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THE OLDEST ANARCHISM 317
and more hirelings, to pay them larger and larger fees,
and in this manner to reward lies and to make even assaults
prove immensely profitable
it
to the detectives. So
happens that the great employers are chiefly responsible
elements that
for introducing among their men the very
are making for riot, crime, and anarchy.
Close and intimate relations with the employers and
with the men during several fiercely fought industrial
conflicts have convinced me that the struggle between
them rarely degenerates to that plane of barbarism in
which either the men or the masters deliberately resort
to, or encourage, murder, arson, and similar crimes.
So far as the men are concerned, they have every reason
in the world to discourage violence, and nothing
is clearer
to most of them than the solemn fact that every time
property is destroyed, or men injured, the employers
win public support, the aid of the press, the pulpit, the
police, the courts, and all the powers of the State. Men
do not knowingly injure themselves or persist in a course
adverse to their material interests. It is true, as I think
I have made clear in the previous chapters, that some of
the workers do advocate violence, and, in a few cases
that instantly became notorious, labor leaders have been
found guilty of serious crimes. That these instances are
comparatively rare is explained, of course, by the fact
that violence is known invariably to injure the cause of
the worker. It would be strange, therefore, if the workers
did systematically plan outrages. On the other hand,
it would be strange if the employers did not at times
rejoice somebody— that the workmen, the detectives, or
others— had committed some outrage and thus brought
the public sentiment and the State's power to the aid of
the employers. One cannot escape the thought that the
employers would hardly finance so redily these so-called