The most serious danger to the American democratic future which may issue from aggressive and unscrupulous unionism consists in the state of mind of which mob-violence is only one expression.  The militant unionists are beginning to talk and believe as if they were at war with the existing social and political order—­as if the American political system was as inimical to their interests as would be that of any European monarchy or aristocracy.  The idea is being systematically propagated that the American government is one which favors the millionaire rather than the wage-earner; and the facts which either superficially or really support this view are sufficiently numerous to win for it an apparently increasing number of adherents.  The union laborer is tending to become suspicious, not merely of his employer, but of the constitution of American society.  His morals are becoming those of men engaged in a struggle for life.  The manifestations of this state of mind in notion are not very numerous, although on many occasions they have worn a sufficiently sinister aspect.  But they are numerous enough to demand serious attention, for the literature popular among the unionists is a literature, not merely of discontent, but sometimes of revolt.

Whether this aggressive unionism will ever become popular enough to endanger the foundations of the American political and social order, I shall not pretend to predict.  The practical dangers resulting from it at any one time are largely neutralized by the mere size of the country and its extremely complicated social and industrial economy.  The menace it contains to the nation as a whole can hardly become very critical as long as so large a proportion of the American voters are land-owning farmers.  But while the general national well-being seems sufficiently protected for the present against the aggressive assertion of the class interests of the unionists, the legal public interest of particular states and cities cannot be considered as anywhere near so secure; and in any event the existence of aggressive discontent on that part of the unionists must constitute a serious problem for the American legislator and statesman.  Is there any ground for such aggressive discontent?  How has it come to pass that the American political system, which was designed to guarantee the welfare and prosperity of the people, is the subject of such violent popular suspicion?  Can these suspicions be allayed merely by curbing the somewhat excessive opportunities of the rich man and by the diminution of his influence upon the government?  Or does the discontent indicate the existence of more radical economic evils or the necessity of more radical economic reforms?