or the necessity of more radical economic reforms?

However the foregoing questions ought to be answered, there can be no
doubt as to the nature of the answers, proposed by the unionists
themselves. The unionist leaders frequently offer verbal homage to the
great American principle of equal rights, but what they really demand is
the abandonment of that principle. What they want is an economic and
political order which will discriminate in favor of union labor and
against non-union labor; and they want it on the ground that the unions
have proved to be the most effective agency on behalf of economic and
social amelioration of the wage-earner. The unions, that is, are helping
most effectively to accomplish the task, traditionally attributed to the
American democratic political system--the task of raising the general
standard of living; and the unionists claim that they deserve on this
ground recognition by the state and active encouragement. Obviously,
however, such encouragement could not go very far without violating both
the Federal and many state constitutions--the result being that there is
a profound antagonism between our existing political system and what the
unionists consider to be a perfectly fair demand. Like all good
Americans, while verbally asking for nothing but equal rights, they
interpret the phrase so that equal rights become equivalent to special
rights.

Of all the hard blows which the course of American political and
economic development has dealt the traditional system of political ideas
and institutions, perhaps the hardest is this demand for discrimination
on behalf of union labor. It means that the more intelligent and
progressive American workingmen are coming to believe that the American
political and economic organization does not sufficiently secure the
material improvement of the wage-earner. This conviction may be to a
large extent erroneous. Certain it is that the wages of unorganized farm
laborers have been increasing as rapidly during the past thirty years as
have the wages of the organized mechanics. But whether erroneous or not,
it is widespread and deep-rooted; and whatever danger it possesses is
derived from the fact that it affords to a substantially revolutionary
purpose a large and increasing popular following. The other instances of
organization for special purposes which have been remarked, have
superficially, at least, been making for conservatism. The millionaire
and the pro