emain constant; this is the dream of the
"Labor Trust" on the part of the captains of labor.

Once, in England, after the Great Plague, labor awoke to find there was
more work for men than there were men to work. Instead of workers
competing for favors from employers, employers were competing for favors
from the workers. Wages went up and up, and continued to go up, until
the workers demanded the full product of their toil. Now it is clear
that, when labor receives its full product capital must perish. And so
the pygmy capitalists of that post-Plague day found their existence
threatened by this untoward condition of affairs. To save themselves,
they set a maximum wage, restrained the workers from moving about from
place to place, smashed incipient organization, refused to tolerate
idlers, and by most barbarous legal penalties punished those who
disobeyed. After that, things went on as before.

The point of this, of course, is to demonstrate the need of the surplus
labor army. Without such an army, our present capitalist society would
be powerless. Labor would organize as it never organized before, and the
last least worker would be gathered into the unions. The full product of
toil would be demanded, and capitalist society would crumble away. Nor
could capitalist society save itself as did the post-Plague capitalist
society. The time is past when a handful of masters, by imprisonment and
barbarous punishment, can drive the legions of the workers to their
tasks. Without a surplus labor army, the courts, police, and military
are impotent. In such matters the function of the courts, police, and
military is to preserve order, and to fill the places of strikers with
surplus labor. If there be no surplus labor to instate, there is no
function to perform; for disorder arises only during the process of
instatement, when the striking labor army and the surplus labor army
clash together. That is to say, that which maintains the integrity of
the present industrial society more potently than the courts, police, and
military is the surplus labor army.

* * * * *

It has been shown that there are more men than there is work for men, and
that the surplus labor army is an economic necessity. To show how the
tramp is a by-product of this economic necessity, it is necessary to
inquire into the composition of the surplus labor army. What men form
it? Why are they there? What do they do