(how the great change is coming in different industries, and how we may prepare to meet it.)

from a study of the world's political revolutions we observe that a variety of governmental forms develop, and that different circumstances in each country produce different institutions. suppose that back in the days of the french monarchy some one asked you how france was going to be governed as a political republic; how would elections be held, what would be the powers of the deputies, who would choose the premier, who would choose the president, what would be the duties of each? who can explain why in france and england the executive is responsible to the parliament and must answer its questions, while in the united states the executive is an autocrat, responsible to no one for four years? who could have foreseen that in england, supposed to remain a monarchy, the constitution would be fluid; while in america, supposed to be a democracy, the constitution would be rigid, and the supreme power of rejecting changes in the laws would be vested in a group of reactionary lawyers appointed for life? there will be similar surprises in the social revolution, and similar differences between what things pretend to be and what they are.

i used to compare the social revolution to the hatching of an egg. you examine it, and apparently it is all egg; but then suddenly something begins to happen, and in a few minutes it is all chicken. if, however, you investigate, you discover that the chicken had been forming inside the egg for some time. i know that there is a chicken now forming inside our social egg; but having realized the complexity of social phenomena, i no longer venture to predict the exact time of the hatching, or the size and color of the chicken.

perhaps it is more useful to compare the social revolution to a child-birth. a good surgeon knows what is due to happen, but he knows also that there are a thousand uncertainties, a thousand dangerous possibilities, and all he can do is to watch the process and be prepared to meet each emergency as it arises. the birth process consists of one pang after another, but no one can say which pang will complete the birth, or whether it will be completed at all. karl marx is author of the saying that "force is the midwife of progress," so you may see that i am not the inventor of this simile of child-birth.

there are three factors in the social revolution, each of which will vary in each country, and in different parts of the country, and at different periods. first, there is the industrial condition of the country, a complex set of economic factors. the industrial life of england depends primarily on shipping and coal. in the united states shipping is of less importance, and railroads take the place. in the united states the eastern portion lives mainly by manufacture, the western by agriculture, while the south is held a generation behind by a race problem. in france the great estates were broken up, and agriculture fell into the hands of peasant proprietors, who are the main support of french capitalism. in prussia the great estates were held intact, and remained the basis of a feudal aristocracy. in america land changes hands freely, and therefore one-third of our farms are mortgaged, and another third are worked by tenants. in russia there was practically no middle class, while in the united states there is practically nothing but middle class; the rich have been rich for such a short while that they still look middle class and act middle class, in spite of all their efforts, while the working class hopes to be middle class and is persuaded that it can become middle class. such varying factors produce in each country a different problem, and make inevitable a different process of change.

the second factor is the condition of organization and education of the workers. this likewise varies in every country, and in every part of every country. there is a continual struggle on the part of the workers to organize and educate themselves, and a continual effort on the part of the ruling class to prevent this. in some industries in america you find the workers one hundred per cent organized, and in other industries you find them not organized at all. it is obvious that in the former case the social change, when it comes, will be comparatively simple, involving little bloodshed and waste; in the latter case there will be social convulsions, rioting and destruction of property, disorganization of industry and widespread distress.

the third factor is the state of mind of the propertied classes, the amount of resistance they are willing to make to social change. i have done a great deal of pleading with the masters of industry in my country; i have written appeals to vincent astor and john d. rockefeller, to capitalist newspapers and judges and congressmen and presidents. i have been told that this is a waste of my time; that these people cannot learn and will not learn, and that it is foolish to appeal either to their hearts or their understanding. but i perceive that the class struggle is like a fraction; it has a numerator and a denominator, and you can increase the fraction just as well by decreasing the denominator as by increasing the numerator. to vary the simile, here are two groups of men engaged in a tug of war, and you can affect the result just as decisively by persuading one group to pull less hard, as by persuading the other group to pull harder.

picture to yourself two factories. in factory number one the owner is a hard-driving business man, an active spirit in the so-called "open-shop" campaign. he believes in his divine right to manage industry, and he believes also in the gospel of "all that the traffic will bear." he prevents his men from organizing, and employs spies to weed out the radicals and to sow dissensions. when a strike comes, he calls in the police and the strike-breaking agencies, and in every possible way he makes himself hated and feared by his workers. then some day comes the unemployment crisis, and a wave of revolt sweeping over the country. the workers seize that factory and set up a dictatorship of the proletariat and a "red terror." if the owner resists, they kill him; in any case, they wipe out his interest in the business, and do everything possible to destroy his power over it, even to his very name. they run the business by a shop committee, and you have for that particular factory a syndicalist, or even anarchist form of social reconstruction.

now for factory number two, whose owner is a humane and enlightened man, studying social questions and realizing his responsibility, and the temporary nature of his stewardship. he gives his people the best possible working conditions, he keeps open books and discusses wages and profits with them, he educates the young workers, he meets with their union committees on a basis of free discussion. when the unemployment crisis comes and the wave of revolt sweeps the country, this man and his workers understand one another. he says: "i can no longer pay profits, and so i can no longer keep going under the profit system; but if you are ready to run the plant, i am ready to help you the best i can." manifestly, this man will continue the president of the corporation, and if he trains his sons wisely, they will keep his place; so, instead of having in that factory a dictatorship and a terror, you will have a constitutional monarchy, gradually evolving into a democratic republic.