portation, mines, and factories; but they are to do this, as almost every leader says, by showing themselves competent for the task. They must "prove" their possession of skilled capacities equal to the great undertaking. This raises the question—is it then possible that a long and wide practice in destroying things is a part of such education? If sabotage is to go on among the masses until they "take over" the great machinery, what habits meantime will sabotage develop? Can they practice it for some decades as a fitting preparation for administrative tasks as stupendous as they are delicate? The question requires no answer. To give sabotage the prominence found in I. W. W. opinion is only a little less intelligent than was the attempt of European Anarchists, a few years before the appearance of Syndicalism, to beat the capitalist system by a large scheme of creating and circulating counterfeit money which began at once to circulate among the poorest and stupidest people. If capitalism is to be overthrown, it is not by crippling negations and mere mischief making. If it is to be conquered, it must be mainly by the slow creation of substitutes that have higher business efficiency.
The issues raised by sabotage have furnished continuous occasion for the sharpest differences in opinion, not only among Socialists but within the ranks of Syndicalism.[1]
- ↑ Already the organs of the I. W. W. are at swords' points with the acknowledged leaders of Socialism in the United States. Any reader curious to follow this inner feud has only to subscribe for six months to a paper like the Nationalist Socialist and to Solidarity, the I. W. W.
