lf.
And having acquired relative protection in their private property, small
though it might be, they were unwilling to permit something which were
it to succeed would lose them their all.

Now with some exceptions every human being is a "protectionist,"
provided he does possess anything at all which protects him and which is
therefore worth being protected by him in turn. The trade unionist, too,
is just such a protectionist. When his trade union has had the time and
opportunity to win for him decent wages and living conditions, a
reasonable security of the job, and at least a partial voice in shop
management, he will, on the relatively high and progressive level of
material welfare which capitalism has called into being, be chary to
raze the existing economic system to the ground on the chance of
building up a better one in its place. A reshuffling of the cards, which
a revolution means, might conceivably yield him a better card, but then
again it might make the entire stack worthless by destroying the stakes
for which the game is played. But the revolution might not even succeed
in the first round; then the ensuing reaction would probably destroy the
trade union and with it would go the chance of a recovery of the
original ground, modest though that may have been. In practice,
therefore, the trade union movements in nearly all nations[111] have
served as brakes upon the respective national socialist movements; and,
from the standpoint of society interested in its own preservation
against catastrophic change, have played and are playing a role of
society's policemen and watch-dogs over the more revolutionary groups in
the wage-earning class. These are largely the unorganized and
ill-favored groups rendered reckless because, having little to lose from
a revolution, whatever the outcome might be, they fear none.

In America, too, there is a revolutionary class which, unlike the
striking textile workers in 1911-1913, owes its origin neither to chance
nor to neglect by trade union leaders. This is the movement of native
American or Americanized workers in the outlying districts of the West
or South--the typical I.W.W., the migratory workers, the industrial
rebels, and the actors in many labor riots and lumber-field strikes.
This type of worker has truly broken with America's spiritual past. He
has become a revolutionist either because his personal character and
habits unfit him for success under the exacting capitalistic