"Mr. Chairman, before this investigation is over and before the waves which have been stirred, the waves of public opinion, have subsided, I make no threat, but I make a prediction, that this country will understand that this so-called political party, masquerading as a political party, is the agent and the co-conspirator with the dark forces of this invisible empire whose object is the forcible destruction of constitutional government in America.

"I say this question, before it is over, will arouse this country. It will not be a tempest in the teapot. It will be a question as to whether they can hypocritically masquerade as a political party, and strike hands with every agency of force and revolution, and still make simple American people understand they are not sworn enemies of their country and ready to overthrow it."

The power of the "invisible empire" established by Lenine and Trotzky can be traced in the quotations in this book as a great dramatic energy which has seized and dragged into its vortex one after another of the radical organizations in the United States until none are now left out, and some even of the comparatively conservative trades union bodies appear to be trembling on the verge of peril. The evil fascination of the blood-reign of Lenine and Trotzky has been most remarkably evident in the Socialist Party of America, and precisely so because an element in this organization developed a strong power of resistance—only to succumb at last.

The story of this struggle is told in Chapters III to V of this work, where we see the Moscow Magnet dragging one section so much more rapidly than the rest moved that the Socialist Party at first stretched out into two wings, the Left and the Right, and then exploded into three parts, the Communist Labor Party, the Communist Party of America and that which still calls itself the Socialist Party of America.

We cannot forget the significant statement by Morris Hillquit in the "New York Call" after the Chicago Emergency Convention of September, 1919. This was put in evidence against the Socialist Party of America during the trial before the New York Assembly's Judiciary Committee and appeared in the "New York Herald" of January 29, 1920. Hillquit's letter in the "Call" raised the question, "What shall be the attitude of the Socialist Party toward the newly formed Communist organization?" In answering this question Hillquit used the following remarkable expressions:

"The division was not brought about by differences on vital questions of principles. It arose over disputes on methods and policy. The separation of the Socialist Party into three organizations need not necessarily mean a weakening of the Socialists.... Our quarrel is a family quarrel, and has no room in the columns of the capitalistic papers.... We have had our split.... Now we are through with it. Legitimate constructive work of the Socialist movement is before us. Let us give it all of our time, energies and resources. Let us center our whole fight upon capitalism, and let us hope our Communist brethren will go and do likewise." (Italics mine.)

The difference, then, is not at all one of "principles," but only one of "methods and policy," that is, of cunning in putting on disguises; and in this we concede that the Socialist Party of America is greatly superior to its "Communist brethren."

Another evidence of this cunning, brought out at the trial of the Socialist Assemblymen in January, 1920, bears directly upon the conspiratory character of the Socialist Party's policy of "political action." According to the "New York Evening Sun," January 22, 1920, the following from the Socialist Party's New York State Constitution was put in evidence:

"All candidates or appointees to public office selected by the dues-paying membership of the Socialist Party of the State of New York, or any of its subdivisions, shall sign the final resignation blank before nomination is made official or appointment is made final."

The form of resignation, also put in evidence, is here reproduced from the same issue of the "Evening Sun":

"To the end that my official acts may at all times be under the direction and control of the party membership, I hereby sign and place in the hands of Local (........) my resignation to any office to which I may be elected (or appointed), such resignation to become effective whenever a majority of the local shall so vote. I sign this resignation voluntarily as a condition of receiving said nomination, and pledge my honor as a man and Socialist to abide by it."

One of the by-laws of the New York County organization put in evidence also reads:

"On accepting a nomination of the party for public office, the candidate shall at once give to the executive committee a signed resignation of the office for which he is nominated, and shall assent in writing to its being filed with the proper authority, if, in case of election, he proves disloyal to the party."

A protest had been made to the New York Assembly claiming that "the fundamental principles of representative government" would be violated in refusing to seat the five suspended Socialist Assemblymen. But it is plain that men controlled in office by such a secret device would not really represent their districts, nor those who voted for them, but only the members of the dues-paying locals or the executive committee holding their resignations; and in cases of some of the suspended Socialists it was said that of the votes they received not one in ten nor even one in twenty had been cast by a dues-paying Socialist. At the trial Morris Hillquit, of counsel for the defense, tried to break the force of this damaging evidence by getting in testimony "that this provision of the State Constitution has been a dead letter since its inception." (New York "Evening Sun," January 22, 1920.) But this hypocrisy was thoroughly exposed by the testimony given on January 28, 1920, by George R. Lunn, Democratic Mayor of Schenectady, who had been a candidate for that office three times as a Socialist. The following summary of his testimony is from the "New York Sun" of January 29, 1920:

"The outstanding features of Mayor's Lunn's testimony were his statements that on the night before election in 1911, when he was running for Mayor on the Socialist ticket, two members of the party went to his home and presented a blank resignation for his signature. This, he said, he signed in order to 'avoid a squabble,' although he considered it 'child's play and illegal.' He refused, he said, in 1913 to sign the required resignation before the election. This time he was defeated. In 1915, he testified, he was again nominated and elected, after repudiating that part of the Socialist Constitution which bound him to follow the dictates of his party leaders. The result, he said, was that the State organization revoked the charter of the entire Schenectady local in order to discipline him."

In a ninety-page brief, submitted to members of the New York Assembly on February 12, 1920, by counsel of the Judiciary Committee, after five weeks of investigating the qualifications of the suspended Socialist Assemblymen, Attorney-General Charles D. Newton and the other signers said that the five Socialists by "their promise ... to place their resignations in the hands of the dues-paying members ... abdicated their functions as Assemblymen and disqualified themselves from taking the oath of office and rendered their oath false." ("New York Times," February 13, 1920.)

The same brief, according to the "Times" of above date, says:

"A decent regard for the Assembly as the popular representative house of the State requires that these five Assemblymen be excluded from their seats. They have taken a false oath to secure seats which they cannot occupy as gentlemen, patriots, loyal citizens or Assemblymen. They come here under the false pretense of being loyal to their Government, when in fact they are really citizens of the Internationale, and desire above all things the destruction of this Government."

The Socialist Party of America is also denounced by the same brief on three other counts, which the "New York Times" of February 13, 1920, thus summarizes:

"The Socialist Party is a revolutionary party, having the single purpose of destroying our institutions and Government, which they abhor, and substituting the Russian Soviet Government or the proletariat Government instead to be controlled by themselves. This appears from their platforms and propaganda.

"The Socialist Party is not a national party, like the Democratic Party or the Republican Party, whose aim is to conserve and preserve the nation. The Socialist Party is an anti-national party whose allegiance is given to the Internationale and not to the United States, whose Government and institutions it would destroy.

"'Mass action' and the 'general strike' are advocated and urged by the Socialist Party as a part of the plan to bring about conditions favorable to revolution, and as instruments of revolution, and not to remedy industrial evils. The revolutionary purpose and non-political character of such acts make them treasonable, and, whether criminal or not in the absence of such purpose, treasonable with it."

This last point, the attitude of the Socialist Party of America toward "mass action" and the "general strike," is of the utmost importance as evidence that the Socialist Party stands for seizure of the Government of the United States by revolutionary violence; for the reader will recall abundant proof in this book that it is precisely by means of "mass action" and the "general strike" that both of the Communist parties in this country expect to destroy our existing Government, these "instruments of revolution" being also the very ones recommended by the Communist manifesto of the Third (Moscow) International, and the ones employed by the I. W. W. in its industrial battles.

The Moscow Manifesto, as cited from the copy of it in the "New York Call" of July 24, 1919, gives the Third International's plan of action for world revolution in a nutshell:

"The revolutionary epoch demands that the proletariat should employ such fighting methods as will concentrate its entire energy, viz., the method of mass action, and lead to its logical consequence—the direct collision with the capitalist state machine in an open combat. All other methods, e.g., revolutionary use of bourgeois parliamentarism will in the revolution have only a subordinate value."

It is very significant, therefore, that the Socialist Party of America definitely committed itself to these tactics in the manifesto it adopted at the Chicago Emergency Convention on September 4, 1919. As given in the "Call" of September 5, 1919, the manifesto of the Socialist Party of the United States says on this point:

"The great purpose of the Socialist Party is to wrest the industries and the control of the Government of the United States from the capitalists and their retainers. It is our purpose to place industry and government in the control of the workers with hand and brain, to be administered for the benefit of the whole community.

"To insure the triumph of Socialism in the United States the bulk of the American workers must be strongly organized politically as Socialists, in constant, clear-cut and aggressive opposition to all parties of the possessing class. They must be strongly organized in the economic field on broad industrial lines, as one powerful and harmonious class organization, co-operating with the Socialist Party, and ready in cases of emergency to reinforce the political demands of the working class by industrial action.

"To win the American workers from their ineffective and demoralizing leadership, to educate them to an enlightened understanding of their own class interests, and to train and assist them to organize politically and industrially on class lines, in order to effect their emancipation, that is the supreme task confronting the Socialist Party in America.

"To this great task, without deviation or compromise, we pledge all our energies and resources. For its accomplishment we call for the support and co-operation of the workers of America and of all other persons desirous of ending the insane rule of capitalism before it has had the opportunity to precipitate humanity into another cataclysm of blood and ruin.

"Long live the International Socialist Revolution, the only hope of the suffering world!"

So culminates and ends this 1919 national convention manifesto of the Socialist Party of America. This dedication of that party to the "supreme task" of "strongly organizing" the "bulk of the American workers" into "one powerful and harmonious class organization" in order that "industrial action" may "reinforce the political demands of the working class," adds greatly to the significance of some testimony by leading Socialists in the inquiry of the New York Assembly's Judiciary Committee at Albany. On January 30, 1920, Algernon Lee, educational director of the Rand School and secretary of the New York County Committee of the Socialist Party, was sworn and testified as follows, according to the "New York Herald" of January 31, 1920:

"Mr. Lee ... described at length what Socialists mean by direct mass action and the general strike. He said the general strike had been used with some degree of success in Russia and Belgium.... 'The general strike is often used to back up political action,' the witness said. He justified combining economic strikes as a political weapon....

"'Let us assume for the moment,' said Mr. Conboy, 'that these five gentlemen whose seats are in question ... should present a political program here in the shape of proposed legislation, and they were reinforced by the combination in industrial action, including within its weapons the general strike. It would be possible for them, would it not, in the event that the Legislature of this State refused to adopt the movement which they presented for adoption by the Legislature, to cripple the industries of the State and to starve the people thereof?'

"'I think you are assuming, I may almost say, an impossible condition,' replied Mr. Lee, 'that the people should elect an overwhelming majority upon one side and then be so overwhelmingly organized as to be able to use industrial action on the other side.'"

But here Mr. Lee simply concealed the truth behind hypocritical camouflage by using the term, "the people," ambiguously. For our people might go on as now, conducting constitutional government by representatives in all their legislatures elected by "an overwhelming majority upon one side," while at the same time the underground work might go on of "strongly organizing" "the bulk of the American workers" into "one powerful and harmonious class organization" ready for "industrial action." In that case, a "general strike" would absolutely paralyze the whole country, and "the people" and all their legislatures alike would have to surrender absolutely to any demands made upon them, or would have to engage instantly in such a civil war as the world has not yet seen, carried on under conditions of indescribable chaos.

Moreover the underground work of revolutionary "industrial organization" need be only partial, need, in fact, be carried on only a little beyond conditions already actually existing, in order to establish a "dictatorship of the proletariat," or else terrible civil war, in many of our American cities by the simple process of calling general strikes. The reader who questions this should learn the facts about the Winnipeg general strike of May 1-June 15, 1919, "the culmination of the development of the One Big Union movement in Canada" (page 333 of "The American Labor Year Book, 1919-1920, edited by Alexander Trachtenberg, Director, Department of Labor Research, Rand School of Social Science"), which held a city of 200,000 terrorized for six weeks under the absolute dictatorship of a Strike Committee elected by the strikers, while "many cities, including Calgary, Edmonton and Toronto, meanwhile joined the general strike in sympathy with Winnipeg." (Ibid., page 334.)

The strikers included the employees of the fire, water supply, health, street cleaning, light and power, transportation, telegraph, telephone and postal departments of the city, together with the janitors of buildings, elevator men, wholesale and retail clerks and the carters and deliverers of the stores, railways and express companies, thus cutting off the city from the rest of the world and even from the supplies and facilities within its own bounds except only as the Strike Committee made concessions. "I could have a glass of milk or lunch if I had a ticket from the Strike Committee. Otherwise I couldn't." This was the testimony of Mr. Robert McKay, of Winnipeg, February 10, 1920, and printed in the Albany "Knickerbocker Press" of February 11, 1920, from which we take the facts. Even the Winnipeg newspapers failed to appear after the first three days of the strike, while the city police also voted to strike, but continued on duty under command of the Strike Committee.

At length a Citizens' Committee was organized, 100 men at first, which grew to 1,000, and even 10,000, Mr. McKay says. "The regular police was replaced by 1,500 special police, assisted by mounted police and militia," and "during the last two weeks there were two riots, in which two persons were shot by the mounted police." (Account in Trachtenberg's "Year Book," above quoted, page 334.) In other words, Winnipeg was only delivered by means of rescue from outside and by incipient civil war, the ringleaders of the dictatorship being arrested and indicted for trial.

Yet are there some Americans still so blinded by foolish optimism as to think we are in no danger—even at a time when all the "Reds" of America, inflamed by the Third International, are uniting in feverish haste to carry "industrial organization" to a sufficient state to make it an instrument for holding up the whole American people? If the false prophets of optimism pooh-pooh the peril and label intelligent warnings as "hysteria," will it be the first time in history that this was done by men of weight and influence in the very shadow of a great, impending rebellion and down to the very hour of its outbreak?

Mr. Lee's testimony on January 30, 1920, as quoted above, was voluntarily supplemented by a statement by Seymour Stedman, of counsel for the five Socialist Assemblymen and a prominent Socialist himself, one of the National Executive Committeemen who fought the Left Wing to keep the control of the party in 1919. We quote from the report of the trial in the "New York Times" of January 31, 1920:

"Mr. Lee was next asked to explain what was meant by the pledge of the Socialist anti-war faction to support 'mass action' against conscription. He answered that the general strike was included in the term 'mass action,' but that the word contemplated other methods as well.

"'Is it part of the Socialist Party plans to use the general strike to back up political action?'

"'If the circumstances should exist which made that necessary, I take it that it would be construed so,' said the witness.

"Mr. Conboy was unable to pin the witness down to a definition of what circumstances would make the Socialists resort to direct action. Mr. Stedman interrupted:

"'There was a bill to nationalize the railroads,' he said. 'The men went on strike to reinforce their demands. I can see the miners and the whole working class going on a strike protesting against the Government paralyzing them rather than taking the mine owners by the collar. That will be general. If the working class made such a demand to reinforce a general political demand for the relaxation of such an injunction, the Socialists would stand side by side with them everywhere. Personally, I think the mining situation was an instance where there should have been a general strike.'"

It is important to emphasize the proofs that the Socialist Party of America has openly committed itself to the sanction and advocacy of "industrial" violence in furtherance of its avowed intention "to wrest industry and the control of the government of the United States" from the whole American people and place them in the hands of a special class. For since the wholesale arrests of "Reds" by the Department of Justice were made, followed by the institution of the inquiry into the qualifications of the five Socialist Assemblymen at Albany, a new, general movement became discernible among the radicals, a movement to disguise their real principles, camouflage their plan of action and carry their propaganda "under ground."

Hillquit, Victor L. Berger and the other shrewd leaders of the Socialist Party realized early in 1919 that the programs of violence against this country, flaunted openly by the Left Wing leaders, would bring down the hand of the Government upon the conspirators. As early as April 19, 1919, Julius Gerber, Executive Secretary of the New York Local of the Socialist Party, in a private letter which we quote from the Left Wing "New York Communist." May 1, 1919, stated that "the control of the party by these irresponsible people will make the party an outlaw organization, and break up the organization."

Yet the call for the Third (Moscow) International had cunningly classified the Socialists of the world into three groups, a Right, a Center and "the Revolutionary Left Wing." This last group included the friends of Moscow, the elements of the Third International; and those credited to it in America, who received invitations to the Moscow Conference of March 2-6, were the Socialist Labor Party, the I. W. W., the Workers' International Industrial Union and "the elements of the Left Wings of American Socialist Propaganda (tendency represented by E. V. Debs and the Socialist Propaganda League)." The group of the Right, the other extreme, was completely condemned by the Moscow call as "avowed social-patriots who, during the entire duration of the imperialistic war between the years 1914 and 1918 have supported their own bourgeoisie."

But the "Center" was described as "represented by leaders of the type of Karl Kautsky, and who constitute a group composed of ever-hesitating elements, unable to settle on any determined direction and who up to date have always acted as traitors." "In regard to the 'Center,'" the call continues, "the tactics consist in separating from it the revolutionary elements, in criticizing pitilessly its leaders and in dividing systematically among them the number of their followers." The Left Wing leaders in America, however, ignoring the recognition of a "Center" in this country, lumped together and designated as the "Right" all their Socialist opponents, the special followers of Hillquit, Victor L. Berger and the other "bosses" of the Socialist Party; but they certainly followed the tactics of "criticizing pitilessly its leaders." (See the Moscow call in Chapter III and the details of the Left Wing fight in Chapters III, IV and V.)

These facts explain the course pursued by Hillquit and his fellow-leaders. In the first place they had to get rid of the Left Wing leaders whose "control of the party" would make it "an outlaw organization and break up the organization." This they accomplished by wholesale expulsions and suspensions, as we have seen in earlier chapters. But in the second place they had to prepare a sufficiently strong public declaration of the real revolutionary principles of their party and a sufficiently explicit identification of the party with the Moscow International to satisfy both the rank and file of their followers and Lenine and Trotzky in Russia, while yet not going far enough to incriminate themselves with the awakening suspicions of our National and State Governments. As a result we have the utterances of the Emergency Convention of August-September, 1919, where every compromising word was still only a hint of the principles and plan of action carefully concealed behind it.

Even so, the leaders soon realized that they had revealed too much of the truth for their safety; while the wholesale arrests, indictments and deportations of radicals evidently convinced these cunning plotters that the old-time disguises and hypocrisies of Hillquit, Victor Berger and the other foxes of the party were the only safe tactics for revolutionists in America. Thus Ludwig C. A. K. Martens, the Bolshevist "ambassador," himself led the retreat in his smooth lies to the United States Senate Foreign Sub-Committee, to the effect that the dictatorship in Russia no longer regarded it as necessary to urge those affiliated with it in other countries to overthrow the existing governments. Undoubtedly he had made the American situation perfectly clear to Lenine and Trotzky.

The reappearance of Morris Hillquit in the Assembly case at Albany, on February 17, 1920, and his appearance on the witness-stand as "an expert on Socialism," was a similar attempt to repair the breaches with camouflage. It was his part with an amused smile to show that "industrial organization," "industrial action," "mass action" and "general strikes" really mean nothing in the Socialist Party's manifestoes, platforms and programs, and that his party's affiliation with the Third (Moscow) International was a mere meaningless, friendly gesture. But these party utterances and acts meant all and even more than they said to the party's rank and file and confederates.

It was brought out in the testimony at Albany on February 10, 1920, that the minority report of the Emergency Convention, decreeing affiliation with the Moscow International, had been adopted by a referendum vote of the party's rank and file, 3,495 votes for to 1,449 against. The wording of this report, here given in part from Trachtenberg's 1919-20 Labor Year Book, page 411, is another of those brilliant attempts at camouflage for which the "Yellow" Socialists are famous:

"Any International, to be effective in this crisis, must contain only those elements who take their stand unreservedly upon the basis of the class struggle, and their adherence to this principle is not mere lip loyalty....

"The Socialist Party of the United States, in principle and in its past history, has always stood with those elements of other countries that remained true to their principles. The manifestoes adopted in national convention at St. Louis (1917) and Chicago (1919), as well as Referendum 'D,' 1919, unequivocally affirm this stand.[K] These parties, the majority parties of Russia, Italy, Switzerland, Norway, Bulgaria and Greece, and growing minorities in every land, are uniting on the basis of the preliminary convocation, at Moscow, of the Third International. As in the past, so in this extreme crisis, we must take our stand with them.

"The Socialist Party of the United States, therefore, declares itself in support of the Third (Moscow) International, not so much because it supports the 'Moscow' programs and methods, but because:

"(a) 'Moscow' is doing something which is already challenging world imperialism.

"(b) 'Moscow' is threatened by the combined capitalist forces of the world simply because it is proletarian.

"(c) Under these circumstances, whatever we may have to say to 'Moscow' afterwards, it is the duty of Socialists to stand by it now because its fall will mean the fall of Socialist republics in Europe, and also the disappearance of Socialist hopes for many years to come."

If Moscow's "programs and methods" are only the minor reason for supporting Moscow, what is the major reason for this "support?" What is the Third (Moscow) International "doing" which "is really challenging" the "world," arraying the "forces of the world" against it and thus making its own "fall" a serious possibility? We examine (see Chapters III and IV and the present chapter) the Third (Moscow) International's call to the March, 1919, Conference and the manifesto sent out from it, and we see what it has done in challenge of the rest of the world. It has declared war against the rest of the world and its existing governments, the "Entente Powers," "The White Terror of the bourgeoisie," as it calls them in the "Manifesto of the Moscow International" published in the "New York Call" of July 24, 1919, from which we here quote; and against these "Entente Powers," "The White Terror," the manifesto continues, "Against this the proletariat must defend itself—defend itself at all costs! The Communist International calls the whole world-proletariat to this, the final struggle! Down with the imperialist conspiracy of capital! Long live the International Republic of Proletarian Soviet!" (Ibid.)

Thus complete identification with this proletarian declaration of war against the "Entente Powers" was the major aim of the Socialist Party of the United States in voting for affiliation with Moscow. This is the principal ground on which it "declares itself in support of the Third (Moscow) International" and proclaims it to be "the duty of Socialists to stand by it now." Just as Hillquit differed from the Left Wingers, now his "communist brethren," not "on vital questions of principles," but only "on methods and policy," opposing their "movement" "not because" it was "too radical" or "would lead us too far," but simply because its "specific form and direction, ... its program and tactics," would "spell disaster," so Hillquit's Party supported the Third (Moscow) International "not so much because" of its "programs and methods" as because what it was "doing," its war-declaration and marshaling of the world's proletarian forces against the "Entente Powers," was "really challenging world imperialism."

Is not one mind, one aim, one intent, one purpose and hatred consistently evident in all these utterances? And thus we understand the vehemence of the Chicago Manifesto of September 4, 1919, "largely based upon one suggested by Morris Hillquit," as the "Call," New York, of September 5, 1919, says. The following quotation from the Chicago Manifesto, as printed in the "New York Call" of September 5, 1919, and also in Trachtenberg's Labor Year Book, 1919-1920, pages 413-14, shows that the Socialist Party of America completely repudiates the so-called "Moderate" Socialists, and supports the Bolshevist and Communist violent revolutionists:

"The Socialist Party of the United States at its first national convention after the war, squarely takes its position with the uncompromising section of the international Socialist movement. We unreservedly reject the policy of those Socialists who supported their belligerent capitalist governments on the plea of 'national defense,' and who entered into demoralizing compacts for so-called civil peace with the exploiters of labor during the war and continued a political alliance with them after the war. We, the organized Socialists of America, pledge our support to the revolutionary workers of Russia in the maintenance of their Soviet Government, to the radical Socialists of Germany, Austria and Hungary in their efforts to establish working-class rule in their countries, and to those Socialist organizations in England, Italy and other countries who during the war, as after the war, have remained true to the principles of uncompromising international Socialism."

Just as the Moscow Manifesto cries out, "Long live the International Republic of Proletarian Soviet!" so does Hillquit's manifesto, adopted September 4, 1919, by the Socialist Party, "hold out to the world the ideal of a federation of free and equal Socialist nations." A common zeal for the violent overthrow of the world's existing non-Socialist governments, in order to set up a world-empire of Socialism, is the major feature of the Socialist Party's unity with the Moscow plotters and incendiaries.

But while Moscow's "programs and methods" are "not so much" the concern of the American Socialist Party as the "federation of ... Socialist nations," yet these Moscow "programs and methods" are themselves also distinctly adopted and enthusiastically followed by the American Socialists.

The Moscow Manifesto ("New York Call," July 24, 1919) lays down two great principles of action, one of method, the other of means. Here is the method: "The revolutionary epoch demands that the proletariat should employ such fighting methods as will concentrate its entire energy, viz., the method of mass action, and lead to its logical consequence—the direct collision with the capitalist state machine in an open combat. All other methods, e.g., revolutionary use of bourgeois parliamentarism, will in the revolution have only a subordinate value."

Here is the means: "A coalition is necessary with those elements of the revolutionary workers' movement who, though they did not previously belong to the Socialist Party, now, on the whole, take up the standpoint of the proletarian dictatorship in the form of the power of Soviets, e.g., some of the sections among the Syndicalists." (Ibid.)

The American "Syndicalists" are the I. W. W.'s, and their methods are those of "industrial action" by means of industrial unionism. In other words, they are seeking to organize "One Big Union" in order, as the "Preamble" to their Constitution asserts, to "take possession of the earth and the machinery of production." These are the methods and means recommended by the Moscow International to the rabid Socialists affiliated with it all over the world.

These methods and means, urged by the Moscow Manifesto, were evidently adopted in Hillquit's manifesto, which led, by the party's adoption of it, to the American Socialist Party's strong commitment of itself at Chicago to "strongly organize" on "industrial lines" the "bulk of the American workers" into "one powerful and harmonious class organization" ready for "industrial action." The preamble to the Constitution, also adopted at the Emergency Convention of 1919, according to Trachtenberg's Labor Year Book, 1919-1920, page 410, stresses the same thing:

"The Socialist Party seeks to organize the working-class for independent action on the political field, not merely for the betterment of their conditions, but also and above all with the revolutionary aim of putting an end to exploitation and class rule." And it adds: "To accomplish this aim, it is necessary that the working-class be powerfully and solidly organized also on the economic field to struggle for the same revolutionary goal."

Trachtenberg's 1919-1920 Year Book, page 409, tells us, too, that the party at its Emergency Convention "adopted a series of resolutions," including two described as follows:

"Co-operatives.—Favoring the establishment of co-operatives and recommending that literature be distributed on the subject."

"Economic Organization.—Favoring industrial unionism and establishing a labor department in the party for the preparation of literature and more active work among the labor unions."

We know what the last-mentioned resolution means; and the meaning of the propaganda for "co-operatives" becomes plain when we read in Trachtenberg's same Year Book, page 393, that this co-operative movement has been defined as "The state within a state."

Indeed, these two resolutions, favoring propaganda for "co-operatives" and "industrial unionism," seem to be explained in the "Preamble to the Constitution of the Socialist Party," adopted at Chicago on September 6, 1919. A single sentence in this Preamble, which we quote from Trachtenberg's Labor Year Book, 1919-1920, page 410, tells us what the Socialist Party wants and the means by which it hopes to get it. Here is the sentence: "The workers must wrest the control of the government from the hands of the masters and use its powers in this upbuilding of the new social order, the Co-operative Commonwealth."

Naturally "co-operatives" are favored as a step toward the "Co-operative Commonwealth," which is what the Socialist dreamers want. But in order to set up this new state, the Socialists want "the workers" to do a big job for them, namely, to "wrest the control of" the present Government of the United States and get it out of the way. Thus "the workers" are the means, the tool, which the hair-brained Socialists hope to use, while the proposed method of using these "workers" is to make Socialists of them and line them up in one big "industrial union" ready for "industrial action" when the Socialists crack the whip. We do not think America's "workers" intend to burn their fingers in pulling Hillquit's chestnuts out of the fire; but the lazy drones, the Socialist "intellectuals," as the Hillquitites love to style themselves, certainly hope to ride into power on the back of American labor just as the Bolshevist "dictators," Lenine and Trotzky, rode into power and are still riding on the galled back of the labor slaves of Russia.

It appears, then, that the Socialist Party of America is not merely affiliated with Moscow's "programs and methods" by a referendum vote, but has adopted a similar program and method for its own "supreme task." The only difference is that the Bolsheviks have made their revolution, while the American Socialists are forging the weapon for theirs. Debs' motto is their motto: "I am law abiding under protest—not from scruple—and bide my time."

Perceiving the peril of his party, Hillquit, on the witness stand in the Judiciary Committee's inquiry at Albany, sought in every way to belittle the significance of his and his party's Chicago Manifesto, the Moscow Manifesto, and the evident connection between the two, belittling, also, his party's affiliation with the Third (Moscow) International. How unscrupulous and hypocritical his testimony seems in the light of all the facts!

In his testimony at Albany on February 19, 1920, Hillquit acknowledged the Chicago Manifesto, adopted September 4, 1919, as his own child. "At least ninety per cent of it is my authorship," he proudly said. Having himself imprudently led his party to make open confession, by manifesto, of its plot "to wrest the industries and the control of the government of the United States" out of their present keeping and so completely into the hands of the Socialist Party that it would be able "to place" them "in the control of" a special class, did Hillquit feel that he would be justified on the witness stand in using any extreme of craft which might help to bury the plot out of sight again?

In spite of the fact that the Party Manifesto Hillquit wrote sounds astonishingly like the echo of the Moscow Manifesto, Hillquit, on February 19, 1920, swore that he had never read the Moscow Manifesto when he wrote his ninety per cent or more of the Chicago Manifesto. To this he held even when reminded by Mr. Conboy that all of the Moscow Manifesto but the preamble had appeared in the "New York Call" of July 24, 1919. And he still sought to convey the notion that the Moscow Manifesto had not made any particular impression upon the members of his party prior to the Emergency Convention of September, 1919, in spite of the letter read to him by Mr. Conboy, of which the following is an extract:

"SOCIALIST PARTY "National Office "Executive Secretary: Adolph Germer "803 West Madison Street "Chicago, Ill., 5/12/1919.

"Local Rochester, C. M. O'Brien,

"580 St. Paul St., Rochester, N. Y.:

"Dear Comrade.—I am pleased to announce the publication of two vital documents in pamphlet form, namely, 'The Manifesto Communist International,' issued 1919 by the Soviets of Russia at Moscow to the toiling masses of the world. This is undoubtedly the greatest declaration ever issued from any working class tribunal since the Communist Manifesto of Marx and Engels ... the second is 'The Constitution World's First Socialist Republic....

[Signed] "Edwin Firth,

"Literature Dept."

But Hillquit, the great "expert on Socialism," missed reading this "vital" manifesto all the summer of 1919, when the Socialist papers were full of it; and yet, by some wild chance, himself composed a close echo of it!

The cowardly "Reds," as we have seen, want a violent revolution and constantly preach it to the discontented as boldly and openly as they dare. But they want America's workingmen to take all the risk and do all the work, and they go on with their frantic agitation in the hope that American labor will some day organize a great "general strike" and try to turn it into a revolution to overthrow the United States Government. Naturally, therefore, the Socialists get excited whenever any great labor strike is on, and they stand as tempters whispering the word "revolution" into the ears of the strikers. Sometimes they get their suggestion that the strike be turned into a revolution before the strikers' minds by a hypocritical pretense that they are afraid that what they so much long for is likely to happen. Debs, the Socialist Party's presidential standard-bearer, is a past master in this art of suggestion through a pretense of feeling concern, and during the steel strike of 1919 he even tried to "start something" of this kind from behind the bars of his jail. Thus in the form of an interview, sent as a "special to the 'New York Times,'" which published it September 24, 1919, he got off the following hypocritically inflammatory comment on the steel strike from his place in the Atlanta Federal Prison:

"'I fear that much violence will result from the strike. Then we have the potentiality of other unions to consider, for many of them, including the miners, who have a crisis coming within a short time themselves, as well as the railroad men of the country, who have already made demands—these workers and others may be drawn into the great steel struggle before it is over, and while I do not believe that a prearranged general strike will be called, yet I fear the results of great excitement over possible killings like those we read about in the papers of today, and it is possible that in the heat of passion men may lay down their work and be swept into a revolution with cyclonic fury.

"'Anything is possible as an outcome of the present situation,' continued the prisoner, 'and should a general strike or revolution occur it would be the outcome of too great pressure being brought to bear upon the men who, in a state of unrest and industrial uncertainty, have reached a highly inflammable condition that might burst out spontaneously.'"

"Honest" Bill Haywood, one of the foremost Socialists of the time, admitted as far back as the early part of 1912, in a speech at Cooper Union, New York City, that the Socialists were conspirators against the United States Government.

The Socialist Party of America, ever since its birth, has been reviling and attacking the Government of the United States with a view to overthrowing and destroying it. Is it possible that such an organization is not engaged in a conspiracy against our country?

The American Socialists have been thoroughly unpatriotic. "To hell with the American flag!" "Down with the Stars and Stripes!" "I would spit upon your flag!" These are a few of their expressions of contempt. The United States uniform and the soldiers alike are scorned and ridiculed. The article in "The Call," "Rows and Rows and Rows of 'em march," which has been quoted in a previous chapter, shows the reader the real spirit and intention of Debs' gang, who have been so zealous in stirring up strikes with a view to the final ruin of our present form of government.

Debs, four times the standard-bearer of the Socialists in presidential campaigns, has revealed himself, as we have shown, in such utterances as these:

"As a revolutionist, I have no respect for capitalist property laws, nor the least scruple about violating them.... I am law abiding under protest—not from scruple—and bide my time."

"Let the sturdy toilers of the Pacific Coast raise the Red standard of revolt."

"All hail to the revolution."

"I enter the prison doors a flaming revolutionist, my head erect, my spirit untamed, and my soul unconquered."

"In Russia and Germany our valiant comrades are leading the proletarian revolution.... They are setting the heroic example for world-wide emulation. Let us, like them, scorn and repudiate the cowardly compromisers within our ranks, challenge and defy the robber-class power, and fight it out on that line to victory or death."

This favorite leader of the radicals of America was convicted by jury of violation of the Espionage Law on September 12, 1918, and two days later sentenced to serve ten years in the penitentiary. The case was appealed on the ground that the Espionage Act was an unconstitutional abridgment of the right of free speech. The decision of the United States Supreme Court was handed down on March 10, 1919. In the words of a Socialist work, Trachtenberg's Labor Year Book, 1919-1920, page 102, "The Court held that the law was not contrary to the Constitution and affirmed the sentence imposed upon Debs by the lower court. The decision was unanimous that the nature and intended effect of his speech was to obstruct recruiting and enlistment in the army."

Yet this same Year Book, in its account of "The Emergency Convention of the Socialist Party" at Chicago in August-September, 1919, says, page 409: "The Convention went on record offering the presidential nomination of the party to Eugene V. Debs, the nomination to be ratified at the 1920 Convention."

On March 5, 1920, at Albany, in the final argument for the five suspended Socialist Assemblymen, according to the "New York Times" of March 6, 1920, Seymour Stedman said of Debs: "He represents in a sense the Socialist movement. Perhaps he represents it more completely than any other man in this country."

In order that the reader may understand the extreme way in which lawbreakers like Debs and Victor L. Berger were justified by those defending the five suspended Socialists at Albany, we give an extract from the testimony of Morris Hillquit on February 19, 1920, as reported in the "New York Times" of the next day:

"The testimony leading up to Mr. Hillquit's admissions was given after Martin Conboy of counsel for the Judiciary Committee had read into the record a speech and a signed article by Victor L. Berger. In the speech, delivered at the Socialist National Convention in 1908, Mr. Berger said:

"'I have no doubt that in the last analysis we must shoot, and when it comes to shooting, Wisconsin will be there.'

"In the signed article which appeared in a Socialist newspaper published in Milwaukee the following year, he wrote:

"'Socialists and workingmen should ... have rifles and the necessary rounds of ammunition ... and be prepared to back up their ballots with their bullets.'"

In reply, according to the "New York Times" of February 20, 1920, putting his own far-fetched construction on Victor L. Berger's words, Morris Hillquit himself advanced the doctrine of "a little shooting" in the following statement:

"'History ... has shown that when the privileged minority is about to lose its privileges ... it tries to destroy reform or lawful revolutionary movements by force, ... and in a case of this kind it may come to shooting.

"'It is not at all impossible that, even in this country, when the majority of the people will be ready to introduce substantial reform and take away the privileges of the profiteering class by constitutional, legal methods, these self-same profiteering interests will take offense and try to play some trick upon the people, and in that case it is possible—as a matter of prophecy, not as a matter of program, so far as we are concerned—that the people of this country will be compelled to supplement their political action by a little shooting.'"

Testifying the same day, Hillquit endorsed Debs as follows, according to the "New York Times" of February 20, 1920:

"When asked if Debs is a candidate of the Socialist Party for President, Mr. Hillquit replied:

"'If any voice or influence of mine could accomplish anything, he certainly will be nominated at the next convention.'

"'The Supreme Court has passed upon the conviction of Debs and affirmed it,' said ex-Judge Sutherland, of counsel. 'Notwithstanding this judgment, you still declare that Mr. Debs represents and personifies the attitude of the Socialist Party on the subject of loyalty to the United States Government?'

"'I do not say that he represents the attitude of the Socialist Party. I think I said that he represents the highest and noblest sentiments of United States citizenship and American loyalty.... Debs was convicted only for saying things, not for doing things. I do not for a moment doubt he said the things he is charged with having said.' ...

"'Do you uphold and approve of, as a leader of the Socialist Party, the words that Mr. Debs pronounced, and for which he was convicted?'

"'I haven't got his complete speech before me. I do not want to commit the Party in this general way to every statement. I will say, as a whole, I read his speech at the time and my impression was that it was a perfectly innocent, honest expression of opposition to war for very good and patriotic motives.' ...

"'Have you any respect at all for the decision of the tribunal to the contrary?'

"'I have respect to this effect: that I know that it is final and binding and in practice will go. I do not have respect in the sense of believing that it is just, impartial, and well-reasoned out.' ...

"'Mr. Hillquit, do you wish to be understood as saying that you approve of the words spoken by Mr. Debs for which he was convicted?'

"'Are you trying to get me a little conviction, also, Judge?' asked the witness.

"'I am not in a position to indorse every word and every phrase because I have not the speech before me,' he continued. 'As a rule, I fully indorsed his statements on the subject of the war, expressed, I suppose, in that speech and in other speeches.... I share with all my comrades the greatest respect for Debs, and cannot think any compliment too high for him.'

"'And you think it was that largeness of view, do you, that led Mr. Debs to say the things which brought him into conflict with the law of the United States?'

"'Absolutely, just in the same way as it once happened to one Jesus of Nazareth.'"

"'And you say that notwithstanding the highest judicial authority known under the Constitution has declared him guilty of doing that, and in contempt of that authority, notwithstanding that authority, you say that he is the man that should be placed in the President's chair by the votes of the Socialist Party?'

"'I do.'

"'If Mr. Debs were elected in 1920, how would you proceed to inaugurate[12] him, as he is serving a twenty-year sentence?' asked Assemblyman Jenks.

"'The chances are that prior to the time he would be called upon to occupy the chair the powers that be would sober up enough to know that the present conviction is an improper and inhuman act and liberate him.'"

On several occasions at the trial, in spite of Hillquit's studied effort to cast an air of innocency over his party, menacing words escaped from this crafty leader. He could not restrain them even at the end, on March 3, 1920, when summing up the case for the Socialist defendants at Albany, according to the following account in the "Sun and New York Herald" of March 4, 1920:

"Justifying the general strike as an emergency weapon, Mr. Hillquit made this startling statement interpreted in some quarters as an open threat:

"'The workers of this country have the right "to call a general strike" and it is well that they should at least hold it in abeyance as a possible instrument in some cases, in very exceptional emergencies. I will say that the general strike has been used abroad for the purpose of enforcing political action.'

"'A labor party is being formed,' Mr. Hillquit said, 'in some parts of the country. Suppose it should elect representatives to the Legislature and a capitalist in that Legislature should get up and say "I don't approve of your programme; get out of my Legislature."

"'I say this would be eminently a case where the workers would be justified in declaring a general strike until such time as their constitutional rights are actually accorded to them.'"

To this "veiled threat" Martin Conboy, counsel for the Judiciary Committee, replied the next day in summing up for the prosecution. We quote his words from the "Sun and New York Herald" of March 5, 1920:

"'Under the veil of a simile a threat was employed that if you gentlemen concluded that these five Socialist Assemblymen should not sit in this chamber as members of this Assembly a general strike might be called. In the whole history devoted to the development of this idea there has been no more frank exposition of the doctrine than that. It is proof, sufficient and satisfactory to the point of a demonstration of the charge that has been made in this case.

"'The threat carries itself further. You must not only admit them, but you must take their legislative programme and exact it into law; otherwise the general strike will again be employed.

"'No opportunity is lost by the leaders of the Socialist Party to impress upon the rank and file that it is impossible to achieve ultimate triumph by political action. For this reason the American Federation of Labor is subjected to continuous attacks and misrepresentation. For this reason Debs, originally an ardent trade unionist, abandoned and repudiated his former associates after joining the Socialist Party.'"

The hypocritical defense made by the Socialists at Albany, through which the unchanged character of the unrepentant plotters has constantly revealed itself, should put us on our guard. Brought into the light by wholesale arrests and deportations, all branches of radicalism, in this country and at Moscow, have adopted new tactics of deception. They profess peace and a return to peaceful methods, claim the liberties which belong only to the law-abiding, and hide behind the sympathies of those who are easily taken in. Yet they justify all their misdeeds, and withdraw none of their evil principles, but rather reaffirm them, with subtlety. What does this mean? It means that the old conspirators, whose overt acts have lately crowded our law-courts, hope to fool the American people into letting them continue their propaganda unto lawlessness under a thin mask of conformity to the very laws they seek to destroy.

Although the "Red" conspiracy, as a result of government prosecution, has taken on disguises and gone under ground, it is not, thus, less virulent and dangerous, but more so. Evidence of deceit appeared in the "One Big Union Monthly" for February, 1920, to which lack of space prevents more than a mere allusion. That issue contained articles showing even the I. W. W. preparing an alibi and a disguise. They argued that their organization was not "illegal," and that its famous Preamble meant "evolution" and not "revolution." Another article urged the I. W. W. to give up its name and amalgamate with other industrial unions in a new organization to be known as The One Big Union.

Still more significant, the same magazine for February, 1920, published a new incitement to revolution by Leon Trotzky, together with a "Call for Proletarian International" signed by "The Bureau of the Central All-Russian Council of Industrial Unions" and an "Appeal of the Russian Industrial Unions to the Workers of the Allied Countries" signed by "The Bureau of the All-Russian Council of Industrial Union." The "call" reads:

"The Central All-Russian Council of Industrial Unions invites all economic organizations based on the real and revolutionary class struggle for the liberation of labor through the proletarian dictatorship to solidify anew their ranks against the international league of brigands, to break with the international of conciliators, and to proceed in unison with the Central All-Russian Council of Industrial Unions toward the organization of a truly international conference of all Socialistic labor unions and veritable revolutionary workers' syndicates.

"We beg all economic labor organizations that accept the program of the revolutionary class struggle to respond to our call and enter in a direct touch with us."

The accompanying I. W. W. comment was, "We are sure that our organization will be there." Thus, if it be under ground, the mole still works. Moscow still inflames, unifies and directs the great world-conspiracy against the "Entente Powers" and all the nations that have been looking toward peace. The "Appeal," accompanying the "call," says in part:

"Can it be true, that you, the workers of England, France, Italy and the United States, will much longer support your governments and permit your blood to quench the spreading conflagration of the social revolution? Can it be that the international bandits of the League of Nations and the thrice-branded Versailles shall be allowed unhampered to weave their nets for the strangling of the world proletarian revolution?...

"Down with the bandits of imperialism!

"Long live the World Proletarian Revolution!

"Long live the International Soviet Republic!"

Near the end of his article Trotzky says, according to "The One Big Union Monthly," for February, 1920, page 21, "By thrusting the bourgeoisie away from the helm of state, by taking power into its own hands, the working class is preparing for the creation of Federation of Soviet Republics of Europe and the whole world.... War was and will remain a form of armed exploitation or armed struggle against exploitation."

An editorial note on the same page, immediately below the article of Trotzky, says: "The above article and the APPEAL OF THE RUSSIAN INDUSTRIAL UNIONS TO THE WORKERS OF THE ALLIED COUNTRIES are taken from documents on Russia of the working class, written by members of the Soviet Government.... These materials were sent to Fellow Worker Wm. D. Haywood by Comrade Leon Trotzky, the valiant Commissary for War of the victorious Workers' Commonwealth. We are happy to announce that the I. W. W. will be the first to publish these latest documents on peasant and industrial life in Bolshevikland."

Did Martens and Hillquit advise Lenine and Trotzky to disguise their American propaganda by using the Industrial Unions of Russia as their cat's-paw? We ask this because Hillquit has long been "Councillor" in America to the Russian Soviet Republic,[L] while the above method of inflaming American labor unions has been the secret method of the Socialist Party's Rand School of Science for some years—since 1916, at least. These are facts established by documents obtained in the summer of 1919 by raids of the Rand School, put in evidence before the New York State Legislative Committee, Senator Clayton R. Lusk, Chairman, and referred to in the July 30, 1919, issue of "The National Civic Federation Review," from which we quote the following:

"One David P. Berenberg is director of the correspondence department of the Rand School. From the letter-files seized there, evidence was produced showing the kind of propaganda conducted through Berenberg's department. In a carbon copy of a letter to Harry L. Perkins, of San Diego, Cal., dated June 7, 1916, the statement was made:

"'When we read of 'preparedness' that is in full force in the camps of the capitalists, we realize that unless we organize and fit ourselves to resist, and to take over the government, we will one day find ourselves where our French and German brothers are today, dead or maimed in the fray.'

"'In other words,' commented Chairman Lusk, 'for over two years this Rand School has been advocating armed preparedness to take over the government.'

"A letter—obviously after a form letter sent to correspondents generally—dated October 3, 1916, addressed to M. E. Rabb, Xenia, Ohio, offered as evidence, contained the following:

"'What are you doing when the State robs you and your union and so makes you helpless to strike? There is only one thing to do: take over the State.

"'Are the members of your local prepared to take over and conduct wisely and well the affairs of your town and county? Are you prepared to meet the militia when the powers of the State and courts are against you? Are you arming yourself with the knowledge of the foundations of our society so that when these crises come to you, you will have an organization strong enough to have foreseen and forestalled them? Are you training your members in scientific Socialism?'

"This same adroitly phrased incitement was found in other correspondence."

This pest-house of treason and lawlessness, the Rand School, Hillquit's pet university of Socialism, ought to be dug up by the roots. And what shall we say of such evidence? Why should the Socialist Party of America hesitate to affiliate with the Third (Moscow) International and approve its "programs and methods" when Hillquit's illegitimate offspring, the Rand School, was teaching such "methods" a year before the Bolsheviki seized Petrograd and the dictatorship? Is Hillquit Lenine's pupil or Lenine's teacher? Is Hillquit, backer of the Rand School propaganda, the same gentle Morris Hillquit who as an "expert on Socialism" testified before the Assembly Judiciary Committee on February 17, 1920:

"The word 'revolution' does not have for us the romantic significance of barricade fights or other acts of violence that it has for most of our newspaper writers and school boys." ("Sun and New York Herald," February 18, 1920.)

Can this be the same Hillquit who earlier in the trial broke out in the angry threat: "What we say to you, gentlemen: the contemplated act of this Assembly, if consummated, will ... loosen the violent revolution." ("New York Evening Sun," January 21, 1920.) Did he allude to some pink tea party?

And perhaps the "school boys" Hillquit referred to are those by his pet institution poisoned and turned into degenerates in the bud of manhood, like poor Oscar Edelman, whose valedictory speech on graduating from a course in the Rand School of Social Science ran thus:

"For us as students, Socialists and Labor Unionists, our work is laid out. We must help educate the workers of America so that their slogan, 'a fair day's wage for a fair day's work' be replaced by the revolutionary slogan, 'abolition of the wage system.' ... In the great world-struggle which is taking place today, we must take active part.... The ideals which today inspire Debs and Lenine are the ideals which inspire us." (Lusk Committee evidence, quoted from "The National Civic Federation Review," July 30, 1919.)

But of all the sublime performances of Hillquit, that which lays the brightest crown on his veracity was the answer he gave at Albany on February 17, 1920, to the long hypothetical question concerning the attitude of the Socialists should their friends of the Third International, the Bolsheviki, invade the United States.

At this question the redoubtable Mr. Hillquit, according to the "New York Times" of February 18, 1920, "settled back in his chair and smiled" and said: "I should say that the Socialists of the United States would have no hesitancy whatsoever in joining forces with the rest of their countrymen to repel the Bolsheviki who would try to invade our country and force a form of government upon our people which our people were not ready for and did not desire." (Italics mine.)

Had Hillquit stopped where the italics began he would have stretched our credulity to the utmost. But if "our people" meant to him American Socialists, we readily believe that invading Bolsheviki, coming to wrest the American dictatorship from our native talent, would find themselves and their undesirable "form of government" pitched into the sea by Hillquit and his crowd. Majority Socialist against Spartacide and Bolshevik against Menshivik—we have seen how one Socialist group repels the "form of government" forced by another.

When we think of the heroic exploits of Hillquit in repelling foreign invaders from America about 1917-18, can we not imagine him hurling one of his deadly manifestoes at his Bolsheviki friends? No doubt when Comrade Martens, the vanguard of the invading Bolsheviki, stormed Hillquit's castle on Riverside Drive with a fee and a commission as "Councillor," the outraged patriot crashed a receipt in full against the invader's outstretched paw.

As we think of Hillquit's love for peaceful "political action"—on the witness stand—those words from his foundling, the "New York Call" of May 1, 1919, return to our minds:

"The world revolution, dreamed of as a thing of the distant future, has become a live reality, rising from the graves of the murdered millions and the misery and suffering of the surviving millions. It has taken form, it strikes forward, borne on by the despair of the masses and the shining example of the martyrs: its spread is irrepressible....

"The war of the nations has been followed by the war of the classes. The class struggle is no longer fought by resolutions and demonstrations. Threateningly it marches through the streets of the great cities for life or death."

Mr. William English Walling, in an article published in the "New York Times," January 20, 1920, asks a pertinent question about the revolutionary activities of the American Socialist Party:

"The 'American Socialist Party,' finds itself compelled, precisely like Lenine, to pretend to be a peace-loving organization, loyally accepting constitutional democracy and opposed to violence. Are we to take it at its own word? Is it possible that a few pious phrases offered on occasion can deceive the American people as to the nature of a propaganda organization that is shouting from the housetops in every corner of the country and every day of the year?

"The only imaginable reason why the public has paid any attention is that there are two or three organizations more wholly given over to violence, whereas the Socialist organization gives a share of its attention to party politics. It was said until recently, 'Oh, the anarchists are for violence, but the Socialists are for law and order.' Last August it was found that a large part of the Socialists were for immediate revolution. Then it was said that the Communists are revolutionary, but the Socialists are for law and order. The reasoning was that if the Left Wing was for immediate revolution, then the Right Wing must be for law and order!"

Mr. Walling expresses an expert opinion, having been a prominent member of Hillquit's party until this organization, at St. Louis in 1917, began the openly lawless course which led to the conviction of a large number of its leaders under the Espionage Law. Moreover, since January, 1920, when Mr. Walling recorded the above opinion, evidence has come to light which shows he was exactly right in saying that the American Socialist Party acted "precisely like Lenine" in pretending "to be a peace-loving organization" because it found "itself compelled" to do so.

The tactics of Lenine, Trotzky and Zinovieff, the Bolshevist "triumvirate" of Russia, and of Ludwig C. A. K. Martens and Morris Hillquit in America, are so similar that the evidence brought by Lincoln Eyre out of Russia perfectly interprets the "weasel words" of Martens and Hillquit on the witness stand at Washington and Albany, respectively. Hillquit, the connecting link, according to his testimony at Albany, February 19, 1920, was born at Riga, Russia; came to America a boy, like so many Russian immigrants; attended New York's public schools; and under the protection of the Stars and Stripes, which he would drag down, has made himself so emphatically one of the "capitalists," whom he hates, that he resides on New York's famous "Riverside Drive," and was able to testify with a smirk, "I flatter myself that I am not a failure." (See printed "Testimony" of the trial of the five Assemblymen for the details.)

A moral failure, without extenuation, most Americans will regard Morris Hillquit. For out of thirty-five years, spent by him on our hospitable shores in getting rich under the protection of our Government, institutions and people, he has used at least twenty in trying to destroy the benefactor that nursed him. See the "New York Evening Telegram" of February 17, 1920, as follows: "Mr. Hillquit was called to the stand as the first witness for the five Assemblymen. He gave his residence as No. 214 Riverside Drive, New York City. Mr. Hillquit said he had lived in this country thirty-five years, and had been a Socialist since the party was organized, in 1900."

This is the man who in 1917 and 1918 backed his organization, so far as he dared, to cripple the people of the United States while they were engaged in a desperate war; and who since has been Lenine's brain in America in trying to set fire to the house of government in which the American people live. Notice his intelligence in the hypocritical Bolshevist refinement of separating the Moscow Soviet Government from the Moscow International, so that one of these may offer our people peace while the other continues to plot our destruction. This distinction was made, with its significance concealed, in Hillquit's testimony at Albany on February 18, 1920, which the Albany "Knickerbocker Press" of the next day, February 19, thus summarized:

"Mr. Hillquit testified at length concerning Soviet Russia.... Mr. Hillquit also testified that there were differences between Soviet Government, Bolshevists and the Moscow International. The latter, he said, did not represent Soviet Russia, and the Bolshevists, he said, were merely a national party of Russia." (Italics mine.)

In a cabled account of an interview with Zinovieff, sent by Lincoln Eyre from Russia to the "World," headed, "Riga (by courier via Berlin), Feb. 24," and printed in the "New York World" of February 26, 1920, we have a flood of light showing that the central plot of the Socialist international conspiracy hinges precisely on the distinction which Hillquit had made at Albany a few days before, namely, that the Moscow International does "not represent Soviet Russia." Through the courtesy of the "New York World" we quote from its issue of February 26, 1920, the essential parts of Eyre's statement as follows:

"Bolshevik propaganda abroad, though still as active and insidious as it has ever been has undergone a radical change of late. That conclusion was arrived at by a close study of the subject, which I pursued in Moscow and Petrograd, reinforced by an interview with C. S. Zinovieff, ruler of the latter city, also President of the Executive Committee of the Third Internationale and firebrand of the revolution.

"The Russian Communist Party, which is the Bolsheviki's official political title, no longer exports agitators chosen from among members to kindle the flames of revolt in foreign lands. They are too wise for that antiquated process nowadays. What they do in these scientific times is to import from the country of his birth the crudely fashioned product of his own domestic Bolshevism, subject him to certain finishing processes (including perhaps a gold lining) and ship him back home again complete in every detail, smooth running and highly inflammable. That is one of the reasons why the Soviet Government is prepared to promise and to keep its promise to refrain from sending forth agents charged with spreading the gospel of capitalistic annihilation....

"Another reason for the Soviet's willingness to quit propagandizing abroad is that it has already turned over to the Third Internationale all business of that kind.... Now, the Third Internationale has no official connection with the Soviet Government. It is supposed to be a separate institution. Yet all its leaders hold office under the Soviets and its funds, which are considerable, must be derived from Soviet sources. Nevertheless it is technically, indeed legally, non-governmental, wherefore the Moscow Cabinet is justified in pledging itself to leave propaganda to 'friendly' foreign states alone.

"The moving spirit of the Third Internationale is Zinovieff, who, with Lenine and Trotzky, forms the triumvirate on which Bolshevism today rests, although he is by no means as big a man as the other two. Zinovieff is not a member of the Council of Peoples' Commissaries (the Cabinet), but merely of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, from which the former body derives its powers, and which itself is subordinate to the supreme executive legislative judicial organ, the All-Russian Convention of Soviets. Thus, while the role allotted to him on the administrative stage is really as prominent as that of any of his fellows, short of Lenine and Trotzky, Zinovieff can legitimately claim to be without voice in the actual administration of the Soviet Republic....

"The first point that Zinovieff made clear to me in our talk was that the Third Internationale is not comparable to the League of Nations.... The Overlord of Petrograd affirmed, ... 'The Third Internationale ... is a purely political group. It is a confederation of the world's Communists, an international coalition of the Communist Parties already existing in their respective countries.... The Third Internationale is a going concern, with some 8,000,000 members.' ...

"'But,' I asked, 'how is your aim of a European world republic of Soviets to be realized unless there is some international governmental machine?'

"'There will be some such machine,' Zinovieff replied, 'but probably it will take the form of a new organization along Soviet lines. In my view, the revolution will follow the same general channels it has taken in Russia, with alterations of detail, of course. Should France overthrow capitalism, for instance, she will at first establish Sovietism, and subsequently combine with us. To foresee the mechanical angles of such combination, however, is too early.'

"'And your propaganda programme,' I ventured, 'is as strong and far-reaching as ever?'

"The prompt reply was: 'The Third Internationale is primarily an instrument of revolution. It reunites at Moscow the intelligence and energy of all the Communist groups the world over. Delegates from the various national organizations come to us and give and take knowledge about the cause and return to their respective home countries refreshed and invigorated. This work will be continued, no matter what happens, legally or illegally. The Soviet Government may pledge itself to refrain from propaganda abroad, but the Third Internationale—never!'"

Let us ponder this description of the Third International by its manager and greatest living expert: its scope, a confederation of the world's Communists, a coalition of the Communist parties of all countries; its size, 8,000,000 members, perhaps greatly exaggerated; its nature, "an instrument of revolution;" and its determination, to carry on propaganda, for the violent seizure of every land by a dictatorship, "no matter what happens, legally or illegally." Let us reflect that it is with this Third International, and not the Russian Soviet Government, that Hillquit's Party in America is affiliated, according to the testimony of the Socialists themselves at Albany. Finally, with these facts for a plummet, let us try to find the bottom of Hillquit's hypocrisy in pretending at Albany that he and his disciples do not believe in "revolution" but only in "evolution."

Before passing from Lincoln Eyre's testimony, we further quote from his cable in the "World" of February 26, 1920, what we may call his description of "the Third International at work," as follows:

"Zinovieff ... is that combination of idealistic Hotspur and practical executive which is characteristic of many Bolshevist leaders. Despite his long years in exile with Lenine, to whose Doctor Johnson he played Boswell ably and loyally, this shock-haired enthusiastic young Jew—he is to-day scarcely forty—was able to run Petrograd.... Petrograd is still underfed, underheated, dirty and desolate, but it continues to live.... For this Zinovieff, as all-mighty controller of the city's destinies, ... deserves credit....

"Besides having a hand in everything that concerns local administration, and most things which have to do with national government, he personally edits and writes many pages of the Third Internationale's organ, 'The Internationale Communist,' a monthly magazine of some 250 pages printed simultaneously in Russian, English, French and German. Moreover, he passes upon all important printed matter emanating from the Internationale's press. Every foreign Communist coming to Moscow or Petrograd sees Zinovieff and gets pointers from him how to propagate Bolshevism.

"In the seven weeks I spent in Moscow, three delegates arrived from the United States and literally scores from Germany, Hungary, Austria, Switzerland, Scandinavia, Roumania, Bulgaria, Italy, China, Japan, Corea, India, Afghanistan and Asia Minor countries. The only important states from which few Communistic envoys come are Britain and France. Practically all these missionaries are obliged to travel illegally, that is, with false passports or without any. They slip across the fighting fronts that encircle the Soviet Republic in astonishing ways, risking death and all forms of hardship to reach Moscow. The one-time seat of Moscow's Emperors has become to Communists the world over what Mecca is to the Mohammedan pilgrims.

"A youthful emissary of the I. W. W. said to me: 'We come here to drink of the fountain of revolutionary youth.' I asked him what he thought would happen when Russia's frontiers were opened. 'We shall come as we come now, but in greater numbers and with greater ease,' he replied.

"'But won't the Third Internationale send its Russian agitators abroad then, thus making it unnecessary for you to come here?' 'What for?' he retorted. 'There is no use sending Russians to talk to American workmen. Americans will close their ears to a foreigner where they will open them wide to one of their own countrymen. The Third Internationale is a realistic organization. It has learned long ago that racial and national prejudices, however misguided they may be, are deep seated and cannot be overcome in a day. It aims to get results, and so it lets Americans talk to Americans.' ...

"The Bolsheviki are as eager to precipitate a world revolution as ever. But at the moment they are even more eager to establish relations with the markets of the world, so that Russia may be saved from economic catastrophe.... The Kremlin realizes full well that it cannot hope to spread Bolshevism by means of its own people. And with the Third Internationale headed by Zinovieff, operating in close contact with the National Communist groups, it knows it does not have to."

Thus the overtures of peace and promises of good behavior made by the Russian Soviet Government to the other Powers are pure humbug; and equally false are the professions of peace in America which Hillquit's branch of the Third International has made to lull the fears of the American people. To get the full force of this parallelism we have only to place the law-breaking Socialist Party of America since 1917 in juxta position with the hypocritical Socialist professions and principles brought out in 1920 during the trial of the Assemblymen at Albany.

As the long record of jury convictions of officials and members of the Socialist Party of America is the real foundation of the case against the five New York Assemblymen, exposing the character of the organization they serve, we quote for the reader's information a press summary of the facts, submitted by a citizens' "Committee on Publicity," March 2, 1920, "for the approval of the People of the State of New York." According to the Albany "Knickerbocker[13] Press" of March 3, 1920, this Committee's statement, after referring to "the procedure of the New York Assembly in January, 1920," in "temporarily suspending the five Socialist Assemblymen while instituting a judicial inquiry into their qualifications to serve as law-makers," continues as follows:

"We believe the Assembly was misjudged in the minds of many who reasoned: 'Socialists elected to previous Assemblies were seated without objection, why then suspend the five Socialist Assemblymen this year and investigate them?'

"We offer what we believe to be a complete answer to the question. We believe the Assembly had a compelling warrant for its procedure in serious facts and charges not known to previous Legislatures. These include:

"First—Court records showing that most of the principal leaders of the Socialist 'Party' were convicted lawbreakers.

"Second—the revelations of the Lusk Committee.

"Under the first head may be mentioned the conviction and twenty-year sentence, on January 8, 1919, of Victor L. Berger, National Executive Committeeman of the so-called Socialist Party; the conviction of Eugene V. Debs, four times Presidential candidate of the party, whose ten-year sentence was affirmed by the United States Supreme Court March 10, 1919; and other convictions in 1919, including, Adolph Germer, National Executive Secretary; J. Louis Engdahl, editor of the Socialist Party's official publications; Irwin St. John Tucker, head of its literature department, and William F. Kruse, Secretary of the Young People's Socialist organization. In addition, twenty of the Socialist Party's lesser leaders and scores of its rank and file had been convicted of disloyal acts and utterances, while nineteen of the chief Socialist organs had their second-class mail privileges canceled for disloyalty.

"Under the second head may be mentioned the fact that the investigations of the Lusk Committee showed that the Socialist incitement to lawlessness prevalent throughout the country was largely due to the propaganda of the Rand School of Socialism, a New York Corporation of which two of the Socialist Assemblymen were members. Furthermore, the American Socialist Society, the corporation that owns and conducts the Rand School, had been convicted under the Espionage Act before the United States District Court and heavily fined by Judge Julius M. Mayer.

"These were some of the facts and charges which were matters of public record and public knowledge when the Assembly of 1920 convened. We submit, therefore, that if the Assembly had not taken action as it did, it would have been derelict in its duty.

"We therefore recommend:

"1. That all loyal organizations pass, publish and file with this Committee resolutions in acknowledgment of the service rendered by the New York Assembly and in encouragement of similar action by the Legislatures of other states.

"2. That individuals affirm this judgment in suitable ways, and particularly by letters to the press in their localities.

"3. That all loyal individuals and organizations co-operate to give the whole American people the exact facts concerning the conspiracy of radicals against our Government and institutions.

"To this end we propose to continue the work of education by permanent organization under the name of 'Publicity Committee Against Socialism.'"[M]

The above list of Socialist convictions for lawbreaking will be found completely confirmed, on Socialist authority, in Trachtenberg's Labor Year Book, 1919-1920, pages 92-103.

Was this record questioned by the Socialist defense at Albany? In no wise; it could not be. Was the record faced, the guilt of the lawbreakers confessed, and their transgressions deplored as acts of disloyalty which the Socialist Party now condemns and repudiates? Not at all. These acts were freshly confirmed, and taken anew upon the Socialist Party, by brazen justification of them at Albany and condemnation of the laws, juries and courts of the American people.

We have seen how Hillquit on the witness stand justified the disloyal and violently revolutionary utterances of two of the chief offenders, Debs and Victor L. Berger, identifying himself with their sentiments and proclaiming Debs as the highest type of American citizen, the man most fit for President of the United States. We have also seen that the whole Socialist Party was in 1919 committed to the nomination of Debs as its Presidential candidate in 1920; while it is a well known fact that when Congress excluded Victor L. Berger from that body because of his conviction as a lawbreaker, the lawless Socialist Party at once re-elected him to show its contempt for law and order under our institutions.

The testimony piled up by the prosecution at Albany showed that, instead of judging the wholesale lawbreaking by its leaders and members in 1917 and 1918, the Socialist Party had in 1919 and 1920 involved itself in a still deeper guilt, adding treason to disloyalty by affiliating itself with the open enemies of our Government in Russia and other foreign lands. Was this denied by the Socialist defense at Albany? No, the fact of affiliation with the Third (Moscow) Internationale was admitted, reducing the defense to the false principle that the five Socialist Assemblymen should not be excluded on account of their signed pledge of obedience to a lawless organization, no matter how lawless it might be. Thus in summing up for the defense, on March 3, 1920, Morris Hillquit, according to the "New York Times" of March 4, 1920, made the following excellent summary of the evidence against his party:

"First—That the Socialist Party is a revolutionary organization.

"Second—That it seeks to attain its ends by means of violence.

"Third—That it does not sincerely believe in political action, and that its politics is only a blind or camouflage.

"Fourth—That it is unpatriotic and disloyal.

"Fifth—That it is unduly controlled—or that it unduly controls public officials elected on its ticket.

"Sixth—That it owes allegiance to a foreign power known as the Internationale.

"Seventh—That it approves of the Soviet Government of Russia, and seeks to introduce a similar regime in the United States; and, finally,

"Eighth—That the Assemblymen personally opposed prosecution of the war and gave aid and comfort to the enemy.

"'All of these charges,' Mr. Hillquit said, 'are distinctly charges against the Socialist Party as such. In other words, it is the Socialist Party of the United States that is on trial before you.' ...

"'I think, perhaps, the most telling point is the charge that the Socialist Party is unpatriotic and disloyal—at least it has been emphasized more than any other,' said the lawyer. 'We opposed the war.... If similar conditions again arise I am sure we will take the same position.'"

Similarly, Seymour Stedman, summing up for the Socialists on March 5, 1920, not being able to deny the many convictions of leaders and members of the Socialist Party under the Espionage Law, openly attacked the law itself, according to the following account in the "New York Evening Sun" of March 5, 1920:

"Albany, March 5.—A bitter attack on the Espionage Act was made by Seymour Stedman in his final summing up for the five suspended Socialists before the Judiciary Committee of the Assembly today.

"'Because of that act, you don't know the truth about this war; you cannot know the truth about this war until the Espionage Act is dead,' he asserted....

"Mr. Stedman admitted that the St. Louis war platform of the Socialist Party was drawn 'in lurid language to meet a situation in high flame,' but said no meeting could be called to consider amending it because those who favored it might have been convicted under the Espionage Act....

"Mr. Stedman contended that, of course, the Socialists took their oath to uphold the Constitution of New York State and the United States with the idea that they could interpret for themselves what the Constitution means.

"'Each public officer who takes an oath to support the Constitution swears that he will support it as he understands it, and not as it is understood by others.'"

According to the "New York World" of March 6, 1920, Stedman, in his speech of the preceding day, justified Eugene V. Debs' lawbreaking with the disgusting remark, "He had no conception of Jesus with a dagger in his teeth;" and justified the lawbreaking for which Rose Pastor Stokes was convicted with the sentence, "She had a right to disagree with the war aims." She, of course, was not convicted for "disagreement" but for wilfully interfering with the "recruiting service" of the United States Government.

The "New York World" of March 6, 1920, also gives the following specimen of Stedman's reasoning:

"Answering the charge that Socialists generally were guilty of law violations, he exclaimed: 'Go down to the penitentiaries and get the histories of the birds there and you won't find any Socialists.

"'We are quite willing to say that if 2,000 Socialists had been arrested during the war, we are guilty.'"

It is difficult to follow this logic. After telling us that we wouldn't "find any Socialists" in the penitentiaries, did Stedman suddenly bethink himself of the scores convicted, and then, on the spur of the moment, fix 2,000 as the number of "arrests" necessary to wring from Socialists the confession, "We are guilty"? From a Socialist work, Trachtenberg's Labor Year Book, 1919-1920, page 92, we quote the following figures for Stedman's edification:

"The total number of prosecutions for violation of the Espionage Act from June 15, 1917, to July 1, 1918, were 988. Of these, 197 pleaded guilty and were sent to prison, 166 others were convicted (a large number appealing), and 497 cases were pending for trial July 1st, while 128 had been acquitted or dismissed up to that time. The act has been enforced with increasing vigor since that date, but no official figures subsequent thereto are available."

According to Trachtenberg, pages 93 and 94, the above cases do not include about 450 cases of "conspiracy to obstruct draft" under the Penal Code and Draft Act, 30 prosecutions for threats against the President, others under the treason statutes, and prosecutions under state statutes and city ordinances, in "number," says Trachtenberg, "doubtless greatly in excess of the federal prosecutions," including "in New York City alone scores of cases." A flock of 27 Socialists was convicted at Sioux Falls, S.D. (Trachtenberg, page 92), and at Chicago a herd of 166 I. W. W.'s, first cousins to the Socialists; while these first cousins were also indicted in various places in batches of 47, 38, 27, 28, etc. (Ibid.) Nor do any of the foregoing figures include the "arrests" of two or three thousand "Communists" who were members of Stedman's party prior to September, 1919.

In short, even accepting Stedman's extraordinary dictum that "2,000 Socialists ... arrested" is the minimum necessary to force Socialists to confess themselves "guilty," that test is more than met by the arrests already known.

Martin Conboy, in summing up for the State in the proceedings before the New York Assembly Judiciary Committee, on March 4, 1920, according to the "New York Times" of March 5, 1920, accused the Socialist counsel and witnesses of "evasive and hypocritical sentiments, expressed on the witness stand, to throw the dust of political, parliamentary and inoffensive acts into the eyes of this Committee and the correspondents of the newspapers." On the other hand, he said, "the leaders of the Socialist Party" lost "no opportunity" to "impress upon the rank and file of that organization that it is impossible to achieve the ultimate triumph of their cause by political action," in support of which he cited the testimony in evidence as follows:

"Every manifesto, every platform, almost every utterance of the Socialist orator carries with it the party mandate that the workers of America should be organized industrially so as to be submissive to the command of a revolutionary leadership.

"In adopting a programme of industrial action, involving the use of the general strike, the Socialist Party has stripped itself of the mask of political action and stands revealed as a radical revolutionary propaganda organization.'"

Another part of Mr. Conboy's address we cite from the "Sun and New York Herald" of March 5, 1920:

"The danger of revolution is more real than the nation realizes, Mr. Conboy charged, saying that the Socialist Party seeks to set up its rule here by the following 'unlawful methods':

"'Obstruction of the Federal and State governments in all measures relating to defense, thereby rendering the nation defenseless against the attack of enemies from without and within.

"'Destruction of government by mass action and insisting in all teachings that political action must be backed by force.

"'By making its members and those elected to office responsible only to its dues-paying members, thereby relieving its agents of obligation to established government.