All this is well realized by the financial and political masters of this country. The situation is profoundly disquieting. But most terrifying to them is the new attitude of labor. It is unprecedented, intolerable in its complete disregard of long accepted standards and conditions, its open rebellion against Things as They Are, its “shameless demands,” its defiance of constituted authority. Is it possible, the masters wonder, that we had gone too far in our war-time promises of democracy and freedom, of justice to the workers, of well-being for all? Too reckless was our motto, “Labor will win the war”: it has given the toilers a sense of their power, it has made them arrogant, aye, menacing. No more are they satisfied with “a fair day’s wage for a fair day’s work”; no, not even with wages doubled and trebled. They are laying sacrilegious hands upon the most sacrosanct institution of private ownership, they challenge the exclusive mastery of the owner in his own mine and mill, they demand actual participation in industry, even in the most secret councils that control production and manipulate distribution,—aye, they even dare suggest the taking over by labor of all industry. Unheard of impudence! Yet this is not all. More menacing still is the revolutionary spirit that is beginning to transfuse itself through every rank of labor, from the highest-paid to the lowest, organized and the unorganized as well. Disobedience is rampant. Gone is the good old respect for orders, the will of superiors is secretly thwarted or openly defied, the mystic power of contracts has lost its old hold. Labor is in rebellion—in rebellion against State and Capital, aye, even against their own leaders that have so long held them in check. No time is to be lost! Quick, drastic action is necessary. Else the brewing storm will overwhelm us, and the workers deprive us of the wealth we have been at such pains to accumulate. Even now there are such terribly disquieting rumblings, as if the very earth were shaking beneath our feet—rumors of “the dictatorship of the proletariat,” of “Soviets of workers, soldiers and sailors.” Horrible thought! Why, if the soldiers _should_ join these discontented workers, what would become of us poor capitalists? Indeed, have not the police of Boston already set the precedent—made common cause with labor, these traitors to their masters!