rganization of the
Industrial Workers of the World[40] we have the precise frame-work of
the coming Co-operative Commonwealth.

It does not seem too much to say that doubt of the inevitability of
Socialism is in all cases a symptom of failure to apprehend clearly the
full implications of the Materialist Conception of History.

The second question, If Socialism is inevitable, why do Socialists work
to bring it about?, would appear to have been answered by implication in
the course of our discussion of the first question. In brief, we work
for it because we know that if we did not it would never come. It is
inevitable simply because Socialists are inevitable. Our activity as
Socialist agitators is a necessary result of the development of
capitalist industry just as much as the Trust is. Again, we work for
Socialism because we know we can get it, and we work all the harder if
we believe it is coming soon. One of the most active of our wealthy
socialists has said: "If I had to be in 'the hundred year, step at a
time, take-what-you-can-get' class, you would find me automobiling my
life away down at Newport with Reggie Vanderbilt instead of editing this
magazine.... As said, I would rather chase down the pike on my Red
Dragon at 'steen hundred miles an hour, terrifying the farmers, than go
in for any 'reform game'." (Gaylord Wilshire in Wilshire Editorials. New
York, 1907. Pages 232, 233.) So we find that in practice the belief in
the inevitability and the proximity of Socialism is the most powerful
stimulus to socialist activity.

We believe that the doctrine of the inevitability of Socialism is
scientifically true, that its proclamation is the most effective weapon
in the arsenal of the Socialist agitator, and that it is the most
powerful incentive to Socialist activity; so that we mean exactly what
the words imply when we address our non-socialist friends in the words
of William Morris:

_"Come, join in the only battle wherein no man can fail,
Where whoso fadeth and dieth, yet his deed shall still prevail."_

FOOTNOTE:

[40] I trust that no one will construe this as an attack on the
Industrial Workers of the World. It is not my intention to express in
this place any opinion as to the merits or demerits of that
organization. It is only mentioned here because mention of it was
necessary to illustrate the most curious case I know of the abnormally
prolonged retention of the utopian tadpole tail.