The Cordele dispatch. (Cordele, Ga.) 19??-1971, 1919-10-08
STRIKE SECRETARY ONCE
PREACHED ABOLITION
OF GOVERNMENT

;
af the national committee which or
gained the steel strike was preach
Jag revolution doctrine, picturing a
paradise with no government "a
the union taking over justice. Now,
however, he is a constructive trade
unionist and has abandoned his radi-
cal views, according to the testimony
of President Samuel Gompers of the
A. F. of L. before the Senate labor
committee AS late as 1915 however,
Foster said that the book "Syndica-
lism," published in 1912, of which nc
was co-author, has whiskers."
Foster hover, wrote another book
in 1915 on Trade Unionism." While
the imprint of it carries no date the
text refers to "the recent report o:
the federal industrial commission"
which was made Aug. ~, 1915. The
volume was published by trade
union in New York
"In the foregoing he writes at
one point, 1--WE have pictured trade
unionism as movement destined one
day to overthrow the wages system
with all its horrors of poverty and
misery and to set up in it's stead a re
gime in which industrial justice shall
prevail and exploitation be no more
But many cities of the trade union
movement deny it the possibility of
any such lofty mission. With the most
positive assurance they maintain it
has no real quarrel with capitalism,
but seeks only to minimize its har-
shness through a policy of mild re-
form. They conceive it as without the
intelligence to want industrial free
dom or the courage to fight it.
"Union Movement Not Awake
at is purest assumption to state
that trade unions would balk at
the overthrow of the wage system.
True the trade union government it,
self doesn't generally propagate the
idea that it aims at the overthrow
of the wage system. But this is be-
cause it has not yet become conscious
of it's full mission
In Chapter after "A glimpse into
the future Mr.. Foster is found ex-
tolling the "anti-statism" theory of
eaualil for the syndicalist, He dwells
upon the beauties of society with
out government.
Under the new order, as pictured
above - says the book government
such as we know it would gradually
disappear. In an era of science and
Justice this makeshift institution,
having lost its usefulness would shri-
vel and die.
To-day large branch of govern
ment relates to war. The abolition
of the profits system would render
this uneless. 1t would make impos-
sible the fatal rivalry between the
nations over markets and thus de-
stroy the very foundations of war.
Criminal courts. police, jails and
the like would go also. Crime is due
almost wholly to poverty. In region
of plenty for all it would practically
-
disappear.
Likewise the civil courts, with
their hordes of officials would vanish
People would no longer have to wran
gle over property rights.
1.-THE industries now in the hands
of national state and municipal gov
ernments would be given over com
pletely into the care of the workers
engaged in them. Unlike in our days
of graft, these workers would then
have every reason to give the public
the best possible service.
"Teachers would have full control
over education the doctors over sani-
tation. the postal workers over the
transmission, of mail, and etc. This
would certainly make for efficiency
for no other body would be so COM
petent to control an industry as the