irregular and never-to-be-foreseen intervals, has in itself a determining influence on his social condition. It is this fact that makes the means of production in the hands of the capitalist a means of domination over the working class; it is this fact that turns the accumulation of capital into the accumulation of "oppression, slavery and degradation" on the side of the working class. The insecurity of the laborer's employment is the secret of the power of the capitalist class over the "free" workingman, it is the source of the mental and moral degradation of the working class which makes of them willing and obedient slaves, ready to kiss the hand that chastises them. For it gives the capitalist a far greater power over the life and liberty of the "free" workingmen than was ever enjoyed either by feudal baron over his serf or by the slave-holder over his chattel-slave.
That is also the secret of the great power of attraction and, the great social and cultural importance of the labor-union. It is not the increase in wages which it may bring about that makes it the great factor in the life of the working class which it is. It is not for that that the great modern battles between labor and capital are fought, no matter what their ostensible purpose might be. It is the protection from the grosser forms of arbitrariness on the part of the employer which it affords its members, thus increasing their security of employment, that forms the essence of the labor union; and it is for this that the great sacrifices are undergone by the workingman in fighting for the "recognition of the union" or in the "sympathetic strike," the two forms of fight most odious to, and least understood by, our "ethical" peacemakers between labor and capital, who would secure to each its "proper rights." Going out from the assumption that the workingman is nothing more than the beast of burden into which capitalism strives to convert him, they cannot understand why he should kick when the fodder in his trough is left undiminished. But the workingman knows instinctively the secret power of the chains which keep him in bondage, and he tries to break them, or at least
