open and shut at the same time? Can
you increase both the workers' and the capitalist's share at the same
time? There is just so much produced, and in the present system it has
to be divided between the capitalists and the workers, and both sides
are fighting for all they can get, and this is the historic class
struggle.

We have now no revolutionary organization of the workers along the lines
of this class struggle, and that is the demand of this time. The pure
and simple trade union will no longer answer. I would not take from it
the least credit that belongs to it. I have fought under its banner for
thirty years. I have followed it through victory and defeat, generally
defeat. I realize today more than ever before in my life the necessity
for thorough economic organization. It must be made complete.
Organization, like everything else, is subject to the laws of evolution.
Everything changes, my brothers. The tool you worked with twenty-five
years ago will no longer do. It would do then; it will not do now. The
capitalists are combined against you. They are reducing wages. They have
control of the courts. They are doing everything they can to destroy
your power. You have got to follow their example. You have got to unify
your forces. You have got to stand together shoulder to shoulder on the
economic and political fields and then you will make substantial
progress toward emancipation.

I am not here, my brothers, to ask you, as an economic organization, to
go into politics. Not at all. If I could have you pass a resolution to
go into politics I would not do it. If you were inclined to go into
active politics as an organization I would prevent such action if I
could. You represent the economic organization of the working class and
this organization has its own clearly defined functions. Your economic
organization can never become a political machine, but your economic
organization must recognize and proclaim the necessity for a united
political party. You ought to pass a resolution recognizing the class
struggle, declaring your opposition to the capitalist system of private
ownership of the means of production, and urging upon the working class
the necessity for working class political action. That is as far as the
economic organization need to go. If you were to use your economic
organization for political purposes you would disrupt it, you would
wreck it.

But I would not have you renounce politics, nor be afraid t