le
stands in the path of their greed, seize from their corrupt tools the
reins of government, in order to rule society with the black-jack and
the "bull pen." The idealist anarchist and even the more practical
syndicalist, preaching openly and frankly that there is nothing left to
the poor but war, are, after all, few in number and weak in action. Yet
how many to-day despair of peaceable methods when they see all these
outrages committed by mercenaries, protected and abetted by the official
State, in the interest of the most sordid anarchism!

As a matter of fact, the socialist is to-day almost alone, among those
watching intently this industrial strife, in keeping buoyant his abiding
faith in the ultimate victory of the people. He has fought successfully
against Bakounin. He is overcoming the newest anarchists, and he is
already measuring swords with the oldest anarchists. He is confident as
to the issue. He has more than dreams; he knows, and has all the comfort
of that knowledge, that anarchy in government like anarchy in production
is reaching the end of its rope. Outlawry for profit, as well as
production for profit, are soon to be things of the past. The socialist
feels himself a part of the growing power that is soon to rule society.
He is conscious of being an agent of a world-wide movement that is
massing into an irresistible human force millions upon millions of the
disinherited. He has unbounded faith that through that mass power
industry will be socialized and the State democratized. No longer will
its use be merely to serve and promote private enterprise in foul
tenements, in sweatshops, and in all the products that are necessary to
life and to death. All these vast commercial enterprises that exist not
to serve society but to enrich the rich--including even this sordid
traffic in thuggery and in murder--are soon to pass into history as part
of a terrible, culminating epoch in commercial, financial, and political
anarchy. The socialist, who sees the root of all anti-social
individualism in the predominance of private material interests over
communal material interests, knows that the hour is arriving when the
social instincts and the life interests of practically all the people
will be arrayed against anarchy in all its forms. Commerce in violence,
like commerce in the necessaries of life, is but a part of a social
regime that is disappearing, and, while most others in society seem to
see only phases of thi