Wheeling majority. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1907-192?, 1913-01-09
The GENERAL STRIKE
By ROBERT HUNTER

dream from about 1S3O-I840, and they
made many times remarkable attempts
to realize this dreamr-attempts com
pared with which the General Strike
of today is but child's play. They
| covered entire industrial centers, and
| stopped work in all the factories and
mines. The revolutionary energy was
not lacking in them, where they met
with resistance; they besieged fac
tories and set fire to them; they
fought valiantly with police and the
|smiliary. And if he General Strike had
been really decisive power, England
would not have had enough soldiers
to render herself the master"
A short time ago Gustave Herve, the
most daring and brilliant of all the
advocates Of direct action, wrote OF
the great German victories. Turning
in contrast to France, he said: ave
|sions, our sterile discussions of per
sonalities, developed a party on the
one hand and general federation of
labor on the other, equally stagnantj
with equally ridiculous inefiiciency,
TREASURES without money, journals
without readers, and have engendered
skepticism and dis
gust. -, 81.
SIN truth, begin to. ask myself if
with our great phrases of insurrection,
direct action, sabotage and chasing
the foxes" we are not, after all, from
a revolutionary point of view, but little
children beside the Socialist voters of
Germany"
Now these quotations are given be-
cause they all emphasize one point
that the General Strike is childish
fancy of poorly organized workers:
Are we but little children? asks Herye.
When to the infancy of the French
Union movement poverty is added
there is reason enough why that move
ment should be violent. 1.-THE funda-
mental condition which determines the
policy of direct action" says Dr.
Louis Levine in his excellent mono
graph on "The Labor movement in
France" lis the poverty of French
syndicalism. Except the Federation du
Evre, only very few decorations pay
more or less regular strike benefit;
the rest have barely means enough to
provide TO their administrative and or
ganizing expenses and can not collect
any stike funds worth mentioning. In
1908, fir instance, there were 1913
strikes; of these 1877 were conducted
by organized workingmen.z Only in
forty-six strikes, and in thirty-six
cases only was the assistance given
in money. The French workingmen,
therefore, are forced to fall back on
other means during strikes. Quick
action, intimidation, sabotage, are
then suggested to them by their very
situation and BY heir desire to- win"
The greaest General Strike the
world has ever known was at the
very beginning Of the Trade Union
movement. in England. The American
Railway Union was involved in al
tremendous strike almost before it
begun its great work of organization.
The history Of the Knights of Labor
and of every other movement for or,
ganizing labor, shows the same thing:
that we now see In France, lta!y,a
Snain and Russia Wherever the
workers are first organized they re-,
sort to mass strikes; and every group
that has attempted to organize the
workers has had, sooner OF later, 10
adops rules and regulations to prevent
strikes.
This is true even of the revolution
aryn Industrial Workers OF the World
Trautman, at the convention OF 1906,
declared that @the organizations under
went so many so-called wild strikes
that IL Is the duty Of this convention
to adopt such laws as will prevent
the calling of strikes by the viii or by
the determination OF two or three men
II any individual may call
strike or Il any oTgauization may be
organized and precipitate struggle.
We may just as. well say Disband.
There must be 8 regulation"
OF course what William D. Haywood
calls the General STRIKES OF trance,
italy, Spain and elsewhere are not
general strikes In any sense whatever.
TEev are little more than Wild un-
rnIV Sad disorganize dmobs who leave
their workshops for time '.tO de-
1870 = Is they say IN France. into