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AMERICAN SYNDICALISM

ted this to a thoughtful socialist now defending the I. W. W. He replied that a generation or two of experience and better education would produce a democracy competent and self-restrained enough to deal wisely and fairly with such issues as compensation. This is possible, and we do well to entertain it as a generous and admirable hope.

Meantime the I. W. W. are scoffingly impatient even of these prudent qualifications. They tell us, "Capitalism is already ripe almost to rotting." Like a dead substance, it is something from which we are to cut ourselves loose. Both in precept and example they are very specific. Their ablest exponents now state their case in the monthly International Socialist Review. In the last issue in my possession, a writer in the interest of "Simplicity" puts the case as follows:

"The world's people belong to or support one of the two great classes, capitalists or workers.

"What have we got? Nothing. What have they got? Everything.

"Now we want it. Simple, isn't it?

"We demand all they've got. Why? Because they have stolen it from us. We are the disinherited of the earth and we are getting ready to take back what belongs to us.

"They told us in the beginning that there was a chance for all. Now we know that they lied.

"We have become wise to the fact that we are the victims, the suckers, the fallguys, in the greatest bunco game ever invented. We put all we had into it—our health, our hopes, our strength and power to labor—but everything went merely to make them richer and