Close and intimate relations with the employers and with the men during several fiercely fought industrial conflicts have convinced me that the struggle between them rarely degenerates to that plane of barbarism in which either the men or the masters deliberately resort to, or encourage, murder, arson, and similar crimes. So far as the men are concerned, they have every reason in the world to discourage violence, and nothing is clearer to most of them than the solemn fact that every time property is destroyed, or men injured, the employers win public support, the aid of the press, the pulpit, the police, the courts, and all the powers of the State. Men do not knowingly injure themselves or persist in a course adverse to their material interests. It is true, as I think I have made clear in the previous chapters, that some of the workers do advocate violence, and, in a few cases that instantly became notorious, labor leaders have been found guilty of serious crimes. That these instances are comparatively rare is explained, of course, by the fact that violence is known invariably to injure the cause of the worker. It would be strange, therefore, if the workers did systematically plan outrages. On the other hand, it would be strange if the employers did not at times rejoice that somebody--the workmen, the detectives, or others--had committed some outrage and thus brought the public sentiment and the State's power to the aid of the employers. One cannot escape the thought that the employers would hardly finance so readily these so-called detectives, and inquire so little into their actual deeds, if they were not convinced that violence at the time of a strike materially aids the employer. Yet, despite evidence to the contrary, it may, I think, be said with truth that the lawlessness attending strikes is not, as a rule, the result of deliberate planning on the part of the men or of the masters.