In the long run it does not matter much which side wins, the effect is very much the same,—­strikes are bound to follow strikes.  Warfare is so natural to men that it is difficult to declare a lasting peace.  But some day the men themselves will see that strikes are far more disastrous to them than to any other class, and they will devise other ways and means; they will use the strength of their organizations to better advantage; above all, they will relegate to impotency the professional organizers and agitators who retain their positions by fomenting strife.

It is singular that workmen do not take a lesson from their shrewder employers, who, if they have organizations of their own, never confer upon any officer or committee of idlers the power to control the trade.  An organization of employers is always controlled by those most actively engaged in the business, and not by coteries of paid idlers; no central committee of men, with nothing to do but make trouble, can involve a whole trade in costly controversies.  The strength of the employer lies in the fact that each man consults first his own interest, and if the action of the body bids fair to injure his individual interests he not only protests, but threatens to withdraw; the employer cannot be cowed by any association of which he is a member; but the employee is cowed by his union,—­that is the essential difference between the two.  An association of employers is a union of independent and aggressive units, and the action of the association must meet the approval of each of these units or disruption will follow.  Workingmen do not seem to appreciate the value of the unit; they are attracted by masses.  They seem to think strength lies only in members; but that is the keynote of militantism, the death-knell of individualism.  The real, the only strength of a union lies in the silent, unconsulted units; now and then they rise up and act and the union accomplishes something; for the most part they do not act, but are blindly led, and the union accomplishes nothing.

It was interesting to hear the comments of the intelligent young mechanic as the different trades passed by.

“Those fellows are out on a sympathetic strike; no grievance at all, plenty of work and good wages, but just out because they are told to come out; big fools, I say, to be pulled about by the nose.

“There are the plumbers; their union makes more trouble than any other in the building trades; they are always looking for trouble, and manage to find it when no one else can.

“Unions are all right for bachelors who can afford to loaf, but they are pretty hard on the married man with a family.

“What’s gained in a strike is lost in the fight.

“What’s the use of staying out three months to get a ten per cent. raise for nine?  It doesn’t pay.

“Wages have been going up for two hundred years.  I can’t see that the strike has advanced the rate of increase any.