The very activities of the I.W.W. during the last two or three years, side by side with the representatives of the American Federation of Labor on the same strike fields, and often carrying out opposition tactics, have for the first time in their lives given many furiously to think out policies and plans of campaign.  From such shocks and stimuli are born thinkers and original tacticians, especially among the younger men and women.

Wherever syndicalists have actively taken part in labor struggles, there has been the bitterest antagonism between them and the regular labor bodies.  The latter ever bear in mind the risks of a divided front, and they have just reason to dread the “dual” organization as the most completely disruptive influence that can weaken labor’s forces, and play into the employers’ hands.  Of this experience there have been too many instances in the United States.

Syndicalists condemn agreements as a device of the enemy.  It is true that agreements may be so managed as to prove a very weak reed for the workers to depend on in time of trouble.  We have had many instances within the last few years of the disintegrating effect on the labor movement of agreements made between the employers and sections of their employes, which while protecting these particular sections leave other employes of the same firms out in the cold, either because the latter have no agreement at all, or because it is worded differently, or, most common defect of all, because it terminates upon a different date, three months, say, or a year later.  It was on this rock that the printing pressmen struck during the huge newspaper fight in Chicago which lasted the whole summer of 1912, ending in a defeat costly to the conqueror, as well as to the conquered and whose echoes are still to be heard in discussions between representatives of the organizations and the sub-organizations involved.  Though the fight was lost by the pressmen, the dispute between the unions involved is not settled yet, and the two principles at stake, loyalty to the interest of their fellow-workers and the duty of keeping a pledge made to employers, are as far as ever from being reconciled.  The solution ahead is surely the strengthening of organizations so that failing a common agreement one branch or one craft will be in a position to refuse to sign one of these non-concurrent agreements, or any sort of agreement, which will leave other workers at a palpable disadvantage.

The demand for the speedy taking over of the direct control of industries by the workers appears to me to ignore alike human limitations and what we know of the evolution of society.  But great hope is to be placed in the cooeperative movement, with the gradual establishment of factories and stores by organizations of the workers themselves.

The condemnation of political activity, too, is, as I see it, out of line with the tendencies of social evolution, which demands organization and specialized skill in managing the affairs of the largest community as of the smallest factory.