Bars and Shadows | Page 3

century Russia, in the grip of a
capitalist burocracy, proved to be the centre for the revolutions of the
early twentieth century. The new culture, growing at first under the
shadow of the old, gradually assumes larger and larger proportions
until it takes all of the sunlight for itself, throwing the old culture into
the shadow of oblivion.
Each ruling class knows these facts,--knows that the old must give
place to the new; knows that the living, ruling culture of to-day will be
the history of the day after tomorrow, yet because of the vested
interests which they rely upon for their power, and because they are
satisfied to have the deluge come after them, they oppose each
manifestation of the new culture and strain every nerve to make the
temporary organization of the world permanent. The more vigorously
the new culture thrives, the more eagerly do the representatives of the
old order strive to destroy it.
IV.
During three eventful centuries, the part of North America that is now

the United States has witnessed two fierce culture-survival struggles. In
the first of these struggles--that between the American Indians and the
whites, the culture of Western Europe supplanted the culture of
primitive America. In the second struggle--that between the slave
holders of the South and the rising business interests of the North, the
slave oligarchy was swept from power, and in its place there was
established the new financial imperialism that dominates the public life
of the nation at the present time. Despite the extreme youth of the
capitalist system in the United States, there are already many signs that
those who profit by it must be prepared to defend it at no distant date.
The Russian Revolution of 1917 sounded the loudest note of warning,
but even before that occurred, the industrial capitalists had entered
upon a struggle which they believed to be of the greatest importance to
their future.
During the twenty years that elapsed between the Homestead and
Pullman strikes and the beginning of the world war, the pages of
American industrial history are crowded with stories of the labor
conflict--on an ever vaster and vaster scale, between nationally
organized employers, using the power of the police, the courts and,
where necessary, the army; and the nationally organized workers,
backed by some show of public sentiment, and armed with the strength
of numbers. Although the bulk of the workers was still unorganized,
and although those who were organized thought and acted within the
lines of their crafts, considering themselves as railway trainmen or as
carpenters first, and as workers afterward, there was not wanting a new
spirit--sometimes called the spirit of industrial unionism-- emphasizing
labor solidarity and speaking most loudly through the propaganda, first
of the Socialist Labor Party and later of the I. W. W.
The old culture was joining battle with the new. "America is the land of
opportunity. It was good enough for my father: it is good enough for
me" was the slogan of the capitalists. "The world for the workers,"
answered the vanguard of the exploited masses.
The advocate of a labor state is as unpopular in a capitalist society as
the abolitionist was in the Carolinas before the Civil War. He sees a

vision that the stalwarts of the existing order do not care to see; he
speaks a language that they cannot comprehend; he represents an
interest that is as hateful to them as it is alien to their privileges.
V.
At the outset, while the old order is still relatively strong, and the new
relatively weak, the spokesmen of the old order can afford to ignore the
champions of the new. But as the established order grows more senile
and the new order more vigorous, the defenders of the old order, by
force or by guile, set themselves to root out the new, even though they
should be compelled to destroy themselves in the process. Then there
ensues a savage struggle in which wits are matched against wits and
force against force. Families are divided; the community is split into
factions; civil war rages; society is torn to its foundations. At times the
struggle reaches the military phase, but for the most part it instills itself
into the lives of the people until it becomes an accepted part of the
day's work.
Then it is that the real test comes between the old world and the new.
The old world holds power--economic, social, political. It holds in its
hands income, respectability and preferment, with which it seeks first
to buy, and later to destroy all who oppose its will.
Buying is the easiest, the safest, and in the long run the cheapest
method of gaining the desired end.
Each generation contains some men and women possessed of unusual
endowments--as organizers and