at a time, and not to trouble
about the future of society. This purpose, which has from the first been
the prompter of union activity, was clearly enunciated in the testimony
of Adolph Strasser, a converted socialist, one of the leading trade
unionists, and president of the Cigar-makers' Union, before a Senate
Committee in 1883:

Chairman: You are seeking to improve home matters first?

Witness: Yes sir, I look first to the trade I represent: I look first
to cigars, to the interests of men, who employ me to represent their
interests.

Chairman: I was only asking you in regard to your ultimate ends.

Witness: We have no ultimate ends. We are going on from day to day. We
are fighting only for immediate objects, objects that can be realized in
a few years.

Chairman: You want something better to eat and to wear, and better
houses to live in?

Witness: Yes, we want to dress better and to live better, and become
better citizens generally.

Chairman: I see that you are a little sensitive lest it should be
thought that you are a mere theorizer. I do not look upon you in that
light at all.

Witness: Well, we say in our constitution that we are opposed to
theorists, and I have to represent the organization here. We are all
practical men.

This remains substantially the trade union platform today. Trade
unionists all aim to be "practical men."

The trade union has been the training school for the labor leader, that
comparatively new and increasingly important personage who is a product
of modern industrial society. Possessed of natural aptitudes, he
usually passes by a process of logical evolution, through the important
committees and offices of his local into the wider sphere of the
national union, where as president or secretary, he assumes the
leadership of his group. Circumstances and conditions impose a heavy
burden upon him, and his tasks call for a variety of gifts. Because
some particular leader lacked tact or a sense of justice or some similar
quality, many a labor maneuver has failed, and many a labor organization
has suffered in the public esteem. No other class relies so much upon
wise leadership as does the laboring class. The average wage-earner
is without experience in confronting a new situation or trained and
superior minds. From his tasks he has learned only the routine of his
craft. When he is faced with the necessity of prompt action, he is
therefore obliged to depend upon his chosen captains for