The Labor World

LABOR'S HIGH IDEALS CAN BLOCK TRAITORS
Labor is partly responsible for traitors within its ranks, says Australian Worker, which declares that when the workers awake to their mission, the possibilities of their cause and are unrelenting and unforgiving to traitors, the efforts of this brood will be minimized.

"The workers have not yet learned to be earnest in their own cause. They don't take their historic mission seriously," says this labor paper.

"They can't believe that they are destined to change the face of civilization and bring into being a new world.

"It is this want of faith in themselves that encourages unfaithfulness in others.

"When labor realizes its stupendous importance in the drama of history, when it perceives the unforgivable nature of treachery to its ideals, Judas will not manifest himself to anything like the same extent, and the traditional pieces of 'silver' will lose their fatal power to lure.

"Too often it pays to 'rat' on the working class. When it ceases to be a profitable proposition, when it becomes instead a dangerous occupation, there'll be a rapid and permanent slump in the renegading business.

"It is not always for sordid gain that Judas acts. Sometimes, his object is the favor of the great, the society of the well-to-do, or the gratification of ambition. Sometimes he is even able to persuade himself that he is obeying the dictates of a 'supperconscience' or following some newly-discovered 'light.'

"But whatever the motives animating him, whether he betrays us in the old crude fashion, or deceives himself into the bargain, he is Judas nevertheless, and so long as there is room for him in our midst the old tragedy will be a continuous performance."