Capital controls the governing power and uses it! Therefore, Labor controlling the votes, they should be used to capture that power and muzzle it!"

In the face of present conditions, then, it is folly to plead for harmony between Capital and Labor. As well try to harmonize fire and powder as these two elements. Capital is combining in trusts, with every promise of the strongest Plutocracy in the history of the world, and also Labor is organizing into Unions, stronger than at any time in the history of the world.

Carroll D. Wright says the American Federation of Labor has 500,000 members, the Knights of Labor 150,000, and the American Railway Union 150,000. Other local and national unions have a total membership of 600,000, making a grand total of 1,400,000 ACTIVE, WORKING members of trades unions. Many hundred thousands of workers outside the union are influenced and controlled by them. They are popular with the working classes generally because they keep up the price of labor. The enormous power of Trades Unions, then, is only equalled by the enormous power of combined Capital.

I believe heartily that some day these two giants will clasp hands in harmony and peace-but not until after the Revolution, and until they have clashed in a terrible struggle.

CHAPTER VII.

STRIKES.

Their Cause, History and Results-Amazing Condition of Affairs in "Free" (?) America-Facts That

Freeze the Blood.

It is contended by many that there never will be any danger of a great clash between capital and labor; that the facts in the case do not warrant any such prophesies; and that before long all labor troubles will be settled by arbitration.

But is this true? Let us look around us; let us see if there is any evidence to substantiate these optimistic views.

In the first place, there is the great coal strike going on in Pennsylvania right now. President Roosevelt sent Carroll D. Wright, the United States Labor Commissioner, to investigate and make a report of the condition of things. Editorially the St. Louis Post-Dispatch says: A SUPPRESSED REPORT.

"When the anthracite strike broke out the President directed Commissioner of Labor Carroll D. Wright to proceed to the ground, investigate and make a report.

"Mr. Wright made his report to President Roosevelt eight weeks ago. Mr. Roosevelt said it would be made public. But since then nothing has been heard or seen of the document.

"Why?

"This question is being asked with considerable feeling in the regions directly affected by the strike.

"It is reasonable to suppose that the report contains something pertinent and interesting. If it were a dull, routine paper its publication would not have been delayed. Evidently Mr. Wright said things.

"What did he say?

"The Post-Dispatch has called attention to the fact that in 1901 the output of anthracite coal exceeded by more than 9,000,000 tons the output of 1900. It can hardly be contended that the enormous increase-17 per cent-was in response to current demand. The question is, was it because the strike was foreseen, and if foreseen, why?

"Does Mr. Wright ask and answer this question? "Let us have the report. The President will not deny the public right to it."

Again, the same paper prints the following:

"Special to the Post-Dispatch.

"WILKESBARRE, PA., May 21.-Two regiments of the National Guard are already under orders in anticipation of trouble at the coal mines. The Ninth Regiment of the National Guard, with headquarters here; the Thirteenth, with headquarters at Scranton, and the

Fourth are under orders to be in readiness for action. The men have been ordered to take home their kits and be prepared for a hurry call.

"Armored cars, bullet proof, loopholed and bristling with rifle barrels and revolvers, are to be used by the coal barons in a war for the destruction of the miners' unions.

"Barricades are being thrown up at the mines for the sheltering of uniformed guards, of whom between 3000 and 4000 have already been sworn in to shoot down the strikers if they threaten violence.

"Two hundred men were sworn in today and at least 600 more are to be sworn in.

"The armored cars have been sent to all parts of the anthracite fields."

Another paper prints the following:

"At Newport News, Va., the agent for the Pinkertons hired a lot of 'cow-punchers,' men who spend their time on the cattle ships which ply between American and European ports. These rough fellows have been supplied with rifles and will be shipped like any other cattle to the mining districts of Pennsylvania."

Does this look like there is any great love lost between labor and capital? Does the millenium seem at hand. when such things exist? It is an idle dream to think that there will be any reconciliation between these two enemies in the near future.

Labor has a grievance and is daily becoming less dis

posed to give in for the sake of peace. As long as wide inequality prevails; as long as hardships are imposed; so long will the grievance last. And these inequalities and grievances will last. The Appeal to Reason says:

"Every working day in the year, Mr. Schwab of the Steel Trust is paid a salary of $3,205. The average wages of men who produce all that wealth is less than $2 per day. In other words, it takes the combined wages of 1,325 wage-slaves to produce the amount paid to one man because he has the ability to prevent the laborers from getting what they earn."

Bishop Potter says:

"In railways and waterways we find men who have never seen their employers. And as you try to touch one of these lives with your own you have a sort of start, for you cannot but regard him as a mere cog in the great wheel of commerce; and so they say that some lives must be sacrificed in the coal hole that the great column of commerce must move on. You may call the theories by what name you will, they are of the devil. It is a question whether we ought to encourage the production of goods, with indifference to the infamous methods of their production."

As long as these conditions prevail, all hope of peace is useless. The very opposite will be the result.

My purpose is to show that a Revolution is coming, and to point out and analyze each element that will take part. The labor trouble is one and has a most important bearing on the subject. I wish to point out briefly