orders; I know that hunger will drive _you_ back into the mine and
factory, _I_ can wait," there is no hope for the success of the strike.

Such have been the results of the legal trade union methods.

The history of the labor struggle of this country shows an incident that
warrants the hope for an energetic, revolutionary trade union agitation.
That is the eight-hour movement of 1886 which culminated in the death of
five labor leaders. That movement contained the true element of the
proletarian and revolutionary spirit, the lack of which makes organized
labor of to-day a ball in the hands of selfish aspirants, know-nothings
and politicians.

That which specifically characterized the event of 1886 as a
revolutionary factor was the fact that the eight-hour workday could
never be accomplished through lobbying with politicians, but through the
direct and economic weapon, the general strike.

The desire to demonstrate the efficacy of this weapon gave birth to the
idea of celebrating the first of May as an appropriate day for Labor's
festival. On that day the workingmen were to give the first practical
demonstration of the power of the general strike as an at least one-day
protest against oppression and tyranny, and which day were gradually to
become the means for the final overthrow of economic and social
dependence.

One may suggest that the tragedy of the 11th of November of 1887 has
stamped the general strike as a futile method, but this is not true. The
battle of liberation cannot be put a stop to by the brutality and
rascality of the ruling powers. The vicious anger and the wild hatred
that strangled our brothers in Chicago are the safest guarantee that
their activity struck a potentially fatal blow to government and
capital.

Neither Mr. Mitchell nor Mr. Gompers run the risk of dying upon the
gallows of sacred capitalistic Justitia; her ladyship is not at all as
blind as some suppose her to be; on the contrary, she has a very keen
eye for all that may prove beneficial or dangerous to the society that
draws its subsistence from the lives' blood of its people. She has quite
made up her mind that the gentlemen in the ranks of Labor to-day lead
the people about in a circle and never will urge them out into the open,
towards liberation.

(_To be continued._)

[Illustration]

REFINED CRUELTY.

By ANNA MERCY.

CIVILIZATION has eliminated none of the qualities that marked the age of
savagery. The crue