This is the view of the revolutionary majority of the international movement. But the "reformist" minority is both large and powerful, and since it draws far more recruits than does the revolutionary majority from the ranks of the book educated and capitalistic reformers, its spokesmen and writers attract a disproportionately large share of attention in capitalistic and reform circles, and thus give rise to widespread misunderstanding as to the position of the majority. Not only are both the more or less Socialistic parties in Great Britain and the Labour parties of the British colonies "reformist" to the extent that they are either entirely outside or practically independent of the international movement, but the parties of Belgium, Italy, and South Germany have, for a number of years, concentrated their attention almost exclusively on such reforms as the capitalist governments of their countries are likely to allow to be enacted--the dominant idea being to obtain all that can be obtained for the working classes at the present moment, even when, for this purpose, it becomes necessary to subordinate or to compromise entirely the plans and hopes of the future. And it is only within the last year or two that the revolutionary wing in these last-named countries has begun to grow rapidly again and promises to regain control. There can be no doubt that Socialist "reformism" has become very widespread. President Gompers of the American Federation of Labor, who had every facility of meeting European Socialists and unionists on a recent tour, made some observations which are by no means without a certain foundation.[95] He says that he talked to these people about Socialism and, though they all knew "the litany, service, and invocation" and the Socialist text for the coming revolution, they preserved this knowledge for their speech making, while in conversation it all faded away into the misty realms of the imagination. "Positively," writes Mr. Gompers, "I never found one man in my trip ready to go further into constructive Socialism than to repeat perfunctorily its time-worn generalities. On the other hand, I met men whom I knew years ago, either personally or through correspondence or by their work, as active propagandists of the Socialists' theoretical creed, who are now devoting their energies to one or other of the practical forms of social betterment--trade unionism, cooeperation, legal protection to the workers--and who could not be moved to speak of utopianism [Mr. Gompers's epithet for Socialism]." It is doubtless true, as Mr. Gompers says, that the individuals he questioned have practically abandoned their Socialism, even though they remain members of the Socialist parties. For if such activities as he mentions could be claimed as "Socialism," then there is very little public work an intelligent and honest workingman can undertake, no matter how conservative it may be, which is not to go by that name.