sts to a better understanding and more candid admission of
their own shortcomings in the political field, and on the other, they
have already made labor more fearless and aggressive, and therefore
more venturesome in the claims it makes, and more ready and
resourceful in its adaptation of new methods to solve modern
difficulties.

Before leaving the syndicalists, I would call attention to a change
that is coming over the spirit of some of their leaders, as regards
immediate plans of action. From a recent number of _La Guerre
Sociale_, edited by Gustave Herve, the _Labour Leader_ (England),
quotes an article attributed to Herve himself, in which the writer
says:

"Because it would be a mistake to expect to achieve everything by
means of the ballot-box, it does not follow that we can achieve
nothing thereby."

Another syndicalist of influence has been advocating the establishment
of training-schools for the workers, in preparation for the day when
they are to take over the industries. Vocational instruction this upon
the great scale!

Ramsay McDonald, by no means an indulgent critic of syndicalism, does
not believe that Sorel really anticipates the general strike as the
inauguration of the new order, but as a myth, which will lead the
people on to the fulfillment of the ideal that lies beyond and on the
other side of all anticipated revolutionary action.

It is time now to consider the tendencies towards growth and
adaptation to modern needs that have been, and are at work, within
the American Federation of Labor, and among those large outside
organizations on the outer edge of the Federation, as it were, such as
the brotherhoods of railroad trainmen. These tendencies, are, speaking
generally, towards such reorganization as will convert many small
unions into fewer, larger, and therefore stronger bodies, and towards
the long-delayed but inevitable organization of the workers on the
political field. Such reorganization is not always smooth sailing, but
the process is an education in itself.

The combination or the federation of existing organizations is but
the natural response of the workers to the ever-growing complexity of
modern industrial life. Ever closer organization on the part of
the employers, the welding together of twenty businesses into one
corporation, of five corporations into one trust, of all the trusts in
the country into one combine, have to be balanced by correspondingly
complete organization o