The Connecticut labor news., 1923-09-01
FINDS LABOR IS SOCIALLY UNITED
 THRU ENGLAND
British Observer Contrasts Lively Interest in Each Other With Irr
 difference of Other Classes.

| difference ot Other Classes.
 There is an aspect of the labor
 movement which appears altogether
 to have escaped the vision of those
 leaders who are fighting to preserve
 the existing social order It is an as- pect, 1 venture to think, of the most
 overwhelming importance; for it not
 only prvides the real strength of the
 forces of labor, both moderate and
 extreme, but-what is far mre signif-
 cant and menacing-establish the
 fundamental weakness of those who
 regard themselves as the bulwark of
 the prevalent system, says H. E. c. in
 the Westminster Gazette. This fac
 tor in the situation has been brought
 home to me very wildly since I re-
 gently returned to England after
 spending several months in Germany. | It struck me one day when I was
 riding on the top of an omnibus. | Nearly all the seats were vacant, and at certain point of the journey the bus was boarded by a number of workmen, who jumped on in twos and threes at short intervals. l was inn
 mediately impressed by the spirit of comradeship among these newcomers, who now occupied the seats around me. The afectionate and familiar epithets by which they addressed each other; the interests they observed in each others affairs; the solid point ot view exhibited in regard to all mat ters concerning them mutual1y-these things revealed them as forming a real brotherhood of sympathetic in terest and attachment.
 It contrasted painfully, in my mind, with my own experience since the war. Here was 1, an ex-ofhcer wounded in the war, dragging on an isolated and friendless existence, and beset with the cease1ess but vain en- deavor to recover the position lost through giving my services to my cuntry, practically an outcast from the class in which I was born and bred.
 To what brotherhood could I turn in my emergency? What community of interest was maintained by those with whom I had formerly worked and associated? We talk of the won derful spirit engendered by our unique public school system.
 I am an old Etonian, but who among my companions there wuld have welcomed the spectre of form tI SCuOOIIGllOW, QOWH dIlQ out, WdnI- ing sympathy and help? A man of the upper and middle classes in this country who has lost his footing on the ladder must seek his own saliva ton. There are no willing hands stretched out by scores and hundreds to help him regain his foothold. No body helps him; but few can pause to pity him. Here and there, of course, there may be a stanch friend, willing and able, to come to the rescpe, but such are few and far between.
 The point is that no such social or ganlzation, or no such spirit of com radeship-call it what you will exists among the upper and middle | classes as exists in the great prole- | tariat. And the most significant thing | about 1t, III the latter case, is that it f IS practically universal There are not isolated cliques and societies en- couraging fellowship among their individual members, but an extensive, all-embracing brotherhood which | puts to shame the narrow and re- esprit de corps artihcal1y fos- cated men. It is not one but ten thousand helping hands that are out to help the faltering threatened by injustice or He can count not only on the sympathy of his fellows but on their readiness to make real sacrifices II for the sake of an un1ucky comrade, even to the point of enduring priva- ton and jeopardizing their own means of existence.
 : This is a menace to the existing order If, the working-class movement in this country should be diverted by its leaders, as IS clearly threatened, nto a frontal attack upon it. There IS no solidarity among the upper classes such as can suffer moments II with the solidarity of the So-called working classes. The first named may form political union of but 1t Is composed of units the first item of whose creed is self-preservation Such a social organism will never be able, in the long run, to resist the mighty bow of great tide of brotherhood which, however ruinous or subversive it's aims may appear to be, puts self last and bases it's strength on the welfare of all its members.