forever," I
objected.

"Oh, it hasn't subsidized all of the unions. That's not necessary. Here
is what is going to happen. Wages are going to be advanced and hours
shortened in the railroad unions, the iron and steel workers unions,
and the engineer and machinist unions. In these unions more favorable
conditions will continue to prevail. Membership in these unions will
become like seats in Paradise."

"Still I don't see," I objected. "What is to become of the other unions?
There are far more unions outside of this combination than in it."

"The other unions will be ground out of existence--all of them. For,
don't you see, the railway men, machinists and engineers, iron and
steel workers, do all of the vitally essential work in our machine
civilization. Assured of their faithfulness, the Iron Heel can snap
its fingers at all the rest of labor. Iron, steel, coal, machinery, and
transportation constitute the backbone of the whole industrial fabric."

"But coal?" I queried. "There are nearly a million coal miners."

They are practically unskilled labor. They will not count. Their wages
will go down and their hours will increase. They will be slaves like all
the rest of us, and they will become about the most bestial of all of
us. They will be compelled to work, just as the farmers are compelled
to work now for the masters who robbed them of their land. And the same
with all the other unions outside the combination. Watch them wobble and
go to pieces, and their members become slaves driven to toil by empty
stomachs and the law of the land.

"Do you know what will happen to Farley* and his strike-breakers? I'll
tell you. Strike-breaking as an occupation will cease. There won't be
any more strikes. In place of strikes will be slave revolts. Farley and
his gang will be promoted to slave-driving. Oh, it won't be called
that; it will be called enforcing the law of the land that compels the
laborers to work. It simply prolongs the fight, this treachery of the
big unions. Heaven only knows now where and when the Revolution will
triumph."

* James Farley--a notorious strike-breaker of the period. A
man more courageous than ethical, and of undeniable ability.
He rose high under the rule of the Iron Heel and finally was
translated into the oligarch class. He was assassinated in
1932 by Sarah Jenkins, whose husband, thirty years before,
had been killed by Farley's strike-breakers.

"But with s