If the trusts are not already formed into a formal union for mutual support they soon will be. And the union of trusts already exists so far as practical sympathy goes.
Havemeyer will gladly spend millions of trust money—not his own—to help Morgan in a coal-trust fight.
Rockefeller will spare a few hundred thousand if necessary to buy a small State Legislature and prevent passage of laws threatening a weak little trust now and dangerous to him in the long run. ——
Jealousy, mistrust, and the lack of really competent leaders may delay political union among workmen for a time.
But the political union must come. Bigger work must be done by American workmen than chattering about little local wage regulations or quarreling about hours or overtime.
The question at issue is:
SHALL ORGANIZED CAPITAL CONTROL THE PEOPLE, OR SHALL THE PEOPLE CONTROL ORGANIZED CAPITAL AND LIMIT ITS POWER?
The workingmen are the people. They are the interested parties, and they have got to vote together pretty soon or fight together a little later.
THE TRUSTS ARE NATIONAL SCHOOL TEACHERS
Look at the coal strike, the opinions that it calls forth, and notice how respectability dances and hops from one foot to the other when the RESPECTABLE shoe pinches and the RESPECTABLE toe suffers.