an entire consolidation of interest, responsibilities, and aims of those in a common condition or situation, and the organization of those so conditioned or situated to conserve their common interest, bear their collective responsibilities, and to achieve their common aim.
- Industrial unionism is the only medium through which industrial solidarity can be achieved. "An injury to one is an injury to all" is the best expression of the spirit of solidarity.
- 231. What is syndicalism?
- In Europe, syndicalism means unionism. In the United States the word is so lost in a maze of misunderstanding as to mean almost anything. State legislators, at the instigation of employers and aided by the press, have so perverted and misrepresented syndicalism that most people believe it to be a criminal and iniquitous conspiracy. Syndicalism is derived from the French word syndicate, meaning a local trade union. In France the labor union movement has two wings—radicals and conservatives. To distinguish themselves from the conservatives, the radicals call themselves "revolutionary syndicalists." When the I. W. W. began to assume power in this country, the phrase-mongering apologists for the capitalist system attacked it most bitterly. To create a prejudice against it, they called it an importation—syndicalism from Europe. The name so attached itself to the organization that well-meaning "historians" have called the I. W. W. the syndicalist movement of America. The I. W. W. and the syndicalist movements of Europe differ widely in many respects. The I. W. W. is not a by-product of the syndicalist movement; it is a purely revolutionary industrial unionism. The I. W. W. is really the first international of labor. Its philosophy, structure and aim mark it as the foundation, and the only foundation upon which international unity of the world's workers can be upreared.
- 232. What is "criminal syndicalism"?
- If the law makers of this country were compelled to write their laws in English there would be no such phrase as "criminal syndicalism." Syndicalism is a French word meaning unionism. It would not be good politics to place on the statute books Criminal Unionism laws; so the law
83
