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tic
for its
VISIONS OF VICTORY 345
task, but that he should have obtained the essentials
complete accomplishment.
And, as we look out upon the world to-day, we find
it actually a different world, almost a new world. The
present-day conflict between capital
and labor has no
more the character of the guerilla warfare of half a
century ago. It is now a struggle between immense
organizations of capital and immense organizations of
labor. And not only has there been a revolution in ideas
concerning the nature of capitalism but there has been
as a consequence a revolution in the methods of combat
between labor and capital. While all the earlier and
more brutal forms of warfare are still used, the conflict
as a whole is to-day conducted on a different plane.
The struggle of the classes is no longer a vague, undefined,
and embittered battle. It is no longer merely a
contest between the violent of both classes. It is now
a deliberate, and largely legal, tug-of-war between two
great social categories over the ends of a social revolution
that both are beginning to recognize as inevitable. The
representative workers to-day understand capitalism, and
labor now faces capital with a program, clear, comprehensive,
of so
world-changing; with an international army
many millions that it is almost past contending with ;
while its tactics and methods of action can neither be
assailed nor effectively combated. From one end of the
earth to the other we see capital with its gigantic associations
of bankers, merchants, manufacturers, mine owners,
and mill owners striving to forward and to protect
its economic interests. On the other hand, we see labor
with its millions upon millions of organized men all but
united and solidified under the flag of international
socialism.
And, most strange and wondrous of all— as a result of