endency." It is this
class of leaders, according to the Socialists, which, up to the present,
has dominated the trade unions of Great Britain and the United States
and occasionally of other countries.

No Socialist has been more persistent in directing working-class opinion
against all such "leaders" than Mr. Debs, who does not mince matters in
this direction. "The American Federation of Labor," he writes, "has
numbers, but the capitalist class do not fear the American Federation
of Labor; quite the contrary. There is something wrong with that form of
unionism whose leaders are the lieutenants of capitalism; something is
wrong with that form of unionism that forms an alliance with such a
capitalist combination as the Civic Federation, whose sole purpose is to
chloroform the working class while the capitalist class go through their
pockets.... The old form of trade unionism no longer meets the demands
of the working class. The old trade union has not only fulfilled its
mission and outlived its usefulness, but is now positively reactionary,
and is maintained, not in the interest of the workers who support it,
but in the interest of the capitalist class who exploit the workers who
support it."

In a recent speech Mr. Debs related at length the Socialist view as to
how, in his opinion, this misleading of labor leaders comes about:--

"There is an army of men who serve as officers, who are on the
salary list, who make a good living, keeping the working class
divided. They start out with good intentions as a rule. They really
want to do something to serve their fellows. They are elected
officers of a labor organization, and they change their clothes.
They now wear a white shirt and a standing collar. They change
their habits and their methods. They have been used to cheap
clothes, coarse fare, and to associating with their fellow workers.
After they have been elevated to official position, as if by magic
they are recognized by those who previously scorned them and held
them in contempt. They find that some of the doors that were
previously barred against them now swing inward, and they can
actually put their feet under the mahogany of the capitalist.

"Our common labor man is now a labor leader. The great capitalist
pats him on the back and tells him that he knew long ago that he
was a coming man, that it was a fortunate thing for the workers