That labor’s energies would be channeled into politics rather than violence seemed at one time impossible. Looking back at his youth, Tom Wilcher recalls in _To Be a Pilgrim_ that then “the rich men were still boundless in wealth and arrogance; the poor were in misery, and neither saw any possibility of change without the overthrow of society.” But the labor movement made the transition from a mob to a party. Pen Muff and Hamer Shawcross had seen it achieved when Keir Hardie, wearing a cloth cap rather than a top hat, drove down London’s streets in a wagonette instead of a brougham to take his seat in the House of Commons. And labor remained so conscious of its class origins that Shawcross seemed guilty almost of blasphemy years later when, as a Labourite minister, he wore his ceremonial uniform with its sword and cocked hat. Figures in the novel recall the lines from Browning’s _The Lost Leader_ about the man who had betrayed his group “just for a riband to stick in his coat.” Such a one is Hamer Shawcross. Another is Chester Nimmo. Their supposed betrayal seems more heinous because of this class consciousness. Dick Remington may change from Liberal to Tory with a minimum of obloquy, but when Shawcross enters a wartime coalition government he is a Judas. When Sinclair published _Oil!_ in 1926 he saw the activities of the labor movement almost completely in terms of a class struggle. But it was an index of the relative progress of the American movement as compared with the English that strike violence remained the chief weapon on this side of the Atlantic. Two years later, in _Boston_, the situation was worse. He wrote that Massachusetts had “evolved a complete technique of labor smashing” in which a strike-breaking department developed in the Boston police force was rented out to manufacturers in neighboring towns. He concluded that Sacco and Vanzetti were not convicted and executed for a fatal armed robbery. They were killed because they represented the forces of social revolt to the banking and industrial interests which felt themselves critically threatened. Even eight years later, _In Dubious Battle_ represented large segments of the labor group as ill-treated men whose efforts to attain better wages and working conditions were opposed, not only by the employers, but by the forces of the state as well. It is in Dos Passos’ books that the American labor movement is seen making the transition from economic to political action. In _Adventures of a Young Man_ the pecan-shellers, the miners, the auto-workers are organized as forces which will obtain concessions through direct economic action rather than legislation. But _The Grand Design_ shows labor at work within the Democratic Party. There is no nationwide labor party, but the votes of the labor group are marshalled in support of candidates whose programs will provide them with legislative relief.