propaganda, first of the Socialist Labor Party and later of the
I. W. W.

The old culture was joining battle with the new. "America is the land
of opportunity. It was good enough for my father: it is good enough
for me" was the slogan of the capitalists. "The world for the
workers," answered the vanguard of the exploited masses.

The advocate of a labor state is as unpopular in a capitalist society
as the abolitionist was in the Carolinas before the Civil War. He sees
a vision that the stalwarts of the existing order do not care to see;
he speaks a language that they cannot comprehend; he represents an
interest that is as hateful to them as it is alien to their
privileges.


V.

At the outset, while the old order is still relatively strong, and the
new relatively weak, the spokesmen of the old order can afford to
ignore the champions of the new. But as the established order grows
more senile and the new order more vigorous, the defenders of the old
order, by force or by guile, set themselves to root out the new, even
though they should be compelled to destroy themselves in the process.
Then there ensues a savage struggle in which wits are matched against
wits and force against force. Families are divided; the community is
split into factions; civil war rages; society is torn to its
foundations. At times the struggle reaches the military phase, but for
the most part it instills itself into the lives of the people until it
becomes an accepted part of the day's work.