industrial Workers declares that it is organized to put an end to the wage system, to free the workers, to make them the masters of the mills and other plants in which they are employed. In order to fit them to operate these enterprises in their own interests when they are turned over to them, it is necessary that they undergo a thorough process of industrial education and self-imposed restraint and discipline.

Don’t you think we are capable of effecting this change? I do. I not only think it. I know it. And I know, moreover, that it is inevitable.

Upon the one hand the capitalists are combining. It will be but a short time until practically all the lands, railroads, telegraphs, steel mills, sugar refineries, breweries, and other great establishments will be controlled by a gigantic trust composed of a few triumphant capitalists. But while they are combining and centralizing their capital, we are organizing the workers that they may act together, economically and politically, and possibly in other ways, before the struggle is ended and the victory won.

In the Industrial Workers they will vote as they strike, and strike as they vote—all together.

Do you know what I expect to see? I expect to see a general strike in the city of Chi-