eamers though they may well be, betray
a foresight and insight, and a genius for organization, which put to
shame the class with which they are openly at war. Failing of rapid
success in waging a sheer political propaganda, and finding that they
were alienating the most intelligent and most easily organized portion of
the voters, the socialists lessoned from the experience and turned their
energies upon the trade-union movement. To win the trade unions was
well-nigh to win the war, and recent events show that they have done far
more winning in this direction than have the capitalists.

Instead of antagonizing the unions, which had been their previous policy,
the socialists proceeded to conciliate the unions. "Let every good
socialist join the union of his trade," the edict went forth. "Bore from
within and capture the trade-union movement." And this policy, only
several years old, has reaped fruits far beyond their fondest
expectations. Today the great labor unions are honeycombed with
socialists, "boring from within," as they picturesquely term their
undermining labor. At work and at play, at business meeting and council,
their insidious propaganda goes on. At the shoulder of the
trade-unionist is the socialist, sympathizing with him, aiding him with
head and hand, suggesting--perpetually suggesting--the necessity for
political action. As the _Journal_, of Lansing, Michigan, a republican
paper, has remarked: "The socialists in the labor unions are tireless
workers. They are sincere, energetic, and self-sacrificing. . . . They
stick to the union and work all the while, thus making a showing which,
reckoned by ordinary standards, is out of all proportion to their
numbers. Their cause is growing among union laborers, and their long
fight, intended to turn the Federation into a political organization, is
likely to win."

They miss no opportunity of driving home the necessity for political
action, the necessity for capturing the political machinery of society
whereby they may master society. As an instance of this is the avidity
with which the American socialists seized upon the famous Taft-Vale
Decision in England, which was to the effect that an unincorporated union
could be sued and its treasury rifled by process of law. Throughout the
United States, the socialists pointed the moral in similar fashion to the
way it was pointed by the Social-Democratic Herald, which advised the
trade-unionists, in view of th