EXTREMISTS AND OTHERS.

Industrial Unionist, Volume 1, Issue 7, 1 August 1913, Page 2

EXTREMISTS AND OTHERS.

“ Extremists-” The term has been much used of late. It has figured in the daily press, in connection with such fearsome terms as SYNDICALISM, REVOLUTIONARY UNIONISM, ANARCHISM, etc., and in the reports of labour conferences, as well as in the utterances of militant members of the Employers’ Association. It lias been dexterously used, too, by.professional labour fakirs in their efforts to influence the workers against the vanguard of their own movement, anl always as a mark of disapproval. Nevertheless it is the extremist who pushes all others forward—the fakir and the reactionary have, to some degree, to dance to his tune.

In every camp, from the most reactionary up to the 1.W.W., the individual extremist is to be found. His presence in any body or group helps to prevent it from slipping backwards, or to make it more advanced—to keep it nearer to the nextforward in the line of progress. In the same way the organisation that is. most, advanced permeates, tones up, and drives forward the whole mass of the movement. .All history tells how the extremist has leavened and lifted the rest with his' fresh' ideas ; has goaded and led movements on, and, though often the butt of abuse, has broken through the hide-bound and stepped out and done things, where others feared and failed 1 ? Disruptive 1 ? Maybe sometimes,, buf only so that greater solidarity of action may be achieved. The extremist is the pioneer of progress.

Are the I.W-W.’s extremists? We should smile.