There are those who go among the workers, whose present
wrongs are great enough to appeal to the compassion of any
human being, and lead these workers into strikes and then urge
them to employ the methods of revolution, to refuse to enter
into agreements with employers, or to accept any improvements
because the full rights to which they are entitled are not granted
at once.
Wage-earners have a right to inaugurate a revolution if they
think such action is justified, but no leaders have a right to
involve workers in revolutions under guise of strike. A strike is
something very different from a revolution. A strike is for
the purpose of gaining some definite, concrete improvement in
working conditions. The strike movement succeeds or fails in
proportion to its effectiveness in accomplishing the purpose
for which it was inaugurated. If a strike results in tangible
benefits, those benefits are definitely formulated in the
agreement by which the contest ends and industrial peace is
restored.
These industrial contracts between workers and employers
are the mile-stones of industrial progress. They clinch each
forward movement in a tangible form and become a new basis
for future demands and movements for greater progress.
An economic movement to be successful must be under the
control of directors who understand the technique of the labor
movement and who know the effectiveness of every move. It
is a very dangerous thing in time of strike to advise workers
to "raise hell." If that leader does not know what to do with



THE AMERICAN FEDERATION OF LABOR 31

the "hell" after strikers have raised it, he has embroiled those
workers in a very dangerous condition — a condition that may
endanger the whole movement.
