The after-war conditions in the United States are filling the Government
and the more intelligent, class-conscious capitalists with trepidation.
Revolution is stalking across Europe. Its spectre is threatening
America. Disquieting signs multiply daily. A new discontent, boding ill
and full of terrible possibilities, is manifest in every walk of life.
The war has satisfied no one. Only too obviously the glorious promises
failed of fulfilment. Excepting the great financial interests and some
smaller war profiteers, the American people at large are aching with a
poignant disappointment. Some vaguely, other more consciously and
clearly, but almost all feel themselves in some way victimized. They had
brought supreme sacrifices, suffered untold misery and pain, in the
confident hope of a great change to come into their lives after the
victorious war, in the assurance of a radically changed and bettered
world.
The people feel cheated. Not yet have they been able to fix their gaze
definitely upon the specific source of their disappointments, to define
the true causes of their discontent. But their impatience with existing
conditions is passionate and bitter, and their former faith in the
established order profoundly shaken. Significant symptoms of a social
breakdown! Revolutions begin in the heart and in the mind. Action
follows in due course. Political and industrial institutions, bereft of
the people’s faith in them, are doomed. The changed attitude toward the
once honored and sacred conditions, now evident throughout the land,
symbolizes the complete bankruptcy of the existing order. The old
conceptions and ideas underlying present-day society are fast
disintegrating. New ideals are germinating in the hearts of the masses—a
prolific soil, rich with the promise of a brighter future. America is on
the threshold of the Social Revolution.
All this is well realized by the financial and political masters of this
country. The situation is profoundly disquieting. But most terrifying to
them is the new attitude of labor. It is unprecedented, intolerable in
its complete disregard of long accepted standards and conditions, its
open rebellion against Things as They Are, its “shameless demands,” its
defiance of constituted authority. Is it possible, the masters wonder,
that we had gone too far in our war-time promises of democracy and
freedom, of justice to the workers, of well-being for all? Too reckless
was our motto, “Labor will win the war”: it has given the toilers a
sense of their power, it has made them arrogant, aye, menacing. No more
are they satisfied with “a fair day’s wage for a fair day’s work”; no,
not even with wages doubled and trebled. They are laying sacrilegious
hands upon the most sacrosanct institution of private ownership, they
challenge the exclusive mastery of the owner in his own mine and mill,
they demand actual participation in industry, even in the most secret
councils that control production and manipulate distribution,—aye, they
even dare suggest the taking over by labor of all industry.
Unheard of impudence! Yet this is not all. More menacing still is the
revolutionary spirit that is beginning to transfuse itself through every
rank of labor, from the highest-paid to the lowest, organized and the
unorganized as well. Disobedience is rampant. Gone is the good old
respect for orders, the will of superiors is secretly thwarted or openly
defied, the mystic power of contracts has lost its old hold. Labor is in
rebellion—in rebellion against State and Capital, aye, even against
their own leaders that have so long held them in check.
No time is to be lost! Quick, drastic action is necessary. Else the
brewing storm will overwhelm us, and the workers deprive us of the
wealth we have been at such pains to accumulate. Even now there are such
terribly disquieting rumblings, as if the very earth were shaking
beneath our feet—rumors of “the dictatorship of the proletariat,” of
“Soviets of workers, soldiers and sailors.” Horrible thought! Why, if
the soldiers _should_ join these discontented workers, what would become
of us poor capitalists? Indeed, have not the police of Boston already
set the precedent—made common cause with labor, these traitors to their
masters!
“Soviet of Workers,” dictatorship of the Proletariat! Why, that’s the
Russian idea, the terrible Bolshevik menace. Never shall this, the most
heinous crime, be forgiven Soviet Russia! Readily would we overlook
their repudiation of the Czar’s numerous obligations and even their
refusal to pay their debts to the American and European money lenders.
We’d find some way to recuperate our losses, at a reasonable profit,
maybe. But that they have broken down the very pillars of capitalism,
abolished profits, given to the peasants the masters’ lands for
cultivation and use, proclaimed all wealth common property, and
subjected the aristocrat and capitalist to the indignity of working for
a living—this hellish arch-crime they shall never be forgiven.
That such things should threaten the rich men of this free country is
intolerable. Nothing must be left undone to prevent such a calamity. It
would be terrible to be put on a level with the common laborer, and we
with all our millions unable to procure champagne, because, forsooth,
some hod-carrier’s brat—illegitimate, perchance—did not get his milk for
breakfast. Unthinkable! That is chaos, anarchy! We must not permit our
beloved country to come to such a pass. Labor rebellion and discontent
must be crushed, energetically, forthwith. Bolsheviki ways and Soviet
ideas must gain no foothold in America. But the thing must be done
diplomatically; the workers must not be permitted to look into our
cards. We should be strong as a lion, subtle as the snake.