These Socialists are unalterably opposed to our whole industrial system.

They believe that the payment of wages means everywhere and inevitably an exploitation of the laborer by the employer, and that this leads inevitably to a class war between those two groups, or, as they would say, between the capitalists and the proletariat.

They assert that this class war is already upon us and can only be ended when capitalism is entirely destroyed and all the machines, mills, mines, railroads and other private property used in production are confiscated, expropriated or taken over by the workers.
They do not as a rule claim--although some of the sinister extremists among them do--that there is and must be a continual struggle between two great classes, whose interests are opposed and cannot be reconciled.
In this war they insist that the whole government--National, State and local--is on the side of the employers and is used by them against the workmen, and that our law and even our common morality are class weapons, like a policeman's club or a Gatling gun.
I have never believed, and do not to-day believe, that such a class war is upon us, or need ever be upon us; nor do I believe that the interests of wage-earners and employers cannot be harmonized, compromised and adjusted.

It would be idle to deny that wage-earners have certain different economic interests from, let us say, manufacturers or importers, just as farmers have different interests from sailors, and fishermen from bankers.

There is no reason why any of these economic groups should not consult their group interests by any legitimate means and with due regard to the common, overlying interests of all.