Letters From A Railway Official
quire vigorous discipline. Although misguided in all this, they are usually honest as individuals. When banded together there results the same tendency that exists in political parties, in churches and in societies, to mistake their own organization for the only defender of the true faith. This same spirit plans religious crusades, gains converts by the sword and destroys freedom in the name of liberty. This spirit run mad breeds anarchy. It may result in a condition, as with us in the strikes of 1894, when cold lead and sharp steel are needed to cool hot blood, when the innocent have to suffer with the guilty. This spirit is unreasonable, but its existence cannot be ignored.
“Men,” says Marcus Aurelius, “exist for one another; teach them then or bear with them.” It is up to us to do more of the teaching act. A prime requisite of a teacher is honesty. Let us be honest. Let us either recognize the unions outright, or else try to teach them that they have not yet attained full age; that as yet they are lacking in the ripe wisdom which permits of a larger participation in affairs. Let us be fair and tell them wherein they are lacking. Capital, from in-
165
