union or an arbitration board:—the spirit of a wholesome opportunism.
On wing in the "oratorical zone" they will stand upon "principle," will have the whole loaf or none. Face to face with the fact, they take their slice like the most despised of reformers. They are delighted to get for the skilled a slice so thin as a rise of five per cent, and to shout over the victory. In motive at least, it is much to their credit that the lowest paid should have the highest increase. The discrimination against the rewards of skill is open to grave question, but it is one of their "principles" to which much fidelity has been shown. They will, however, as others, take what they can get. They will haggle for this in ways as ancient as exchanges on a far Eastern market.
If their power grows, the old opportunist method will keep pace with it driving the wedge deeper between the Anarchist and those who accept the limitations and power of organization.
At the present writing an I. W. W. Proclamation goes out from Pittsburg to all steel, iron and coke workers in the district. It begins: "The hour has arrived.—Tie up all the mills, shut down the mines, blow out the furnaces and the ovens, pull the fires, stop the engines and the pumps—strike, strike all, hear ye, all together to win."
The demand reads:
THE EIGHT-HOUR WORKDAY
In all steel and iron mills and factories, in all mines, in the coke districts, everywhere!
