But the practical question that faces us is—supposing that what is wanted next by all, is a confession from Labor, what is the practical way from now on, to get Labor to confess?
Some supposing might be done a minute.
Suppose I have a very quick temper and five sons and suppose the oldest one has my temper and is making it catching to the other sons, what would any ordinary observer say is the practical course for the poor wicked old father to take with the boy's temper of which he has made the boy a present?
My feeling is when my boy loses his temper with me at dinner for instance in the presence of the other boys, that poking a verse in a Bible feebly out at him and saying to him, "He that keepeth his temper is greater than he that taketh a city," would be rude. The way for me to give him good advice about losing his temper is to sit there quietly with him while he is losing his, and keep mine.
If Capital wants to get its way with Labor—and thinks that the way to begin with the industrial situation in this country, after all that has happened, is with a vast national spectacle of Labor confessing its sins, the most practical thing to do is for Capital to give Labor an illustration of what confessing sins is like, and how it works.
The capitalists among us who are the least deceived by their subconscious or automatic minds, are at the present moment not at all incapable of confiding to each other behind locked doors that the one single place, extreme labor to-day has got its autocracy from, is from them.
Labor is merely doing now with the scarcity of labor, the one specific thing that Capital has taught it to do and has done for forty years with the scarcity of money and jobs.
It seems to me visionary and sentimental and impracticable for Capital to try to fix things up now and give things a new start now, by slinking off and confessing its sins to God.
Labor will slink off and confess its sins to God, too.
That will be the end of it.