Eddy, Arthur Jerome: The new competition: an examination of the conditions underlying the radical change that is taking place in the commercial and industrial world ; the change from a competitive to a cooperative basis (New York [u.a.], 1912)

XIX

CLASS LEGISLATION AND DISCRIMINATION
I
We come now to the most discreditable and, take it all
in all, the most disheartening chapter in American history;
discreditable because the facts it relates are so opposed to
all our ideals of freedom and equality; disheartening be-
cause the tendencies disclosed lead straight toward the ar-
raying of class against class in bitter conflict, and the dis-
solution of democratic institutions.
Not that this country will proceed to such extremes
and be wrecked on the rocks that have wrecked every at-
tempt heretofore made toward popular government—let us
hope we have too much good sense to run blindly into
disaster, but that is the way we are heading at the moment,
and no impartial observer doubts it.
The anarchist, the communist, the radical socialist, ob-
serve the trend of events with undisguised satisfaction, they
say, “We are nearing the crisis,” and stand ready with
torch and bomb.
The average American looks upon Russia as the hotbed
of anarchy and revolution, yet there is probably far more
dynamite systematically used in the United States than in
Russia for the destruction of life and property in conflicts
between classes; and certainly far more than is used in any
other two civilized countries taken together.
Three presidents slain in forty years is a record no
305