accomplishment.

And, as we look out upon the world to-day, we find it actually a
different world, almost a new world. The present-day conflict between
capital and labor has no more the character of the guerilla warfare of
half a century ago. It is now a struggle between immense organizations
of capital and immense organizations of labor. And not only has there
been a revolution in ideas concerning the nature of capitalism but there
has been as a consequence a revolution in the methods of combat between
labor and capital. While all the earlier and more brutal forms of
warfare are still used, the conflict as a whole is to-day conducted on a
different plane. The struggle of the classes is no longer a vague,
undefined, and embittered battle. It is no longer merely a contest
between the violent of both classes. It is now a deliberate, and largely
legal, tug-of-war between two great social categories over the _ends_ of
a social revolution that both are beginning to recognize as inevitable.
The representative workers to-day understand capitalism, and labor now
faces capital with a program, clear, comprehensive, world-changing; with
an international army of so many millions that it is almost past
contending with; while its tactics and methods of action can neither be
assailed nor effectively combated. From one end of the earth to the
other we see capital with its gigantic associations of bankers,
merchants, manufacturers, mine owners, and mill owners striving to
forward and to protect its economic interests. On the other hand, we see
labor with its millions upon millions of organized men all but united
and solidified under the flag of international socialism.

And, most strange and wondrous of all--as a result of the logic of
things and of the logic of Marx--the actual positions of the two classes
have been completely transposed. Marx persuaded the workers to take up a
weapon which they alone can use. Like Siegfried, they have taken the
fragments of a sword and welded them into a mighty weapon--so mighty,
indeed, that the working class alone, with its innumerable millions, is
capable of wielding it. The workers are the only class in society with
the numerical strength to become the majority and the only class which,
by unity and organization, can employ the suffrage effectively. While
fifty years ago the workers had every legal and peaceable means denied
them, to-day they are the only class which can assuredly profit through