preserving the higher standards of income, conditions and sanitation.
Avoiding the perils of the "closed shop" collective bargaining and genuine labor organization are frankly recognized by employer and public alike. Even if, as syndicalists have it, capitalism is trembling on the edge of the abyss, the "protocol of peace" has an informing and educational influence so direct, so inclusive, so powerful that it should be welcomed by the rankest revolutionist as good preparatory discipline for those who are to reorganize the new society. That needs so rudimentary as these should be ignored is little to the credit of syndicalist campaigners.
The severest and most merited criticism of I. W. W. ways and means is: (1) their destructive character, and the consequent reaction on the habits of those who practice them; and (2) that these methods are treated as if they were principles of action: principles that can be safely entrusted in their application to miscellaneous masses of men and women in times of group excitement. It is not to such keeping that we shall entrust either our ethical or business destinies. If this means failure in all constructive achievement a question yet remains, What service if any, may we honestly assign to a movement dignified by such heroism and by inspiring sacrifices which lift it beyond our cynicism and beyond our moral indifference.
