"You talk about 'background'--well, that's what I'm insisting on. Let's get it right. It's the lack of a deeply social background that makes so many of our well-intentioned modern reformers sterile. People still believe that great changes can be made by strong individuals. A lot of peace advocates believe that Mr. Carnegie is going to abolish war. But most seem to think that things can be reformed piecemeal. This crusade against infant mortality is a good example. Its ideal is fine. But it tries to isolate it from all the rest of the social problem and cure it alone. It can't be done. It's tied up with rotten tenements and landlordism, with bad milk and commercialism, with poor wages and industrialism. Just like war, it is a natural, inevitable part of capitalism. "It's the same thing with the trade-unions. They try to separate their economic struggle with their bosses from the political aspect of the social problem, and it can't be done. The unionists make a pitiful showing just because they are still slaves to the old culture; they lack broad insight. The actual things they try to do are good, but they're barren because their background is wrong." "Thanks," Mabel said sarcastically. "I'm so glad to know what's wrong with us." "Now, Yetta," Longman said, with the gesture of a circus man introducing his curiosities, "the show is about to commence. On your right you see the 'pure,' the hidebound, the uncompromising Socialist, Isadore Braun. To your left you see the 'suspect,' the 'bourgeoise,' step-by-step reformer, Miss Mabel Train. They are about to engage in a bloody combat." "But," interposed Yetta, "what are you?" "Yes," Braun echoed. "What are you?" "That's an uninteresting detail. I'm only the referee of this bout." "He can poke fun at a serious position," Braun said. "But he's afraid to or can't define his own." "I'll tell you what he is, Yetta," Mabel volunteered. "He's a--" "No, I'll tell her myself," Walter interrupted. "If you want it in one word, I'm a _syndicaliste_. We haven't any English word for it." "He believes in a general strike," Mabel explained, "although not one trade strike in ten really succeeds." "Exactly and because," Walter assented emphatically. "He believes," Braun supplemented, "that although the working people haven't enough class consciousness to vote together we can ask them to fight together." "Exactly and once more exactly! I hate to talk, Yetta, because--as I confessed to you before these two noble examples of self-sacrifice came in--I haven't the nerve to practise my beliefs. I hate to talk, and I've never done anything else. But I've got just as definite a creed as Isadore.