Page:American Syndicalism (Brooks 1913).djvu/61

This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
A HISTORY OF DISSAPPOINTMENT
49

the Senate is not made broader? And how can such a representation be established?

I think it could be done, and without breaking the old framework of the Senate. Its basis should remain unchanged, every State, large and small, keeping its two representatives in the high Federal chamber. But to these Senators should be added Associate Senators representing directly and specially the great social and economic forces of the country—chambers of commerce, boards of trade, manufacturers' associations, trades unions, granges, churches,—not as ecclesiastical but as great social organizations,—universities, bar associations, etc. Every great national interest would have its legitimate spokesman in the high assembly, and their knowledge of the special conditions with which they are connected would bring these latter to light before the Senate and the country. The coordination of struggling economic forces, so far as it depends on legislation, would be promoted in a spirit of fairness. The trusts themselves could plead their cause, they would only be challenged to come out in the open instead of working out their ends underhand as now. Organized labor too should have the opportunity and obligation of stating and of proving its case.

The spirit of this passage does not differ from scores of passages in syndicalist writing—as, for example, this, which just appears in the English organ:

Parliament is merely the organ of the existing Capitalist Class, and with the inevitable decay and passing away of that class as a class, Parliament itself must also wither and decay with it. . . . This, in fact, is already the condition of Parliament. It is an organism which, having fulfilled its mission in life, is now naturally withering and passing away before our eyes.

The reactions in this disappointment are far deeper than that against representative government. The feeling has deepened that, until the economic grip of