uch a powerful combination as the Oligarchy and the big
unions, is there any reason to believe that the Revolution will ever
triumph?" I queried. "May not the combination endure forever?"

He shook his head. "One of our generalizations is that every system
founded upon class and caste contains within itself the germs of its own
decay. When a system is founded upon class, how can caste be prevented?
The Iron Heel will not be able to prevent it, and in the end caste will
destroy the Iron Heel. The oligarchs have already developed caste among
themselves; but wait until the favored unions develop caste. The Iron
Heel will use all its power to prevent it, but it will fail.

"In the favored unions are the flower of the American workingmen. They
are strong, efficient men. They have become members of those unions
through competition for place. Every fit workman in the United States
will be possessed by the ambition to become a member of the favored
unions. The Oligarchy will encourage such ambition and the consequent
competition. Thus will the strong men, who might else be revolutionists,
be won away and their strength used to bolster the Oligarchy.

"On the other hand, the labor castes, the members of the favored unions,
will strive to make their organizations into close corporations.
And they will succeed. Membership in the labor castes will become
hereditary. Sons will succeed fathers, and there will be no inflow of
new strength from that eternal reservoir of strength, the common people.
This will mean deterioration of the labor castes, and in the end they
will become weaker and weaker. At the same time, as an institution, they
will become temporarily all-powerful. They will be like the guards of
the palace in old Rome, and there will be palace revolutions whereby
the labor castes will seize the reins of power. And there will be
counter-palace revolutions of the oligarchs, and sometimes the one, and
sometimes the other, will be in power. And through it all the inevitable
caste-weakening will go on, so that in the end the common people will
come into their own."

This foreshadowing of a slow social evolution was made when Ernest was
first depressed by the defection of the great unions. I never agreed
with him in it, and I disagree now, as I write these lines, more
heartily than ever; for even now, though Ernest is gone, we are on the
verge of the revolt that will sweep all oligarchies away. Yet I have
here given Ernest's p