labor
movement reduced to an opportunistic basis, accepting the existence of
capitalism and having for its object the enlarging of the bargaining
power of the wage earner in the sale of his labor. Its opportunism was
instrumental--its idealism was home and family and individual
betterment. It also implied an attitude of aloofness from all those
movements which aspire to replace the wage system by cooperation,
whether voluntary or subsidized by government, whether greenbackism,
socialism, or anarchism.

Perhaps the most concise definition of this philosophy is to be found
in Strasser's testimony before the Senate Committee on Education and
Labor in 1883:

"_Q._ You are seeking to improve home matters first?

"_A._ Yes, sir, I look first to the trade I represent; I look first
to cigars, to the interests of men who employ me to represent their
interest.

"_Chairman_: I was only asking you in regard to your ultimate ends.

"_Witness_: We have no ultimate ends. We are going on from day to
day. We are fighting only for immediate objects--objects that can
be realized in a few years.

"By Mr. Call: _Q._ You want something better to eat and to wear,
and better houses to live in?

"_A._ Yes, we want to dress better and to live better, and become
better citizens generally.

"_The Chairman_: I see that you are a little sensitive lest it
should be thought that you are a mere theoriser, I do not look upon
you in that light at all.

"_The Witness_: Well, we say in our constitution that we are
opposed to theorists, and I have to represent the organization
here. We are all practical men."

Another offshoot of the same Marxian _Internationale_ were the "Chicago
Anarchists."[17] The _Internationale_, as we saw, emphasized trade
unionism as the first step in the direction of socialism, in opposition
to the political socialism of Lassalle, which ignored the trade union
and would start with a political party outright. Shorn of its
socialistic futurity this philosophy became non-political "business"
unionism; but, when combined with a strong revolutionary spirit, it
became a non-political revolutionary unionism, or syndicalism.

The organization of those industrial revolutionaries was called the
International Working People's Association, also known as the "Black"
or anarchist International, which was formed at Pittsburgh in 1883. Like
the