Within themselves they practise an altruism of the highest
order, but it is a tribal altruism; it is like that which prompts a Sioux
to share his last mouthful with a starving Sioux, and to take the scalp of
a starving Apache. How is it with your trades-unions in Altruria?" he
asked my friend.
"We have no trades-unions in Altruria," he began.
"Happy Altruria!" cried the professor.
"We had them formerly," the Altrurian went on, "as you have them now. They
claimed, as I suppose yours do, that they were forced into existence by
the necessities of the case; that without union the working-man was unable
to meet the capitalist on anything like equal terms, or to withstand his
encroachments and oppressions. But to maintain themselves they had to
extinguish industrial liberty among the working-men themselves, and they
had to practise great cruelties against those who refused to join them or
who rebelled against them."
"They simply destroy them here," said the professor.
"Well," said the lawyer, from his judicial mind, "the great syndicates
have no scruples in destroying a capitalist who won't come into them or
who tries to go out.
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