Page:William Zebulon Foster - The Railroaders' Next Step, Amalgamation (1922).djvu/67

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THE RAILROADERS' NEXT STEP
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Labor, until finally we have the whole working class solidly united in one militant organization.

The trade unions are more than merely a means to win a few cents an hour more in wages or a few minutes a day less of work; they are battalions of an army of emancipation in the making. The greedy railroad autocracy is intolerable. It must go, and along with it the balance of the parasitic capitalist class. Private property in social necessities must be abolished root and branch. There is no other cure for our industrial troubles. Then, and only then, will war, poverty and exploitation come to an end. To do this great work is the supreme mission of the labor movement. At heart and in their daily action the trade unions are revolutionary. Their unchangeable policy is to withhold from the exploiters all of their product that they have the power to. In these days, when they are weak in numbers and discipline, they have to content themselves with petty acheivements. But they are constantly growing in strength and understanding, and the day will surely come when they will have the great masses of workers organized and instructed in their true interests. That hour will sound the death knell of capitalism. Then they will pit their enormous organization against the parasitic employing class, end the wages system forever and set up the long-hoped-for era of social justice. That is the true meaning of the trade union movement.

(THE END)

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