ey be taken from the
surplus labor army. The surplus labor army is the reserve fund of social
energy, and this is one of the reasons for its existence.

Under the second head, periodical demands, come the harvests. Throughout
the year, huge labor tides sweep back and forth across the United States.
That which is sown and tended by few men, comes to sudden ripeness and
must be gathered by many men; and it is inevitable that these many men
form floating populations. In the late spring the berries must be
picked, in the summer the grain garnered, in the fall, the hops gathered,
in the winter the ice harvested. In California a man may pick berries in
Siskiyou, peaches in Santa Clara, grapes in the San Joaquin, and oranges
in Los Angeles, going from job to job as the season advances, and
travelling a thousand miles ere the season is done. But the great demand
for agricultural labor is in the summer. In the winter, work is slack,
and these floating populations eddy into the cities to eke out a
precarious existence and harrow the souls of the police officers until
the return of warm weather and work. If there were constant work at good
wages for every man, who would harvest the crops?

But the last and most significant need for the surplus labor army remains
to be stated. This surplus labor acts as a check upon all employed
labor. It is the lash by which the masters hold the workers to their
tasks, or drive them back to their tasks when they have revolted. It is
the goad which forces the workers into the compulsory "free contracts"
against which they now and again rebel. There is only one reason under
the sun that strikes fail, and that is because there are always plenty of
men to take the strikers' places.

The strength of the union today, other things remaining equal, is
proportionate to the skill of the trade, or, in other words,
proportionate to the pressure the surplus labor army can put upon it. If
a thousand ditch-diggers strike, it is easy to replace them, wherefore
the ditch-diggers have little or no organized strength. But a thousand
highly skilled machinists are somewhat harder to replace, and in
consequence the machinist unions are strong. The ditch-diggers are
wholly at the mercy of the surplus labor army, the machinists only
partly. To be invincible, a union must be a monopoly. It must control
every man in its particular trade, and regulate apprentices so that the
supply of skilled workmen may r