LABOR AND CAPITAL 467 



of toil " ; others exist to be exploited in his strife against the natural 

 law of work. 



Labor nnions and their defenders justify the use of violence because 

 without it they could not succeed. The assumptions are that labor and 

 society are at war, that the interests are irreconcilable and that demands 

 by labor leaders are always just. McNamara at Los Angeles saw no 

 moral turpitude in arson and murder, because he fought for a principle. 

 The unions evidently agreed with him for they expended a vast sum in 

 his defense. Thirty-eight men were convicted in Indianapolis of com- 

 plicity in his and similar crimes, but the union approved their work and 

 re-elected the convicts to their offices. The daily papers report almost 

 daily cases of murder and arson in localities where strikes have been 

 ordered. Labor unions defy the law but are ever ready to demand its 

 protection ; their principles are no better than those of the India Thugs, 

 who practised robbery and murder in the name of the goddess Cali. 



The cruel disregard of other's rights is not born of folly ; the union 

 men know that a great part of the community sympathizes with them. 

 Propagation of their doctrines has not been ineffective. There is a 

 general disaffection against those who have achieved success ; it matters 

 not what kind of success, the thing itself is a crime. The brutal rapac- 

 ity of " capitalists " is a welcome theme and no charge is too absurd to 

 be accepted as true. If it be proved false, retraction is made grudgingly 

 with the reflection that the old wolf has escaped this time, but he ought 

 to have been hanged long ago. It is still an article of faith in many 

 quarters, even outside of those inhabited by peoples alien to our mode 

 of thought and to our language, that the panic of 1907 was contrived 

 deliberately by capitalists of New York city, the ground for the belief 

 being, apparently, that they can bring on a panic if they choose. The 

 worst charge that can be brought against a man is that he is rich or 

 against a combination of men, that it is a corporation. The most 

 serious feature of present conditions is the blind, inconsiderate hostility 

 to "capital" manifested by legislators, who are clearly ignorant of 

 what the term means. There is reason to suppose that the average busi- 

 ness man is no more and no less honest than the average of mankind or 

 of labor leaders; but his lack of integrity is less dangerous than that 

 of a labor leader, because his interest requires that the community be 

 prosperous, whereas the labor leader is indifferent to the community's 

 interests ; he is concerned only with his imperium in imperio. 



The propaganda has been so successful that in every contest be- 

 tween wage-payers and unions the popular presumption is against the 

 former. During trolley strikes, indignant sufferers vent their wrath 

 upon the company which refuses to grant the petty demands; when 

 trains or trolley-cars must be withdrawn because of half-hearted pro- 

 tection by the authorities, a cry for repeal of the franchise is raised. A 

 public utility corporation seems to have no rights which the law is 



