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326 VIOLENCE AND THE LABOR MOVEMENT
he is
already measuring swords with the oldest anarchists.
He is confident as to the issue. He has more than
dreams ;
he knows, and has all the comfort of that knowledge,
that anarchy in government like anarchy in production
is
reaching the end of its rope. Outlawry for
profit, as well as production for profit,
are soon to be
things of the past. The socialist feels himself a part
of the growing power that is soon to rule society. He
is conscious of being an agent of a world-wide movement
that is
massing into an irresistible human force
millions upon millions of the disinherited. He has unbounded
faith that through that mass power industry
will be socialized and the State democratized. No longer
will its use be merely to serve and promote private enterprise
in foul tenements, in sweatshops, and in all the
products that are necessary to life and to death. All
these vast commercial enterprises that exist not to serve
society but to enrich the rich — including even this sordid
traffic in
thuggery and in murder — are soon to pass into
history as part of a terrible, culminating epoch
in commercial,
financial,' and political anarchy. The socialist,
who sees the root of all anti-social individualism in the
predominance of private material interests over communal
material interests, knows that the hour is arriving
when the social instincts and the life interests of practically
all the people will be arrayed against anarchy in all
its forms. Commerce in violence, like commerce in the
necessaries of life, is but a part of a social regime that
is disappearing, and, while most others in society seem
to see only phases of this gigantic conflict between capital
and labor, and, while most others look upon it as something
irremediable, the socialist, standing amidst millions
upon millions of his comrades, is even now beginning to
see visions of victory.