of their wages or
their share in the product. . . But when it comes to dividing the
proceeds, there is the rub. We can also agree that the larger the
product through the employment of labor-saving methods the better, as
there will be more to be divided, but again the question of the
division. . . . A Conciliation Committee, having the confidence of the
community, and composed of men possessing practical knowledge of
industrial affairs, can therefore aid in mitigating this antagonism, in
preventing avoidable conflicts, in bringing about a _truce_; I use the
word 'truce' because understandings can only be temporary."

Here is a man who might have owned cattle on a thousand hills, been a
lumber baron or a railroad king, had he been born a few years sooner. As
it is, he remains in his class, is secretary of the United Garment
Workers of America, and is so thoroughly saturated with the class
struggle that he speaks of the dispute between capital and labor in terms
of war,--workmen _fight_ with employers; it is possible to avoid some
_conflicts_; in certain cases _truces_ may be, for the time being,
effected.

Man being man and a great deal short of the angels, the quarrel over the
division of the joint product is irreconcilable. For the last twenty
years in the United States, there has been an average of over a thousand
strikes per year; and year by year these strikes increase in magnitude,
and the front of the labor army grows more imposing. And it is a class
struggle, pure and simple. Labor as a class is fighting with capital as
a class.

Workingmen will continue to demand more pay, and employers will continue
to oppose them. This is the key-note to _laissez faire_,--everybody for
himself and devil take the hindmost. It is upon this that the rampant
individualist bases his individualism. It is the let-alone policy, the
struggle for existence, which strengthens the strong, destroys the weak,
and makes a finer and more capable breed of men. But the individual has
passed away and the group has come, for better or worse, and the struggle
has become, not a struggle between individuals, but a struggle between
groups. So the query rises: Has the individualist never speculated upon
the labor group becoming strong enough to destroy the capitalist group,
and take to itself and run for itself the machinery of industry? And,
further, has the individualist never speculated upon this being still a
triumphant expression of