ere have been years of
quarrels and decades of strife. The story of terrorism, as told, is that
of a group who had no conception of the structure to be erected. They
were a band of dissidents, without patience to build. They and their
kind have never been absent from the labor movement, and, in fact, for
nearly one hundred years a battle has raged in one form or another
between those few of the workers who were urging, with passionate fire,
what they called "action" and that multitude of others who day and night
were laying stone upon stone.

No individual--in fact, nothing but a force as strong and compelling as
a natural law--could have brought into existence such a vast solidarity
as now exists in the world of labor. Like food and drink, the
organization of labor satisfies an inherent necessity. The workers
crave its protection, seek its guidance, and possess a sense of security
only when supported by its solidarity. Only something as intuitively
impelling as the desire for life could have called forth the labor and
love and sacrifice that have been lavishly expended in the disheartening
and incredibly tedious work of labor organization. The upbuilding of the
labor movement has seemed at times like constructing a house of cards:
often it was hardly begun before some ill wind cast it down. It has cost
many of its creators exile, imprisonment, starvation, and death. With
one mighty assault its opponents have often razed to the ground the work
of years. Yet, as soon as the eyes of its destroyers were turned, a
multitude of loving hands and broken hearts set to work to patch up its
scattered fragments and build it anew. The labor movement is
unconquerable.

Unlike many other aggregations, associations, and benevolent orders,
unlike the Church, to which it is frequently compared, the labor
movement is not a purely voluntary union. No doubt there is a
_camaraderie_ in that movement, and unquestionably the warmest spirit of
fellowship often prevails, but the really effective cause for
working-class unity is economic necessity. The workers have been driven
together. The unions subsist not because of leaders and agitators, but
because of the compelling economic interests of their members. They are
efforts to allay the deadly strife among workers, as organizations of
capital are efforts to allay the deadly strife among capitalists. The
cooeperative movement has grown into a vast commerce wholly because it
served the self-int