g men who
dare to replace him when he strikes; and he does not scruple to use
under such conditions weapons more convincing than the most opprobrious
epithets. His own personality is merged in that of the union. No
individual has any rights as opposed to the interests of the union. He
fully believes, of course, in competition among employers, just as the
employers are extremely enthusiastic over the individual liberty of the
working man. But in his own trade he has no use for individuality of any
kind. The union is to be composed of so many equal units who will work
the same number of hours for the some wages, and no one of whom is to
receive more pay even for more work. The unionist, that is, has come to
depend upon his union for that material prosperity and advancement
which, according to the American tradition, was to be the inevitable
result of American political ideas and institutions. His attachment to
his union has come to be the most important attachment of his life--more
important in most cases than his attachment to the American ideal and to
the national interest.

Some of the labor unions, like some of the corporations, have taken
advantage of the infirmities of local and state governments to become
arrogant and lawless. On the occasion of a great strike the strikers are
often just as disorderly as they are permitted to be by the local
police. When the police prevent them from resisting the employment of
strike-breakers by force, they apparently believe that the political
system of the country has been pressed into the service of their
enemies; and they begin to wonder whether it will not be necessary for
them to control such an inimical political organization. The average
union laborer, even though he might hesitate himself to assault a
"scab," warmly sympathizes with such assaults, and believes that in the
existing state of industrial warfare they are morally justifiable. In
these and in other respects he places his allegiance to his union and to
his class above his allegiance to his state and to his country. He
becomes in the interests of his organization a bad citizen, and at times
an inhuman animal, who is ready to maim or even to kill another man and
for the supposed benefit of himself and his fellows.

The most serious danger to the American democratic future which may
issue from aggressive and unscrupulous unionism consists in the state of
mind of which mob-violence is only one expression. The milita