The red conspiracy

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The Red Conspiracy

BY

JOSEPH J. MERETO

1920
THE NATIONAL HISTORICAL SOCIETY
37 West 39th Street^ New Yorl^

This book proves the existence of the Red Peril. We publish it to
warn America. We ask the help of every loyal American, organization
and institution to put " The Red Conspiracy " in every home, school
and library in the land. Price, cloth bound, $2.15 postpaid; in paper,
$1.10 postpaid.

Chapters of the book and parts of chapters can also be supplied in
pamphlet and leaflet form for wide distribution. Write us for
particulars.

The National Historical Society

37 West 39th Street, New York

I (i CI J J/ J (j\

1 ^ I'

Copyright, 1920, hy
ffm National Historical Society

INTRODUCTION

As a mark of sincere gratitude for all that he owes to his
Country from birth, the author of " The Eed Conspiracy "
hereby dedicates his work to his fellow-countrymen, trusting
that it will prove a bulwark of defense for our Star-Spangled
Banner and constitutional form of government, now so violently
assailed by disloyal American citizens, as well as by Marxian
rebels from abroad who have deceived many of the uneducated
or trained them in ways of evil.

While "The Eed Conspiracy" will appeal strongly to all
who are seeking a clear and comprehensive knowledge of
Socialism, Bolshevism, Communism and I. W. W. 'ism, it will
be of special value to the workingmen of America, as it will
enable them easily to understand the fallacies of the Revolu-
tionists and at the same time make them realize the serious
dangers that would result from the adoption of any of the
various radical programs.

Friendship, indeed, the " Knights of the Eed Flag " profess
for the laboringman. Such friendship, however, once it is
understood will be spumed, for it is one which would plunge
the sons of toil into a terrible abyss of injustice, deprivation
and suffering — wrongs far greater than those endured from
abuses of capitalism and partial corruption of some government
officials.

At the very beginning of this work, the author wishes to
express his heartfelt sympathy for poor men and women who are
treated unjustly by employers, as well as with all who receive too
small a recompense for their wearisome labors. It is, indeed, a
source of deep regret to us that in consequence of injustice and
uncharitableness, there are to be found in this rich republic
numbers of our fellow-countrymen, not merely men and women
but even innocent little children, who can scarcely relieve the
pangs of their hunger by the coarsest kinds of food and have
naught but rags for clotlaes and huts for homes. Feeling deep
concern for these poor people, and for all who suffer either
from employers or from defects of government, we trust that
" The Eed Conspiracy " will not only help toward remedying
many of the evils that now weigh heavily upon the working
class, but help to avert the far more dreadful evils that would

iii

iv THE BED CONSPIRACY

result from tlie adoption of Socialism, Bolshevism, Communism,
and I. W. W. 'ism.

For many years the author has made a careful study of
radicalism, and diiring that time has read not only many
thousands of Socialist and I. W. W. papers, leaflets, pamphlets
and books, but also most of the leading works against Socialism
in the English language. "We have sought to gather an illumi-
nating collection of quotations, not merely from standard Marxian
publications, but froni the speeches of Socialists of unquestioned
authority in the international movement. These open confes-
sions of the Eevolutionists cannot fail to interest the reader
and will certainly arouse the deep indignation of every fair-
minded person against a propaganda of deception which is
working fast to wreck modern civilization.

K"o doubt the readers of " The Eed Conspiracy " will be
interested to learn that many of the revelations made in this
book are brought to light through purchase by the author
himself of revolutionary papers and pamphlets on sale in the
spring and summer of 1019 at the National Headquarters of
the Socialist Party, the Chas. H. Kerr Socialist Publishing
Company, and the National Headquarters of the I. W. W.,
all in Chicago, and also in leading Socialist bookstores of
Chicago, New York, and Philadelphia. The matter obtained
in these centres of underworld corruption and anarchy could
not have been procured had the author ransacked every public
library in the United States.

Though loyalty and patriotism should always inspire us to
defend our country against its foes, we must concede to the
Socialists that human government, whether national, state or
municipal, is by no means free from serious defects; and we
are bound to admit that representatives of the American people,
as well as men engaged in business and commerce, have too
often been guilty of dishonesty, injustice and cruelty to the
suffering poor.

Law-abiding citizens, while very much regretting that wrongs
such as these should exist, confidently hope to reduce them to
a reasonable minimum by methods of social reform still more
effective than those that have already brought to an end not
a few of the evils prevalent in days gone by. Prudence and
charity suggest to true social reformers reasonable constitutional
and lawful methods by which to correct abuses instead of adding
to their number by adopting Socialism. We have already seen
too much -of the work of the " Reds " in Europe and in parts

INTRODUCTION V

of Mexico, and we do not wish to behold our fellow-countrymen
shedding more blood and suffering graver evils, under Socialism,
than they did during the terrible World War.

Loyal and patriotic citizens of America, Judging from the
progress that has been made in the past in matters of social
reform, have every reason for looking forward confidently to
the success of their efforts — unless, indeed, the Eevolutionists,
by greatly increasing their numbers, should divide the working-
men of our country into two big parties, comprising, respec-
tively, the Socialists and the anti- Socialists, whose main purpose
it would then be to fight each other instead of joining forces
against social abuses. If the Eevolutionists should gain very
large numbers of recruits, there would be, on the one hand,
a great party consisting of those whose object it would be to
destroy our present form of government, as well as the entire
industrial system, and, on the other, an opposition party,
embracing good citizens and men of common sense and intelli-
gence, who, because of their realization of the blessings which
privately-owned industries and our constitutional form of gov-
ernment have bestowed upon the people of America, would be
determined to shed the last drop of their blood in defense of
them.

The Socialists, however, are not satisfied with social reform,
but are bent on the total destruction of our system of govern-
ment and industry, holding the system itself, rather than the
faults and shortcomings of men, to be by its very nature
responsible for all the economic evils of the day. "Down with
the Stars and Stripes " is their cry. " Abolish religion and the
present form of marriage." " Atheism and free-love must reign
supreme." Then, trusting that workingmen will admire any-
thing, provided that it be adorned in sufficiently glowing colors,
they paint such fabulous pictures of Socialism as the following:

" Hundreds of thousands of former representatives of the
state will enter various professions, and by their intelligence
and strength will help to increase the wealth and comfort of
society. Neither political nor common crimes will be known in
the future. Thieves will have disappeared because private property
will have disappeared, and in the new society everybody will
be able to satisfy his wants easily and conveniently by work.
ISTor will there be tramps and vagabonds, for they are the
product of a society founded on private property, and with the
abolition of this institution they will cease to exist. Murder?
Wh-j? JSTo one can enrich himself at the expense of others, and

VI THE RED CONSPIRACY

even murder for hatred or revenge is directly or indirectly
connected with the social system. Perjury, false testimony,
fraud, theft of inheritance, fraudulent failures? There will
be no private property against which these crimes could be com-
mitted. Arson? Who should find satisfaction in committing
arson when society has removed all cause for hatred ? Counter-
feiting? Money will be but a mere chimera, it would be love's
labor lost ! Blasphemy ? Nonsense ! It will be left to good
Almighty God himself to punish whoever has offended him,
provided that the existence of God is still a matter of con-
troversy." (" Woman Under Socialism," by Bebel, page 436 of
the 19io edition in English.)

As an immense number of American citizens would not be
led astray by these foolish promises, or by others equally
absurd — recalling how political and common crimes, theft,
murder, arson, perjury, worthless currency, blasphemy and
political corruption have ruined ' Socialist Russia and made it
a hell on earth — a dreadful revolution would be necessary
to compel our countrymen to surrender their cherished rights.
The Socialists, if victorious, after having set Tip a new form
of government, modeled on their own low ideas of morality,
would not only substitute a free-love regime for the present
form of marriage, but, going still further, would avail them-
selves of every opportunity for destroying religion. The evils,
however, would by no means end here, for the new government,
whose rapid decay would begin from the very day of its birth,
would in a short time collapse and fall, and then the citizens
of America would have neither a government to protect them
from the ravages of criminals, whose number would be legion,
nor yet any suitable system of organized industries for the
employment of men and the production of the necessaries of
life. Consequently, trials and sufferings incomparably greater
than any of the present day would befall the people in the
reign of anarchy that would ensue.

It is to preserve our fellow-countrymen from ever having to
endure such calamities that we have u.ndertaken this work, in
which it is proven conclusively that the " Reds," unless quickly
thwarted, will overwhelm us with unspeakable horrors of crime,
rebellion, anarchy and destitution.

CONTENTS

PAGES

INTEODUCTION iii

Scope of Book, iii ; Value to Workingmen, iii ; Sympatliy for
Labor, iii ; Quotations from Socialist Authorities, iv ; Revolu-
tionists Set Back the Cause of Labor, v ; Bebel's Fabulous
Picture of Socialist Possibilities, v ; Socialism Means War, vi.

CHAPTER I

SOCIALISM m OTHEE LAIStdS.

Modern Socialism Dates from " Communist Manifesto," 1848, 1 ;
Karl Marx, 1 ; Engels, 1 ; International Workingmen's Associa-
tion, 1 ; " Capital " by Marx, the Socialist Bible, 2 ; Socialism
in Germany, 2 ; in Bavaria, 4 ; in Russia, 4 ; Bolsheviks and
Mensheviks, 5 ; Socialism In Austria-Hungary, 5 ; in Prance, 5
in Great Britain, 8 ; in Italy, 9 ; In Spain, 9 ; in Belgium, 10 ,
in Holland, 10 ; in Bohemia, 10 ; in Sweden, 11 ; in Norway, 11 ;
in Argentina, 11 ; in Canada, 12 ; in Bulgaria, 12 ; in Mexico,
12 ; in Other Foreign Lands, 12.

CHAPTER II

GROWTH OF SOCIALISM IN THE UNITED

STATES 13

Introduced from Europe, 13 ; Workingmen's Party, JS ; Socialis t
Labor Party . 13 ; Socialist Democracy of America, 1 3 ■ j-inciaii^i t
Paftv rtnTm l^hca. IH! Siti'milHI Ptir'lllllii'H Is. 1 4 : ' Mnrialiat Party
Strife and Buynlsiui, m ; The Internatonal, 16 ; The First Inter-
national, 16 ; The Second International, 16 ; International
Socialist Bureau, 17 ; American Socialists and the International,
17 ; The Berne Conference, 18 ; The Third (Moscow) Interna-
tional, IS ; Debs and American Socialists Recognized by Lenine,
20 ; American Socialists' Straddle Resolution on Berne and
Moscow, 21.

CHAPTER III

THE SOCIALIST PARTY OP AMERICA DEVELOPS

A LEFT WING 33

Revolution Camouflaged as Evolution, 23 ; " Yellows," " Reds,"
" Rights " and " Lefts," 23 ; Origin of the Left win^ -yi ■
Revolutionary Principles of the Left Wing, 24 ; Sympathy with
Russian Bolshevism, 25 ; industrial UniOTiism Ad vncgtarl ;^R •
Mass Action and Strikes the Prfiluae io Armed Rebellion, 26 ;
" Moderate " Socialism Rejected by American Revolutionists,
28 ; To Overthrow the Ti-niterl States Government 30 ;_■ Text of
Call to Mostfi-rf International, 31 ; American Socialist Party for
" Industrial Unionism," 34.

vii

Viii THE RED CONSPIRACY

CHAPTEE IV

THE FEEE-FOE-ALL FIGHT BETWEEN THE

EIGHT AND LEFT WINGS 35

Rowdies at Socialist Meetings, 35 ; Revolution in America " at
Hand " 38 ; " Existence o£ the Party at Stake," 37 ; The
Steering Committee," 38 ; Hillquit Says Left Wing is Not " Too
Radical," 40 ; " Friendly Separation," 41 ; The Left Wing Gets
More " Dictatorship " Than It Wants, 42 ; The Rights Expel
and Suspend Tens of Thousands, 42 ; The Socialists' " Im-
mortal " Executive Committee, 42 ; Manifesto of the Third
(Moscow) International, 45.

CHAPTEE V

BIETH OF TPIE COMMUNIST AND COMMUNIST

LABOE PAETIES 53

Left Wing Conference, 52 ; Left Wingers Split, 52 ; Call for a
Communist Convention, 53 ; Too Many Would-Be Lenines and
Trotzkys, 54 ; The " Firing Squad," 55 ; National Emergency
Convention, 55; Who Called the "Cops"? 57; A Convention
on Each Floor, 57 ; The Communist and Communist Labor
Parties Organize, 57 ; Their Principles, 58 ; " Reds " No Worse
Than " Yellows," 58 ; Bolshevism of the Socialist Party, 59 ;
Utterances at the Emergency Conference, 60 ; Revolutionary
Character of the Socialist Party, 65 ; Trachtenberg on Affiliation
with Moscow International, 68 ; Glassberg Letter, 69 ; Victor D.
Berger, 70 ; American Socialists Join the Third International,
74 ; Hillquit Encourages the Communists, 74 ; The Socialist
Party's Revolutionary Manifesto, 71-75.

CHAPTEE VI
SOCIALISM IN THEOEY 79

Socialist Office-holding is Not Socialism, 77, 85 ; Collective
Ownership, 80 ; I. W. W. Point of View, 80 ; Socialism Explained
Diversely by Its Leaders, 80; Hillquit's Notion, 81; Debs'
Demand, 81 ; American Socialists to " Capture the Govern-
ment," 82 ; Analysis of Collective Ownership, 82 ; All 'Women
to Work, 84 ; Atheism and Free-Love, 85 ; Poetry from the
" Call," 86 ; Don't Judge Socialism by Reform Planks in Plat-
forms, 87 ; Socialists Attack Their Own Social Reform Program,
89 ; Unpatriotic Attitude of Socialists in the War, 92.

CHAPTEE VII
SOCIALISM IN PEACTICE M

Herron's Socialist Day Dream, 94 ; Communist Experiments in
Russia and Hungary, 94 ; Socialism in Yucatan, 96 ; " Zapata,
Great Socialist Leader of Southern Mexico," 97 ; Act of the
Second : " Zapata, a Tyrant, Who Played a Huge Joke on
100,000 Confiding Workers Whom He Exploited," 101; Socialist
Experiment in Russia, 103.

CHAPTEE VIII
THE L W. W 105

A " Dangerous " Organization, 105 ; Its Origin, 105 ; Industrial
Unionism Explained, 106 ; Organization by Industries, 107 •
I. W. W. Preamble, 107; Revolutionary Aims, 108; Conceptions
of Right and Wrong, 108 ; Violent Tactics, 109 ; Revolution by
Means of the " General Strike," 100 ; " Government Will Dis-
appear," 110 ; Remuneration for Work and the " Man-Day "
111; Doctrine and Examples of Sabotage, 111, '

TABLE OF CONTENTS il

CHAPTER IX

:(NDUSTRIAL WOEKEES OF THE WOELD IK

ACTION 114

I. W. W. Trials and Socialist Support, 114 ; Eevolutlonary
Threats, 115 ; Plotting Against the United States, 116 ; I. W. W.
Publications, 116 ; Propaganda Among Foreigners, 117 ; The
Paterson Strike, 117 ; The I. W. W. Atheistic and Antl-Eellglous,
118 ; Arousing the Negro, 119 ; Arousing the Chinese, 120 ;
I. W. W. Songs, 120 ; Socialists Favor the I. W. W., 122 ; Pre-
tended Anti-Sabotage Policy of the Socialist Party, 124 ; Gene
Debs in Love with Bill Haywood, 126 ; I. W. W. Attitude
Toward Bolshevism, 128 ; Drawing Together of Radicals, 129 :
" Left Wing " Socialists and the I. W. W., 131 ; I. W. W. Help
In Establishing Russian Bolshevism, 133 ; Socialist Drift Toward
I. W. W.'lsm, 135 ; Growth of Syndicalism Throughout the
World, 136.

CHAPTEE X
BOLSHEVIST EULE IN" EUSSIA 138

Rise of Russian Bolshevists, 138 ; Bolshevist Constitution, 139 ;
Land Confiscation in Socialist Russia, 140 ; Peasant Warfare,
141 ; The Russian Soviets, 142 ; " Liberty " in Socialist Russia,
145 ; Justice in Bolshevikl-land, 146 ; Bolshevist Atheism and
Religious Persecution, 146 ; Church and State " Separated," 147 ;
Michigan Left Wing " Lets the Cat Out of the Bag," 149 ;
Education Under Lenine's Government, 151.

, CHAPTER XI

EUSSIA RED WITH BLOOD AND BLACK WITH

CRIME 153

The Red Terror, 153-5 ; " Take Our ' Lives But Spare Our
Children," 156 ; 500 Butchered in a Night, 157 ; Horrors of
Bolshevik Prisons, 158 ; Atrocities and Tortures, 159 ; Petrograd,
"City of the Dead," 160 ; 76 Uprisings, 161 ; " Criminal Ele-
ment " in OflBce, 161 ; " A Lapse Into Barbarity," 162 ; Nation-
alization of Women, 163 ; " The Bureau of Free Love," 166 ;
Forcible Abolition of Celibacy, 167 ; The " Call " Lauds Bol-
shevism, 168 ; " S. O. S., An Appeal to Humanity," 169 ;
" Every Pore " of Russia's " Body Shedding Blood," 170 ; Lenine
Working for World-Wide Bolshevissm, 170 ; Offlcial Bolhevist
Organ in New York, 172 ; American Socialists Want Bolshevism,
173 ; Bolshevism's Economic Failure Revealed by Lincoln Eyre,
173 ; After Destroying " Capitalism " Lenine Seeks " Foreign
Capital," 174; Bolshevism Has Sacrificed "the Health of
Future Generations," 175 ; Trotzky Offers " Foreign Capitalists "
a " Share of the Profits " from Russian Conscript Labor, 175.

CHAPTER XII
EUEOPEAN SPARTACIDES AND COMMUNISTS.. 177

Spartacldes of Germany, 177 ; Origin of Name, 177 ; Violent
Principles, 177 ; Rowdies and EufiSans Approved by American
Socialists, 177 ; Spartacan Terrorism, 178 ; Communists of
Bavaria, 178 ; Terrorism in Munich, 179 ; The Peasants Rise
While the Communists Plunder, 179 ; American Socialists
Allied With the Scum of Bavaria, 179 ; Communists of Hungary,
180 ; Free-Lovers, 180 ; Churches Converted Into Music Halls,
180 ; Budapest Painted Red, 180 ; American Socialists Lined
Up With European Thugs, 181.

X THE KED CONSPIRACY

CHAPTEE XIII
THE BOLSHEVISM OF AMEEICAN SOCIALISTS. 182

Pink Booklet "About Russia," 182; I^enine Tells Why Bol-
shevism Requires " A World Revolution," 183 ; American
Socialists " Greet " Bolshevist " Ambassador," 184 ; Poem on
Llebknecht, 185 ; The " Call " Endorses Communism, Bolshevism
and Spartacism, 186; Hillquit Hails Foreign Radicals, 188;
American Socialist Papers Are Bolshevist, 188-93 ; Debs a
" Bolshevik " and " Flaming Revolutionist," 194.

CHAPTEE XIV

VIOLENCE, BLOODSHED AND AEMED EEBEL-

LION 196

Socialist Riots, 196 ; Trouble at Gary, 197 ; Ha ywood Says
Socialists are Conspirators Against U. S. Government, 199 ;
Jack London on the International " Fighting Organization," 200 ;
Berger Says Socialists " Must Shoot," 201 ; " Blow Open the
Vaults of the Banks," 202 ; Baywoo d and Bohn«-Say the Social-
ist " Does Not Hesitate to BreHK " the Laws, 203'; " I am f^w
Abiding Under Protest," Ravs^ P^ bs. " and Bidd My Time," 20&;
Scott Nearing " Wants War," 20,5.

CHAPTEE XV
I PATEIOTISM EIDICULED AND DESPISED 207

Socialists Against Patriotism, 207 ; American Flag Scouted, 207 ;
"Honor the Uniform? No, Spit on It," 208; The "Call"
Derides Our Soldiers Returning from France, 208 ; " I Spit Upon
Your Flag ! I Loathe the Stars and Stripes ! To Hell With
Your Flag ! Down With the Stars and Stripes ! Run Up the
Red Flag!" 210; Debs Attacks the American Flag, 210.

CHAPTEE XVI
THE CONSPIEACY AGAINST OUE COUNTEY. ... 212

I. W. W. Conspirators, ^^; " The Future of Socialism Lies in
the General Strike, Armecrlnsurrection and Forcible Overthrow
of All Existing Social Conditions," 213 ; Left Wing Socialists
by Strikes and Industrial Unions to Establish " the Dictator-
ship of the Proletariat," 215; Government Raids, 215; Com-
munist Parties for Overthrow of Government, 215-219 ; Social-
ist Party More Dangerous Than the Communists, 219-21 ;
1 American Socialists Part of the " Invisible Empire," 222-4 ;
Secret Resignations in the Socialist Party, 225-6 : Socialist
Party tor " Mass Action," " General Strikes " and " Industrial
Unionism " to Seize " the Industries and Control of the Govern-
ment of the United States," 227-32 ; Winnipeg General Strike,
230-1; The Socialist Party Joins the Third (Moscow) Inter-
national, 232-7 ; Imitates Moscow's Program and Methods,
237-40 ; Socialists Acclaim Debs, the Convict, 242-5 ; Hillquit
Threatens the New York Legislature with a General Strike,
245-6 ; Socialists Disguise Their Principles at the New York
Assembly Trial, 246-51 ; Walling Rejects Socialist Peace Pre-
tensions, 251 ; The Russian Soviet Government Talks Peace
While Its International Plots War, 252-7 ; Wholesale Law-
Breaking of American Socialists Justified at the Assembly Trial,
257-62 ; Their Traitorous Principles and Propaganda, 263-86 ;
Socialists " Enter the Government " to Destroy It, 266 ; Fore-
warned Is Forearmed, 266-7.

TABLE OP CONTENTS Xl

CHAPTEE XVII
SOCIALISM A PEEIL TO WOEKINGMEN" 268

Socialist Chaos and Anarchy, 268 ; Discontent in the Socialist
State, 269 ; Perils of Confiscation, 270-2 ; Liberty Bonfls and
Insurance, 273 ; Unworkable Labor Schemes, 273-7 ; Forcing
Women to Work, 277 ; Political Corruption, 277 ; Quarrels Over
Religion and Free-Love, 278 ; Lincoln Eyre Reveals Socialism's
Economic Failure in Russia, 279-91 ; " Lenine and Trotzky
More Absolute Than Any Czar," 281 ; Starvation and Disease,
282-3 ; Military Confiscation of Russian Labor, 283-8 ; Lenine
and Trotzky Invite " Foreign Capital " to Share the Profits
from Exploiting the Wage-Slaves of Bolshevlki-land, 288-9 ;
Death for Russian Wage-Slaves Who Strike Against Their
Socialist Task-Masters, 290.

CHAPTEE XVIII
THE CONSPIEACY AGAINST EELIGIOISr ABEOAD 293

Ingersoll Argument Refuted, 293 ; Economic Determinism, 293 ;
Atheism of European Socialists, 294-5 ; " There Must Be War
Between Socialism and the Church," 296 ; Socialists " All more
or Less Avowed Atheists," 297 ; " No Man Can Be Consistently
Both a Socialist and a Christian," 298 ; Socialism Persecutes
Religion In Yucatan, 298.

CHAPTEE XIX

THE CONSPIEACY AGAINST EELIGION IN

AMEEICA 301

Socialism Turns Ministers Into Atheists, 301-2 ; Spargo Says
Socialism Cannot Tolerate Religious Schools, 302 ; Anti-Religious
Poems in " Call," 303 ; The " Call " Has " No Use " for " Christ,"
304 ; " Religion Spells Death to Socialism," as Socialism " Does
to Religion," 805 ; " Socialism Logical Only When It Denies the
Existence of God," 306 ; " Christmas Is a Crime," 307 ; Blas-
phemous Socialist Catechism for Children, 308 ; A Socialist Says
" Socialism Is Anti-Christ," 309 ; Hypocrisy of Hillquit, Berger
and Other Leaders in Concealing the Socialist Party's Irreligion
to Get 'S'otes, 310-15 ; Hillquit Says " Ninety-Nine Per Cent of
Us" Are "Agnostic," 311.

CHAPTEE XX
THE CONSPIEACY AGAINST THE FAMILY 317

Socialist Books Advocate Free-Love, 317 ; Socialists Dodge the
Truth by Arguments About Prostitution, 318-19 ; The " Call's "
Poem on " The Harlot," 320 ; Socialist Advocates of Free-Love,
320-2 ; Victor Berger's Milwaukee Company Sells Free-Love
Literature, 322 ; Free-Love Stuff Sold by Kerr and Company
and the National Office of the Socialist Party, 323-9.

CHAPTEE XXI
THE CONSPIEACY AGAINST THE EACE 330

The " Call," chief Organ of the Socialist Party in New York,
An Obscene Vehicle of Propaganda for Race-Suicide, Teaching
" All Within Its Polluting Reach to Violate One of the Laws of
the State of New York," 330-41.

Ill THE RED COIfSPIEACY

CHAPTEE XXII
SOCIALIST OEGANIZATIOX AND " BOEING IN ". 343

Organizing Activity of Socialists, 342 ; Dues-Paying Members,
Locals and Branches, S42 ; 400 Socialist reriodicals in the
United States, 343 ; Use of Boolis and Leaflets, 344 ; Financial
Support by Rich Radicals, 345 ; Red Propaganda to Proselytize
Labor and Prom»tT5>Strikea, 346 ; Effect on tbe American Fed^ea-
tlon of Labor, g47l I. W. W.'s " Boring from Within," g48J ;
William .Jir^FostCTT An I. W. W., Leads the A. F. of L. Steel
Strike. 848^

CHAPTEE XXIII
ENLISTING EECEUITS POE THE CONSPIEACY. . 350

Socialist Sunday Schools, 350 ; " Catch Them Young," 351 ;
Lesson 24 from the " Socialist Primer," 352 ; Socialist Propa-
ganda Among School Children by Townley's Non-Partisan League,
353 ; The Teachers' Union of New York City, 354 ; The Inter-
Collegiate Socialist Society, 355 ; Radical College Professors,
356 ; The Rand School, 337 ; Socialist Propaganda Among Immi-
grants, 358 ; Socialist Naturalization Bureau, 359 ; The Red
Curse Among Women, 339 ; Among Soldiers and Sailors, 360 ;
Socialist Cartoons and Movie Films, 360 ; Making Rebels o£
Negroes, 361.

CHAPTEE XXIY
EXPEETS IN THE AET OF DECEPTION 363

Must Socialism Be Good Because Something Else Is Bad?
363 ; Socialist Party Platform Planks Unreliable, 365 ; Socialists
Disagree on Land Ownership, 365-8 ; Government Ownership of
Public Utilities Is Not Socialism, 369 ; Double-Faced Socialists,
370; The Burden of Proof Rests on the Socialist, 371; The
" Lunatic " Sophistry, 372 ; Sophistry That Labor Earns All
Wealth, 873 ; Vote-Getting by Advocating Popular Schemes, 375 ;
Latest Dodge of Red Organizations to Hide from Prosecution
by Changing Their Names, 375 ; The Socialist Party Not a Real
Workingmen's Party, 376.

CHAPTEE XXV
THE CAMPAIGN AGAINST THE BEDS 377

High Time to Fight the Reds, 377; Read and Circulate Anti-
Socialist Literature, 37S ; Warn Our School Children, 379;
Quiz the Soap-Box Orators, 380 ; Expel Socialist School Teachers,
SRO ; Tasks tor the National Government, 381 ; Oppose Socialism
in a Nation-Wide Campaign of Education, 382.

INDEX 383

APPENDIX 391

Convention of the Socialist Party of the United States.
May 8-14. 1920.

CHAPTER I
SOCIALISM IN OTHER LANDS

Modern Socialism may be said to date from the year 1848
when Marx and Bngels published their " Communist Manifesto,"
a pamphlet that has since been translated into almost all modem
European languages and has to this day remained the classical
exposition of international Socialism.

Karl Marx, the chief founder of the movement, was bom of
Jewish parents at Treves, Germany, May 5, 1818. After studying
at Jena, Bonn, and Berlin, he became a private professor in
1841, and about a year later assumed the editorship of the
" Rhenish Gazette,' a democratic-liberal organ of Cologne, that
was soon suppressed for its radical utterances. In 1843 he
moved to Paris where he became greatly interested in the study
of political economy and of early Socialistic writings and where
he subsequently made the acquaintance of Erederick Engels,
his inseparable companion and life-long friend.

Engels was born at Barmen, Rhenish Prussia, in 1820. He
remained in Germany until he had completed his military
service, and then moved to Manchester, England, where he
engaged in the cotton business with his father. In 1884, while
traveling, he met Karl Marx, and was banished with him
from France in 1847, and expelled from Belgium in 1848,
the very year that witnessed the appearance of the " Communist
Manifesto." Not long after this, Marx and Engels returned to
Germany, and were instrumental in fomenting a revolution
in the Rhine Province in 1849. The revolt having been sup-
pressed in the same year, both men sought refuge in England.
Here Bngels was the author of numerous German books on
Socialism and became best known by editing, after Marx's
death, the second and third volumes of the latter's works.

While in England Marx took up his abode in London where
he became the first president of the International Workingmen's
Association, whose influence was not limited to England, but
extended to France, Germany, Austria, Belgium, Holland,
Denmark, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Switzerland, Poland, and even
the United States of America. The active career of this associa-

1

2 THE BED CONSPIRACY

tion embraced a period of about eight years, from 1864 to 1872.
Its SIX conventions were largely devoted to the discussion of
social and labor problems and it produced a lasting effect upon
the Socialist Movement by impressing upon it a harmonious
and world-wide character. By 1876 the International Work-
ingmen's Association was ruined by the quarrels that had taken
place between the more moderate faction under the leadership
of Marx, and the anarchistic element under Bakunin. It had,
however, by this time contributed wonderfully towards the
spread of Socialism, for it had taught the working classes of
Europe the international nature both of their own grievances
and of capitalism.

Closely rivaling the success of the International Working-
men's Association in furthering the cause of Socialism was a
book known as " Capital,'' an economic work the first volume
of which was published in 1867 by Karl Marx. The author
never lived to edit the second and third volumes, though after
his death in London, March 14, 1883, they were published from
his notes by Frederick Engels. This work, to which the Father
of the Eevolutionary Movement gave the German title " Das
Kapital," has long been known as the Bible of Socialism. Its
systematized philosophic and economic doctrines besides having
supplied the various national branches of the party with a
common theory and program, in the main still constitute the
creed of the immense majority of the Socialists the world over.
Though " Capital " has suffered severely from the criticism of
economists of many schools, and though not a few of its doc-
trines have been rejected by present-day Socialists, its powerful
influence still persists to a very marked degree.

Supplementing this short historical sketch of the origin of
the modern Socialist movement, short comments will be added
concerning the Eevolutionary organization in the different
countries of the world.

In Germany the Socialist movement first took shape in 1862
under the influence of Ferdinand Lassalle. It made compara-
tively slow progress until 1874 when the 450,000 Socialist voters
returned ten members to the Eeichstag. An attempt on the
part of the German Government to suppress the movement
failed, and henceforth the party under the leadership of August
Bebel, Karl Kautsky, George Von Vollmar, and Wilhelm Lieb-
knecht steadily continued to grow in strength. Shortly before
the outbreak of the World War the Socialists, besides occupying
110 seats in the Eeichstag out of a total of 397, polled about

SOCIALISM IIJ OTHER LANDS 3

4,252,000 votes and published 158 papers, but a faction under
the leadership of Bernstein had made great progress in its
endeavors to transform the Eevolutionary organization into an
opportunist party.

Most of the German Socialists supported the vrar and the
majority of their members in the Eeichstag voted for the war
credits. Some, however, like Karl Liebknecht, the son of
Wilhelm Liebknecht, opposed the imperial government and were
imprisoned. Pressure, however, finally forced the government
to release Liebknecht, who then delivered impassioned speeches
throughout the country, stirring up the people against Kaiser-
ism and the war profiteers and urging the soldiers to turn their
weapons against the imperial government itself. While Lieb-
knecht was defying the authorities, the naval forces mutinied
at Kiel. The Socialists then called a general strike for Novem-
ber 11, 1918, as a prelude to the revolution. Scheidemann
and Ebert had been supporting the government of Prince Max
of Baden, the successor of Von Hertling, as chancellor of the
empire, and had deprecated the idea of a revolution. But when
Scheidemann saw that the revolution was certainly coming and
that he and his colleagues would probably be left stranded, he
joined the movement with his powerful organization, stepped
in and grasped the power. A national council of soldiers,
sailors and workmen was formed at Berlin, but the provisional
government was shaped by Scheidemann, Ebert and others of
the majority Socialists by virtue of their excellent political
machinery. The Ebert-Scheidemann government fought many
a bitter struggle with growing radicalism. Their government
represented the most moderate group of the Socialists and
received the support of the Centerists and others because these
were far more opposed to the Socialists of the extreme left,
such as the Spartacan Communists. Several revolts engineered
by the Spartacans were put down with considerable bloodshed.
In January, 1919, soon after the defeat of the Spartacides in
Berlin, Karl Liebknecht and Eosa Luxemburg, their leaders,
were put to death, and their minority party seemed to diminish
in strength. In the latter part of May, 1919, the majority
Socialists of the reactionary Ebert-Scheidemann group were at
first opposed to the signing of the Treaty of Paris, whereas
the Spartacans, and also the Independent Socialists under the
leadership of Hugo Haase and Karl Kautsky, tried to force
their opponents to sign it, so that the people of Germany might

4 THE RED CONSPIRACY

soon blame the "reactionaries" for the humiliation, and rise
in rebellion to overthrow them.

In Bavaria the anti-war sentiment spread rapidly, fostered
by the efforts of Kurt Eisner. King Ludwig abdicated the
throne on November 16, 1918, and Eisner took up the reins
of power, forming a Socialist government. After a few weeks
Eisner broke with the Ebert-Scheideniann government of Berlin,
and soon after was assassinated. Not long after this the
Bavarian communists imposed the Soviet form of government
on the country, much to the dislike of many of the inhabitants,
especially tho"se living outside of Munich. The peasants of
Bavaria rebelled against the communist-soviet government of
Munich, which finally fell, after the Noske-Ebert-Scheidemann
forces had marched against the city.

Very many years ago Socialists began to spread their
doctrines as best they could in the realms of the Czar. Many
a Marxian was arrested for attempting to undermine the Kus-
sian government and sent into exile in Siberia. The World
War having broken out, Eussia suffered terribly, and this suffer-
ing, especially of the masses, caused great discontentment and
made the people an easy prey to the revolutionary forces of
Socialism. The bureaucratic Czarist regime finally broke down
in March, 1917, as soon as the revolution started. Three main
contending parties attempted to ride into power on the revolu-
tionary tide; the Cadets, the Moderate Socialists (i. e., the Men-
sheviki, and Social Eevolutionists) and the Bolsheviki or revolu-
tionary Socialists. The Cadets were the first to gain the upper
hand, but were soon swept away, for they strove to satisfy the
soldiers, workers and peasants with abstract, political ideals.
The Mensheviki and Social Revolutionists succeeded the Cadets.

The demand for a Constitutent Assembly was one of the
main aspirations of the Eussian Eevolution. It was on the
eve of its realization that Bolsheviki, in November, 1917, by a
coup d'etat seized the reins of power. The elections for the
assembly took place after the Bolsheviki had gained the upper
hand and the Bolsheviki were defeated. The Constituent
Assembly was actually convened in Petrograd in January, 1918,
but the Bolsheviki dispersed the parliament at the point of the
bayonet. Eussia was then ruled by Lenine, head of the soviet
system of government. The government was a " dictatorship of
the proletariat," characterized by injustice, violence, oppression,
and bloodshed, the Soviets being little more than tribunals of
punishment and execution, instruments of terror in the hands

SOCIALISM IK OTHER LANDS 5

of the Autocrat Lenine. The Bolshevist government has met
with continual opposition from the opposing groups of Socialists
in Eussia and has been attacked by the Allies, principally on
the Archangel front and in the Gulf of Finland. The Finns,
Lithuanians, Poles, Czecho-Slovaks, Eumanians, Ilkranians, and
especially Admiral Kolchak's Siberian forces waged a relentless
warfare against the Bolsheviki tyranny either for political reasons
or to rescue the countless millions of Bussians who suffered so
terribly from the Lenine system of dictatorship. By the latter
part of February, 1920, the Lenine government seemed to be
overcoming all military opposition.*

The Socialists in Austria- Hungary as far back as 1907 could
count 1,121,948 votes and 58 newspapers. Shortly before the
end of the World War the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy fell.
Austria and Hungary separated from each other and each
became a republic. Count Karolyi was head of the new
Hungarian government, socialistic in tendency. In the early
spring of 1919, when Hungary was being invaded by Czecho-
slovak troops, Italians and Rumanians, and was threatened
with an invasion from the Allies Count Karolyi fled and the
government fell into the hands of the radical Socialist, Bela
Kun, who soon established intimate relations with the Bolshevist
government at Moscow. One difficulty after another, however,
especially the attacks of the Eumanians, soon taxed the
strength of the crimson-red government; and in the summer
of 1919 it succumbed to pressure brought to bear on it by the
Allies. Notwithstanding the Bolshevist propaganda carried on
in Vienna, the Austrian government down to February, 1920,
has resisted all inducements to adopt Bolshevism.

Modern Socialism in France was rather inactive previous to
the outbreak of the Commune in 1871. Then, after the victory
of the government forces over the revolutionists, many leaders

* '■ The Bolsheviks — formerly a faction within the Social-Democratic
Labor Party — have recently changed their name to Communist party
to distinguish themselves from the other Social-Democratic groups.

" The term Bolsheviks and Mensheviks date back to 1903, when at a
congress of the Russian Social-Democratic Labor Party a difference
arose on a seemingly unimportant question (editorial supervision of
the party organ), when upon a vote which decided the question there
naturally was a majority and minority. Those who were with the
majority were nicknamed Bolsheviks and those with the minority
Mensheviks, deriving their names from the Russian words Bolshinstvo
and Menshinstvo, meaning majority and minority respectively." " The
Soviets at Work" hy Nicolai Lenin, published, with foreword cmd foot-
notes by Alexander Trachtenberg, by the Band School of Social Science,

6 THE RED CONSPIKACt

of the Commune declared for Anarcliism, but f?ubsequently
abandoned it as impracticable and devoted themselves to the
propaganda of Marxian Socialism. After Jules Guesde and
other communards were permitted to return to France, by the
amnesty of 1879, the party at first developed considerable
strength, but soon split up into several factions, with Guesde
as the leader of the more radical wing and Jaures and Millerand
at the head of the moderate parliamentarian group. In the
election of May, 1914, the United Socialists under Jaures polled
1,357,192 votes, while the Eadical Socialists and their allies
in the Caillaux combination cast 3,237,176 votes. During the
World War most of the Socialists, especially those in parliament,
supported the government.

After the War the Longuet faction of the Socialist Party
became the majority party, took over control of the great Paris
Socialist daily L' Humanite and chose Cashin as editor. On
April 6, 1919, a great demonstration took place in Paris in
honor of Jaures, the Socialist leader of Prance, who had been
assassinated at the beginning of the World War. This and the
decisions taken at the Socialist party congress of the Federation
of the Seine on March 13th, demonstrated the decided turn to
the left that the Socialist Party had taken since, its previous
congress in October, 1918. In the demonstration, consisting,
perhaps, of 50,000 Socialists, cries of " Eevolution ! " " Down
with the AVar!'' '■'Down with Clemenceau!" "Long live the
Soviet!" and "Long live Eussia!" filled the air for three
hours.

"The Call," New York, May 19, 1919, thus comments:

" The Socialist papers for several days appeared uncensored,
though every line breathed revolution. Most startling of all,
there were as many soldiers as civilians marching.

" Seven days later the representatives of each Socialist local
in the Department of the Seine met in convention to decide
upon which of three resolutions they should recommend the
coming national congress of the Socialist Party to adopt. The
discussion was hot, and more or less revolved around the per-
sonalities of the three leaders, Albert Thomas, Eight Socialist,
Jean Longuet Left Socialist, and F. Loriot, Communist or
Bolshevist. Broadly speaking, the Thomas resolution based its
faith upon present political action and future political power;
the Longuet resolution advocated a third International, without
indorsing the third International held in Moscow in March, and
the Loriot resolution indorsed the Zimmerwald resolutions

SOCIALISM IN OTHER LANDS 7

(against all wars) and recognized the existence of the Third
International established by the Kussian Bolshevik party.

" Most of the discussion hinged upon affairs in Eussia with
hoots of derision at every uncomplimentary mention of Bol-
shevism, until the speaker either had to take his seat or qualify
his criticism of the Soviet republic.

" Both the Longuet and Loriot resolutions called the war
the consequence of imperialistic anarchy and bourgeois ambition,
both denounced the imposition upon Germany of an unjust, or
Bismarckian, peace, such as was imposed upon Prance in 1871,
and both mourned the assassination of Karl Liebknecht, Eosa
Luxemburg, and Kurt Eisner.

" The Longuet resolution was as strong in its declaration of
solidarity with the Soviet republic of Eussia as the Loriot
resolution was in opposition to all annexation of the Sarre
Valley by France."

The National Congress of the Socialist parties of France was
held from April 19 until April 22, 1919. A motion by
M. Kienthaliens demanding the adhesion of French Socialists
to the Internationale at Moscow, under the leadership of
Premier Lenin of the Bolshevist government polled only 270
votes. This resolution failed to pass probably because the
Longuet majority faction desired the union of all the French
Socialist parties. The Congress adopted by a majority of 894
votes, a resolution offered by Jean Longuet to the effect that
the French Socialists are willing to continue to form a part of
the Second Internationale, provided that all those who are
Socialists in name only shall be excluded.

On May Day, 1919, the Socialists manoeuvered a general
strike of all labor in Paris for twenty-four hours. The press
dispatches informed us that the shut-down was virtually
complete. Not a wheel was turning on any of the transportation
systems and taxicabs and omnibuses kept off the streets. All
restaurants and cafes were closed and guests in the hotels went
hungry if they had not supplied themselves with food before-
hand. Even the drug stores closed.

Theatres, music halls, and other resorts did not open. No
newspapers were published and periodic stoppages occurred in
the postal and wire services throughout the day. Industry on
all sides was in a state of complete inactivity, work being sus-
pended by every class of labor. There was considerable disorder
and very many policemen and civilians were injured.

In the elections of November, 1919, the Socialist vote

8 THE EED CONSPIRACY

increased to 1,750,000, a gain of 40 per cent over that of 1914.
On the 1914 basis of representation this would have given them
160 seats in the Chamber of Deputies; but their representation
was actually reduced from 105 to 55, due to a new basis of
representation and a new formation of districts.

The French Syndicalists, of the Labor Confederation, had
600,000 members before the war and now claim 1,500,000.
They were quiescent during the war, but their congresses of
July, 1918, and September, 1919, showed a " tendency to return
to the traditional revolutionary policy of French Syndicalism."

In Great Britain it was not until 1884, when the Social
Democratic Federation was organized by Henry M. Hyndman,
that the Marxian movement displayed any notable activity. Its
progress at first was extremely slow, but after the Independent
Labor Party was formed in 1893 under the leadership of J. Keir
Hardie with a view to carrying Socialism into politics, the
revolutionary doctrines spread much more rapidly, " The
Clarion" and "Labor Advocate," the two organs of the Inde-
pendent Labor Party, helping wonderfully in the work. In
1883 the Fabian Society, an organization Socialistic in name
and tendencies, was founded by a group of middle class
students. It rejected the Marxian economics, and by means
of lectures, pamphlets, and books advocated practical measures
of social reform. Among the leading English Socialists of the
more radical type have been Hyndman, Aveling, Blatchford,
Bax, Quelch, Leathan and Morris ; while Shaw, Pease and "Webb
were the leading members of the moderate Fabian Society.

The vast majority of English Socialists supported the gov-
ernment in the World War, but the Labor Party, mostly
Socialistic, during that time engineered great strikes of the
coal miners, dock workers and railroad men. A press despatch
dated London, April 21, 1919, says:

" The first gun in the long advertised campaign of Bolshevism
in Britain was fired at Sheffield, where the British Socialists'
annual convention, at its opening session passed a resolution
urging the establishment of a British soviet government.

" The resolution expresses admiration for the workings of
the soviet system in Hungary and Bavaria. It declares war
on the 'capitalist' system in Britain, attacks the policy of the
peace conference toward Eussia and favors the distribution of
revolutionary propaganda in the British army and navy."

During the summer and fall of 1919, Socialist and Bolshevist

SOCIALISM IN OTHER LANDS 9

principles continued to gain an ever-increasing and very serious
hold on the people of England and proved a serious menace to
the government in the general railway strike in October.

In Italy Socialism has been making steady progress for many
years and since the end of the World War has increased wonder-
fully in strength. The party has greatly profited by the suffer-
ing and discontent due to the war and especially by the failure
of Italy to secure coveted territory after all her sacrifices and
the victory of the Allies. On April 10, 1919, the Italian Social-
ists manoeuvered a very successful general strike in Eome, but
were prevented by the government forces from marching through
the streets in any considerable numbers. About the same time
disturbances were also engineered in many cities and towns
of the country, especially in Forence and Milan. In the latter
part of April, 1919, the Executive Committee of the Socialist
party of Italy resolved to sever its connection with the Inter-
national Socialist Bureau and the Berne Conference, in which
there were many reactionary Socialists, and to affiliate with
the newly established Moscow International, consisting of the
various National groups of Socialists giving whole-hearted sup-
port to Lenine and the Bolsheviki.

On July 21, 1919, Italian Socialists conducted a general strike
against the Eussian blockade. Industrial prostration resulted
in whole provinces stopping all traffic and communication while
Soviets were set up in 240 towns and cities, including Genoa
and Florence. In the November, 1919, elections the Socialists
secured 159 Deputies in the Chamber, having had 44 previously.
They cast over one-third of all votes cast, about 3,000,000, as
against 883,409 in 1913.

The membership of the Italian labor unions is now estimated
at 1,000,000, an increase of about 300,000 since 1917. At a
national conference, in April, 1919, the labor unions demanded
a change of the national Parliament into a national Soviet.

In Spain, especially in the big cities and notably in Barcelona,
Socialism has made steady progress and the Marxians have
taken part in several upheavals. In the early part of 1919 the
eleventh national Congress, which met at Madrid, elected Pablo
Iglesias president of the Executive Committee and adopted
aggressive measures for extending Socialist propaganda, espe-
cially into the rural districts, and for establishing Socialist
day schools and women's evening schools. The official organ
of the party, " El Socialista," came in for a round of criticism
because of its espousal of the Allied cause to the detriment, it

10 THE RED CONSPIRACY

was charged, of the International principles to which it should
have adhered.

In the latter part of April, 1913, the Belgian Socialists, under
the leadership of Bmil Vandervelde attracted the attention of
the world hy attempting to paralyze the entire industrial system
of the country by a general strike. Shortly before the outbreak
of the World War, Belgium, with its comparatively small popu-
lation, had about half a million Socialist voters, constituting
approximately half of the electorate of the country. During the
war the Socialists supported the government and since the
war down to the early fall of 1919 have not caused any serious
trouble.

On November 16, 1919, the Socialist vote rose to 644,499,
with election of 70 Deputies and 20 Senators, an increase of
21 Deputies and 5 Senators.

In March, 1919, out of the 100 members of the Second
Chamber of Holland, there were four Communists or Socialists
of the extreme left and 20 of more moderate tendencies. The
Communists published a newspaper called " The Bolshevist "
and maintained relations with the Eussian Soviet Government
and the German Sparticides. David Wynkoop, the leader of
the Dutch Communists, is called " Holland's Little Liebknecht "
and in a parliamentary speech openly threatened a general
strike. There was a Bolshevist crisis in January, 1919. An
assembly of international communists met at the Hague and
Spartacide success in Germany was the only thing required to
launch a revolutionary attempt, accompanied by a general strike
and terrorism. The government then adopted stern measures.
Civil guards were formed, and banks, newspaper offices and
police bureaus were occupied by the military with machine gjins,
the banks and newspapers having been previously equipped with
wireless against the cutting of telephone wires.

Wynkoop, in the company of workingmen, visited soldiers in
their barracks asking them to join the movement, but the soldiers
fired, killing three and wounding several. Efforts to corrupt
the cavalry and the navy by similar means were not a success.

Shortly after the overthrow of the Austro-Hungarian Govern-
ment, the three Socialist parties of Czecho-Slovakia, which had
been divided principally over questions of nationality, got
together and their leaders of moderate tendencies were very
sanguine over the outlook for a general victory at the ballot
box in the near future. It appears, however, that the party

SOCIALISM IN OTHER LANDS 11

was afterwards split into pro and anti Bolshevist factions, with
a consequent decrease in political strength.

In speeches made by several leaders at the Bohemian Socialist
conference at Prague in the early part of April, 1919, it was
decided that the alliance with the Entente should be maintained
because reconciliation with Berlin, Budapest and Moscow would
mean danger for the Czecho-Slovak republic.

Bolshevism was described as the suicide of the proletariat,
and it was urged that the working people of Bohemia should
differentiate between exaggeration and methodic reform.

In Prague, Pressburg and other cities troops clashed with the
Communists and Social Democrats. On March 7, 1919, at a
mass meeting addressed by three leading agitators from Prague,
40,000 workers, mostly miners, cheered assertions that the levo-
lution of October 28, 1918, had not turned out well for the
proletariat which was still being oppressed; that the Govern-
ment of Prague was as weak as under the old Austrian regime

Socialism in recent years has made considerable progress m
Sweden. The majority of the Marxians seems to be of the
moderate group, though the Left Socialist Party assisted the
Lenine Government of Eussia. HJalmar Branting, the leader
of the Moderate Socialists, addressing the French Socialist
Congress in the Spring of 1919, bitterly assailed Bolshevism
and issued a warning against it. Branting's Social-Democratic
Labor Party has 86 seats in Parliament, while the radicals,
who seceded to form the Socialist Party in 1917, have 12 seats,
In this convention, in June, 1919, the Socialist Party voted
to join the Third (Moscow) International, declared for the
principle of the dictatorship of the proletariat, voted for " mass
action " as the means of conquest and a Soviet organization of
the workers.

In the Socialist party of Norway the Bolshevist faction
appears to be in control. After the revolution in Germany in
the latter part of 1918, the Norwegian Socialists, in speeches
and articles urged the laborers to organize revolutionary
organizations similar to those in soviet Eussia, provide them-
selves with arms and be ready for a revolutionary uprising to
overthrow the government. The party congress in 1919 joined
the Third (Moscow) International and adopted "mass action"
as tactics and preparation for a general strike.

The Socialists were very active in Argentina after the ending
of the World War and were the back-bone of the serious and
prolonged disturbances ui Buenos Aires, In the latter part of

12 THE EED CONSPIRACY

April, 1919, the Pan-American Socialist Conference was held
in the Argentine capital. Its purpose was to promote the
amalgamation of all the Socialist and labor organizations of
the Western Hemisphere into one body. In South America
Socialism is best organized in Argentine, Chile and Peru, and
weakest in Brazil and Colombia.

In Canada, at least till the summer of 1919, the Marxian
forces were gaining in strength daily. This was especially true
of the western part of the Dominion, where the radical indus-
trial union, generally called in Canada the " One Big Union,"
has become very influential. Serious strikes with Bolshevist
tendencies took place throughout the Dominion, especially in
Winnipeg in the spring of 1919.

Bulgaria has two Socialist parties, the Moderates and the
Conununist Party, the latter affiliated with the Third (Mos-
cow) International. In the August, 1919, election the Moderate
Socialist members in the " Sobranie " or Chamber of Deputies
decreased from 46 to 39, while the Communists increased their
Deputies from 10 to 47.

Mexico, on our southern border, has added " industrial
unionism" to her Socialist movement. At the Socialist Party
convention in the fall of 1919 a part of the organization seceded
and reorganized as the Communist Party.

Besides the many millions of Socialists in the countries
already referred to, the Marxians are well organized and are
making rapid strides in Serbia, Denmark, Greece, Switzerland,
the Balkan States, Australia, New Zealand and even in Soutli
Africa and far distant Japan and China.

CHAPTEE II
GROWTH OF SOCIALISM IN THE UNITED STATES

Socialism was introduced into the United States about the
year 1850 by immigrants who landed on our shores from Europe.
The Marxians, who came from Germany, were principally
responsible for the foundation of the Workingmen's Party in
1876, wliich in 1877 was called the Socialistic Labor Party,
and, a few years later, the Socialist Labor Party, which was
reorganized at Chicago in 1889, after having lost two sections
by secession. One of these, called the Cincinnati Socialist Labor
Party, in 1897 united with the Social Democracy of America,
a combination of railroad men, followers of Eugene V. Debs,
and of the populist followers of Victor L. Berger. The other
seceders from the Socialist Labor Party, called the " kangaroos,"
united with the Social Democracy of Debs and Berger in 1900,
the new combination then calling itself the Socialist Party of
America. The minority of the old Socialist Labor Party, which
refused to be amalgamated with the Social Democracy of
America, is still known as the Socialist Labor Party; hence,
since the year 1900, there have been two distinct revolutionary
parties, the Socialist Party and the Socialist Labor Party.

The former, under the leadership of Eugene V. Debs, Victor
L. Berger and Morris Hillquit, with 109,586 dues-paying
members in January, 1919, is by far the more powerful and
influential, having steadily increased its vote to about 900,000
in the Presidential election of 1912, though in the year 1916
the vote dropped to less than 600,000. The Socialist Labor
Party, under the guidance of Daniel DeLeon until his death,
in May, 1914, seems to be making little if any progress.
Though both parties claim to be genuinely Socialistic and
Marxian, each has decried the other as being a "fake" or
"bogus" party. The Socialist Labor Party's main complaint
is that its rival the Socialist Party is sacrificing the principles
of Karl Marx in its endeavor to gain votes, while, on the other
hand, the latter party retorts by stigmatizing its opponent as
being a party of " scabs," the sole purpose of whose existence

13

14 THE RED CONSPIRACY

is to antagonize the Socialist Party. In recent years unsuccessful
attempts have been made to unite the two.

The Socialist Party, besides publishing two important dailies
in English, " The Call," of New York City, and the " Milwaukee
Leader," issues at least two in German, two in Bohemian, one
in Polish and one in Yiddish. " Forward," the Jewish paper
published in New York City in Yiddish, had a daily circulaton
of over 150,000, according to a report in " The Call " April 6,
1919. Foremost for many years among the Socialist weeklies in
English was the " Appeal to Eeason," which was once extremely
bitter and unrelenting in its attacks on the United States
Government. Published at Girard, Kansas, its circulation
reached nearly 1,000,000 copies a week during the fall of 1912,
but since 191? it has fallen into great disfavor among most
Socialists because of its pro-war and moderate tendencies. In
addition to tlie Socialist papers already referred to, there are in
our country hundreds of others m English, German, Bohemian,
Polish, Jewish, Slovac, Slavonic, Danish, Italian, Finnish,
French, Hungarian, Lettish, Norwegian, Croatian, Eussian, and
Swedish. In a report to Congress in 1919, the Attorney-General
of the United States stated that there were 416 radical news-
papers in America.

A strong impression that serious party strife and bossism pre-
vail in the Socialist organization is gained by those who read
the Marxian papers and magazines. William English "Walling,
for example, in the "International Socialist Eeview," Chicago,
April, 1913, showed his sympathy with the so-called "reds,"
who then comprised the radical I. W. W. wing of the party,
and at the same time attacked the " yellows," the advocates of
political action.

" Ever since the Socialist Party was formed," he wrote, " the
party office-holders have been spending the larger part of their
energies in endeavoring to hold their jobs and to fight down
every element in the party that demanded any improvement or
advance in any direction

" A far greater danger is the new one, that has become serious
only since we entered upon the present period of political suc-
cess two years ago, namely the corruption of the party by those
elected to public office

'_' Only last year we had sereral mayors in the one state of
Ohio either being forced to resign or deserting the party because
they could not use it for their purpose

"Next year we may elect a few congressmen and half a

SOCIALISM IJJ- THE UNITED STATES l3

hundred legislators — if the reactionaries in the party will cease
their underhand efforts to disrupt the organization and drive
out the revolutionists

"If then these office-holders continue to show the tendency
towards bossism so common in the past, the Socialist Party
will soon become an office-holders' machine, little different in
character from the machine by which Gompers controls the
Pederation of Labor, or Murphy, Tammany Hall

" The only possible way to avoid a split so openly and shame-
lessly advocated by some of the opportunist leaders of our
party — Berger even threatened it in the last National Con-
vention — is to have the system of proportional representation.

"Unless some such changes as these are made in the next
four years, it does not take a prophet to see that there would
be nothing left of what we now know as the Socialist Party.
If we cannot control our own petty autocrats, how can we ever
hope to control the infinitely more powerful and resourceful
autocrats of the Capitalist system ? "

"The Communist," formerly the Left Wing organ of the
Chicago Socialists, in its edition of April 1, 1919, bitterly assails
Victor L. Berger of the Right Wing:

" A vote for Berger is a vote of pitying contempt for our
Bolsheviki and Spartacan comrades. A vote for Berger is a
vote approving his repeated and uncalled-for condemnation of
our class-war comrades of the I. W. W. — condemnation per-
sistently offered to prove Berger's own eminent respectability.
A vote for Berger is a vote of scoffery against the St. Louis
platform — a vote of apology for the platform, dissipation of
its meaning, and disavowal of its essential spirit. A vote for
Berger is a vote for the International of German Majority
Socialism. A vote for Berger is a vote for petty bourgeois
progressivism as the essence of Socialism ; it is a vote against
identification of the Socialist Party with the revolutionary mass
aspirations. A vote for Berger is a betrayal of all the efforts,
sacrifices and dreams of those whose lives have gone into the
socialist movement as torch-bearers of proletarian triumph over
capitalist exploitation, from Marx to the humblest comrade
fighting today in the ranks of the revolutionary class struggle.

" As far as this election is concerned there is nothing to be
considered about Victor Berger, past and present, except the
ideal Socialism which has become unchangeably attached to
his name. If the American Socialist Party is to be a party of

16 THE RED CONSPIRACY

Berger-Socialism, then indeed, the Socialist movement will not
die in America. No, it is the Socialist Party that will die."

As we shall see presently, these prophecies of disruption were
soon fulfilled.

The representatives of the Socialist organizations of the differ-
ent countries of the world have from the time of Karl Marx met
together at more or less regular intervals, being banded together
in what is called the " International."

The official organ of the National OfBce, Socialist Party, " The
Bye Opener," in its issue of February, 1919, gives a detailed
explanation of the " International " :

" It is an organization of Socialist Parties and labor organiza-
tions, meeting periodically in international conferences. In order
to be eligible for membership, an organization must meet the
following test, adopted by the International Congress of Paris,
1900.

" Those admitted to the International Socialist Congresses
are:

" 1. All associations which adhere to the essential principles
of Socialism; namely. Socialization of the means of production
and exchange, international union, and action of the workers,
conquest of public power by the proletariat, organized as a class
party.

" 2. All the labor organizations which accept the principles
of the class struggle and recognize the necessity of political
action, legislative and parliamentary but do not participate
directly in the political movement.

" This definition includes every Socialist Party and propa-
ganda organization in the world and it further takes in those
enlightened unions that recognize the need for political action.
It excludes conservative unions that do not yet admit the
soundness of the principles of the class struggle."

The First International was thoroughly Marxian and revolu-
tionary. According to " The Eevolutionary Age," April 13,
1919, it accepted the revolutionary struggle against capitalism '
and waged that struggle with all the means in its power. It
considered its objective to be the conquest of power by the
revolutionary proletariat, the annihilation of the bourgeois state,
and the introduction of a new proletarian state, functioning
temporarily as a dictatorship of the proletariat. The First
International collapsed after the Franco-Prussian War.

The Second International was formed at Paris in the year
1889. Its tendencies were much more moderate than those of

SOCIALISM IN THE UNITED STATES 17

its predecessor. " The Eevolutionary Age," April 12, 1919,
criticises it for being " conservative and petty bourgeois in
spirit," and states that " it was part and parcel of the national
liberal movement, not at all revolutionary, dominated by the
conservative skilled elements of the working class and the small
bourgeoisie. It was hesitant and compromising, expressing the
demands of the ' petite bourgeoisie ' for government ownership,
reforms, etc."

In 1900 an International Socialist Bureau was established at
Brussels for the purpose of solidifying and strengthening the
work of the Second International and for maintaining unin-
terrupted relations between the various national organizations.

That the American Socialists were closely united with the
Marxians the world over during the Second International, which
continued tQl the World War, was especially evident from the
fact that representatives from the United States met abroad
in the international congresses every three years to discuss party
policies. Far from denying the international character of tlie
whole movement, the Eevolutionists of the United States have
ever rejoiced and gloried in it, trusting that it would result in the
rapid spread of their doctrines and the ultimate victory of their
cause. In confirmation of the intimate union existing between
American and foreign Socialists, during the time of the second
International, we have the declaration of the Socialist Party
of the United States in its national platform of 1904, pledging
itself to the principles of International Socialism, as embodied
in the united thought and action of the Socialists of all nations.
Moreover, Morris Hillquit informed us m " The Worker,"
March 23, 1907, that the International Socialist Movement, with
its thirty million adherents and its organized parties in about
twenty-five civilized countries in both hemispheres, was every-
where based on the same Marxian program and followed sub-
stantially the same methods of propaganda and action. Writing
again, in " Everybod/s," October, 1913, Hillquit declared that
the dominant Socialist organizations of all countries were
organically allied with one another, that by means of an Inter-
national Socialist Bureau, supported at joint expense, the
Socialist parties of the world maintained uninterrupted rela-
tions with one another, and that every three years they met
in international conventions, whose conclusions were accepted
by all constitutent national organizations.

Commenting upon "The Collapse of the Second Interna-
tional," which is held to have taken place at the beginning of

18 THE RED CONSPIRACY

the World War, "The Eevolutionary Age," March 22, 1919,
says:

" Great demonstrations were held in every European country
by Socialists protesting against their government's declarations
of war, and mobilizations for war. And we know that these
demonstrations were rendered impotent by the complete sur-
render of the Socialist parliamentary leaders and the oflEicial
Socialist press, with their ' justification " of ' defensive wars ' and
the safeguarding of ' deniocracy.'

" Why the sudden change of front ? Why did the Socialist
leaders in the parliaments of the belligerents vote the war
credits? Why did not Moderate Socialism carry out the policy
of the Basle Manifesto, namely; the converting of an imperial-
istic war into a civil war — into a proletarian revolution ? Why
did it either openly favor the war or adopt a policy of petty-
bourgeois pacifism?''

At the conclusion of the World War Socialists and representa-
tives of labor from many countries met at Berne, Switzerland,
m what was known as the Berne Conference. This international
Socialist conference was comparatively moderate in tendencies,
while another Socialist congress, held shortly before it in Bol-
shevist Moscow, was far more radical.

J. Eamsay MacDonald, commenting upon the Berne Confer-
ence ia " Glasgow Forward," in the spring of 1919, said:

" It declined to condemn the Bolshevists and declined to say
that their revolution was Socialism. . .

" Moscow seems to be more thorough than Berne, though as
a matter of fact Berne was far more thorough than Moscow.
There is a glamour and a halo about Moscow; but there are
substance and permanence about Berne.

" That blessed word ' Soviet ' has become a shibboleth. But
Berne did not say anything about it. It declared its continuing
belief in democracy and in representative institutions. I hope
that the Soviet is not contrary to democracy; I know that it
is a representative institution. But I know more. I know
that beyond its primary stage it is a system of indirect repre-
sentation — the representation of representatives — and that a
few years ago there was not a single Socialist in the country
that would have accepted such a form of representative govern-
ment. For Socialists to pretend to prefer that system to one of
direct responsibility is a mere pose.

" Therefore, two Internationals will be the worst thing that
could happen to the revolutions now going on and to the gen-

socialism: in the united states 19

eral Socialist movement. The duty of every Socialist — espe-
cially of those of us who are not in revolution — is to strive
by might and by main to get a union of the two. We may have
to suffer a time of internal trouble owing to the friction of
conflicting conceptions of Socialist reconstruction, but I am
quite certain that no one has yet said what is to be the last
word on the subject, and to split on such a controversy as this
is to advertise to the world how unready Socialism is to assume
command."

The Berne Conference, which had at first been called to meet
at Lausanne, the Eussian Bolshevik government of Lenine
denounced in a manifesto which the " Chicago Socialist " of
February 8, 1919, republished in part as follows:

" The Central Committee of the Eussian Communist Bolshevik
Party in a manifesto on the proposal to call together an Inter-
national Conference at Lausanne, declares that the project can-
not be considered even as an attempt to revive the Second
International. The latter ceased to exist during the first days of
August, 1914, when the representatives of the majority of nearly
all the Socialist parties passed over into the ranks of their
imperialist governments.

" The attempts made to revive this International, for which
agitation has been carried on in all countries throughout the
war, emanated from elements standing mid-way, which, whilst
not recognizing openly Imperialist Socialism, nevertheless had
no idea of creating a third revolutionary International.

" The attempts made to go back to the pre-war situation
regarding the labor movement crashed against the Imperialist
policy of the official parties, which could not, at that time,
admit the appearance of an attempt to restore the International,
fearing, as they did, that this might tend to weaken the war
policy of the government and the working class working in
unison.

"To counteract these attempts, the Imperialist Socialist
parties undertook to change the conditions of representation of
the national sections in the old International. The last so-called
inter-Allied conference in the Entente countries made it clear
that this change had been effected.

" Great Britain was represented by a motley organization in
which the Socialist parties could play no direct role. Italy
was represented by men whose party never before belonged to
the International and whose presence compelled the absence of
the official Italian Socialist Party. America was represented by

20 THE EED CONSPIRACY

Gompers, representing associations which never had anything
to do with the Socialists

"As against the International of traitors and counter-
revolutionaries, organizing themselves for the purpose of form-
ing leagues against the proletarian revolutions the world over,
the Communists of all countries must rapidly close their ranks
around the third revolutionary International — already, in fact,
existing.

" This Third International has nothing in common with the
avowed Socialist Imperialists, or with the pseudo-revolutionary
Socialists, who in reality support the former when they refuse
to break with them, and who do not recoil against participation
in the conferences of falsely called Socialists. The Eussian
Communist Bolshevik Party refuses to take part in these con-
ferences, which abuse the name of Socialism. It invites all
those who desire that the Third Revolutionary International
shall live to take the same line ; the task of this Third Interna-
tional being to hasten the conquest of power by the working
class.

" The Communist parties of Finland, Esthonia, Lithuania, of
"White Eussia, the Ukraine, Poland, and Holland are at one
with the Eussian Communist Party.

" The latter also regards as its associates the Spartacus group
in Germany, the Communist Party of German Austria and
other revolutionary proletarian elements of the countries in the
old Austro-Hungarian Empire; the Left Social Democrats of
Sweden, the Eevolutionary Social Democracy of Switzerland and
Italy, the followers of Maclean in England, of Debs in America,
of Loriot in Prance. In their persons the Third International,
which is at the head of the World Eevolution, already exists.

" At the present moment when the Socialist Imperialists of
the Entente who formerly hurled the most violent accusations
against Scheidemann, are about to unite with him and to break
the power of Socialism in all countries, the Communist Party
considers that unity for the "World Eevolution is an indispensable
condition for its success.

" Its most dangerous enemy now is the Yellow International
of the Socialist traitors — thanks to whom capitalism still suc-
ceeds in keeping a considerable portion of the working class
under its influence.

" For the conquest of power by the workers let us carry on
an implacable struggle against those who are deceiving them —
against the pseudo-Socialist traitors."

SOCIALISM IN THE UNITED STATES 21

At the end of May, 1919, the National Executive Committee
of the Socialist Party of the United States, probably on account
of pressure brought to bear on it by the " Left Wing," stated
that the party repudiated the Berne Conference, but, at the
same time, was not yet aiELiated with the Communist Conference
of the Bolshevists at Moscow. The phraseology of this ambigu-
ous announcement is here given :

" It recognizes the necessity of reorganizing the Socialist
International along more harmonious and radical lines. The
Socialist Party of the United States is not committed to the
Berne Conference, which has shown itself retrograde on many
vital points, and totally devoid of creative force. On account
of the isolation of Eussia, and the misunderstanding arising
therefrom, it also is not afBliated with the Communist Congress
of Moscow."

This awkward straddle is explained by the fact ■ that the
American Socialist Party, under the pro-German leadership of
Morris Hillquit of New York and Victor L. Berger of Mil-
waukee, had in its Congressional platform for 1918 expressly
endorsed the Inter-Allied Socialist and Labor Conference, held
at London that year. This is the conference which the Lenine
government scoffs at in the manifesto quoted just above, styling
it the " so-called inter-allied conference," in which " America
was represented by Gompers, representing associations which
never had anything to do with the Socialists." That the Ameri-
can Socialist Party had been led into the endorsement of the
conference by Berger and Hillquit because the conference had
recommended a meeting with German workingmen seems evident
from the wording of the endorsement, taken from the official
publication of the Socialist Party's 1918 Congressional Plat-
form, pages 3-4 :

" In all that concerns the settlement of this war, the Ameri-
can Socialist Party is in general accord with the announced aims
of the Inter-Allied Conference. We re-affirm the principles
announced by the Socialist Party in the United States in 1915 ;
adopted by the Socialist Eepublic of Eussia in 1917; proclaimed
by the Inter-Allied Labor Conference in 1918 and endorsed by
both the majority and minority Socialists in the_ Central
empires; no forcible annexations, no punitive indemnities and
the free determination of all peoples.

" The Socialist Party believes that the foundations for inter-
national understanding must be laid during the war, before the
professional diplomats begin to dictate the world's future as
they have in the past.

22 THE EED CONSPIEACT

" It therefore supports the demand of the Inter-Allied Con-
ference for a meeting with the German workingmen, convinced
that such a meeting will promote the cause of democracy, and
will encourage the German people to throw oil the military
autocracy that now oppresses them. ■ We join our pledge to that
of the Inter-Allied Conference that, this done, as far as in our
power, we shall not permit the German people to be made the
victims of imperialistic designs."

The phrases in the above endorsement, " Inter- Allied Con-
ference," " majority . . . Socialists in the Central empires,"
and " promote the cause of democracy," must have invoked the
scorn of Lenine and Trotsky. Hence the wording of their
manifesto, in which they acknowledged as " associates " the
" followers ... of Debs in America,"- is an evident slap at
Berger and Hillquit and their " followers " in the American
Socialist Party. It was so understood by many in the party,
and led to the rapid sprouting of a "Left Wing" and the
ultimate secession of about 72,000 dues-paying members, leaving
only about 40,000 with Berger and Hillquit.

The story of this rupture will be found in the three chapters
following, where it also appears that Berger and Hillquit
attempted to hide their " Yellow " streak under a deeper daub
of « Eed."

CHAPTER III

THE SOCIALIST PARTY OF AMERICA
DEVELOPS A LEFT WING

Some years ago, when the people of the United States were
beginning to suspect that the Socialists were plotting a revolu-
tion against our Constitutional form of government the hypo-
critical followers of Eugene V. Debs, fearing that their plot
might be nipped in the bud, endeavored to conceal their con-
spiracy, and succeeded quite well, by assuring the American
people that the word " revolution," so often used by them, was
a harmless term and was to be taken in a broad sense, without
the " r," signifying nothing more than " evolution." " Do not
be alarmed," they told us, " we Socialists are striving to bring
about reforms in the government, but solely by constitutional
means and the use of the ballot."*

Many proofs could be given to show that, even in the early
days of the American Socialist Party, revolution, in the strict-
est sense of the word, was foremost in the minds of many of the
Marxian leaders. With the advent of Bolshevism in Eussia,
and the successful overthrow of European governments by revo-
lutionary Socialists abroad, the " Eeds " in our own country
became decidedly bolder, both in word and plot, against the
Government of our country. The more outspoken, daring and
impatient plotters in the Socialist Party of America lined up
in a Left Wing faction, whereas the more hypocritical, hesi-
tant, cautious and prudent revolutionists constituted the Eight
Wing. The former became known as the "Eeds," the latter as
the "Yellows."

* It ia a notable fact that throughout his three days' testimony on
the witness stand at Albany, February 17, 18 and 19, 1920, in the case
of the five suspended Socialist Assemblymen before the Judiciary Com-
mittee of the New York Assembly, Morris Hillquit, illustrious leader of
the Red Rebels' Whitewash Squad, tried to save the five suspended
Socialist Assemblymen and the d.imaged reputation of their organiza-
tion, the Socialist Party of the United States, by tremendous applica-
tions of Debs' old recipe of quicklime and water, the special formula of
which is to spell revolution and rifles without the " r," pistols without
the " p " and bombs without the " b."

23

24 THE RED CONSPIRACY

The " Eeds " made a specialty of " direct action " or violence,
liad little confidence in victory through the ballot, and
campaigned for a revolution at an early day. The " Yellows,''
of course^ also rely on a final victory through rebellion, but in
the meantime, during the period of revolutionary education
and organization, insist on political action. The leaders in
control of the executive machinery of the Socialist Party, wish-
ing to retain their lucrative positions, and looking forward to
the advantage of political ofBce during the years which might
elapse before the time would be ripe for rebellion, were nearly
all Eight Wingers, and have waged a bitter and unscrupulous
fight against the Left Wing organization within the party.

The Left Wing of the Socialist Party of America had its
origin, probably, in the year 1916. According to the " Interna-
tional Socialist Eeview," of December of that year, this ultra-
revolutionary faction took form in Boston. About the latter
part of the year 1917 it began to develop more rapidly, its
progress being more or less proportional to the spread of Bol-
shevism and the Socialist revolutions in Europe. Its success,
of course, was at the expense of the political leaders of the
Eight.

The Left Wing has certainly been more honest than the
Eight. The " Eeds " comprising it favor direct action, that is,
strikes and disturbances, rather than the use of the ballot, hop-
ing thus to bring our country into such a critical condition that
they may precipitate a rebellion, and then, though in a minor-
it)', assume control of the government by a sudden coup d'etat,
as the Bolsheviki did in Eussia. The Left Wingers opposed
the " immediate demands " in the Socialist Party platform,
preferring to work for dictatorship rather than for social
reforms. They despised the politicians of the Eight Wing,
calling them yellow, reactionary, hypocritical, capitalistic
Socialists, and telling them that their place was with the newly
formed Labor Party, which had already praised the Socialists
and invited them to Join its ranks. The Lefts expressed a fear
that the leaders of the Eight would, if our Government were
overthrown, turn against them just as the Scheidemann-Ebert
group turned against the German Spartacides. The fight
between the two factions became severe about the beginning of
the year 1919.

" The Eevolutionary Age," Boston, February 15, 1919, speak-
ing of the disturbance in the Socialist Party, and explaining the
fundamental principles of the Left Wing, said:

SOCIALISTS DEVELOP A LEFT WING 35

" The American Socialist Party is in a condition of feverish
theoretical activity. Pressing problems are being met in a
spirit of self-criticism. New forms of action in the social
struggle are being accepted. Old methods, old tactics, old
ideas, which in the test of war have proven incapable of fur-
thering the revolutionary struggle of the proletariat, are being
seriously analyzed and repudiated.

" The membership of the Socialist Party, the majority, is
instinctively class conscious and revolutionary. It was this
membership that compelled our officials to acquiesce in the
adoption of a radical declaration against war — which most of
the officials sabotaged or converted into an innocuous policy of
bourgeois pacificism. When the Bolsheviki conquered, the
majority of our ofScials were either hostile or silent ; some weeks
before, the ' New York Call ' had stigmatized the Bolsheviki as
' anarchists.' But the membership responded ; they forced the
hands of the officials, who became ' me too ' Bolsheviki, but who
did not draw the revolutionary implications of the Bolshevik
policy. These officials and their machinery baffled the will of
the membership; more, the membership baffled itself because it
did not clearly understand the theory and the practice implied
in its instinctive class consciousness and revolutionary spirit.

" While our National Executive Committee accepts the Berne
Congress and refuses to call an emergency National Convention,
locals of the party are actively engaged in the great struggle,
turning to the left, to revolutionary Socialism. Groups within
the party are organizing and issuing proclamations, determined
that the party shall conquer the party for revolutionary Social-
ism. Two of these proclamations were published in the last
issue of 'The Eevolutionary Age.' They deserve serious con-
sideration and discussion.

" The manifesto of the Communist Propaganda League of
Chicago is a concise document. Its criticism of the party is
summarized :

" ' The Party proceeds on too narrow an understanding of
political action for a party of revolution, its programs and plat-
forms have been reformist and petty bourgeois in character,
instead of being definitely directed toward the goal of social
revolution ; the party has failed to achieve unity with the revo-
lutionary movement on the industrial field.'

" Its proposals for democratizing the party — mass action in
the party — are excellent; it repudiates the old international
and the Berne Congress, and asks :

26 THE RED CONSPIRACY

" ' Identification of the Socialist Party with class conscious
industrial unionism, unity of all kinds of proletarian action and
protest forming part of the revolutionary class struggle ; politi-
cal action to include political strikes and demonstrations, no
compromising with any groups not inherently committed to the
revolutionary class struggle, such as Labor parties. People's
Councils, ISTon- Partisan Leagues, Municipal Ownership Leagues
and the like/ "

In order clearly to understand the big fight that has dis-
rupted the Socialist Party, further explanations of the prin-
ciples of the Left Wing are necessary. " The Eevolutionary
Age," from which the above quotation was taken, was first pub-
lished in Boston, its editor being Louis C. Fraina. In the sum-
mer of 1919 it combined with "The Communist," of Few York
City, and, still maintaining its former name, became the na-
tional organ of the Left Wing of the Socialist Party.

In the article just quoted reference was made to "mass
action." This, according to " The Eevolutionary Age," is to be
the main weapon used by the rebels in precipitating rebellion.
The July 12, 1919, issue of the same paper explains mass action
and shows how it is to be used. The article, written by Louis
C. Fraina, reads in part as follows :

" Socialism in its early activity as a general organized move-
ment was compelled to emphasize the action of politics because
of the immaturity of the proletariat

"All propaganda, all electoral and parliamentary activity
are insufficient for the overthrow of Capitalism, impotent when
the ultimate test of the class struggle turns into a test of
power. The power for the social revolution Issues out of the
actual struggles of the proletariat, out of its strikes, its indus-
trial unions and mass action."

Industrial unions of course means the union system of the
I. W. W., and not the craft unions of the American Federation
of Labor.

The article continues:

"The peaceful parliamentary conquest of the state is either
sheer utopia or reaction

" The revolution is an act of a minority, at first ; of the most
class conscious section of the industrial proletariat, which in a
test of electoral strength, would be a minority, but which, being
a solid, industrially indispensable class, can disperse and defeat
all other classes through the annihilation of the fraudulent
democracy of the parliamentary system implied in the dictator-

SOCIALISTS DEVELOP A LEFT WING 27

ship of the proletariat, imposed -upon society by means of revo-
lutionary mass action

" Mass action is not a form of action as much as it is a pro-
cess and synthesis of action. It is the unity of all forms of
proletarian action, a means of throwing the proletariat, organ-
ized and unorganized, in a general struggle against Capitalism
and the capitalist state

" The great expressions of ma^s action in recent years, the
Xew Zealand general strike, the Lawrence strike, the great
strike of the British miners under which capitalist society
reeled on the verge of collapse — all were mass actions organ-
ized and carried through in spite of the passive and active hos-
tility of the dominant Socialist and labor organization. Under
the impulse of mass action, the industrial proletariat senses its
own power and acquires the force to act equally against capital-
ism and the conservatism of organizations. Indeed, a vital fea-
ture of mass action is precisely that it places in the hands of the
proletariat the power to overcome the fetters of these organi-
zations, to act in spite of their conservatism, and through pro-
letarian mass action emphasize antagonisms between workers
and capitalists, and conquer power. A determining phase of
the proletarian revolution in Eussia was its acting against the
dominant Socialist organizations, sweeping these aside through
its mass action before it could seize social supremacy

" Mass action is the proletariat itself in action, dispensing
with bureaucrats and intellectuals, acting through its own ini-
tiative ; and it is precisely this circumstance that horrifies the
soul of petty bourgeois Socialism. The masses are to act upon
their own initiative and the impulse of their own struggles.

" Mass action organizes and develops into the political strike
and demonstration, in which a general political issue is the
source of the action

" The class power of the proletariat arises out of the inten-
sity of its struggles and revolutionary energy. It consists, more-
over, of undermining the bases of the morale of the capitalist
state, a process that requires extra parliamentary activity
through mass action. Capitalism trembles when it meets the
impact of a strike in a basic industry; Capitalism will more
than tremble, it will actually verge on a collapse, when it meets
the impact of a general mass action involving a number of cor-
related industries, and developing into revolutionary mass
action against the whole capitalist regime. The value of this

28 THE RED CONSPIRACY

mass action is that it ohows the proletariat its power, -wcalcens
capitalism, and compels the state largely to depend on the use
of brute force v. the struggle, either the physical force of the
military or the force of legal terrorism ; this emphasizes antag-
onisms between proletarian and capitalist, widening the scope
and deepening the intensity of the proletarian struggle against
capitalism

" Mass action, being the proletariat itself in action, loosens
its energ}', develops enthusiasm, and unifies the action of the
workers to its utmost measure

" Moreover, mass action means the repudiation of bourgeois
democracy. Socialism will come not through the peaceful, demo-
cratic parliamentary conquest of the state, but through the
determined and revolutionary mass action of a proletarian
minority. The fetish of democracy is a fetter upon the pro-
letarian revolution; mass action smashes the fetish, emphasiz-
ing that the proletarian recognizes no limits to its action
except the limits of its own power. The proletariat will never
conquer unless it proceeds to struggle after struggle ; its power
is developed and its energy let loose only through action. Par-
liamentarism, in and of itself, fetters proletarian action ; organ-
izations are often equally fetters upon action; the proletariat
must act and always act; through action it conquers

" The great war has objectively brought Europe to the verge
of revolution. Capitalist society at any moment may be thrust
into the air by an upheaval of the proletariat — as in Eussia.
Whence will the impulse for the revolutionary struggle come?
Surely not from the moderate Socialism and unionism, which
are united solidly in favor of an imperialistic war; surely not
from futile parliamentary rhetoric, even should it be revolu-
tionary rhetoric. The impulse will come out of the mass action
of the proletariat

" Mass action is equally a process of revolution and the revo-
lution itself in operation."

The March 22, 1919, issue of " The Eevolutionary Age " pub-
lished the Manifesto of the Left Wing section of the Socialist
Party of New York, from which several important quotations
are hereby taken:

''We are a very active and growing section of the Socialist
Party who are attempting to reach the rank and file with our
urgent message over the heads that be, who, through inertia or
a lack of vision, cannot see the necessity for a critical analysis
of the party's policies and tactics

SOCIALISTS DEVELOP A LEFT -WIXG 29

"In the latter part of the nineteenth century the Social-
Democracies of Europe set out to ' legislate capitalism out of
office.' The class struggle was to be won in the capitalist
legislatures. Step by step concessions were to be wrested from
the state; the working class and the Socialist parties were to be
strengthened by means of ' constructive ' reform and social
legislation; each concession would act as a rung in the ladder
of Social Eevolution, upon which the workers could climb step
by step, until finally, some bright sunny morning, the peoples
would awaken to find the Cooperative Commonwealth function-
ing without disorder, confusion or hitch on the ruins of the cap-
italist state.

"And what happened? When a few legislative seats had
been secured, the thunderous denunciations of the Socialist
legislators suddenly ceased. E"o more were the parliaments
used as platforms from which the challenge of revolutionary
Socialism was flung to all the corners of Europe. Another era
had set in, the era of ' constructive ' social reform legislation.
Dominant Moderate Socialism accepted the bourgeois state as
the basis of its action and strengthened that state. All power
to shape the policies and tactics of the Socialist parties Avas
entrusted to the parliamentary leaders. And these lost sight
of Socialism's original purpose ; their goal became ' constructive
reforms ' and cabinet portfolios — the ' cooperation of classes,'
the policy of openly or tacitly declaring that the coming of
Socialism was a concern ' of all the classes,' instead of empha-
sizing the Marxian policy that the construction of the Social-
ist system is the tasK of the revolutionary proletariat alone.

"The 'Moderates' emphasized petty-bourgeois reformism in
order to attract tradesmen, shop-keepers and members of the
professions, and, of course, the latter flocked to the Socialist
movement in great numbers, seeking relief from the constant
grinding between corporate capital and awakening labor.

"Dominant 'Moderate Socialism' forgot the teachings of
the founders of scientific Socialism, forgot its function as a
proletarian movement — 'the most resolute and advanced sec-
tion of the working class parties' — and permitted the bour-
geois and self-seeking trade union elements to shape its policies
and tactics. This was the condition in which the Social-
Democracies of Europe found themselves at the outbreak of the
war in 1914. Demoralized and confused by the cross-currents

30 THE KED CONSPIRACY

within their own parties, vacillating and compromising with
the bourgeois state, they fell a prey to social-patriotism and
nationalism.

"But revolutionary Socialism was not destined to lie inert
for long. In Germany, Karl Liebknecht, Franz Mehring, Eosa
Luxemburg and Otto Ehule organized the Spartacus group.
But their voices were drowned in the roar of cannon and the
shriek of the dying and maimed.

" Eussia, however, was to be the first battle-ground where the
'moderate' and revolutionary Socialism should come to grips
for the mastery of the state. The break-down of the corrupt,
bureaucratic Czarist regime opened the floodgates of Eevolu-
tion

" ' Moderate Socialism ' was not prepared to seize the power
for the workers during a revolution. ' Moderate Socialism ' had
a rigid formula — ' constructive social reform legislation within
the capitalist state,' and to that formula it clung

" Eevolutionary Socialists hold, with the founders of Scien-
tific Socialism, that there are two dominant classes in society —
the bourgeoisie and the proletariat; that between these two
classes a struggle must go on, until the working class, through
the seizure of the instruments of production and distribution, the
abolition of the capitalist state, and the establishment of the
dictatorship of the proletariat, creates a Socialist system.
Eevolutionary Socialists do not believe that they can be voted
into power. They struggle for the conquest of power by the
revolutionary proletariat

" The ' moderate Socialist ' proposes to use the bourgeois state
with its fraudulent democracy, its illusory theory of ' unity of all
the classes,' its standing army, police and bureaucracy oppressing
and baffling the masses; the revolutionary Socialist maintains
that the bourgeois state must be completely destroyed, and pro-
poses the organization of a new state — the state of the organ-
ized producers — of the Federated Soviets — on the basis of
which alone can Socialism be introduced.

"Industrial Unionism, the organization of the proletariat
in accordance with the integration of industry and for the over-
throw of Capitalism, is a necessary phase of revolutionary
Socialist agitation. Potentially, industrial unionism constructs
the basis and develops the ideology of the industrial state of
Socialism; but industrial unionism alone cannot perform the
revolutionary act of seizure of the power of the state, since
under the conditions of Capitalism it is impossible to organise

SOCIALISTS DEVELOP A LEFT WING 31

the whole working class, or an overwhelming majority into
industrial unionism

" It is the task of a revolutionary Socialist party to direct
the struggles of the proletariat and provide a program for the
culminating crisis."

Julius Hammer, in a letter published in " The Call," April 4,
1919, speaking of the Left Wing, says:

" Aside from the discussions as to 1>he principles and tactics
identifying the ' Left Wing ' there is a great deal of acrimoni-
ous discussion and opposition to those in the ' Left Wing ' organ-
ization. They are called ' separatists,' ' secessionists,' ' splitters
of the party,' and this in spite of vehement denials that there is
intention or desire to split the party. ' It is unnecessary,' say
they, ' and superfluous ; the party machinery is ample for the
purpose now; organization within organization is injurious and
wrong.' Some seem to go even further and fling epithets of
' disrupters,' ' traitors,' ' direct actionists,' ' anti-politicalists,'
' anarchists,' etc. And there seems to be quite a number who
consider that the menace should be met with stern measures —
nothing less than expulsion."

In the Left Wing statements of principles and tactics the
reader will observe a constant emphasis upon " direct action,"
or violence, and in favor of " industrial unionism " and the
" identification of the Socialist Party with class conscious indus-
trial unionism." Chapters VIII and IX of this work, which
describe the principles and tactics of the I. W. W., will make
the significance of the Left Wing movement perfectly apparent
as an effort to combine Socialist Partyism and I. W. W. 'ism or
to place the latter under the political leadership of the former.
In the Left Wing we see an enthusiastic consecration of the
major part of the American Socialist Party to revolutionary
violence — the direct application of anarchistic tactics to the
overthrow of the Government and institutions of the United
States. As we follow the Left Wing movement we shall see the
principles and tactics of the I. W. W., as carried out in Eussia,
adopted as a program by the major part of the American Social-
ist party, which also finally succeeded in committing the minor
part, the Eight Wing, to the same principles.

ISTeedless to say, this movement was helped on by the various
communications received from the Lenine dictatorship, and
notably by the call for an international communist congress to
meet at Moscow in March, 1919. The text of this call began
to appear in the American radical publications in late March

32 THE RED CONSPIEACT

and April, and is here reproduced from " The One Big Union
Monthly " for the latter month :

" First Section
"AIMS AND TACTICS

" In our estimation, the acceptance of the following principles
shall serve as a working program for the International:

" 1. The actual period is the period of the dissolution and
collapse of the whole capitalist system ;

" 2. The first task of the proletariat consists to-day of the
immediate seizure of government power by the proletariat ;

" 3. This new governmental apparatus must incorporate the
dictatorship of the working class, and in some places, also, that
of the poorer peasantry, together with hired farm labor, this
dictatorship constituting the instrument of the systematic over-
throw of the exploiting classes ;

"4. The dictatorship of the proletariat shall complete the
immediate expropriation of Capitalism and the suppression of
private property in the means of production, which includes,
under Socialism, the suppression of private property and its
transfer to a proletarian state under the Socialist administra-
tion of the working class, the abolition of capitalist agricultural
production, the nationalization of the great business firms and
financial trusts;

" 5. In order to insure the Social Eevolution, the disarming
of the bourgeoisie and its agents, and the general arming of the
proletariat, is a prime necessity.

" Second Section
"ATTITUDE EEGAEDING SOCIALIST PAETIES

" 7. The fundamental condition of the struggle is the mass
action of the proletariat, developing into open armed attack on
the governmental powers of Capitalism ;

" 8. The old International has broken into three principal
groups : the avowed social-patriots, who, during the entire dura-
tion of the imperialistic war between the years 1914 and 1918,
have supported their own bourgeoisie ; the minority Socialists of
the ' Center,' represented by leaders of the type of Karl Kaut-
sky, 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 ; and the Eevolutionary
Left Wing.

SOCIALISTS DEVELOP A LEFT WING 33

" 9. As far as the social-patriots are concerned, who stood up
everywhere in arms, in the most critical moments, against the
revolution, a merciless fight is the alternative; in regard to the
' Center,' the tactics consist in separating from it the revolu-
tionary elements, in criticizing pitilessly its leaders and in
dividing systematically among them the number of their fol-
lowers; these tactics are absolutely necessary when we reach a
certain degree of development;

" 10. On the other hand it is necessary to proceed in a com-
mon movement with the revolutionary elements of the working
class who, though hitherto not belonging to the party, yet adopt
to-day in its entirety, the point of view of dictatorship of the
proletariat, under the form of Soviet government, including the
syndicalist elements of the labor movements;

" 11. It is also necessary to rally the groups and proletarian
organizations, who, though not in the wake as yet of the revolu-
tionary trend of the Left Wing, nevertheless have manifested
and developed a tendency leading in that direction;

" 12. We propose that the representatives ' of parties and
groups following these tendencies shall take part m the Con-
gress as plenipotentiary members of the Workers' International
and should belong to the following parties :

"1. The Spartacus group (Germany) ; 2. The Bolsheviki or
Communist Party (Kussia) ; 3. Other Communist groups of;
3. German- Austria ; 4. Hungary; 5. Finland; 6. Poland; 7.
Esthonia; 8. Lettonia; 9. Lithuania; 10. White Eussia; 11.
Ukraine; 12. The Eevolutionary elements of Czecho-Slovakia ;
13. The Bulgarian Social-Democratic Party; 14. The Eouma-
nian Social-Democrats; 15. The Left Wing of the Servian
Social-Democracy; 16. The Left Wing of the Swedish Social-
Democratic Party; 17. The Norwegian Social-Democratic
Party; 18. The Danish groups of the class struggle; 19. The
Dutch Communist Party; 20. The revolutionary elements of
the Belgian Labor Party; 21-22. The groups and organizations
in the midst of the French Socialist and syndicalist movements
who are in solidarity with our aims ; 23. The Left Wing of the
Swiss Social-Democratic Party; 24. The Italian Socialist Party;
25. The left elements of the Spanish Socialist Party; 26. The
left elements of the Portuguese Socialist Party; 27. The
British Socialist Party (those nearer to us are the elements
represented by MacLean) ; 28. I. S. P. E. (Great Britain) ; 29.
S. L. P. (England) ; 30. I. W. W. (Great Britain) ; 31. The
revolutionary elements of Shop-Stewards (Great Britain); 33.

3-1 THE RED CONSPIBACY

The S. L. p. (U. S. A.) ; 34. The elements of the Left Wings
of American Socialist Propaganda (tendency represented by E.
V. Debs and the Socialist Propaganda League) ; 35. I. W. W.
(Industrial Workers of the World), America; 36. The Workers'
International Industrial Union (U. S. A.) ; 37. I. W. W. of
Australia; 38. The Socialist groups of Tokio and Samon, repre-
sented by Sen Katayama; 39. The Young Peoples' Socialist
International Leagues.

" Third Section
" THE OEGANIZATION AND NAME OF THE PARTY

"13. The Congress must be transformed into a common
organ of combat in view of the permanent struggle and system-
atic direction of the movement, into a center of International
Communism which will subordinate the Interests of the Eevolu-
tion from an international point of view.

" The concrete forms of organization, representation, etc.,
will be elaborated by the Congress."

The testimony of Morris Hillquit in the Socialist case before
the Assembly Judiciary Committee gave the preceding docu-
ment an added interest which the reader will better appreciate
further on. As will appear later in our narrative, on September
4, 1919, the Socialist Party adopted a manifesto strongly favor-
ing the " industrial " unionizing of American labor for the
purpose of reinforcing the political " demands " of the Socialist
Party with " industrial action."

On the stand at Albany, on February 19, 1920, Hillquit
acknowledged the authorship of at least 90 per cent of the
"industrial action" manifesto of his party, but declared that
he had never read the Moscow manifesto when he wrote his, and
so was not influenced by the Moscow recommendation of indus-
trial action to bring about a revolution by violence. But the
above " call " to the Moscow Conference urged " a common
movement " with " syndicalist elements," or " industrial union "
revolutionaries, as much as the Moscow manifesto did, and the
reader will find at the end of our next chapter evidence that
Morris Hillquit was familiar with and criticized the above
Moscow "call" at least as early as July, 1919.

CHAPTEE IV

THE FREE-FOR-ALL FIGHT BETWEEN THE
RIGHT AND LEFT WINGS

Emanuel Blumstein, a member of the Eight Wing, in a letter
published in "The Call," -April 9, 1919, bitterly complained
against the tactics of the Left Wingers — in trying to wrest
control of the Socialist Party from the " Old Guard " of Berger
and Hillquit, which had acquired the habit of domination:

" The reason that the so-called Left Wingers are concentrating
at meetings, making motions to recall delegates, and carry their
motions through, is very simple. Anyone who attends the
meetings can easily understand it. They shout down every
honest thinking Socialist with slurs and abuse. They make
it so intolerable that the meeting hall appears to be, instead of
a Socialist meeting, a room frequented by rowdies of all types
and descriptions. In this way they drive the most active Com-
rades out of the meeting hall, as these Comrades get disgusted
with the tactics pursued and leave the meeting. Then they
drag the meeting on to all hours of the night until those left,
having no opposition, carry all their destructive actions through,
and this they call democratic decision for the Comrades of the
branch — deciding the policies for them."

Morris Zucker, a member of the Left Wing, defends his
faction in a letter that appeared in "The Call," New York,
April 11, 1919:

" In regard to Lee's objection that the Left Wing may bring
about a premature revolt, the reply is that no real revolution,
no social revolution, is ever manufactured. It must be spon-
taneous. It must be real. It must be an overwhelming, impul-
sive demonstration of the popular will. Eevolutions may be
manipulated but not manufactured. Trotzky shows in his
' From October to Brest-Litovsk ' that the Bolshevist Eevolu-
tion was not manufactured.

" The problem is to manipulate the revolution, to guide it,
to counsel it. And herein lies the importance of proper Socialist

35

36 THE RED CONSPIRACY

education, of knowledge and understanding, and from these of
proper Socialist tactics.

" The Left Wing believes it has the proper program. And
it wants the Socialist Party to adopt its program. The Left
Wing not only preaches revolutionary Socialism, it believes that
the economic and social forces that have made half Europe
Socialist, and threaten momentarily to engulf the other half
are at work in America also. It believes that a revolutionary
outbreak in America is not a matter of the far and distant
future. And it desires to make that revolution as easy and
as successful as it can possibly be. For that reason the Left
Wing has evolved its manifesto and program, and now calls
upon the Socialist Party to discuss it, perfect it, and adopt it."

In April, 1919, the New York State Committee of the
Socialist Party, by a vote of 24 against 17, resolved that it was
" definitely opposed to the organization calling itself the Left
Wing section of the Socialist Party, and to any group within
the party organized for the same or similar purpose ; " and it
instructed " its executive committee to revoke the charter of
any local affiliated with any such organization or that permits
its subdivision or members to be affiliated."

"The Call," April 23, 1919, publishes a long letter from
F. Basky in which he defends the principles of the Left Wing
and attacks the New York State Committee for the above resolu-
tions. We quote a part:

"Aside of these arguments the Left Wing is not a counter-
organization to the Socialist Party. On the contrary, it is the
only active force to save the party from going into decay and
finally to the scrap heap as a tool not adapted to the task. If
the Left Wing is the party, then and only then can we answer
the criticism of the syndicalist that a political party is nothing
else but a vote-catching machinery for middle-class politicians,
If the principles enunciated in the manifesto will be the prin-
ciples of the party, then it will enjoy the confidence of those
who, through their bitter experience realized the fallacies of
the Second International, led and dominated by the social-
patriots, reformists of the German Social Democratic Party. If
we follow the line of uncompromising revolutionary activity
indicated by the Left Wingers, then we can rest assured that
the party will be cleared of the would-be Scheidemanns, Eberts,
Kerenskys, Brantenburgs, and the rest of the traitors of our
principles and our class.

FIGHT OF EIGHT AND LEFT WINGS 37

" They will be eliminated anyway. The fight is on. And I
welcome the attack of the state committee. We at least know
some of those we would have to face in the critical hour. Might
as well fight it out now ; whether they or the Left Wing repre-
sents the party. Let us find out right now who is with us and
who is against us."

"The Call," April 30, 1919, published a resolution then
recently passed by the Socialist Party of Essex County, New
Jersey, which had adopted the Left Wing program. Part of
the resolution is hereby quoted:

" While the need for new orientation is clearly apparent, there
is an element within the party which is either unwilling or
unable to adjust itself to the new world conditions and the new
tactics required by these conditions. Unfortunately, this ele-
ment has controlled the party national executive committee and
the party machinery, with the consequence that the national
organization, in place of furnishing the leadership and urging
the locals forward to take advantage of the present world crisis
in building up the proletariat movement, has conspicuously
lagged behind."

By the early part of May, 1919, conditions in the Socialist
Party became so serious that the Executive Committee of Local
New York, according to " The Call," May 8, 1919, issued the
following statement on the Left Wing:

" To the Members of Local New York :

" Comrades. — A critical situation has arisen within Local
New York. Your executive committee is compelled to take
unusual and vigorous measures to combat the disruptive efforts
of an internal faction which seeks to dominate the party by
undemocratic and unsocialistie methods. The executive com-
mittee addresses itself to you, the membership, to explain the
gravity of the crisis and to urge your support in saving the
organization which has been built up with so much sacrifice by
thousands of Comrades.

" The very existence of the party is at stake — its existence
as the democratically self-governed party of the working class,
laboring to awaken and educate the proletarian masses and to
express their class interests on the political field

" This organization, i. e., the Left Wing, is not open to all
party members, nor even to all who accept the ideas set forth
in its manifesto and program. Only such persons are admitted
as can be counted on to set the authority of the 'Left Wing

M THE RED fcONSPIRACf

Section' above that of the party itself. Its meetings are held
in secret, and their business is that of a permanent closed caucus
to lay plans for controlling the action of the party branches and
committees, and of obstructing their activities when it cannot
control them.

"Even within the 'Left Wing Section' itself democratic
methods are not used. The admission of members, the choice
of delegates to Left "VVing conferences, and the framing of
instructions to those delegates are intrusted to committees com-
posing an inner circle. All members and adherents of the
'Left Wing Section' are called upon in their action as party
members and as members of party committees, to give explicit
obedience to orders issued by the inner circle. A sufficient sample
of this is the appointment of a ' steering committee ' for the
Left Wingers in the central committee of the local, and the
issuance of instructions to delegates affiliated with that section
as follows :

"'In all matters involving Left Wing tactics vote as a unit
with the steering committee. Do not make motions, ask for
divisions, further divisions, roll call, and appeals from the chair.
The steering committee will attend to tliat.'

" The Left Wing Section has not been able to command a
majority in the central committee, notwithstanding the drastic
methods used in their attempt to capture it. Unable to control
they have practised systematic obstruction, and have openly
declared that they will not permit the central committee to
function so long as their group is in the minority there. Under
the direction of their steering committee, the time is consumed
with every species of parliamentary delay, with the aim and
effect of preventing the central committee from transacting
business and carrying on the normal work of the party. These
dilatory tactics are supplemented by personal abuse directed
against those who will not truckle to the ' Left Wing,' by
insults and provocatory threats, and when necessary, by the
creation of an uproar designed to attract the attention of the
police and to break up the sessions

" The Executive Committee has heretofore decided not to have
a meeting of the central committee on May 13, and has
appointed a committee to reorganize Local ISTew York. This
committee will begin with such branches as are affiliated with
the 'Left Wing Section.' No one will be excluded because of
his opinions, but no one can retain a double membership in the
party and the so-called ' Left Wing Section.' "

FIGHT OF EIGHT AND LEFT WINGS 39

By about the middle of May, 1919, the Left Wing program
had been adopted by the Socialist Party in Boston, Chicago,
Cleveland, Detroit, Philadelphia, Kings and Queens Counties,
N. Y., and Essex County, N. J. In Hudson County, E". J.,
the county committee referred it favorably to all the branches,
and at the end of the month the New Jersey Convention of the
party adopted it. In Chicago, J. Louis Engdahl, sentenced* to
twenty years in Leavenworth prison, was reported to have been
ousted from the organization, having been considered too con-
servative by the millionaire Socialist, William Bross Lloyd, and
the latter's friends who controlled the Communist Propaganda
League, the Left Wing faction of the local organization.

"The Call," May 8, 1919, publishes an interesting letter
from one of its correspondents:

" It is not so much a question as to Left or Eight Wing
domination as it is a question of whether we are to have a
united or divided party.

" I am not a Centrist, if that means to be in the center of
the party as it is today. We must move to the Left — that is
understood by all thinking, class-conscious Comrades, but we
must move together, not, perhaps, as far as some of the hot-
heads would like to have us — they fail to understand what an
American Socialist Party should be, for they seem to think of
New York City as the whole thing. If they could take a trip
to Chicago and back they might find themselves moving toward
the Eight.

" No one wants to be where the stick-in-the-mud Eights are,
either — that is, no one except them. The majority of us see
the need for revolutionizing the party. What we don't see is
any necessity of disrupting the party in the process. The master
class would like to see that; in fact, they have been egging us
on to fight among ourselves for the last two or three years, and
we have blindly done the very thing that they want most we
should do. They are laughing in their sleeves at us- — -poor
boobs that we are."

* Engdahl was indicted at Chicago, February 2, 1918, as Editor of
the Socialist Party's official publications, brought to trial before Judge
Landis, December 9, 1918, and convicted on January 8, 1919. The four
indicted, convicted and sentenced with him, each for twenty years, were
Victor L. Berger, member of the Socialist Party's National Executive
Committee; Adolph Germer, the Party's National Executive Secretary;
William F. Kruse, Secretary of the Young People's Socialist League,
and Irwin St. John Tucker, former head of the Party's Literature
Pepartment.

40 THE RED CONSPIEACY

On May 15, 1919, following the open fight against the Left
Wing inaugurated by the New York State Committee and its
Executive Committee, the Left Wing Locals of Boston, Cleve-
land and New York joined in a call for a National Conference
of the Left Wing to convene in New York on June 31. This
call opened with the following paragraph:

" The international situation and the crisis in the American
Socialist Party; the sabotage the party bureaucracy has prac-
tised on the emergency national convention; the N. E. C.
[National Executive Committee] aligning our party with the
social-patriots at Berne, with the Congress of the Great Betrayal ;
the necessity of reconstructing our policy in accord with revolu-
tionary events — all this and more, makes it necessary that the
revolutionary forces in the Socialist Party get together for
counsel and action."

Apparently so many bitter letters were sent to " The Call "
that it found it expedient to publish the following notice in its
edition of May 16, 1919:

"No letters dealing in personalities of any kind will be
published in this column. All views and all arguments set
forth must be confined strictly to the principles and tactics
either defended or attacked. This ruling is by the unanimous
vote of the Board of Managers of ' The Call.' "

Morris Hillquit, member of the National Executive Com-
mittee of the Socialist Party till September, 1919, and one of
the principle leaders of the Eight, published in his paper, " The
Call," May 21, 1919, a long article in large type, covering half
of the editorial page, under the caption, " The Socialist Task
and Outlook." After speaking of the gloomy conditions in
the Socialist Party abroad, he thus comments on conditions in
the American branch of the international organization :

"All the more unfortunate is it that the energies of the
Socialist Party should at this time be dissipated in acrimonious
and fruitless controversies brought on by the self-styled Left
Wing movement. I am one of the last men in the party to
ignore or misunderstand the sound revolutionary impulse which
animates the rank and file of this new movement, but the specific
form and direction which it has assumed, its program and tac-
tics, spell disaster to our movement. I am opposed to it, not
because it is too radical, but because it is essentially reactionary
and non-Socialistic; not because it would lead us too far, but
because it would lead us nowhere. To prate about the dictator-
ship of the proletariat and of workers' Soviets in the United

SIGHT OF EIGHT AND LEFT WINGS 4l

States at this time is to deflect the Socialist propaganda from
its realistic basis, and to advocate the abolition of all social
reform planks in the party platform means to abandon the
concrete class struggle as it presents itself from day to day.

" The Left Wing movement, as I see it, is a purely emotional
reflex of the situation in Eussia. The cardinal vice of the
movement is that it started as a wing, i. e., as a schismatic
and disintegrating movement. Proceeding on the arbitrary
assumption that they were the Left, the ingenuous leaders of
the movement had to discover a Eight, and since the European
classification would not be fully reproduced without a Center,
they also were bound to locate a center in the Socialist move-
ment of America.* What matters it to our imaginative Left
Wing leaders that the Socialist Party of America as a whole
has stood in the forefront of Socialist radicalism ever since the
outbreak of the war, that many of its officers and leaders have
exposed their lives and liberties to imminent peril in defense of
the principles of international Socialism, they are Eight Wingers
and Centrists because the exigencies of the Left Wing require
it. The Left Wing movement is a sort of burlesque on the
Eussian revolution. Its leaders do not want to convert their
Comrades in the party. They must capture and establish a
sort of dictatorship of the proletariat ( ?) within the party.
Hence the creation of their dual organization as a kind of Soviet,
and their refusal to cooperate with the aforesaid stage Centrists
and Eight Wingers.

" But the performance is too sad to be amusing. It seems
perfectly clear that, so long as this movement persists in the
party, the latter's activity will be wholly taken up by mutual
quarrels and recriminations. ISTeither wing will have any time
for the propaganda of Socialism. There is, as far as I can
see, but one remedy. It would be futile to preach reconciliation
and union where antagonism runs so high. Let the Comrades
on both sides do the next best thing. Let them separate,
honestly, freely and without rancor. Let each side organize and
work in its own way, and make such contribution to the
Socialist movement in America as it can. Better a hundred
times to have two numerically small Socialist organizations,
each homogeneous and harmonious within itself, than to have
one big party torn by dissensions and squabbles, an impotent

* This reference to Left, Eight and Center bears every earmark of
familiarity with the use of these terms in the call to the Moscow
Conference,

43 THE KED CONSPIRACY

colossus on feet of clay. The time for action is near. Let us
clear the decks."

By the end of May, 1919, the Left Wing fight had become so
serious that the National Executive Committee revoked the
charter of the Socialist Party in Michigan and suspended the
Eussian, Lithuanian, Ukranian, Lettish, Polish, South Slavic
and Hungarian branches, expelling or suspending considerably
over 25,000 members out of a total dues-paying membership
of about 100,000.

" The Ohio Socialist," the party organ of Ohio, Kentucky,
West Virginia and New Mexico, in its issue of June 4, 1919,
comments as follows on the expulsions:

" Violating every principle of fair play and square dealing
and disregarding every constitutional provision, the National
Executive Committee at its session in Chicago, May 24 to 30,
expelled without a trial the state organization of the Socialist
Party of Michigan, constituting about 6,000 members, suspended
the Eussian, Lithuanian, Lettish, Polish, Hungarian, Ukrainian
and South Slavic Federations of the party, constituting more
than 30,000 members, and worst of all — and let it be said to
their everlasting shame — are autocratically holding up the
national membership referendum for the election of a new
National Executive Committee, International Delegates, Inter-
national Secretary, and the holding of a national convention.

" Never before in the party's history have Socialist Party
officials been so lost to all sense of decency and square dealing.
A wilful group of seven members of the National Executive
Committee usurped power which the constitution does not grant
them and which the Socialist Party membership never intended
any servants of the party to have. This despotic group of
seven did not act as the party's servants, but as dictators and
tyrants to defeat the expressed will of the party membership and
to perpetuate itself in office.

"Unbelievable as it may seem, seven officials of the party
had the monumental effrontery to assume the right to expel and
suspend 40,000 members. Think of it. That such a dastardly
deed should ever be perpetrated upon the rank and file of our
organization is almost beyond comprehension. And yet it was
done — it was done by those whom you elected to serve you.
Instead they are betraying you, disrupting the organization.

"The intention of these, autocrats is plain as daylight. Like
a tidal wave, the demand for a Socialism which stands true to

FIGHT OF EIGHT AND LEFT WINGS 43

the working class at all times has swept the party. The thou-
sands of Comrades who are sincerely working to win the party
to a more revolutionary position are known to the Left Wing.
This Left "Wing understands clearly that the Scheidemann brand
of Socialism stands for the betrayal and defeat of the working
class and that only the Socialism of Liebknecht and Lenine has
within it the potentialities of victory and success. . .

" There was no trial, no opportunity for defense offered to
the Michigan Comrades. A motion to allow Michigan a chance
to interpret their action was voted down. The right to appear
at a trial was denied

'■' Expulsion meant throwing out over three thousand votes.
On with the expulsion of Michigan. . .

" But the expulsion of Michigan was apparently not sufficient
to decide the elections in favor of the reactionary moderates.
At a subsequent session, accordingly, it was decided to destroy
the whole election.

" The National Executive Committee instructed the secretary
not to tabulate the vote or make it public. They nullified the
referendum vote, destroyed the will of the mem.bership in order
to retain control. Most of these National Executive Committee
members are out for -re-election, are interested parties, knowing
that the referendum defeated them for re-election, are now, by
this action, perpetuating themselves in office

" The National Executive Committee's action is equivalent to
stealing the elections. The party must act sternly to rebuke
this official chicanery.

" After this betrayal of the party the despotic seven seemed
to fear the results of the National Convention, which has been
called for August 30. A way had to be devised to control the
convention. Happy thought : Suspend the federations that have
endorsed the Left Wing, and we are safe. Another caucus held.
Eesult : Suspension of the Russian, Polish, Hungarian, Ukrainian,
Lithuanian, Lettish and South Slavic Federations from the
Socialist Party — over thirty thousand members. A plain
attempt to assure the election of reactionary delegates to the
National Convention to approve the abominable actions of the
National Executive Committee majority

" In spite of all these dirty tactics the little group of reac-
tionary autocrats did not feel themselves secure. They still
fear that they will not be able to control the coming National
Convention. ' So they formed a corporation, nearly all the direc-
tors of which are gf the game stamp &s the wilful sgven, and

44 THE RED CONSPIRACY

into the hands of these directors is to be placed the entire
property of the Socialist Party, including the new headquarters
building upon which $10,000 has been paid. These directors
cannot be recalled by the party membership as long as they
retain membership in the party, and only four, a minority, can
be removed in three years' time

" They want the Left Wing to desert the party. They want
us to leave the party machinery in their hands. They will be
disappointed in this. We know their game. We shall not play
into their hands. We will not quit. Every Left Winger will
work night and day for the reinstatement of the nearly 40,000
members whom the reactionaries are trying to sever from the
party in violation of the party's constitution. Every radical
will work with might and main to get new members and build,
build the Left Wing and the party. Every revolutionist will
stick until victory is ours and the Socialist Party is completely
won for revolutionary Socialism."

Commenting on the referendum for a new National Executive
Committee "The Pievolutionary Age" in its May 24, 1919,
issue says :

" The moderates claim that the Left Wing represents only a
small clique in the party: why, then, not allow the membership
to make its decision through the referendum ? Why disfranchise
the revolutionary Socialists? Why steal votes away from the
Left Wing candidates ? These desperate tactics are understand-
able only on the theory that the moderates feel that the revolu-
tionary Socialists are a majority, that they will meet defeat
in the referendum votes and revolutionary Socialism will con-
quer the party."

" The Eevolutionary Age," July 12, 1919, informs us that the
Massachusetts Comrades were also expelled and that others in
other States were threatened :

" Another State gone. Massachusetts is expelled for adopting
the Left Wing program at its State Convention and for refusing
to recognize the National Executive Committee's act of suspend-
ing the Federations. For this latter offense, Pennsylvania is
now threatened with excommunication, and very likely Ohio
will meet the same sad fate.

" It is a race against time. Will there be anything left for
the rump N. E. C. to expel by August 30th ? "

Eelative to the success of the Left Wing in electing its mem-
bers to the new National Executive Committee of fifteen, and

FIGHT OF EIGHT AND LEFT WINGS 45

to the meeting of this new committee, " Tlie Revolutionary
Age," July 19, 1919, comments as follows:

" The election of Comrades Praina, Hourwich, Harwood,
Prevey, Euthenberg, Lloyd, Keracher, Batt, Hogan, Millis,
Nagle, Katterfeld, Wicks and Herman appears now to be certain,
while there is still a question about the third choice in the First
District, Comrade Lindgren leading without the New York
vote.

" There is no question but that the final tally of the party
elections is available at the National Office, but according to
the action of the National Executive Committee this tally will
not be made known till August 30. Meanwhile the State secre-
taries have published enough of the votes to leave no question
of the outcome, except as above indicated

" According to the party law the new N. E. C. is entitled to
control beginning July 1st

" There can be no legality by which a defunct Executive Com-
mittee can keep the newly elected committee from taking office.
By such ' constitutionality ' the old body could perpetuate itself
indefinitely, let the members vote as they like. Stopping refer-
endums is the method chosen to make sure that the members
consent."

Accusations and recriminations, charges and counter-charges,
continued to fly back and forth between the two Wings, as the
secretaries proceeded with the work of expulsion or suspension,
carrying out the savage instructions of the Right Wing majority
of the National Executive Committee, where Victor L. Berger,
Morris Hillquit and Seymour Stedman were the dominating
leaders. On the side of the Lefts little more could be done than
to set up a howl against the " dictatorship of the proletariat "
within the party which forced them to taste the medicine they
would have preferred to prescribe for the rest of the country.

During the summer the Left Wing movement was hastened
on, dragging the Right Wing after it, by the publication in the
radical papers of America of the manifesto issued in Moscow
in March, 1919, by the Third or Communistic International in
session there. Max Eastman, a Left Wing leader, in an article
on "The New International" in "The Liberator," July,
1919, a Left Wing magazine, thus describes the Bolshevik
International :

" The Communist International, which met at Moscow on
March 2d, 1919, comprised thirty-two delegates with full power
to act, representing parties or groups in Germany, Russia, Hun-

46 THE EED CONSPIRACY

gary, Sweden, Norway Bulgaria, Kumania, Finland, Ukrainia,
Esthonia, Armenia, delegates from the ' Union of Socialists of
Eastern Countries,' from the labor organizations of Germans
in Eussia, and from the Balkan 'Union of Eevolutionary
Socialists.'

" There were also present representatives with consultative
powers from parties and groups in Switzerland, Holland,
Bohemia, Jugo-Slavia, France, Great Britain, Turkey, Turkestan,
Persia, Corea, China, and the United States (S. J. Eutgers, of
the Socialist Propaganda League, now merged with the Left
Wing section of the Socialist Party). A letter was read from
Comrade Loriot, the leader of the Left Wing section of the
French Party, repudiating the Berne Congress of the Second
International.

" The Eussian Communist Party was represented by Com-
rades Lenine, Trotzky, Zinoviev, Kukharin and Stalin. This
party contains many millions of organized class-conscious Social-
ists, more, perhaps, than are to be found in all the rest of the
world."

The Communist Manifesto of 1919, issued by this Moscow
International, became the test of fellowship among the simon-
pure " Eeds " the world over, and since the campaign of the
Left Wing grew into an attempt to force the Socialist Party
of America to adopt this Bolshevik program, we here quote the
salient parts of the Moscow Manifesto from the article by
Eastman mentioned above:

"To the proletariat of all countries!

" Seventj^-two years have gone by since the Communist Party
of the World proclaimed its program in the form of the Mani-
festo written by the great teachers of the proletarian revolution,
Karl Marx and Frederick Engels

" We Communists, representatives of the revolutionary pro-
letariat of the different countries of Europe, America and Asia,
assembled in Soviet Moscow, feel and consider ourselves fol-
lowers and fulfillers of the program proclaimed seventy-two years
ago. It is our task now to sum up the practical revolutionary
experience of the working class, to cleanse the movement of its
admixtures of opportunism and social patriotism^ and to gather
together the forces of all the true revolutionary proletarian
parties in order to further and hasten the complete victory of
the Communist revolution.

" The opportunists who, before the war, exhorted the workers,
in the name of the gradual transition into Socialism, to be

FIGHT OF EIGHT AND LEFT WINGS 47

temperate; who, during the war, asked for submission in the
name of ' civil peace ' and defense of tlie Fatherland, now again
demand of the workers self-abnegation to overcome the terrible
consequences of the war. If this preaching were listened to by
the workers. Capitalism would build out of the bones of several
generations a new and still more formidable structure, leading
to a new and inevitable world war. Fortunately for humanity,
this is no longer possible

" Only the Proletarian Dictatorship, which recognizes neither
inherited privileges nor rights of property, but which arises
from the needs of the hungering masses, can shorten the period
of the present crisis; and for this purpose it mobilizes all
materials and forces, introduces the universal duty to labor,
establish the regime of industrial discipline, thus to heal in the
course of a few years the open wounds caused by the war and
also to raise humanity to new undreamed-of heights.

" The whole bourgeois world accuses the Communists of
destroying liberties and political democracy. This is not true.
Having come into power the proletariat only asserts the absolute
impossibility of applying the methods of bourgeois democracy,
and it creates the conditions and forms of a higher working
class democracy

" The peasant of Bavaria and Baden who does not look beyond
his church spire, the small French wine-grower who has been
ruined by the adulterations practiced by the big capitalists, the
small farmer of America plundered and betrayed by bankers and
legislators — all these social ranks which have been shoved aside
from the main road of development by Capitalism, are called
on paper by the regime of political democracy to the administra-
tion of the State. In reality, however, the finance-oligarchy
decides all important questions which determine the destinies of
nations behind the back of parliamentary democracy. . . .

"The proletarian State, like every State, is an organ of
suppression, but it arrays itself against the enemies of the
working class. It aims to break the opposition of the despoilers
of labor, who are using every means in a desperate effort to
stifle the revolution in blood, and to make impossible further
opposition. The dictatorship of the proletariat, which gives
it the favored position in the community, is only a provisional
institution. As the opposition of the Bourgeoisie is broken, as
it is expropriated and gradually absorbed into the working
groups, the proletarian dictatorship disappears, until finally the
State dies and there are no more class distinctions

48 THE RED CONSPIRACY

" In an empire of destruction where not only the means of
production and transportation, but also the institutions of
political democracy have become bloody ruins, the proletariat
must create its own forms, to serve above all as a bond of unity
for the working class and to enable it to accomplish a revolution-
ary intervention in the further development of mankind. Such
apparatus is represented in the Workmen's Councils. The old
parties, the old unions, have proved incapable, in person of their
leaders, to understand, much less to carry out the task which
the new epoch presents to them. The proletariat has created a
new institution which embraces the entire working class without
distinction of vocation or political maturity, an elastic form of
organization capable of continually renewing itself, expanding,
and of drawing into itself ever new elements, ready to open its
doors to the working groups of city and village which are near
to the proletariat. This indispensable autonomous organization
of the working class in the present struggle and in the future
conquests of different lands, tests the proletariat and constitutes
the greatest inspiration and the mightiest weapon of the pro-
letariat of our time. Wherever the masses are awakened to
consciousness. Workers', Soldiers' and Peasants' Councils will

be formed

" The outcry of the bourgeois world against the civil war
and the red terror is the most colossal hypocrisy of which the
history of political struggles can boast. There would be no
civil war if the exploiters who have carried mankind to the
very brink of ruin had not prevented every forward step of the
laboring masses, if they had not instigated plots and murders
and called to their aid armed help from outside to maintain
or restore their predatory privileges. Civil war is forced upon
the laboring classes by their arch-enemies. The working class
must answer blow for blow, if it will not renounce its ovni
object and its own future which is, at the same time, the future
of all humanity.

" The Communist parties, far from conjuring up civil war arti-
ficially, rather strive to shorten its duration as much as possible —
in case it has become an iron necessity — to minimize the num-
ber of its victims, and, above all, to secure victory for the pro-
letariat. This makes necessary the disarming of the bourgeoisie
at the proper time, the arming of the laborer, and the formation
of a communist army as the protector of the rule of the pro-
letariat and the inviolability of the social structure. Such is
the Eed Army of Soviet Kussia which arose to protect the

FIGHT OF RIGHT AND LEFT WINGS 49

achievements of the working class against every assault from
within or without. The Soviet Army is inseparable from the
Soviet State.

" Seizure of political power by the proletariat means destruc-
tion of the political power of the bourgeoisie. The organized
power of the bourgeoisie is in the civil State, with its capital-
istic army under control of bourgeoisie-junker oiScers, its police
and gendarmes, jailers and judges, its priests, government offi-
cials, etc. Conquest of the political power means not merely
a change in the personnel of ministries, but annihilation of the
enemy's apparatus of government; disarmament of the bour-
geoisie of the counter-revolutionary oflBcers, of the White Guard ;
arming of the proletariat, the revolutionary soldiers, the Red
Guard of workingmen; displacement of all bourgeois judges
and organization of proletarian courts; elimination of control
by reactionary government officials and substitution of new
organs of management of the proletariat. . . . Not until
the proletariat has achieved this victory and broken the resist-
ance of the bourgeoisie can the former enemies of the new order
be made useful, by bringing them under control of the Com-
munist system and gradually bringing them into accord with
its work

" The Dictatorship of the Proletariat does not in any way
call for partition of the means of production and exchange;
rather, on the contrary, its aim is further to centralize the
forces of production and to subject all of production to a
systematic plan. As the first steps — socialization of the great
banks which now control production; the taking over by the
power of the proletariat of all government-controlled economic
utilities; the transferring of all communal enterprises; the
socializing of the syndicated and trustified units of production,
as well as all other branches of production in which the degree
of concentration and centralization of capital makes this tech-
nically practicable; the socializing of agricultural estates and
their conversion into co-operative establishments

"As far as smaller enterprises are concerned, the proletariat
must gradually unite them, according to the degree of their
importance. It must be particularly emphasized that small
properties will in no way be expropriated and that small prop-
erty owners who are not exploiters of labor will not be forcibly
dispossessed

" The task of the Proletarian Dictatorship in the economic
field can only be fulfilled to the extent that the proletariat is

50 THE KED CONSPIRACY

enabled to create centralized organs of management and to insti-
tute workers' control. To this end it must make use of its
mass organizations whicli are in closest relation to the process
of production. .

" As in the field of production, so also in the field of distri-
bution, all qualified technicians and specialists are to be made
use of, provided their political resistance is broken and they
are still capable of adapting themselves, not to the service
of capital, but to the new system of production. . . Besides
expropriating tlie factories, mines, estates, etc., the proletariat
must also abolish the exploitation of the people by capitalistic
landlords, transfer the large mansions to the local workers'
councils, and move the working peojale into the bourgeois
dwellings

" The capitalistic criminals asserted at the beginning of the
World War that it was only in defense of the common Father-
land. But soon German Imperialism revealed its real brigand
character by bloody deeds in Eussia, m the Ukraine and Finland.
ISTow the Entente States unmask themselves as world despoilers
and murderers of tlie proletariat

" Indescribable is the White Terror of the bourgeois cannibals.
Incalculable are the sacrifices of the working class. Their
best — Liebknecht, Rosa Luxemburg — they have lost. Against
this the proletariat must defend itself, defend at any price. The
Communist International calls the whole world proletariat to
this final struggle.

" Down with the imperialistic conspiracy of capital !

"Long live the International Eepublic of the Proletarian
Councils ! "

As will be seen when we study the I. W. W., the above is the
program of the world-wide conspiracy of a single class, a
minority of society, to carry out the cynical purpose of
I. W. W. 'ism — to " take possession of the earth and the
machinery of production."

Morris Hillquit, a Right Wing leader of the Socialist Party
of America, declared that " The Communist Congress of Moscow
made the mistake of attempting a sort of dictatorship of the
Russian proletariat in the Socialist International and was con-
spicuously inept and unhappy in the choice of certain allies and
in the exclusion nf others."*

* Tlius Hillquit seema to have had his eye on the " call " to the
Moscow Conference, although he swore on the stand at Albany, in
February, 11120, that he had not read the Moscow manifesto when he
wrote 90 per cent, or more of his Party's Chicago manifesto of Septem-
ber, 1919.

FIGHT OF EIGHT AND LEFT AYINGS 51

Quoting this. Max Eastman, in the article from which we
have taken so much, makes the following reply:

" How can he expect them to be any more indefinite and gener-
ous in their invitation than they were ? In every country where
there was a doubt as to what groups had stood true to the
revolutionary principle and the principle of Internationalism,
they so indicated the alignment as to leave every Socialist free
to consider himself their ally who seriously and courageously
desired to. This was what they did in America. The S. L. P.
(Socialist Labor Party), the Socialist Propaganda League, the
I. W. W. and in the Socialist Party ' the followers of Debs ! '
Could they in a brief word open the door wider to American
Socialists, unless they wished to admit prominent members of
the Socialist Party who were known to have repudiated them,
as Berger did, declaring his solidarity with the Mensheviks who
were waging war on them?"

CHAPTER V

BIRTH OF THE COMMUNIST AND COMMUNIST-
LABOR PARTIES

On June 34, 1919, the Left Wing Conference assembled in
New York City. The purpose of the Conference was for the
first time to unite the forces of the Left Wing throughout the
country and to decide upon a common plan of action against
the Eight. For some time there had been a growing desire
among the members of the Left for the formation of a new party
to be known as the Communist Party. The Michigan State
organization and the difEerent Eussian-speaking federations,
which had either been expelled or suspended, were particularly
anxious for a new party. Then, too, many members of the Left
Wing throughout the country believed that, even though they
were more numerous than those of the Eight, it would be useless
to try to control the National Emergency Convention of the
Socialist Party, called for August 30, 1919, in Chicago. They
feared that the credentials of the still unsuspended and unex-
pelled Left Wing delegates would not be recognized by the party
machine in the hands of the Eight Wing, and, moreover, that
even if they were, these Left Wing delegates would not be in
the majority because so many other Left Wing delegates had
been expelled from the Party.

Almost at the beginning of the National Conference of the
Left Wing the Michigan State delegates and the delegates of the
foreign-language federations insisted on the immediate organi-
zation of a new party to be knovra. as the Communist Party.
The majority of the delegates, however, were opposed to imme-
diate organization, claiming that it would be much more pru-
dent to wait till the meeting of the National Emergency Con-
vention, at the end of August, as many Left Wing Socialists
would refuse to leave the mother party until it became evident
that the Convention could not be captured by the Left Wing.
The majority of the delegates decided to call a Communist
Party Convention on September 1, 1919. The Michigan State
delegates and the Eussian-speaking federation delegates there-
upon TDroke with the majority of the Left Wing, causing a
serious split, which continued till about the end of July, 1919.

53

BIETH OP THE COMMUNIST PARTIES 53

In that month, however, most of the members of the National
Council of the Left Wing who had been leading the faction of
the Left Wing which had refused the call for the immediate
formation of the Communist Party, went over to the minority
faction, which included the Michigan State organization and the
Eussian-speaking federations. A compromise had been reached
whereby the aforesaid members of the National Council agreed
not to insist upon attendance at the National Emergency Con-
vention of the Socialist Party, while the Michigan organization,
together with the federations, were willing to wait till Septem-
ber 1, 1919, for the convention of the Communist Party.

Even on these terms John Eeed, Ben Gitlow and some other
leading members of the Left Wing refused to go over to the
Communist Party, having decided to fight for the rights of
the Left Wingers in the National Emergency Convention of the
Socialist Party. This group of Left Wingers later on, as will
be seen, became the nucleus of a third party, the Communist
Labor Party. Several statements from the joint call for the
convention of the Communist Party, cited from " The Eevolu-
tionary Age," August 33, 1919, will interest the reader:

" The party will be founded upon the following principles :

" The present is the period of the dissolution and collapse of
the whole capitalist world system, which will mean the collapse
of world culture, if capitalism with its unsolvable contradic-
tions is not replaced by Communism.

" The problem of the proletariat consists in organizing and
training itself for the conquest of the powers of the state.

" This new proletarian state must embody the dictatorship of
the proletariat, both industrial and agricultural, this dictator-
ship constituting the instrument for the taking over of property
used for exploiting the workers, and for the reorganization of
society on a Communist basis

" The dictatorship of the proletariat shall carry out the aboli-
tion of private property in the means of production and distri-
bution, by transfer to the proletarian state under Socialist
administration of the working class

"The present world situation demands the closest relation
between the revolutionary proletariat of all countries

"We favor international alliance of the Communist Party of
the United States only with the Communist groups of other
countries, such as the Bolsheviki of Eussia, Spartacans of Ger-
many, etc

54 THE RED CONSPIRACY

" The party shall propagandize elass-conscious industrial
unionism, and shall carry on party activity in cooperation with
industrial disputes that take on a revolutionary character."

The national organ of the Communist Party was " The Com-
munist" of Chicago. In its issue of August 23, 1919, it thus
criticises the Socialist Party:

" The majority of the readers of ' The Communist ' are
familiar with the form of organization of the old Socialist
Party, with its state autonomy and its bureaucratic officialdom.
Every state is practically organized as an Independent Socialist
party. ' Official socialism ' of Milwaukee is entirely different
form ' official socialism •" in Ohio, both in regard to platforms
and form of organization. Every state has a ' Socialism ' of its
own brand, and even dues are not uniform throughout the coun-
try. ' Official papers ' of the party are in most cases organs of
independent associations, not at all affiliated with the central
party organizations. Such important weapons in the struggle
of the proletariat are left in the hands of the petty bourgeois
ideologists who, in reality, prostitute the labor press. As
examples, we have, for instance, ' The Milwaukee Leader,' the
'New York Call,' the Jewish 'Daily Forward,' the 'Appeal to
Eeason,' and many others scattered throughout the United States,
and each contradicting not only the others, but containing in
each issue glaring contradictions that an intelligent person who
reads them becomes disgusted with the whole muddled mess."

The fight among the revolutionists was a fight to the finish.
The leaders all wanted to become Trotzkys and Lenines, all
wanted to be bosses. It seems reasonable to conclude that if
Bolshevism were ever introduced into the United States,
either by the mother Socialist Party or by its offspring,
the Communist Party or the Communist Labor Party,
the dictatorship of the proletariat, that wonderful piece
of nonsense which we hear so much about, would be
grasped at by an amazing number of competitors. In Russia
Lenine and Trotzky seem to constitute the Dictatorship of the
Proletariat. In the Socialist Party of the United States Berger
and Hillquit, of the old National Executive Committee, consti-
tuted a first-class dictatorship. In the Communist Party, Den-
nis Batt, lately jailed, and Alexander Stoklitsky would surely
give the Communist rank and file plenty to do — everything of
course being done according to their wills. John Eeed and Ben
Gitlow would make an ideal " dictatorship of the proletariat,"
if the Communist Labor Party ever made Bolshevism the law
of the land.

BIRTH OF THE COMMUNIST PARTIES 55

" Truth," one of the organs of the Communist Labor Party,
published in Duluth, Minn., in its issue of August 29, 1919,
devotes nearly two of its eight pages to bitter attacks on the
Communist Party. Two short quotations will suffice to show the
spirit of envy that exists :

" 'Tis said that distance lends enchantment, and perhaps that
is the reason why some of you in the East have responded to
the cuckoo-call of Michigan-Federations. Frankly, we see noth-
ing hopeful in the alignment presented by the Michigan-Federa-
tion combine. We are fearful of the consequence of such lead-
ership. The so-called Communist Party, as it is now consti-
tuted and especially with the accretion of a part of the National
Council, presents the prettiest bunch of 'eligibles' that man
ever laid eyes upon. And as I gaze upon this august array of
talent, I wonder where the working class is going to get off at.
We of the left wing of Cook County are reluctant to join with
an organization under the guidance of a few doctrinaires from
Detroit and the would-be Lenine of the United States.* We do
not consider that the welfare of the revolutionary movement
would be zealously guarded in their hands."

Prom " Truth," of the same date, we also quote an open letter
to Louis C. Fraina, which reads in part as follows :

" Do you know how the Eussian Federation is being ruled ?
Do you know that a 'firing squad' is constantly on the job
expelling members and branches from the Federation who dare
to disagree on anything with the would-be bosses of the Eussian
Federation? ....

" Do you know that a regular secret service system is being
employed by these 'bosses' to hunt down the undesirables?

" Do you know that a worse than military censorship is being
maintained in the domain of Stocklitzky (the Northwestern
States), where it is prohibited to the branches to communicate
with each other or to send out or receive any correspondence
otherwise than through the hands of the censors, the Executive
Committee, and that this censorship committee, like the impe-
rialists in the world's war, are holding up the mail of these
branches and do not deliver at all the ' undesirable ' mail ? "

August 30, 1919, the day for the assembling of the National
Emergency Convention of the Socialist Party, at last arrived.
Delegates of the Eight Wing, and many of the Left, including
John Eeed, I. E. Ferguson and Eose Pastor Stokes, were present.
The Left Wing delegates, to the number of about 84, arrived

* The reference is to Alexander Stoklitzky.

56 THE RED CONSPIRACY

early at the place of meeting. Machinists' Hall, 113 South Ash-
land Boulevard, Chicago. Trouble immediately began, for the
seats being occupied by the Left Wingers, the menibers of the
Right were crowded out.

Germer and Gerber of the Eight seem to have lost their heads.
"The Chicago Herald and Examiner," of August 31, 1919,
informs us that Adolph Germer, National Secretary of the
Socialist Party and one of the leading members of the Eight
Wing, called in the police, who cleared the hall. " The Chicago
Tribune " of the same day tells us that everybody was exchang-
ing fisticuffs when the police arrived. Detective Sergeant Law-
rence McDonough, head of the anarchist squad, with the aid of
a dozen uniformed policemen, seems to have saved the day for
the Right Wingers. John Reed, of the Left Wing, was furious,
and "The Call," New York, August 31, 1919, tells us that he
issued a statement which he addressed to the delegates of the
Emergency Convention:

" We address you to inform you of occurrences this morning
which every Revolutionary Socialist on the floor of this conven-
tion will protest against.

" Delegates from Illinois, Minnesota, Washington, Oregon,
Ohio, Nebraska, California and other states entered the conven-
tion floor and took their seats in readiness for the opening of the
convention.

" At nearly 10 o'clock Gerber of New York and Goebel of New
Jersey, who were at the door and attempted to refuse the above
named delegates admission, called the police and these delega-
tions were ejected from the hall by police power, many of them
being roughly handled."

Press reports inform us that after the belligerents had calmed
down the meeting was again convened, and that Victor Berger,
in referring to the Lefts, said: " They're just a lot of anarch-
ists; we are the party." Berger did not say whether or not
by the word " we " he meant the old National Executive Com-
mittee, which should have gone out of office in July,* but
seemed to have given itself a " mandate " to run the National
Emergency Convention.

•Article 3, Section 3 (a), of the "National Convention and Plat-
form of the Socialist Party, 1917," as officially published, reads: "The
call for the regular election of members of the National Executive
Committee shall be issued on the first day of January, 1918, and on
January first of each odd numbered year thereafter. Members elected
in 1918 shall retire July first, 1919." But why should their own Con-
stitution bother plotters who wish to dynamite that of the United
States?

BIRTH OP THE COMMUNIST PAETIES 57

On August 31, 1919, the hot-heads and sore-heads again
assembled, and a dispute arose as to who called the "cops."
As a result the Left Wingers nest met by themselves down-
stairs, on the first Hoor of the hall, while the Eight Wingers
remained higher up on the second floor. On the same day the
Minnesota group was seated by the Convention, but was denied
a vote.

On September 1st the high climbers of the Eight Wing
purged the party still more by unseating the Washington State
delegation and expelled Katterfield " for the good of the party."
The California delegates then threw a bomb into the Eight
Wmg Convention by announcing that they would not take their
seats until all of the contested delegations were seated and the
police were withdrawn from the hall. These delegates finally
went down to the first floor and joined ranks with the Left
Wingers there, this section henceforth being known as the Com-
munist Labor Party.

On the same day the Convention of the Communist Party
assembled at Smolny Institute, 1221 Blue Island Avenue, Chi-
cago. Bed flags were displayed and Bolshevist songs were sung
Until the police of the anarchist squad finally demanded the
removal of the blood-colored standards of revolt.

" The Call '"' informs us that on the next day, September 2nd,
the Communist Party, composed of the Michigan crowd, the
Eussian Pederation and the former Left Wing National Coun-
cil, nearly split in two when, at a concerted signal, there resigned
from the emergency committee of the convention, Louis C.
Fraina, C. E. Euthenberg, 1. E. Ferguson, Maximilian Cohen,
S. Elbaum and A. Selakowich, and, from other ofSces, A. Paul
of Queens and Fannie Horowitz. It seems that these members
were anxious to have the Communist Party amalgamate with
the Communist Labor Party, but that the foreign federations,
fearing that they would be outnumbered by the English-speak-
ing members, were very much opposed to the union.

On this same day Dennis Batt, one of the principal leaders of
the Communist Party, was jailed.

Moreover, on the 2nd of September the Communist Labor
Party — the group that had first met with the Eight Wing, and,
later on, down stairs on the first floor of the hall on South Ash-
land Boulevard — assembled at the I. W. W. Hall at 119 Throop
street. This party, heart and soul, is in favor of the propaga-
tion of Bolshevism and I. W. W. 'ism in the United States, and
if not completely broken up by the Government, seems destined

58 THE KED CONSPIEACY

to become more numerous than either the rapidly disintegrating
Socialist Party or the Communist Party, which is principally
made up of foreigners who speak the various Russian languages.
The principal leaders of the Communist Labor Party are John
Reed, William Bross Lloyd, formerly known as the millionaire
Socialist, and Benjamin Gitlow.* It seemed likely, too, that
Fraina, Ferguson, Ruthenberg and Cohen, prominent " Reds,"
who resigned from the emergency committee of the Communist
Party, would soon be found among the leaders of the Commun-
ist Labor Party. At the time of the convention no national
organ of the Communist Labor Party had yet begun publica-
tion, but " The Voice of Labor," edited by Reed and Gitlow,
and " Truth," formerly the Socialist paper of Duluth, were
local organs.

Both the Communist Party and the Communist Labor Party
are strongly Bolshevist. The Communist Labor Party is
decidedly more in favor of the I. W. W. than the Communist
Party; but the main differences between these two parties seem
to be a matter of race, language, and especially of personal
jealousy and dislike among the leaders.

For years the Socialist Party and the Socialist Labor Party
have remained separated from each other, so that now, with the
two new parties, the Communist Party and the Communist
Labor Party, there are four parties of rebels, all plotting a revo-
lution against our National Government, while the great body
of the American people sleep and dream.

Quite a number of educated people in the United States,
including the editors of some of our leading dailies, seem to
think that the remnant of the Socialist Party is not at all a
Bolshevist organization and not at all revolutionary in charac-
ter. They are very much deceived, having let the crafty, decep-
tive, hypocritical leaders of the Right Wing fool them badly.
The Left Wingers have indeed been much more open in
admitting their intentions to overthrow our government by
force of arms. They are dangerous, but perhaps not nearly so
much so as the slippery " Yellows," cunning weasels of the
imported Russian Hillquit type, who, though they do not talk
as openly as the " Reds," are spreading their subversive prin-
ciples on every side, and especially among the less educated
classes of our people, into whose minds they instil the spirit of
hatred between employers and employees, while at the same time

* Gitlow WHR tried, cnnvicted and sentenced in New York City early in
1920, for inciting to anarchy.

fil'KTH OP 'IHE COMltUNISt PARTIES 59

encouraging strikes, wherever they can, with the hope of over-
throwing our Government when conditions become sufSciently
criticaL Both parties of the Socialists and both parties of the
Communists, along with the I. W. W., are all revolutionary in
the strictest sense, and the sooner the American people wake up
to the fact and take some intelligent action to stamp them out,
the better it will be. It is not yet too late, but soon may be.

The Bolshevist Socialists of Eussia and the two new parties
of Socialists that at Chicago in September, 1919, seceded from
the mother party, have all adopted the name, " Communist,"
which " The Call," New York, July 24, 1919, informs us was
used by Marx and Engels, the founders of modern Socialism,
adding that though the name is somewhat confusing, inasmuch
as the word has another and a distinct meaning in English, still,
" wherever it is used it means revolutionary Socialists as distin-
guished from Social patriots and mere parliamentary Social-
ists." Is this definition an alibi for Hillquit and Berger?

Many persons have hastily assumed that the main reason why
the Left and Eight Wings of the Socialists fought each other
like eats and dogs was that the Eight Wing members of the
party are opposed to Bolshevism. This is nonsense. The
Socialist papers of the country. Eight and Left, with the pos-
sible exception of the once powerful " Appeal to Eeason," which
in recent years has fallen into great discredit among Socialists
because it favored our entrance into the World War — have
been and still are advocating Bolshevism every day. If anyone
has any doubt, let him read any of the rebel sheets.

The Socialist Party of St. Louis, in its appeal for party
unity, published in "The Call," July 19, 1919, informs us that
the Socialist Party is whole-heartedly with the Eussian Bol-
shevists and their cause:

" Promptly, and notwithstanding all obstacles and persecu-
tion, the Socialist party hurried to the front in defense of the
cause of our Eussian Comrades. Mass meetings were held,
demonstrations in behalf of Soviet Eussia were arranged, our
Socialist press gave all possible support to counteract the sinis-
ter work of the American capitalist press."

Eugene V. Debs, many times the presidential candidate of the
Socialists and the idol of "Eeds" and "Yellows" alike, has
all along been an ardent Bolshevist. Listen to these words of
his in his article, " The Day of the People," published in many
Socialist papers in the early part of 1919, and taken by us

60 THE RED CONSPIRACY

from the March number of " Party News," the oflScial organ of
the Socialist Party of Philadelphia:

" In Eussia and Germany our valiant Comrades are leading
the proletarian revolution, which knows no race, no color, no
sex and no boundary lines. They are setting the heroic example
for world-wide emulation. Let us, like them, scorn and repudi-
ate the cowardly compromisers within our ranks, challenge and
defy the robber-class power, and fight it out on that line to
victory or death !

" From the crown of my head to the soles of my feet I am
Bolshevik, and am proud of it."

The report of the Eight Wing majority of the old National
Executive Committee of the Socialist Party, made to the
National Emergency Convention, and here quoted from " The
Call," September 3, 1919, contains the following defense of their
Bolshevism, against the aspersions of the Left Wing leaders
who had challenged the committee's attitude toward Eussia :

" Ever since the revolution in Eussia, the party has hailed it
as the first great gift of the International. At every meeting
of the National Executive Committee held since the second revo-
lution in Eussia [the revolution which put Lenine and Trotzky
in power] the committee has issued some ringing declaration
in favor of the workers' and peasants' government in Eussia.

" Rarely has a meeting been held under party auspices that
our speakers have not taken advantage of it to present the claims
and achievements of the Eussian revolution. The party's posi-
tion may be easily ascertained by consulting the party bulletins
and the party press."

The Executive Committeemen who signed this defense of the
committee's Bolshevist complexion were Victor L. Berger, Sey-
mour Stedman, James Oneal, A. Shiplacoff, Dan Hogan, John
M. Work, Frederick KrafEt and George H. Goebel. These, with
Morris Hillquit, were the men who had violently expelled or sus-
pended tens of thousands of members of the party without war-
rant of the party Constitution and without granting a trial or
the right of self-defense to those thus dealt with ; who had main-
tained themselves in office after July 1, 1919, in express viola-
tion of the party Constitution, having suppressed announcement
of the result of the referendum vote l3y the rank and file to elect
executive committeemen, by which vote Left Wing committee-
men had been elected, as the report to the National Emergency
Convention of the Eight Wing committee appointed to investi-

BIKTH OF THE COMMUNIST PARTIES 6l

gate this referendum had to acknowledge; and who, by these
devices and a similar high-handedness committed by themselves
and friendly delegates had seized control of the National Emer-
gency Convention and organized it in their own interest.

In their report to the convention they further defended them-
selves against the Left Wing charge that this majority of the
Executive Committee had allied itself with the Berne Confer-
ence. Under this head the above-mentioned committeemen say :
" While no definite date may be set for the beginning of the
present party dissension, it is certain that they began to be
generally noticeable in January of this year [1919], when the
ISTational Executive Committee elected delegates to the Berne
Conference owing to the fact that the delegates elected by refer-
endum could not serve, and the assembling of the Berne Confer-
ence in ilarch made necessary the election of delegates by the
ISTational Executive Committee.

" The so-called Left Wins: members of the National Execu-
tive Committee participated in the election, nominating and vot-
ing for candidates. None of their nominees were elected, and
shortly after the election an organized attack was made against

the international delegates by the Left Wing

" The National Executive Committee, in session, decided that
if our delegates arrived at Berne in time and the conference
failed to take the position of the party on war and imperialism,
we were to withdraw with any other elements favoring a genuine
working-class International. It was agreed that we would not
aiBliate with any International that excluded the Eussian Com-
rades, who were fighting world imperialism, or the Comrades
opposed to the Ebert-Scheidemann regime in Germany.

" Before our delegates could leave the country, the National
Executive Committee learned that the Berne Conference had
failed to respond to its opportunity. . . . Learning this, the
National Executive Committee decided to send one delegate
abroad to impart information to the Comrades in Europe,
informing them of our attitude on international questions."*

" Yet, despite all this, a systematic campaign of falsehood
has been waged against the party by a faction within the party.
This faction has falsely claimed that the party is allied with
the Berne Conference. . . . They have denounced the party

* The report brought back by this delegate, Jamee Oneal, was the
basis of the straddle resolution then adopted by a majority of the
Executive Committee, the text of which we have given near the close
of Chapter II.

63 tHli RED CONSMHAC?

and its officials as an organization of ' Scheidemanhs ' and
' Noskes/ asserting that if tlie party were intrusted witli public
power it would murder our own Comrades with machine guns
and hand grenades

" These slanders have been accompanied with a similar propa-
ganda regarding Eussia. The party and its officials^ especially
the members of the National Executive Committee, have been
charged with being ' Kolchaks ' and ' counter-revolutionists/
the implication being that the party has been committed tO
counter-revolution in Eussia, allied intervention, and support of
Kolchak in Siberia.

" As in the case of Germany, so in the case of Eussia, the
ISTational Exec^itive Committee and the party in general have
opposed intervention in Eussia or support of Kolchak and have
supported the Eussian Comrades at the head of the Soviet power
against a campaign of international lying.

" There has never been a single utterance of the National
Executive Committee quoted by the Left Wing to support these
slanders. The Comrades may rest assured that this faction
would quote the National Executive Committee if it could."

It is technically true that the Left Wing visiters were not able
to quote the Executive Committee as such ; but they could and
did quote the dominating leaders of the Eight Wing majority
of the Executive Committee, Hillquit and Berger, through their
organs, the " Call " and " Leader " — " The Call " as character-
izing the Bolsheviki as " anarchists " and Berger as proclaiming
his solidarity with the Mensheviki — and we have nowhere seen
any evidence that these leaders could purge the record of these
charges. That these leaders were the Executive Committee, to
all intents and purposes, seems abundantly shown by their ruth-
less use of it to smash the party, going so far as to cast out
nearly two-thirds of the entire party membership to get rid of
their accusers, the Left Wing leaders.

This scandal and disaster to a cause they pretended to serve
are logical outcomes of a double hypocrisy — an effort to fool
the voting public and our Government officials by a pretense of
moderation in papers and electioneering speeches, while at the
same time fooling the dues-paying rank and file of their party
with expressions of loyalty to radicalism.

The significant facts in estimating the revolutionary charac-
ter of the American Socialist Party, as recruited and indoctri-
nated by its double-faced leaders are two : the fact that as lately
as September, 1919, some 70,000 of their pupils graduated into

BIRTH OF THE COMMUNIST PARTIES 63

the open course of revolutionary violence adopted by the Com-
munist Party of America and the Communist Labor Party, and
the fact that the more manageable 40,000 remaining vi^ith these
leaders were so much like their seceding Comrades that their
leaders were compelled to defend their own radicalism in the
fashion above shown, and were also compelled, as we shall soon
see, to take an open stand for revolution and I. "VV. \V. 'ism in
order to keep even the remnant of the party from deserting
them.

Thus a serious mistake has been made by the many who fancy
that the "Yellow" Socialists — Hillquit's Eight Wing which
still constitutes the Socialist Party of America — are not plot-
ters who work for a revolution to overthrow our Government.
Of course they are, and any one who has read the Socialist
papers and publications, even to a very limited degree, may
easily see that these alleged " moderates " appear such only in
contrast with the more rabid " Eed ■" rebels of the Left ; and that
the one object of Right and Left alike is to stir up discontent
and foment hatred of class against class precisely in order that
a rebellion may some day break out.

True it is that the crafty leaders of the Eight do not act as
imprudently as the hot-headed leaders of the Left, for they
fear lest rashness should precipitate them in a premature and
unsuccessful outbreak; yet they are sowing the seed of revolu-
tion as certainly as are the Communists, and perhaps with
much more success, because they proceed more prudently. Once
in a while, when they are off their guard, the " cat escapes from
the bag." As an example we quote from an article that appeared
in the May Day, 1919, issue of " The Call," the paper founded
and controlled by Hillquit, the foxy leader of the Eights :

" 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 surviv-
ing millions. It has taken form, it strikes forward, borne on by
the despair of the masses and the shining example of the mar-
tyrs. Its spread is irrepressible. The bridges are burnt behind
the old capitalist society and its path is forever cut off. Capi-
talist society is bankrupt, and the only salvation of humanity
lies in the uprising of the masses, in the victory of the Socialist
revolution, in the revolutionary forces of Socialism.

" The World War, which is now about to be officially closed,
has slid into a condition neither war nor peace. However the
war of nations has been followed by the war of the classes. The

64 THE RED CONSPIEACY

class struggle is no longer fought by resolutions and demonstra-
tions. Threateningly it marches through the streets of the
great cities for life or death."

Yet the Eight Wing papers, on the whole, are much more
reserved than those of the Left. As an example of the openness
with which the Left Wing or Communist papers instigate rebel-
lion, a quotation from " The Communist," Chicago, April 1,
1919, will interest the reader:

" The Communist Propaganda League of Chicago came into
existence on November 7, 1918, first anniversary of the Eus-
sian Soviet Socialist Eepublic, and the very day of the German
Eevolution.

" A group of Socialist Party officials and active party mem-
bers came together for consultation as to ways and means for
giving the American Socialist movement a revolutionary char-
acter in harmony with all the significance of November 7th,
the most glorious date in all history. At the hour of that little
meeting bedlam reigned in the streets of Chicago by premature
celebration of peace. The calling of this meeting during the
mass tumult of November 7th is prophetic of the revolutionary
vision which brought these Comrades together. On that day
the seething proletariat ruled Chicago by sheer force of numbers.
One thing alone was needed to give this mass expression identity
with the proletarian uprisings of Europe — • one thing : the revo-
lutionary idea!

" The Communist Propaganda League is an organization for
the propagation of the revolutionary idea. The civilization of
tomorrow is with unorganized masses who greeted the news of
peace and revolution in Germany with what may be safely
described as the greatest spontaneous expression of mass senti-
ment ever witnessed in America. To give direction and inspi-
ration to the advancing and irresistible army of the preletariat
is the mission to which this League is dedicated."

This League, with the millionaire Socialist, William Bross
Lloyd, at its head, became part of the Communist Labor Party.

The indications are that the Communist Labor Party, had it
been left undisturbed by our Government, would soon have sur-
passed in numbers the remnant left in the old Socialist Party,
whose dues-paying membership dwindled from 109,589 in
January, 1919, to 39,750 by July of the same year. Evidently,
when the Left Wing secession occurred, a few real rebels came
out of the Socialist Party, which used to boast in election cam-
paigns that it was merely a party of evolution, not of revolution.

BIRTH OF THE COMMUNIST PARTIES 65

Those who still remain in the old party are rebels, too, but the
rank and file is restrained by seasoned leaders, who are more
prudent but less honest than the hot-headed Communists.

The Socialists now have in the country four revolutionary
organizations: the Socialist Party, the Socialist Labor Party,
the Communist Party and the Communist Labor Party. The
scum of the land, the wrecks and wreckers of civilization,
deluded ignoramuses, thus find ample opportunity for selecting
an organization of rebellion in which there is " no political cor-
ruption." The members of these parties find fault with every-
thing under the Stars and Stripes, and yet hesitate to pass over
to Eussia and live under the bloody standard of Lenine and
Trotzky. If these four rebel parties do not sufSce for some
of the rebels, there still remains the I. W. W. All are pretty
much the same, their principal differences being the varying
degrees of hypocrisy, boldness and lust for power of their
leaders.

The open and pronounced revolutionary character of the
I. W. W., Communist Party and Communist Labor Party, evi-
denced in their inflammatory utterances and tactics, had estab-
lished their criminal status with our National and State police
and legal departments, while startling wholesale arrests, deporta-
tions and indictments of these three classes of law-breakers soon
impressed a recognition of their criminal status upon the public
mind. It is important to establish the further fact, if it be
one, that the only difference between the rank and file of these
organizations and the rank and file of the remnant still attached
to the Socialist Party of America is the difference between
tweedledee and tweedledum.

The late inquiry into the qualifications of five suspended
Socialists to sit as law-makers in the Kew York Assembly cre-
ated an astonishing furore, disclosing amazing ignorance con-
cerning American Socialism among our most intelligent citizens.
The confusion of the public mind was still further increased by
the Attorney-General of the United States, whose convincing
characterization of the two Communist parties, given out on
January 23, 1920, contained the following sentence :

" Certainly such an organization as the Communist Party of
America and also the Communist Labor Party cannot be con-
strued to fall within the same category as the Socialist Party
of America, which latter organization is pledged to the accom-
plishment of changes of the Government by lawful and rightful

66 THE RED CONSPIEACY

But can the facts so far brought out in this book " be con-
strued " as indicating any substantial difference between the
39,000 or 40,000 Socialists wlio have kept their old party name
and the 70,000 or 72,000 who separated from them in Septem-
ber, 1919? Up to the moment of separation were not all alike
under the same " pledge " to use " lawful and rightful means ? "
But if this public profession of lawfulness meant nothing to
70,000 of them, why think it means more to the rest?

We have the further striking evidence, shown above, that the
leaders who had compromised their attitude toward Bolshevism
felt compelled, in order to hold any of the rank and file, to
argue that " the National Executive Committee and the party
in general " had " supported the Eussian Comrades at the head
of the Soviet power." Yet in spite of this defense the old
iSTational Executive Committee of the Socialist Party was
rebuked and kicked out of office during the Emergency Conven-
tion, even by delegates who vs^ere friendly to the compromised
leaders. The " Call," Sei^tember 5, 1919, gives some of the
details:

" The rebuke of the National Executive Committee was in the
form of an amendment to the original motion to adopt its
report. The amendment carried by 63 to 39

" Perhaps Frederick Haller expressed the general sentiment
of the convention when he said :

" ' We must endorse this supplemental report of the National
Executive Committee, but we must go back to our constituents
and tell them that we gave the National Executive Committee
hell.' "

These " constituents," the rank and file, determine the char-
acter of the party, and not the thimble-rigging games of their
political leaders, who support themselves and have " made a
good thing " out of Socialism by carrying water on one shoulder
for gullible voters, and on the other for their creduloiis disci-
ples. This is not the first time that self-serving, hypocritical
teachers, in compassing sea and land to make proselytes, have
made them twofold more the children of hell than themselves.

The National Emergency Convention of 1919 affords still
other evidence of the mind of the rank and file of the Socialist
Party in the report of the committee which investigated the
referendum vote of 1919 which the old National Executive Com-
mittee had suppressed. The "Call," September 1, 1919, says:

" The report states that on the face of the returns, referen-
dum B and D were carried by large majorities, and a National

BIRTH OP THE COMMUNIST PARTIES Q'^

Executive Committee, consisting^ of Louis Praina of New York,
Charles E. Euthenberg of Cleveland, Seymour Stedman of Chi-
cago, Patrick S. Nagle of Oklahoma and L. E. Katterfeld of
Cleveland was elected. The returns also showed on their face
that John Reed and Louis Fraina had been elected as the party's
international delegates and Kate Eichards O'Hare its interna-
tional secretary."

Thus the party was " Eed " or Lef t-Wingish " by large
majorities," and was distinctly Bolshevist, as we learn from the
" Call's " explanation of " referendum B and D," which " were
carried by large majorities."

" Eeferendum B put the question of holding a National
Emergency Convention up to the membership. Eeferendum D
asked the membership to decide whether the party should record
itself as being opposed to entering any other international
Socialist alignment than that of the Third National [Interna-
tional?] which held its first conference at Moscow early in
JIarch.

"Its adoption means that the Socialist party will not take
part in any international conference from which the Bolsheviki
of Eussia and the Spartacans of Germany are excluded, or in
which they refuse to participate."

Thus at the Emergency Convention of August-September,
1919, the Socialist Party of America was tied to the will of the
Eussian Bolshevists and the German Spartacides, who held the
powers of approval and veto in deciding what internationals the
members of the Socialist Party of America might associate
with! A more anomalous product of the double-faced general-
ship of Berger and Hillquit it would be hard to imagine.

But this is not all. The Moscow Manifesto of March, 1919,
was before the Emergency Convention. This Eussian Com-
munistic Manifesto is addressed " To the proletariat of all coun-
tries" (see Chapter IV) and reads: "We Communists, repre-
sentatives of the revolutionary proletariat of the difEerent coun-
tries of Europe, America and Asia, assembled in Soviet Mos-
cow." Would the Socialist Party of America accept its inclu-
sion among those in " America " thus designated, or refuse ?
The committee which considered the matter split, bringing in
majority and minority reports. The majority report, favored
by Berger, considered the Third International as not yet consti-
tuted, thus hanging the Socialist Party of America in the air,
without fellowship with Moscow, Berne or any other thing — a
trapeze performance truly Bergeresque. The minority report,

68 ■ THE EED CONSPIRACY

voted for even by a third of the machine delegates in the Emer-
gency Convention, favored affiliation with the associates of the
Moscow Conference as constituting the Third International. It
was decided to submit both reports to a referendum vote of the
party, which should have been taken in January or February,
1930, if the requirements of the party Constitution were
followed.

The concern of the Socialist Party managers to keep the facts
from the general public, evidenced by their tactics in the case
of the five suspended Socialist Assemblymen at Albany, might
have led to another unconstitutional delay or manipulation of
a referendum. But this was immaterial in determining the
mind of the rank and file, as we have documentary evidence
showing that the only opposition within the party to a clear-cut
Bolshevik committal sprang out of fear either of legal prose-
cution or of the loss of votes through public condemnation. The
following illuminating discussion is extracted from a letter of
Alexander Trachtenberg, a conspicuous Socialist, as printed in
the " Call " of November 26, 1919 :

" The members of the Socialist Party now have before them
two referenda — Eeferendum B, consisting of the various
changes in the party Constitution which were decided upon at
the Chicago Convention, and Eeferendum F, on international
Socialist relations

" The question of international affiliation is at this moment
probably the most important before the Socialist Party. The
two reports which emanated from the convention, known as the
majority and minority reports, will no doubt receive very care-
ful consideration by the members

" A close examination of the two reports reveals that the con-
dition laid down for the International, with which the Socialist
party cares to affiliate itself, are the same. Both reports agree
that:

"a. The Second International is dead.

'' b. The Berne International Conference hopelessly failed in
its indeavor to reconstitute the International.

''c. The New International must consist only of those par-
ties:

" 1. Which have remained true to the revolutionary Interna-
tional Socialist movement during the war.

" 2. Which refused to co-operate with bourgeois parties and
are opposed to all forms of coalition.

BIRTH OF THE COMMUNIST PARTIES 69

" In short, both reports agree that the Socialist Party will go
only into such an International the component parties of which
conduct their struggle on revolutionary class lines. The differ-
ence between the two reports is, that while the majority report
leaves the matter of the reconstruction of the International
hang in the air, the minority report has something tangible to
offer. It also more specifically outlines the Socialist policy on
the question of international aiSliation, and gives several rea-
sons for joining the Third (Moscow) International

'•' The Socialist Party of America cannot afford to remain
amorphous at the present stage of the building of the new
International. It has refused to go with those elements who
have either betrayed or were unwilling to remain true to their
professions. It belongs among those parties which have
remained true to International Socialism and who alone have
the right to build the edifice of the new International.

"By voting for the minority report the Comrades will give
expression to what they have professed and believed in during
the past critical years in the life of the international Socialist
movement."

A letter on the same subject, by Benjamin Glassberg, appears
in the " Call " of December 4, 1919, from which we take
extracts showing the Bergeresque argument of Hoan, Berger's
mayor of Milwaukee :

" The most important question before the members of the
Socialist Party just now is the referendum on the majority and
minority reports on international relations. Comrade Trach-
tenberg has argued in the columns of ' The Call ' in favor of
the minority report, and Hoan of Milwaukee for the majority,
and Comrade Warshow has argued against both.

" A careful examination of the position taken by both Hoan
and Warshow fails to reveal why the minority report should
be voted down. Comrade Hoan is naturally very much con-
cerned at the possibility that 'in the coming political battles
the capitalistic henchmen will flaunt in your face that the above
is the program of the Socialist Party' (referring to the state-
ment in the governing rules of the Communist International
that the revolutionary era compels the proletariat to make use
of mass action).

" The important thing, according to Hoan, is not whether the
minority report is right or not, but rather what will the effect
be at the next election. In this respect he is typical of the
pure and simple political Socialist

■^0 iTHE RED CONSPlEACt

" In one breath Comrade Warshow calls for a new Interna-
tional to which shall be admitted all Socialist parties of the
world who believe in the class struggle, and in the next he
defends the Socialists supporting a coalition government. How
can one subscribe to the doctrine of the class struggle and at
the same time approve of Socialists joining in a coalition gov-
ernment, which of necessity will not be the agent of the work-
ers but of the class with which the workers are at all times at
war? ....

" In all our official declarations, including the Chicago mani-
festo, we have voiced our support of the Bolsheviki. In our
meetings and in our literature we have taken our stand solidly
with our Eussian Comrades, our friends, the Left Wingers to
the contrary notwithstanding.

" Why, then, hesitate to affiliate with them ? "

Thus, whether or not Berger's policy of dissimulation pre-
vailed — and his wholesale slaughter of dues-payers with the ax
of tlie Executive Committee had shown all who opposed him
what they might expect — it remained true that identification
with the Bolshevist principles and tactics of Lenine and Trotzky
was what the present members of the Socialist Party in America
" have professed and believed in during the past critical years "
and was in accord with " all " their " official declarations," their
" meetings " and their " literature."

The base ingratitude of Berger toward those who have fol-
lowed and supported him; the gross, incredible savagery of his
egotism in turning to rend those he had discipled into revolu-
tionaries the moment their allegiance to the principles he
taught them stood in the way of his cowardice and ambition;
his butcher insensibilities in making his party's Constitution
a " scrap of paper " and the party a shambles for the hewing
down of two-thirds of his " Comrades ; " his burlesque efErontery
in posing in the convention as a law-and-order man, railing at
his own victims as " anarchists " — these daubs of color paint
the cubist portrait of Wisconsin's mock hero, one of the meanest
caricatures of human life that ever swaggered on a political
arena.

"^^Tien the two Wings of the Convention raised the question,
" WIjo called the cops ? " Berger's pale and innocent figure rose
with the trembling remark : " If they had not been here yes-
terday morning we would not be here now. The two-fisted
Reed and the other two-fisted Left Wingers would be here." He
took pains to have the delicate pathos of his martyrdom

BIETH OS THE COMMUNIST PARTIES ,71

sketched into the Executive Committee report he signed,
" Victor L. Berger, in addition to a sentence of 30 years, has
four more indictments pending against him, besides being
refused his seat in Congress. All the Socialist candidates for
Congress in Wisconsin and the State Secretary also are under
indictment. No mail whatever is permitted to be delivered to
the ' Leader,' the party daily in Milwaukee," etc. On the other
hand, against the terrible " anarchs " who had so outraged his
own gentle spirit and sense of order, he even fulminated outside
the Convention Hall, as in the interview which we take from the
"Call" of September 4, 1919:

" Ever since the Socialist movement has existed there have
been two very distinct tendencies apparent — the Social Demo-
cratic tendency and the Anarcho-Syndicalist tendency

"But the revolution in Eussia and Hungary, which had
been predicted by us, as well as in Germany, has had a peculiar
psychological effect on many of the rank and file of the party,
especially upon those who had come from Eussia and Hungary.
They really believe this revolt can be repeated today in
America.

" The revolution in Eussia and the psychological effect of it
penetrated into the foreign federations affiliated with the Social-
ist party of America and gave the Anarcho-Syndicalists, who
have Joined us in great numbers in the last six months, a chance
to split up the Socialist party of America into three groups.

"First, the old Socialist Party, which will remain longer to
aid the old ideals of Social Democracy, even though there may
be a change in tactics required by changed conditions.

" Then there are the Communist Socialists, led by John Eeed
and a few hysterical men and women, who try to bring about a
Eussian revolution or God knows what other things, they them-
selves don't know tomorrow morning.

" And, finally, there is the Communist Party, led by Louis
Fraina, which consists mainly of Eussians, Ukrainains, Slovenic
races and other foreign federation members, who have been sus-
pended for stuffing ballot boxes in the last referendum, and who
also want revolution of some kind, the wherewith and howwith
they haven't been able to explain so far."

Do we exaggerate the humbuggery of leadership uncloaked
in this Emergency Convention of the Socialist Party of Amer-
ica ? Let the reader judge from the supreme example of it, the
motive of which we present in the words of the organ of one of

ii THE RED CONSPIEACY

the chief conspirators, Hillquit's " Call." The issue of August
31, 1919, declared: "The convention will adopt a stand,
expressed in a manifesto that is expected to satisfy all those in
the Left Wing who are contending for what they believe to be
revolutionary principles." In the issue of September 3 we
read:

" There will be a restatement of party principles which is
expected to cut the ground from under the feet of the former
members and organizations of the party who have read them-
selves out and will remain suspended in mid-air between the
newly formed and still more newly revised Communist-Labor
Party and the Communist Party."

In the " Call " of September 5, which published the manifesto,
we also have this comment on it by James Oneal : " The
American movement can congjratulate itself on having produced
such a splendid document. It will tend to rally members who
have been uncertain of the outcome of the convention, and will
eventually bring to us many who are sick of the hypocrisies, the
shams and the illusions that have held them in chains for nearly
three tragic years."

What hypocrisies, shams and illusions are referred to ? Who
were their authors? In another column of the same issue we
are told: "With every delegate on his feet and cheering, the
National Emergency Convention of the Socialist Party unani-
mously adopted its manifesto this afternoon. [September 4th.]
It was the big moment of the convention. The document is
regarded as the most revolutionary the party has ever drawn
up, and one certain to bring back into the organization thou-
sands of members temporarily outside of it, either because their
local organizations were expelled or by reason of what Lenine
has called ' the intoxication of the revolutionary phrase.' "

Thus this manifesto was adopted by the wreckers of the
Socialist Party to hold the "revolutionary" rank and file still
left them and to draw back the revolutionary seceders — minus
their leaders, of course. Nevertheless the manifesto is truly
revolutionary — " most revolutionary " — the revolutionary
creed of a revolutionary organization. It is, of course, carefully
worded, so as to deceive if possible that public whose intelligence
the cynical Socialists despise at the same time that they appeal
to it for votes, and this carefiil wording we can understand
from a comment in the " Call " of September 5, 1919 : " Before
reading the manifesto, Block told the convention the mani-

BIRTH OF THE COMMUNIST PARTIES 73

festo was largely based upon one suggested by Morris Hillquit,
now ill at Saranac Lake, N. Y."*

Seen through its mask of verbiage, however, the manifesto
of the Emergencj Convention of the Socialist Party of
America joins with the famous Preamble of the I. W. W. and
the manifestoes and programs of the Communist and Commun-
ist Labor Parties in advocating the plundering of mankind by
proletarians, the elimination of the private ownership of natural
wealth and the machinery of production, and the wresting of
" the industries and the control of the government of the United
States" out of their present ownership and control so as "to
place industry and government in the control of the workers."

This revolutionary document incites " American labor " to
'' break away " from its present leadership, called " reaction-
ary and futile," and " to join in the great emancipating move-
ment of the more advanced revolutionary workers of the world "
— the I. W. W.'s and Bolshevists. It is "the supreme task"
of " the Socialist party of America," its " great task," to which
its members "pledge all" their "energies and resources," to
" win the American workers " from their " ineffective " leader-
ship, " 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" namely, " to wrest the industries and the con-
trol of the government of the United States from the capital-
ists and their retainers " and " place industry and government
in the control of the workers."

Furthermore, "to insure the triumph of Socialism in the
United States the bulk of American workers must be strongly
organized politically as Socialists, in constant, clear-cut and
aggressive opposition to all parties of the possessing class " and
"must be strongly organized in the economic field on broad
industrial lines, as one powerful and harmonious class organi-
zation, co-operating with the Socialist Party, and ready in cases
of emergency to reinforce the political demands of the working
class hy industrial action." (See, a few pages further on, the
manifesto itself, from which we have quoted in the three last
paragraphs.)

Is this the thing which Berger and Hillquit have let loose —
after blocking a much less compromising resolution of long-

* As we have seen, the testimony of Morris Hillquit, February 19,
1920, at the trial of the five Assemblymen at Albany, was, "At least
ninety per cent, of the manifesto is my authorship."

'^4 IHE RED CONSPIRACY

distance affiliation with Moscow ? Does Berger think the people
of Wisconsin such blockheads that they will shy at a word like
Bolshevism, but are unable to understand the plain, bold Eng-
lish of a conspiracy to bring about industrial organization "to
wrest the industries and the control of the government of the
United States " out of the hands of the American people and
into the hands of a special class ? Indeed, if the " workers "
take everything, what will become of the drones — the Social-
ist political hacks?

While we reserve the details for Chapter XVI, we add here
in passing that on February 10, 1920, it was acknowledged in
testimony at the trial of the five Assemblymen at Albany that
affiliation with the Third (Moscow) International had been
carried by referendum vote in the Socialist Party of America
with a large majority.

Before giving the reader the text of that part of the Emer-
gency Convention manifesto which we have been discussing we
must call attention to another piece of evidence — Morris Hill-
quit's letter in his paper, the "'New York Call," shortly after
the Emergency Convention, in which he says :

" The split in the ranks of American Socialism raises the
question: What shall be the attitude of the Socialist Party
toward the newly formed Communist organization ? " His let-
ter answering this important question was read out of the
" Call " into the record of the JSTew York Assembly's inquiry
into the qualifications of the five suspended Socialists to act
as law-makers and will be found in the " New York Herald " of
January 39, 1920, from which we take it:

"Any attempted solution of the problem must take into
account the following fundamental facts :

" First — The division was not created arbitrarily and delib-
erately by the recent convention in Chicago. It had become
an accomplished fact months ago, and the Chicago gatherings
did nothing more than recognize the fact.

" Second — The division was not brought about by differences
on vital questions of principles. It arose over disputes on
methods and policy.

" Third — The separation of the Socialist Party into three
organizations need not necessarily mean a weakening of the
Socialists. They are wrong in their estimate of American con-
ditions, their theoretical conclusions and practical methods, but
they have not deserted to the enemy. The bulk of their follow-
ing is still good Socialist material. Wlien the hour of the real

BIRTH OF THE COMMUNIST PARTIES 75

Socialist fight strikes in this country we may find them again
in our ranks.

" Our quarrel is a family quarrel, and has no room in the
columns of the capitalistic papers, where it can only give joy
and comfort to the common enemy. The unpardonable offense
of the Simons-Eussell-Spargo crowd [which withdrew from the
Socialist Party of America on account of its unpatriotic and
un-American opposition to the people and Government of the
United States at war, as expressed in the Socialist Party's St.
Louis Convention utterances in April, 1917] was not so much
their social-patriotic stand during the war as the fact that they
rushed into the an ti- Socialist press maliciously denouncing their
former comrades as pro-German and deliberately added fuel to
the sinister flame of mob violence and government persecution
directed against the Socialist movement.

" We have had our split. It was unfortunate but unavoid-
able, and 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."

Thus all three organizations. Socialist Party of America,
Communist Party of America and Communist Labor Party,
have merely had " a family quarrel " and are still one kin, one
blood, one " family," without " fundamental " " differences on
vital questions of principles," so that the Socialist Partyites and
their " Communist brethren " can go on doing " likewise "
against our present Government and institutions until, " when
the hour of the real Socialist fight " — the Great Sebellion —
" strikes in this country " the members of the Socialist Party
" may find " the members of the two Communist parties
" again in " their " ranks." Thus by Hillquit, at least, all three
parties can only " be construed " to be in one and the same
" category."

We end this chapter by reproducing from the " Kew York
Call " of September 5, 1919, a considerable part of the Socialist
Party's Emergency Convention manifesto. This offspring of
Hillquit's brain declares " solidarity with the revolutionary
workers of Eussia " and " radical " Spartacides of Germany and
Communists of Austria and Hungary. Let the reader carefully
weigh this document's meanings, comparing them with the call
for and manifesto of the Moscow Conference, the definition of
" industrial unionism " and " mass action " in the Left Wing-

'('6 THE BED CONSriEACY

ers' writings, the Communist and Communist Labor manifes-
toes and programs, and the principles and tactics of I. W.
W. 'ism as set forth elsewhere in this volume, and then ask him-
self if the latest ofBcial utterance of the Socialist Party of
America can in any way " be construed " as placing that party
in any " category " which does not also contain the Communist
organizations and the I. W. W. The salient parts of the mani-
festo follow:

" The capitalist class is now making its last stand in its his-
tory. It was intrusted with the government of the world. It
is responsible for the prevailing chaos. The events of recent
years have conclusively demonstrated that capitalism is bank-
rupt, and has become a dangerous impediment to progress and
human welfare. The working class alone has the power to
redeem and to save the world

" It now becomes more than ever the immediate task of inter-
national Socialism to accelerate and organize the inevitable
transfer of political and industrial power from the capitalist
class to the workers. The workers must recognize the economic
structure of human society by eliminating the institution of the
private ownership of natural wealth and of the machinery of
industry, the essence of the war-breeding sj'stem of international
commercial rivalry. The workers of the world must recognize
the economic structure of human society by making the natural
wealtli and the machinery of industry the collective property
of all

" The workers of Great Britain, Prance and Italy, the work-
ers of the newly created nations, and the workers of the coun-
tries which remained neutral during the war, are all in a state
of unprecedented unrest. In different ways and by difEerent
methods, either blindly impelled by the inexorable conditions
which confront them, or clearly recognizing their revolutionary
aims, they are abandoning their temporising programs of pre-
war labor reform. They are determined to control the indus-
tries, which means control of the governments.

" In the United States capitalism has emerged from the war
more reactionary and aggressive, more insolent and oppressive
than it has ever been

" But even in the United States the symptoms of a rebellious
spirit in the ranks of the working masses are rapidly multiply-
ing. Widespread and extensive strikes for better labor condi-
tions, the demand of the 3,000,000 railway workers to control
their industry, sporadic formation of labor parties, apparently.

BIETH OF THE COMM0NIST PARTIES 77

though not fundamentally, in opposition to the political par-
ties of the possessing class, are promising indications of a
definite tendency on the part of American labor to break away
from its reactionary and futile leadership and to Join in the
great emancipating movement of the more advanced revolution-
ary workers of the world.

"Eecognizing this crucial situation at home and abroad, the
Socialist Party in the United States at its first national conven-
tion after the war, squarely takes its position with the uncom-
promising 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, declare our soli-
darity with the revolutionary workers of Eussia in the support
of the government of their Soviets, with the radical Socialists
of Germany, Austria and Hungary in their efforts to establish
working class rule in their countries, and with those Socialist
organizations in England, Prance, Italy and other countries,
who, during the war as after the war, have remained true to
the principles of uncompromising international Socialism.

" 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 pur-
pose 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 emer-
gency 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.

78 THE RED CONSPIRACY

in order to effect their emancipation, that is the supreme task
confronting the Socialist Party of 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 precipi-
tate humanity into another cataclysm of blood and ruin.

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

CHAPTEE VI
SOCIALISM IN THEORY

Morris Hillquit, a ring-leader among Socialists of the United
States, writing in "Everybody's," October, 1913, page 487,
informs us that the term Socialism is used indiscriminately to
designate a certain philosophy, a scheme of social organization
and an active political movement.

Socialism, used to designate a certain philosophy, may better
be distinguished by being called Socialism in theory. Socialism
as an applied scheme of social organization may be termed
Socialism in practice, and means nothing other than a form
of government according to the principles of Socialist philoso-
phy. Socialism, as an active political movement, means the
Socialist Party. Thus, when we say that Socialism won several
times in Milwaukee, we do not mean that the system of Social-
ist philosophy was voted upon and accepted by the majority,
for most of the voters knew practically nothing about the
philosophy of Socialism; nor do we mean that the form of gov-
ernment in accordance with the principles of Socialist philoso-
phy was adopted at the polls, for, as a matter of fact, we know
that the government of Milwaukee has never been in accordance
with the Marxian principles; but we mean this, and only this,
that the active political movement of the Socialists, in other
words, the Socialist Party, elected its candidates. No doubt
the victorious candidates would have ruled Milwaukee according
to the philosophy of Socialism, applying the Marxian principles
to their government, if they could have done so, but the Con-
stitution of the United States as well as that of the State of
Wisconsin would have stood in the wa}^, as will be seen when
Socialism is explained more in detail.

The first form of Socialism to be explained in detail is
Socialism in theory. There seem to be about 57 hundred
times 57 hundred varieties of Socialists, owing to the conflicting
views that members of the party hold on different subjects which
they wish to include in Socialism, and also because of their
different interpretations of the fundamental principle of Social-
ism. There is, however, one underlying principle that seems

79

So THE EED CONSPIRACY

to be held quite generally by Marxians the world over. No
matter what other radical measures individual Socialists may
favor or wish to see included in the Socialist philosophy, and
no matter how many different interpretations are given to the
principle of Socialism, the basic principle that stands out above
all others and is accepted generally by Socialists the world over
may be said to be the demand for a government, democratic in
form, under which all the citizens would collectively own and
manage the principal means of production, transportation and
communication.

The Industrial Workers of the World form one of the few
classes of Socialists who object to the generally accepted funda-
mental principle just mentioned. " The One Big Union
Monthly," March, 1919, prefers to drop the words " democratic
form of government," because the I. W. W.'s are not sure that
ownership by the people as a whole would succeed better under
a democratic form of government than under a dictatorship of
the proletariat.

" The Labour Leader," the organ of the Socialist Independent
Labor Party, Manchester, England, February 6, 1919, declares
that Socialism is " the complete ownership and control of the
means of life by the people, and the development of industry
and the distribution of its fruits under a genuine and absolute
democracy." In explaining Socialism, it says that " it means
that the land shall become the property of the people, not of
private individuals. It means that the great industries shall
become the property of the people. It means that the railways
and the canals shall become the property of the people. It
means that the shipping shall become the property of the people.
In short it means that everything essential to the life of all
shall become the property of all, and shall be administered not
for the profit of the few, but for the use of all. And it demands
intelligent control of public affairs by the people, women as
well as men."

Practically the same ideas are expressed in other words by
Jaures in " Studies in Socialism," page 32 of 1906 edi-
tion, translated by Minturn. This great leader of the French
Socialists, who was assassinated at the beginning of the World
War, and in whose honor there was a tremendous demonstration
in Paris on April 6, 1919, prophesied that " the time is not far
off when no one will be able to speak to the public about the
preservation of private property without covering himself with
ridicule and putting himself voluntarily into an inferior rank.

SOCIALISM IN" THEORt 81

'That which reigns to-day under the name of private property
is really class property, and those who wish for the establish-
ment of democracy in the economic as well as the political
world should give their best effort to the abolition and not to
the maintenance of this class property."

In " The Eevolutionary Age," Boston, January 11, 1919, page
4, we read:

" What is Socialism ? It is the public ownership of all the
wealth, the mills, the mines, the factories, the railroads and
land. Things that are used in common, must be owned in
common, by the people and for the people under democratic
management by the people, instead of the present system of
private ownership for profits."

According to Morris Hillquit in " Everybody's," October,
1913, page 487:

" The Socialist program advocates a reorganization of the
existing industrial system on the basis of collective or national
ownership of the social tools. It demands that the control of
the machinery of wealth creation be taken from the individual
capitalists and placed in the hands of the nation, to be organized
and operated for the benefit of the whole people."

Hillquit, in his various articles, has, of course, like many other
Socialists, given his explanation of the detailed method of
organization and operation of industries under a Socialist form
of government. It reads very nicely and appears attractive,
as his statements do till truth's searchlight falls on them,
but it does not seem worth while to present his views, for very
many of the leading Socialists of the world not only differ with
each other as regards the method of organization and operation
that they advocate for the Marxian state, but they are also very
much at variance with the plan of organization and operation
that Hniquit describes.

Eugene V. Debs, in his "Daily Message from Moundsville
Prison," published in "The Call," N"ew York, April 31, 1919,
tells us what Socialism is :

" The earth for all the people ! That is the demand.

"The machinery of production and distribution for all the
people ! That is the demand.

" The collective ownership and control of industry and its
democratic management in the interest of all the people ! That
is the demand.

8S THE RED CONSPIEACt

" The elimination of rent, interest and profit and the produc-
tion of wealth to satisfy the wants of all the people ! That
is the demand.

" Co-operative industry in which we all shall work together
in harmony as the basis of a new social order, a higher civiliza-
tion, a real republic ! That is the demand.

" The end of class struggles and class rule, of master and
slave, of ignorance and vice, of poverty and shame, of cruelty
and crime — the birth of freedom, the dawn of brotherhood, the
beginning of MAN ! That is the demand.

" This is Socialism ! "

In the Preamble to the American Socialist Party Platform,
adopted by national referendum, July 24, 1917, we are told:

" The theory of a democratic government is the greatest good
to the greatest number. The working class far out-numbers the
capitalist class. Here is the natural advantage of the working
class. By uniting solidly in a political party of its own, it can
capture the government and all its powers and use them in its
own interests.

" The Socialist Party aims to abolish this class war with all
its evils and to substitute for capitalism a new order of co-opera-
tion, wherein the workers shall own and control all the economic
factors of life. It calls upon all workers to unite, to strike
as they vote and to vote as they strike, all against the master
class.

" Only through this combination of our powers can we estab-
lish the co-operative commonwealth, wherein the workers shall
own their jobs and receive the full social value of their
product. The necessities of life will then be produced, not for
the profits of the few, but for the comfort and happiness of all
who labor. Instead of privately owned industries with masters
and slaves, there will be the common ownership of the means
of life, and all the opportunities and resources of the world will
be equal and free to all."

The fundamental principle of Socialism, namely, a govern-
ment, democratic in form, in which all the citizens would col-
lectively own and manage the principal means of production,
transportation and communication, will be more clearly under-
stood if the several component parts of the basic principle are
explained.

A government, democratic in form, would, of course, require
the overthrow of all limited monarchies as well as the annihila-
tion of those that are despotic. Even a republican form of

SOCIALISM IN THEORY 83

governmont, like that of the Unitecl States, is very far from
being satisfactory to the Eevolutionists, for they demand that
the citizens have as direct a voice as possible, first in the election
of all public officers, secondly in the framing of the laws, and
thirdly in the management of the many industrial departments
of the proposed government.

By the citizens' collective owning of the different things
enumerated is meant that they would own them just as the
citizens of the United States, as a body, to-day own the post-
offices, arsenals, navy and public lands. Of course, collective
ownership does not imply that, after the state should have taken
over the things referred to, each citizen would be entitled to an
equal share of them as his own private property, to be used by
him according to his desires.

The management of the property of the Socialist state and
the renumeration for labor would not be in the hands of private
individuals acting independently, but would be subject to the
will of the majority of the citizens.

By the principal means of production, transportation and
communication is meant any instrument of production, trans-
portation or communication that would be used for purposes of
exploitation, in other words, for making profit through the
employment of hired labor. To illustrate this, several examples
will be given. Mines, factories and mills of all kinds, large
business houses and stores, together with those farms, whose
owners would employ hired labor for the production of goods
to be sold at profit, would all be looked upon as being among
the principal means of production. On the other hand, a sewing-
machine used for family needs would not be included in the
list.

There are many Socialists who have held that their intended
state would allow the private ownership of very small farms, pro-
vided that the products were raised without the employment
of farm hands. But it seems likely that such a plan of private
ownership would not be tolerated under a Socialist government,
for, first of all, a very large number of Socialists are opposed
to such a plan, and, secondly, the political actionists who have
favored it either have sacrificed thereby the principles of their
party, or else by advocating the private ownership of small
farms, have done so with the intention of deceiving farmers and
small land owners in order to win their votes. More will be
said about this further on.

84 THE EED CONSPIEACT

Railroads, street car lines, express and steamship service
would be among the principal means of transportation; while
included in the list of principal means of communication there
would be the public telephone and telegraph systems. Auto-
mobiles, horses and carriages, if used without the assistance of
hired labor, would not be considered as being principal means
of transportation. So, too, under similar conditions, a private
telephone or telegraph line running to the house of a friend
would be excluded from the principal means of communication.

The state would, of course, own all the goods produced in
its mines, factories, shops, etc., until they were purchased with
money or labor certificates. The people would then retain
these goods as their own private property, and would not,
according to the leading American Socialists, be compelled to
divide them up with their fellow countrymen.

The Socialist plan looks very nice on paper, allures many
impoverished workingmen of the present day, appeals strongly
to the uneducated, and offers great inducements to the " downs
and outs " of society. It is, however, a deadly poison, and
this will be proven conclusively in the chapter on " Socialism
a Peril to Workingmen." There it will be shown not only
that a Socialist state cannot possibly be a success, but that
it would be a source of continued civil strife and discord, thor-
oughly unsatisfactory to workingmen, whom it would overwhelm
with all the evils attendant on crime, strife, rebellion and chaos.
In the Marxian state the industrial establishments, land, and
business enterprises would be confiscated; neither interest, rent
nor profit would be tolerated; the wage system would be
abolished; no satisfactory plan could be devised for assigning
so many millions of workingmen to the different positions, while
at the same time satisfying them with remuneration for their
daily toil; religions of all kinds would be the object of persecu-
tion ; free-love would be legalized ; and political corruption would
be much more widespread than today. These are but several
of the factors that would make a successful Socialist state an
impossibility.

It may interest the reader to know that Socialists of the
highest authority inform us that in the new state women would
be called upon to work. The late August Bebel, one of the
foremost of German Socialists, says that as soon as society is
in possession of all the means of production, "the duty to
work, on the part of all able to work, without distinction of
sex, becomes the organic law of socialized society." [" Woman

SOCIALISM I]Sr THEORY 85

Under Socialism," by Bebel, page 375 of the 1904 edition in
English.] Frederick Engels, in his book, " Origin of the
Eamily," teaches that the emancipation of women is primarily
dependent on the reintroduction of the whole female sex into
the public industries. [" Origin of the Family," by Engels,
page 90 of Untermann's 1907 translation into English.] In
"The Call," New York, February 27, 1910, it is stated that
" the man who professes himself to be a Socialist, and then says
that under Socialism men will provide for women, is wide of the
mark."

Keeping clearly before their minds the fundamental principle
of Socialism, the people of America must be careful to distin-
guish between Socialists ruling under our present form of gov-
ernment, and Socialists ruling in a Socialist state. Possible
success in the first case would by no means indicate success in
the latter. If our citizens are cautious in this respect, the
enemies of our country will not dare to boast of the so-called
success of Socialism in those places in which the members of
their party, elected to public office, may have given a good
administration under our constitutional system of government.

Though Socialism, in the strictest sense of the word, is
concerned exclusively with economics, still this does not mean
that those who profess it do not advocate, as part of their
program, many pet projects not appertaining to economics. By
a vast majority, the members of the Socialist Party either
advocate atheism and opposition to religion, or at least do not
oppose those Socialists who do. Most of them, too, in their
cravings for what is base and low, are by no means adverse to
seeing free-love reign supreme in their contemplated state. The
word Socialism is, therefore, frequently used in a broader sense,
and is made to include not only the common doctrine advocating
the democratic form of government under which the citizens
would collectively own and manage the principal means of pro-
duction, transportation and communication, but also those other
doctrines that are taught or silently approved by the majority.
It is in this broader sense, then, that the opponents of the
Marxians justly claim that Socialism is atheistic, anti-religious,
and immoral.

We are told by Hillquit in "Everybody's," October, 1913,
page 486, that " like all social theories and practical mass move-
ments. Socialism produces certain divergent schools, bastard
offshoots clustering around' the main trunk of the tree, large in
number and variety, but insignificant in size and strength.

86 THE RED CONSPIEACT

Thus we hear of State Socialism, Socialism of the Chair,
Christian Socialism and even Catholic Socialism."

Persons ¥/ho call themselves Socialists may be divided into
two classes, in the first of which are those who are Socialists
merely in name, for they go no further than to vote the party
ticket. It is in the second class that we find the real Socialists,
men who besides severing all connections with the other political
organizations and voting regularly for the Socialist candidates,
have taken out membership cards which entitle them to vote
on party policies by the payment of several dollars a year into
the treasury of the party. Many of the first class are, of
course, not guilty of propagating atheism, free-love, and other
radical doctrines. In fact, it often happens that they scarcely
know that such things are taught by Socialists, for the deceitful
Eevolutionary orators and writers, having blinded them with
vivid pictures of their misfortunes, lead them to believe that
the movement is morally upright, and that the contemplated
state of the future will bring them every blessing under Heaven.

But unless those who are Socialists merely in name sever
their connection with the party of Karl Marx, it will not be
long before many of them will lose all sense of honor, decency
and morality. Indeed they often sink lower than the base
character who composed the " poem " that takes up half a page
of "The Call" of May 10, 1914. Though "The Call" seems
to consider the " poem " an excellent specimen of literature, or
else uses the large type that it does in order to attract the
attention of its readers to the sublime virtues of the author,
the quotation of but a small part of the production will suffice
to bring out its real worth and at the same time show us the
benign effects of Socialist teachings :

" You who are exalted by pictures but not by people : you who

worship a book and a god rather than hearts and men and

women :
I'd rather have my world and its flesh and its devil than your

heaven and its spirit and its god : . . . .
And while I don't blame man for being base or praise man for

being noble, I embrace man as my brother for being man:
And there you have the whole story, my man intoxication : I am

drunk with man : you see how it is :
You can have your bibles : I don't need your clirists : your

creeds would be an insult to me : I have man ; I am drunk

with man:

Socialism in theory 8^

That's the secret of secrets : that's the confession of confessions :

that's the inside of the inside of me :
I don't expect you to take it in: drunk with man: no: that's

too much like mockery to you : you shudder at it :
To you man always comes last : man never comes first : gods,

mountains, laws — they come first: man can take his

chances :
That's the rule of precedence as you have fixed it : that's the up

and down and around of your cosmos :
But I say no : I who am drunk with man can't give up my faith

for your hlasphemy: you who are sober with god."

The attention of the reader must now be drawn to something
of vital importance. There is no doubt that '' Knights of the
Eed Flag " have advocated many excellent social reforms, such
as higher wages, shorter working hours and greater safety for
laborers, legislation against trusts, and the prevention of child
labor and political corruption. Great credit would they deserve
if their real object were not to gain votes to secure the estab-
lishment of a Socialist form of government. It is probable that
before long, voting with true social reformers, they will see the
materialization of many of the immediate demands enumerated
in their platform. But it is to be remembered that no matter
how many beneficial reforms Socialists may help to procure
under our present constitutional system, they thus in no way
prove the superiority of a Socialistic government, democratic
in form, in which the citizens would collectively own and manage
the principal means of production, transportation, and communi-
cation. The reason is that our constitutional government would
still be in vogue, and the contradictory fundamental principle
of Socialism could not be applied by the ruling Marxians.

Persons who judge the Socialist movement solely by the
immediate demands of its political platform, or by social reforms
instituted after a political victory, understand very little either
about Socialism or the methods and purposes of the Marxians.
Yet this was the short-sighted manner in which the press per-
sistently, and for a long time, viewed the tactics of Socialist
politicians. Only a revolutionary movement far enough
advanced to neglect gradual transformation by means of
immediate' demands would be able to sweep away by force, at
a single stroke, all the old conditions of production, together
with our present form of government, and tlie existing order
of society.

88 THE RED CONSPIRACY

The so-called " Immediate Demands " of the Socialists may
be termed political campaign Socialism or vote-catching Social-
ism. They are the sugar coating of the poisonous pill of
Socialism itself. Their object is to attract and interest the
voter, and at the same time keep his mind off of the fallacies
of Socialism proper. They keep him from asking too many
unanswerable questions about the detailed method of organ-
ization under a Socialist form of government — for instance,
how the millions upon millions of government employes would
be assigned to positions that would suit them, and at the same
time receive satisfactory remuneration for their labors.

These same immediate demands also give the voter a chance
to find fault with our present system of government and to
criticise it, thereby rendering it less able to withstand succes-
sive Socialist assaults. The immediate demands are, of course,
meant for the present day and even if they should materialize,
under our present system, they could not be continued in a
Socialist state, that would be necessarily weak, poverty-stricken,
strife-ridden, politically corrupt and chaotic. It is one thing
to make demands, quite another thing to be able to grant them.
A highway robber can demand a million dollars from the person
whom he attacks, but that doesn't make the one assaulted able
to surrender the sum ; nor would it prove that the robber himself
could afford to pay a like amount if he should afterwards be
held up for a million.

The immediate demands of the 1918 Congressional Platform
of the Socialist Party are entirely too many conveniently to
enumerate. They are classed under
A — International Eeconstruction.

Peace Aims.

Pederation of Peoples.
B — Internal Eeconstruction.

Industrial Control.

Eailroads and Express Service.

Steamships and Steamship Lines.

Telegraph and Telephone.

Large Power Scale Industry.

Democratic Management.

Demobilization.

The Structure of Government (i. e., of the present sys-
tem of government).

Civil Liberties.

Taxation.

SOCIALISM IN THEORY 89

Credit.

Agriculture.

Conservation of Natural Eesources.

Labor Legislation.

Prisons.

The Negro.
The immediate demands are so numerous as to require a
booklet of 24 pages, published by the National Office, Socialist
Party, Chicago, 111. It is very hard to find a single reference
to Socialism itself in the entire 2i pages of the Congressional
Platform.

In a letter of Moses Oppenheimer, published in " The Call,"
New York, April 14, 1919, we are told that under the oppor-
tunist leadership of men like Hillquit, Berger, Ghent, and
Eobert Hunter the struggle for reforms has gradually over-
shadowed and supplanted the demand for the abolition of wage
slavery. The writer continues :

" More and more it has resulted in petty tactics for vote
catching. Berger's Old Age Pension bill was a glaring exhibit
of opportunist incapacity.

" Immediate demands are a tactical problem ! Comrade Lee
knows that the tactics change with changed conditions. There
was a time when the opportunists expected to win the votes of
the bulk of A. P. of L. workers. Hence the sugar coating of
the Socialist pill and three years of Chester M. Wright in con-
trol of ' The Call'

" That is now ancient history. Lee could not repeat that
chapter if he would. Nay, I believe he wouldn't if he could.

" The powerful impulse from the movement in Europe makes
itself felt over here. There is great need for reforming our
front, for recasting our tactics. The old roar of opportunism
led us nowhere, except to barren failure. If nothing else the
experience with our Ten in Albany and our Seven in the City
Hall should open our eyes. The time for picayune politics
is irrevocably gone."

In an article published in " The Proletarian," Detroit, April,
1919, page 4, Oakley .Johnson thus criticises the Socialist policy
of reformism as manifested in the immediate demands of the
party platform:

" Socialists have been dazed time and again by the glitter
of reformism. In every country the question has been an ever-
present one, and, as a result, the rainbows of reform have found
many chasers in the ranks of the workers. Thq matter seemed.

90 THE EED CONSPIEACT

up to near the end of the war, to involve more an academic
dispute on tactics than a principle of vital importance. There
seemed too many good reasons vfhy immediate demands for
slight concessions should not be worked for, as a step in the
direction of proletarian emancipation.

" When, however, the Bolshevik revolution in Eussia showed
the stand taken by the reformist groups — a stand in defense
of capitalism when capitalism was about to fall — the uncom-
promisingly revolutionary attitude of Marxian Socialists toward
reform in the past was amply justified. And when, in the
course of a few months, the reformistic Majority Socialists of
Germany took exactly the same stand as the Kerensky crowd
had taken, there could no longer be any doubt that the purpose
of reform parties in capitalistic society is to function as the
last obstacle to the victory of the proletariat

" The fact is, there is a threefold objection to reformism as
a working-class policy. In the iirst place it is a waste of effort,
for the same zeal displayed by short-sighted reform-Socialists
would, if applied in the propagation of straight Socialism,
treble the strength of the movement in a few months' time. In
the second place reformism obscures the real end in view,
develops confusionists rather than revolutionists, gives capitalist
political parties a chance to steal a few ' Socialist ' planks and
thus bid for the Socialist vote, and, worst of all, paves the way
to such tragedies as are now occurring in Germany, where
Liebknecht and Luxemberg have been murdered Ijy their
'reform' comrades (?). And finally, in the third place, even
if reform be the sole object in view, reformism is the poorest
policy to follow to get it. A proletariat organized for revolu-
tionary ends has no difficulty in securing reforms; it does not
need to ask for them, for an awakened and apprehensive
bourgeoisie will shower reforms upon them like the proverbial
manna. If, indeed, workers want only reforms, why take the
longest way around ? "

"The New Age," Buffalo, April 10, 1919, page 4, rejoices
that the reformists of the Socialist Party, whose policy it is to
pay more attention to the immediate demands than to the prin-
ciples of Socialism, have now a serious rival in the New Labor
Party :

" Now that the New Labor Party is established (and in
Chicago recently they polled more votes than the Socialists),
we wonder what the old machine will do to combat this new
Qctopus that threatens the big vote that used to belong to ' US.'

SOCIALISM IK THEORY 91

Answer : Teacli the working class real Socialism, tlie Socialism
of Marx and Bngels."

The millionaire Socialist, William Bross Lloyd, of Chicago,
has a very interesting article on " Socialist Platforms " in " The
Communist," Chicago, April 1, 1919 :

" Confession, is good for the soul. Let the Socialist Party of
the World now stand up and confess that it bears a close resem-
blance to other political parties in that, like the others, its
platforms are mostly bunk.

" The difference between its platforms and others is that the
others mean nothing while its platforms mean anything. The
difference between Socialists and other politicians is that the
Socialists mean what they think their platforms mean while the
others mean only to get office.

" This follows from the state of affairs we have had in the
world since 1914, when Socialists became so diverse in words
and deeds. Most of those on both sides are honest. The
trouble is the vagueness of the words of the Socialist
propaganda.

" Socialist thought should be so clearly stated in its platforms
that no one can doubt its meaning. This will eliminate from
the party the reformers and compromisers who are such a source
of weakness to the movement. It will also make clear to the
workers that the movement really means something.

" Take, for instance, the case of the party's attitude toward
war. Socialists are said to be opposed to all wars • — then come
the exceptions: wars of 'defense,' 'invasion,' 'emancipation,'
' liberation,' and all the meaningless tribe. Confusion results.
We have the German Majority Socialists, i. e., so-called Social-
ists, supporting their government in a war of ' defense ' against
' invasion ' and of the maintenance of their ' liberties ' — God
save the mark — against Eussian autocracy

" Without knowing the precise intention of those who drafted
the St. Louis platform, I infer that it was partly written in the
hope — if not belief — that the American workers would rise
against their oppressors and the situation to which they have
been subjected. It was a ringing declaration — a 'mass
movement ' of the delegates to the convention, later endorsed
by the party membership. And as these delegates separated
hot-foot for home, they got cold feet as they dispersed into
the cold-footed isolation of the individual Socialist scattered
here and there throughout this land. The platform contained
no statement of individual duty, no individual program of action

92 THE EED CONSPIEACY

Each Socialist began to ask as his feet got colder and colder:
' Where are these " mass movements ; " what are the others
going to do ? ' The situation was made worse by the action of
the National Executive Committee which told every Socialist to
read the St. Louis platform and then act as his conscience
dictated. Eine business for a revolutionary mass movement
eeeking to establish the co-operative commonwealth. Xo
anarchist could be more individualistic.

"The party's attitude toward war should be cleared up. It
should definitely provide for mass action, and bind the indi-
viduals of the party as units of the party mass. This war plat-
form should be followed by a Workers' Mobilization plan
carefully worked out in detail and laying down action in
response to each step taken in approach to war. Eor instance,
on the introduction of the War Declaration in Congress, a
one-day general strike just to show the rulers what was in
store. On passage of the War Declaration a general strike,
refusal to serve in the military forces, and such other measures
as may be effective."

"The Appeal to Reason" some years ago was the leading
Socialist paper of the United States. In 1917 it came out in
favor of war with the Central Powers. Either because of this,
or because it violently assailed Bolshevism for a long while, it
is now outlawed by the greater part of the Socialist Party.

On the editorial page of " The Call," New York, April 24,
1919, we read :

" Instead of the ' Appeal to Eeason ' asking for a pardon for
Debs, it should ask a pardon from Debs."

In "The Bulletin," Chicago, March 24, 1919, there appears
on page 12 a bitter attack on " The Appeal " by no less a per-
sonage than Adolph Germer, National Secretary of the Socialist
Party. In this official paper, issued by the National OfBce,
Socialist Party, we read :

" An Open Letter to ' The Appeal.'

"March 19, 1919.
" Editor Appeal to Eeason,
" GiRAED, Kans. :

"Sir. — In the issue of the 'Appeal to Eeason,' March 15,
1919, you publish an appeal for $30,000 CASH, for an alleged
' Amnesty and Construction Eight.'

" You give yourself credit for having ' won ' the first skirmish
in the amnesty fight and on the basis of this unfounded claim,
you justify your appeal for $30,000 CASH. To make your

SOCIALISM IN THEOEt 93

appeal seem legitimate, you use such names as Eugene V. Debs,
ICate Richards O'Hare, Rose Pastor Stokes and refer to ' many
of our comrades.' I happen to be one of those who is facing a
prison sentence and if you have included me in * many of the
comrades,' I want you to strike my name from your list. I
loathe to be a ' comrade ' of yours. You and your paper helped
to create a hatred against the Socialist Party and you wilfully
and maliciously lied about the National Executive Committee
when it refused to follow a course that would put more of our
members in prison. In other words, you and your paper must
bear a part of the responsibility for the prosecution and perse-
cution of the Socialists and it is rank hypocrisy for you to
prate about your fight for amnesty.

" Others may speak for themselves, but I scorn any effort
that you make in my behalf. A thousand times would I rathei
spend the rest of my life behind prison bars tlian to have one
word from you whom I hold responsible for the persecutions of
which my colleagues and I are victims.

"1 look upon your appeal for $30,000 CASH, in the name of
' Amnestj^,' as a sinister method of filling your own coffers.

" You have lied to us and about us and betrayed us in the
past and I resent your hypocritical prattle about amnesty.
" Yours without respect,

" Adolph Geriier,
" National Secretary, Socialist Party/'

Judging from the bitter attacks that Socialists are making
upon each other, it would seem that tliere might be a little har-
mony in the party if their platforms were limited to the prin-
ciples of Socialism and were not concerned with " immediate
demands " to the almost total exclusion of Socialism itself.

CHAPTER VII

SOCIALISM IN PRACTICE

N"o\y that considerable has been said about Socialism in the-
ory, we shall make the transition to Socialism in practice by
quoting what may be called George Herron's dream of Socialist
perfection. On page 38 of his booklet, " Prom Eevolution to
Pievolution," we are told : " Perhaps we shall learn in time,
before accentuated capitalism has intensified the universal mis-
ery of labor. Socialism is already on its way to the conquest
of Europe. And it may be that we shall yet behold that glo-
rious uprising of the universal peoples which is to begin man's
Teal history, and the world's real creation — that united affir-
mation of the world's workers which Socialism foretells, know-
ing boundaries neither of nations nor sects nor factions, speaking
one voice and working together as one man for one purpose,
filling and cleansing the world with one glad revolutionary
cry. Tl'hen the peoples thus come, divine and omnipotent
through co-operation, the raw materials of the world-life in
their creative hands, no longer begging favors or reforms, no
longer awed by the slave moralities or the slave religions that
teach submission to their masters, but risen and regnant in the
consciousness of their common inheritance and right in the
earth and its fullness, of which they are the makers and pre-
servers, then will the antagonisms and devastations of classes
vanish forever, and the peace of good will become the universal
fact."

" Glorious," indeed, have been the uprisings of the Bolshe-
viki of Eussia, the Communists of Hungary and Bavaria, and
the Spartacans of Germany, all of whom are Socialists of the
most pronounced type. These uprisings, instead of being the
" beginnings of the world's real creation," are rather the begin-
nings of its destruction and ruination. The world's workers
. have been "wonderfully united" in Eussia, Hungary, Bavaria
and Germany since Socialism came into power — and no better
proof need be given than the way in which they have been
shooting each other down and tryin<? to oust each other from
office. Though the Socialists were not supposed to know '^the

94

SOCIALISM IN PRACTICE 95

boundaries of nations, sects or factions," but were to " speak one
voice and work together as one man for one purpose," the Spar-
tacans, it seems, would be better off if they had not only an
imaginary boundary to separate barbarians of their type from
the rest of civilization, but a barrier of mountains with heights
towering in the clouds to divide Germany into two parts, in one
of which the Spartacans could rest in peace, safe from the
attacks of their beloved brethren of the Ebert-Scheidemann
group.

If the Communists of Bavaria had only built half a dozen
Chinese walls around Munich, they might still be holding out
against the Socialist army that besieged them and overcame
them. Lenine's Government caused such rivers of blood
to flow in Eussia that it could well dispense with imaginary
boundary lines to separate " Bolsheviki Land " from tlie
domains of Socialist Siberia. " One glad revolutionary cry "
was to go up from Socialists all over the world, but the cry is :
" Workers in anti-Socialist countries, save us from our false,
hypocritical, reactionary, murderous Marxian brethren ! " Have
the Socialist peoples the world over become truly " divine " by
their attacks on God and all religions? Have they become
" omniijotent " wherever they are in power — so omnipotent
that law, order and decency are no longer needed ? The "■ raw
materials of the world were in their creative hands," and yet the
Eussian people were starving by the millions, and the longer the
period since the world war, the worse things became in those
vast domains once so famous for their natural resources,
wheat, cattle, wool, minerals, oil and wood.

The Socialist dream was one of " no submission to masters ;"
but, strange to say, the dictator, Lenine, rules " Bolsheviki-
Land" just as he pleases; Bela Kun so ruled Hungary; while
the supposedly democratic Soviets just issued decrees of murder
or plunder, and no national representative body of all the Eus-
sians or of all the Hungarians ever seemed to meet. The Social-
ists of Eussia, Hungary and Bavaria were indeed "regnant in
the consciousness of their common inheritance," provided, of
course, that by inheritance, confiscated property is meant. Yet
although " antagonism and devastations of classes " were des-
tined to "vanish forever, and the peace of good will become
the universal fact," somehow or other certain "scientific
reformers " forgot that there were such things as fools' paradises
and overlooked the old saying that "all that glitters is not
gold."

96 THE RED CONSPIRACY

In Chapters X and XI much more will be said about the
Lenine-Trotzky dictatorship of Socialist Russia, the Bela Kun
administration of Hungary, the criminal Socialist crew of Bava-
ria, and, of course, the fiery Karl Llebknecht and Rosa Luxem-
bourg group that at times in certain localities replaced the
Ebert-Scheidemann government of Germany.

In " The Call," New York, April 28, 1919, under the caption,
" Socialist Government of Yucatan Grapples With the Binder
Trust," we read:

" We get vastly less news nowadays from our next-door neigh-
bor, Mexico, than from Europe and Asia, therefore a ' Call '
reporter, meeting a Comrade who has recently returned from
the tropic peninsula, fell upon him and demanded news of the
Socialist, labor and co-operative movements there.

" ' We are facing a very much tangled-up situation down
there,' answered the man from Yucatan. He is W. Elkin
Birch, a well-known American Socialist and business man, who
has lived in Mexico several years. He came up to ' the States '
on a business trip, and is returning to Yucatan, where he is
prominent in the Socialist and co-operative movements.

" ' The forces of capitalism in Mexico are so strong, and the
commercial system is so vicious,' he began, ' that I am not very
optimistic about the future of Socialism in Yucatan.'

" ' But we thought that Alvarado had established almost a
paradise down there,' cried the reporter. ' A year ago we
learned that you had elected a comolete Socialist administra-
tion in Yucatan; then, a few months since, we heard that it
had not put any part of the Socialist program into effect. We
wondered what was the reason, but hardly any news comes
through now.'

" ' Alvarado did work a wonderful transformation, and much
of the good he did remains. It is true, we have an administra-
tion of Socialists, but we find that that is a very different thing
from a Socialist administration. Yucatan is still in the grip
of the commercial interests, and the game is blocked at every
move. As fast as the radicals devise some means of stopping
the robbery of the people by special privilege, the privileged
interests find a way of circumventing the radicals by apparently
yielding, but really maintaining their domination.

" ' Alvarado took over the Reguladora, throiigh which the
hcnequem, Yucatan's principal product, is sold for export; he
took over the railroads, and the line of steamships running to
the States

SOCIALISM IN PRACTICE 97

" ' The government still controls the Eeguladora, but, as I
said, it is in a deadlock with the powers who control its market.
We still have government-owned railroads in Yucatan, but gov-
ernment ownership merely takes the public utility out of the
hands of private capital and places it under the control of a
political organization. And private capital already has secured
control of that political organization, and graft and robbery
are running riot. Government ownership of railroads has
increased the cost of operation 100 per cent. The payrolls are
packed with friends of officials and friends of friends. If a
man can control a few votes, they reason, why shouldn't he have
a job? What's the railroad for, if not to provide jobs? The
folks down there are very much like people in other countries,
you see.' ....

" ' But why doesn't the Socialist administration take control
of industry and commerce, and put the interests out of power ? '
demanded the reporter, determined to uphold the faith in the
face of disappointing facts.

" ' Well, of course, that sounds easy ; but Socialists are just
people, after all, and when a Socialist gets into office he finds it
quite as hard as ordinary folks to resist the subtle influences
that surround officials. A man can't be sure that he is a real
Socialist until he is put to the test of being a part of the gov-
ernment. The commercial interests oSer him opportunities to
make money; they give him and his family social advantages.
He begins to see that capitalism has its good points, after
all.' Mr. Birch smiled half -satirically, half -tolerantly. '^ Some
members of the Assembly have made fortunes during their year
of office. One member, who handles concessions, illegal and
otherwise, has cleared over a million pesos."

The February, 1918, issue of the "International Socialist
Review," Chicago, was suppressed by the authorities of the
United States government, and, as a consequence, it is probable
that not very many copies are in circulation. The author of
" The Eed Conspiracy," however, has in his possession a copy of
this edition, in which there is a very interesting article, begin-
ning on page 414, entitled, " Your Dream Come True."

" A Land of practical Socialism in active operation.

" Nearly 4,000,000 people without one cent of money in cir-
culation; and where no man owns a foot of land or the tools
of production — trades unionism, industrialism, single tax and
socialism all rolled into one.

98

THE RED CONSPIEACY

"Ninety thousand square miles without a policeman; where
gold rings are placed in the public markets in large baskets, to
be had for the asking.

"A work day of two hours for the strong; of play for the
young, middle-aged and old. A land where there is plenty of
candy for the kiddies, playgrounds for all ; and from which the
spectre of want has departed.

"Land of peon-slaves awakened from centuries of capitalist
misrule to the glories of co-operation, without master or land-
lord.

"This is no dream, but -an actualized verity right here in
America — in southern Mexico. Shades of Thomas Moore,
Edward Bellamy and William Morris arise and rejoice, for vour
wildest visions have become facts.

" Across the miles I stretch my hand in fellowship with Mex-
ico's great democrat — Zapata. Don't forget that name.
The capitalist press has not told much about him — for obvious
reasons. He is putting into practice the basic principles of co-
operation. The golden rule is being translated into action.

" General Zapata now absolutely controls 90,000 square miles,
comprising parts of Morelo, Jalisco, Chapas, Quintana Eoo and
Tabasco. This land is well under cultivation. The populatiosj
(on a rough estimate, without the advantages of a scientific
census) is from three to four millions. The inhabitants are
nearly all peons, who for cehturies had existed in a degrading
state of slavery. More than ninety-five per cent, can neither
read nor write.

" Zapata's control began in 1910, but only in the three years
past has the co-operative system been placed on its present basis.
The greatest development has been made during the past two
years.

" Methods of propaganda have been simple and effective.
Direct action is the keynote. The people awoke to a knowledge
of their slavery and the realization of their heritage — and took
what belonged to them. The only message sent to the people
was somewhat similar to the I. W. W. preamble, but much
shorter than that classic document.

"Having aroused the slaves to realize their status by saying
in substance: the rich unjustly possess the land; we want all
that is ours and are not willing that any man should possess
that which is not his — Zapata would lead his army into some
rich valley and simply dispossess the wealthy ' owners.' Then
the peons on the land would be given the use of the land. Npt

SOCIALISM IN PRACTICE 99

one man in the ninety thousand square miles holds a title to
one foot of land. After getting the new territory, the land was
cultivated and the district organized.

" When strong enough the army — the propaganda branch of
the revolution — held another convention in some other fertile
valley and benevolently assimilated some other opulent set of
slave-driving usurpers of the land

" Every citizen of each community is given a little brass citi-
zenship tag. It is necessary to show this only in strange towns.
It is his passport for whatever he needs for food, clothing and
shelter. Each person goes into the stores and gets what he
needs for the simple asking.

" We have heard endless discussions as to the nature of the
future medium of exchange. Many volumes have been written
on the subject. Zapata isn't worrying over these problems.
He is leaving them where they belong — to the philosophers.
There isn't any medium of exchange in Zapata's land. Why
should there be on a free earth ? If a man wanted ten pairs of
sandals or shoes he could have them, but why would he want
them? He can always go — in Zapata's country — to any
store and get a pair when he needs one. So with all other pro-
visions. In practice, in the few years the plan has been in
operation, the peons have not abused the privilege. They are
producers, and realize it. Why rob themselves? There is not
One idea of profit in all that 90,000 square miles, and human
nature is just as it was when Adam delved and Eve spun.

" Travelers are not being admitted freely just now, in these
unsettled times, because of the lying reports carried away by
spying emissaries of capitalism. But when one is given per-
mission to visit the country, his route is marked out and listed
on the passport given him. He pays the government and then
is provided freely on all the travels over the designated route.

" Kg women or children are to be found in any line of
manual labor in mill, field or factory.

" The young and middle aged men alone work. They work
from one and one-half to three hours a day. Some will work
more steadily for a week and then go away to some town for two
or three weeks to enjoy their country. For the first time in
history the workers have a country that is really theirs. Work-
ers? Yes, for all are workers. There are no landlords or
' bosses ' and overseers to prod them into exhausting toil. And
these people are simple enough to believe that man should enjoy
life — that aU people should find pleasure in living.

100 THE RED CONSPIRACY

" Of course there are foremen and superintendents in the
administration of industry. But they receive no wages, just
what they need to live on, and every man, woman and child
gets that. The men will work two hours and then go out to
play hand-ball and other games in the plaza or courts.

" When the fields need attention, men go from ranch to ranch
wherever help is needed. In like manner all industry is car-
ried on.

" One example will show something of how matters are man-
aged. One big sugar refinery formerly employed 2,500 men,
working them fourteen hours a day. Employees now work two
hours a day. The refinery still is in operation fourteen hours
daily. There are seven shifts of workers. All told, there are
25,000 employees of that refinery. All are happy and have all
of the food, clothing and shelter the land affords. The children
have big sticks of candy as large as they can carry — and 'there
is no talk of conservation of supplies anywhere.

" Access to the land and co-operation did it. There isn't any
regular freight and passenger service. The trains operate as
required. Production for profit has ceased on 90,000 square
miles of this planet and the mills and mines are run to manu-
facture products for use only. When goods are needed any-
where, the trains haul them. Occasionally a few hundred men,
women and children will be taken into the mountains by the
trainload for a few days' outing. It is all a part of living —
no fares to pay

" The churches are being used as schools, for lecture centers,
as play houses and for similar useful purposes. There is no
liquor sold. This is not the result of any decree or election.
The people had so little desire for booze that they quit its manu-
facture

" It is not to be inferred that Zapata has solved all of the
problems of society. Everything can't be done at once, even
by the magic wand of his propaganda. Still, his achievements
make the genii of AUadin's lamp look pretty small and cheap.
In three years every worker has been united into one industrial
union; all titles to land and ownership of the tools of produc-
tion swept away ; labor's hours shortened to the minimum ; the
entire population fed, clothed and sheltered — all through
cooperation on a free earth."

This is the kind of " stuff " that is served up to the " learned,"
" scientific Socialists," who place so much confidence in the lead-
ers who are supposed to be honest and worthy of leading them

SOCIALISM IK PRACTICE 101

into the Marxian Paradise. This is the way they spoke of
" Socialism " in Mexico some years ago, and today they are
speaking of it in Eussia in much the same way.

Act the Second

Scene — A large photo of Zapata — 4 by 6 inches, in " The
Call," the Socialist paper of New York City, April 34, 1919.

Under the photo there is the following inscription:

" General Emiliano Zapata, Mexico's apostle of terrorism,
and recently officially reported to have been killed by Carranza's
troops, was a former plantation stirrup-boy, who, at the zenith
of his rebel power, gained temporary control of Mexico City.
Twice since 1910, when he began his revolt in Morelos, he and
his Indian followers took brief possession of the capital. For
nine years he ravaged southern Mexico, co-operating for a time
in 1914; with Villa. He was the most implacable enemy of
peaceful reconstruction through several regimes. Poor, unedu-
cated, primitive but magnetic, Zapata was the leader of Mexico's
half-savage Indians, in whose power he planned to place con-
trol of the country. Toward the last he was little more than a
hunted renegade, and is reported to have been killed by strategy
of troops operating under General Pablo Gonzales in Morelos."

The wood-cut of Zapata appears in connection with an article
by Jack Neville, part of which is hereby quoted:

" Cuautla, Mexico, April 23. — The death of Emiliano Zapata
removes Mexico's most ruthless destructionist "and implacable
enemy of peaceful regeneration.

"Now, on the wreckage of his empire, where the rebel chief
laughed at civilization and played his huge Joke on 100,000 con-
fiding workers. General Pablo Gonzalez is placing firm under-
pinning for freedom and progress.

"Here in the world's richest garden spot, where exploited
humanity has been kept poorest, and where Zapata 'gave' his
half-savage followers the land only to commandeer all crops —
here the peon is for the first time in centuries enjoying the
fruits of his toil and supporting instead of hating government."

The next day, April 35th, 1919, "The Call" published
another article of Neville's under the title, " Mexican Peons
Rejoice in First Taste of Freedom." Only a small part of the
article will be quoted:

" I stepped into a pulque-reeking eantina. A group of former
Zapatistas invited me to join them — to have a glass. It was
the open sesame. They chattered like children. Presented me

lO^ tHE RED CONSPIRACY

with cornhusk cigarettes; told me tales of Zapata; his perfidy,
his ruthlessness.

" ' Not more than 800 rebels were yet in arms when Zapata
was killed/ they said. These, they explained, had ousted
Zapata from leadership because he had refused to divide the
loot with them. They told me of Zapata's former army of
30,000, blood-letting surianos and ayetes (unarmed men carry-
ing ropes) who formed the rear guard to carry away the loot.

" Alongside the old church, where the patriot Morelos had
more than a century ago made a successful stand against the
Spaniards, a train was disgorging families returning to their
homes, now that Zapata was gone.

" A little man stepped out — the bishop of Cuernavaca, com-
ing back to his diocese under the conciliatory program of Don
Pablo after eight years' exile.

"I rode into the country with Colonel Sanchez ISTeira and
talked with the workmen in the field. They crowded round to
pose for pictures.

" They laughed and sang while they worked.

"We rode to the headquarters of one of the 2,000,000 acre
haciendas. The gigantic sugar mill, formerly worth more than
$1,000,000, was a shell filled with debris. We rode to another
mill. The same ! Thirty-seven of them. All ruined, wrecked
wantonly under Zapata's rule.

"In the village of Youtopec I drank lemonade with Gen.
Pilar Sanchez, while Zapata's captured band serenaded us. We
rode down the Inter-Oceanic railway and viewed the right of
way, strewn with wrecked rolling stock. We saw utterly demol-
ished villages, the work of Zapata and communism.

" I saw a bridge where train after train was dynamited, where
Zapatistas had ruthlessly executed more than three thousand
peaceful men, women and children passengers."

From these articles published in " The Call," the great
Socialist paper of New York City, it seems that the poverty-
stricken, perpetually begging staff of Hillquit's paper does not
relish the Chicago brand of Socialism described so beautifully
in the " International Socialist Eeview." The more " talented "
and " progressive " " evolutionists " near the shore of Lake
Michigan have many a year's hard work to perform before they
can sufficiently develop the brains of their backward chums and
brethren on the lower east side of New York City. It takes
editors like Kerr, Haywood, the Marcys and all the Bohns on

SOCIALISM IN PEACTICB 103

the staff of the " Eeview " to reveal the true glories of Social-
ism.

As recently as February, 1930, it could safely be said that
the priuciples of Socialism had never been put into full opera-
tion in any country. The nearest approach to a truly Socialist
state is Bolshevist Eussia, that strife-ridden land of crime and
bloodshed. The penalty paid for the foolish attempt has
already been a dreadful one. How much greater it will be, as
time goes on, nobody knows. The Socialists of America have
hailed Eussian Bolshevism as true Socialism; but, no doubt, as
the evil consequences of Lenine's Eed rule become more widely
knovm and more universally feared, or if, even on the low
ground of materialistic economics, the attempt fails, the slippery
Marxians will try to prove that Bolshevism was not Socialism
after all, since the Eussian government was a dictatorship, with
the principles of Socialism never fully applied.

We should add that even if the Eussian dictatorship succeeds
in realizing the mere economic success which seems to be the
height of its ambition, this will not prove to be an argument in
favor of Socialism, but a terrible indictment of it. For the
road the dictatorship is now taking, which indeed offers it the
only possible hope of even a passable economic success, is the
barren, heartless, unspiritual, materialistic tyranny of machine-
like "industrialism" which the I. W. W. represents. In the
two chapters immediately following, VIII and IX, the reader
will learn something of the loss of all moral standards and the
cruel, lawless violence to which the atheistic, anarchistic mate-
rialism of I. W. W. 'ism leads ; and will also find that Bolshev-
ism is already committed to this system as the only economic
solution of its bloody experiment.

Is it worth while? In Chapters X and XI the reader will
face some of the appalling details of the blood, violence and
despair which have been tyrannically imposed upon Eussia's
groaning millions for the sake of an experiment which leads to
nothing but the pagan barbarism of I. W. W. 'ism. Is it
worth while ? Even if at last they are able to produce and dis-
tribute enough to clothe and feed themselves, can human beings
be happy in such a state? Is this the dream of the dreamer
come true?

Again, the hope of a bare economic solution of the question of
bread and butter is possible in Eussia only through such an
absolute and tyrannous dictatorship as has been established,
lender which the reluctant and disorganized proletariat can bq

104 THE EED CONSPIKACY

forced back to work, whether they wish or no, at the point of
the bayonets of the Eed Guard. Would the American workings
man think this worth while in America?

It has been said that the Lenine desperadoes are determined to
win an economic success even at the cost of forcing Eussian
labor to toil under literal military conscription. If they do
this, they may succeed — economically merely. But does
American labor think such an experiment here would be worth
what it costs?

Furthermore, in the Eussian land of Socialistic experiment
the people, left to themselves by the other nations, cannot find
peace among themselves. Why should there be peace as long as
any manhood is left in Eussia to lift up its hand out of its
despair against its Bolshevist oppressors? Is civil war worth
while — for such a barren result ?

Finally, if the proletarian tyrants wear all Eussia down until
a spirit of resistance is left in no breast, still will there be no
peace; for, as will be found quoted elsewhere in this book,
Lenine declares that Socialism cannot endure in a world half
Socialistic and half Capitalistic, so that his wretched Eussian
slaves seem likely to be dragged into a war against the rest of
the world to help out the crazy experiment of domination by the
proletariat. Is it worth while?

CHAPTER VIII
THE I. W. W.

The I. W. W., or the so-called " Industrial Workers of the
World," whose policy may be summed up in the words, " I Want
to Wreck," and who in derision are termed the " I Won't
Works," the " Imported Weary Willies " and the " Wobblies,"
enjoy the unenviable reputation of being classed among the
most insurrectionary, impious and infamous workers of the
world to-day. This industrial union, also known as the One
Big Union, is the bitter rival of the American Federation of
Labor. Joseph J. Ettor, in his I. W. W. pamphlet, " Industrial
Unionism," page 5, speaking of the fear that people have of the
I. W. W. says:

"Yes, gentle reader, our ideas, our principles and object are
certainly dangerous and menacing, applied by a united working
class would shake society and certainly those who are now on
top sumptuously feeding upon the good things they have not
produced would feel the shock."

The I. W. W. was organized at a secret conference in Chicago,
January 2, 1905, attended by 26 of the most radical Socialists
in the country, including Eugene V. Debs, William D. Haywood,
William E. Trautman, Thomas J. Haggerty, Daniel MacDonald,
Charles H. Moyer, Charles O. Sherman, Frank Bohn and A. M.
Simons. Daniel De Leon was prominent at the first convention,
June 27, 1905, and for three years afterward, the organization
being founded on his theory that the Socialistic revolution
would not come by voting but by a violent seizure of the
industries of the country by Socialistic workmen industrially
organized.

"The One Big Union Monthly," March 1, 1919, page 4,
referring to the hungry and desperate masses tells us:

"In some countries these revolting, desperate masses may
come out victorious, and establish a rule of their own, like the
Eussian Bolsheviki, only to find that they will have to keep on
running society on private ownership basis, until industrial
organization of the workers is so far advanced that it can take
over the responsibility. There is no way in which the masses

105

106 THE BED CONSPIRACY

can escape industrial unionisni. What they do not want to do
now at our prompting, they will have to do later of their own
initiative, driven by economic necessity. Our new society is
bound to come. It will be firmly established in ten years if we
are energetic. It will take longer if we are indifferent. We
cannot stand still socially, because there is no footing before we
reach the bottom. We cannot go back, any more than the butter-
fly can again become a larva. We must go forward to Industrial
Democracy."

On page 23 of the same issue of " The One Big Union
Monthly" we are informed that Industrial Unionism is
International :

" Industrial unionism arises out of and is modeled after
modern capitalism. Unlike trade unionism, it is not born of
the capitalism of fifty years ago. Industrial unionism recognizes
that capitalism is not only interindustrial, so to speak, but also
international. That just as it binds industries together by
means of machine processes and financial investments, so also
does capitalism tend to bind nations together. Industrial union-
ism follows the same trend. It, too, is not only interindustrial
but also international. Industrial unionism seeks to organize
the industrial workers of the world just as capitalism seeks
to exploit them. Industrial unionism is spreading wherever
international capitalism exists. Like international capitalism,
industrial unionism knows no boundaries, color, race, creed or
sex. As international capitalism knows only profit, industrial
unionism knows only the industrial exploitation by which profit
is possible. Industrial uniqoism organizes to make industrial
exploitation an impossibility. And capitalism is its most valued
assistant."

Ettor, in "Industrial Unionism," page 21, tells us, that the
I. W. W. does not organize by trades, but by industries : " All
the workers in any plant, factory, mine, mill or any given indus-
try in a given locality organize in one Local Industrial Union.
All the Local Industrial Unions of a given general industry
are banded together in the National Industrial Union. The
National Industrial Unions are banded again stronger in the
Industrial Department and then all Departments, six in all, are-
brought under one head, the General Administration of the
I. W. W. One Big Union of all workers, welded together in
such a manner that, imbued with the war cry : ' an injury to
one is an injury to all,' all its members can act together in
fighting the common enemy."

THE I. W. W. 107

Explaining organization by industries rather than by trades,
" The One Big Union Monthly," March 1, 1919, page 25, takes
for instance the stockyards :

" We do not know how many crafts there are in the stock-
yards, but there are many. According to the old style, these
crafts would be organized each by itself, the carpenters belonging
to the national union of carpenters, the engineers to the national
union of engineers, the butchers to the national union of
butchers, etc. It also belongs to old style unionism to leave the
unskilled workers unorganized. Our method would be to organ-
ize all the workers in a plant, as a branch of the Stockyard
Workers' Industrial Union. This would imply the cancelling
of trade distinctions and craft lines. As against the employer
we wouM. face him not as butchers, laborers, carpenters or
engineers, but as stockyard workers, no matter whether we are
office clerks or laborers, or carpenters, or engineers. This is
what we mean with industrial unionism. The various branches
would combine into district organizations if necessary, and all
of them together would form the Stockyard Workers' Industrial
Union as part of the Industrial Workers of the World. By
being thus organized we hope to be able to carry on the fight
locally, or by districts, or on a national scale with better chance
of success, than if we were split up in a great number of unions
in each plant, with little or no contact with one another. The
advantages of the one big union idea are so apparent that no
honest worker will, in earnest, contradict us."

The famous Preamble to the platform of the I. W. W. throws
a startling light upon this revolutionary industrial union, which
has, within recent years, been getting a very strong hold on
immigrants from Europe :

" The working class and the employing class have nothing
in common. There can be no peace so long as hunger and want
are found among millions of the working people, and the few
who make up the employing class have all the good things
of life.

"Between these two classes a struggle must go on until the
workers of the world organize as a class, take possession of the
earth and the machinery of production and abolish the wage
system.

" We find that the centering of the management of industries
into fewer hands makes the trade unions unable to cope with
the ever-growing power of the employing class.

108 THE EED CONSPIRACY

"These conditions can be changed and the interests of the
working class upheld only by an organization formed in such a
way that all its members in any one industry, or in all industries
if necessary, cease work whenever a strike or lockout is on in
any department thereof, thus making an injury to one, an
injury to all.

"Instead of the conservative motto, 'A fair day's wages for
a fair day's work,' we must inscribe on our banner the revolu-
tionary watchword, ' Abolition of the wage system.'

" It is the historic mission of the working class to do away
with capitalism. The army of production must be organized,
not only for the every-day struggle with the capitalists, but
also to carry on production when capitalism 'shall have been
overthrown. By organizing industrially we are forming a struc-
ture of the new society within the shell of the old."

Giovannitti, editor of the New York City Italian Socialist

publication, " II Proletario," one of the ofScial Socialist organs

enumerated in the "Procedings of the 1910 National Congress

of the Socialist Party," writing in the April 5, 1913, edition of

,his paper, says:

" The aim of the Socialists and of the Syndicalists is precisely
that of dispossessing the middle class by transferring property
to the working class.

"We shall take possession of the industries for three very
simple reasons : because we need them, because we desire them,
and because we have the power to take them.

" Whether it is just or unjust, moral or immoral, it is no con-
cern to us, We shall waste no time whatever in providing the
validity of our legal titles, yet, if it will be necessary, after the
dispossession will have been accomplished, we shall engage a
couple of lawyers and judges to adjust the contracts and to
render the act perfectly legal and respectable. So, too, if ii
will be necessary, we shall find a couple of most learned bishops
to sanctify it. These matters can always be arranged — all that
is strong and powerful becomes in time just and moral — and
for this reason, we Syndicalists maintain that the social revolu-
tion is not a question of necessity and justice, but of necessity
and strength."

" The New Unionism," by Tridon, on page 112, informs us
that Arturo Giovannitti was, in turn, a minter, a bookkeeper,
a theological student, a mission preacher and a tramp. Ettor,
in " Industrial Unionism," page 15, speaking of the I. W. W.
principles of morality, says :

THE I. W. W. 109

" New conceptions of Eight and Wrong must generate and
permeate the workers. We must look on conduct and actions
that advance the social and economic position of the working
class as Eight, ethically, legally, religiously, socially and by
every other measurement. That conduct and those actions which
aid, help to maintain and give comfort to the capitalist class,
we must consider as Wrong by every standard."

" The New Unionism," page 104, gives us Vincent St. John's
statement of the methods and tactics employed by the I. W. W.,
of which he has been a prominent leader :

" As a revolutionary organization the Industrial Workers of
the World aims to use any and all tactics that will get the
results sought with the least expenditure of time and energy.
The tactics used are determined solely by the power of the
organization to make good in their use. The question of
" right " and " wrong " does not concern us. No terms made
with an employer are final. All peace so long as the wage system
lasts is but an armed truce. At any favorable opportunity the

struggle for more control of industry is renewed

" The organization does not allow any part to enter into time
contracts with the employers. It aims where strikes are used,
to paralyze all branches of the industry involved, when the
employers can least afford a cessation of work • — during the busy
season and when there are rush orders to be filled."

In the Socialist Labor Party paper, " Weekly People," New
York, February 10, 1912, the following article by Arthur
Giovannitti shows the part that the I. W. W. is expected to take
in bringing about the Marxian rebellion through the instru-
mentality of a general strike :

" The future of Socialism lies only in the general strike,
not merely a quiet political strike, but one that once started
should go fatally to its end, i. e., armed insurrection, and the
forcible overthrow of all existing social conditions. . . . The
task of revolution is not to construct the new society, but to
demolish the old one, and, therefore, its first aim should be at
the complete destruction of the existing state, so as to render it
absolutely powerless to react and re-establish itself. . . . The
I. W. W. must develop itself as the new legislature and the
new executive body of the land, undermine the existing one,
and gradually absorb the functions of the state until it can
entirely substantiate it through the only means it has, the
revolution."

110 THE RED CONSPIRACY

On May 1, 1919, plans for a nation-wide strike on July 4th
were disclosed by I. W. W. orators at a mass meeting in the
workingmen^s hall, 119 South Throop Street, Chicago. It was
Simms, a colored man, who gave the details of the strike plan:

" The workmen will lay down their tools on July 4th, and on
the morning of July oth not one will take them up again. . . .

" It will be the opening of the social revolution. Moreover,
not one workman will take up his tools again until every prisoner
of the workers now incarcerated in the capitalistic prisons is
released."

"The One Big Union Monthly," March 1, 1919, page 23,
declares :

" Socialism rears new institutions. It weaves a new fabric
for our social life. In Kussia it is the Soviets ; in America it is
the One Big Union. This fabric is proletarian only. Within
its limits the Socialist Eevolutionist halts. This ne.w organ-
i"^m ■ — this One Big Union — may, or may not seek Democracy.
Democracy is merely a method of governing. If that method
leads to Socialist goals it will be followed. Otherwise, we will
seek further for our avenue. But the great end is proletarian-
ism. It is the social ownership of the means of production. It
is the creation of a society where all classes will be melted into
one, and where the class war will soften into an all-race
proletarianism."

Another I. W. W. publication, " The Evolution of Industrial
Democracy," page 40, speaking of government after the " Wob-
blies" get into power, goes still further:

" Government, as now understood will disappear — there
being no servile class to be held in subjection — but in its
place will be an administration of affairs."

Eelative to property rights in the future, " The Evolution of
Industrial Democracy," page 39, informs us :

" Rights of inheritance would disappear with the right to
hold private property in the lands, tools and machinery of pro-
duction. Any accumulation by the individual that might be used
for exploitation would pass to the collectivity at the death of
the holder. Society would be the heir of the individual and,
vice versa, the individuals would be the heirs of society. The
right to freely function at the machines and enjoy the social
value of his toil would guarantee the worker a full competence."

As regards compensation for work in accordance with the
I. W, W- plan, we are told on page 39 :

(THE I. W. W. Ill

" Compensation in the industries would necessarily be upon
the basis of the 'man-day' — the average production of an
average man in an average day when working under average
conditions — and in those industries not of an actual productive
nature, such as ' public service/ etc., the man-day must prevail
there also (being based upon the average, production of all the
industries served) for the reason that no man could be induced
to serve for less than that average — to do so being to confess
himself an inferior being — and to compel him to serve for
less would be to set up a new slavery, which the moral sense of
the new community could not endure."

Giovannitti, in "II Proletario," ISTew York, April 5, 1913,
gives a lesson in sabotage to the Italian Socialists and members
of the I. W. W. :

" We are not yet suiEciently strong to restore them [i. e., the
instruments of production] to ourselves, it is true, but it is also
true that we cannot allow any opportunity to escape of reaping
any advantage from them.

" Thus, if to-morrow we shall be justified in wrenching from
capitalism all the industries, why, when it is a question of life
or death for us to win or to lose a strike, is it not Just to
remove a screw, derange a wheel, break a thread, or commit, in
any way whatever, an act of sabotage on a machine which other-
wise would become the very beginning of our defeat in the
hands of the scabs?

" We cannot understand how it is still possible while we have
a right to all the produce of our work, we have not an entire
right to a part of it."

Other illustrations of sabotage may be of interest to the reader.
The following one is taken from the Chicago " Syndicalist,"
February 15, 1913 :

" A few drops of sulphuric acid placed on top of a pile of
woolen or cotton goods never stops going down.

" Two decks of cards in a grain separator cover the screen
and cause the grain to vanish out of the blower.

"A piece of iron dropped in a crucible full of glass will eat
through it. Crucibles are made of graphite and cost $40.

" A handful of salt in paint will allow a good-looking job
for a day or two, but when dry will fall off in sheets.

" Maclay HojTie, Chicago's district attorney, is analyzing a
spontaneous fire powder that allows the user to be miles away
when it breaks forth.

112 THE RED CONSPIEACY

" Castor oil capsules dissolved in varnish destroy the ability
of the latter to dry. The job must be washed down and started
all over again.

" The suffragettes of England have significantly notified their
opponents that a fire in every shire was the way the word
was flashed in days gone by."

Pages 40 to 48 of " The New Unionism," by Tridon, furnish
us with some more barbarous examples of sabotage :

" We may distinguish three f orriis of sabotage :

" 1. Active sabotage which consists in the damaging of goods
or machinery.

" 2. Open-mouthed sabotage, beneficial to the ultimate con-
sumer, and which consists in exposing or defeating fraudulent
commercial practices.

" 3. Obstructionism or passive sabotage, which consists in
carrying out orders literally, regardless of consequences.

" If you are an engineer you can, with two cents' worth of
powdered stone or a pinch of sand, stall your machine, cause a
loss of time or make expensive repairs necessary. If you are a
joiner or woodworker, what is simpler than to ruin furniture
without your boss noticing it, and thereby drive his customers
away? A garment worker can easily spoil a suit or a bolt of
cloth ; if you are working in a department store, a few spots on
a fabric cause it to be sold for next to nothing; a grocery
clerk, by packing up goods carelessly, brings about a smashup;
in the woolen or the haberdashery trade a few drops of acid on
the goods you are wrapping will make a customer furious . .
an agricultural laborer may sow bad seed in wheat fields," etc.

" With two cents' worth of a certain stuff, used by one who
knows, a locomotive can be made absolutely useless."

" The first thing to do before going out on strike is to cripple
all the machinery. Then the contest is even between employer
and worker, for the cessation of work really stops all life in
the capitalists' camp. Are bakery workers planning to go on
strike? Let them pour in the ovens a few pints of petroleum
or of any other greasy or pungent matter. After that, soldiers
or scabs may come and bake bread. The smell will not come
out of the tiles for three months. Is a strike in sight in steel
mills ? Pour sand or emery into the oil cups."

" The electrical industry is one of the most important indus-
tries, as an interruption in the current means a lack of light
and power in factories; it also means a reduction in the means
of transportation and a stoppage of the telegraph and telephone

THE I. W. W. 113

systems. How can the power be cut oS? By the curtailing in
the mine the output of the coal necessary for feeding the machin-
ery or stopping the coal cars oil their way to the electrical
plants. If the fuel reaches its destination what is simpler than
to set the pockets on fire and have the coal burn in the yards
instead of the furnaces? It is child's play to put out of work
the elevators and other automatic devices which carry coal to
the fire room. To put boilers out of order use explosives or
silicates or a plain glass bottle which thrown on the glowing
coals hinders the combustion and clogs up the smoke exhausts.
You can also use acids to corrode boiler tubes; acid fumes will
ruin cylinders and piston rods. A small quantity of some cor-
rosive substance, a handful of emery will be the end of oil
cups. When it comes to dynamos or transformers, short cir-
cuits and inversion of poles can be easily managed. Under-
ground cables can be destroyed by fire, water or explosives," etc.

" The ISTew Unionism," the book from which the above quota-
tions were taken and which was purchased by the author of
" The Eed Conspiracy" at the I. W. W. headquarters, 1001 West
Madison Street, Chicago, in the latter part of the spring of
1919, also informs us on page 123 :

" As far as sabotage is concerned, all the I. W. W. speakers
and the I. W. W. press countenance it although they steadily
warn the workers against the indiscriminate and unsocial use
of that weapon of warfare."

CHAPTER IX

INDUSTRIAL WORKERS OF THE WORLD IN
ACTION

Members of the I. "W. W. and Socialists who advocate sabotage
or get into trouble in one way or another, especially in strikes,
are often put into prison for their revolutionary talk or their
violent methods. The One Big Industrial Union and, of course,
the Socialist Party then proclaim their innocence, collect funds
for their defense, and urge all the working men of our country
to strike in behalf of amnesty for " poor, persecuted, noble pro-
tagonists of the cause of labor jailed because freedom of speech
and liberty of action are no longer tolerated by the govern-
ment." Thus on page 409 of the February, 1918, edition of the
" International Socialist Eeview," which was suppressed by the
United States Government, we read:

" Socialists Demand Fair Trial for Indicted I. W. W. — In a
declaration adopted by its Rational Executive Committee the
Socialist Party calls for a fair and unprejudiced trial for the
indicted members of the Industrial Workers of the World. The
demand says :

" ' The Socialist Party repeats its declaration of support of
all economic organizations of the working class and declares the
lynching, deportation, prosecution and persecution of the Indus-
trial Workers of the World is an attack upon every toiler in
America, and we now call attention to the fact that the charges
of incendiarism, the burning of crops and forests and of
vicious destruction of property, made by the public press against
the I. W. W., have been proven pure fabrications when put to
legal test. The Socialist Party has always extended its aid,
material and moral, to organized labor wherever and whenever
it has been attacked by the capitalist class, and this without
reference to form of organization or special policies; therefore
we pledge our support to the Industrial Workers of the World
now facing trial in Chicago and elsewhere, and demand for
them a fair and unprejudiced trial and urge our members to use
every effort to assist the Industrial Workers of the World by
familiarizing the public with the real facts, to overcome the

THE I. W. W. IN ACTION 115

falsehoods and misiiiformation with which the capitalist press
has poisoned and prejudiced the public mind and judgment
against these workers, who are now singled out for destruction,
just as other labor organizations and leaders have been singled
out for destruction by the same capitalist forces in the past."

The Socialist Party, in pledging its support to the Industrial
Workers of the World, pledges its support to a revolutionary
organization like itself. " The One Big Union Monthly,"
March 1, 1919, page 4, under the caption, " The Eed Tidal
Wave," says :

" With great satisfaction we record the fact that the red
revolutionary wave is encircling the globe, sweeping away the
last remnants of feudal rubbish from the body social, and some
of the capitalistic. The world war acted like a vigorous laxa-
tive on the stomach of the nations."

" The Rebel Worker," an I. W. W. paper of New York City,
in its issue of April 15, 1919, after printing the word, " Eevolu-
tion" in the heaviest type all the way across the paper, pub-
lishes an article on the first page entitled " Terrible Days Ahead
in the United States."

" ' The United States is in the grip of a bloody revolution !
Thousands of workers are slaughtered by machine guns in ISTew
York City ! Washington is on fire ! Industry is at a stand-
still and thousands of workers are starving ! The government
is using the most brutal and repressive measures to put down
the revolution! Disorganization, crime, chaos, rape, murder
and arson are the order of the day — the inevitable results of
social revolution ! '

" The above is what we may expect to see on the front pages
of what few newspapers survive the upheaval. ISTo one who has
the interest of the working class at heart wants to see such a
revolution. But whether those interested in the working class
want to see such a revolution or not, there are powerful forces
in the United States that are making for just such a catas-
trophe. The Industrial Workers of the World has in the past
and is now using all of its energies to avert such a cataclysmic
debacle. It is not yet too late to avoid this terrible and san-
guinary strife — provided that the I. W. W. is allowed to carry
out its program of organizing and educating the workers for the
purpose of taking control of, and operating industry and giving
to those who work the full social value of the product of their
labor,"

116 THE RED CONSPIRACY

" The New Solidarity," the Chicago organ of the I. W. "VV., in
its edition of April 19, 1919, publishes on the editorial page au
article entitled, " When We Are Eeady," part of which is hereby
quoted :

"Frequently the question is asked how the proletariat is to
know when they are ready for the revolution, how it would be
possible to know a sufficient number were class conscious enough
for the revolutionary change. This question is asked with the
idea that there must be a periodical counting of noses, and that
little or nothing may be done except educate until an absolute
majority has been obtained

" It matters not how many members of the working class do
or do not stand up to be counted for or against capitalism, Just
as soon as the organized workers can overthrow that system of
industry they will do it and not wait to be counted

" To wait for majorities at all times is to enervate and emas-
culate the working class movement. To constantly attack, and
attack for the purpose of taking and administering industry for
the workers by action on the Job and in the Union halls, is to
strengthen and encourage the workers in their task, and is the
plan that must ultimately win the age-long struggle against
exploitation."

On September 5, 1917, the I. W. W. headquarters, 1001 West
Madison street, Chicago, and the Socialist headquarters were
raided by the United States authorities. On March 10, 1919,
Solicitor General Lamar of the Post Office Department sub-
mitted a memorandum to the Senate propaganda committee
stating that the I. W. W., anarchists, socialists and others were
"perfecting an amalgamation with one object — the overthrow
of the government of the United States by means of a bloody
revolution and the establishment of a Bolshevik Eepublic." Mr.
Lamar said his conclusion was based upon information con-
tained in seized mail matter. Accompanying the memorandum
were several hundred excerpts from the mail matter. The
solicitor named the following organs, published in the interest
of the I. W. W. or Bolshevist movements: " The ISTew Solidar-
ity," English, weekly, Chicago ; " One Big Union," English,
monthly, Chicago; "Industrial Unionist," English, weekly,
Seattle; "California Defense Bulletin," English, weekly, San
Francisco; "The Eebel Worker," English, bi-monthly, New
York; "La Neuva Solidaridad," Spanish, weekly, Chicago;
" Golos Truzenta," Kussian, weeldy, Chicago ; " U Nhiovo Pro-
letario," Italian, weekly, Chicago; "Nya Yarlden," Swedish,

THE I. W. W. IN ACTION- 117

weekly, Chicago; "Der Industrialer Arbiter," Jewish, weekly,
Chicago ; " Probuda," Bulgarian, weekly, Chicago ; " A. Fels
Badulas," Hungarian, weekly, Chicago. After referring to the
excerpts from the seized mail matter, the solicitor general's
memorandum said in part : " This propaganda is being con-
ducted with such regularity that its magnitude can be measured
by the bold and outspoken statements contained in these publi-
cations and the efforts made therein to inaugurate a nation-wide
reign of terror and overthrow of the government.

" In classifying these statements, they are submitted in a
major or general class as follows : I. W. W., anarchistic, radical-
socialistic and socialist. It will be seen from these excerpts
and it is indeed significant that this is the first time in the his-
tory of the so-called radical movement in the United States that
the radical elements have found a common cause (Bolshevism)
in which they can all unite. The I. W. W., anarchistic, social-
ists, radical and otherwise, in fact all dissatisfied elements, par-
ticularly the foreign element, are perfecting amalgamation with
one object, and with one object in view, namely, the overthrow
of the government of the United States by the means of a
bloody revolution and the establishment of a Bolshevik
republic.

" The I. W. W. is perhaps most actively engaged in spreading
this propaganda and has at its command a large field force
known as recruiting agents, subscription agents, etc., who work
unceasingly in the furtherance of ' the cause ! '

" This organization publishes at least five newspapers in the
English language and nine in foreign languages. This list
comprises only official papers of the organization and does not
take into account the large number of free lance papers pub-
lished in the interest of the above organization."

In the April 19, 1913, edition of " Solidarity," the eastern
organ of the I. "W. W., we are informed that " among other dis-
eases common to all nations and particularly prevalent in the
United States is respect for law and order." The same edition
of the paper extends greetings to "all Eebels" from its new
home in Cleveland.

During the 1913 Paterson strike, which was managed by the
I. W. W., Quinlan, one of the leaders, declared on May 17th :

" Paterson is a dangerous place to live in just at this time,
no matter in what direction you are looking. The longer the
strike lasts, the stronger and more bitter and the madder the
workers are growing. Out of it all we want to build up an

118 THE RED CONSPIEACY

organization that will be able to fight efficiently, and fight to
win — to fight to win, if necessary, by dying.

" And we are going to win this strike or Paterson will be
wiped off the map. If the strike is not won Paterson will be a
howling wilderness and a graveyard industrially, because the
workers will not stay there. We have had too long and bitter
a fight to lay down what we have gained so far. Heaven might
fall and hell might break loose, but the strike is going to be
won."

Boyd, another speaker, is reported as saying on the same day :

" We are going to get what we want whether the courts want
it or not. We are going to call a general strike, if it is neces-
sary, to free our fellow-workers. We are going to cut off the
lights in Paterson, and tie up the street car system. We shall
reduce the city to a condition of absolute helplessness. We
are going to paralyze Paterson, and we are going to win in
Paterson just as we are going to win in New York City."

Eobert Plunkett, said to b e a former Cornell studen t, who
was introduced as a " fellow-worker,'' urged the strikers and
their sympathizers to use every means to free their leaders,
even if Paterson had to " starve or go naked." He said that
the lights would be put out in Paterson, and that the street
cars would be tied up, so that Paterson would become a dead
city.

Mohl, who also made his appearance at the silk mills strike
in Paterson, declared on May 18, 1913 :

" The American flag is pretty to look at. Its colors are strik-
ing — red, white, and blue, with two or three twinkling stars
here and there, but it is not good to eat."

The I. W. W. is, of course, an atheistic and anti-religious
organization. In the March 1, 1919, issue of " The One Big
Union Monthly," page 40, we read under the caption, " Help
Wanted, Male or Female : "

" Priest or Minister to show the One Big Union family why
our Solidarity Dogma is not superior to the ethical teachings
of Jesus, Buddha or Mohammed, also to demonstrate the inside
of the religious business, and where it is interwoven with Wall
street."

"The Call," New York, May 3, 1919, in an editorial on
" The Bomb Plot," which had just aroused the whole nation,
said:

" The bomb and torch have not the slightest relation to any
branch of the organized labor movement in this country, and

THE 1. W. W. IN ACTION 119

the editors know it. Those who print such unfounded and
slanderous insinuations place themselves in the same class as
the would-be-assassm.''

This editorial was published the day after the following spe-
cial dispatch was sent to " The New York Times : "

" Sioux City, Iowa, May 2. — ' We will blow the whole town
to hell if you put Mayor Short out of office.' This was the
threat on a postcard addressed to E. J. Stanson, who is trying
to secure the recall of Maj'or Short. The card was received
today. It was signed ' I. "W. W. Alliance for Short.' The
police are rounding up all suspicious characters, and those
known to have a leaning toward the Bolshevists of the I. W. W.
Citizens are seeking to oust Short because he welcomed delegates
to a recent * wobblies ' convention here."

In the latter part of the spring of 1919 the author of "The
Eed Conspiracy " obtained at the I. "W. W. headquarters in
Chicago a leaflet entitled, " To Colored Workingmen and
Women ! " Part of it is hereby quoted :

" To the black race, who, but recently, with the assistance of
the white men of the northern states, broke their chains of
bondage and ended chattel slavery, a prospect of further free-
dom, of Eeal Freedom, should be most appealing.

" For it is a fact that the negro worker is no better off under
the freedom he has gained than the slavery from which he has
escaped. As chattel slaves we were the property of our masters,
and as a piece of valuable property our masters were considerate
of us and careful of our health and welfare. Today, as wage-
workers, the boss may work us to death at the hardest and most
hazardous labor, at the longest hours, at the lowest pay; we
may quietly starve when out of work and the boss loses noth-
ing by it and has no interest in us. To him the worker is but
a machine for producing profits, and when you, as a slave who
sells himself to the master on the installment plan, become old,
or broken in health or strength or should you be killed while
at work, the master merely gets another wage slave on the same
terms.

" We who have worked in the south know that conditions in
lumber and turpentine camps, in the fields of cane, cotton and
tobacco, in the mills and mines of Dixie, are such that the work-
ers suffer a more miserable existence than ever prevailed among
the chattel slaves before the great Civil War. ....

" The only problem, then, which the colored worker should
consider, as a worker, is the problem of organizing with other

120 THE RED CONSPIRACY

workingmen in the labor organization that best expresses the
interest of the whole working class against the slavery and
oppression of the whole capitalist class. Such an organization
is the I. W. W., the Industrial Workers of the World."

" The One Big Union Monthly," March 1, 1919, page 6, pub-
lishes an article entitled, " The Chinese and the I. W. W." :

" The Chinese workers in this country have discovered the
I. W. W

" Long enough have workers been divided along colored lines.
The old, old misunderstanding created by our masters is fading
away as we mutually discover that we are all condemned to
slavery if divided, and that freedom is ours if we unite. The
accessions of Chinese workers to our ranks fills us with great
joy. May they also succeed in soon carrying the gospel of
Working Class Solidarity and Industrial Organization to their
native country. That hope takes the sadness out of the news
of their possible deportation."

"I. W. W. Songs," a Eed booklet published at the Chicago
headquarters, has already met with such popularity among the
"Wobblies" that fourteen editions have been published. Sev-
eral songs, showing the spirit of the Eeds, are given here:

The Preacher and the Slave
By Joe Hill

(Tune : " Sweet Bye and Bye ")
Long-haired preachers come out every night.
Try to tell you what's wrong and what's right;
But when asked how 'bout something to eat
They will answer with voices so sweet:

Chorus
You will eat, bye and bye.
In that glorious land above the sky ;
Work and pray, live on hay.
You'll get pie in the sky when you die.

And the starvation army they play,

And they sing and they clap and they pray.

Till they get all your coin on the drum,

Then they'll tell you when you're on the bum:

Holy Eollers and jumpers come out.

And they holler, they jump and they shout.

" Give your money to Jesus," they say,

" He will cure all diseases to-day."

THE I. W. W. IN ACTION 121

If you fight hard for children and wife —
Try to get something good in this life —
You're a sinner and bad man, they tell,
When you die you will sure go to hell.

Workingmen of all countries, unite.
Side by side we for freedom will fight ;
When the world and its wealth we have gained
To the grafters we'll sing this refrain:

Last Chorus
You will eat, bye and bye,
When you've learned how to cook and to fry.
Chop some wood, 'twill do you good.
And you'll eat in the sweet bye and bye.

Tie 'Em Up !
(Words and music by G. G. Allen)

We have no fight with brothers of the old A. F. of L.,

But we ask you use your reason with the facts we have to tell.

Your craft is but protection for a form of property,

The skill that you are losing, don't you see.

Improvements on machinery take your tool and skill awa,v,

And you'll be among the common slaves upon some fateful day.

Now the things of which we're talking we are mighty sure

about. —
So what's the use to strike the way you can't win out ?

Chorus
Tie 'em up ! Tie 'em up ! That's the way to win.
Don't notify the bosses till hostilities begin.
Don't furnish chance for gunmen, scabs and all their like ;
What you need is One Big Union and the One Big Strike.

Why do you make agreements that divide you when you fight

And let the bosses bluff you with the contract's " sacred right? "

Why stay at work when other crafts are battling with the foe,

You all must stick together, don't you know.

The day when you begin to see the classes waging war

You can join the biggest tie-up that was ever known before.

When the strikes all o'er the country are united into one,

Th^n the workers' One Big Union all the wheels shall run.

122 the red conspikact

Walking on" the Grass

(Tune: " The Wearing of the Green")

In this blessed land of freedom where King Mammon wears the

crown.
There are many ways illegal now to hold the people down.
When the dudes of state militia are slow to come to time,
The law upholding Pinkertons are gathered from the slime.
There are wisely framed injunctions that you must not leave

your job.
And a peaceable assemblage is declared to be a mob.
And Congress passed a measure framed by some consummate

ass.
So they are clubbing men and women just for walking on the

grass.

In this year of slow starvation, when a fellow looks for work,
The chances are a cop will grab his collar with a jerk ;
He will run him in for vagrancy, he is branded as a tramp.
And all the well-to-do will shout : " It serves him right, the

scamp ! "
So we let the ruling class maintain the dignity of law,
When the court decides against us we are filled with wholesome

awe,
But we cannot stand the outrage without a little sauce
When they're clubbing men and women just for walking on the

The papers said the union men were all but anarchist,

So the job trust promised work for all who wouldn't enlist ;

But the next day when the hungry horde surrounded city hall,

He hedged and said he didn't promise anything at all.

So the powers that be are acting very queer to say the least —

They should go and read their Bible and all about Belshazzar's

feast,
And when mene tekel at length shall come to pass,
They'll stop clubbing men and women just for walking on the

grass.

Although the I. W. W. does not yet officially consLitute a part
of the Socialist organization, still very many of its members are
most active Socialists. Indeed, it may be said that the I. W. W.
is related to the Socialist Party quite as closely as a child is
to its mother, for not only does the I. W. W. owe its origin

THE I. W. W. IN ACTION l23

to tiie followers of Karl Marx, but they are its directors and
leaders, and have assisted and encouraged it in not a few of ita
principal strikes, notably at Lawrence, Mass., and Paterson,
N. J.

Though we readily concede that quite a number of Socialists
are individually antagonistic to the I. "W". W., still they are
opposed to it not because the I. W. W. differs in essential prin-
ciples from the Socialist Party or even because this unfriendly
minority of Socialists would oppose violent methods, if such
were considered expedient, bat because the " Yellow " Socialists
prefer political action which is made light of by the I. W. W.
direct actionists who are looked upon as enemies, for they seem
to be doing harm to the Socialist political propaganda. In
verification of this, an excellent proof is furnished by no less
an authority than John Sparge, then a Socialist, and a most
prolific writer, whose opposition to the Syndicalists and to the
direct actionists of the Socialist Party was a well established
fact even before the publication of lais book, " Syndicalism,
Industrial Unionism and Socialism." On page 172 of this
work he writes :

" If the class to which I belong could be set free from exploi-
tation by violation of laws made by the master class, by open
rebellion, by seizing the property of the rich, by setting the
torch to a few buildings, or by the summary execution of a
few members of the possessing class, I hope that the courage
to share in the work would be mine."

Spargo, in " Syndicalism, Industrial Unionism and Social-
ism," admits that the Socialists have continually and consist-
ently given aid to the Industrial Workers of the World in their
strikes. Yet notwithstanding this active support, many per-
sons have been led to believe that the Socialists have repudiated
the I. W. W. This incorrect opinion may be due to the fact
that the Socialist Party did not endorse the I. W. W. at its
1912 National Convention, or else to the fact that William D.
Haywood was subsequently removed by a referendum from the
ITational Executive Committee of the Socialist Party. But
the 1912 Indianapolis Convention of the Socialist Party did not
repudiate the Industrial Workers of the World. The repre-
sentatives of the party only declared for a neutrality between
this organization and the American Federation of Labor, and
would in all probability have endorsed the I. W. W. and repudi-
ated the American Federation of Labor if the Socialists had
not nursed a hope of getting control of the latter organization

124 THE EBD CONSPIEACT

and turning it into an industrial union similar to that of the
Industrial Workers of the World.

That the Socialist Party hy no means repudiated the I. W. W.,
but on the contrary was still on the most friendly terms with it
after the 1912 Convention, is evident from several facts. " The
Call," May 17, 1912, affirms that the Convention decided for
neutrality in affairs of unions.

In the "Appeal to Eeason," May 25, 1912, we read: "So
after long weeks of discussion in the press, after days of appre-
hensions and fencing for advantage, the labor organization com-
mittee brought forth a unanimous report, which after a few
speeches, all expressing the spirit of solidarity, was adopted
without a dissenting vote. It was a compromise resolution.
Each side declares itself completely satisfied with it. Each
declares that it expresses its sentiments."

William D. Haywood, who perhaps more than any other per-
son had the interests of the I. W. W. at heart, declared, accord-
ing to "The Call," May 17, 1912, that with the adoption of
this declaration concerning the neutrality of the party towards
the two rival labor unions he felt that he could go to the
8,000,000 workers of the nation and carry to them the message
of Socialism. " This," he continues, " is the greatest step that
has yet been taken by the Socialist Party."

Although Haywood was for the time being removed from the
N"ational Executive Committee of the party, charged with favor-
ing direct action rather than political action, he was never
expelled from the party — which yet boasted so much of the
constitutional clause adopted at the 1912 National Convention
demanding that any member who opposes political action, or
advocates crime, sabotage, or other methods of violence as a
weapon of the working class, to aid in its emancipation, shall
be expelled from membership in the party.

" The New Unionism," page 119, points out some of the
" merits " of the I. W. W., in comparison made with the Social-
ist Party, against which it was somewhat offended by the anti-
sabotage and anti-direct action plank adopted at the 1912
National Convention:

" There are vote-getters and politicians who waste their time
coming into a community where ninety per cent, of the men
have no vote, where the women are disfranchised 100 per cent.,
and where the boys and girls under age, of course, are not
enfranchised. Still they will speak to these people about the
power of the ballot, and they never mention a thing about tha

THE I. W. W. IN ACTION 135

power of the general strike. They seem to lack the foresight,
the penetration to interpret political power. They seem to lack
the understanding that the broadest interpretation of political
power comes through the industrial organization; that the
industrial organization is capable not only of the general strike,
but prevents the capitalists from disfranchising the worker ;
it gives the vote to women, it re-enfranchises the black man
and places the ballot in the hands of every boy and girl em-
ployed in a shop, makes them eligible to take part in the gen-
eral strike, makes them eligible to legislate for themselves
where they are most interested in changing conditions, namely,
in the place where they work." ^„^

Again we read, on page 132 of " The New Unionism " : "

" The politicians in the Socialist Party, who want offices in
the government, fight the I. W. W. because we have no place in
our ranks for them, and if our idea prevails, it will crowd them
out and destroy their influence as 'saviors of the working
class.' These politicians cater for votes to the middle
class — to business men, farm owners and other small labor
skinners — while the I. W. W. appeals only to wage-workers,
and allows none but actual wage-workers to join our ranks.
The Socialists can never get a majority of votes for a working
class programme (if they had such a programme) because the
majority of voters are middle class, since about ten million male
wage-workers are disfranchised (being foreigners or floaters
without long enough residence in one place to have votes). But
the wage- workers are a big majority of the whole people, and
produce nearly all wealth, so when they organize as the I. W. W.
proposes, the working class will control the country, and with
similar organizations in other countries will control the world.
Foreigners, women, children and other non-voters at elections,
have equal rights in the union, and take part in its activities,
regardless of nationality, age, sex, or any other consideration
except that they are wage-workers with common interests in
opposition to those of the employers."

It may come as a surprise to the reader to hear that at the
1917 St. Louis Convention of the Socialist Party the anti-
sabotage and anti-direct action plank of the Constitution was
dropped. The "International Socialist Eeview," May, 1917,
page 669, commenting on the removal of the clause, says :

" It has served its purpose, which was to guillotine and drive
out most of the revolutionary workers from the party. The
Constitution committee recommended that it be striken out

I<i6 'I'HE RED CONSPIRACY

by unanimous consent without going on the minutes or records.
Euthenberg opposed. He insisted that it be struck out and
the minutes show the record of the action. It was carried
almost unanimously."

Further on we read in the same issue of " The International
Socialist Eeview":

"An industrial union plank to be inserted in the platform
was defeated by a vote of 63 to 61. Had it been offered as a
resolution it would have gone through by a big majority."
Though most of the Convention favored the I. "W. W., evidently
a small majority feared to put the Socialist Party on record.

In 1918 and 1919 the Socialist Party grew more and more
friendly to the I. W. W, At present they seem to have fallen
in love with each other. The American Federation of Labor
is held in greatest contempt by the Socialist press, while the
I. W. W. is lauded to the skies. Its meetings are advertised,
sympathy and aid are extended to its imprisoned officials and
everything is being done to help it along.

Eugene V. Debs has all along been the sincere friend of the
I. W. W. In the February, 1918, issue of the " International
Socialist Eeview," page 395, he says:

" Every plutocrat, every profiteering pirate every food vulture,
every exploiter of labor, every robber and oppressor of the poor,
every hog under a silk tile, every vampire in human form will
tell you that the A. F. of L. under Gompers is a great and
patriotic organization and that the I. W. W. under Haywood is
a gang of traitors in the pay of the bloody Kaiser.

""Wliich of these, think you, Mr. "Wage-Slave, is your friend
and the friend of your class ? . . . .

" The war within the war and beyond the war in which the
I. W. W. is fighting — the war of the workers of all countries
against the exploiters of all countries — is our war, the war of
humanity against its oppressors and despoilers, the holiest war
ever waged since the race began."

"The Call," N"ew York, April 19, 1919, published at the top
of its editorial page, " Debs' Daily Message from Moundsville
Prison : "

" Though Jailed, He Speaketh.

"The clear voice of the awakened and dauntless few cannot
be silenced. The new unionism is being heard. In trumpet
tones it rings out its revolutionary shibboleth to all the workers
of the earth: 'Our interests are identical — -let us combine
industrially and politically, assert our united power, achieve

THE I. W. W. IN ACTION 12'}'

our freedom, enjoy the fruit of our labor, rid society of para-
sitism, abolish poverty and civilize the world !'.... ._„,

" There can be no peace until the working class is triumphant ,
in this struggle and the wage system is forever wiped from the \
earth." ^

In the May Day issue of "The Call," May 1, 1919, there is
a very long article on Debs' Imprisonment by David Karsner,
staff correspondent. He tells us that on the afternoon of April
28 he sat talking with Debs in his little room in the prison hos-
pital at Moundsville, "West Virginia, and that the many-times
presidential candidate of the Socialist Party among other
things said, when told of an intended visit by Karsner to the
Leavenworth Federal prison to see William D. Haywood and
the other 93 I. W. W. prisoners:

" I want you to take my love to Bill Haywood and all the
other boys you see out there. We all stand shoulder to
shoulder together."

The staff correspondent then goes on to say :

" The reference of Debs to Haywood and the I. W. W.
brought vividly to my mind the little scene enacted between
' Gene ' and ' Big Bill ' in the corridor of Judge Landis' court-
room in Chicago last August during the I. W. W. trial.

" ' You and the boys are making a great and noble fight,'
said Debs to Haywood at that time, patting the cheek of Big
Bni. ' You are a born champion of the underdog.' Haywood
clasped Debs' in his own great palm and said affectionately,
' You are the champion of the underdog, Gene, and you always
will be.' There was something thrilling and inspiring in wit-
nessing this friendly and comradely felicitation between two
noble men, both of whom have never retreated one jot from
their ideas of emancipation of the working class.

" I recalled as I saw him this afternoon that seven years ago,
or at the time of the Indianapolis Convention of the Socialist
party, Debs pleaded for unity of the movement. He refused
to be stampeded into any position that would compromise the
noble work that confronted himself and the Socialist Party.
Debs has always been for industrial unionism. His speeches
and writings are filled with the spirit of organization and soli-
darity on the industrial field as well as on the political. But
above everything else he has warned his fellow Socialists and
industrialists that the thing to do is to keep united, to solidify
their economic and political strength to the end that when our
day comes we shall be ready to enjoy the fruits of our victory,"

128 THE RED CONSPIEACT

" The One Big Union Monthly," March 1, 1919, pages 14, 19
and 21, gives us some very interesting information about th^
I. W. W. attitude toward Bolshevism and the two extreme
groups of the Socialists :

"We have long predicted the revolutionary cyclone that is
now sweeping over the world, even though few people cared to
believe us. We asked them to prepare for it by building up
the framework of the new society within the shell of the old, in
other words to see to it that we had the new house ready to
move into, before we dynamited the old one

" Personally we are convinced that Russia will never again
return to the old order. The workers have control and they
will not let go of it. As the days go by, they will gradually
organize production and distribution on the lines of industrial
unionism, as Lenine assures us, and that will be their salvation.

" The plight of the Eussian people is a warning to other peo-
ples to immediately start building the new society, by building
industrial unions right now, before the structure of the old
society topples over. Industrial unions are the only social
apparatus that will make abolishment of wage slavery possible.

" The Bolshevik Eevolution has emphasized this sad fact.
Socialism in Eussia, facing for the first time in Socialist his-
tory, the problem of inaugurating a working class state, found
itself paralyzed by the existence of a parliamentary form of
Democracy. The Eevolution was at stake. In order to destroy
capitalism it was necessary to destroy parliamentary Democracy,
and Lenine destroyed it. In its place he reared a new form of
Democracy — the Dictatorship of the Proletariat, which is
Socialism.

" And yet, so misled is the thinking of our European Social-
ists that in the very presence of a living, accomplished Social-
ist commonwealth, they hastened to repudiate it because it was
not ' Democratic' Plekhanov betrayed it. Kautsky reviled
it. Albert Thomas called upon the capitalists of Prance to
send their soldiers there and crush it. Mr. Walling, Mr. Spargo
and Mr. Russell baptized themselves into a ' Socialist ' crusade
to destroy Socialism. Could idiocy be more abject?

" The alternative is presented, to choose between Socialism
or Democracy. Or perhaps it would be better to put it —
between industrial Democracy and parliamentary Democracy.
And our pitiable Sparges, duped by a stale phrase, abandon
their Socialism because it is not ' Democratic,'

THE I. W. W. IN ACTION 129

"In America, it is this same issue of Democracy which has
long been the dividing line between the Socialist Party and the
I. W. W. Like the Bolshevists of Eussia, the I. W. "W. have
championed Democracy but we have refused to allow the capi-
talist thinkers to define it ior us. We have practiced Democ-
racy in our organization and we have sublimated it into the
most perfect of Democratic organizations. But always, it has
been a Democracy only of proletarians. We have built the
framework of a new society which says that those shall not
vote who do not work. And this, indeed, is Socialism.

" But the political Socialists have feared to draw this dis-
tinction. They have not built themselves upon the proletarian
rock. Into their ranks they have admitted, not only the
butcher, the baker and the candle-stick maker, but also the
lawyer, the doctor, the merchant, the sky pilot, yes, and even
the capitalists — known as millionaire Socialists. Out of such
a medley, a medley philosophy was sprouted. Democracy, to
the political Socialists, could not be rigidly proletarian, because
the political Socialists, themselves, were not proletarians. And
their ideals paled into evasion and compromise.

" Again, the I. W. W. being proletarian, spurned a parlia-
mentary action which would have drawn it together with the
exploiting class. It realized, before Spargo took that fatal
dodge, that, from parliamentary Socialism to parliamentary
Democracy it was but a step. Hence we spurned politics and
parliamentarism, and substituted a Democracy, grouped around
unions, and not around parliaments.

" But the political Socialists, immersed in parliamentary
hack work, stifled the Socialist concept of Democracy by recog-
nizing and participating in the capitalist form of IDemocracy,
Entering the parliaments, they dreamed that they could trans-
form these parliaments into Socialist republics. Only too soon
they discovered that the parliaments had transformed them into
' Democratic ' apologists. Like a poisoning strain, parliamen-
tarism spread out over Socialism. And so, when Socialism
came at last in Eussia, without the aid of the foolish parlia-
ments, deluded Socialists cried that Bolshevism was not Social-
ism."

The year 1919 witnessed a very marked drawing together, in
the United States and throughout the world, of I. W. W. 'ism,
or Syndicalism, and all the bodies of radical, revolutionary
Socialism. The Moscow Bolshevists gave a great "boost" to
the I. W. W. principle of industrial unionism by endorsing it

130 THE RED CONSPIEACT

and declaring that Eussia was being reorganized economically
along similar lines. Bolshevism in Eussia, in fact, has had the
help and counsel of I. W. W. experts from the United States,
and I. W. W. leaders in America have naturally been elated.
John Sandgren wrote in " The ISTew Solidarity," April 12, 1919:

" The immortal gains of Bolshevism for humanity lie on the
political field. When it comes to economic reconstruction, the
Bolsheviks are going to find that it cannot be made from the
top through laws and regulations. Any attempt to make the
people the real owners of the means of production and distribu-
tion must start with the industrial organization of the workers
themselves as outlined in the I. W. W. program. In the mean-
time, let us hope that Bolshevism will sweep victoriously over
all such parts of the world where it still has a mission to per-
form. After that, begins the I. W. W. period in human his-
tory."

The April 1, 1919, issue of " The One Big Union Monthly,"
published the Eussian Communist Party call and invitation to
the Moscow Conference [see Chapter III for a copy of this
document] , remarking that " as to the general demand for the
overthrow of Capitalism, the dis-establishment of private
ownership and making the working-class the rulers of the world,
there is apt to be little if any dissension." However, noting
that "the I. W. W. of this and other countries" had been
invited to the conference, it declared that " we have no reason
to get excited over the invitation," since, " with the exception
of the I. W. "W., there is hardly any of the thirty-nine invited
bodies who seriously endorse industrial unionism as the basis
of a 'new society. . . . The proposed commimist conference
would consequently be a congress of radical political Socialists
to consider the question of discontinuing the use of the ballot
and adopting the methods used by the Eussian communists in
the past in overthrowing capitalist society." The I. W. W.
world-scheme is then outlined :

" The I. W. W. has given up all thought of using the machin-
ery of the present state for its purposes. It proposes to create
an entirely new machinery of administration in which not even
a particle of the old shall enter as a constituent part. We pro-
]5ose to re-group all mankind on industrial lines in industrial
organizations which we hope will make superfluous and crowd
out the political groupings which constitute the state. We pro-
pose to make the unit of industry, the place of work, the shop,
the mill, the field, the ship, the basis of our new social organi-

THE I. W. W. IN ACTION 131

zation. These units will combine in two diiferent manners.
From a purely industrial standpoint, they will unite with other
units into large industrial unions, calculated to embrace the
whole world, each and every one of them. For the purpose of
local administration, we propose that the local industrial units
shall form a district industrial council or local administrative
body to take care of local affairs. As we propose to order all
branches of human activity along these- lines and include them
in a world scheme of industrial co-operation, we must conclude
that our program, although fundamentally aiming at the same
thing as the program of the Communist Party, somewhat dif-
fers from the program proposed as a basis of unity."

An editorial in the same issue on " Soviet Government in the
U. S." says :

" The papers have informed us that the police and the secret
service have unearthed a gigantic plot among the Socialists of
this country to gather up all the radical elements with a view
to establishing a Soviet government in this country. . . . We
do not deny that this agitation is useful, for it stirs people to
thought and excites contradiction, . . . but when that is
said, we have said all the good we can about it

" The Eussians made their revolution not because they had
Soviets, but because the people willed it. . . . The I. W. W.
has at least on paper an institution corresponding to the
Soviet, namely, the District Industrial Council, . . . _ a local
representative body of the various industrial unions in each
locality. So far, it lacks all practical significance because we
are not numerous enough, but whenever there is to be a radical
change in this country, the change will have to be made through
these councils locally. They will take over the functions which
were taken over by the Soviets in Eussia."

Another editorial in the same issue treats of the overtures of
the Left Wing Socialists:

" Of late we have noticed an ever-increasing tendency to hush
us up in the name of unity. We are being told not to show up
political Socialism ; we are told not to attack Anarchism. _ We
are asked to be more lenient toward the A. F. of L. [American
Federation of Labor.] We mustn't touch on church and

religion i ■ t ,t.

"It appears that political Socialists, anarchists and other
labor elements feel that the bottom has fallen out of their pro-
grams and they want us to keep quiet about it, and as a reward
we will secure their friendly services. The I. W. W. is not
willing to enter into any such bargain."

133 THE RED CONSPIRACY

Another editorial gives further light on the " boring in " pro-
cess begun by theoretical Socialists with an itch for revolution
— paper soldiers anxious to get a-straddle of the great strike-
conducting war-horse of I. W. W. 'ism and ride into "the dic-
tatorship of the proletariat." This is thus dealt with :

" There is a large element in this country who want a radical
change if not a revolution. This element would like to see the
change made to suit them with the smallest possible cost to
themselves.

" The most insistent agitators belong to the upper-class radi-
cals, and their object seems to be to stir the working masses
into some sort of revolutionary activity, not clearly defined. It
seems they built great hopes on the participation of the I. W. W.
They know we are a compact mass of industrial workers, able
to manipulate such great affairs as the general strikes in Seattle
and Butte, the strike of the silk workers, the strike on the
Mesaba Eange, and so on, and we are just what they need for
their purpose.

" For this reason we have met with an unusual amount of
courtesy and consideration of late, but we are sorry to say that
we do not consider it disinterested. If these revolutionists were
sincere in their friendship for us, they would throw everything
aside and help us build up industrial unionism, but that is
exactly what they are not doing to any considerable extent.
Their activities are directed on aims that are strange and for-
eign to lis. Some of their adherents in overalls are getting
into our ranks because they work in the industries we have
organized or because our recruiting unions are open to them,
and their activity is frequently annoying to us, as it has little
or nothing to do with the industrial organization of the work-
ers."

The same issue contains an article by a Left Winger, I. E.
Ferguson, a " Little Corporal " ready to step to the front of
I. W. W. 'ism and lead it to glory. He complains :

" The attempt to ' hog the market ' of propagandizing the
Russian Eevolution in the United States for the I. W. W. is
leading to excesses which ought to be checked right now, else
these excesses will accomplish injury to the American Socialist
movement. This does not mean to repudiate the claims of the
I. W. W. to any extent, but to controvert the negative proposi-
tion that all of the American revolutionary socialist movement
is and necessarily must be within the folds of the I. W. W.

THE I. W. W. IN ACTION 133

" The I. W. W. is the livest thing in the American Socialist
movement, therefore, truly, the Greatest Thing On Earth for
the American working class. But . . . when the same
organization carries on the business of unionism and the busi-
ness of revolution at the same time, it is more than likely, when
it becomes overburdened, to throw overboard the more remote
job in favor of the more immediate one. Eevolution is a politi-
cal proposition, or, if you please, anti-political. Its direct task
is the overthrow of the capitalist state, the bulwark of capitalist
industrialism. There is no question in the world but that the
I. W. W. form of labor organization is the most powerful pos-
sible weapon for the overthrow of the capitalist state, because
of its adaptability to great mass protests and mass movements
of the proletariat. But only an organization with the sole aim
of revolution can take the responsibility for leadership in this
fight."

Granting some truth in the above argument, it is not prob-
able that a great practical organization like the I. W. W., which
does things, and very rough things, will invite theorists, non-
working drones, to come in and take charge of it. ISTor is it
willing to be borrowed, and diverted into an engine to run toy
revolutions. This is the substance of the reply to Ferguson
made by Harold Lord Varney in the same magazine. We
quote its pith:

" Like the Left Wingers of the Socialist Party ; lilce the edi-
tors and the writers of the Eevolutionary Age and the Class
Struggle; like the Eastmans, the Kearings and the Prainas of
our American movement, my critic is obsessed with Eussia. To
him, the Bolshevists and their mass action revolutions are like
dazzling, fiery suns which blind and obscure all rivals

" As proletarians, I. W. W.'s rejoiced at the Lenine triumph.
As proletarians, we have unwaveringly supported the Bolshevist
regime in all our propaganda. Those of our members who hap-
pened to he in Eussia when the October Eevolution came (and
there were thousands of them) were all found in the Bolshevist
army. Bill Shatoff, Volodarsky, Martoff, Kornuk and others
who have been leaders in the Bolshevist army were all old mem-
bers of the I. W. W. In brief, then, were we in Eussia, all I. W.
W.'s would be Bolsheviki. But from this it does not necessarily
follow that in America the I. W. W. must turn Bolshevist also.

"Mr. Ferguson's proposition is that after all these years of
struggle we should now discard this One Big Union goal and

134 TPIE EiiD CONSPIEAC'J'

unite with political Socialists to create an American Bolsheviki,
And in that .proposal he demonstrates the impractical artless-
ness of the Left Winger. The I. W. W. is a Socialist who is a
materialist. The Left Winger is a Socialist who is an ideologist.
The I. W. W. seeks for verities and for concrete, ponderable
power. The Left Winger follows the intoxicating dreams of his
own imagination

" Of course, the I. W. W. wants unity.. But we will have no
unity with any who are not willing to accept the proletarian con-
ception of Socialism. We will have no unity with any who do
not belong to our class. And we will have no unity with any
who flinch at the ' radicalism ' of our program. . . . ,

" The I. W. W. is not anti-political. Its members are free
to be members of the Socialist Party and thousands of us, the
.writer included, do carry Socialist cards

" The social revolution is not a thing of theories. It is merely
the final act of working-class organization. It is the historic
mission of the working class to mount to supreme power. They
do this, iiot by debating nor by marching in the street ; they do
this by the slow process of organization. In their union halls,
the workers learn class consciousness. In their union halls,
the workers learn self-government. In their union halls, the
workers are disciplined and solidified for the ' final conflict.'
Every strike is a revolution in miniature. Every gain which
organized workers make, by a conscious act of their own,
weakens capitalism and is revolutionary. In short, the union
movement is the schoolhouse of the new society

" Mr. Ferguson is not correct in asserting that the I. W. W.
does not have ' the sole aim of revolution.' In our Preamble, he
will find the boldest revolutionary utterance which has ever been

penned Even were we silent in revolutionary words,

our very form of organization and mode of action stamp us as
revolutionists. We are organized against capital. We are an
army that is ever battling

" The real I. W. W. is not to be read in books of the intel-
lectuals. It does not flash in phrases. It is written in the
hearts of strong silent men. It can be read in the ineffable tales
of anguish which ring from the prisons of the land. It can be
read in the tragic sacrifices of the Littles, the Joe Hills, the
Barans, the Looneys, the Jonsons, the Eabinowitzes, the Gerlots,
the Jack Whytes whom destiny has claimed from among us. Its
chapters have been penned, not with words, but with the livin,^
dramas of Spokane and San Diego, Lawrence and Paterson,
McKee's Eocks, Everett and Mesaba Eange."

THE I. W. W. IN ACTIOIT 135

This is indeed the spirit of the most dangerous organization
of devoted fanatics in the world today, and if our present order
of society hopes to survive its steady, unrelenting assault, it
must take into its hands the weapons of truth and justice.

"We have given these quotations to show clearly both the dif-
ference and the bond of union between the I. W. W.'s and the
other brands of Socialists. A Left Winger sums it up con-
cisely (" The Communist," August 23, 1919) : " The syndical-
. ist and the Socialist have this in common : That they both
strive for the reduction of the state to zero and the 'building
of a new society within the shell of the old.' The fundamental
difference between the two is that the syndicalist naively strives
to build the new society while the capitalist class controls the
coercive power, and the Socialist aims to destroy that power
first and then begin the ' building ' process."

But I. W. W. 'ism is the more logical, and, in conditions like
those in the United States, much the more dangerous, because
it is revolution going on every day of the year, holding what it
gets, be it much or little. Moreover, since I. W. "VT. 'ism will
not give up its position. Socialism in America has adopted the
industrial unionism creed. This now is the backbone of all the
recent Socialist platforms, including that of the Socialist Party
of America. Even with the Left Winger's buoyant faith in a
speedy overturn of the United States, he now sees that the One
Big Union is the necessary steam-roller to accomplish it, and
for months he has been at work, "boring from vidthin," to get
the forces of American labor industrially organized for revolu-
tionary action. In short, there has been a general following of
the advice which " Truth," Left Wing organ in the ISTorthwest,
gave in its issue of May 23, 1919, as its answer to the above-
quoted challenge of Varney to Ferguson :

" The Left Wing represents the revolutionary portion of the
Socialist Party in opposition to the opportunism of the Eight
Wing. Therefore we must, in order to make the Socialist Party
a revolutionary expression of the working class, join hands with
the Left Wing

" The I. W. W. represents the revolutionary section of the
working class in opposition to the opportunism of Gompers et
al. Therefore we must, in order to make working class organi-
zations revolutionary, join hands with the I. W. W.

" The resolutions and the manifestoes of the Left Wing are
revolutionary expressions. But action counts for more than
words. If all Left Winge-rs are sincere they will join in the

136 THE RED CONSPIRACY

I. W. W. and endeavor to make the I. W. W. the dominant
working-class organization throughout the country. The times
demand that we must make ready to enforce our demands. No
pious resolutions will bring us freedom. Only POWER
through organization on the job will bring us freedom. True
it is that we have to resort to mass action. But the basis of our
mass action must be organization on the job. The I. W. W.
represents the highest form of industrial organization and there-
fore merits our support. So we trust that ALL Left Wingers
will join with the I. W. W. This is not the time to indulge in
hair-splitting. If you are enraptured by what has taken place
in Eussia, do your share here in America."

This appeared in May, 1919. Six months later we open the
December, 1919, " One Big Union Monthly " and read :

"We need hardly repeat the now well known facts that the
workers of western Canada and of Australia have in mass
adopted our principles in the course of this year. Close upon
these significant events came tlie news that the three fragments
into which the Socialist Party was split endorsed industrial
unionism, while two of them rather outspokenly favored the
I. W. W.

" Later we were able to state that the increase in our own
membership in the course of the 13 months, September 1, 1918,
to September 1, 1919, was about 50,000. Now we are able to
inform our readers that the growth of the last three months has
been unprecedented. Lumber workers, miners, construction
workers, marine transport workers and many other unions report
many thousands of new members. We are getting a footing
in fields that we have never been able to touch before, such as
the printing industry and building construction. Carpenters
and painters are joining us by the thousand. On November
9th delegates of eight independent unions in different indus-
tries, representing something like 250,000 workers, met in New
York City and took the first steps for an affiliation with the
I. W. W. — in spite of jails and persecution. And let us not
forget that the Negro workers of the U. S. are organizing on the
basis of our program.

" But the influence of our principles is not limited to the
English-speaking people in America and Australia. Other races
and countries are enthusiastically taking up our program and
proudly announcing that they are with the I. W. W. Thus in
Mexico our movement has taken form and been laid out on a
national basis. In South America, where the labor movement

THE I. W. W. IN ACTIOIT 137

always has been in sympathy with us, the workers are going one
step further and have started organizing as an I. W. W. In
Buenos Ayres there is already an organization of 2,800 marine
transport workers in such an organization.

" Furthermore it is to be noted that practically all the old
trade unions on this continent prove to be honey-combed with
friends of the I. W. W.

" Over in Europe it is the same story. The rebuilding of
production and distribution in Eussia is said to be largely based
on our principles. At last report there were about 3,500,000
industrial workers organized in industrial unions for the carry-
ing on of production and distribution. The Eussian people are
taking possession of the industries through their industrial
unions.

"In Italy 'The Italian Syndicalist Union/ 300,000 strong,
is forging ahead along the same lines as the I. W. W. In Spain
our adherents are to be numbered by the hundreds of thousands.
In Prance the proposition has recently been made in the organ
of the Communist Party, ' L'Internationale Communiste,' to
start reorganizing the Prench working class on our program, in
opposition to the C. G. T. [Confederation Generale du Travail,
or Prench Confederation of Labor]. In England there is a
separate organization of the I. W. W. that is advancing rapidly,
while the influence on the old trade unions is very noticeable in
their changed attitude of late toward ' direct action.' ....

" But the biggest surprise of the year we received from Ger-
many. At least two separate calls have been issued by the Ger-
man workers to organize exactly as the I. W. W. The recently
formed ' Preie Arbeiter Union ' is also a federation of industrial
unions that endorse our principles. And, finally, from distant,
unknown Greece we are receiving news that the One Big Union
is the aim of aU the organized workers of that country."

Several very important facts have been proven in this and
the preceding chapter: first, that the Industrial Workers of
the World is a revolutionary organization in the strictest sense
and has for its object the overthrow of the United States Gov-
ernment; secondly, that, like the Socialist Party, it is con-
stantly seeking to stir up trouble whenever it can do so ; thirdly,
that it respects neither morality nor the law and appeals to the
basest passions in man; and, finally, that all sections of the
Socialist Party are on the strictest terms of friendship with it
and are giving it full support.

CHAPTER X
BOLSHEVIST RULE IN RUSSIA

Shortly after the Lenine-Trotzky government came into power
in Eussia, in the latter part of the year 1917, Bolshevism became
very popular in America among the radicals, especially the
Socialists. Among those who helped most to bring it into such
high esteem was Albert Ehys Williams, who had spent but one
year of his life in Eussia, hardly spoke the Eussian language,
and while staying in that country was in the pay of the Bol-
sheviki, as he testified before the Senate Committee.

The Bolsheviki came into power by violence and have sus-
tained themselves in power by violence and terrorism. Their
main support, the so-called Eed Army, in which the Chinese
and Letts have played a prominent part, is an army of mer-
cenaries who are well paid and well fed, while thousands of
civilians are dying from starvation in the cities and towns of
Eussia.

The first success of the Bolsheviki was, the dissolution by
bayonets of the Constituent Assembly, which for forty years
had been the goal of all Eussians — even of the Bolsheviki up
to the time when they found it overwhelmingly against them.
Then they invented a new double name for their anti-democratic
government : Soviets, or dictatorship of the proletariat. Next
they dissolved all the democratic Municipal Councils and
Zemstvos and proceeded to take away the various liberties won
in the revolution against the regime of the Czar.

The dictatorship of the proletariat led rapidly to an almost
complete stoppage of industry. Governmental expenditures
increased by leaps and bounds with the growing pauperization
of the people ; for the growing staffs of Bolshevist officials were
utterly incompetent, a large army of mercenaries was required
in order to keep down the ever-increasing number of insurrec-
tions and the ceaseless attacks from many foreign foes, enormous
subsidies had to be paid to Bolshevist workingmen, regardless
of the fact that the factories were producing sometimes little
and sometimes nothing, and, finally, the Lenine government
spent great sums in revolutionary propaganda in the different

138

BOLSHEVIST KULE IN RUSSIA 139

countries of the world. Political and economic slavery, moral
corruption and the starvation of millions of people, are a few
of the " blessings " bestowed upon Eussia by Bolshevism.

Catherine Breshkovsky, the " Grandmother of the Eussian
Eovolution," herself a Socialist, speaking of the Bolsheviki, said :

" In addition to the crimes in their foreign policy, which cul-
minated in the treacherous Brest-Litovsk ' peace ' with German
militarists, the Bolsheviki have committed innumerable crimes
in their internal policy. They have destroyed all civil liberties
in Eussia : freedom of speech, of the press, of assemblage and
of organization; they have filled prisons through the country
with their political adversaries, proclaiming ' enemies of the
people ' not only the Liberals, the Constitutional-Democratic
Party, but also the party of the Socialists- Eevolutionists and the
Social-Democrats Mensheviki, that is, the parties of the Eussian
peasantry and proletariat. They have instituted a system of
terror unequaled in cruelty, and while hundreds of innocent
hostages would pa}' with their lives for the assassination or for
the attempt to assassinate a Bolshevist commissaire, they did
not punish the Eed Guards who assassinated the two Ministers
of the Provisional Government, Kokoshkin and Shingariev,
while the latter were under Bolshevist arrest, lying sick in a
hospital."

The January, 1919, issue of " The Eye Opener," the ofScial
organ of the National Ofiice, Socialist Party, publishes the full
text of the Eussian Bolshevist Constitution under the caption,
" Here's Constitution of World's First Socialist Eepublic."
Some quotations from the document will no doubt prove inter-
esting as well as instructive:

" For the purpose of realizing the socialization of land, all
private property in land is abolished, and the entire land is
declared to be national property and is to be apportioned among
husbandmen without any compensation to the former owners,
in the measure of each one's ability to till it.

" All forests, treasures of the earth, and waters of general
public utility, all implements whether animate or inanimate,
model farms and agricultural enterprises are declared to be
national property.

" As a first step toward complete transfer of ownership to
the Soviet Eepublic of all factories, mills, mines, railways and
other means of production or transportation, the Soviet law, for
the control by workmen and the establishment of the Supreme

140 THE BED CONSPIEACT

Soviet of National Economy is hereby confirmed, so as to assure
the power of the workers over their exploiters

" Universal obligation to work is introduced for the purpose
of eliminating the parasitic strata of society and organizing the
economic life of the country.

" For the purpose of securing the working class in the posses-
sion of the complete power, and in order to eliminate all possi-
bility of restoring the power of the exploiters, it is decreed
"that all toilers be armed, and that a Socialist Eed Army be
organized and the propertied class be disarmed

" The Eussian Eepublic is a free Socialist society of all the
working people of Eussia. The entire power, within the
boundaries of the Eussian Socialist Federated Soviet Eepublic,
belongs to all the working people of Eussia, united in urban
and rural Soviets

" The Eussian Socialist Federated Soviet Eepublic considers
work the duty of every citizen of the Eepublic, and proclaims
as its motto : ' He shall not eat who does not work.'

" The following persons enjoy neither the right to vote nor
the right to be voted for, even though they belong to one
of the categories enumerated above, namely:

" Persons who employ hired labor in order to obtain from it
an increase in profits.

" Persons who have an income without doing any work, such
as interest from capital, receipts from property, etc.

" Private merchants, trade and commercial brokers.

" Monks and clergy of all denominations."

This Bolshevist Constitution shows that the Lenine govern-
ment has decreed the socialization of all the land, factories,
mills, mines and other means of production, as well as the rail-
ways and the various means of transportation. This program
has been carried out, though as yet probably not completely.
Conditions in Eussia were deplorable under the regime of the
Czar, but the Socialist government has made them a thousand
times worse. Industry has been reduced to an almost negligible
minimum, property has been destroyed on every side and posses-
sion made a crime. The country has been reduced to chaos, for
no one cares to sow where others will reap ; and unemployment
is widespread, for employers are outlawed, and the government
has not enough satisfactory positions to offer. The right to
hold property is one of the binding forces that holds civilization
together and supplies incentive to labor. Some of the evil eSects
of the confiscation and socialization of property in Eussia are

BOLSSEVIST rule in RUSSIA 141

shown from the following articles, published by the Socialists-
Revolutionists, a faction of the Marxians opposed to the Bol-
sheviki. Their paper, " Vlast Naroda," declares :

" The village has taken away the land from the landlords,
farmers, wealthy peasants and monasteries. It cannot, however,
divide it peacefully, as was to be expected.

"The more land there is, the greater the appetite for it;
hence more quarrels, misunderstandings and fights.

" In Oboyansk County, many villages refused to supply
soldiers when the Soviet authorities were mobilizing an army.
In their refusal they stated ' in the spring soldiers will be needed
at home in the villages,' not to cultivate the land, but to protect
it with arms against neighboring peasants.

"In the Provinces of Kaluga, Kursk and Voronezh peasant
meetings adopted the following resolution :

" ' All grown members of the peasant community have to be
home in the spring. Whoever will then not return to the village
or voluntarily stay away will be forever expelled from the
community.

" ' These provisions are made for the purpose of having as
great a force as possible in the spring when it comes to dividing
the land.' ....

" Some villages in the Nieshnov district, in the Province of
Mohilev, have supplied themselves with machine guns. The
village of Little Nieshnov, for instance, has decided to order
fifteen machine guns and has organized a Eed Army in order
to be able better to defend a piece of land taken away from
the landlord and, as they say, that 'the neighboring peasants
should not come to cut our hay right in front of our windows,
like last year.' When the neighboring peasants heard of the
decision they also procured machine guns. They have formed
an army and intend to go to Little Nieshnov to cut the hay
on the meadows 'under the windows' of the disputed owners.

" Stubborn fights for meadows and forests are always going
on. They often result in skirmishes and murder. There are
similar happenings in other counties of the Province, for
instance, in Petrov, Balashov and Arkhar.

" In the Province of Simbirsk there is war between the com-
munity peasants and shopkeepers. The former have decided
to do away with ' Stolypin heirs,' as they call the shopkeepers.
The latter, however, have organized and are ready for a stubborn
resistance. Combats have already taken place. The peasants

142 THE RED CONSPIRACY

demolish farms, and farmers set fire to towns, villages, thrashing
floors, etc."

Indeed, the results of confiscation and socialization were so
bad from the very beginning that no less a personage than
Lenine himself, in "A Letter to American Workingnien," pub-
lished by the Socialist Publication Society of Brooklyn, New
York, on pages 12 and 13, says:

" Mistakes are being made by our peasants who, at one stroke,
in the night from October 25 to October 26 (Eussian Calendar),
1917, did away with all private ownership of land, and are now
struggling, from month to month, under the greatest difficulties,
to correct their own mistakes, trying to solve in practice the
most difficult problems of organizing a new social state, fighting,
against profiteers to secure the possession of the land, for the
workers instead of for the s_peculator, to carry on agricultural
production under a system of communist farming on a large
scale.

" Mistakes are being inade by our workmen in their revolu-
tionary activity, who, in a few short months, have placed prac-
tically all the large factories and workers under state ownership,
and are now learning, from day to day, under the greatest
difficulties, to conduct the management of entire industries, to
reorganize industries already organized, to overcome the deadly
resistance of laziness and middle-class reaction and egotism."

The Socialists of the United States and other radical elements
in our country, after the World War, began to laud to the skies
the Eussian Soviets as the most perfect form of government that
the world had ever seen. They were held to far surpass parlia-
ments, congress and other legislative bodies and to be the
supreme accomplishments of a democratic form of government.
The deputies of the Soviets, according to the Bolshevist Consti-
tution, were to be elected by the secret, direct and equal vote
of all the working masses. Theoretically the Soviets were very
attractive, but in reality fall far short of the ideal. " Struggling
Eussia," a well-known weekly magazine published in New York
City by one of the groups of Eussian Socialists, has this to
say about the Soviets in its issue of April 5, 1919 :

" In fact, there never was either a secret election in Soviet
Eussia, or one based on equal suffrage. Elections are usually
conducted at a given factory or foundry at open meetings, by
the raising of hands and always under the knowing eye of the
chairman. The majority of the workers very frequently do
not take part in these elections at all. The rights of a minority

BOLSHEVIST RULE IN EDSSIA 143

are never recognized, as proportional representation has been
rejected.

" As regards direct elections, it is again a mere phrase. The
Central Executive Committee, which is supposed to embody the
supreme administrative organ of the country, was actually being
elected through a four-grade system. Local Soviets send their
representatives to the Provincial Congress, the Provincial Con-
gress is represented by delegates at the All-Russian Congress,
and only this last body elects the Central Executive Committee.
Often the delegates are not elected by the regular meetings of
the Soviets at all, but are sent by the Executive Committees,
cleverly handpicked by the Bolsheviki after the system of pro-
portional representation was rejected

" The exclusion from the Soviets of all who think differently
from the Bolsheviki developed gradually. They ' cleansed ' the
Soviets in Perm and Ekaterinburg, in January 1918; in Ufa,
Saratov, Samara, Kazan and Yaroslavl in December, 1917; in
Moscow and Petrograd in February, 1918. They were excluding
all Socialists-Eevolutionists and the Mensheviki, to say nothing
of the People's Socialists and members of the Labor Group.
Often, when workers demanded new elections to the Soviet (as
happened in Petrograd late in December of 1917, and early
in January, 1918), and such elections did take place, the Bol-
sheviki would not permit the newly elected delegates to enter
the building of the Soviet and frequently arrested them.
Gradually only Bolsheviki and Socialists-Eevolutionists of the
Left remained in the Soviets. Soon, however, after the assassina-
tion in Moscow of Count Mirbach, the German Ambassador,
and the attempt at rebellion in Moscow early in June, 1918,
by the Socialists-Eevolutionists of the Left, the Bolsheviki began
to fill up the prisons with the latter just as they did with the
Socialists-Eevolutionists of the Eight and the Menshiviki.

" So, practically, there remained only Bolsheviki in the
Soviets. And as there was no difference of opinion among
them, regular meetings were soon abandoned altogether and the
ostensible 'rule of the working masses' thus definitely disap-
peared. A few persons, often appointed from above (the Bol-
sheviki often had recourse to bayonets to support the fiction of
Soviet rule: in Tumen the Executive Committee of a non-
existent Soviet was brought from Ekaterinburg under a convoy
of 800 Eed Guards), would rule and lord it over the people,
tired and weary of the war and a sterile revolution.

144 'JCHE RED CONSPIEACY

" Occasional outbursts of popular wrath serve as indications
of the depth of dissatisfaction which is engendered by the
Soviets and their offshoots, the Military-Eevolutionary Committee.
Thus, in the Polevsky works, in Ekaterinburg County, a mob
of peasants, armed with axes, scythes and sticks, fell upon the
Soviets and beast-like tore into fragments fifty Bolsheviki. In
the Neviansk works the insurrection of the workers against
the Bed Army lasted for three days, until reinforcements from
Perm finally subdued this ' counter-revolutionary ' revolt. In
Okhansk County 2,000 peasants were shot down for demanding
the abolition of the Soviets and the re-establishment of the
rule of the people."

In the April 19, 1919, issue of " Struggling Eussia " we are
told that "Vlast Naroda," in May, 1918, thus described the
uprisings against the Soviets :

"In Kleen, a crowd entered by force the building occupied
by the Soviets with the intention of bringing the deputies
before their own court of justice. The latter fied. The Finan-
cial Conimisary committed suicide by shooting himself, in order
to escape the infuriated crowd.

" In Oriekhovo-Zooyevo, the deputies work in their offices,
guarded by a most vigilant military force. Even on the streets
they are accompanied by guards armed with rifles and bayonets.

"In Penza, an attempt has been made on ijhe lives of the
Soviet members. One of the presiding officers has been
wounded. The Soviet building is now surrounded with cannons
and machine-guns.

" In Svicherka, where the Bolsheviki had ordered a Bartholo-
mew night, the deputies are hunted like wild animals

"In Bielo, all members of the Soviets have been murdered.

" In Soligalich, two of the most prominent members of the
Soviets have literally been torn to pieces. Two others have been
beaten half-dead.

" In Atkarsk, several members of the Soviets have been killed."

"Struggling Eussia," May 31, 1919, informs us that the
Petrograd Committee of the Socialists-Eevolutionists of the Left,
in the middle of March, 1919, issued the following proclamation
condemning the Petrograd Soviet:

" Shame to the Bolshevist Violators, Liars and ' Agents
Provocateurs ! '

" The Petrograd Soviet does not express the will of the "Work-
men, Sailors and ' Eeds.'

Bolshevist rule in russia 145

" The Soviet was not elected. The elections were either pre-
tenses or held under threats of shooting or starvation. This
terrorism completely suffocated freedom of speech, the press
and meetings of the laboring classes.

" The Petrograd Soviet consists of self-appointed Bolsheviki.
It is a blind tool in the hands of the ' agents-provacateurs/ hang-
men and assassins of the Bolshevist regime

"Where is the dictatorship of the proletariat and working
peasantry? It has been supplanted by the dictatorship of the
Central Committee of the Bolshevist Party, governing with
the assistance of a swarm of extraordinary commissions and
punitive detachments of imported soldiers."

Though the Eussian Socialists overthrew the government of
the Czar in the hope of securing liberty, liberty, under the
Bolshevist regime, is farther off than it was before. The British
High Commissioner, E. H. Bruce-Lockhart, in a telegram sent
to the British Foreign Office, JSTovember 10, 1918, among other
things said:

" The Bolsheviki have established a rule of force and oppres-
sion unequaled in the history of any autocracy.

" Themselves the iiercest upholders of the right of free speech,
they have suppressed, since coming into power, every newspaper
which does not approve their policy.

" The right of holding public meetings has been abolished.
The vote has been taken away from everybody except the work-
men in factories and the poorer servants, and even amongst
the workmen those who dared to vote against the Bolsheviki
are marked down by the Bolshevist police as counter-revolution-
aries, and are fortunate if their worst fate is to be thrown into
prison, of which in Eussia today it may truly be said, 'many
go in but few come out.' "

V. M. Zenzinov, a member of the Central Committee of the
Socialists-Eevolutionists, in an article published in " Struggling
Eussia," April 13, 1919, speaking of absence of liberty under
Bolshevism, says:

"It was during my stay in Petrograd in April, 1918, that a
conference of factory and industrial plant employees of Petro-
grad and vicinity was held, to which 100,000 Petrograd work-
ingmen (out of a total of 132,000) sent delegates. The confer-
ence adopted a resolution sharply denouncing the Bolshevist
regime. Following this conference an attempt was made, in
May, to call together an All-Eussian Congress of workmen's
deputies in Moscow, but all the delegates were arrested by the

146 IHE BED CONSPIfiACt

Bolsheviki, and to this day I am ignorant of the fate that befell
my comrades."

Justice, as well as liberty, is a dead letter in the land of
Lenine, and conscription is rigidly enforced by the Eussian
Socialist Government. E. H. Bruce-Loekliart, to whom refer-
ence has been made, in his telegram to the British Foreign
Office, ISTovember 10, 1918, stated:

" The Bolsheviki have abolished even the most primitive forms
of justice. Thousands of men and women have been shot with-
out even the mockery of a trial, and thousands more are left
to rot in the prisons under conditions to find a parallel to which
one must turn to the darkest annals of Indian or Chinese
history

" The Bolsheviki who destroyed the Eussian army, and who
have always been the avowed opponents of militarism, have
forcibly mobilized officers who do not share their political views,
but whose technical knowledge is indispensable, and by the
threat of immediate execution have forced them to fight against
their fellow-countrymen in a civil war of unparalleled horror."

Concerning religious conditions in Eussia, the Eev. Dr. George
S. Simons, shortly after his return from that country, testified
before the Senatorial Committee, which, in February, 1919, was
investigating the nature of Eussian Bolshevism :

" The Bolshevik is not only an atheist, but he also seeks to
make all religions impossible. They assert that all misery is
due to the superstition that there is a God. One of their
officials told me :

" ' We now propose to enlighten our children, and with this
purpose in view, we are issuing a catechism on atheism for use
in all the schools.'

"The man who told me this was the Commissionaire of
Enlightenment and Education."

On February 7, 1919, an appeal was sent to Pope Benedict
XV, by the Orthodox Greek clergy of that part of Eussia which
had not fallen a prey to the Bolsheviki. It was signed by
Sylvester, Archbishop of Omsk, President of the Supreme
Administration of the Orthodox Church, and by other members
of the same administration. This letter implored the Holy
Father to deign to take into consideration the conditions existing
in Eussia. It exposed a list of crimes and outrages, cities
sacked, churches profaned and pillaged, more than twenty
bishops and more than one hundred priests assassinated, the
victims being of every kind. Some of them before they were

BOLSHEVIST RULE IN RUSSIA 147

put to death had their arms and legs cut off, while others were
buried alive. Nuns were violated; the socialization of women
was proclaimed ; rein was given to unbridled passions ; every-
where there was nothing but famine, death and misery. The
following message is also noteworthy:

" With deep grief, Venerable Father, we expose to you the
unhappy conditions in which millions of Eussians of true Eussia
are reduced. Eelying on that unity which makes all mankind
one, and on the strength of Christian fraternity, we hope, Vener-
able Father, that we may count on your compassion as repre-
senting the Christian Church, and trust that your flock will
be informed of what is going on, and that in common with
you they will offer fervent prayers to Him, in whose hands are
both life and death, for those who in the northeast of Europe are
being made, because of their love of Christ, Martyrs of the faith
in the twentieth century."

" Dyelo Naroda," an organ of the Socialists-Eevolutionists
of Eussia, in April, 1918, stated that the situation of the church
and clergy was horrible. "Everything pertaining to them is
being spit upon and profaned. People, with rifles on their
shoulders and their hats on, often enter the church and right
there question the clergymen and arrest priests, at the same
time mocking the religious feelings of the praying crowd. Many
churches have been closed as a result of the edict concerning the
separation of Church and State."

"The Few York Times," April 11, 1919, published the
following special cable despatch concerning the religious
persecution :

" London, April 10. — The Chronicle publishes an article by
E. Courtier Foster, a British Chaplain at Odessa and Eussian
ports of the Black Sea, describing the religious persecution
practised by the Bolsheviki following upon their former capture
of Odessa. He saj's:

" ' Committees were held on board the ships of the Black Sea
Fleet, among the dockers in the port, in the towns and villages
on every hand, which passed resolutions reading:

" ' " We abolish God." In Odessa Cathedral, when the Arch-
bishop of Kherson was celebrating the Holy Mysteries, an uproar
occurred with cries of " Down with the priests ! " " Down with
the Church ! " At a fete in the town gardens one saw a soldier
of the Eed Army, amid the guffaws of bis fellows, spit on the
Eussian holy picture of the face of Christ, then tear it into
fragments and stamp it into the dust.

148 THE EED CONSPIRACY

" ' The Bolshevist conception of religious toleration is con-
siderably more elastic and far-reaching than the ideas of any
mediseval inquisition. In this matter the Bolsheviki pride them-
selves on being far in advance of our effete western thought.
They have murdered Vladimir, the Metropolitan of Kiev, twenty
bishops, and many hundreds of priests. Before killing them
they cut off the limbs of their victims, some of whom they
buried alive in the Kremlin. The Cathedrals in Moscow and
those in the towns of Yaroslav and Simferopol have been sacked.
Many nuns were violated and churches defiled.

" ' The ancient and historical sacristies and famous libraries
of Moscow and Petrograd were pillaged and countless sanctuaries
profaned. In Cronstadt Cathedral the great figure of the
Crucified Christ was torn down and removed, and a monstrous
and appalling pagan form placed in its stead, symbolizing
" Freedom of Mind."

" ' It is not against any one particular form of religion that
the terrors of the new Freedom are hurled. Orthodox, Eoman
Catholics and Lutherans alike have been tortured, mutilated,
and done to death under the aegis of the Holy Eevolution which
appeals to the proletariat of the whole world to join its forces.

" ' The Eevolutionary Government is subjecting the Christian
religion to persecutions as great and brutal as anything the
world saw during the first three centuries of the Christian era.
Moral disintegration and ruin spread their tentacles on every
side. Any restraint on sinful impulse or covetous desire is
laughed to scorn. The Bolsheviki publicly encourage outrage
and looting. The propaganda for freedom of mind is essentially
nihilistic. It is based on negation and denial of the existence of
God, denial of the authority of any moral law, denial of all
rights of conscience, denial of all religious liberty, denial of
all freedom of the press, denial of any liberty of speech.

" ' One ofBcer remarked despairingly to me : " In Eussia
now there is no God, no Czar, no law, no property, no money,
no food — only freedom." And in that travesty of liberty,
which the whole civilized world may well shudder at, all mercy,
pity and toleration are alike scorned. And it is this new and
wonderful equality of man which by means of torture, outrage
and assassinations proclaims the " freedom of mind and body "
to the devastated Eussian nation.' "

In an Associated Press despatch, from London, that appeared
in " The New York Times " on April 19, 1919, we are informed

BOLSHEVIST RULE IN RUSSIA 149

that of the 300 priests in the Perm diocese, 46 have been killed;
moreover, that two monasteries were pillaged.

A very interesting and enlightening article on religion in
Eussia and the attitude of the Bolsheviki towards it appears in
"The Proletarian," Detroit, April, 1919. The author is Ernest
Greenburg and we shall quote the greater part of his article:

" The resolution adopted by the Socialist Party of Michigan
at its recent State Convention that, ' It shall be the duty of all
agitators and organizers upon all occasions to avail themselves
of the opportunity of explaining religion,' caused a storm of
indignation to arise among certain ' Socialists.' Clinging to
the old fallacy that religion should be left alone, they point to
the Eussian Constitution and the works of the Bolshevik leaders
who say ' Eeligion is a private matter.' But they fail to under-
stand that the interpretation of the term ' Eeligion is a private
matter,' has a different meaning here than it has in Eussia.

" The slogan, ' Eeligion is a private matter,' is not of Eussian
origin. It has been and is one of the battle cries of the Eevolu-
tionary working class in all countries in which the Church and
the State are combined. Different conditions account for differ-
ent understandings of the terms ' Private Matter ' here and in
Eussia.

" Probably in no other country have religion and the church
played such an important role in the affairs of the state as in
Eussia up to the very present time. Truly, it was not so much
the force of arms as that of ignorance which kept up the Czar-
dom for hundreds of years. The Feudal aristocracy realized the
advantages to be derived from keeping the minds of its slaves
in darkness and superstition. One of the most powerful weapons
in the hands of aristocracy was the Church, whose noble duty
it was to sow and to propagate ignorance. The Church was
officially a part of the state. People were forced to go to
church ; school chidren were taught the ' Holy Law of God,'
attacks against the church were punished as attacks against the
Czar.

" Eeligious ignorance of the masses was the greatest enemy
of the Socialists in their propaganda work; at every step they
had to meet and to combat the authority of God, in whose name
the church servants consecrated the yoke of the Czar and the
landlords. It was necessary to pull this poisonous tooth out of
the jaws of the state. Hence came the demand: 'Eeligion is
a private matter,' — private as opposed to state. It meant
that the Church should be separated from the state and be

150 THE EBD CONSPIBACY

deprived from its protection. It was a demand which, put to
the Czarist government, if granted would only facilitate the
struggle against this very religion.

" Similar demands have been put in the Socialist platforms
of Germany, Austria, and other countries which were confronted
with conditions like those in Eussia. One of the immediate
demands of the French revolutionists of the nineteenth century
was of this nature.

" The November Eevolution put the Eussian workers in
possession of the machinery of the church. As a weapon of
ignorance, it could not be used against the exploiters; nor could
it be destroyed by force. Then the Eussian workers declared
religion a private matter, thereby depriving it of State protec-
tion and forcing it under the blows of scientific criticism, which
will rapidly do away with the reminders of the decrepit
superstitions.

" In America religion always was ' a private matter.' It had
never been officially related to the state, but just the same it is
now being employed by the ruling class against the workers. If
it is not yet as influential here as it was in Eussia during the
reign of the Czars — it is becoming so. Its destructive work
cannot be neglected any longer. It must be fought

" German Socialists understand that by destroying the holy
alliance between the Church and the State their task would not
be completed. After that ' We must wage unrelenting war
against the Church,' says Bebel, ' because she foments civil war
among the workers — because it is the only reactionary force
which has any strength and which keeps us in voluntary slavery.'

" By separating the Church from the State and thereby
enforcing their demand, ' Eeligion is a private matter,' the
French Socialists were not yet satisfied. They went on fighting
religion, and their Belgian comrades worked in accord with
them. Says B. Vandervelde, ' We are bound to admit that both
in philosophy and in politics there must be war between Social-
ism and the Church.'

" This attitude of the French and Belgian Socialists was
approved by the international Congress at Amsterdam, 1904.

" The position of the Eussian Socialists is very clear. They
fully understand that 'Eeligion is a private matter' signifies
only the first stage in the war against mental slavery. ' Eeligion
is a private matter,' says N. Boucharin (The Church and the
School), 'but it does not mean that we must not fight it by
persuasion.' Further on he emphasizes that it is a ' private

BOLSHEVIST RULE IN RUSSIA 151

matter ' only as much as forceful protection or forceful destruc-
tion is concerned. Beyond the gates of the State's protection,
religion is not considered to be a private matter in Russia. It
is fought there in schools and educational institutions by
' Propaganda, explanation and education.'

" In this question American Socialists must not be misled by
the seeming contradiction in terms."

In the April 19, 1919, number of " Struggling Eussia,"
Dioneo gives some interesting information relative to the
destruction of education under the Bolshevist regime :

" The lower and secondary schools are ruined. The villages
have their Soviets, their premises for meetings, but no lower
schools. As regards secondary schools, the Bolshevist reformers
are of the opinion that, in general, such institutions are not
wanted and are just as unnecessary as the intermediate stage
between nascent capitalism and the extreme form of communism.

" The Bolsheviki have only acknowledged the universities. At
first, the reformers made such experiments on the latter as, for
instance, the appointment of a porter to the post of inspector
of the Technological institute, or of a cook as head-mistress of
the Higher Courses for Girls. Then the Bolsheviki decided that
no certificates were necessary for matriculation at the university.
Any half-educated person might become a student of any
faculty. The professors were at a loss to know how to lecture
on higher mathematics to students ignorant of the multiplication
table, or how to explain spectral analysis to persons hardly able
to read. Then the Bolsheviki decided that there was no neces-
sity for the professor to have a diploma either. It was only
necessary that he should be a supporter of the Bolshevist plat-
form. That is all ! And celebrated Professors were obliged to
leave the universities which they had made famous

" National education — elementary, secondary, and higher —
has been completely ruined by the Bolsheviki. Lately, they have
apparently decided that Bolshevism ought to give the world
a new type of university, quite different from that of the bour-
geoisie. And with that in mind, the Municipal Council of
Voronezh has thought of a ' Street University.' This is how
the ' Izvestia ' describes this curious institution of higher educa-
tion : ' Each of the principal thoroughfares of Voronezh is
now a faculty — of law, economics, history, literature, science,
etc. The walls of the houses are placarded with posters, con-
taining portraits and brief biographies of men distinguished
in one or another branch of knowledge and brief items of

152 THE RED CONSPIRACY

information concerning the respective subject.' Thus comments
the organ of the Bolshevist Government : ' Every citizen, instead
of spending years at a university, can pick up a genera]
knowledge of the principal educational subjects as he goes
along.' ....

" Eussia's school system is ruined. Education reforms exist
only on paper. And at the same time the Bolsheviki, wishing
to show that they value knowledge very highly, have announced
that a geographical university such as the world has ' never
yet seen ' is going to be opened in Petrograd. It is interesting
to know what professors will lecture in this new university, and
who will form their audience ? "

CHAPTER XI

RUSSIA RED WITH BLOOD AND BLACK WITH

CRIME

Socialists have for many years boasted of the perfect peace
and harmony which would prevail when once they had estab-
lished their state. Bloodshed, civil discord and strife of every
kind would cease when the Marxian workers ruled the land, for,
as they said, privately owned property, and exploitation of
workers are the source of wars and the fundamental cause of the
oppression of the people. Bolshevist Eussia, however, the first
Socialist country, appears to be an exception. Perhaps no
nation has ever witnessed such scenes of violence, bloodshed,
murder and cruelty, perpetrated by a government, not against a
foreign foe, but against its own people, and this not after an
existence of a hundred or several hundred years, but constantly
from its very birth. So far only a few pages, comparatively
speaking, of the history of the terrible outrages are opened to
us, but from these we can form some slight idea of the dreadful
condition of the land that is truly red, but red principally from
the rivers of blood that flow in abundance over every section
of the country.

The " Izvestia," an official Bolshevist publication, on October
19, 1918, published the following news item under the heading,
" The Conference of the Extraordinary Commission : "

" Comrade Baky threw light on the work of the District
Commission of Petrograd after the departure of the AU-Eussian
Extraordinary Commission for Moscow. The total number of
people arrested by the Extraordinary Commission amounted to
6,220. Eight hundred people were shot."

The " Northern Commune," another official Bolshevist publi-
cation, in its issue of September 10, 1918, stated:

" In the whole of the Jaroslavl Government a strict registra-
tion of the bourgeoisie and its partisans has been organized.
Manifestly anti-Soviet elements are being shot; suspected per-
sons are being interned in concentration camps; non-working
sections of the population are being subjected to compulsory
labor."

153

154 THE EED CONSPIRACY

The same edition of the " Northern Commune ■" publishes the
following despatch :

" Tver, Sept. 9. — The Extraordinary Commission has arrested
and sent to concentration camps over 130 hostages from
among the bourgeoisie. The prisoners include members of the
Cadet Party, Socialists-Eevolutionists of the Eight, former offi-
cers, well known members of the propertied class and police-
men."

From the September 18, 1918, edition of the " ISTorthern Com-
mune " we learn that in Perm, in retaliation for the assassina-
tion of Uritzky and for the attempt on Lenine, fifty hostages
from among the bourgeois classes and the White Guards were
shot.

" Struggling Eussia," March 22, 1919, supplies us with other
details of Bolshevist rifle rule :

" We know a great deal about the terror in Petrograd, and
considerably less about Moscow. The reason is plain. We find
the curtain dropped on the activities of the All-Eussian Extra-
ordinary Commission which had its seat in Moscow. In a
report of the meeting of the Executive Committee of the Mos-
cow Soviet, which took place on October 16, we read:

" ' The report of the work of the All-Eussian Extraordinary
Commission was read at a secret session of the Executive Com-
mittee. But the report and the discussion of it were held
behind closed doors and will not be published.' [" Izvestia,"
October 17, 1918.]

" The kind of decisions adopted by the Moscow Bolsheviki
behind closed doors and the mass terror practised in Moscow
and all over Eussia under the direction of the All-Eussian
Extraordinary Commission are well illustrated by Eugene
Trupp, a prominent Socialist-Eevolutionist and a member of the
All-Eussian Constituent Assembly, who wrote the following
in the Socialist-Eevolutionary daily, ' Zemlia 1 Volia' (Land
and Freedom) of October 3, 1918 :

"'After the murder of Uritzky in Petrograd, 1,500 people
were arrested; 512, including 10 Socialists-Eevolutionists, were
shot. At the same time 800 people were arrested in Moscow.
It is unknown, however, how many of these were shot. In
Nizhni-Novgorod, 41 were shot; in Yaroslavl, 13; in Astrak-
han, 12 Socialists-Eevolutionists; in Sarapool, a member of the
Central Committee of the Party of Socialists-Eevolutionists,
I. I. Teterkin; in Penza, about 40 officers; in Kooznetzk people
are daily shot in masses ; all this is only a drop in the ocean. I

RUSSIA RED With blood 155

have no exact information as to the number of people shot in
other cities.' ....

" ' Despite all these and other outrages, a demonstration of
Eed Guards took place in Moscow on September 6. Their ;main
demands were " deeds for words " and " relentless red terror in
the fight against the bourgeoisie." ....

" ' The last days of my stay Moscow and Soviet-Eussia in
general were filled with red terror. A gray, silent and dejected
crowd, with pale, terrified faces and eyes full of excitement, was
moving along the streets. " Such or such people have been
arrested today." " This or that number has been shot." " Do
not sleep at home, they are looking for you." " You are still
alive ? " " Why do you not go away from here ? " were expres-
sions hastily exchanged.

" ' No conversations were heard ; only silent whispering in
corners. All were trembling. All were filled with horror of
the wild terror. Spies were all over. At the proper places you
could see their familiar figures.

" ' These spies sneak about the stations, mingling with the
crowds of Eed Guards, in the trains, and in all dirty, warm
corners always pushing forward. While traveling you feel that
if your face or perhaps your attire, or your opinion, carelessly
uttered, will not please them, you may be held up at any
moment. You feel that every passenger is hiding something
in himself. "Keep silent; ve will talk later when we have
passed the spying cordons.' "

In the September 18, 1918, evening issue of the " Northern
Commune," there is a report of a meeting of the Soviet of the
First District of Petrograd. After a report made by Kharito-
noff, who emphasized the necessity of suppressing the bourgeois
press, and after speeches by other members, the following reso-
lution was passed:

" The meeting welcomes the fact that mass terror is being
used against the White Guards and higher bourgeois classes,
and declares that every attempt on the life of our leaders will
be answered by the proletariat by the shooting down not only
of hundreds, as the case is now, but of thousands of White
Guards, bankers, manufacturers. Cadets (Constitutional Demo-
crats) and Socialists-Eevolutionists of the Eight."

We are indebted to "Struggling Russia," March 29, 1919,
for the following information as regards the Eed rule of
Lenine and the shooting of children :

156 THE RED CONSPIRACY

" The following quotation from a speech of one of the most
active Bolshevist leaders, Zinoviev, printed in the ' ISTortherii
Commune' of September 19, 1918, fully expresses the spirit of
the Bolshevist terrorism:

" ' To overcome our enemies we must have our own Socialist
Militarism. We must win over to our side 90 millions out of
the 100 millions of population of Russia under the Soviets. As
for the rest, we have nothing to say to them ; they must be anni-
hilated.'

" The program of annihilating ten million of the opponents
of Bolshevism in Eussia (Mr. Zinoviev has considerably under-
estimated their number) began to be executed by the Bolsheviki
from the fi^'st moment of their coming into power. In tlie
beginning of March, 1918, they held mass executions in Eostov-
on-the-Don, killing, among others, many youths. The Moscow
'Eusskiya Viedomosti' (Eussian News) in its issue of March
23, 1918, reported that the president of the Eostov Municipal
Council and the Chairman of the Don Committee of the Eus-
sian Social-Democratic Party, B. C. Vasiliev, the mayor of the
city, P. Petrenko, the former Chairman of the Eostov-Nakhich-
evan Council of Workingmen's and Soldiers' Delegates, P. Mel-
nikov, and even M. Smirnov, at that time Chairman of the
Council, have handed in a petition to the Bolshevist War-Eevo-
lutionary Council asking them to shoot them ' instead of the
innocent children who are executed without law and justice.'
A group of women, horrified by what was going on, also asked
that they be shot instead of the children. In their petition they
wrote as follows:

" ' If, according to you, there is need of sacrifices in blood and
life in order to establish a Socialistic state and to create new
ways of life, take our lives, kill us, grown mothers and fathers,
but let our children live. They have not yet had a chance to
live; they are only growing and developing. Do not destroy
young lives. Take our lives and our blood as ransom

" ' We, mothers, have served the country by giving our sons,
husbands and brothers. Pray, take our last possession, our
lives, but spare our children. Call us, one after the other, for
execution, when our children are to be shot! Every one of us
would gladly die in order to save the life of her children or that
of other children.

" ' Citizens, members of the War Eevolutionary Council,
listen to the cries of the mothers. We cannot be kept silent ! ' "

Charles Dumas, a French Socialist, on his return to Prance

RUSSIA RED WITH BLOOD 157

from Eussia, wrote a book in which he warns his fellow-com-
rades on the dangers of Bolshevism, and among other things he
says:

"Upon my arrival in Petrograd I wanted, first of all, to
meet three of my old Eussian friends, but soon learned that
my searches were in vain. Two of the poor fellows had lost
their minds and the third had cut his own throat with a
razor

" The Sebastopol horrors of March, 1918, when the sailors
of the port, inflamed to a high pitch of bestiality by the
Bolshevist press decided to kill all the inhabitants of the prin-
cipal streets, not sparing even children above the age of five,
are still so fresh in your minds that I need not remind you of
them

" On March 18, 1918, the peasants of an adjoining village
organized, in collusion with the Bolsheviki, a veritable St. Bar-
tholomew night in the city of Kuklovo. About 500 bodies of
the victims were found afterwards, most of them ' intellectuals.'
All residences and stores were plundered and destroyed, the
Jews being among the worst sufferers. Entire families were
wiped out, and for three days the Bolsheviki would not permit
the burial of the dead.

" In May, 1918, the city of Korocha was the scene of a hor-
rible massacre. Thirty officers, four priests, and 300 citizens
were killed. The Peoples' Commissaries and the Soviets have,
upon more than one occasion, made admissions that these hor-
rors were part of their program. At the Congress of the
Soviets the chairman of the Central Committee of the Soviets,
Sverdlov, said: 'We invoke the Soviets not to relent, but to
fortify the Terror, no matter how terrible it may be and what
dimensions it may assume.' "

An Associated Press despatch, dated Omsk, April 5, 1919,
stated that the Bolsheviki had murdered 2,000 at or near Osa:

" Indisputable evidence of the massacre by the Bolsheviki of
more than 2,000 civilians in and near the town of Osa has been
obtained by Messrs. Simmonds and Emerson and Dr. Eudolph
Teusler of the American Eed Cross, who have just returned
from reoccupied Eussian territory. Approximately 500 persons
were killed at Osa and 1,500 in the surrounding districts."

The same despatch shows the excessive cruelty of Lenine's
gang of blood-thirsty Beds :

"A blacksmith was shot because he could not pay 5,000
rubles. A man was shot because he lived in a brick house.

158 IHE RED CONSPIRACY

All attorneys and jurists and doctors whose services were not
required were killed. A woman was compelled to fetch a lamp
and gaze upon her murdered sons for the amusement of the
slayers.

" The Soviet called a meeting and prepared lists of those to
die. The houses prescribed were visited by squads, the doors
were smashed in, the victims dragged to the edge of the town
and forced to dig their own graves. A survivor testified that he
had seen men thrown into a pit and buried alive. Priests were
hunted unmercifully. The evidence showed that men were
slain whose only offense was that they worked as sextons or
caretakers of churches. In the Perm district everything of
value was stolen from the churches, the monastery was looted
and several priests were murdered."

According to two more Associated Press despatches, even
women and children were not excepted by the Bolsheviki who
have been so much extolled by our American Socialists and
recognized as their brethren :

"Stockholm, April 17, 1919. — The Bolsheviki are carrying
out a rapid and systematic annihilation of all the bourgeois ele-
ments in Eiga, according to reports from Libau to ' Svenska
Dagblast.' The victims of the Bolsheviki terror are taken to
the Island of Hasen, in the Dvina river, and are said to num-
ber 70,000, including women and children. No one is per-
mitted to take food or money to the island."

"London, April 17, 1919. — Eighteen hundred persons, in-
cluding 400 women, were murdered by the Bolsheviki at Ufa,
according to a dispatch from Omsk, received in official quarters
here."

The " Korthern Commune " published the following report
in which the horrors of the Bolsheviki prisons were described
by the Bolsheviki themselves :

" The presiding officers of the Soviet of the Yiborg district
decided to send a delegation to the prisons of that district when
they heard that terrible scenes were occurring there. The pris-
oners were starving. Many of them who had been held eight
months had not yet been tried, for the Commission entrusted
with the investigation of their cases had not yet been in session.

" The delegation consisted of Dr. Petropavlovsliy, the Mili-
tary Commissionary, Vasilyevsky, and the President of the
Soviet, Frilisser. The latter handed in the following report:
' Comrades, what we saw and heard in visiting the prisons of
the Viborg district cannot be described

RUSSIA RED WITH BLOOD 159

" ' The cells are repulsively dirty. There is neither clean
linen nor pillows. The prisoners are being punished for the
least offence.

" ' But what is most terrible is the scene we witnessed in the
prison hospital.

" ' Comrades ! We found there no people ! We found there
living ghosts who had no strength to talk, for they were starving.

" ' When somebody dies, the corpse remains for several hours
with its living neighbors, vho say : " That is nothing. We
shall all soon die of hunger." ' "

" Dyelo Naroda," in its issue of April 26, 1918, thus
describes the cruelties of the barbarous Bolshevists:

" In Kirensk County the people's tribunal ordered a woman
found guilty of extracting brandj', to be enclosed in a bag and
repeatedly knocked against the ground until dead.

" In the Province of Tver the people's tribunal had sentenced
a young fellow to freeze to death for theft. In a rigid frost he
was led out, clad only in a shirt, and water was poured on him
until he turned into a piece of ice. Out of pity somebody cut
his tortures short by shooting him."

The British High Commissioner, E. H. Bruce-Lockhart, in
his telegram to the British Foreign Office, November 10, 1918,
thus describes one of the methods of torture and the taking of
hostages as practiced by the followers of the " gentle " Lenine :

" The Bolsheviki have restored the barbarous methods of tor-
ture. The examination of prisoners frequently takes place with
a revolver at the unfortunate prisoner's head.

" The Bolsheviki have established the odious practice of tak-
ing hostages. Still worse, they have struck at their political
opponents through their woman folk. "V^Tien recently a long
list of hostages was published in Petrograd, the Bolsheviki
seized the wives of those men whom they could not find and
threw them into prison until their husbands should give them-
selves up."

When the Bolsheviki were forced to evacuate Eiga, in May,
1919, they left behind them in the various prisons 1,600 host-
ages who were found to be in a state of unspeakable misery and
starvation.

An Associated Press despatch of March 22, 1919, states that
" a Eussian girl of 19 years, who, in December, 1918, had been
charged with espionage, was tortured by being pierced thirteen
times in the same wound with a bayonet. She lived, however,
and made an afiidavit to these details."

160 THE RED CONSPIRACY

The same dispatch states that "an examination of dead
bodies of persons alleged to have been killed by the Bolsheviki
in the Perm district, shows a preponderance of bayonet wounds
in the back, but in other instances mouths were slit, fingers and
hands cut off, and the heads of the victims smashed."

" Struggling Eussia," in its issue of April 5, 1919, informs
us that " ofScers have come out of Petrograd prisons with their
nails torn off, and that prisoners after having been fed on her-
rings were given nothing to drink for two or three days."

A dispatch from Warsaw, dated April 10, 1919, stated that
fugitives from Eussia were pouring into that city, each of them
bringing fresh tales of Bolsheviki horrors. The people in Eus-
sia, it was said, were being shot on the least provocation. For
instance, men who remained in bed during the cold weather to
keep warm because they had no fuel were accused of " discon-
tent" and dragged into the streets and shot. Dead bodies, it
was claimed, were left lying in the streets in heaps.

In order to maintain their popularity with the workingmen
and with their hired mercenaries, the Bolsheviki paid their sup-
porters enormous wages by means of an unchecked paper issue.
In fact they have turned out so many tons of paper money,
without financial guarantees of any sort, that today in Eussia
money has lost practically all its value.

" Struggling Eussia," March 32, 1919, publishes an appeal
issued in Petrograd and signed by the following organizations:
Committee for the Defence of Freedom of the Press; Central
Committee of the Eussian Social Democratic Labor Party; Cen-
tral Committee of the Party of Socialists-Eevolutionists ; Cen-
tral Committee of the Councils of Peasant Deputies and the
Union of Workmen-Printers. Among other things the appeal
says:

" Civil war has inflamed the whole country. Cities are
being destroyed. The war of brother against brother is con-
suming the strength of our revolutionary democracy. The
cannons, secured to guard the conquests of our revolution,
shatter monuments, homes, and shrines of art. The cities of
Eussia fall at the hands of her own citizens

" The nation is being driven towards ruin. The people are
deprived of all liberties won by the revolution."

The April 26, 1919, issue of " Struggling Eussia," under the
caption, " City of the Dead," describes the deplorable condition
of Petrograd as follows:

"Vladimir Bourtzev published in his paper, * Obscherye
Dyelo,' (The Common Cause), appearing in Paris, an inter-

EUSSIA RED WITH BLOOD 161

view with a well known pedagogist and journalist, C. L. Ava-
liani, who recently arrived from Petrograd. Mr. Avaliani lived
in Petrograd during the bright, early days of the revolution
and has also witnessed the tragic period of the Bolshevist rule:

" ' That Petrograd that used to draw to itself the leading
social and scientific forces is no more. That living spring that
sent upward a spray of rainbow hues and colors has gradually
died out and is now finally extinct.

" ' There is no scientific activity, no research work, no liter-
ary or artistic life. All is leveled down and compressed under
one Bolshevist lid. The only burning question is the problem
of food. The only blessed object of Bolshevist providence is
the remaining bourgeois element, the only axis around which
all their creative experiments revolve. On the one hand, those
who toil, — and on the other the " parasites," and to the latter
class all the members of the liberal professions, all the litera-
teurs, the lawyers and the clergy were assigned. The sympa-
thizers and upholders of the "rule of the Soviets" get a food
ticket; all the others are sentenced to starvation.

" ' It is a rule that rests solely on bayonets ! There is no
popular confidence, no social support. It is all regarded as
superfluous and a " burgeois " prejudice. The sole means of
enlightenment and conviction are the bayonet and machine

gun

"'A real Kingdom of the Dead! Petrograd is empty.
Many have been summarily shot, but still more have died from
exhaustion and disease, and some have fled. Prom a popula-
tion of three million only 976,000 remain.' "

" Struggling Eussia," on April 5, 1919, published a detailed
list of 76 places or districts in which there were uprisings
against the Bolsheviki in the year 1918. In the year 1919 the
revolutionary outbreaks seem to have become far more numerous.

Evidence as to the criminal nature of Eussian Bolshevism
was supplied by the Eev. Dr. George S. Simons, who, in Febru-
ary, 1919, testified before the Senatorial Committee as to his
personal knowledge of the matter:

" There is a large criminal element in the Bolshevist regime.
The fact that the criminal has a big part in the movement is
proven by the destruction in a public bonfire of court records,
the destruction of prisons and the liberation of all criminals
who are sympathetic with the cause. We know it to be a fact
that some of the worst criminal characters in all Eussia hold
positions under the Bolshevist Government, while others are
helping as agitators."

163 THE EED COISrSPIEACY

A press dispatch dated Warsaw, April 10, 1919, states that
it lias been decided by the Bolsheviki regime that control of
desire of impulse, even when self-imposed, is against the free-
dom of man, that as a consequence unbelievable orgies and inde-
cencies talie place, and that all restraint is at an end. The
despatch states, futhermore, that the aristocrats remaining in
Eussia have lost all will and energy. They accept degradation
or death with complete fatalism and do not even try to save
their wives and daughters.

The deplorable condition of that part of Eussia under Bol-
shevist rule was described in the Declaration adopted by the
Socialist groups in Omsk on February 23, 1919. The Declara-
tion says in part:

" The main prop of an agricultural country such as Eussia
principally is, the peasant population, is pauperized, starving and
is being driven under the banners of the Eed Armies by lash and
rifle. The numerically small class of intellectuals is being shot
down and exterminated. The cities have been handed over to
the pillage and rule of Eed Army troops. The prisons are
overcrowded. The enemies of the people have carried out their
destructive program to the very end, and given the people, in
place of bread, peace and freedom — a new inter-Eussian war,
the complete exhaustion of all the productive forces of the land,
economic, industrial and railroad desolation, unemployment, a
terrorizing reign of disorder and a lapse into barbarity."

The Council of the All-Siberian Co-operative Assemblies, in
a Declaration brought to this country by C. A. Kovalsky, a
prominent Eussian writer and a member of the Party of Social-
ists-Eevolutionists, says :

"The All-Siberian Co-operative Movement — as the expres-
sion of the unity of the creative democratic elements — strives
for the rehabilitation of the destroyed statehood of Eussia.

" The immediate aims of our political activities must be —
the support of the existing Omsk Government, which has pro-
claimed itself a democratic rule ; the steering of its political
course into democratic channels ; the struggle with anti-
democratic influences from the Eight as well as with the
clostructive forces from the left; the strengthening of the ties
between the rear and tie fighting front, and the support of the
army as the cultural force which is reconquering the violated
rights of the people to the formation of a democratic state."

RUSSIA RED WITH BLOOt) l63

The Russian Co-operative Unions, having a membership of
over 20,000,000, and representing the strongest economic organ-
ization in Russia, reaclring evevj little town and village,
announced through its representatives in New York, on May
20, 1919, its opposition to the Lenine regime and its support
of the Provisional Russian Government at Omsk, Siberia,
headed by Admiral Kolchak :

" When Russia fell under the Bolshevist Soviet rule, the
representatives of the Co-operative Organizations, at the AU-
Russian Co-operative Congress in Moscow, April 18 to 24, 1918,
rejected the principles and the methods of the Bolsheviki and
declared the Brest-Litovsk Treaty, concluded by the Soviet
authorities with the Austro-German, dishonorable and ruinous
for Russia. In these terrible and trying times of bloody rule
that our suffering and worn-out country is passing through,
the Co-operative Organizations of Siberia and ISTorth Russia
serve as a unifying link for all the honest, healthy and State-
preserving elements of the Russian democracy.

" The All-Siberian United Co-operatives are fully cognizant
of the abnormal conditions in which the territories liberated
from the Bolsheviki — the Ural, Siberia and the N"orth Russian
Provinces — find themselves, where in pain and anguish a new
Russian Statehood is arising. Nevertheless, considering the
unusual difficulties connected with the work of rebuilding and
re-establishing legality and order in a land overburdened finan-
cially and economically, ravaged by civil war and hunger, and
with a popular psychology corrupted by Bolshevism, the United
Co-operatives recognize and support, until the formation of a
new, ultimate government through the Constituent Assembly,
the Provisional Russian Government formed on Siberian terri-
tory and headed by Admiral Kolchak

" "We have, on our side, State wisdom, equity and justice.
Our adversaries oppose us with terror, violence and complete
social and economic ruin.'"

In the early part of the year 1919 the report reached America
that the Bolshevist authorities were nationalizing women. The
Socialists of our own country, who are far from being noted for
their reliability and truthfulness, have, of course, denied the
charge, in order that the Lenine regime, which they support
and wish to see extended to our own land, might not have its
already terribly sullied name dishonored still more. The Bol-
shevists are far from being saints, and a " few " of their " short-
comings " have been pointed out in this chapter.

164 THE RED CONSPIEACt

Certainly the Lenine Government is absolutely lax in mat-
ters appertaining to sex relations. It has fully legalized free
love, as vi^e learn from the No. 2 issue of the radical Los Angeles
magazine, " More Truth About Russia." This magazine, of
course, defends the Bolshevists, and on page 6 of the above-
mentioned issue quotes several of the decrees of the Lenine Gov-
ernment on the matter of marriage and divorce. Among the
decrees we read:

"Marriage is annulled by the petition of both parties or
even one of them." All that is necessary to annul a marriage
is the expressed desire of either party. The party is, of course,
then free to marry again and remain married till another part-
ner is desired. Hence free love is legalized. A government
that legalizes free love may be expected to nationalize those
women who do not wish to marry or who are unable to secure
partners by the time they have reached a certain age.

" The Call," New York, April 3, 1919, on its editorial page
reprinted an apology of the English publication, " New
Europe," which in a previous issue had given as the authority
for its charge of the nationalization of women in Eussia an
article in the Soviet paper " Izvestija : "

" I have made particular inquiries among friends recently
arrived from Russia," says Dr. Harold Williams, " New
Europe's " collaborator, " as to the alleged nationalization of
women, and they have all assured me positively that they have
never heard or read of such a decree."

Those " friends," whoever they were, were possibly Bolsheviki
themselves, and are not said to have denied that the women
were nationalized, but merely that they had never heard
or read of the " decree." Lots of things are enforced by
authorities without decrees. The Bolshevist authorities may
have had no decrees for the murder of the many thousands of
innocent citizens whom they tortured and put to death.

Dr. Harold Williams states, moreover, that it is certain that
" the Central Bolshevist Government has issued no order of the
kind" (i. e., of nationalization), but he does not deny that in
different places the local Bolshevist authorities may have
nationalized women.

Further on it is admitted that not the official national Soviet
organ, but the local Vladimir Soviet organ, "Izvestija," was the
Bolshevist paper which stated that the Bolshevists of Vladimir
had nationalized women.

The article in "New Europe," republished in "The Call,"
concludes with these words:

RUSSIA RED WITH BLOOD 165

" As this puts an entirely different complexion on the matter,
and as the Central Moscow Government cannot be held responsi-
ble for the lucubrations of every local committee, we desire to
withdraw unreservedly the imputation and to express our regret
for the mistake."

This article in the March 13, 1919, issue of " New Europe,"
which thus apologizes for the " mistake " that it claims it made
ia a previous issue, has been quoted far and wide by American
Socialists and other radicals of our country. Yet witnesses who
were questioned at the Senatorial investigation at Washing-
ton, in February, 1919, attested to the nationalization by the
Bolshevists.

On February 7, 1919, the Orthodox Greek Archbishop of
Omsk and other clergy of the Eussian Church sent a letter to
Pope Benedict XV, mentioning, with other crimes and abuses
of the Bolshevists, the socialization of women.

A press despatch dated Warsaw, April 10, 1919, stated the
following concerning the condition of women in Eussia :

" The nationalization of women is becoming quite general.
The Bolsheviki have declared war on family life and considera-
tion for one another's mother or sister is forbidden. All must
be treated alike. The most terrible thing is that the women
themselves have accepted this nationalization and very little
protest is made. This applies to every class. In certain cases,
however, a hitch has occurred. Even Bolshevism cannot master
human nature, and it has been found that a masculine jealousy
occasionally stands in a way. Certain men have refused to
nationalize a particular woiftan and as a result Bolshevik has
fought Bolshevik with considerable force."

An Associated Press despatch from London, April 15, 1919,
gives lengthy details regarding the nationalization of women,
and even the opposition offered to it:

" The law providing for the nationalization of women in
Northeast Eussia has been suspended in one province as a result
of popular outcry, according to information reaching London
today, from Stockholm.

" The Commissary of Vladimir has, by decree, appointed a
committee of women, who are to inquire into operations of the
law and make a report with the least possible delay. His action
has been approved by the local Soviet.

" ' The Krasnaya Gazeta ' publishes an account of the results
of nationalization. The system provides that every girl on
reaching the age of eighteen must register her name in the

166 THE REB CONSPIRACY

Bureau of Free Love, after which she is compelled to select a
partner from among men between the ages of 19 and 50 years
old. The law led to lamentable confusion, says the ' Gazeta,'
in judicial notions as to personal inviolability.

" A few days after the Soviet's decree, which women very gen-
erally ignored, two men known to nobody, arrived in the town
and seized the two daughters of a well-known non-bourgeois
comrade, declaring they had chosen them as wives and that the
girls without further ceremony must submit, as they had not
observed the registration rule.

" Comrades Yablonovski and Guriakin, who sat as Judges
on the claim, decided that the men were right, and the girls
were carried off. They have not been heard of since by the
village folk.

" This, says the Gazeta, was done in the name of the nation-
alization of women.

" Many other instances of the fantastic operation of the law,
not to speak of its inhumanities, are cited by the Gazeta.
Enthusiasts for nationalization, naturally all males, raid whole
villages, seize young girls, and demand proof that they are not
over 18. As this proof is difficult to give, many of the girls
are carried off, and there have been suicides and murders as a
result.

" In the town of Kovrov, a campaign without parallel since
the Trojan war was waged between the vengeful relatives of
an abducted nationalized girl and her persecutors.

" In this town the ' register of nationalized women ' was
opened on December 1, but up to February 1 last only two
women, both over 40, and neither of whom had ever been mar-
ried, registered themselves as willing to accept the first hus-
band the state sent along.

" On the committee which is now to revise the nationalization
decree or to recommend its complete abrogation sits Mme. Yera
Arkadieff, a Bolshevist enthusiast, who commanded a detach-
ment of women soldiers during the recent operations against
Admiral Kolchak's army at Perm. She has been twice
wounded."

" The Krasnaya Gazeta," translated, means the Eed Gazette.
It is a Bolshevist newspaper published in Petrograd. The fol-
lowing "Special Cable" to "The New York Times," dated
Milan, April 24, 1919, published April 26, 1919, gives a Bol-
shevist's explanation of the Eussian sex legislation:

" A Bolshevist statesman, from whom the ' Journal Epoea '

EUSSIA RED WITH BLOOD 167

obtained a special interview respecting tlie Leninist legislation
on the sex problem, complains that a vast amount of grotesque
misrepresentation has appeared on the subject in the hostile or
unsympathetic press.

" ' Abolition of celibacy has been adopted,' he stated, ' simply
as a means toward class equality. Every woman, on attaining
her eighteenth and every man on his twentieth year, is bound
to inscribe his or her name in a special register kept at the Com-
missariat of Unions, and must then contract a union within
the period of six months. Should they fail to do so, they are
served with three warning notices at successive intervals of two
months, before any step is taken in the way of coercive meas-
ures. Every bachelor and every spinster is bound to furnish a
written explanation of their irregular condition, and the only
reasons admitted as valid are serious ill-health or organic
defects.

" ' When two lovers wish to marry they present themselves to
the People's Commissary, who witnesses their marriage. The
same course is followed as regards separating, only that the
Commissary, after freeing the unhappy pair, inscribes the man
afresh on the celibate list and the woman on the register of
marriageable persons, notifying each of the obligation to find
another partner within six months. In case children have been
born from their union, they are either delivered to the custody
of the particular parent desiring them or else divided between
them. The Commissariat of Unions aids the youth of either
sex in their quest of a mate by promoting all healthy forms of
social intercourse and facilitating introductions among families
of every type.'' "

The above despatch was published in the April 26, 1919,
issue of " The ISTew York Times."

On April 28, 1919, the following very apt comment was made
on it and appeared on the editorial page of the " New York
Times " :

"As explained by somebody whom a Milan paper calls a
'Bolshevist statesman,' marriage as regulated by the great and
good Lenine is not at all the dreadful thing described recently
by the mendacious enemies of his Socialistic paradise. As
pictured by his friends, nothing worse has been done than
to exert a gentle pressure on the marriageable unmarried to the
end that they may do their duty to the Bolshevist State and
provide it as soon as may be with new sons and daughters to
take the place of those recently 'removed' by a benevolent
terrorism.

168 THE RED CONSPIRACY

" Bachelorhood and spinsterhood are to be regarded as ' irreg-
ular ' — conditions that must be explained in writing to the
proper authorities. For the well disposed a simple civil mar-
riage ceremony is provided; also a simple divorce ceremony in
case the union proves wearisome. And that is all there is to the
Bolshevist marriage system, the statesman says.

" But one notices that he does not disclose what is done to
those who fail to find pleasing mates in the six months allowed
after notification for the making of a choice. Apparently it is
then that the so-called nationalization of women comes in, and
the statesman forgot to say a word about the only peculiarity
of the system that has evolved any serious criticism."

Commenting on Bolshevism, Mr. Eber Cole Byam, in the
April 26, 1919, issue of "America," very aptly says:

" As the Eoman world was reduced to barbarism by the bar-
barians so now the modern world is threatened with reduction
to Bolshevism by the Bolsheviki. Whatever the word Bolshev-
ism may have meant originally it has come to mean fiendish
treatment of women, the savage murder and mutilation of men
and the wanton destruction of the accumulated labors of gen-
erations. The Bolshevik is a Socialist, not the armchair theorist
dreaming fantastic fancies. The Bolshevik is the real Social-
ist, the Socialist of practice."

The following encomium on Bolshevism appeared in " The
Call," New York, April 26, 1919, and shows what strange incli-
nations the Socialists have towards barbarism:

" For the first time in Eussia's history law has been estab-
lished based on the direct will of the population, established
through the most democratic franchise in the world. Under
Czarism, law was merely the promulgation of autocratic
tyranny

" For the first time in Russia's history, perfect freedom of
religion is guaranteed to Christian, Moslem and Jew alike.
After the American pattern, no church may control the state.

" For the first time, millions of Eussian workers and peasants
find themselves with decent homes. For the first time, women
have equal social rights with men. For the first time, a real
educational system has been inaugurated for the children.

"The recent ofBcial American investigators sent to Eussia
found a great change in the life of the cities from of old. They
described the life as puritanical. Eussians explained the change

RUSSIA EED WITH BLOOD 169

to them by the fact that vice and debauchery had been con-
fined mostly to the idle ruling class, the old aristocracy, and
these things had passed with the passing of that class."

Listen now to the words of the Russian Socialist author,
Leonoid Andreiev, who has seen quite enough of the "bless-
ings" of Bolshevism. They appear in the April 26, 1919, issue
of " Struggling Russia," under the caption, " S. 0. S., An
Appeal to Humanity":

" One must, indeed, be insane not to understand the palpable
and simple acts of Bolshevism! One must be sightless, stark-
blind or have eyes that see not, to fail to observe on the face of
the great mutilated Russia murder without end, ruins, miles of
cemeteries, dungeons and insane asylums; not to perceive what
hunger and terror have done to Petrograd, and, alas, to many
other cities!

" One must be earless, stone-deaf, or have ears that hear not,
to remain callous to the sobs, the sighs and the wailing of
women, the heart-rending cries of the children, the death-rattle
of strangled men, the cracking of the assassins' rifles, the only
music that has filled the air of Russia for the last eighteen'
months! ....

" As the wireless operator on a sinking vessel, in the thick
blackness of the night, sends out his last appeal, ' Help, quick,
we are sinking, save us ! ' so I, moved by my faith in the good-
ness of man, am sending out into distance and darkness my
prayer for my people who are sinking.

" If you only knew how dark is the night around us, if my
words could only convey its density and depth! Whom am I
calling? I know not. Does the wireless operator know who
may intercept his call? Por thousands of miles around the
ocean may be deserted and not a living soul may overhear his
appeal.

" The night is dark. The sea is frightful. But the operator
has not lost his faith, and he calls persistently, to the very last
minute, until the last light is gone and his apparatus is silenced
forever.

" What does he trust in ? He trusts in humanity, and so do
I. He trusts in the law of human love and life. It is impos-
sible that one human being will deny help to another in his
hour of perdition. It is impossible that one human being will
abandon another to perish without attempting to help. It is
impossible that such an appeal for help will not receive any
response! ....

ViO THE RED CONSPIRACY

" Friend ! I do not even attempt to tell you how frightful
life is in Russia at present, in our tormented Petrograd. Others
have told enough, and new words cannot be coined by the human
tongue.

" It is frightful when children starve and perish, and assas-
sins are well-fed and Trotzky is pouring down his throat the
last bottle of milk. It is frightful when the cemeteries of
Petrograd have no more room for the dead, and the murderers
have a free road not only to the Princess Islands, but to all the
ends of the world, and the wealth they have stolen will enable
them to live in balmy lands and in the most attractive corners
of our mercenary globe."

Catherine Breshkovsky, the Socialist " Grandmother of the
Eussian Revolution," though now an aged woman, lived long
enough to bewail the fate of her country. Speaking of her
native land, now reaping the harvest from the JIarxian seed
first sown many years ago, she says in her " Message to the
American People " :

" Flooded with tears and blood, Russia moans and cries out
to the world. She is a living body, and her tortures cannot be
looked upon cold-bloodedly as an extraordinary, never-before-
witnessed experiments in social evolution. She is alive and
every pore of her body is shedding blood."

Let the " scientiiic " American Socialists continue to take
their information from " The Call." They are far too learned
to be deceived by Russians such as Andreiev or the " Grand-
mother of the Russian Revolution." " The capitalist press is
lying about the conditions in Russia." " The Call " alone speaks
the truth, for it is a proletarian sheet.

Not satisfied with ruining his own country, Lenine would
have Bolshevism spread to all other nations. He longs for their
workingmen to rise in revolt against their present systems of
government. Listen to his words in his " Letter to American
Workingmen," published by the Socialist Publication Society,
431 Pulaski street, Brooklyn, New York:

" We know that it may take a long time before help can come
from you. Comrades, American Workingmen, for' the develop-
ment of the revolution in the different countries proceeds along
various paths, with various rapidity (how could it be other-
wise!) We know full well that the outbreak of the European
proletarian revolution may take many weeks to come, quickly as
it is ripening in these days. We are counting on the inevit-
ability of the international revolution. But that does not mean

RUSSIA BED WITH BLOOD 111

that we count on its coming at some definite date. We have
experienced two great revolutions in our ovi^n country, that of
1905 and that of 1917', and we know that revolutions cannot
come either at word of command nor according to prearranged
plans. We know that circumstances alone have pushed us, the
proletariat of Russia, forward, that we have reached this new
stage in the social life of the world not because of our superior-
ity but because of the peculiarly reactionary character of Russia.
But until the outbreak of the international revolution, revolu-
tions in individual countries may still meet with a number of
setbacks and serious overthrows

" We are in a beleaguered fortress, so long as no other inter-
national Socialist revolution comes to our assistance with its
armies. But these armies exist, they are stronger than ours,
they grow, they strive, they become more invincible the longer
imperialism, with its brutalities, continues. Workingmen the
world over are breaking with their betrayers, with their Gompers
and their Scheidemanns. Inevitably labor is approaching com-
munistic Bolshevistic tactics, is preparing for the proletarian
revolution that alone is capable of preserving culture and
humanity from destruction. We are invincible, for invincible
is the Proletarian Revolution."

The above words of the dictator Lenine may throw some light
on the Socialists' demand for "justice" to Russia, and their
campaign in behalf of the recognition of the Soviet Government
of that country.

The Socialist Publication Society of Brooklyn at the end of
the World War issued a large pamphlet entitled, " One Year of
Revolution," celebrating the first anniversary of the founding
of the Russian Soviet Republic. On the cover page, under the
caption, " The Spirit of Revolutionary Russia," and the sub-
title, " To the Oppressed of All Countries," we read the sum-
mons to a Socialist world-wide revolution:

"And this life and death struggle with our own oppressors
gives us the right to appeal to you, proletarians of all countries,
with a strong voice, with the voice of those who look into the
eyes of death in the revolt against the exploiters.

" Break the chains, you who are oppressed ! Rise in revolt !

" We have nothing to lose but our chains !

"We believe in the victory of the revolution, we are full of
this belief.

"We know that our Comrades in the Revolution will fulfill
their duty on the barricadeg to the bitter end,

173 THE RED CONSPIRACY

" We know that decisive moments are coming.

" A gigantic struggle will set the world afire. On the hori-
zon the fires of the revolt of all oppressed peoples are already
glowing and taking definite shape.

" At the moment that the waters of the Baltic will become red
with the blood of our Comrades, will close forever over their
bodies, at this moment we call upon you.

" Already in the clutch of death, we send our warm greetings
and appeal to you.

" Proletarians of the world, all, unite !

" Else in revolt, you who are oppressed.

" All hail, the International Eevolution !

" Long live Socialism ! "

In the spring of 1919 reports reached the United States that
the Bolsheviki had been inciting our troops in the Archangel
District of Russia to disloyalty against our government. An
Associated Press dispatch, dated Vienna, April 24, 1919, shows
how the .Bolshevists carried on their campaign in the Ukraine :

" The Bolsheviki penetrated the country in four sections.
First came agitators and next marauding bands to strike terror.
These were followed by larger bodies of troops, made up of for-
eign elements. Last came Soviet troops, headed by Bolshevist
commissioners. Iron discipline was maintained by Chinese
assassins, who executed all soldiers who revolted against orders."

On May 26, 1919, the " New York Times " announced that a
Bolshevist weekly paper would be issued in that city:

" Nicholai Lenine, the Premier, and Leon Trotzky, the Min-
ister of War, together with other officials of the Eussian Bol-
shevist Government, will begin next Monday the publication in
this city of a sixteen page weekly newspaper, the purpose of
which will be to spread propaganda favorable to the Bolsheviki.
This announcement is made in today's issue of the propaganda
sheet issued weekly from the headquarters of Ludwig C. A. K.
Martens, the unrecognized 'Bolshevist Ambassador' to the
United States. The paper is to be known as ' Soviet Russia.' "

" ' Every friend of Russia, as well as every person interested
in international affairs,' says the announcement, 'will subscribe
to this weekly.' * Soviet Russia ' will contain news items, edi-
torials, original articles, and unpublished documents."

The American Socialist Party acknowledges the Bolshevist
regime of murder and starvation to be a Socialist regime and
states that it upholds the lofty, international proletarian ideals.

RUSSIA RED WITH BLOOD 173

Debs and the American Socialist press, at the present writing,
acknowledge the Bolsheviki to be real Socialists, not reaction-
aries or Socialists merely in name, like the Ebert-Scheidemann
group in Germany. They want Bolshevism in America. They
welcome it, laud it, love it. At least this is the case Just now.
Will they presently be offering arguments to prove that the
Bolshevists were not Socialists at all, but traitors to the whole
Marxian movement ? Meantime the American Socialists spread
all kinds of lies about the " wonders " of the Soviet Government
while claiming that " the press " is lying about the Lenine sys-
tem to save the capitalists from the demands of the laboring
class.

Let us sincerely hope that no more Bolshevists from Eussia
will land on our shores. We have enough rebellious, hypocriti-
cal Reds here already, and need no more of them to teach us
how to run our government. Congress should pass strict laws
allowing no immigrants to land here who are Bolshevists.

It is to he hoped, too, that the leaders of the Illinois Labor
Party who secured the adoption in their platform of a pro-
Soviet plank in the spring of 1919 will take a few hours ofE
and learn something about the Russian system before trying to
" work it o2 " on our country.

There has been a great deal of " pussy-footing " talk in the
American press about Bolshevism and Socialism, implying that
there is no connection between the two. Yet Bolshevism is
nothing but a form of Socialism. It is Socialism applied,
though not yet as completely applied as the teachings of Karl
Marx require. If an incomplete application of the principles of
Socialism reduces a country to such an awful condition as Eus-
sia reveals, what may be expected from the full dose of Socialism ?

At the last moment, with this book in type, a cry from the
Bolshevik dictatorship comes out of Russia through interviews
given by Lenine and Trotzky to the "New York World's"
European correspondent, Lincoln Eyre. " I had an hour's talk
with Lenine in the Kremlin at Moscow," Eyre writes in a dis-
patch headed, "Riga (by courier to Berlin), Feb. 20, 1920,"
and printed in the "World" of February 31, 1920. Lenine
turned the interview into an argument for the lifting of the
Allied blockade of Russia, and gave more than a hint that
Russia's economic condition is desperate. According to Mr.

174 THE RED CONSPIEACY

Eyre's cable to the "New York World" of Tebruary 21, 1920,
Lenine said, speaking in English :

" Eussia's present economic distress is simply a part of the
world's economic distress. "Until the economic problem is faced
from a world standpoint and not merely from the standpoint of
certain nations or groups of nations, a solution is impossible. . . -
Not only Eussia but all Europe is going to pieces, and the
[Allied] Supreme Council still indulges in tergiversation.
Eussia can be saved from utter ruin and Europe, too, but it
must be done soon and quickly."

By insinuating that " all Europe is going to pieces " with
Eussia, and faces the same " utter ruin," Lenine covers his plea
for Eussia under an appeal to the self-interest of other nations.
Yet his confession that Eussia is " going to pieces " and
trembles on the brink of " utter ruin " is plain enough, making
his whole argument a cry to the " capitalistic " nations to help
Socialistic Eussia. Indeed, in other parts of the same inter-
view, as reported by Mr. Eyre in the " World " of February 21,
1920, Lenine appeals to " foreign capital " and the " capitalistic
countries " in the baldest terms, as follows :

" We have reiterated and reiterated our desire for peace, our
need for peace and our readiness to give foreign capital the most
generous concessions and guarantees. ... I know of no
reason why a Socialistic commonwealth like ours cannot do
business indefinitely with capitalistic countries. We don't mind
taking their capitalistic locomotives and farming machinery, so
why should they mind taking our Socialistic wheat, flax and
platinum ? "

Having waded through blood and violence to exterminate
" capitalism " and cancel all " concessions " and " guarantees "
in Eussia, has " the dictatorship of the proletariat " emerged
out of its nightmare of destruction simply to coax " foreign
capital " back into Socialistic Eussia by bribing offers of " the
most generous concessions and guarantees ? " After two years
of a reign of terror to make an earthly paradise by destroying
" capitalism " and the whole machinery of " capitalistic coun-
tries," this hungry reaching out by Lenine after " capital "
and " capitalistic " things is almost too ludicrous for belief !

Byre's interview with Trotzky, sent from " Eiga (by courier
to Berlin, Feb. 23)" and printed in the "New York World"
of February 25, 1920, simply reenforces Lenine's appeal to
" foreign capital " and the wicked " capitalistic countries."
According to Eyre in the " World " of February 25, Trotzky

RUSSIA RED WITH BLOOD 175

spoke of " Eussia, bankrupt, bleeding and starved," and said in
part:

" Our military successes have not blinded us to our need of
peace. We require peace for the re-establishment of economic
stabilization. . . We have had to sacrifice the welfare of

our people and the health of future generations to the desperate
needs of the hour."

And for what? Apparently only to substitute the autocracy
of a new proletarian aristocracy for the autocracy of the old
regime, and the czardom of Lenine and Trotzky for that of
the Romanoffs. And the new tyranny not only re-establishes
the old partnership between " capital " and labor, but puts
the burden of militarism on labor more exclusively than before.
This seems to be the program of Trotzky, "the People's Com-
missary for Military Affairs," according to Eyre's report of
Trotzky's words in the "New York World" of February 25,
1920. His words are as follows:

" We recognize our need for outside aid in setting this coun-
try on its feet industrially and economically. It is a tremendous
enterprise, one that will take two, five, perhaps ten years to
carry out, but through the indomitable spirit of our proletariat
it will be accomplished with a speed and competency that will
amaze our foemen. . . . And once again I say that the
people who help us gain peace will share in the profits, the very
considerable profits, resultant from the aid they will have
extended to us. . . .

" Foreign capitalists who invest their money in Eussian enter-
prises or who supply us with merchandise we require will receive
material guarantees of amply adequate character. They need
have no fears on that score. . . . It is obvious that we must
look to the victorious nations, to Great Britain or, still better,
to America for machinery, agricultural tools and other imports
which Eussia's economic renaissance demands."

Thus the old partnership of capital and labor is to be resumed.
But what of the Eussian workers? Having fought and toiled
to put Lenine and Trotzky on the proletarian throne they must
keep up military training to keep them there, and must toil
hard to produce "the very considerable profits" which Lenine
and Trotzky are going to share with the " foreign capitalists "
who help them. But let Trotzky explain the destiny of the
Eussian workers in his own words, as reported by Eyre in the
" World " of February 25, 1920 :

176 THE RED CONSPIRACY

" The workers and peasants will insist, once the revolution is
no longer in peril, on returning to their factories and farms
and making Eussia a fit land to live in. Frontier guards will be
maintained, of course. The framework of our (military)
organization must also be preserved in order that with the
experience they have received in the past eighteen months our
proletarian fighting men can be remodelled in two or three
months if the need arises. There will also be some form of
military training for the working class, that it may always be
ready to defend itself against the bourgeoisie."

Will not this be "militarism?" Of course not; for, in
Trotzky's words in the same interview, " Militarism, striking as
it does at the very roots of Communism, cannot possibly exist
in Soviet Eussia, the only truly pacific country in the world ! "
Thus facts disappear behind words. Conscription was mili-
taristic under the Czar, but it cannot be under a Trotzky, for
he has labeled his system a Soviet Eepublie and since Soviets
are never military their military arrangements, though appar-
ently more severe than the other kind, are really only a form
of pacifism! Thus the happy Eussian workers must serve as
" frontier guards," keep tip the framework of their military
organization, and submit to " some form of military training,"
but may whistle as they groan, knowing that the yoke they bear
" cannot exist."

Other contradictions in these interviews will be discussed
later in this book. For example, we shall find, in Chapter XVI,
that the Soviet Eepublie at Moscow can make peace with
" capitalistic countries " and form partnerships with " foreign
capital " while at the same time the Third International at
Moscow carries on a world-wide conspiracy to destroy " capital-
ism " and overthrow the governments and institutions of
" capitalistic countries."

CHAPTER XII
EUROPEAN SPARTACIDES AND COMMUNISTS

In Berlin, shortly after the Eevolution against the Imperial
Government, Karl Liebknecht, Eosa Luxemburg and their
group of Socialists of the extreme Left were raising a merry
riot almost every day in the hope of overcoming the ultra-con-
servative Socialist government and introducing the radical Bol-
shevist program. The constant disorder occasioned by these
Spartacans or Spartacides of the Left provoked the opposition
parties very much, annoying them to such an extent that many
Germans wished to remove the capital of the country from
Berlin to some more orderly city.

The name " Spartacides " or " Spartacans " came from the
fact that early in the World War Karl Liebknecht, their leader,
issued a number of anti-war pamphlets bearing the pseudonym,
" Spartacus."

The Spartacides are the reddest of the Eeds, the real Social-
ists of Germany. They differ very much from the Ebert-
Scheidemann group, for the Spartacans want the principles of
Socialism applied immediately, whereas Ebert and other mem-
bers of his government warned their followers that though they
held Socialist theories, the application of Socialism must be
postponed to the distant future. The Ebert- Scheidemann
Majority Socialists are regarded by the others as Socialists only
in name, being really social reformers, or, at the most, weak-
kneed Socialists who sought power, but fully realized that the
application of the Marxian principles would be doomed to
absolute failure. The Spartacans, however, still have confidence
in Socialism; they agree heart and soul with the Eussian Bol-
sheviki; they are the rowdies and rufSans of Germany, always
looking for trouble. Strikes, riots and civil discord are their
weapons, and the American Socialists are among their particular
friends. Indeed, the Socialist Party of Eugene V. Debs has no
use whatever for the Ebert-Scheidemann group, who are looked
upon as reactionaries, hypocrites, murderers and traitors to
Socialism.

177

178 THE EED CONSPIEACY

In the latter part of 1918, the Berlin correspondent of the
" Ivolnische Zeitung " drew a graphic picture of the terrorism
exercised in Berlin by the Spartacan gangs :

" Dr. Liebknecht himself, whose imprisonment has obviously
clouded his formerly keen intelligence and probably turned his
brain, spends his time in visiting barracks in Berlin, Spandau
and elsewhere, and inciting the men to refuse to allow any
distinctions even of non-commissioned rank or to accept any-
thing resembling orders from officers or to admit them to the
local councils. His chief of staff, Dr. Levy, who before the war
was his business partner in his law office, is preaching fanaticism
in Berlin to all and sundry.

" The word Spartacus goes through the city like a bogy.
Civilians, soldiers, employees, capitalists, all feel themselves
equally threatened. A sitting of the Prussian Lower House
had to be adjourned because it was feared that the Spartacus
gang was going to seize the building.

" ' The Lokal Anzeiger ' has several times failed to appear,
as the result of repeated efforts of the Spartacus gang to seize it.
Careful burghers chain up the house doors, and it would be well
if the steadier elements of our workmen and soldiers would
chain up the door of their hearts against the murderous and
suicidal ideas of the Spartacus gang."

The Spartacides made a practice of terrorizing German news-
papers into supporting them. In the early part of 1919, they
tried to prevent the Constituent Assembly from coming together,
and later on engineered many a revolt in the various cities of
Germany. Since their leaders, the fiery Karl Liebknecht and
Eosa Luxemburg, were assassinated, the orderly elements of the
German people have succeeded more and more in weakening the
power and influence of the Spartacans.

Kurt Eisner, of Bavaria, after the overthrow of the German
Imperial Government, sought to establish a federation of Ger-
man republics under the head of Bavaria. It was not very
long before the first step was taken, Bavaria declaring itself
a republic independent of the Berlin Government. After the
assassination of Eisner, Bavaria, and especially its capital,
Munich, came more and more under the control of the extreme
radical group of Socialists known as the Communists. About
the end of March, 1919, Bela Kun, the Foreign Minister of the
newly established Communist Government of Hungary and one
of the most active propagandists of Russian Bolshevism,
arrived at Munich to confer with the leaders of the Bavarian

SPAHTACIDES AND COMMUNISTS 179

Government. Shortly afterwards, in the early part of April, a
Soviet Eepublic was proclaimed at Munich.

The socialization of industry began. That part of the press
that favored the new regime was upheld by the Government,
which suppressed unfriendly organs. Members of the Christian
Textile Workers' Association v,-ere forced, on pain of being
deprived of work, to join the Social-Democratic Union. Various
other measures of " freedom, equality, and justice " were also
bestowed upon the people, and the hope was expressed by the
Eed Socialists of Munich that the proclamation of a Bavarian
Soviet would have its effect throughout Germany and result in
a world revolution.

Towards the middle of April, 1919, press dispatches stated
that the Munich Communists had elected a council, consisting
of five workmen and live soldiers, with Herr Klatz, a bricklayer,
as president; that the police was disarmed; that eleven hostages
were taken from the ranks of the trade-union leaders; that
revolutionary tribunals were established at Munich, where
twenty-eight judges continued, in relaj's of seven, to pass sen-
tences day and night, and, finally, that a decree was issued
by the Communist government confiscating all dwellings.

Shortly after these reports reached America, the peasants
of Bavaria rose up against the revolutionary government in
Munich and declared an effective ban on the shipment of food
to that city. Ko attacks were made upon Munich by the troops
of the moderate Hoffman government of Bavaria which had
been ousted by the Communists, for it was feared that the whole
country might thus be plunged into civil war. The only
strategic movement of these troops was to cut off the supplies
of food.

Discord soon sprang up among the Soviet leaders themselves,
who engaged in open street fights against each other. Before
the end of April, 1919, the Central Council had been dissolved
and the Communist mob had turned to plundering. Food ration
cards were taken away- from the bourgeoisie, and barricades were
erected around the city to defend it from Noske's army, sent
to attack it by the Ebert-Scheidemann moderate Socialist Gov-
ernment of Berlin. In the early part of May, 1919, the Com-
munist rabble of the Bavarian capital was finally overcome by
the artillery fire of Noske's troops, and Hoffman was once more
put in control.

The American Socialists look upon the ousted Communists
of Bavaria as the upholders of the Marxian doctrine, and con-

180 THE RED CONSPIEACY

sider them, along with the Eussian Bolsheviki and the
Hungarian Communists, as Socialist brethren worthy of their
respect and imitation.

In Hungary the " 100 per cent " Socialists, the Communists,
under the leadership of Bela Kun, came into power in the
early part of the year 1919. Press despatches, at the end of
March, stated that all villas, industries and building had been
declared the property of the state; that each factory was con-
trolled by a Council of Laborers; that free-love was legalized
as in Russia; that all clergymen and nuns were removed from
the hospitals, excepting those who acted in the capacity of nurses,
and the religious, tuition schools were abolished.

A press dispatch dated Buda-Pest, April 4, 1919, said that
" in Transylvania, following the practice in Moscow, the
churches have been converted into music halls, the best seats
being reserved for the proletariat. The government officials do
not pay house rent and have priority on foodstuffs and clothing."

The American Socialists boasted about the absence of blood-
shed in Hungary during the early part of Bela Kun's regime.
Whether or not he had been cautioned by Lenine not to wear
out too many rifles in the beginning, lest there be a dearth later
on, we do not know. At any rate, by the latter part of May,
1919, the Hungarian Communists also began to manifest their
true color. They were not satisfied with "painting everything
red " in Buda-Pest, but also wanted to see red blood flowing in
the gutters. In conflrmation of this we have the following
Associated Press report, dated Vienna, May 20, but not appear-
ing in the " New York Times " till May 23 :

"Many persons accused of being counter-revolutionists are
being executed by the Hungarian Communists, according to
despatches received here. The victims are usually shot in front
of the Hungarian Parliament House in the daytime or in the
school-yard in the Markostrasse at night.

" Among those who are said to have been executed are Herr
Holan, manager of the Kaschau-Oderberg Eailway; Bishop
Balthasar, a hostage from Debreczen, and Colonel Dormany of
the General Staff, who was taken from a hospital. Several
girls, who were accused of making tri-color rosettes for the
counter-revolutionists, also were executed. The presiding Judge
of the Revolutionary tribunal, which orders the executions, it is
eaid, is a former locksmith, 22 years of age.

"Many bodies of men and women and girls of the better
classes have been found on the shores of islands in the Danube

SPARTACIDES AND COMMUNISTS 181

below the city. It is reported that they were arrested in the
residential quarter of Buda and thrown into the Danube by
guards who were taking them to prisons in Pest."

In the summer of 1919 the Hungarian Communists lost con-
trol of the country. Not only had internal dissensions broken
out at home, but they had been attacked for a long time by the
Rumanians, who had caused them endless trouble. If they had
succeeded in remaining in power long enough, they would, no
doubt, in time have shown themselves proficient in murdering
their fellow-countrymen and as skilled in the use of the rifle
as the Bolsheviki in Russia, the Spartacides in Germany and
the Communists in Bavaria. These four groups of European
Socialists of the extreme Lef t — ruffians, brutes, murderous
thugs, half barbarous savages, slayers even of their own Socialist
brethren — have long been in a " position " to tSach the " gentle
art" of plunder and murder to their admiring comrades on
this side of the Atlantic, that " poor," " persecuted," " working-
man," Eugene V. Debs, and his crowd of " honest," " scientific,"
" evolutionists."

With these European thugs Berger and Hillquit deliberately
" lined up " the Socialist Party of America in the words of
their Chicago manifesto of September 4, 1919:

" 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 Move-
ment. We unreservedly reject the policy of those Socialists
who supported their belligerent capitalist governments on the
plea of 'national defense,'" etc.'

There is no breath of patriotism in these dogs.

The above "line up" was confirmed by the rank and file of
the Socialist Party of America in their referendum vote identi-
fying their party with the Revolutionary Third (Moscow) Inter-
national. (See Chapters V and XVI.)

CHAPTER XIII
THE BOLSHEVISM OF AMERICAN SOCIALISTS

To accuse American Socialists of conspiring against our fair
land may at first startle the reader. Brand as traitors to the
common welfare men who boast so loudly of being the only
friends of the oppressed laborer ! Call the followers of Karl
Marx the enemies of our country after they have lavished so
much precious time on exposures of those who defraud American
workingmen of an honest wage ! Yet, as our investigation
moves along, telling evidence uncovers the existence of an
alarmingly widespread conspiracy.

Our Chapters VIII and IX have clearly revealed the I. W. W.
as a purely revolutionary organization, enrolling under its red
flag discontented workingmen, even negroes and Chinese, pledged
to overthrow our Government, while meanwhile, with anarchistic
contempt for law and morality, they do what damage they can
through strikes and sabotage.

The same chapters proved that the Socialists are co-operating
heart and soul with the Industrial Workers of the "World.

Chapters X, XI and XII gave the reader evidence of some
of the terrible results of Bolshevism in Eussia, Communism .in
Hungary and Bavaria, and Spartacism in Germany. Yet far
from being dismayed by these horrors, the Socialists of the
United States proclaim themselves of the same breed as the
Bolshevists, Communists and Spartacans abroad, whose torch
of incendiarism they would apply to the United States.

The Socialist Party of Buffalo, New York, published a pink
booklet entitled, " The Truth About Eussia," in wliich reference
is made to the Eussian call to a world-wide Socialist revolution.
On page 41, at the conclusion of the articles of the Bolshevik
Constitution concerning rights and duties, we read :

" In proclaiming these rights and duties the Eussian Socialist
Eepublic of the Soviets calls upon the working classes of the
entire world to accomplish their task to the very end, and in
the faith that the Socialist ideal will soon be achieved to write
upon their flags the old battle cry of the working people ;

" ' Proletarians of all lands, unite !

183

BOLSHEVISM OP AMERICAN SOCIALISTS 183

" ' Long live the Socialistic world revolution ! ' "

The plan is for Socialists in countries outside of Eussia to
he helped in their revolts against their governments by their
Bolshevist comrades. In the " Labor Scrap Book," published
by Chas. PI. Kerr and Co., there is a long article by Nicholas
Lenine, the Eussian dictator. Several quotations are here given :

" Eussia's revolution is not a domestic revolution, but essen-
tially a world revolution

" The Bolsheviki follow a consistent policy. They realized
long ago that the revolution, though primarily political, must
become economic and socialist. They know that economy and
socialism have nothing to do with racial or political boundaries
and that the future of our revolution must, therefore, be inter-
national. The revolution must pass over all political and racial
frontiers and crush opposing economic ideas. They know that
a state organized on Socialist and pacifist lines cannot exist
if hemmed in by capitalistic and militarist states. Eussia's
revolution must follow the law of all healthy organisms. It
must increase. If it does not increase it will decline

" Eussia will continue to propagandize unshrinkingly in all
countries.

" V\'e may be left temporarily in peace to enjoy our revolu-
tionary social and economic system while the rest of Europe
continues to groan under a capitalism and monarchism which,
perhaps, for the time being, will be purged of a too dangerous
imperialism.

" What will Eussia do if this be so ?

" Short-sighted men reply : ' Cherish your own revolution ;
thank Heaven that you are better off than the rest of the world ;
and let the rest of the world do what it likes.'

" But we Bolsheviki are against such a policy. Short of armed
pressure against any European country, we shall not shrink
from measures necessary for spreading our revolution in the
world.

" The motives why every Bolshevik must approve of this
policy are overwhelming. The first is that a peace between the
ideas of revolutionary Eussia and the ideas of non-revolutionary
Europe could at best be a truce

" Each side would foster its ideas and prepare for a future
struggle, and since non-revolutionary Europe will always be bet-
ter armed than pacifist Eussia, the European despots (as soon
as they have recovered from their present bitter lesson of the

J84 THE RED CONSPIRACY

meaning of war) undoubtedly would hurl themselves upon
Eussia in order to wipe away the one revolutionary plague-spot.

" For that reason our revolution cannot rest imtil it has
established full revolution in all neighbor lands.

" The second reason why Eussia must incite Europe to revolt
is that by its very nature, the revolution cannot live in isolation.
Europe must be organized, either on a capitalistic basis or a
proletarian, anti-capitalistic basis. The dual system is incon-
ceivable. It is impossible for Eussia to exist without capitalistic
banks and industries, if she has to trade with countries which
have capitalistic banks and industries

" In its own defense the revolution must propagandize and
convert. It must incite and urge on the masses against their
present rulers in all countries, and it must do this unshrink-
ingly, without fear of consequences, or consideration for the
feelings and interests of the foreign affected parties."

The question may now be asked, What means is the Eussian
Bolshevist government using to incite revolution in America?
We have not, of course, much definite information as yet; but
we know that Lenine's government has lots of money which it
can use for foreign revolutionary propaganda, and that a certain
Ludwig C. A. K. Martens has been in our country for some
time claiming to represent the Soviet government and boasting
that he is able to deposit in our banks for commercial purposes
hundreds of millions of Eussian gold. He is very active, has
been assisted by Morris Hillquit of " The Call," the Socialist
daily of New York City, goes about visiting different Socialist
organizations, and in return is entertained by them. During the
months of April and May, 1919, many notices of such receptions
were published in " The Call." One example will suffice, tinder
the caption, " Official Socialist News," in the issue of March 31,
1919, we read:

" The central committee of Local New York, Socialist Party,
greets Comrade L. C. A. K. Martens, recently appointed the
representative of the Eussian Soviet government in the United
States and in his name the victorious Eussian proletariat.

"We sincerely hope that his work in behalf of the Socialist
government of Eussia will be crowned with success. We pledge
him our aid, and promise that we shall not rest until the
government of the United States has ceased to be a party to
the economic and political isolation of Eussia and the military
occupation of territory of the Soviet republic."

In the latter part of March, 1919, Martens shared ofiBces with

BOLSHEVISM OF AMERICAN SOCIALISTS 185

Santeri Nuorteva, also a great friend of the American Socialists.
Nuorteva was head of the Bolshevist propaganda in this country
and from his office mailed the " Weekly Bulletin of the Bureau
of Information on Soviet Eussia." Nuorteva denied that these
large sheets, which are about the same size as the propaganda
sheets issued in the first months of the war by the German
Information Service, constitute propaganda. Like the German
Information Service sheets, each contains from six to ten articles.
All paint conditions in Eussia under Trotzky and Lenine as
steadily improving and show those men and their aids as gentle,
kind-hearted individuals whose only sin is the betterment of
mankind.

Among labor unions Bolshevism has made great headway.
The New Labor Party of Illinois in 1919 not only supported
Soviet Eussia but favored the Soviet system in our own country.
Sensible workingmen in the American Federation of Labor and
conservative members of the new Labor Party had good reason
for being alarmed and for suspecting that American propagators
of Bolshevism received Eussian gold from some one, possibly
from Martens.

The Socialist papers of the United States approve of Bol-
shevism, Spartacism and Communism, and would gladly welcome
it to our country. " The Call," New York, March 31, 1919, on
its editorial page says : " The red in the East is the dawning
of a new day." On April 1, 1919, the same paper contained a
long article on the first page, entitled, "Forces of Darkness
Open Their Campaign to End Bolshevism." On April 11, 1919,
in an editorial on the impending capture of Odessa by the Bol-
sheviki, it says:

" The evacuation of the Black Sea port of Odessa by foreign
troops that have been holding it for many months is news of
great significance

"Like the German forces hurled against Soviet Eussia by
the mailed fist of the Kaiser, the French, Greek and Eumanian
soldiers go out in a different mind and temper than they had
going in. Wherever they go, they will spread the ideas of
human liberty and co-operative development that they were sent
to crush."

On April 13, 1919, "The Call" printed a poem on the
assassinated Spartacan leader, Karl Liebknecht:
" Liebknecht
" Liebknecht, your lonely, bitter course is run !
While we, with cautious feet, pursue the goal —

186 THE RED CONSPIRACY

'Tis not in pity's name that we make moan —
Nay ! 'tis in envy of your martyrdom !
The mirror of your flaming soul
Has caught our poverty and gloom,
In that fierce light our virtues shown
Petty, distorted, wan !
Then hail ! martyr, in our day of doom !
Hail, fiery heart, receive the victor's crown !
Our heart a charnel house has grown
For our vast dead ! Yet we make room
For freedom's slain. Shall not the tomb
Yield heavy harvest where such seed is sown ? "

" The Call," April 15, 1919, published the following endorse-
ment of Hungarian Communism by the New York State Com-
mittee of the Socialist Party:

" Whereas, the working class of Hungary have seized political
power and are using the same for the purpose of socializing
industry and as an instrument for the complete emancipation
of labor, therefore be it

" Eesolved, that we, the State Committee of the Socialist
Party of the State of New York, in meeting assembled con-
gratulate the Socialist movement and the working class of Hun-
gary on the success of the revolution and on the position that
the Hungarian Socialist Eepublic has taken in defiance of the
capitalist imperialists of all lands."

In the April 24, 1919, edition of "The Call" we read:

"A new period in the evolution of the social and economic
structure of the world is at hand. A new day for those wlio
toil. A new day which will mean economic and political liberty
based on justice for those who toil. Some call it revolution.
Well, if that be the word, so be it. And woe be to those who in
their blind folly throw themselves in the way to stop its onward
sweep throughout the civilized world, for tliey shall be as grass
before the sickle ! Hail, all hail, the new day ! "

Again, in its issue of April 30, 1919, "The Call" favors the
Hungarian Communist regime of Bela Kun:

" ' There is reason to believe,' says a dispatch from Budapest,
' that the present Hungarian government has been unofficially
approached by the Entente with the suggestion that military
invasion might be arrested if the extremist members were
replaced by more moderate Socialists.' Making all allowance
for the unreliability of the dispatch, it is hard to say which

BOLSHEVISM OF AMESICAN SOCIALISTS l8?

cuts the more contemptible figure, the Entente or the ' Moder-
ate Socialists.'"

In its 1919 May Day edition, " The Call," under the caption,
" All Attacks on Russian Revolution Have Recoiled," shows its
sympathy for Bolshevism and Spartacism:

" Every attack of world reaction upon Soviet Russia, the
center of the world revolution, has remained fruitless. The
internal strength and the external power of the Russian Workers'
and Peasants' Republic is growing daily into a power that will
successfully withstand the onslaughts of capitalism. The pos-
sibilities of subduing the Russian revolution by force from
without decrease constantly as the governments of the different
countries are ever more forcibly threatened by the fermentation
among their own peoples which they must combat.

" At present the second, the Socialist revolution, has come
upon the scene in Germany, which, driven to the edge of starva-
tion, bleeding and drained to the marrow by Kaiserism and
militarism, is now being held in the grip of Entente capitalism.
There at this moment the courageous and steadfast Socialists
stand under the flag of Spartacus, first on the barricades under
the sign of the general strike and street battles

" The German Socialists of the Right have soiled the name
of Socialism by being inimical to the Russian revolution; by
failing to communicate with the radical English elements in
the English strike movements, which are also spontaneous
expressions of proletarian unrest; by acting as the lackeys of
Kaiserism and capitalism in opposing the November revolution
to the last hour before its outbreak; and, finally, by their
unspeakable mass murders of starving, demonstrating and
striking proletarians.

" In this struggle between the revolution and the social-
patriotic bourgeois reaction which now enters into a decisive
phase, two of the noblest pioneers of the international. Dr. Karl
Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg, were murdered by the hate-
filled bourgeois mob and the degenerate Scheidemann-Noske
henchmen. Another victim of the treacherous reaction was
Kurt Eisner, Socialist premier of Bavaria. One need but be
an honest, fearless Socialist to be in danger of one's life under
the hypocritical, false, brutal and murderous regime of Ebert-
Scheidemann-lSToske. This regime revives the worst methods
of Kaiserism and holds its protecting hand over the bourgeois
and capitalists of Germany. But this blood and the blood of
our martyrs will only urge the masses to continuous uncon-

188 ^HE RED CONSPIEACt

querable struggle, till ■ the criminal Ebert-Scheidemann-Noske
reaction, together with the criminals and conspirators of the
old empire, yield to the power of the revolutionary justice of
the masses."

In the May 1, 1919, issue of " The Call," the May Day Mani-
festo is made public by Morris Hillquit, International Secretary
of the Socialist Party of the United States. Only part of it
is hereby quoted :

" We send fraternal greetings and vows of whole-hearted
sympathy to the Socialist Soviet Republic of Eussia, which is
so valiantly upholding the lofty international proletarian ideals
in the face of the combining military economic and political
attacks of reactionary powers, and in spite of the systematic
campaign of libelous misrepresentation on the part of the lying
capitalist press of the world. We send congratulations and fra-
ternal good wishes to the workers of Hungary on the establish-
ment of a free Communistic Workers' Eepublie, upon the ruins
of the predatory monarchy of their exploiting and land-monopo-
lizing rulers. We extend the hand of comradeship and solidarity
to the revolutionary Socialists of Germany and Eussia, now
engaged in a life-and-death struggle to secure for the working
masses of their countries the full fruit of their victorious rfevolu-
tions; to the workers of England in their efforts to wrest the
control of the industries from the parasites in their country,
and to the Socialists of Prance, Italy and all other countries
of Europe in their fights against their revolutionary govern-
ments."

"The New Age," the Socialist paper of Buffalo, April 10,
1919, published a " Greeting to the Soviet Eepublie of
Hungary " :

" The proletariat of Hungary has taken all power in its own
hands. Like a bolt from the blue the workers, soldiers and
peasants of ' conquered ' Hungary proclaim their intervention
in the arena of world politics — and the diplomats of capitalism
are thrown into a flurry of mingled rage and fear.

" While the wires were still hot with the news of the resigna-
tion of Count Karolyi, president of the provisional government
of Hungary, as a protest against the peace terms of the Paris
Conference, came word of the complete triumph of revolutionary
Socialism and the establishment of the second Soviet Eepublie
in the world.

"With little or no resistance, with no intervening period of
Socialist compromise, the Hungarian Soviet Eepublie rises to

BOLSHEVISM OF AMERICAN SOCIALISTS l89

power and in its initial proclamation ushers in the dictatorship
of the proletariat, decrees the socialization of the large estates,
mines, big industries, banks and lines of transportation, declares
its oneness of purpose with the revolutionary proletariat of
Eussia and its readiness to form an armed alliance with the
federated Soviet Eepublic. All over the country Workmen's,
Soldiers' and Peasants' Councils are in action and take over the
functions of government.''

" The Eevolutionary Age," then a Socialist paper of Boston,
on March 29, 1919, showed its complete sympathy for the
Bolshevists, Communists and Spartacans :

" So the Hungarian workers set about their task and the
eastern sky is brightening.

" Already the two Soviet governments have issued an appeal
to the workers of all countries to sweep away the old system.
The bourgeois press tells of the spread of Bolshevism throughout
central Europe and the diplomats of Capitalism are turning
this way and that to avert fresh outbreaks. But they are power-
less. Every new move brings new complications, every award
of territory here brings discontent and adds to the ' menace '
there.

" Next !
" The fear that weighs upon the world of Capitalism and the
diplomats in Paris is: Who next? The proclamation of a
Soviet Eepublic in Hungary is to them not a fact, but a
symbol • — a symbol of the onward sweep of the proletarian
revolution, which may break loose in other nations.

"Through this symbol looms Soviet Eussia — gigantic, mys-
terious and implacable. Despised by the world of Capitalism,
intrigued against and vilified, isolated in the spaces of its ovm
territory, attacked by the soldiers of the Allies — Soviet Eussia,
through the flaming energy of its proletariat and Socialism
has conquered in spite of all. The Allies, their Capitalism
and Imperialism, are no longer a menace to Soviet Eussia; it
is now Soviet Eussia that menaces the Allies through its own
gigantic strength and the threat of the international pro-
letarian revolution

"And this revolutionary army of Soviet Eussia, massed at
the frontier, is prepared to march into Hungary or Poland or
Germany to co-operate with the revolutionary masses in any
war that may be necessary against international Imperialism
and for the proletarian revolution.

190 'rilE RED CONSPIRACY

" The situation in Germany is critical and crucial. The con-
quest of power by the revolutionary proletariat in Germany
will assure the world revolution. The recent butchery of the
Spartacans by the Government of ' Socialist ' assassins has not
crushed the revolutionary masses; on the contrary, the masses
have been aroused, the Ebeit-Scheidemann government depend-
ing more and more upon the worst elements of the old regime ;
it is being isolated, and the workers are rallying to the Soviets."

" The Ohio Socialist," published in Cleveland, and claiming
to be the " Official Organ of the Socialist Parties of Ohio, Ken-
tucky, Virginia, West Virginia and New Mexico," in the spring
of 1919 gave its unlimited support to Bolshevism. " The Pro
letarian," then a Socialist paper of Detroit, was in thorough
accord with Bolshevists, Spartacists and Communists, of Eussia.
Germany and Hungary respectively. The following quotations
are taken from the April, 1919, edition:

" In order to be a good American, according to the view of
the powers that be, it is necessary to repeat and believe the
stories written in the capitalist press about the Bolsheviki. But
we, who know what is going on, and do not believe them, main-
tain that a person can be truthful, and still be an American.
That he can be a good, pure, unadulterated American, and still
lend his sympathies to the Bolsheviki.

" In revolutionary Germany the struggle between the defend-
ers of capitalism and tlie champions of working class emanicipa-
tion — the Spartacides and tlieir adherents — continues almost
unceasingly. The ' democratic ' government has taken desperate
steps to crush the revolution ; there have been wholesale execu-
tions and other repressive acts

" The final conflict is now on. ' Euthless slaughter ' is the
governmental decree with Gustav Noske, 'minister of defense,'
in charge of the butchering. And what is it that ISToske and
his ' Socialist ' colleagues are defending ? The interests of the
German capitalists. Sacred private property rights are in
danger; the stronghold of capitalism is being assailed. The
expropriation of the capitalists is the aim of the proletarian
revolutionists

" All the old friends of Kaiserism — Hoffman, Hindenberg
and the rest — are lined up against the Spartacans. Although
these elements of reaction have gained temporary victory, the
workers are undismayed."

"The Proletarian," in this same issue, referring to the Bela
Kun dictatorship of Hungary, says :

BOLSHEVISM OF AMERICAN SOCIALISTS 191

" On Sunday, March 23d, the news was flashed across America
that Hungary had swung into the ranks of the revolutionary
proletarian dictatorships

" A note from the Paris Conference seems to have been the
last straw that ' broke the camel's back ' of the middle course
government, causing President, Cabinet and all, to resign. This
allowed the political power to fall into the hands of those who
are alone capable of handling the situation — the revolutionary
proletariat."

" The Chicago Socialist " is also pro-Bolshevist. In the April
1, 1919, edition each of the three following lines extends across
the top of the front page of the paper :

" How Many Bolshevists in Chicago ?

'•' The Vote Today Will Tell.

" Vote The Socialist Ticket."

At the bottom of the first page of this April election day issufc
of " The Chicago Socialist," the following notice is given to
voters :

"Vote for the great change, TODAY, by casting a Socialist
ballot. Stand up and be counted for a Soviet Kepublic, not
only in Eussia, or in Plungary, not only in the United States
or in some other land; but stand up and be counted for the
Soviet Eepublic of the world."

The Socialist paper of Duluth, like the other Marxian papers
of the United States, also favored Spartacism and Bolshevism,
for in the March 7, 1919, issue of "The Truth" we read:

" We can honestly say that the position in Germany is very
promising. The Spartacides are now coming into their own and
ere long we shall see Bolshevism firmly established in Germany."

The pink booklet published by the Socialist Party, Buffalo,
'New York, entitled, " The Truth About Eussia," contains the
text of the Bolshevik Constitution, and on page 2 appears the
following introduction :

" This little booklet is published by Local Buffalo, Socialist
Party, Erie County, with the object in view of giving informa-
tion to those who desire to grasp the true situation and under-
stand the struggle now going on in Eastern Europe between the
reactionary elements allied with German imperialism and other
imperialists against the Workers' Eepublic of Eussia in their
struggle for true democracy."

On the back cover sheet of " The Crisis in the German Social
Democracy," written by Karl Leibknecht, Eosa Luxemburg and
Eranz Mehring, and published by the Socialist Publication

193 THE BED CONSPIRACY

Society of Brooklyn, New York, there is an advertisement of
" The Class , Struggle/' " a bi-monthly magazine devoted to
International Socialism." This bi-monthly " does not exploit
the ephemeral, but gives serious studies of the international
movement from the pens of comrades in all parts of the world.
Among the recent contributors are: Lenine, Trotzky, Lunach-
arsk}', Franz Mehring, Liebknecht, Eosa Luxemburg, Priedrich
Adler, Santeri Nuorteva." So the advertisement reads.

"The Bulletm," issued March 24, 1919, by the National
OfSce, Socialist Party, page 11, volunteers information which
shows one phase of Bolshevist propaganda carried on by that
Party in the United States:

" The striking effective leaflet, ' The Great and Growing
Fear — No Work,' is accomplishing a double purpose and is
being snapped up eagerly and distributed by the hundreds of
thousands by state and local organizations and by individual
hustlers. Two hundred thousand copies have been sold and it
will shortly go to its third printing. Orders indicate a million
edition of this powerful leaflet. The Eussian Constitution, an
article and thought-compelling cartoons on unemployment, that
this leaflet carries, make it the Socialist literature triumph of
the month. Send for sample copy and order early.

" From the hustling ' Eed ' town of Hamilton, Ohio, comes an
order for 8,000 ' Great Fear ' leaflets to put the truth about
the Eussian Soviet Constitution in the homes of the workers of
that community."

" The Bye Opener," the official national organ of the Socialist

Party of America, in its issue of January, 1919, shows its

sympathy for the Spartacans by the following article :

"'You Did Not Die in Vain!'

"American Socialist Party to

" LiehJcnecM and Luxembourg.

" The Socialist Party executive committee has adopted a reso-
lution on the death of Karl Liebknecht and Eosa Luxembourg,
Germany's two most uncompromising foes of Kaiserism and
imperialism. It is as follows:

" * The National Executive Committee of the Socialist Party
of the United States of America, has learned of the deaths of
our beloved comrades. Dr. Karl Liebknecht and Eosa Luxem-
bourg, who are reported assassinated by the agents of the reac-
tionary forces of Germany, who are now conspiring to deprive
the workers of that country of the opportunity to establish a
free government there.

BOLSHEVISM OT? AMERICAN SOCIALISTS 193

" ' These comrades, always true to the principles of revolu-
tionary Socialism, in the face of unqualified opposition before,
during and after the gi'eat war, commajided the love and
admiration of all the lovers of international liberty, and have,
by their incomparable devotion to this great cause, made their
names immortal in the history of working class liberation.' "

From the " New York Times," November 18, 1918, we learn
that the Chicago Socialists endorsed Bolshevism.

A despatch by the International News Service from Cleveland,
Ohio, March 31, 1919, informs us that C. E. Euthenberg, lead-
ing Socialist of that city, after a meeting of the Cleveland
Socialists on March 30, announced that the members of the party
had just voted in favor of the adoption of the Bolshevik doctrine
of Lenine and Trotzky for the further direction of the Cleveland
party and that the action of the members was practically
unanimous.

"The Call," New York, April 3, 1919, gave notice of a
pro-Bolshevist meeting to be held by the Socialists on the follow-
ing Saturday afternoon at Park Circle, New York City:

" This is the first of a series that the Socialist Party of
Harlem proposes to hold, inspired by the success of the Debs
meeting two weeks ago at the same place, when 15,000 people
attended.

" The assemblage on Saturday, besides demanding that the
United States recognize Soviet Eussia, will also give a welcome
to the Soviet Eepublic of Hungary."

In its issue of April 10, 1919, "The Call" recorded the
approval by the Queen's County, New York, Socialists of the
Bolsheviki and Spartacans:

"We desire to clearly place ourselves on record for, and
openly and actively sign ourselves with the revolutionary pro-
letariat the world over, as at present expressed by the policies
and tactics of the Communist Party of Eussia (Bolsheviki),
the Communist Labor Party in Germany (Spartacans) and
other parties in harmony with them."

On May 31, 1919, "The Call" published the declaration
of the National Executive Committee of the party in favor of
Bolshevism, Communism and Spartacism : The Socialist Party
of the United States " supports whole-heartedly the Soviet
Eepublic of Eussia and the Communist government of Hungary.
. . . In Germany, Austria and countries similarly situated,
its sympathies are with the more advanced Socialist groups."

194 THE KED CONSPIRACY

In "The Call," May 17, 1919, Martens, the representative
in the United States of the Kussian Soviet Government, is
quoted as saying:

" Eussian workers, whom I represent, acknowledge with
gratitude the sympathy toward the struggles of Soviet Eussia
evinced by the Socialist Party of America, as well as by the
Socialist Labor Party, the. I. W. W. and other organizations
of the working class, and they return the sympathy without
discrimination."

" The Call," March 30, 1919, informs its readers that Cleve-
land Socialists were organizing a Workers' and Soldiers' Soviet,
and again, on April 1, 1919. that Soviets had been established
in Seattle, Portland and San Francisco. Eugene V. Debs, in
an article written by him in " The Class Struggle,'' said :

" From the crown of my head to the soles of my feet I stm
Bolshevik and proud of it."

"The Call," April 11, 1919, published Debs' "Last Minute
Message to All New York Socialists " :

" As I am about to eoter the prison doors, I wish to send
to the Socialists of New York who have loyally stood by me
since my first arrest, tins little message of love and cheer.
These are pregnant and promising days. We are all on the
threshold of tremendous changes. The workers of the world
are awakening and bestirring themselves as never before. All
the forces that are playing upon the modem world are making
for the overthrow of despotism in all its forms and for the
emancipation of the masses of mankind. I shall be in prison
in the days to come, but my revolutionary spirit will be abroad,
and I shall not be inactive. Let us all, in the supreme hour,
measure up to our full stature and work together as one for
the great cause that means emancipation for us all. Love to all
my Comrades, and all hail to the Eevolution. — Eugene Victor
Debs."

From the same issue of " The Call " we learn that Debs, on
leaving Wheeling, West Virginia, for the Moundsville prison,
gave the following statement to David Karsner, staff correspond-
ent : " I enter the prison doors a flaming revolutionist — my
head erect, my spirit untamed, and my soul unconquered."

A press despatch from Toledo, Ohio, March 31, 1919, describes
the serious socialist riot which took place that afternoon as a
protest against the then impending imprisonment of Debs, the
self-styled " flaming revolutionist " :

"Toledo, Ohio, March 31. — When they were refused admis-

BOLSHEVISM OP AMERICAN SOCIALISTS 195

sion by city officials to Memorial Hall, a city building where
Eugene V. Debs was scheduled to speak, 5,000 persons stormed
the place, broke windows and doors, and then paraded the streets
crying, ' To hell with the mayor.' ....

" Announcement that Debs would not be permitted to speak
was made late Saturday night, after the Socialists here had pre-
pared to handle an overflow crowd. The announcement appeared
in the morning papers, and was the first notice the Socialists
had that their meeting could not be held.

'' When the hour for Debs to speak arrived there were at least
6,000 men and women congregated about the William McKinley
monument in Courthouse Park, across the street from Memorial
hall.

" A man mounted the base of the manument. ' We'll use
Memorial Hall this afternoon if we have to wade through blood
to do it ! ' he shouted. A policeman grabbed him and he was
thrown unceremoniously into a patrol wagon. The man who
essayed to speak next also was arrested.

" As the crowd sensed what was occurring the radicals began
to hoot and boo the officers. Clubs were drawn and the crowd
was made to move. Then came the parade through the streets
and cries of ' Down with the mayor ! ' ' Hang him ! •■ ' To hell
with the police ! ' and others of a similar nature.

" It was after five o'clock before the police were able to
disperse the crowd. Fist fights by the dozens occurred on
corners. Hotel lobbies were invaded by the malcontents. Street
cars were held up and threats of serious outbreaks were to be
heard on every hand.

" More than seventy-five men were arrested, including Thomas
Devine, Socialist member of the city council."

CHAPTER XIV

VIOLENCE, BLOODSHED AND ARMED
REBELLION

Every year on May Day the Socialists are in the habit of
publishing articles and making speeches of a more than usual
revolutionary character. They are also fond of parading on
that day to incite riot, and of holding meetings to stir up
discontent and to foment rebellion among the laboring classes.
May Day, 1919, was an especially serious one in several cities
of the United States and will long be remembered, because the
Socialist riots occurred while the whole country was excited
over the unsuccessful mailing of bombs to a score or so of
eminent citizens. The most serious Marxian riots took place m
Cleveland, Ohio, and were described m part in the " Chicago
Tribune" as follows:

" Cleveland, Ohio, May 1. — An unidentified man was killed
by a detective's bullet, eleven policemen were shot or badly
beaten, and about 100 persons wounded, many seriously, in
general rioting which brought a dramatic finale this afternoon
to a Socialist May Day demonstration here.

"About thirty persons, seriously injured, are in hospitals
to-night, while scores of others, including women, were trampled
by rioters or clubbed by police.

" Socialist headquarters was totally wrecked by angry civilians
bent on putting an end to the demonstration

" A mob of several hundred threatened police headquarters
when C. E. Euthenberg, Socialist leader and former Socialist
candidate for mayor, was arrested and for more than an hour
the entire downtown section of the city was a warring mass of
Socialists, police, civilians and soldiers, the latter riding down
the rioters in army trucks and tanks.

" Dozens of shots were fired in Public square, where more
than 20,000 Socialists and sympathizers assembled for a May
Day rally and to protest against the convictions of Eugene V.
Debs and Thomas J. Mooney.

196

VIOLENCE AND REBELLION 197

" The trouble started in Superior Avenue, near East Ninth
Street, when the head of one of the five Socialist parades,
scheduled to meet in a mass meeting at Public square, was
stopped, and Liberty Loan workers and an army lieutenant
tore a red flag from a man at the head of the marchers, prac-
tically every one of whom were carrying red flags.

" In less than ten minutes riots had developed at several
other points, mounted and foot policemen being switched from
one location to another to quell the fighting.

"' The trouble in the public square started when Lieut. H. S.
Bergen, who served with the 80th Division overseas, demanded
that several soldiers among the Socialists on the platform
remove their uniforms or the red flags they wore on their
breasts.

" The soldiers refused, and C. E. Euthenberg, scheduled as
the principal Socialist speaker, interceded for the Socialists.

"Lieut. Bergen, followed by Lieut. John Hardy of Detroit,
thereupon mounted the platform and tore the red insignia from
the kliaki uniforms. The act was the signal for a grand rush
by thousands of Socialist sympathizers."

On Sunday, May 4, 1919, serious trouble with the Socialist-
Bolshevist element of Gary, Indiana, was narrowly averted. The
account, as published in the " Chicago Tribune " on the next
day, reads in part as follows:

" There was no ' Eed '" parade in Gary yesterday

" Fifty policemen, wearing revolvers on their belts and rein-
forced by a special shotgun squad of sixteen, a company of
state militia, thirty deputy sheriffs, a group of secret service
men from Chicago and hundreds of citizen volunteers, prevented
the parade after the Eussian Socialists flouted an order of
Mayor W. H. Hodges prohibiting the march and declared they
would proceed despite the authorities. . . .

"Yesterday's demonstration was the result of a carefully
planned plot matured for nearly a month by the foreign radical
element of Lake County, Indiana. Its stated purpose was to
protest against the conviction of Eugene V. Debs and Kate
Eichards O'Hare. An undercurrent of rumor among the
radicals gave it a more significant meaning, however.

" On Thursday secret service men obtained copies of pam-
phlets printed in Eussian, containing a formula for the manu-
facture of explosives. More literature calling for the overthrow
of the government was circulated. A third series of pamphlets
contained the Cdltistitution of the Eussian Soviet Eepublic.

198 THE RED CONSPIRACY

" Friday Morris Lieberman, head of the Socialists, called on
Mayor Hodges for a permit to parade. It was refused with
the explanation that riots such as caused two deaths in Cleve-
land were feared

" Early yesterday morning radicals began to arrive in Gary.
Cars from Indiana Harbor, "Whiting, Hammond, Crown Point,
and trains from Chicago brought them by the dozens.

" By noon several thousand had gathered in and near the
Socialist headquarters, a mile south of the business district of
Gary. Under portraits of Trotzky and Lenine they sang
Eussian songs and gathered about in knots waiting for ' zero
hour ' — one o'clock.

"Lieberman, fearing bloodshed, decided to counsel his fol-
lowers against a parade. They howled him down, however, and
hotter heads took charge of the meeting. A dozen girls, with
rolls of red ribbon, pinned a scarlet strip on the lapel of each
man's coat as he entered the meeting hall. Red neckties were
abundant. Bed hat bands made their appearance. Many wore
scarlet carnations."

Judge Haas of the Municipal Court of Gary thus commented
on those arrested in the demonstration :

" All except Capolitto have failed to become citizens. All
except him and one other tried to evade war service in our
army, endeavoring to sneak out on the ground of not being
citizens of this country. All they seem to want is to come over
here and make trouble — out of twenty-one gun-toters who have
been brought before me, nineteen have been foreigners and
not even citizens."

The leaders of the Marxian movement, both in the United
States and abroad, testify that to be a Socialist is to be a
plotter against all existing forms of government. Marx and
Engels, for instance, confess the truth of this in their celebrated
" Communist Manifesto," which they addressed to their fol-
lowers over half a century ago, and which is looked upon even
today by the rank and file of the party as embodying the funda-
mental principles of International Socialism. " The Com-
munists," we are told, " everywhere support every revolutionary
movement against the existing social and political order of
things " and " disdain to conceal their views and aims. They
openly declare that their ends can be obtained only by the forci-
ble overthrow of all existing social conditions. Let the ruling
classes tremble at a communistic revolution."

VIOLENCE AND REBELLION 199

We are indebted to the late August Bebel, the leader of the
Socialists of Germany, for the confession that " along with the
state die out its representatives — cabinet ministers, parlia-
ments, standing armies, police and constables, courts, attorneys,
prison officials, tariff and tax collectors, in short the whole
political apparatus. Barracks and other such military struc-
tures, palaces of law and of administration, prisons — all will
now await better use. Ten thousand laws, decrees and regula-
tions become so much rubbish; they have only historic value."
[" Women Under Socialism," by Bebel, page 319, of the 1904
edition in English.]

" The People," New York, May 13, 1900, in speaking of the
relation of Socialism to existing forms of government, including
our own, affirms that " while there is a very general idea that
Socialism means an extension of the powers and functions of
government, still this is a' very natural and dangerous miscon-
ception, and one that ought to be guarded against." " Social-
ism," it adds, " does not mean the extension of government,
but on the contrary it means the end, the elimination of
government."

The " International Socialist Eeview," Chicago, February,
1912, together with many other magazines and papers current
at the time, called attention to the fact that William D. Hay-
wood, who for a long time had been before the eyes of the
public on account of his revolutionary utterances and writings,
declared in a speech at Cooper Union, in New York City, that
the Socialists were conspirators against the United States
Government.

" The Call," April 1, 1919, in an editorial note says that " the
whole system of government in the United States, Federal, State
and Municipal, seems to be out of date."

Though the men who march behind the red flag, singing
the Marseillaise of the French Eevolution, usually deny to the
general public, for reasons of political expediency, that the
Socialist movement is a violent and revolutionary one, it is
evident to those who have read their books, magazines, and
papers, that the use of the ballot and education are not the
means on which they rely finally for the establishment of their
visionary commonwealth. Violence is advocated and habitually
practised by the Socialists who constitute the Industrial Workers
of the World, whose banner with the inscription, " No God,
No Master," has brought them into disrepute all over the coun-
try. Jack London, a Socialist widely known in the United

300 THE RED CONSPIRACY

States and England ■ as a novelist, furnishes us with excellent
reasons for believing that the International Socialist Party
approves of violence and assassination, and thereby reafBrms
its allegiance to the base principles of the French Commune.
Writing in the " International Socialist Eeview " of August,
1909, Jack London made the following comment on the progress
of Socialism in Eussia:

" Our comrades in Eussia have formed what they call ' THE
FIGHTING OEGANIZATION.' This FIGHTING OEGAN-
IZATION accused, tried, found guilty and condemned to death
one Sipiaguin, Minister of the Interior. On April 3, he was
shot and killed in the Maryinsky Palace. Two years later the
FIGHTING OEGANIZATION condemned to death and exe-
cuted another Minister of the Interior, Von Plehve. Having
done so it issued a document, dated July 29, 1904, setting forth
the counts of its indictment of Von Plehve and its responsibility
for the assassination. Now, and to the point, this document
was sent out to the Socialists of the world, and by them was
published everywhere in the magazines and newspapers. The
point is, not that the Socialists of the world were unafraid
to do it, but that they did it as a matter of routine, giving pub-
lication to what might be called an official document of Inter-
national Eevolutionary Movement."

August Bebel in " IJnsere Ziele," page 44, expresses his senti-
ments on the subject of violence quite as frankly as Jack London.
" We must not shudder," he tells us, " at the thought of the
possible employment of violence; we must not raise an alarm
cry at the suppression of existing rights, at violent expropriation,
etc. History teaches that at all times new ideas, as a rule, were
realized by a violent conflict with the defenders of the past,
and that the combatants for new ideas struck blows as deadly
as possible at the defenders of antiquity. Not without reason
does Karl Marx, in his work on ' Capital ' exclaim : ' Violence
is the obstetrician that waits on every ancient society which is
about to give birth to a new one; violence is in itself a social
factor.' "

As reference has just been made to Karl Marx, it will be well
to call attention to the fact that the Father of modern Socialism,
in " The Civil War in France," page 78, claims that " the
workingmen's Paris, with its Commune, will forever be cele-
brated as the glorious harbinger of a new society." The
Commune, then, whose anniversary is celebrated on the 18th
of March, every year, by the Socialists all over the world, has

VIOLENCE AND EEBELLION 201

been, and still is considered the precursor of their contemplated
state. The reign of terror and rebellion in which tens of thou-
sands of Frenchmen met their death, while public buildings and
priceless works of art were being burned or destroyed and many
beautiful churches pillaged, is the boast of the Socialistic
champions of universal peace. The Parisian mob of criminals
and revolutionists, which was finally subdued by 150,000 French
troops, after men and women had run about the streets with
petroleum cans, firing public buildings and private houses and
seizing many victims whom they hurried off to death, is, there-
fore, considered by the Socialists as one of the most illustrious
gatherings of persons recorded in history, and one worthy of
special memory, honor and respect.

Victor Berger of Wisconsin, speaking in the 1908 National
Convention of the Socialist Party in favor of an amendment to
the party constitution, proposed by Delegate Hazlett, to the
effect that any person opposing political action should be
expelled from the party, shows how little diiierence there is
between the advocates of "political action," who are supposed
to favor the use of the ballot, and the " direct actionists," who
admit their preference for violence.

" I have heard it pleaded," said Berger, " many a time right
in our own meetings by speakers that come to our meetings,
that the only salvation for the proletariat of America is direct
action, that the ballot box is simply a humbug. Now I don't
know how this question is going to be solved. I" have no doubt
that in the last analysis we must shoot, and when it comes to
shooting, Wisconsin will be there. We always make good.
. . . In order to be able to shoot even some day we must
have the powers of political government in our hands, at least
to a great extent. I want that understood. So everybody who
is talking to you about direct action and so on, and about
political action being a humbug, is your enemy today, because
he keeps you from getting the powers of political government."
f" Proceedings of the 1908 National Convention of the Socialist
Party," page 241.]

On July 31, 1909, we find Victor Berger, who posed as the
special exponent of " political action," against the " anarchistic "
element in his party, writing as follows in the " Social Demo-
cratic Herald " of Milwaukee :

" No one will claim that I am given to the reciting of revolu-
tionary phrases. On the contrary I am known to be a con-
structive Socialist. However, in view of the plutocratic law

202 'THE RED CONSPIRACY

making of the present day, it is easy to predict that the safety
and hope of this country will finally lie in one direction only,
that of a violent and bloody revolution. Therefore, I say, each
of the 500,000 Socialist voters and of the 2,000,000 workingmen
who instinctively incline our way, should, besides doing much
reading and still more thinking, also have a good rifle and the
necessary rounds of ammunition in his home, and be prepared
to back up his ballot with his bullets if necessary. This may
look like a startling statement. Yet I can see nothing else for
the American masses today."

In the " Social Democratic Herald," August 14, 1909, Victor
Berger drops a few more words on the same subject in an article
entitled: "IP THIS BE TEEASON, MAKE THE BEST
OF IT." " There are two ways," says he, " of effecting great
social changes in a republic — the ballot and the bullet. If
our people are not wise — if they are otherwise — then we may
have use for both of them."

Xow, if Berger is a specimen of the extreme " political
actionist," a conservative, the enemy of " direct action," who
can imagine the treasonable intentions and bloody thoughts of
the immense number of " direct actionists " who throng the
ranks of these national conspirators ?

It is not flattering to the State of Wisconsin to realize that
Berger has several times been chosen to represent one of its
Congressional- districts in the United States House of Eepre-
sentatives. Yet Berger has apt pupils. On January 12, 1919,
Mayor Hoan of Milwaukee presided at a Milwaukee meeting of
8,000 " Eeds " to protest against the conviction, under the
Espionage Law, of Victor L. Berger and four co-conspirators,
and prolonged cheering and waving of " Bed " insignia
answered the following words spoken by William Btoss Lloyd
{Testimony, Socialist Trial, Albany, page 1623) :

"What we want is revolutionary preparedness. We want to
organize . . . We want a mobilization plan and an organiza-
tion for the revolution. We want to get rifles, machine guns,
field artillery, and the ammunition for it. You want to get
dynamite. You want to tell off the men for the revolution when
it starts here. You want to tell off the men who are to take
the dynamite to the armory doors and blow them in and capture
the guns and ammunition there so that the capitalists won't
have any. You want to tell ofE the men to dynamite the doors
of the banks to get the money to finance the revolution."

VIOLENCE AND REBELLION 203

William D. Haywood and Frank Bohn are the joint authors
of a pamphlet entitled, " Industrial Socialism," the revolution-
ary tenor of which may be gathered from the following lines :

""When the worker, either through experience or a study of
Socialism, comes to know this truth [i. e., economic determin-
ism], he acts accordingly. He retains absolutely no respect for
the property rights of the profit takers. He will use any weapon
which will win his fight. He knows that the present laws of
property are made by and for the capitalists. Therefore he does
not hesitate to break them."

Since Haywood and Bohn evidently had no intention of using
paper-cap pistols and pop-guns as their weapons, and since thev
certainly did not mean to shoot at stone walls and forest trees,
it seems strange that the Socialist Party, if it does not advocate
such doctrines of violence, should sell these pamphlets at $6 per
100, according to a price list of its national office in Chicago.

To make matters still worse for the apologists of the Socialist
Party of America, no less a personage than Eugene V. Debs
commented as follows, in the " International Socialist Eeview,"
February, 1912, on the doctrines of Haywood and Bohn just
referred to :

" We have here a matter of tactics upon which a number of
comrades of ability and prominence have sharply disagreed. For
my part, I believe the paragraph to be entirely sound. Certainly
all Socialists knowing how and to what end capitalist property
rights are established, must hold such rights in contempt. . . .
As a revolutionist I can have no respect for capitalist property
laws, nor the least scruple about violating them. I hold all such
laws to have been enacted through chicanery, fraud and cor-
ruption, with the sole end in view of dispossessing, robbing
and enslaving the working class. But this does not imply that
I propose making an individual law breaker of myself, and
butting my head against the stone wall of existing property
laws. That might be called force, but it would not be that. It
would be mere weakness and folly. If I had the force to over-
throw these despotic laws, I would use it without an instant's
hesitation or delay, but I haven't got it, so I am law abiding
under protest — not from scruple — and bide my time."

In the " Appeal to Eeason," Girard. Kansas, September 2,
1911, there is an excellent specimen of one of Debs' revolution-
ary articles, which reads in part as follows:

"Let us arouse the working class and invoke their power to
smite the conspirators and set our brothers [the McNamaras]

204 THE RED CONSPIRACT

free. They can be saved in no other way. The lawyers will
plead for them to deaf ears; organized labor will protest against
their taking off in vain. We are confronted by a heartless,
soulless plutocracy. Let us buckle on our armor and fight !
. . . Let us marshal our forces and develop our power for
the revolt ! Let us develop without delay all the power we have,
and prepare to strike in every way we know how. With a gen-
eral strike we can paralyze the plutocracy from coast to coast.
Hundreds of thousands will join eagerly and serve loj'ally in
the fight. We can stop the wheels, cut off the food supply, and
compel the plutocrats in sheer terror to sue for peace. . . .
A few men may be needed who are not afraid to die. Be ye
also ready. . . . Let us swear that we will fight to the
last ditch, that we will strike blow for blow, that we will use
every weapon at our command, and that we will never surrender !
Roll up a united Socialist vote in California that will shake the
Pacific Coast like an earthquake, and back it up with a general
strike that will paralyze the continent. . . . Let the sturdy
toilers of the Pacific Coast raise the Red standard of revolt."

It was no other than this same Eugene V. Debs, the
advocate of violence and revolution, who on May 17, 1912, was
nominated as the presidential standard bearer of the Socialist
Party. If ever, elected, what a fine president he would make,
this " poor," " persecuted," self-styled " flaming-revolutionist,"
now in jail ! What an honorable party it must be that
nominated such a man for the fourth successive time to fill the
office of the presidency of our country ! Indeed it was on the
very same day that the followers of Karl Marx chose Debs as
their candidate to rule the United States that they also
declared, in the constitution of their party, that any member
who should advocate crime, sabotage or other methods of
violence, as a weapon of the working class to aid it in its
emancipation, should be expelled from membership in the
party !

Never can political Socialists convince the American people
of their sincerity and honesty while they nominate for office
men like Debs, send to Congress representatives like Victor
Berger, and choose as members of their national executive com-
mittee persons of the stamp of William D. Haywood. There
was no better way for Socialists to convict themselves of
hypocrisy than by retaining in their constitution the clause
against sabotage, referred to above, while at the same time
selling at their National Office books like " Industrial Social-

VIOLENCE AND REBELLION 205

ism" and publishing in their papers and magazines articles
advocating and approving " direct action." By their deeds we
judge them, and not by their hypocritical words.

" The Call," on April 28, 1919, introduces with the following
headlines the long comment that it makes on the Hart-Kearing
debate of April 27th in New York City: " Revolution Is Only
Solution of World-Wide Unrest, Says JSTearing." In the course of
the article Scott Nearing's suggestion of revolt is mentioned:
" As against Professor Hart's proposal of a League of Nations,
I suggest revolution." The "New York Times," April 28,
1919, commented in part on the debate as follows:

" ' Who wants war ? ' asked Professor Hart. ' Scott Nearing
wants war and the people who think as he does, want war.
Revolution is nothing but civil war and we see its result in the
Russian revolution. Russia passed through three revolutions
and is that the kind of result we want in order to overthrow
what he calls this robber nation ? '

" A whirlwind of applause marked this and through the
applause was heard a chorus of voices shouting 'yes.' The
meeting cheered Nearing's frequent references to 'revolution,'
to the Russian Soviet Republic and applauded his radical utter-
ances, although he had requested that he be permitted to speak
without interruption. The theatre contained about 3,000 per-
sons who filled all the seats, the stage and stood in the aisles,
after paying from 25 cents to $1.50 admission.

"Judging from the manifestations of approval of Nearing's
remarks, the large audience appeared to be overwhelmingly
composed of revolutionary Socialists, and when the speaker
declared he believed in a League of Socialist Nations the crowd
vigorously applauded in a way that left no doubt of its
sentiment."

" The Call " in its May Day issue, 1919, published an article
on present-day revolutionary tactics of the Socialists :

" 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 bridges are burnt behind the
old capitalist society and its path is forever cut off. Capitalist
society is bankrupt and the only salvation of humanity lies in
the uprising of the masses, in the victory of the Socialist revolu-
tion, in the renovating forces of Socialism,

306 THE RED C0NSPIE4.CT

" The world war which is now about to be officially closed has
slid into a condition neither war nor peace. However, the war
of the nations has been followed by the war of the classes. The
class struggle is no longer fought by resolutions and demonstra-
tions. Threateningly it marches through the streets of the
great cities for life or death."

CHAPTER XV
PATRIOTISM RIDICULED AND DESPISED

Though it is evident that there can be no patriotism in men
who are doing their utmost to overthrow our government by
stirring up class-hatred and inciting rebellion, still most of the
citizens of our country have never realized the extent to which
Socialists ridicule and despise patriotism and abhor its very
name.

"The Call," September 35, 1912, in answering the charge
that Socialism undermines patriotism, says: " So it does, and
is proud of it, if by patriotism is meant that mawkish sentiment
which causes a man, for the sum of $15 a month, to go out and
get himself killed in defense of a country of which he owns not
a single foot and can never hope to own any. If a wage slave
IS paid only enough to live on, anyhow, what difference to him
does it make whether his boss is a Britisher or a Chinaman? "

The Socialists often succeed in stirring up violence during
strikes to develop the spirit of revolt; then, when it becomes
necessary for the state to protect the lives and property of its
citizens, the lovers of rebellion and disorder do their utmost to
incite hatred and contempt against the soldiers who are sent to
preserve order.

On February 10, 1912, there appeared in "The Call" an
article which reads as follows:

" The capitalist class, alarmed at the amazingly rapid growth
of anti- militarism in this country, is endeavoring, through
church and government, to combat this just sentiment, and by
law and precept to create an artificial respect and love for the
soldiers' uniform and the American flag.

" ' Respect the uniform, honor the flag,' is their cry, and
they are foolish enough to believe that if they raise their voices
loud enough, we, the workers, will become infected by their
fictitious enthusiasm, and shout with them.

" ' Honor the uniform ! ' Oh, surely ! Honor the trappings
and gold lace with which they are dressing up their weak-
minded scabs ! Honor the uniform which has the power to
transform a decent but ignorant boy of the working class into

207

208 THE RED CONSPIRACY

an unthinking savage, who would, if ordered to do so by a supe-
rior in rank, shoot down his aged father or kill his sister's
unborn child with a bayonet thrust, should they happen to be on
strike and crying aloud for a little more bread, warmer clothing
and better shelter. Honor the uniform? No, spit on it!
Make it a shame and a reproach until a worker who wears it will
not dare to show his face among decent working people. Honor
the uniform ! Honor that which gives a free license to kill, if
the victim happens to be a worker? Honor that which stands
for oppression, for the loafer against the worker, for the master
against the slave ? Honor that which causes a worker to become
a traitor to his class, to forget his ties of blood, and for pay
to deliver himself over body and soul to his natural enemy, the
capitalist class? Honor the Judases, the Benedict Arnolds of
the working class ? Our masters insult us by even asking such
a thing.

" Shall we honor the Massachusetts militiamen who, without
the slightest provocation, murdered a young worker? Is that
what you want us to do, you capitalists, you cardinals and presi-
dents? You ask too late, for we already despise and loathe
your decorated hirelings, and are, as time passes, making it
more difficult for you to recruit our decent boys and transform
them into loathsome parasites."

On May 6, 1919, millions of New Yorkers enthusiastically
welcomed the 77th Division of our soldier boys on their return
home from the battle-fields of Europe. Glowing descriptions of
the celebration appeared in nearly all the papers of the Metrop-
olis. A contemptible account, however, was published the next
day in " The Call," showing the scornful spirit of the Socialists
toward the millions of American troops who made so many sac-
rifices for their country in the late war. The article in " The
Call " runs as follows :

" EOWS AND EOWS AND EoWS AND RoWS AND ROWS OF 'EM

March

"Folks Cheered 77th Division which Finally Changed From
Toys Into Folhs, Too.

" A row of mounted police rode up Fifth avenue yesterday.
''A man carrying a banner on which were the words and
figures, ' 77th Division,' marched up Fifth avenue yesterday.
" A band played all the way up Fifth avenue yesterday.

PATRIOTISM RIDICULED 209

" A line of soldiers walked up Fifth avenue yesterday.
" A second line of soldiers walked up Fifth avenue yesterday.
" A third line of soldiers walked up Fifth avenue yesterday.
" A fourth line of soldiers walked up Fifth avenue yesterday.

" A soldier carrying a service flag walked up Fifth avenue
yesterday.

" One soldier wore khaki and carried a steel helmet on his
shoulder.

" A second soldier wore khaki and carried a steel helmet on
his shoulder.

" A third soldier wore khaki and carried a steel helmet on his
shoulder.

" A fourth soldier wore khaki and carried a steel helmet on
his shoulder.

' They marched precisely.

■ They marched steadily.

■ They marched firmly.

' They marched in silence.

" The crowds cheered.

" The crowds waved flags.

" The crowds did not fill the stands.

" The crowds applauded.

■ The police kept the 'waves of humanity back.
• The police did not have much trouble.
' The police permitted the crowd to cheer.
' The police permitted the crowds to wave flags.

" Soldiers of the 77th Division marched up Fifth avenue yes-
terday, and when they had done marching they broke ranks and
greeted their friends and relatives who had not seen them
since they went to war.

" A mother greeted her son with kisses and tears.

" A mother greeted her son with kisses and tears.

" A mother greeted her son with kisses and tears.

" Change the word ' mother ' to sweetheart, brother, sister,
and keep on repeating until ' father ' is reached and then change
• kisses and tears ' to ' smiles and cheers.' "

210 (THE KED COiiSPiKAC-!?

The hypocritical Socialists at one moment plead for universal
peace, the desire of nations, and at the next for class hatred.
They are trying to ruin our domestic peace and to expose us to
the ravages of lawlessness and crime. By fostering contempt
for soldiers and other guardians of the peace, they not only
make it harder for them to fulfil their duties, but prevent many
from joining the army and navy for the defense of our country
against foreign and domestic foes.

Our country at present is well able to defend itself against
foreign attacks, but if our domestic enemies continue to sow
the seeds of discord and class hatred among our fellow citizens,
it will surely fall, for no nation that is divided against itself
can stand.

From the very fact that "The Call" of February 10, 1912,
dared to publish the following article, showing the intense
hatred of its author for the Stars and Stripes, our national
emblem, the reader can judge for himself whether the thousands
of unofEended subscribers have the faintest spark of patriotism
in their hearts :

" ' At least honor the flag ! ' they cry in desperation. ' Honor
the flag which stands for freedom, equality and fraternity ! '

■' What flag ? The American flag ? The Stars and Stripes ?
The flag which floats over every hellhole of mine and mill and
prison? The flag which floats over station house and barracks
whence issue police and soldiers to batter down and murder
workers exercising their constitutional rights of free speech and
free assemblage ? Honor the flag which you, our masters, have
changed from a flag of liberty into a symbol of the crudest
exploitation and vilest oppression of the new civilization?

" If 1 had been Samuel Gompers when he was reproached by
the capitalists for placing his foot on the American flag, I
should have answered : ' Yes, I trampled on it, and, more than
that, I spit upon your flag, not mine; I loathe the Stars and
Stripes, once the symbol of liberty for all, but now the stripes
represent the bloody stripes left by your lash on the back of the
worker, and the stars, the bullet and bayonet wounds in his
breast. To hell with your flag ! . , , .

" Down with the Stars and Stripes ! Eun up the red flag of
humanity."

Not alone do the members of the rank and file of the Socialist
Party attack the Star Spangled Banner, but even its foremost
leaders are guilty of the same offense. " The Comrade," July,

PATRIOTISM RIDICULED 211

1904, furnishes us with an attack made upon our country's flag
by no less a personage than Eugene V. Debs :

" Have you a drop of blood in your veins ? Has your man-
hood rotted into cowardice? Wake up and take your place in
the class struggle. For the desecration of the flag your leader
is in jail. What flag? The flag oi the capitalist class — the
flag that floats over the bull pens of Colorado. The wholesome
truths he stamped upon its stripes are your shame and your
masters' crime. Eally to the red flag of international Social-
ism, the symbol of the proletarian revolt."

CHAPTER XVI
THE CONSPIRACY AGAINST OUR COUNTRY

This chapter is the center of our book, the hub where all the
spokes of evidence focus and unite, clearly revealing the unity,
povi^er and purpose of the Wheel of Eevolution which now is
rolling through the minds and wills of American radicals. To
make this complex plot simple, it has been analyzed into its
parts in the other chapters of " The Eed Conspiracy," so that
each element may be weighed by itself. In the present chapter
the results of this analysis are gathered up again, to show how
all the parts iit into one mechanism; and, with the whole thus
seen as one contrivance, the working of each part being under-
stood, the plan and purpose of the entire invention stands out
as clear as day.

But if this chapter is the center of our explanation of " The
Eed Conspiracy," the center of the thing itself lies elsewhere.
The Great Eed Wlieel of Proletarian Eevolution is an Interna-
tional Wheel, and both the hub which unites it and the turning
power which moves it are centered in the old Eussian town of
Moscow.

Frequently in preceding chapters the reader has been im-
pressed by the fact that the "Beds" are guilty of conspiracy
against all governments, including that of the United States
of America. In the present chapter we shall discuss this mat-
ter of conspiracy much more in detail and assemble the proofs
in such order and strength that no reasonable man can deny
the existence of the widespread plot now fast undermining the
pillars of our country.

The " Eeds " under one name or another have in the long
run proven to be far more than evolutionists in the various
countries of Europe. Actual rebellions have shown them to be
revolutionists by violence in the strictest sense of the word in
Eussia, Germany, Bavaria, Hungary and even on one of the
islands of far distant Japan. Their activities in England,
France, Italy, Spain, Belgium, Holland, Bulgaria and many
another foreign land bid fair to give us still further proofs in
the near future that the " Eeds " do not intemd to wait for §uq-

213

AGAINST OUE COUNTRY 213

cess by the ballot, but that, as soon as they consider themselves a
suflSciently strong and united minority, they will throw off
their masks, use rifles in place of hypocritical words, and work
behind barricades instead of behind closed meeting doors. The
Italian Socialists were about to begin their rebellion when,
quite recently, the word came from the Moscow headquarters of
the International conspirators to wait for a more opportune
moment.

It seems quite incredible that the " Eeds " of our own coun-
try, whether they be I. W. W.'s, Communists, members of the
Communist Labor Party, or Socialists, should be merely evolu-
tionists, harmless parliamentarians, when their brethren abroad,
with whom they so much sympathize, and upon whom they
look as the saviors of the world and the highest types of ad-
vanced civilization, are either avowedly attempting to over-
throw their governments or else have already done so, and in not
a single instance by means of the ballot. There is an old say-
ing to the efliect that we are known by the company we keep.
Since the American "Eeds " keep company with foreign rebels,
it is not to be presumed that the latter are demons and the
former saints.

Few specific proofs need be given in this chapter to show that
the I. W. W.^s are guilty of conspiracy against the United
States Government, for a great part of them, espcially those
most active, belong either to the Communist, Communist Labor
or the Socialist Party, and an abundance of proofs will be given
that these latter organizations are far from being harmless and
innocent political parties.

Moreover, the I. W. W.'s, in their revolutionary " Preamble "
and by the many utterances of their leaders, are openly com-
mitted to a conspiracy of violence against our Government.
Eelative to the I. W. W. and its underhand activities, the reader
will remember the words of Arturo Giovannitti, quoted in a
previous chapter, from the Socialist Labor Party paper,
" "Weekly People," New York, February 10, 1912. That writer,
with all his experience as a leader of the " Wobblies," certainly
knew their plans, and makes this astounding admission rela-
tive to the part that the I. W. W. is expected to take in bringing
about the Marxian rebellion:

" The future of Socialism lies only in the general strike, not
merely a quiet political strike, but one that once started should
go fatally to its end, i. e., armed insurrection, and the forcible
overthrow of all existing social conditions. . . , The task

214 THE RED CONSPIRACY

of revolution is not to construct the new society, but to demol-
ish the old one, therefore, its first aim should be at the com-
plete destruction of the existing state, so as to render it abso-
lutely powerless to react and re-establish itself. . . . The
I. W. W. must develop itself as the new legislature and the new
executive body of the land, undermine the existing one, and
gradually absorb the functions of the state until it can entirely
substantiate it through the only means it has, the revolution."

During the year 1919 a very excellent example of how the
One Big Union tried to develop a strike into a rebellion was
given in Winnipeg, Canada. Some time previously we had
in our own country an example in the great strike at Seattle,
Washington.

Cases of sabotage, murder and arson are but minor activities
of the I. W. W., and mere circumstances to aid in bringing
about the contemplated rebellion.

Government raids in recent years, and the seizure of hun-
dreds of tons of inflammatory literature, from which extensive
quotations were made in the daily press, have furnished us with
ample proofs that the I. W. W.'s are national conspirators.

The reader will remember the vivid picture of the contem-
plated rebellion in the mind of the "Wobbly" who wrote in
" The Rebel Worker," April 15, 1919 :

" The United States is in the grip of a bloody revolution !
Thousands of workers are slaughtered by machine guns in New
York City! Washington is on fire! Industry is at a stand-
still and thousands of workers are starving! The government
is using the most brutal and repressive measures to put down
the revolution! Disorganization, crime, chaos, rape, murder
and arson are the order of the day — the inevitable results of
Bocial revolution ! "

The I. W. W.'s are certainly conspirators, and seek the over-
throw of our Government by industrial violence, and we were
told by " The Evolution of Industrial Democracy," page 40,
that " Government, as now understood, will disappear — there
being no servile class to be held in subjection — but in its
place will be an administration of affairs."

The spirit of armed rebellion against our Government was
foremost in the minds of the Left Wing members of the Social-
ist Party who afterwards formed the Communist and the Com-
munist Labor Parties. We shall recall some of the words of
Louis C. Fraina during the great struggle between the Rights
and Lefts;

Against oue country 315

" All propaganda, all electoral and parliamentary activity are
insufficient for the overthrow of Capitalism, impotent vi^hen the
ultimate test of the class struggle turns into a test of power.
The power for the social revolution issues out of the actual
struggles of the proletariat, out of its strikes, its industrial
unions and mass action." — " The Eevolutionary Age," July 12,

" Socialism will come not through the peaceful, democratic
parliamentary conquest of the state, but through the deter-
mined and revolutionary mass action of a proletarian minor-
ity." — "The Eevolutionary Age," July 12, 1919.
_ "Eevolutionary Socialists hold, with the founders of Scien-
tific Socialism, that there are two dominant classes in society —
the bourgeoisie and the proletariat; that between these two
classes a struggle must go on until the working class, through
the seizure of the instruments of production and distribution,
the abolition of the capitalist state, and the establishment of '
the dictatorship of the proletariat, creates a Socialistic system.
Eevolutionary Socialists do not believe that they can be voted
into power. They struggle for the conquest of power by the
revolutionary proletariat." — "The Eevolutionary Age," March
22, 1919.

" The Communist," of Chicago, April 1, 1919, it will be
remembered, in speaking of November 7, 1919, the day on
which the armistice was signed, said:

" On that day the seething proletariat ruled Chicago by sheer
force of numbers. One thing alone was needed to give this
mass expression identitjr with the proletarian uprisings in
Europe — one thing, the revolutionary idea."

After the formation of the Communist and Communist Labor
parties, in September, 1919, both made great progress in win-
ning recruits to the cause of armed rebellion. On January 2,
1920, government agents all over the country suddenly de-
scended upon the conspirators and took thousands of them
prisoners. Bombs, rifles and other weapons were captured by
the department agents. In Newark 25 rifles and a large num-
ber of bombs were taken, many tons of violent literature were
seized and innumerable quotations from it appeared in the daily
press, showing beyond the shadow of a doubt the evil intentions
of these "Beds" against the land that we love.

The Communist Party of America and the Communist Labor
Party have the same purposes and aims as the Communist
Party of Eussia. They are joined with the latter in advocat-

216 THE RED CONSPIRACY

ing and supporting the manifesto of the Third International,
which openly urges an armed revolution to bring about the over-
throw of the Government of the United States.

Both parties have conducted effective propaganda work
through newspapers, books, pamphlets and other means. The
Communist Party alone had twenty-five newspapers printed in
several languages, actively supporting its cause. This number
was being increased weekly, papers which were formerly Social-
ist Party organs going over to its support. The alien editors
of most of these papers were taken by the Department of Jus-
tice agents in the raids

The Department of Justice naturally was most vitally inter-
ested in the promises of violence against the United States
Government contained in the manifesto of the Communists of
the Third International, which was held at Moscow, March 3
to 6, 1919. Among the passages in the Moscow manifesto
which most interested the Department of Justice were the fol-
lowing :

" Socialist criticism has sufficiently stigmatized the bour-
geois world order. The task of the International Communist
Party is now to overthrow this order and to erect in its place
the structure of the Socialist world order. We urge the work-
ingmen and women of all countries to unite under the Com-
munist banner, the emblem under which the first victories have
already been won.

" Proletarians of all lands ! In the war against imperialistic
barbarity, against monarchy, against the privileged classes,
against the bourgeois state and bourgeois property, against all
forms and varieties of social and national oppression — unite!

" Under the standard of the Workingmen's Councils under
the banner of the Third International, in the revolutionary
struggle for power and the dictatorship of the proletariat, pro-
letarians of all countries • — unite ! "

The manifesto is signed by Lenine, Trotzky and other revolu-
tionaries. Several references are made to the United States,
indicating this country as one of the objectives of the revolu-
tionaries. Dgscribing the methods to be used, the manifesto
says:

" Civil war is forced upon the laboring classes by their arch
enemies. The working class must answer blow for blow, if it
will not renounce its own object and its own future, which is
at the same time the future of all kumanity.

AGAINST OUR COUNTRY 217

" The Communist parties, far from conjuring up civil war,
artificially, rather strive to shorten its duration as much as pos-
sible — in case it has become an iron necessity — to minimize
the number of its victims, and above all to secure victory for the
proletariat."

Under the caption, "The Way to Victory," the manifesto
says:

" The revolutionary era compels the proletariat to make use
of the means of battle which will concentrate its entire energies,
namely, mass action, with its logical resultant, direct conflict
with the governmental machinery in open combat. All other
methods, such as revolutionary use of bourgeoisie parliamen-
tarism, will be of only secondary significance."

The principles of the American Communist Party set forth
in their seized records and made public by the Department of
Justice, are :

" The Communist Party of America is the party of the work-
ing class. The Communists of America propose to end capital-
ism and organize a workers' industrial republic. The workers
must control industry and dispose of the products of industry.

" The Communist Party is a party realizing the limitations
of all existing workers' organizations and purposes to develop
the revolutionary movement necessary to free the workers from
the oppression of capitalism. The Communist Party insists
that the problems of the American worker are identical with the
problems of the workers of the world.

" The Communist Party is the conscious expression of the
class struggle of the workers against capitalism. Its aim is to
direct this struggle to the conquest of political power, the over-
throw of capitalism and the destruction of the bourgeois state.

" The Communist Party prepares itself for the revolution in
the measure that it develops a program of immediate actioti
expressing the mass struggles of the proletariat. These strug-
gles must be inspired with revolutionary spirit and purposes.

" The Communist Party is fundamentally a party of action.
It brings to the workers a consciousness of their oppression, of
the impossibility of improving their condition under capital-
ism. The Communist Party directs the workers' struggle
against capitalism, developing fuller forms and purposes in this
struggle, culminating in the mass action of the revolution.

" The negro problem is a political and economic problem.
The racial oppression of the negro is simply the expression of
bis economic bondage and oppression, each intensifying the

218 THE RED CONSPIRACY

other. This complicates the negro problem, but does not alter
its proletarian character. The Communist Party will carry. on
agitation among the negro workers to unite them with all class
conscious workers."

Little need be added concerning the Communist Labor Party.
As its manifesto and program are practically identical with
those of the Communist Party of America, while all its mem-
bers are likewise affiliated with the Third or Moscow Interna-
tional, the foregoing characterization of the Communist Party
applies without essential modification to the Communist Labor
Party. The identical character of these two parties was
asserted by A. Mitchell Palmer, Attorney-General of the United
States, in a statement given out January 23, 1920, and printed
in the " New York Times " of the next day, as follows :

" These two organizations are identical in aim and tactics,
the cause for their separate existence being due to the desire of
certain individuals connected with the so-called Left Wing ele-
ments of the Socialist Party to be leaders. For the sake of con-
venience I shall refer to members of the Communist Party of
America and the Communist Labor Party as ' Communists.' "

Attorney-General Palmer then quotes from the manifesto of
the Third International, adopted March 6, 1919, at Moscow,
to show, as he says, " that their sole and intimate aim was to
accomplish not only the conquest but the destruction of the
idea of the ' State,' as understood by loyal American citizens,"
and that " this destruction was not to be accomplished by par-
liamentary action, for it is specifically stated that it is to be
by armed conflict with governmental authority." The Attor-
ney-General's statement then continues:

" It is this manifesto which was adopted by the Communist
parties in the United States as their program of action.

" In the program of the Communists in the United States we
find such statements as the following:

" ' Communism rejects the conception of the State ; it rejects
the idea of class reconstruction and the parliamentary conquest
of capitalism

" ' The objective is the conquest by the proletariat of the
power of the State. Communism does not propose to capture
the bourgeois parliament of any State, but to conquer and
destroy it.'

"We thus find stated in very clear and plain languanje the
fact that the aim of the Communists of America is for th^

AGAINST OUR COUNTRY 219

destruction of the government. This shows clearly that the
organizations of Communists in this country aim, not at the
change of government of the United States by parliamentary or
political methods, but in the overthrow and the destruction of
the same by mass and direct action, by force and violence.

"Another point of particular significance to which I feel I
should call your attention, is the fact that the organizations
of Communists in the United States are pledged to destroy the
great and loyal labor organization of America, namely, the
American Federation of Labor, which, according to the Com-
munist Party of America is considered to be reactionary and
a bulwark of capitalism. Another particularly significant
pledge of the Communists of America is to carry on agitation
of the negro workers of America."

The I. W. W.'s and the members of the Communist and
Communist Labor parties are all openly confessed conspira-
tors against the United States Government. The members of
the Socialist Party are just as bad, and worse, for they are
hypocrites, besides being conspirators.

The Socialists, as we have seen in a former chapter, have for
many years given unlimited support to the I. W. "W., knowing
full well that it was an organization pledged to revolution by
violence.

The Socialists, moreover, are heart and soul in favor of the
Bolsheviki of Eussia, who have issued the manifesto of their
International expressly to stir up revolutions by violence in all
countries, including our own. The Socialists of the United
States call themselves Bolsheviki, are spreading the doctrines
of the Bolshevists of Russia and openly admit that Bolshevism
and Socialism are identical.

Until very recently the Socialist Party nursed within its
bosom about 70,000 dues-paying members, out of 109,586, who
went over to the Communist and Communist Labor parties.
Hence, at least till lately, nearly two-thirds of its member-
ship consisted of avowed rebels. Has it changed since the
break with the Communists? N"o, not at all. It is just as
bad as ever, only more hypocritical, more prudent and biding
its time so as not to start a premature revolt. After the whole-
sale arrests of the members of the Communist and the Com-
munist Labor parties on January 2, 1920, the Publicity Depart-
ment of the Socialist Party, 220 South Ashland Boulevard, Chi-
cago, said: "The Socialist Party herewith raises its voice in
emphatic and solemn protest against these activities on the part

320 THE RED CONSPIRACY

of the hot-headed and overzealous guardians of the safety of
the United States."

Now listen once more to the words of Morris Hillquit, who
poses before the public as in a different class from the American
Communists and Communist Laborites. In " The Call/' May
21, 1919, in a long article in large type covering half the edi-
torial page, Morris Hillquit said of the " Left Wing " move-
ment : " I am one of the last men in the party to ignore or
misunderstand the sound revolutionary impulse which animates
the rank and file of this new movement, but the specific form
and direction which it has assumed, its program and tactics,
spell disaster to our movement. I am opposed to it, not because
it is too radical, but because it is essentially reactionary and
non-Socialistic; not because it would lead us too far, but because
it would lead us nowhere. To prate about the dictatorship of
the proletariat and of workers' Soviets in the United States
at this time is to defiect the Socialistic propaganda from its
realistic basis, and to advocate the abolition of all social reform
planks in the party platform means to abandon the- concrete
class struggle as it presents itself from day to day." (Italics
mine.)

The wisdom of this crafty, go-slow policy is now apparent,
with the " Left Wing " leaders in jail, and Hillquit's chame-
leons now posing as angels of light, the saviors of " representa-
tive government" in America. The fact that the Socialist
Party of America "goes into politics" does not make it less
dangerous than the other revolutionary bodies, but more dan-
gerous, for it thus expects to have men in political positions to
seize the reins of government when the hour of blood and vio-
lence arrives. That this is its definite policy, the meaning of
its political activity, was apparent as far back as its National
Convention of 1908, when, in opposing those who would dis-
miss the use of the ballot in favor of " direct action " — vio-
lence — exclusively, Victor L. 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 order to be able to shoot even some day we must have the
powers of political government in our hands, at least to a great
extent. I want that understood. So everybody who is talking
to you about direct action and so on, and about political action
being a humbug, is your enemy today, because he keeps you
from getting the powers of political government." (" Proceed-
ings of the 1908 National Convention of the Socialist Party,"
page 341.)

AGAINST OUE COUNTEY g21

In the " Social Democratic Herald " of Milwaukee, July 31,
1909, Berger wrote : " It is easy to predict that the safety and
hope of this country will finally lie in one direction only, that
of a violent and bloody revolution. Therefore, I say, each of
the 500,000 Socialist voters and of the 2,000,000 workingmen
who instinctively incline our way, should, besides doing much
reading and still more thinking, also have a good rifle and the
necessary rounds of ammunition in his home, and be prepared
to back up his ballot with his bullets if necessary. This may
look like a startling statement. Yet I can see nothing else for
the American masses today." In the same paper, August 14,
1909, he wrote : " We should be grateful if the social revolu-
tion, if the freeing of 75,000,000 whites, would not cost more
blood than the freeing of 4,000,000 negroes in 1861."

Thus the Socialist Party of America, under the tutelage and
control of far-seeing and deep-witted leaders like Hillquit and
Berger, is by far the most dangerous band of conspirators in the
United States. No "revolutionary impulse" is too extreme
for Hillquit, no movement is " too radical ;" but its " program
and tactics " must be deep-laid, deceptive, seizing every present
political advantage so that the central power can be grasped by
astute leadership in one lurch when the hour of "shooting"
arrives.

The dramatic violence of Lenine and Trotzky passed through
all the radical bodies in America like an electric shock, and the
enthusiasts wished to start a ruction right away. But Morris
Hillquit was not carried oflE his feet. If the boys were so sense-
less as to try to seize the reins of party government, Hillquit
would dismiss them with a friendly wave, as in his article,
quoted above, in which he also says : " There is, as far as I can
see, but one remedy. It would be futile to preach reconcilia-
tion and union where antagonism runs so high. Let the Com-
rades on both sides do the next best thing. Let them separate,
honestly, freely, and without rancor. Let each side organize
and work in its own way, and make such contribution to the
Socialist movement in America as it can." If the "contribu-
tion " of the boys should really turn out to be a successful gen-
eral strike and overturn, who would be better able to grasp the
power than an astute leader like Hillquit?

This book was written before the Judiciary Committee of the
'New York Assembly began its inquiry, in January, 1920, into
the fitness of five Socialist Assemblymen to act as law-makers,
and since then has only received the addition of some important

232 THE BED CONSriEACT

facts and testimony. It is remarkable, therefore, that all the
evidence independently sifted in that investigation overwhelm-
ingly points to the same conclusions arrived at in this volume.

On January 21, 1920, at the second day's hearing at Albany,
as reported in the " New York Times " of January 22, John B.
Stanchfield and Martin W. Littleton, of counsel for the Judici-
ary Committee, stated the fundamental nature of the charges
brought against the five suspended Socialists — charges based,
as is well known, on the results of raids and investigations of
radicalism by the New York State Legislative Committee, Sena-
tor Lusk, Chairman. Said Mr. Stanchfield :

" When the Chairman read from the statement yesterday that
the charge against these men was disloyalty, and that they had
affiliated themselves with a party whose platform and program
call for an overthrow of this Government by violence, he added
that we will prove this beyond the shadow of a doubt.

"We are not upon this investigation engaged in a discussion
of the philosophy of Socialism or its economics. We are en-
gaged in an investigation of its tactics, its methods, its practical
program, and these tactics, these methods, and that program
called for the overturn of the power of this State and its anni-
hilation, its utter and complete annihilation."

Mr. Littleton said:

" The representation with reference to what these five men
did and what they profess and what they engaged to do stands
out as plainly as any thing can stand out — that they gave
their allegiance wholly and solely to an alien and invisible em-
pire known as the Internationale. It stands out that they are
the citizens, not in reality of the country which sustains and
maintains them, but they are citizens of this invisible empire
which projects itself as a revolutionary force into every country,
menacing its institutions and threatening its overthrow. Their
allegiance before they ever entered upon the threshold of this
chamber was given to this empire, which masquerades at one
time with the softness of parliamentary reform and which
declares itself in favor of revolution with force, according to the
place and time where it may so declare.

" It is that alien state, people of alien races — pledged to the
destruction of this Government and its institutions — that the
charges say that these men belong to and act with

" Perhaps at a later day in this proceeding we will ascertain
the specific program to which they pledged themselves, the pro-
gram of Mr. Lenine and Mr. Trotzky, not to reform Eussia —

AGAINST OUR COUNTRY 323

that is a misconception and a misdirection ; it is not that Lenine
and Trotzky are trying to reform Kussia or change Eussia, it
is that Lenine and Trotzky, acting through these agencies, are
proposing the installation of the same kind of government in
constitutional America that they have inaugurated in Eussia,
and these are the agents and the instructors, according to the
charge, to carry out that program.

'' It is quite a different thing from expressing your sympathy
in a convention for downtrodden Eussia. It is a little different
program, Mr. Chairman, and the evidence in this case will dis-
close that these members, in conjunction with that party, have
tied themselves irrevocably to the program.

" So that charge involves, I should say, a grave question as to
whether these men, pledged to an alien empire to carry out an
alien policy and to do it masquerading as a political party, shall
be members of that Assembly and can take the oath of office.

" Our ideals are the embodiment of the Constitution which
these men ought to have been able to take the oath to and sup-
port. No alien, invisible empire, having one corner of it rest-
ing in the heart of Soviet Eussia, another corner of it resting
upon the shoulders of the Spartacides in Germany, and another
resting somewhere else, you swore allegiance to, but to this
country and this standard and no other country or standard —
that is the ideal which we take the oath for and undertake to
support.

" Now, with that situation, here is an Assembly organized
under the ideals of that country and under its Constitution, and
the question here is. Can that Assembly inquire into whether
or not five of its members are disloyal to the country have fore-
sworn themselves and given their allegiance to an alien and an
invisible empire, and placed themselves in the hands of a mas-
ter who can withdraw them from this Assembly when he chooses ?
Can such a deliberative body as this make that inquiry, and,
finding the fact out, can it expel that agency from this body
before the poison has contaminated the system?"

Mr. Littleton here took up the charge that the five Socialist
Assemblymen, before taking office, had placed their resignations
in the hands of their party leaders, or their local organizations,
to be used to withdraw them from office should they fail to carry
out their party's behest. He continued:

" What is the charge here ? That these men, belonging to the
invisible empire of the Internationale, whose agents may be
violent or peaceable, according as the law allows, and according

224 THE RED CONSPIKACT

as they may escape, are here acting as agents of Lenine and
Trotzky, not to establish a Soviet Republic under the rotten
ruins of an infamous democracy, but to establish a Soviet Ee-
public on the ruins of a Constitution to which every man is
pledged by every ounce of his blood and by that solenm vow
which he registered in heaven when he entered on the duties of
his office.

" 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-con-
spirator 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 coun-
try. It will not be a tempest in the teapot. It will be a ques-
tion as to whether they can hypocritically masquerade as a polit-
ical party, and strike hands with every agency of force and revo-
lution, 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 sec-
tion 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 Hill-
quit in the " New York Call " after the Chicago Emergency
Convention of September, 1919. This was put in evidence

AGAINST OUR COUNTRY 225

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 Com-
munist 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 organ-
izations need not necessarily mean a wealcening 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 con-
structive 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 Commun-
ist 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 put-
ting 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 :

"AH candidates or appointees to public oflSce 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 resigna-
tion blank before nomination is made official or appointment
is made final."

The form of resignation, also put in evidence, is here repro-
duced 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 oflBce to which I may be elected (or appointed), such resig-
nation 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."

226 THE RED CONSPIKACT

One of the by-laws of the Ntew 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 author-
ity, if, in case of election, he proves disloyal to the party."

A protest had been made to the New York Assembly claiming
that " tlie fundamental principles of representative govern-
ment " would be violated in refusing to seat the five suspended
Socialist Assemblymen. But il; 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 Social-
ists 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 testi-
mony " 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 E. Lunn,
Democratic Ma3'or of Schenectady, who had been a candidate
for ^hat office three times as a Socialist. The following sum-
mary. 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 fol-
low 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 Judici-
ary Committee, after five weeks of investigating the qualifica-

AGAINST OUR COtNTEY 227

tions of the suspended Socialist Assemblj'men, Attorney-Gen-
eral Charles D. Newton and the other signers said that the five
Socialists by " their promise ... to place their resigna-
tions in the hands of the dues-paying members . . . abdi-
cated their functions as Assemblymen and disqualified them-
selves 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 represen-
tative 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 Eussian Soviet Govern-
ment or the proletariat Government instead to be controlled by
themselves. This appears from their platforms and propa-
ganda.

" The Socialist Party is not a national party, like the Demo-
cratic 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 institu-
tions 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 revolution-
ary 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 revolu-

228 THE RED CONSPIRACY

tionary 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 recom-
mended 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
"N"ew York Call" of July 24, 1919, gives the Third Inter-
national's plan of action for world revolution in a niitshell :

" 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 mani-
festo it adopted at the Chicago Emergency Convention on Sep-
tember 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 pur-
pose 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 Statea
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 emer-
gency 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,

AGAINSl^ OUE COONTllY 22d

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 precipi-
tate humanity into another cataclysm of blood and ruin.

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

So culminates and ends this 1919 national convention mani-
festo 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 har-
monious 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 Eand School and secretary of the
ISTew 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 gen-
eral strike had been used with some degree of success in Eussia
and Belgium. . . . ' The general strike is often used to
back up political action,' the witness said. He justified com-
bining 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 move-
ment 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 over-
whelmingly organized as to be able to use industrial action on
the other side.' "

230 THE RED CONSPIRACY

But here Mr. Lee simply concealed the truth behind hypo-
critical camouflage by using the term, " the people," ambigu-
ously. For our people might go on as now, conducting con-
stitutional government by representatives in all their legisla-
tures 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 " indus-
trial organization " need be only partial, need, in fact, be car-
ried 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 questioiis
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 Eesearch, Eand
School of Social Science"), which held a city of 200,000 ter-
rorized for six weeks under the absolute dictatorship of a Strike
Committee elected by the strikers, while "many cities, includ-
ing Calgary, Edmonton and Toronto, meanwhile joined the gen-
eral 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, tele-
graph, 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, rail-
ways 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. Eobert McKay, of Winnipeg,
February 10, 1920, and printed in the Albany " Knickerbocker
Press" of February 11, 1920, from which we take the facts.

AGAINST OUR COUNTRY 231

Even the Winnipeg newspapers failed to appear alter the first
three days of the strike, wliile 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 33-i.) 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 Inter-
national, 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 Sted-
man, of counsel for the five Socialist Assemblymen and a promi-
nent Socialist himself, one of the National Executive Commit-
teemen 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 neces-
sary, I take it that it would be construed so,' said the witness.

" Mr. Conboy was unable to pin the witness down to a defini-
tion of what circumstances would make the Socialists resort to
direct action, Mr. Stedman interrupted;

232 THE BED CONSPIEACT

" ' 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 gov-
ernment 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 " Eeds " by the Department of Justice were
made, followed by the institution of the inquiry into the quali-
fications 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 ISTew 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 con-
trol 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 cun-
ningly classified the Socialists of the world into three groups, a
Eight, a Center and " the Eevolutionary 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 B. V.
Debs and the Socialist Propaganda League)." The group of
the Eight, the other extreme, was completely condemned by the

AGAINST OUE COUNTRY 23S

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 com-
posed 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 ele-
ments, in criticizing pitilessly its leaders and in dividing system-
atically 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 "Eight" all their Socialist opponents, the special fol-
lowers 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 suspen-
sions, as we have seen in earlier chapters. But in the second
place they had to prepare a sufficiently strong public declara-
tion of the real revolutionary principles of their party and a
sufficiently explicit identification of the party with the Moscow
International t6 satisfy both the rank and file of their follow-
ers and Lenine and Trotzky in Eussia, while yet not going far
enough to incriminate themselves with the awakening suspi-
cions of our N'ational 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 hypoc-
risies 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,"

334 TSE RED CONSPIRACY

himself led the retreat in his smooth lies to the United States
Senate Foreign Sub-Committee, to the effect that the dictator-
ship in Eussia 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 situa-
tion perfectly clear to Leuine and Trotzky.

The reappearance of Morris Hillquit in the Assemhly case at
Albany, on February 17, 1920, and his appearance on the wit-
ness-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," " in-
dustrial 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 ges-
ture. But these party utterances and acts meant all and even
more than they said to the party's rank and file and confeder-
ates.

It was brought out in the testimony at Albany on February
10, 1920, that the minority report of the Emergency Conven-
tion, decreeing afBliation with the Moscow International, had
been adopted by a referendiim 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 con-
tain only those elements who take their stand unreservedly upon
the basis of the class struggle, and their adherence to this prin-
ciple 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, unequiv-
ocally affirm this stand.* These parties, the majority parties
of Eussia, Italy, Switzerland, Norway, Bulgaria and Greece,
and growing minorities in every land, are uniting on the basis

* See Chapter V of this book for an account of Eeferendum D, car-
ried by a large majority in the spring or summer of 1919, by which
the rank and file of the Socialist i?arty opposed its entrance into any
international Socialist alignment except that of the Third (Moscow)
International.

AGAINST OUR COUNTRY 235

of the preliminary convocation, at Moscow, of the Third Inter-
national. As in the past, so in this extreme crisis, we must
take our stand with them.

" The Socialist Party of the United States, therefore, de-
clares 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 chal-
lenging 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 ot Socialist repub-
lics in Europe, and also the disappearance ot 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," array-
ing 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 conspir-
acy of capital ! Long live the International Eepublic of Pro-
letarian Soviet ! " (Ibid.)

Thus complete identification with this proletarian declara-
tion of war against the "Entente Powers" was the major aim
of the Socialist Party of the United States in voting for affilia-
tion with Moscow. This is the principal ground on which it
"declares itself in support of the Third (LIoscow) Interna-
tional " and proclaims it to ,b§ " the duty of Socialists to stand

236 THE RED CONSPIRACY

by it now." Just as Hillquit differed from the Left Wingers,
now his " cortiniunist 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 dis-
aster," so Hillquit's Party supported the Third (Moscow) Inter-
national " not so much because " of its " programs and meth-
ods " as because what it was " doing," its war-declaration and
marshaling of the world's proletarian forces against the " En-
tente 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 Septem-
ber 4, 1919, "largely based upon one suggested by Morris Hill-
quit," 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 Commimist 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 move-
ment. 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 com-
pacts for so-called civil peace with the exploiters of labor dur-
ing 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 Eussia in the main-
tenance 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 Eepublic of Proletarian Soviet ! " so does Hill-
quit'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

AGAINST OUE COUNTRY 237

overthrow of the world's existing non-Socialist governments, in
order to set up a world-empire of Socialism, is the major fea-
ture of the Socialist Party's unity with the Moscow plotters and
incehdiaries.

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 parlia-
mentarism, 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 dictator-
ship in the form of the power of Soviets, e. g., some of the sec-
tions among the Syndicalists." (Ibid.)

The American " Syndicalists " are the I. W. W.'s, and their
methods are those of "industrial action" by means of indus-
trial unionism. In other words, they are seeking to organize
" One Big Union " in order, as the " Preamble " to their Con-
stitution 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 Social-
ists 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:

238 THE RED CONSPIRACY

" The Socialist Party seeks to organize tlie -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-opera-
tive Commonwealth."

ISTaturally " 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 " indus-
trial union " ready for " industrial action " when the Socialists
crack the y/jiip. We do not think America's " workers " intend

AGAINST OUR COUNTRY 239

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 st}'le 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 Eussia.

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 con-
nection 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 author-
ship," 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

240 THE RED CONSPIRACY

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 PAETY

" National Office

" Executive Secretary : Adolph Germer

" 803 West Madison Street

" Chicago, III., 5/13/1919.
" Local Eochestek, C. M. O'Brien,

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

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

Socialist Eepublic

[Signed] "Edwin Firth,

" Literature Dept."

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

The cowardly " Beds," as we have seen, want a violent revolu-
tion 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. Some-
times 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

AGAINST OUR COUNTRY 241

as a " special to the ' Kew 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 revolu-
tion 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 con-
dition 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 uni-
form and the soldiers alike are scorned and ridiculed. The
article in " The Call," " Rows and Eows 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 presi-

242 THE RED CONSPIRACY

dential 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 Bed
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 Eussia 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, chal-
lenge 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 13,
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 recruit-
ing 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 1930
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. Per-
haps he represents it more completely than any other man in
this country."

In order that the reader may understand the extreme way

AGAINST OUR COUNTRY 343

in which lawbreakers like Debs and Victor L. Berger were justi-
fied 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 Com-
mittee 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 news-
paper 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 f-ar-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 con-
cerned — 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 any-
thing, 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 tbat Mr.

344 THE RED CONSPIRACY

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 state-
ment. 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

AGAINST OUR COUNTRY 345

of doing that, and in contempt of that authority, notwithstand-
ing 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 inauguarate him, as he is serving a twenty-year sentence?'
asked Assemblyman Jenks.

" ' The cliances 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 representa-
tives 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

246 THE EED CONSPIRACY

general strike might be called. In the whole history devoted to the
development of this idea there has been no more frank exposi-
tion of the doctrine than that. It is proof, sufficient and satis-
factory 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 deporta-
tions, 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 mis-
deeds, and withdraw none of their evil principles, but rather
reaffirm them, with subtlety. Wliat 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 " Eed " 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 Febru-
ary, 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 Pre-
amble 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 knowja as
The One Big Union.

AGAIKST OUK COUNTRY 24'}'

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-Eussian Council of Indus-
trial Unions " and an " Appeal of the Eussian Industrial Unions
to the "Workers of the Allied Countries " signed by " The
Bureau of the All-Eussian Council of Industrial Union." The
"call "reads:

" The Central All-Eussian Council of Industrial Unions
invites all economic organizations based on the real and revolu-
tionary 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-
Eussian 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 inter-
national 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 Eevolution!

" Long live the International Soviet Eepublic ! "

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 Eepublics of Europe and
the whole world. . . . War was and will remain a form of
armed exploitation or armed struggle against exploitation."

248 THE RED CONSPIRACY

An editorial note on the same page, immediately below the
article of Trotzky, says : " The above article and the APPEAL
OP THE EUSSIAN INDUSTKIAL UNIONS TO THE
WORKERS OP 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 dis-
guise 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,* while the above method of inflaming American labor
unions has been the secret method of the Socialist Partjr'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.
Lnsk, Chairman, and referred to in the July 30, 1919, issue
of " The National Civic Pederation Review," from which we
quote the following:

" One David P. Berenberg is director of the correspondence
department of the Rand School. Prom 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:

* In its article on " The Russian Soviet Government Bureau in the
United States " Trachtenberg's Labor Year Boolv, 1919-1920, pages
384-5, says: "The Legal Department, under the supervision of Morris
Hillquit, advises the Bureau so that its actions may at all times con-
form to the laws of the United States. . . . The raid upon the
Soviet Bureau by local authorities engaged the attention of the Legal
Department."

Again, the " Albany Argus " of February 19, 1920, describing Hill-
quit's testimony in the Socialist case on the preceding day, February
] 8, says : " It was brought out in cross-examination that Mr. Hillquit
had acted as counsel for the Russian Soviet Bureau in this country.
. . . The witness testified that he had advised Ludwig C. A. K.
Martens to file his credentials with the Secretary of State; had aided
him in the preparation of his statement and advised him generally in
the organization of his office and in every effort undertaken by him
for the establishment of trade connection with the United States."

AGAINST OUR COUNTRY 249

" ' 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 fijid 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 correspond-
ents generally — dated October 3, 1916, addressed to M. E.
Eahb, 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 prepare^ 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 Eand 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 Eand
School, was teaching such " methods " a year before the Bol-
sheviki seized Petrograd and the dictatorship? Is Hillquit
Lenine's pupil or Lenine's teacher? Is Hillquit, backer of the
Eand 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

250 THE RED CONSPIRACY

. . . loosen the violent revolution." {" New York Evening
Sun," January 21, 1930.) Did he allude to some pink tea
party ?

And perhaps the " school boys " Hillquifc 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 Eand 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 Eeview," 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 hj^pothetical ques-
tion 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 whatso-
ever 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 invad-
ing 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 Bol-

AtlAINST ODE COUNTRY 351

sheviki friends? No doubt when Comrade Martens, the van-
guard of the invading Bolsheviki, stormed Hillquit's castle on
Eiverside Drive witli 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 realit]', rising from the graves of the
murdered millions and the misery and sufEering 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, pre-
cisely 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 Eight 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.

252 THE EED CONSPIRACY

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. Wal-
ling 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 ZinovieS, the Bolshevist
" triumvirate " of Eussia, and of Ludwig C. A. K. Martens
and Morris Hillquit in America, are so similar that the evidence
brought by Lincoln Eyre out of Eussia perfectly interprets the
" weasel words " of Martens and Hillquit on the witness stand
at Washington and Albany, respectively. Hillquit, the connect-
ing link, according to his testimony at Albany, February 19,
1920, was born at Eiga, Eussia; came to America a boy, like
so many Eussian immigrants; attended JSTew 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 " Eiverside 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 pro-
tection 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

AGAINST OUR COtJNTEY 353

while the other continues to plot our destruction. This dis-
tinction was made, with its significance concealed, in Hillquit's
testimony at Albany on February 18, 1930, which the Albany
" Knickerbocker Press " of the next day, February 19, thus
summarized :

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

In a cabled account of an interview with Zinovieff, sent by
Lincoln Eyre from Eussia to the " World," headed, " Eiga (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 Interna-
tional does " not represent Soviet Eussia." Through the
courtesy of the " New York World " we quote from its issue
of February 36, 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, rein-
forced by an interview with C. S. ZinoviefE, ruler of the latter
city, also President of the Executive Committee of the Third
Internationale and firebrand of the revolution.

" The Eussian Communist Party, which is the Bolsheviki's
ofiicial 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

254 THE BED CONSPIRACl

" Another reason for the Soviet's willingness to quit propa-
gandizing 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. Never-
theless it is teclmieally, 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. ZinoviefE is not a member of the Council
of Peoples' Commissaries (the Cabinet), but merely of the
All-Eussian Central Executive Committee, from which, the
former body derives its powers, and which itself is subordinate
to the supreme executive legislative judicial organ, the AU-
Kussian 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,
ZinoviefE can legitimately claim to be without voice in the
actual administration of the Soviet Eepublic

" 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 interna-
tional governmental machine ? '

" ' There will be some such machine,' ZinoviefE 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 Eussia, with alterations of
detail, of course. Should Prance 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.'

AGAINST OUR COUNTEY 255

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

" The prompt reply was : ' The Third Internationale is
l-)rimarily 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 invigor-
ated. 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 Interna-
tionale ■ — 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 Eussian Soviet Government, that
Ilillquit's Party in America is affiliated, according to the testi-
mony of the Socialists themselves at Albany. Finally, with these
facts for a plummet, let us try to find the bottom of Hillquit's
hj'pocrisy 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
([uote from his cable in tlie "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 Bol-
shevist leaders. Despite his long years in exile with Lenine, to
whose Doctor Johnson he plfyed 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,'

256 THE RED CONSPIEACT

a monthly magazine of some 250 pages printed simultaneously
in Eussian, English, French and German. Moreover, he passes
upon all important printed matter emanating from the Inter-
nationale's press. Every foreign Communist coming to Moscow
or Petrograd sees ZinoviefE 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 Ger-
many, Hungary, Austria, Switzerland, Scandinavia, Eoumania,
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. Prac-
tically 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 Eepublie in astonishing
ways, risking death and all forms of hardship to reach Moscow.
The one-time seat of Moscow's Emperors has become to Com-
munists 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 Eussia'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 Eussian
agitators abroad then, thus making it unnecessary for you to
come here ?' ' What for ? ' he retorted. ' There is no use
sending Eussians 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 revolu-
tion as ever. But at the moment they are even more eager to
establish relations with the markets of the world, so that Eussia
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."

AGAINST OUR COUNTRY 257

Thus the overtures of peace and promises of good behavior
made by the Eussian 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 posi-
tion with the hypocritical Socialist professions and principlea
brought out in 1920 during the trial of the Assemblymen at
Albany.

As the long record of jury convictions of officials and mem-
bers 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." Accord-
ing to the Albany " Knickerobcker 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 lawmakers,"
continues as follows:

" "VVe 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 Social-
ist 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 Presi-
dential 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 Bngdahl, editor of the
Socialist Party's official publications; Irwin St. John Tucker?

258 THE RED CONSPIRACY

head of its literature department^ and William F. Kruse, Secre-
tary 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 Eand School of Socialism,
a New York Corporation of which two of the Socialist \Assem-
blymen were members. Furthermore, the American Socialist
Society, the corporation that owns and conducts the Band
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 1980 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 afSrm 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 concern-
ing 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 Com-
mittee Against Socialism.' "*

"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

* Those willing to co-operate with the Committee should communi-
cate with its Chairman, Mr. Franlc AUaben, President of The National
Historical Society, publishers of this book, 37 West 39th street, New
York Citjr.

AciAINST OUR COUNTRY 259

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.

"VVe 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
TJnited 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 Eussia and other foreign lands. Was this denied
by the Socialist defense at Albany? No, the fact, of afSliation
with the Third (Moscow) Internationale was admitted, reducing
the defense to the false principle that the five Socialist Assem-
blymen 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.

260 THE RED CONSPIRACY

" 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 prose-
cution 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 Con-
stitution 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

AGAINST OUR COTJNTRT 261

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 Kose 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 Sted-
man 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 dale, but no official figures subse-
quent 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 prosecu.tions," 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

263 THE EED CONSPIBACY

include the " arrests " of two or three thousand " Oommunists "
who were members of Stedmans 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 proceed-
ings before the New York Assembly Judiciary Committee, on
March 4, 1920, according to the " New York Times" of March
6, 1920, accused the Socialist counsel and witnesses of " evasive
and hypocritical sentiments, expressed on the witness stand, to
tlirow 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 sup-
port 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 responsi-
ble only to its dues-paying members, thereby relieving its agents
of obligation to established government.

" ' We are confronted with the necessity of determining
how we shall treat this group of persons who are in the United

AGAINST OUR COUNTET 263

States but not of it; who, while accepting the benefits of our
laws and constitutions and the sacrifices of blood and treasure
given to support them, refuse their support to them; who take
all they can get but will not give a life or a dollar to preserve,
defend and perpetuate the Government that is their sole and
only guaranty of life, liberty, property and the pursuit of happi-
ness,' said Mr. Conboy.

" ' It is the first time since the rebellion of 1861 that notice
has been plainly and explicitly served upon the Government of
the United States by a group of men residing within its borders
that they will not support or defend it, but that they will by
all means obstruct and resist its effort to maintain in time of
stress its national honor and existence.

" ' The Socialist Party of America is not a loyal organization
disgraced occasionally by the traitorous act of a member, but a
disloyal party composed of perpetual traitors.' "

Again, in a part of his address reported in the " E"ew York
Evening Sun" of March 4, 1920, Mr. Conboy mentioned the
fact that " at the National Convention of the Socialist Party
of America held in St. Louis," in April, 1917, " its members
were directed to deny and repudiate allegiance to this Govern-
ment," and added:

" The explanation of the anti-American attitude of the Social-
ist Party of America during the war lies in the anti-national
and pro-international character of its programme. Its members
are not occasional but perpetual traitors, in constant conflict
not merely with the purposes of any temporary administration
of the affairs of this Government, but with the very institutions
and fundamental laws. They are citizens not of the United
States, but subjects of the Internationale, whose pronounce-
ments are to be given their moral support, a support which they
not only withhold from but deny to the Government of the
United States.

" The principal exponent of this party, who appears here in
the dual capacity of witness in chief and counsel in chief, is the
international secretary for America of the International Social-
ist Bureau."

To complete our information concerning the Moscow Inter-
national, we add here some details concerning its Executive
Committee, and the right of representation on it enjoyed by the
affiliated " Parties " in other lands than Eussia, including, no
doubt, the Socialist Party of America. Trachtenberg's Labor
Year Book, 1919-1920, in its article, "The Moscow Interna-

364 THE EED CONSPIRACY

tional Communist Conference " (held at Moscow, March 2-6,
1919), says, page 312:

" The Conference . . . perfected the organization of the
new International and entrusted the direction of the work to
an Executive Committee consisting of one representative from
the Communist parties of the more important countries. The
parties in Russia, Germany, German-Austria, Hungary, Switzer-
land, Sweden and the Balkan Federation, were directed to send
members to the Executive Committee. Parties which have
declared their adherence to the new International will be given
seats in the Executive Committee, pending the arrival of dele-
gates from other countries. The members of the Committee
from the country in which the Executive Committee has its
seat [Eussia] were empowered to plan the work of the new
organization. The Executive Committee was authorized to elect
a bureau consisting of five members to do the actual work of
the Committee."

Has the Socialist Party of America contributed its Executive
Committeeman to this revolutionary machine? Even so, the
orders, or " suggestions," evidently come from the Bolshevist
Bureau of Five who " do the actual work of the Committee."
Are these the Eussian power that, according to correspondence
found in a raid of the Lusk Committee, has already appointed
Eugene V. Debs to reign over us " as ' Proletarian Dictator ' of
the United States " as soon as the plotted revolution is pulled
off in this country ? ( See " The National Civic Federation
Eeview" for July 30, 1919.) Are these the power, too, accord-
ing to report, that induced the Italian Socialists and Syndicalists
to postpone their proposed revolution to a more convenient sea-
son? And was this to give Soviet Russia a chance to put
through a temporary peace or truce with Europe to stave off
" economic catastrophe ? " If so, the twitching revolutionaries
in other lands must evidently train their toes to dance at
Moscow's convenience.

Meanwhile, under the International, the diabolical work of
getting the immoral elements ready for violence goes on in every
land, including the United States.

Let Hillquit excuse, extenuate, deny and palaver as he may,
it remains true that the Socialist Party of America teaches thej
same treasonable doctrines of violence and insurrection as the
Eussian Bolshevists, but in a more covert way. "We have a
sample in the pamphlet, " The Dictatorship of the Proletariat,"
put in evidence on January 37, 1920, in the inquiry of the

AGAINST OUR COUNTRY 265

Judiciary Committee at Albany. It is published by the Jewish
Socialist Federation of America, New Tork City, a part of the
Socialist Party of America. It says in part:

" Socialism does not believe in the State, wants to annihilate
it entirely. It holds that the task of the State has always been
to oppress the country in the interests of one class. So long
as there are classes in society which seek supremacy, the mastery,
there must be a State. But as soon as classes are eliminated the
State will have no justification for existence, and it will dis-
appear of itself.

" The Socialist movement rouses the workingmen to revolu-
tion. It preaches to them the class struggle, awakens within
them class-consciousness, makes all necessary preparations for
Socialistic order. When society is ready for the overturn, when
the Socialistic organization feels that the moment has come, it
will make the revolution.

" The dictatorship will be employed for the one thing, to
eliminate capitalism by force, take away by force the capital
from private owners and transfer it to the ownership of the com-
munity. The industries will be managed by the workingmen
through their Soviets.

"Let the true Socialists stand as sentinels; let them see
that the Socialist programs strike with hot, revolutionary blood.
The great task of the Socialist movement is to create an army
in this country which should be ready to make the Socialist
revolution when the suitable moment arrives. This army must
know its aims and the method of attaining these aims, must
be an intelligent army. Every soldier in it must himself know
the way, the plans, the strategy."

In the " Outline of the Evidence Taken Before the Judiciary
Committee to and Including February 5, 1920," issued by
counsel for the State, they quote from the Yiddish book, cited
above, referring to the printed " Testimony," pages 199, 204
and 207, in proof that the Jewish Socialist Federation, which
published the book, is "part of the Socialist Party," and intro-
ducing their citations from the book with the very significant
remark, " Published in Yiddish the principles of Socialism were
not camouflaged as they frequently are in English." Bearing
this in mind, let us note how this plain-spoken book, which we
cite from the State counsel's " Outline," pages 31-34, gives the
lie to Hillquit's camouflage about " revolution " being " evolu-
tion." The book says:

" History teaches us that through evolution, through natural
developments alone, no ruling class in society has ever been

266 THE RED CONSMfiACY

deposed from its power. . . . Workingmen cannot depend
on '-peaceful evolution'; they must prepare for a revolution,
and class-dictatorship

" To the Socialist at present, the meaning of class struggle,
Internationale and Dictatorship of the Proletariat, must
be clear. He must understand that Socialism is not a
reforni movement. He must know that Socialism is a Eevolu-
tionary world-perspective, and that the Socialist movement is
a Eevolutionary movement. . . . He must cease to be a
moral preacher and become a fighter. He must know that the
Socialist movement is a red movement, a movement with blood
in the veins, which knows that nothing in life can be won
without a struggle."

This is the real stuff, hid in a foreign tongue, with which
Hillquit's gang poisons the East Side of New York City, while
the gang's leaders lie to the American people.

Yet if the real plan is not to give us Socialism by "peaceful
evolution " but to impose it on us by " a revolution, and class-
dictatorship," what is the real object of the " political action "
carried on meantime by these hypocrites? Again the Yiddish
book gives us the real thing:

" So long as the State is ... a tool in the hands of the
bourgeoisie in the fight against the proletariat, . . . why
do the Socialists seek to send their representatives there ? Where
do Socialists fit into the State? What can they do there?

" Socialists seek to enter into the government for two reasons,
first, to be nearer to the doors of the chambers, where dictator-
ship sits, and second to hinder the dictatorial work in any
way possible. The first reason is the most important. Sitting
in Parliament or in Congress, being inside of the government
ranks, affords Socialists an opportunity to find out the plans,
tl:e strategy of the State. And knowing this, they can carry
out the propaganda the better."

If this is not treason — wickedness using " political party "
methods both as a mask and a blackjack to destroy the State — ■
what is it ?

To be forewarned is to be forearmed. Ample proof has been
given in this chapter to show that there is a nation-wide con-
spiracy to destroy our government and institutions and replace
the Stars and Stripes by the red flag. I. W. W.'s, Communists,
Communist Laborites, Socialists and Socialist Laborites have
united under the leadership of the Bolshevist Government of
Kussia. Their agents are everywhere, everywhere hypocritically

AGAINST OCR COUNTET 267

protesting that in our land freedom of speech and freedom of
assemblage are no longer tolerated. Unless our loyal citizens
promptly rally to the defense of America, disorder, strife and
rebellion will be seething everywhere, the foundations of the
glorious nation that sprang from the blood of the brave soldiers
of '76 will be completely undermined, our country will be
afflicted with evils far more grave than those averted by the
heroes who fought and died in 1813, and the land that we
love will fall a prey to the terrible ravages of crime, lawlessness
and anarchy.

We must save our country, and save it now. Now is the time
to act — now, before it is too late ; and we must act so effectively
and so vigorously that the Socialists and all their allied,
criminal, revolutionary crews will wish that they never had
seen a red flag or left their homes abroad. They are conspiring
enemies of our country. They are traitors to the flag under
which Washington and his soldiers fought for the independence
of America; traitors to the flag to whose defense the brave
men of 1812 rallied; traitors to the flag for which a million
soldiers suffered or died in our great Civil War. They are
traitors to the flag that symbolizes the union of countless happy
homes under a democratic government held in honor, respect
and veneration. Traitors they are to the flag that stands for
freedom of religion, freedom of speech, freedom of the press,
and for the protection of individual as well as of family rights.
They are traitors to the flag of a much slandered and calumni-
ated government, which, though imperfect, like all things on
this earth, extends its blessings to all, not even excepting
ungrateful Socialists and other radicals.

Fellow citizens and fellow countrymen, rally to the defense
of the flag that you love ! Denounce, to the north, south, east
and west, the evil teachings and deceptions of the Eed con-
spirators; for there is nothing that will more quickly ruin the
parties of Eeds than to reveal to the world their professed and
secret teachings.

" Immortal patriots, rise once more !
Defend your rights, defend your shore !
Let no rude foe with impious hand.
Invade the shrine where sacred lies
Of toil and blood the well earned prize.
While off'ring peace, sincere and just.
In heav'n we place a manly trust.
That truth and justice shall prevail,
And every scheme of bondage fail."

CHAPTER XVII
SOCIALISM A PERIL TO WORKINGMEN

In glowing colors the imaginationa of Socialists have beauti-
fully pictured their Utopian state for the benefit of the credulous
and oppressed. Unfortunately, however, for the followers of
Karl Marx, a little reasoning and common sense show that their
visionary state, instead of being a heavenly paradise, would in
reality be a descent into chaos and anarchy. Domestic peace
would be a blessing of the past. Discontent, wrangles, fights,
riots, civil discord and sabotage would be the order of the day
till irrepressible rebellion had sounded the death-knell of Social-
ism.

There is every indication that the Eevolutionists would not
destroy our present system of government without having
recourse to arms. Besides the many convincing proofs given
in the preceding chapter, we learn from "' The Call," New York,
January 28, 1912, that the celebrated Socialist novelist, Jack
London, scouted the idea that the social revolution would be
realized without force. Then, again, Victor Berger — who was
Socialist Congressman from Wisconsin, and who, like Debs, was
one of the " innocents " whom the " poor," " persecuted " Reds
have been trying to save from a long imprisonment by a nation-
wide agitation for amnesty — writing in the " Social Demo-
cratic Herald" of Milwaukee, on August 14, 1909, said: "We
should be grateful if the social revolution, if the freeing of
75,000,000 whites would not cost more blood than the freeing of
4,000,000 negroes in 1861."

Roland Sawyer, the Socialist candidate for governor of Massa-
chusetts in 1912, writing in " The Call," New York, October 1,
1911, dares to confess that "the conceptions of modern Social-
ism are all found in a cruder form on the streets of Paris dur-
ing the Revolution." Finally, as we have seen, Eugene V. Debs,
who on four different occasions was the Socialist candidate for
the presidency of the United States, in the " Appeal to Rea-
son," Girard, Kansas, September 2, 1911, said : " Let us mar-
shal our forces and develop our power for the revolt. . . .
A few men may be needed who are not afraid to die. Be ye

268

A PERIL TO WOEKINGMEN 369

also ready. . . . Let us swear that we will fight to the last
ditch, that we will strike blow for blow, that we will use every
weapon at our command, that we will never surrender."

It is evident that if, after a bloody rebellion, the Socialists
should overthrow the United States Government, the many mil-
lions of defeated patriotic Americans would continue to be the
enemies of the new regime. But even if no rebellion took place,
and the present system of government were overthrown merely
by the ballot, the new state would begin life with millions of
enemies, those, namely, who for one reason or another had been
radically opposed to Socialism.

When the Marxians come into power, several large factions of
them usually rebel against the government of the Socialists, as
in Eussia, Germany and Bavaria.

The Socialists, in most cases, gain control of a country after
a foreign war, at a time when it is most difficult for even the
wisest and most experienced statesmen to solve the serious prob-
lems of the hour. Great discontent should, therefore, be ex-
pected from the failure of inexperienced agitators after coming
into power, because of their inability to solve an almost endless
number of serious difficulties. Foremost among these would
probably be food difficulties, which, as in Russia, Germany, and
Hungary, have resulted in widespread opposition to the newly
established regimes.

The Socialists have never yet made known to the people of
America the detailed working plan of their proposed state. They,
have, of course, made lots of very general statements, which do
not stand the test of accurate criticism, but they have utterly
failed to offer solutions of the grave difficulties that they know
would confront them. They prefer to let the future work out
the solution, and, in the meantime, invite us to ruin our present
form of government and industry, imagining that we Americans
are a lot of ignorant children who will entrust our destinies
to a pack of wild theorists with nothing but a vague hope of a
propitious future.

Think of the discontent which would result if our people tore
down the old structure, to find no structure whatever into which
to move. They would be in the same predicament as the people
of San Francisco in the days after the earthquake and fire, when
they had to camp out in the open with an insufficient food sup-
ply, exposed to the inclemency of the weather. In fact, they
would be far worse off. A big-hearted world rushed supplies
to the San Franciscans and soon helped them to surmount their

270 THE EED CONSPIRACV

difficulties. But the new Socialist state would be attacked
from within and without, by citizens hoping to destroy the hated
form of government, and by foreign nations dreading the spread
of anarchy, just as the United States, England and France
blockaded Socialist Eussia, causing untold trouble to the Bol-
shevist government.

In the midst of embarrassments like these the inexperienced
Marxian agitators must attempt to solve ten thousand times ten
thousand problems which require skill in the extreme and years
of careful thought. Would not this result in widespread dis-
content? Or would the citizens of the United States, who just
before the dawn of Socialism had been taught by Debs and his
crew to find fault with everything under the sun, suddenly
learn patience and remain as meek as lambs merely because the
Socialists had raised the Eed flag in place of the Star Spangled
Banner ?

No sooner would the all-perfect Socialists take control at
Washington than the endeavors of the new state to settle the
serious difficulties confronting it would occasion so much dis-
content and strife as seriously to threaten, if not actually bring
to an end, the very existence of the new government. For, first
of all, the people would have to determine whether the immense
number of property owners, whose goods must be taken over by
the state, should receive full payment, partial payment, or no
payment at all.

The famous Belgian Socialist, Vandervelde, informs us that
we may group into three categories the plans of socialization
proposed by different schools, according to their aiming at the
expropriation of the means of production without indemnity,
with complete indemnity, or with limited indemnity. [" Col-
lectivism and Industrial Evolution," by Vandervelde, page 153
of the 1904 translation into English. — Chas. H. Kerr and Com-
pany.]

If full compensation were granted, millions of Socialists
would become exceedingly disgusted and discontented, for not
only would the new state from the very beginning of its exist-
ence be burdened with a tremendous debt through having to
borrow many billions of dollars, if such a thing were possible,
in order to make the purchases, but — which would make mat-
ters much worse — many of the property owners, who even
now are hated and detested by the Socialists, could, after receiv-
ing payment, either sit down for the rest of their lives and
watch the Kevolutioniats labor and toil, or else, while doing

A tEEIL TO WOEKINfiMEN 271

Some work themselves, could use their wealth in bribing the
Socialist oiBcials to bestow on them all kinds of privileges and
favors.

If no compensation whatever were granted, then, in addition
to the hatred and disgust for the new sj'stem, which would
prevail among the millions who would be dispossessed of their
property, after long years of work and careful saving in order
to purchase it, there would also be boundless dissatisfaction on
the part of persons who, still respecting God's Commandments
and the sense of right in natural conscience, would want to see
justice and honesty reign throughout America.

Finally, if partial payment were made, both those opposed
to full compensation and those in favor of it would be displeased
because of the reasons given, which would still influence them
very decidedly. If the indemnity paid were very small, the
former property owners and all honest citizens would be those
especially offended. If the amount paid were large, dishonest
Socialists would take offense. Therefore, no matter which plan
of expropriation were adopted, the state would make a great
number of new enemies.

Though we learn from page 186 of the " Proceedings of
the 1908 National Convention of the Socialist Party" that
the delegates to the convention, after a factional dispute on
party principles, declared by a vote of 102 to 33 for the col-
lective ownership of all the land, and thus determined that the
state should take over all the farms of the country, still it
cannot be denied that a great number of Eevolutionists have
claimed, especially of late years, that the government should
not dispossess the small farmers of their properties. On
account of the rival theories of the two contending factions,
the Socialist state might have to pass through a serious ordeal
before either plan was adopted. Should the new government
finally determine to take possession of such property, millions
of fanners and their families would become exceedingly hostile
to the government. Should the state allow former ovniers to
cultivate the fields about their old homesteads, the discontent
would be but partially lessened, for strict obedience to the
commands of government bosses would replace the freedom of
action once enjoyed by the farmer's family.

Pages 167 to 190 of the " Proceedings of the 1908 National
Convention of the Socialist Party," and pages 220 to 835
of the "Proceedings of the 1910 National Congress of the
Socialist Party," convinced us that very many of the Eevolu-

S72 THE EED CONSPIEACT

tionists who oppose government ownership of all land do so
in order to gain votes. It seems highly probable, therefore,
that if Socialism became the law of America many of the
apparently moderate Eevolutionists would throw ofE their masks
and unhesitatingly declare for the most radical plan of govern-
ment ownership.

Yet even if the contemplated state should permit the private
ownership of small farms, their owners would be displeased
because they would no longer be allowed to hire laborers for
working the iields. Some conservative Socialists, indeed, pro-
fess willingness to tolerate the employment of one or two farm
hands. But not alone do the 1908 National Platform and the
amendment adopted by party referendum on September 7, 1909,
oppose exploitation, or the employment of hired labor in the
production of goods, but innumerable articles in Socialist papers,
books and reviews denounce exploitation most emphatically.
Hence, if the Socialist state allowed farmers in good standing
with the government to own little farms, they could not hire
labor to operate them. If the farmer should fall sick, his
crops would go to ruin. Advantage could not be taken of
some of the great inventions helpful to agriculture, nor scien-
tific methods of work and management. The individual farmer,
thus handicapped, might feed himself, his wife, his children,
his horse, his cow, his pig, but very little more.

In the Socialist state great discontent would arise from either
the toleration or prohibition of small business enterprises. If
permitted, without power to hire labor, they must compete
with the government. If forbidden, large numbers of persons
would be obliged to work for the government, after losing
little stores or shops in which for years they had been interested.

In its issue of March 30, 1912, the " Appeal to Reason," then
the leading Socialist weekly of the United States, declared that
under Socialism John D. Eockefeller would be allowed to retain
his money and decide what to do with it. Were this the case,
and every person of wealth allowed to retain his money, it is
difBcult to see how Socialists who hate and detest the rich
could endure such a condition, any more than they could toler-
ate the granting of full or partial indemnity to property owners.
The attempt to leave the rich in possession of their wealth
would probably incite Socialists to rise in arms against the
state they had founded.

On the other hand, if wealth were confiscated, the wealthy
and the honest poor alike would be discontented with a dis-

A PERIL TO WORKINGMEl^ 273

honest government. Moreover, where would the Socialists draw
the line of lawful possession ? At $1,000,000, $10,000, $1,000,
or $100? Would the decision be reached peaceably ? Would the
use and possession of government bonds be allowed? ' As the
desire to acquire is one of the strongest passions, bitter hatred
would assail the Socialist state, which. Debs tells us, would
prohibit business profits, rent and interest. [" Socialism and
Unionism," by Eugene V. Debs.] How could insurance com-
panies, in which the American people have invested so much,
and which depend on interest, exist under Socialism? Social-
ism having ruined the insurance companies, would the millions
of policyholders just sit down and have a good, hearty laugh
over their losses?

The real crux of Socialism is the inability of the Marxians
to determine upon a system of employment and a scale of wages
or remuneration satisfactory both to the government and the
working classes.

Eemuneration must either be in the form of money, or of
goods or labor certificates entitling the holder to receive goods
from the government stores. As labor certificates would be
like money, we shall class them as "money" when speaking
of wages.

Different schemes of employment have been proposed by
Socialists. One of the oldest allows each individual to select
the occupation he desires, provided he can do the work. All
citizens, under this system, receive equal pay or equal supplies
for their services.

Such a system is absurd. The more repugnant occupations,
no matter how important for the welfare of the nation, would
be neglected. All would want easy, clean jobs. Bootblacks
might prefer to become artistic decorators ; street-cleaners would
ask to be put in charge of big factories; night-workers would
prefer day-work. The result would be endless discontent,
jealousy and disorder. As everybody would receive equal recom-
pense, the system would set a premium on sloth and inefficiency,
and entail state bankruptcy. One of the most serious objections
would be the discontent among skilled workingmen, who would
want skill to be a determining factor in the wage scale. Yet
should their system of equal remuneration not prevail, unskilled
laborers, led by agitators to believe that equal wages would be
paid to all, would become the sworn enemies of the government.
A second system, favored by many Socialists would permit all
citizens to choose their occupations and allow each individual

^74 THE EED CONSPI&ACi

to draw upon the national storeliouses according to Ms needs.
[Gotha Programme of the Socialists of Germany.]

This scheme, like the first, is absolutely absurd. It would
permit all to demand more than they needed, would encourage
sloth, would bankrupt the state, and would occasion discontent
among skilled workingmen. Under this system, too, the entire
population would neglect the more distasteful occupations, and
ill-feeling and jealousy would arise in the hearts of those failing
to obtain congenial positions.

As diligence should be a determining factor in the arrange-
ment of the wage scale, in considering the remaining systems
we shall assume that the wages are those for men whose diligence
may be termed first class.

Many Socialists, foreseeing the evils of a mad rush to obtain
the attractive positions, yet realizing how intolerable it would
be for the state to drive its citizens into uncongenial occupa-
tions, have endeavored to find a way out. Several solutions
have been proposed, among which is the one we shall call the
third system.

In tlie third system, occupations may be chosen by those
qualified to do the work. The recompense would be the same
for all, but with the hours of toil lessened in proportion to the
disagreeableness of the work. [" Looking Backward," by
Bellamy, Chapter 7, Social Democratic Publishing Company
of Milwaukee.] But such a system would give more reason
than ever for jealousy and discontent on the part of skilled
workingmen, who would be terribly incensed at seeing street
cleaners and garbage collectors for example receive salaries
equal to their own and at the same time enjoy shorter hours.
This system would put a premium on such occupations as
sewer-cleaning and dish-washing, and would discourage persons
from pursuing occupations of the highest importance to the
country.

Morris Hillquit, writing in "Everybody's," December, 1913,
page 826, tells us that " the national government might well
own and operate all means of interstate transportations and
communication, such as railroad systems, telegraph and tele-
phone lines; all sources of general and national wealth, such
as mines, forests, oil-wells; and all monopolized or trustified
industries already organized on a basis of national operation.

" Similarly the state government might assume the few indus-
tries confined within state limits; while the municipal govern-
ment would logically undertake the management of the much

A PERIL TO WOEKINGMEN 275

wider range of peculiarly local business, such as street trans-
portation and the supply of water, light, heat and power.

" Still other local industries, too insignificant or unorganized
even for municipal operation, might be left to voluntary
co-operative enterprises."

On page 829 of the same issue of "Everybody's," Hillquit
adds that "under a system of Socialism each worker will be
a partner in the industrial enterprise in which he will be
employed, sharing in its prosperity and losses alike."

At first sight this fourth plan seems attractive, but upon
examination we notice that nothing is said as to how the
millions of persons to be employed by the national, state or
municipal governments will be assigned to the different enter-
prises. Will the people be forced to labor at repugnant tasks ?
That will make endless turmoil and trouble in the Marxian
state. But if all persons enjoy equal rights under the Socialist
government there would be a grand rush for the most congenial
occupations, and especially for the most lucrative. The result
would be an immense amount of discontent and jealousy in
those who failed to secure the positions they desired. True,
these objections might not hold for well-to-do persons like
Hillquit, founder of the " New York Call," for he and other
Socialist politicians who have become wealthy by always remain-
ing leaders of their dues-paying comrades might, perhaps, invest
their money in co-operative enterprises. But such persons con-
stitute only a small part of the population of the country.

The many objections brought against these four systems
could not be obviated by the adoption of a fifth, in which all
would be free to choose their occupations, and would for the
same number of hours of work receive as recompense an amount
determined by all the factors which should be taken into con-
sideration, such as skill, the physical difiiculty of the labor,
danger, disagreeableness of the work and the increased value
added to the raw material.

In trying to arrange the details of such a system, innumerable
difficulties would arise. Unskilled laborers would want physical
labor rather than skill or talent made the principal factor in
determining the scale; for they would recall the promises of
Socialist orators that in the new state all should enjoy equal
rights, and they would consider it a grave injustice to work
as hard or even harder than skilled laborers and yet receive
lower wages through want of skill and talent due to no fault
of theirs. Should the plea of these millions of unskilled

27G THE BED CONSPIEACY

laborers go unheeded, the new state could count them among
its most bitter enemies.

On the other hand, skilled laborers would want skill and
talent to be the main factors in determining wages, arguing
that they had worked hard to become proficient and that their
talent and skill made the work more valuable to the state.
They would protest that they should not suffer simply because
unskilled laborers lacked their skill and talent. Should the
skilled workingmen not be heard, the new state would have
another throng of enemies.

Compromises might be attempted by different adjustments
of talent and skill to physical labor in determining the wage
schedule; but in each case the new regime would only be at
the beginning of troubles. What bitter disputes among the
skilled workingmen in different trades ! There would be con-
flicting views of every sort regarding the exact amount of skill
and of physical labor required in the different trades, and
regarding the difficulties, disagreeableness of work, dangers to
health and life, and increased value added to the raw material
in each line.

But what would happen even if the ship of state under the
red flag and its mast could weather the wage-storm and come
safely into port with some working system?

! The people, we are told, would enjoy equal rights. The
government could not refuse to grant work to any qualified
person applying for it. Suppose the members of some trade,
the carpenters, for example, displeased with the wages they
'were getting", should apply for other work and stick to it until
the government was forced to grant their demands. Other
craftsmen, seeing how easily the carpenters had won their strike,
would imitate their example. Thus would occur derangements
of the intricate wage scale — which had occupied the attention
'of the country for so long a time and been adopted only after
the greatest difflculty — causing great discontent and jealousy,
while the economic losses through successful strikes would raise
the prices of commodities, bringing on a general fever of
I discontent.

A further source of trouble would be the problem of deter-
, mining what wages should be paid to shirkers and those incapa-
ble of working with efficiency. Would wage courts decide the
value of their services? If so, how many thousands of such
courts would be required? If not, would state officials or poll-

A PERIL TO WOEKINGMEN 27'?

tieians decide the cases ? The wages of such persons, no matter
how determined, would cause discontent.

It would be extremely difficult, if not impossible, to deter-
mine justly and accurately the wages of eminent specialists,
physicians and persons whose important services the state could
not afford to lose. If very high wages were awarded them, the
poorer classes would take offence at the prospect of a rich class
once more rising with power to suppress them, as many do at
the present time. If low wages were paid to eminent specialists,
they would neglect important pursuits and vocations to the
detriment of the nation's welfare. Even if they received mod-
erately high wages, other persons of the same profession would
become offended at the government's refusal to grant them
like salaries and would line up with the enemies of the Socialist
state.

Even under the most favorable circumstances, the fifth wage-
system would produce two classes, the comparatively rich, and
the comparatively poor, a condition repugnant to Socialists.

The forcing of women to work, in accordance with Socialistic
doctrines, would arouse opposition to the new government. The
husbands, fathers and sons of the women would be displeased
with the wretched way in which their homes would be kept
and their meals prepared.

A further source of tremendous discontent in the Socialist
state would be the prevalance of political corruption to a far
greater extent than under the present system. For there would
be a far greater throng of state employes than now, and there
would be an immense number of people trying to get per-
missions, privileges and exemptions of every description. With
human nature unchanged, but with the opportunities for deals
and bribery greatly multiplied, political corruption would
greatly increase.

Another important cause would be in operation. Socialism
is spreading anti-religious and atheistic doctrines, loosing men
and women from their moral restraints. With dishonesty thus
increasing, acceptors of bribes would not only be more common
in the Marxian state, but the average number of their offences
would increase ; for since opportunities of collecting large single
sums would be rarer than at present, owing to abolition of the
capitalist system and the small amount of wealth possessed by
individuals, dishonest politicians would naturally endeavor to
enrich themselves by granting corrupt favors to a larger number
of people. The reader himself can picture the condition of

278 THE EED CONSPIBACT

affairs in the Socialist state when large numbers of its citizens
were its declared enemies because of a vast and hopeless system
of political corruption.

The Socialist state would contain many persons who by soap-
box orators and revolutionary authors were led to believe that
police, soldiers and courts would disappear. These persons
would be greatly discontented when the Socialist government
still hedged them in by retaining the old system for the
preservation of law and order, or, as in Eussia, greatly increased
the restraint on their liberty by means of immense numbers of
Eed Guards, heavily armed and noted for cruelty. Or if these
were taken away, the state would feel the enmity of all its better
citizens who realized the need for guardians, police, soldiers
and courts, to protect them from the crimes of the lawless.

Under the Socialist regime there would be atheists, fighting
as in Eussia, Mexico, France, Italy and Portugal for the propa-
gation of their doctrines, while in opposition to them would
be millions of believers, defending themselves from the attacks
of the enemies of God. Any concession granted by the state to
one of these parties would arouse the enmity of the other.

So, too, there would be a rapidly growing faction in favor
of free-love, as well as one opposed to it, and as each party would
be extremely powerful, and use every effort to defeat its oppo-
nents, there would be great strife and discontent.

The Socialists in power in Europe, whether " moderate " or
extremely radical, have made millions of enemies by imprison-
ments, executions, suppression of free speech, the gagging of
the press, the withholding food, etc. Would these things happen
in our country if the Eeds gained control ?

There is every reason to believe that the Socialist Govern-
ment would become exceedingly unpopular here as in Eussia,
owing to a great increase in crime; for to say nothing of the
criminal offences occasioned by the prevalent discontent of the
citizens, the atheistical and anti-religious doctrines of the
Eevolutionists, by continuing to undermine the faith of the
people in the existence of God and by leading them to disbelieve
in the rewards of heaven and' the punishments of hell, would
very seriously interfere with the beneficent effects of several
of the most excellent preventives of crime.

With discontent, jealousy and crime reigning supreme in the
state from its very birth, many who had hoped for the success
of Socialism would become utterly disgusted with its absolute
failure and would long for the re-establishment of the old order.

A tERIL TO WOESINGMEN' 27&

As the leaders of the Marxian movement now make the most
extravagant promise* concerning perfections of their prospective
state, their government, should it come, vrould suffer the hatred
of all who discovered that they had been cruelly deceived.

We must remember, too, that the very persons who would
discover that they had been deceived by their Socialist teachers
would be the very same people who are now taught by the same
teachers to find fault with everything under the sun. It would,
therefore, be a terrible day for the new state when the embittered
rank and file of the Eevolutionary Party fully realized the
total failure of Socialism. The Socialist state would then have
millions of enemies, recruited from the Socialist Party itself,
as well as from the ranks of those who had always opposed
Socialism.

ISTot alone would these enemies be far more numerous than
those who oppose our present form of government, but their
wrath and anger, wrought to fever heat by the many causes
we have enumerated, as well as by the mistakes of the Marxian
rulers, would urge them to commit deeds of violence that have
never yet been conceived even by the " bomb squad " of the
revolutionary I. W. W. Eebellion against the new government
would be the order of the day, and the Socialist state would
not long endure. It would crumble to pieces, and the poor
workingman, in the midst of anarchy and the total destruction
of industry, would deeply regret having listened to the crazed
imaginations of silver-tongued fanatics.

Lincoln Byre's cables from Eussia, received by the " New
York World " when this book was in type, more than corroborate
the picture drawn in this chapter of the " perils to working-
men " from any attempt to put the economic fallacies of
Socialism into practice. In the first place, according to Eyre's
cable of February 36, 1920, printed in the " World " of Febru-
ary 28, 1920, all the blood and violence inflicted on Eussia
have failed to establish real Communism there. Through
courtesy of the " World " we give, in part, Byre's statement as
to this, from the cable just mentioned :

" In wartime France, Bngland or Germany no man could
obtain for love or money more than a specified maximum of
food, fuel or the household requirements. In wartime revolu-
tionary Eussia, ruled by a communist dictatorship, any man
with enough thousand ruble notes can buy all the food and
warmth he desires. Throughout the war dwellers in London,

280 THE EED CONSPIEACT

Paris or Berlin affected by war conditions (and that meant
practically everybody) were freed of paying rent by a mora-
torium. Eesidents of Moscow and Petrograd are still obliged
to pay rent and at a higher figure than in pre-war days. These
two incontrovertible facts are evidence that an all-powerful
Bolshevik in the Communist Government has in two years
installed a lesser measure of Communism in actual practice
than existed in the belligerent European countries during the
war years. To my mind this is one of the severest, albeit the
most rarely mentioned, indictments of the Bolsheviks' vast com-
munistic programme, since it reveals their impotency to attain
their initial aim — the abolition of classes."

In the second place, not alone has there been failure to
destroy capitalism and equalize possessions, but new class dis-
tinctions and " new aristocracies " have arisen. We quote Eyre
on this point from the same issue of the " World," February 28,
1920:

"While capitalism in the larger sense of the term has been
destroyed, together with private ownership on a large scale,
capital continues to be accumulated and to make its iniiuence
felt. One man may still possess more than another in worldly
goods and receive higher pay for his work. Equality of
material possessions is as non-existent in the Eussian social
republic as it is in the American ' bourgeois ' republic. Hence
there are coming into existence new groupings of Eussian popu-
lation, new lines of economic demarcation, new forms of social
standing and of wealth. The beginning of two new aristocracies
are detectable. One is found in the governmental hierarchy,
the other in the ever-increasing speculator class. . . . The
Soviets . . . cannot do without the speculators (which'
means all persons engaged in private trading)."

Thirdly, " Communist " Eussia already has her " ruling
class," as privileged and as distinctly marked off from the
ordinary day-laborer as in any " bourgeois " republic. We quote
Eyre as to this from the same article:

" Governmental aristocracy has its boots imbedded in the
Kremlin, that ancient Moscow citadel. ... In Soviet Eussia
today one speaks of the Kremlin as one spoke of Versailles in
the magnificent days of Louis XIV. . . . Only the most
eminent commissaries of the people and a few other Soviet
stars of the first magnitude are domiciled there in the grandiose
palaces that once housed the most famous figures of Muscovite
history.

A PERIL TO WOKKINGMEN 381

" Protected behind mimerous barriers of bayonets and
machine guns, the Bolshevik chieftains have made this bar-
barically gorgeous nesting place of Oriental autocracy the throb-
bing nerve centre of world revolution. . . . And from its
frowning gates they sally forth in their high power limousines
on affairs of state even as the Czars in their day went forth to
superintend the administration of their colossal heritage.

" Bolshevism's upper ten are in the Kremlin. The lesser
lights of the Bolshevik aristocracy must content themselves with
quarters in the ' Soviet houses/ which were the city's leading
hotels, and are now nationalized habitations reserved for
prominent Soviet officials. These buildings, like the Kremlin,
are better heated and generally cared for than most other
domiciles and the food served in them is slightly more abundant.
Sentries guard the doors to prevent unauthorized visitors from
gaining admission

" The fact that some individuals ride to the opera in
limousines while the rest walk is necessarily productive of class
division. Already there is a slang term for the former — the
proletarian bourgeoisie, they are called."

The observant reader will also have gathered from the extract
Just given that, fourthly, the " ruling class " of Communist
Eussia is much more distrustful of the " common people " than
any class in the United States, Great Britain or Prance would
think of being. Thus the lords and lordlings of the "pro-
letarian dictatorship " barricade themselves in " citadels,"
behind "barriers of bayonets and machine guns," while
" sentries guard the doors " to keep out " visitors." What
would we poor " bourgeois " Americans think if our wealthier
inhabitants and public officials kept " common citizens " out of
range by such a display of infantry and artillery ?

Fifthly, despite all the gush about a " workingmen's "
republic in Eussia, that country is now absolutely helpless under
the yoke of the most absolute autocracy the world has seen in
a long while. As to this we quote Lincoln Eyre's cable, dated
February 25, 1920, and published in the " New York "World "
of February 27, 1920. Eyre says :

" Lenine . . . and Trotzl^ . . . wield a more absolute
power than any Czar. . . . They are the only really strong
men detectable among the Bolsheviki or anywhere else in Russia.
That their strength is greater than ever is demonstrated by the
amazing program for the militarization of labor that they have
■just entered upon; a programme which when first proposed

282 THE RED CONSPIEACT

aroused the Communist Party's instant antagonism, but ■which,
in a few days the dictators easily persuaded their disciples to
support."

We shall return to this astounding conscription of labor a
little further on. It is referred to here merely to show who
actually does the " ruling " in the widely advertised " labor "
government of Eussia. Eyre continues:

" There is iron law and order all over Russia, neither anarchy
nor chaos being visible. . . . With the recent abolition of
the death penalty the Eed terror, long since bleached to pale
pink, came to a definite end. Such is the omnipotence of the
Soviets that it is no longer necessary for them to terrorize their
opponents into obedience."

Thus horrible butcheries are no longer necessary because no
one longer dares to resist. All liberty, all self-government, all
self-initiative have been crushed in the iron vise of dictated
policy. This is the case, as Eyre says, " twenty-seven months
after the social revolution gripped the nation in a clutch of
steel that never has been relaxed since." Is not such mental,
moral and spiritual death a greater calamity than physical
death ?

Sixthly, the common people, crushed under this experimental
Socialist Juggernaut, are starving to death. In the article last
cited, in the " World " of February 27, 1920, Eyre says :

" The food problem is hideously acute, yet not quite so critical
as at the outset of the winter. In Moscow, Petrograd and other
industrial centres some 8,000,000 human beings, of whom only
a tiny fraction are Bolsheviki, are slowly but surely starving
to death. There are abundant food stocks in the south and
east, but they cannot be carried in sufficient quantity over the
semi-paralyzed railroads

" Trotzky himself defined the industrial situation as a race
between economic reconstruction and reversion to savagery."

Seventhly, craving for food is one of the things which make
it impossible to shut out the food speculator, whose extortion
at least helps to prolong life. As Eyre says :

" City and country food speculation, which the dictatorship
thus far confesses its inability to suppress or even control, is
fast developing a new capitalist class right under the Com-
munists' noses. One of the most painful sights in Eussia is
some pale, thin, tottering old woman paying out more than
she earns in a week for a few lumps of sugar bought from a

A PEEIL TO WOltKlKGMEN 283

well-fed trader from the country In the Sukfarevka, Moscow's
open air market place."

Eighthly, the common people are nearly as cold as they are
hungry. In the cable printed in the " World " of February 2?,
1920, Eyre says:

"Fuel is slightly less scarce than it was two months ago.
The lack of heat, however, is helping the food shortage to
increase the mortality rate, which is likely to attain 30 per cent
in Moscow before spring."

In the ninth place, disease stalks through the land, hand in
hand with cold and famine. The article just cited contains the
following by Eyre:

" Disease is rampant, and the typhus epidemic in Siberia,
where Kolchak left many tens of thousands of victims behind
him in his retreat, is spreading swiftly westward. Owing to the
absence of medical supplies, the epidemic can be combated only
by quarantine."

In the tenth place, " labor " in Eussia, the real " working
class," is conscripted, enslaved under military discipline, and
'' exploited " under an incredible system of military court
martial ^ a degradation of workingmen by the Socialist tyrants
of Eussia which no form of modem " capitalism " has dreamed
of since human slavery was abolished. On this subject Eyre
says, in the "World" of February 27, 1920:

" Four of Trotzky's sixteen armies have been turned into
' labor armies,' which means that soldiers fresh from victories
on military fronts are being obliged to work, still under military
command and discipline, on the ' economic front.' They are
used chiefly for building up the transport system and assuring
shipment of food and fuel from the country to the city. . . .

" Labor generally is being militarized to an amazing extent.
Discipline is being imposed upon factory workers by the estab-
lishment of special tribunals with powers of courts martial.
Communist commissaries, no longer required at the front, are
being detached from their regiments and sent to stimulate pro-
duction endeavor in industries and railroads."

Is this the kind of thing which Hillquit's Socialist gang of
would-be labor " exploiters " would lure America's liberty-
loving workingmen into by calling them " slaves " in their pres-
ent dignified situation as self-governed and self-reliant freemen ?
On December 13, 1919, the presidents and secretaries of the
113 national and international unions affiliated with the Ameri-
can Federation of Labor met at Washington, D. C, with the

284 THE RED CONSPIEACT

heads of the four railway brotherhoods and several farmers'
organizations, and are to be congratulated for having passed the
following resolution, which the late information from Eussia
overwhelmingly vindicates :

" Whereas, the American Federation of Labor is an American
institution, believing in American principles and ideas, and

" Whereas, an attempt is being made to inject the spirit of
Bolshevism and I. W. W.'ism into the affairs of the American
Federation of Labor, and

'• Whereas, the American Federation of Labor is opposed to
Bolshevism, I. W. W.'ism and the irresponsible leadership which
encouraged such a policy, therefore be it

" Eesolved, that the conference of representatives of trades
unions affiliated with the A. F. of L,. and other organizations
associated in this conference, repudiate and condemn the policy
of Bolshevism and I. W. W.'ism as being destructive of Ameri-
can ideals and impracticable in application; be it further

" Eesolved, that this conference reiterate the action of the
conventions of the American Federation of Labor, and the
advocacy of the principles of conciliation and voluntary arbitra-
tion and collective bargaining."

We cite this here to put the freedom of self-determination,
practiced by the great progressive body of American labor, in
vivid contrast with the abject slavery which the Socialists of
Eussia are now imposing upon the labor of that country.
Lincoln Byre's statement of the labor situation in Eussia is
confirmed by Trotzky himself, as we learn from the " New
York World" of February 28, 1920, as follows:

" London, February 27. — Leon Trotzky, Minister of War of
Soviet Eussia, addressing the third Eussian Congress, held in
Moscow January 25 last, outlined the Bolshevist plan for con-
verting the Bed Army into an army of labor. According to
reports of his speech reaching here he said :

" ' There is still one way open to the reorganization of national
economy — the way of uniting the army and labor and changing
the military detachments of the army into detachments of a
labor army.

" ' Many in the army have already accomplished their military
task but they cannot be demobilized as yet. Now that they
have been released from their military duties, they must fight
against economic ruin and against hunger; they must work to
obtain fuel, peat and other heat-producing products; they must

A PERIL TO WOKKINGMEN S85

take part in building, in clearing the lines of snow, in repairing
roads, building sheds, grinding flour, etc.

" ' We have already organized several of these armies and they
have been allotted their tasks. One army must obtain foodstuffs
for the workmen of the districts in which it was formerly sta-
tioned and it also will cut wood, cart it to the railways and
repair engines. Another army will help in the laying down
of railway lines for the transport of crude oil. A third labor
army will be used in repairing agricultural implements and
machines, and, in the spring, will take part in the working of
the land

" ' Trade unions must register qualified workmen in the
villages. Only in those localities where trade ; union methods
are inadequate other methods must be introduced, in particular
that of compulsion, because labor conscription gives the state
the right to tell the qualified workmen who is employed on
some unimportant work in his village, " You are obliged to
leave your present employment and go to Sormovo or Kolomna,
because there your work is required."

" ' Labor conscription means that the qualified workmen who
leave the army must proceed to places where they are required,
where their presence is necessary to the economic system of the
country. We must feed these workmen and guarantee them the
minimum food ration.' "

No doubt these " qualified workmen " are what we call
"skilled workmen." Here we have, in its naked reality, the
" deliverance " from " wage-slavery " which the crazy Socialists
of all schools have so long been preaching to the laboring
freemen of America. How would the millions of labor's noble-
men in the American Federation of Labor like to see Debs,
Hillquit and Victor L. Berger cracking the whip over them
after the fashion of Lenine, Trotzky and Zinovieff in Kussia?

Notice the "capitalistic" language of Trotzky: "We"—
the tyrannical, exploiting drones in the Kremlin — " must feed
these workmen and guarantee them the minimum food ration."
Do not the " workmen " produce the food ? Then why do they
not take it and cut the throats of these drones ? Is not this the
Socialist doctrine we are taught by our American theorists, who
froth at the mouth over the alleged " wage-slavery " of Ameri-
can workmen who rear intelligent families in comfortable homes
and maintain the independence and self-initiative of American
freemen ?

2S6 THE RED COlSfSPIHACy

In the eleventh place, we notice that the workmen of Russia,
as a reward for complete slavery under military conscription
and courts martial tribunals, are guaranteed nothing but this
" minimum food ration " and a possibility of being able to buy
enough additional food out of their wages to postpone starva-
tion. The last-mentioned possibility is described for us by
Lincoln Eyre in his cable in the " New York World" of Febru-
ary 27, 1920, where, it must be remembered, he is speaking of
the most-favored workmen, in the big cities. He says :

" Nobody in Eussia relying wholly upon ' Sovietsky ' food —
food handed out through official agencies — gets enough to eat
except soldiers, a small percentage of heavy workers and high
Soviet officials. Ordinary factory workers seldom receive as
much as 60 per cent of their alimentary requirements through
the Government. The remainder they must buy at fantas-
tically high prices from speculators. And though they them-
selves, in collaboration with central dictatorship, fix their own
wages, they never earn enough to cover the swift-climbing cost
of living. If this is the plight of the workers, that is, of the
ruling class, the ghastliness of the situation confronting the
less favored elements of the population may well be imagined."

Is it in irony that Eyre speaks of these " workers " as " the
ruling class"? What are the real workmen in Eussia but
victims of this cruel experiment of tyrannizing Socialist
" intellectuals " ?

We remark next, in the twelfth place, that the Soviet system
of food distribution, wholly unequal and thus anti-communistic,
has resulted in dividing the Eussians into eight classes, each
category having a special card defining its special ration. The
account of this is given by Lincoln Eyre in a cable dated March
9, 1920, and published in the " New York World " of March 10.,
1920, from which we take two sentences :

" The commissariat of food control has gradually built up
no less than eight distinct classes. . . . Special cards also
are provided for children from one, two to five and from five
to sixteen. It will be seen that this totals eight distinct
varieties of card."

The effect of these distinctions may be gathered from the
following instance given in the article just cited :

" In the month of November there was distributed by the
Petrograd Soviet altogether 13,631,480 pounds of bread. . . .
Had all the bread been divided evenly among the whole popula-
tion, each person would have had about one-half a pound a

A PERIL TO WORKINGMEN 287

day, whereas, in fact, one category got much less than that
amount daily and the third category none at all."

In the thirteenth place, we note that the Eussian Socialist
tyrants give the workmen, in exchange for their labor, pieces
of paper run off from printing presses which seem almost to
have solved the problem of perpetual motion. The workmen
are wise if they spend this fiat money daily for whatever it will
bring in food, for its value will collapse utterly when the
dictatorship bursts, leaving the country financially prostrate,
without credit or means of exchange. This is one of the greatest
bunco games ever practiced upon workingmen. Eyre describes
it in a cable dated March 3, 1920, and published in the " New
York World" of March 4, 1920, from which we quote:

" In ' the Socialist Federative Eepublic of Soviets of Russia,'
to give the Bolshevik land its official title, no mention has been
made of finance. The reason for this is simple. There is no
finance, in the European or American sense of the word, in
present Russia. The Soviet Government pays its own people
what it has to pay in paper money, of which it prints unlimited
quantities. Being determined eventually to abolish money
altogether in favor of Communistic exchange of products, it is
not worried about depreciation in the value of its currenc)'. It
possesses about 1,000,000,000 rubles — the exact amount is kept
very secret — in gold, with which it intends to pay for goods
purchased abroad until it can establish a system of barter with
foreign commercial interests. From the capitalistic viewpoint
its budgetary expenditures are chaotic, but in Communistic eyes
they are both sane and logical."

Only to minds financially insane or criminally degenerate
could such a system seem " sane and logical." Their carefully
kept store of gold shows that the Bolshevist dictators are not
insane but criminal. Tliey understand their game, which is
that of bunco-steering to " exploit " labor on the largest scale
the world has ever seen. Honest paper money is a promise to
pay, for value received, in gold, silver or good merchandise.
If this form is used by these frauds, it is with the deliberate
intention of repudiation, the possibility of payment being
also destroyed by the floods of the stuff turned out. If the
paper given is not a promise to pay, it is circulated simply
through the tyranny of men who by threat of punishment or
starvation force workingmen to exchange a day's labor for a
bit of food and a piece of paper. In either case the labor
exploiters in the Kremlin exact from Russia's workingmen, in

388 THE EED CONSPIBACX

exchange for a little food and a wad of paper, a genuine
value, the product of hard labor, which these get-rich-quick
Wallingfords can turn into gold, or exchange with the world
for anything they want. All that Eussian workingmen get is
semi-starvation and the temporary delusion, conveyed to them
in fine speeches, that they are " in the game," whereas they are
only its dupes.

The worthless character of the paper money, which the work-
men nevertheless have to take and spend to keep soul and body
together, is shown by the fact that the peasants refuse it. In
his cable printed in the " ISTew York World " of February 27,
1920, Eyre says that "the peasant twenty miles outside of
Moscow . . . has more food than he can eat, more clothes
than he can wear," yet " refuses to sell his products for money
except that proportion of them that he is compelled to turn over
to the Soviets at a fixed price. In private trading," Eyre con-
tinues, " he will take in exchange for his foodstuffs only manu-
factured articles, clothing and other things he needs." Thus
the peasant is fortunate in that he lives on land where he
can at least raise enough to eat ; whereas the " proletarian," in
whose behalf the Socialists pretend to have made the Eussian
revolution, is most of all victimized by it.

The reason why the Bolshevist dictators are now conscripting
Eussian labor seems evident. These pick-pockets have finished
exploiting the Eussian aristocracy and " bourgeoisie," squeezed
them dry, and squandered what they stole. The only game left
to them now is to exploit labor to the limit and appropriate the
profits.

Two other features of this thimble-rigging arrangement
complete the exposure of the most inhuman scheme to exploit
labor which the world has seen for centuries. One of these
shows us, in the fourteenth place, that the rascals Lenine and
Trotzky, are actually inviting " foreign capital " to form a
partnership with them in their exploitation of Eussian labor,
under promise to turn over to this outside " capital " a good share
of the " profits " to be wrung by labor conscription out of the
sweat of Eussia's brow.

The invitation to " foreign capital " to join hands with the
Bolshevist dictatorship, under promise of good profits and guar-
antees of security was made by both Lenine and Trotzky through
interviews granted to Lincoln Eyre. Through courtesy of the
" New York World " we have quoted the propositions of these
"friends" of Eussian labor near the close of Chapter XV of

A PERIL TO WORKINGMEN 289

this book, as the reader doubtless remembers, and we merely
recall the facts here to put them in line with the other features
of Bolshevist labor oppression which we have Just been consider-
ing. Who could have imagined that within a little more than
two years after beginning their barbarous Socialist experiment
with Eussian industries the brazen dictatorship would be urging
" foreign capital " to join in a scheme to squeeze both a domestic
and a foreign profit out of the toil of Eussian workingmen
conscripted by Socialist task -masters and held in wage-slavery
under fear of death by court martial ?

In the fifteenth place, we have the dreadful fact that Eussian
labor is enslaved by a Socialist autocracy not for the sake of
promoting peace but for the sake of promoting war. In our
last chapter we quoted the statements of Zinoviefl to Lincoln
Eyre that the Third Internationale would never give up its
purpose to make the whole world Bolshevist. Eyre also found
the belief general in Eussia that so long as the Socialists retain
power, any peace made by them with the outside world will
only be a short truce in which to prepare for another war.
He says, in his cable printed in the " New York World " of
February 27, 1920:

"All, Bolsheviki included, feel that as long as the Soviets
remain in power in Eussia and Bolshevism does not spread to
other lands, peace cannot be more than a truce in the interna-
tional class warfare."

Again, in his cable printed in the " New York World " of
March 4, 1920, Lincoln Eyre says:

" The Eed Army's victories against Kolchak, Yudenitch and
Denikine are in themselves paradoxical, in that they serve to
increase the Eussian need for peace. . . . Every advance
recorded in Siberia or the Crimea brings the front line further
from the base and complicates the task of supplying munitions,,
food and equipment. Thus it becomes increasingly evident to
all Eussians, whatever their political leanings may be, that
Eussia must have peace in order to survive economically. And
yet — another paradox — all feel that any peace established now
between Soviet authority and Governments of the bourgeois and
democratics cannot be more than a brief truce because Socialism
and capitalism cannot abide side by side, and because neither
can be suppressed without warfare. The Bolshevik faith in
the ultimate appearance of a world revolution has not waned,
but their hope of its speedy coming has lessened considerably."

290 THE RED C02SrSPIEACT

Who but the ] ong-sufEering Eussians would endure the hope-
less fate imposed by Socialism on Eussian labor? The working-
men were conscripted by Trotzky's armies. They won victories,
but these have not freed them. Eetuming from the front they
are conscripted for labor armies, to work as they fought, under
military discipline, subject to court martial and death if they
rebel. Yet this military toil will not free them. They slave
under the pistols of the commissaries only to get themselves
economically equipped for a new war against their " capitalistic "
neighbors, and in this war the workingman, if he can still walk,
will be conscripted to go to the front again. Should he survive
this, must he begin the same round over again ?

But why not strike against this slavery? Eussian labor does
not dare to strike. Tender-hearted Socialism has made the
labor strike a crime in Eussia. Says Lincoln Eyre, in a cable
dated March 11, 1920, and printed in the " New York World"
of March 13, 1920:

" The unions, of course, lost their former principal weapon —
the strike. Today any body of workers that would venture out
on strike would be considered, to quote President Melnitchansky
of the Moscow unions, as traitors to their Socialist fatherland
and as such would doubtless be shot."

With this utter collapse of Socialist theories and professions
in Bolshevikiland, we need not wonder that, according to a cable
in the "New York Times" of March 2, 1920, the French
National Socialist Congress adjourned at Strasbourg, March 1,
1920, " after voting down by more than 2 to 1 a motion to
ally the Socialists of France with Lenine and Trotzky."
According to the same cable, " The pleaders for the Third
Internationale, formed at Moscow, were answered by the reply
that the beautiful doctrines enunciated there had been thrown
aside by Lenine and Trotzky and that any one who believed in
real Socialism would be a fool to get behind the leaders of Soviet
Eussia."

Is it now in order for our American Bolshevists, Gene Debs,
Morris Hillquit {alias Hilkovitz) and Vic Berger, solemnly to
inform us that Eussian Bolshevism never was Socialism, nor
anything like it, but only a base counterfeit? And will they
also inform us that Lenine and Trotzky are unprincipled adven-
turers and cold-blooded blackguards who have hidden behind
the mask of Socialism to blackjack a great people and filch a
wealth they never did a day's work to accumulate?

A PERIL TO WOEKINGMEN 291

When our American wavers of the Eed Flag try to hide their
shipwrecked theories behind a repudiation of Bolshevilsiland,
we shall have to remind them of their many, many utterances
jubilantly assuring us that " Bolshevism is Socialism in prac-
tice." A specimen will do, taken from one of the books pub-
lished by the Jewish Socialist Federation of America, a " part
of the Socialist Party" of the United States piloted by Debs,
Hilkovitz and Berger, which we quote as cited on page 34 of
the " Outline of the Evidence Taken Before the Judiciary
Committee " of the New York Assembly :

" Bolshevism is not a new Socialist theory, but the practical
carrying out in life of the old Socialist theory.

" Bolshevism especially is not a theory. Bolshevism is a
method of how to establish Socialism in life.

" Bolshevism is practical Socialism, the Socialism of today,
and not of the remote future day."

CHAPTEE XVIII
THE CONSPIRACY AGAINST RELIGION ABROAD

It is but proper to begin this chapter by conceding that there
are many church-going members among those who vote the
Marxian ticket — not as an indorsement of the teachings of
international Socialism, but merely as a protest against political
corruption and the abuses of capitalism. Justice, moreover,
demands that vs^e acknowledge the existence of a small minority
of dues-paying members of the Socialist Party who neither
attack religion nor tacitly approve of the atheistic propaganda
carried on in the official Marxian press, as well as in the books,
pamphlets and magazines on sale not only in the leading Social-
ist book-stores of America, but even at the National Office of
the party in Chicago.

In most countries of Europe, where the war against religion
is much more open and widespread than in America, the Social-
ists are frank in confessing that their movement is atheistic
and anti-religious.

In our own country some of the more violent Socialistic
enemies of the church admit both in their speeches and in their
writings that they would be extremely happy to see the very
idea of God become a matter of ancient history. Christian
Socialists of the old Carr faction, who constitute a minority
of far less than one per cent of the Socialist Party of the United
States, have not only conceded the existence of an atheistic
propaganda within the ranks, but have attacked it and utterly
failed to suppress it.

Apart from these two classes of American Socialists, who
admit the existence of a campaign in favor of atheism, most
Socialists in our country, because they fear that votes will be
lost if our people are convinced of the anti-religious character
of the party, steadfastly deny that they are conspiring against
religion. Indeed they are quite cunning and crafty in their
effort to beguile the unwary. If the person hesitates joining
the party, owing to his conviction that nearly all the Socialist
leaders have been the enemies of religion, he is informed that
it would be just as foolish for him not to be a Eevolutionist

392

AOAINST EELIGION ABROAD 393

for this reason, as it would be for one not to become a Eepubli-
can because Eobert IngersoU did not believe in God and even
propagated atheism.

As the conspirators against religion have, by this plausible
argument, involving the name of IngersoU, removed the
prejudices that niany persons formerly had against Socialism
on account of the atheistic teachings of its leaders, it seems
but fitting to give a short refutation of the deceptive argument
and to point out the absurdity of the comparison just mentioned.

In the first place, although Eobert IngersoU was an atheist,
he never stated that Eepublicanism vs^as anti-religious. On the
other hand, very many of the highest authorities in the Marxian
Party, whose extensive knowledge of Socialism justifies our
belief that they know but too well the policy of the revolutionary
movement, admit that Socialism postulates atheism and war
against religious beliefs. IngersoU, moreover, never attacked
religion nor taught atheism with a view to furthering the cause
of Eepublicanism. But a very large number of the Socialists,
whether Europeans or Americans, in their endeavor to promote
what they consider to be the best interests of their party, have
in their books, magazines, pamphlets and papers been waging
a relentless war against religion. The atheistical works of Eobert
IngersoU were not purchased by the rank and file of the Eepub-
lican Party for purposes of party propaganda, but the rank and
file of the Eevolutionary Party spend large sums of money on
publications in which their avowed leaders teach atheism as part
of the Socialist program. Not content even with this, the
members do their utmost to increase the circulation of anti-
religious Socialist books, magazines, pamphlets and papers.

Before producing the evidence that will convict the Socialist
leaders and the rank and file of the party of openly advocating
atheism and hostility to religion, or at least of tacitly approving
of such a propaganda, a few words must be said relative to the
materialistic conception of history, or of economic determinism,
as it is often called. According to this doctrine, which is one
of the fundamental teachings of the Socialists, the whole history
of mankind, including its political, intellectual and religious
development, is nothing more than a process of evolution, the
guiding principle of which is the prevailing economic conditions
and their resultant class struggles. Consequently, the Socialists
who believe this doctrine deny the intervention of God in the
development and spread of the Christian religion; for economic
determinism teaches that the development of the church is not

294 THE RED CONSPIllACt*

the work of Divine Providence, but of the economic conditions
and class struggles of society.

W. D. P. Bliss, the Socialist editor of the " New Encj'clopedia
of Social Eeform," in an article on page 1135 of his work,
admits that it is perfectly true that the large majority of avowed
Socialists are divorced from recognized religion and the church,
and that this leads many of them to extreme radicalism on all
questions of ethics, money and the family.

Frederick Engels, one of the renowned founders of modern
Socialism, taught that " nowadays in our evolutionary conception
of the universe, there is absolutely no room for either a Creator
or a ruler." (" Socialism, Utopian and Scientific," by Frederick
Engels, page 17 of the Introduction to the 1901 edition in
English — New York Labor News Co.)

Wilhelm Liebknecht, who until shortly before his death in
1900 was one of the foremost leaders of the Socialist Party in
Germany, addressing the Halle Convention, said: "As regards
my own self, I had done with religion at an early age. . . .
I am an atheist, I do not believe in God. . . . We may peace-
fully take our stand upon the ground of Socialism, and thus
conquer the stupidity of the masses in so far as stupidity reveals
itself in religious forms and dogmas." The same German
Socialist and atheist taught in his book, " Materialist Basis of
History":

" It is our duty as Socialists to root out the faith in God
with all our zeal, nor is anyone worthy the name, who does not
consecrate himself to the spread of atheism."

August Bebel, who before his death in August, 1913, was
the leader of the Socialists of Germany, gave many proofs of
the intimate relation existing between Socialism and atheism.
On September 16, 1878, he declared in the Eeichstag:

" Gentlemen, you attack our views on religion because they
are atheistic and materialistic. I acknowledge the correctness
of the impeachment. I am firmly convinced that Socialism
finally leads to atheism."

In the Eeichstag, on December 31, 1881, he made the follow-
ing profession of faith :

" In politics we profess Eepublicanism, in economics Social-
ism, in religion atheism."

According to the 1903 platform of the German Socialists,
adopted at Dresden, " No religious instructions of any kind
shall be given to children under the age of sixteen; after that
they can select their own religious tenets and teachings, as they

ASAINST EELIGION ABROAD 295

please. Superstitious religious notions tliat are current among
the less educated classes are to be eradicated througli proper
instructions."

" The Comrade," September, 1904, confesses that the satirical
weekly "L'Asino," published by the Socialists of Italy, and
known throughout the world for its attacks on religion, carries
en a bitter fight against the Catholic Church. In the early
part of 1913, " L'Asino," speaking of the coming Italian elec-
tion, boasted that the Socialists would proclaim their anti-
clericalism and atheism in the public meetings.

The Austrian Socialists in convention at Linz, May 30, 1898,
passed a resolution proposed by Pernerstorfer to the effect that
" Socialism is directly contradictory to Eoman clericalism, which
is enslaved to unyielding authority, immutable dogmas, and
absolute intellectual thralldom. We doubt all authority, we
know of no immutable dogma, we are the champions of right,
liberty and conscience." [Eeported in "Vorwarts," 1898,
no. 126, suppl.]

The bitter persecution that has for years been waged against
the church in France is too well known to require much com-
ment. The representatives of the French Socialist Party at
Tours in March, 1903, voted upon a program from which several
clauses will be cited:

" The Socialist Party needs to organize a new world, free
minds emancipated from superstition and prejudices. It asks
for and guarantees every human being, every individual, abso-
lute freedom of thinking, and writing and affirming their beliefs.
Over against all religious dogmas and churches as well as over
against the class conceptions of the bourgeoisie, it sets the
unlimited right of free thought, the scientific conception of the
universe, and a system of public education based exclusively on
science and reason. Thus accustomed to free thought and reflec-
tion, citizens will be protected against the sophistries of the
capitalistic and clerical reaction." The program also declares
for the " abolition of the congregations, nationalization of prop-
erty in mortmain of every kind belonging to them, and appro-
priation of it for works of social insurance and solidarity."

In the Tours program, therefore, we have the open confession
of the Socialist Party of Prance that it is anti-religious and
that it favors the disgraceful robbery of the church that has
for many years been going on in that country.

The Belgian Socialists are quite as violent as the French in
their hatred of the church, for in addition to the large number

296 THE RED CONSPIRACY

of vile anti-religious pamphlets distributed during the cam-
paign that preceded the elections of 1918, we have the testi-
mony of no less an authority than the Socialist leader, Emile
Vandervelde, in the " Social Democrat," England, January,
1903:

" In the end the question to be solved is : what is the essential
aim of Socialism? There is not a Socialist who would hesitate
to say that it is the emancipation of the workers, the freedom
of the proletariat — and by this freedom we mean its complete
freedom, the abolition of all slavery in the spiritual sphere
as well as in the material sphere. . . . Can a sincere believer
follow the church's teachings and yet be a Socialist? We are
bound to admit that both in philosophy and in politics there
must be war between Socialism and the Church."

In England, too, the Socialists are the avowed enemies of
religion. Blatchford, who is well known to his comrades for
his extreme work in propagating Socialism by the pen, wrote
in the " Clarion," October 4, 1907 :

" Believing that the Christian religion was untrue, and believ-
ing that all supernatural religions were inimical to human
progress, and foreseeing that a conflict between Socialism and
religion was inevitable, I attacked the Christian religion. I
am working for Socialism when I attack religion which is hin-
dering it."

Again in his book, " God and My Neighbor," Blatchford
utters the following blasphemies :

" I am an easiful old pagan, and I am not angry with you
at all — you funny little champion of the Most High

" This is the God of Heaven? This is the Father of Christ?
This is the Creator of the Milky Way ? No ! He will not do.
He is not big enough. He is not good enough. He is not
clean enough. He is a spiritual nightmare, a bad dream bom
in the savage minds of terror and ignorance and a tigerish
lust for blood

" Is this unspeakable monster the Father of' Christ ? Is he
the God who inspireth Buddha and Shakespeare and Beethoven
and Darwin and Plato? No, not he. But in warfare and
massacre, in rapine and rape, in black revenge and in deadly
malice, in slavery and polygamy, and the debasement of women,
and in the pomps, vanities and greeds of royalty, of clericalism,
and of usury and barter — we may easily discern the influence
of his ferocious and abominable personality."

A0AINST RELIGION ABROAD 297

This book, which teaches atheism from cover to cover, could
be bought for a dollar a copy in 1912 at the National Office
of the Socialist Party in Chicago, 111. In the May, 1917, issue
of the " International Socialist Eeview," " God and My Neigh-
bor," by Blatchford, is thus advertised:

" Is the Bible true ? This is the chief subject of debate today
between Christians and Scientists the world over. Eobert
Blatchford says : ' Is the Bible a holy and inspired book and
the Word of God to man, or is it an incongruous and contra-
dictory collection of tribal tradition and ancient fables, written
by men of genius and imaginations? Mr. Blatchford believes
religions are not revealed, they are evolved.

" ' We cannot accept as the God of Creation,' he writes, ' this
savage idol, Jeliovah, of an obscure tribe, and we have
renounced him and are ashamed of him, not because of any later
divine revelation, but because mankind have become too enlight-
ened to tolerate Jehovah.' "

Ernest Bax, an Englishman, one of the greatest authorities in
the world on Socialism, an author who, even in America, has
been styled " the most accomplished writer on behalf of Social-
ism in this and perhaps in any country," in his book, " Eeligion
of Socialism," thus testifies to the relation existing between
Socialism and religion:

" In what sense Socialism is not religious will now be clear.
It utterly despises the other world with all its stage properties —
that is, the present objects of religion." [" Religion of Social-
ism," by Ernest Belfort Bax, page 52 of 1891 edition.]

Who could imagine any more convincing testimony of the
atheistic and anti-religious nature of the Socialist movement
than the following words of the English Socialist, James
Leathan, in " Socialism and Character " :

" At the present moment I cannot remember a single instance
of a person who is at one and the same time a really earnest
and intelligent Socialist and an orthodox Christian. Those
who do not openly attack the church and the fabric- of
Christianity, show but scant respect to either the one or the
other in private. . . . And while all of us are thus indifferent
to the church, many of us are frankly hostile to her. Marx,
Lassalle and Engels among earlier Socialists; Morris, Bax,
Hyndman, Guesde and Bebel among present-day Socialists —
are all more or less avowed atheists; and what is true of the
more notable men of the party is almost equally true of the
rank and file the world over."

298 THE RED CONSPIEACY

In 1910 a pamphlet entitled " Socialism and Eeligion " was
issued by the Eevolutionists of Great Britain. One quotation
from it will amply suffice to show the utter contempt of the
Englisn Socialist for religion:

" If a man supports the church, or in any respect allows
religious ideas to stand in the way of principles of Socialism, or
activity of the party, he proves thereby that he does not accept
Socialism as fundamentally true and of the first importance,
and his place is outside. No man can be consistently both a
Socialist and a Christian. It must either be the Socialist or
the religious principle that is supreme, for the attempt to
couple them equally together betrays charlatanism or lack of
thought. There is, therefore, no need for a specifically anti-
religious test. So surely does the acceptance of Socialism lead
to the exclusion of the supernatural, that the Socialist has
little need for such terms as atheist, freethinker or even
materialist, for the word Socialist, rightly understood, implies
one who (on all such questions) takes his stand on positive
science, explaining all things by purely natural causation —
Socialism being not merely a politico-economic creed, but an
integral part of a consistent world philosophy."

" The Western Clarion," a publication of the Canadian
Socialists, declared in its issue of May 23, 1914, that the
Socialist Party of Canada would have "no compromise with
advocates of Christianity."

Alvarado, the governor of Yucatan, and his criminal sus-
tainers several years ago drove the clergy from the country,
turned the churches into I. W. W. meeting houses, and turned
some, as in the case of the Cathedral of Merida, even into
warehouses. Eeligion was outlawed and an atheist tyranny
established. Alvarado is an ardent I. W. W. Socialist of the
most violent sort. His advent into Yucatan from the lawless
northern part of Mexico was marked by wholesale confiscation
of property, by robbery and outrage. His vile subordinates, of
like origin with himself, committed loathsome crimes, unspeak-
able and without number, and no opportunity was overlooked
to persecute the unhappy people whose accumulations by thrift
and industry and' whose steadfast adherence to their religion
marked them as certain victims of robbery, murder and
outrage.

" The Call," New York, April 9, 1919, informs us that the
workers in Yucatan have elected a succession of Socialist gov-
ernors, and in its issue of April 14, 1919, under the caption,

AGAINST RELIGION ABROAD 299

" Up to the Minute Official Socialist ISTews," we read the
following :

" Felipe Carrillo, president of the Socialist Party of Yucatan,
Mexico, spoke on conditions in Yucatan. Among other things
he said : ' The Socialist Party of America should do everything
possible against intervention in Mexico. . . . All the public
officials, from the highest to the lowest, are members of the
Socialist party. . . . There is no middle class in Yucatan.
. . . The Socialist Party of Yucatan has been in power three
years.'

" A rising vote was taken, expressing our fraternal greetings
to Felipe Carrillo and the Comrades of Yucatan."

The April 9, 1919, issue of "The Call" informs us that
Alvardo in 1915 organized the Socialist Party of Yucatan,
62,700 members of which belong to the League of Eesistance,
an , organization which, we are told, is purely economic in its
activities.

What a strange name for an economic league, especially in
Mexico, where economics have for some years been taught by the
torch, bomb, dagger!

The March, 1919, edition of " The Eye Opener," the official
organ of the Socialist Party of the United States, throws a
little light on this economic league of " the knights of the red
flag." On page 4 of that issue we are told that among the prin-
ciples of the League of Eesistance are the following:
" The Land is Mother, and Labor is the Father of Humanity.

Attack no one without motive, but never present the other
cheek to any who has struck one.

Fly from the religions, principally the Catholic religion, as
from the plagues."

The article on the economic League of Eesistance ends with
the call of Yucatan to the rest of the continent : " Workers
of the world, unite." Carillo is then quoted as saying:

" Never will labor conquer until it understands solidarity.
Political action, economic action, perhaps military action —
todos metodos necesitamos. En todas las epocas del mundo,
rifley dynamita sean necesarios; pero siempre y sobre todo,
solidaridad." The words, " rifley dynamita " mean nothing and
are evidently a misprint for " rifle y dynamita." There was
good reason for letting the words remain in the Spanish in the
official organ of the Socialist Party of the United States, for
if "rifle y dynamita" vere the Spanish ^fords meant, their
translation would be :

300 THE BED CONSPIEACT

"We need all means. In all periods of the world's history,
the rifle and dynamite may be necessary, but always and above
all solidarity."

So much for the economic League of Eesistance of the Social-
ists of Yucatan, which has been destroying both religion and
civilization alike ! Carrillo, its president, has been greeted through-
out our country by the Socialists, who have been extending
their fraternal greetings also to the rest of their " Comrades
in Yucatan."

CHAPTEE XIX

THE CONSPIRACY AGAINST RELIGION IN
AMERICA

Much more testimony than has already been given could
easily be furnished for proving that ihe Socialist movement in
foreign lands is atheistic and anti-reiigious, but as sufficient
has been given, let us dvi^ell more on the anti-religious activities
of the Eevolutionists in our own country.

In answer to a possible objection, namely, that the American
Socialists should in no way be held responsible for the anti-
religious and atheistic teachings of their comrades abroad, the
attention of the reader is called to the fact that the Socialist
movement is an international one, and that nearly all the
Marxian leaders in Europe are considered by the American
Socialists as first class authorities on Socialism. Moreover the
books and writings of these foreign protagonists form a very
considerable part of the Socialistic literature of the United States
and are considered as standard works on the subject.

But in addition to the fact that the American Socialists thus
share the responsibility of their European comrades, the Eevolu-
tionists of our own country will now come forward with more
than enough testimony to prove that they are Just as guilty as
their foreign comrades of propagating atheistic and anti-
religious doctrines.

Eev. William T. Brown, formerly the pastor of Plymouth
Church, Eochester, New York, after becoming a Socialist,
wrote the following in the May, 1902, number of " Wilshire's
Magazine " :

" For myself, I do not recognize any existing church or state
as complete in itself or founded by God. There is absolutely
nothing in church or state that cannot be traced to a perfectly
natural origin. . . . Instead of the religious idea that God
breathed into clay the breath of life, and so man came into
existence in the image of God, we know beyond question that
man's ancestors were animals, and he is the image of his animal
parentage. . . . Singing hymns, saying prayers, learning

301

303 THE RED CONSPIRACY

catechism, attending the services of a place miscalled a sanctu-
ary will do nothing whatever to efEect the ends for which men
are striving. . . . The church will attract its own, and the
Socialist cause will draw those who belong to it. People who
are interested in fossils and relics and curios will find a con-
genial place in the church as will also the ignorant and deluded
masses."

George D. Herron, who, like William T. Brown, had once
been a minister, on becoming a Socialist expressed his atheistic
sentiments by writing in the " International Socialist Eeview,"
Chicago, August, 1901 :

" When the gods are dead to rise no more, man will begin to
live. After the end of the gods, when there is nothing else
to which we may turn, nothing left outside of ourselves, we shall
turn to one another for .fellowship, and behold! the heart of all
worship is exposed and we have omnipotence in our hands.

" There will be no more priests, no rulers, no judges, when
fellowship comes and the gods are gone. And when there are
neither priests, nor rulers, nor judges, there will be no evil on
earth, nor none called good, to stand over against others called
evil."

John Spargo, a former Socialist of considerable renown in the
United States, and until recently very popular with the party,
speaking of education in " Socialism, A Summary and Inter-
pretation of Socialist Principles," touches upon the question
of parochial schools in the Marxian commonwealth :

""WTiether the Socialist regime could tolerate the existence
of elementary schools other than its own, such as privately
conducted kindergartens and schools, religious schools, and so
on, is questionable. Probably not. It would probably not con-
tent itself with refusing to permit religious doctrines or ideas
to be taught in its schools, but would go farther, and as the
natural protector of the child, guard its independence of thought
in later life as far as possible by forbidding religious teaching
of any kind in schools for children up to a certain age

" This restriction of religious education to the years of judg-
ment and discretion implies no hostility to religion on the part
of the state, but neutriality." [" Socialism, A Summary and
Interpretaion of Socialist Principles," by John Spargo, page 238
of 1906 edition.]

"The Call" does not fail to publish among its many poems
those that are violently anti-religious. In confirmation of this

AGAINST RELIGION IN AMEEICA 303

we shall transcribe several, all of which furnish excellent proofs
of the existence of the conspiracy against religion. The first
poem that will be quoted appeared in the November 19, 1911,
edition, and reads as follows:

"When all the choric peal shall end;

That through the fanes hath rung;
When the long lauds no more ascend

From man's adoring tongue;
When overwhelmed are altar, priest and creed ;

When all the faiths have passed ;
Perhaps from darkening incense freed,

God may emerge at last."

The following poem, entitled, " To the Eeligionist," appeared
on the same day:

"You bid us spare your vision;
Put faith in a life after death.
Strive on toward some realm Elysian
And heed all that one Book saith.

" You will pray to a power celestial,
To direct us in all our ways,
Lest we fall to a region bestial
And lose ourselves in its maze.

"You speak of the Crucifixion
Of one on Calvary
As if his benediction
Was a rank monopoly.

" Shall we pray to a power not human
For guidance miraculous
When the nearest man or woman

Will give help, and without that fuss ?

"When the glorious future people
Plave realized our dream.
Then the cross upon the steeple
No longer shall blaspheme.

" The godhood of the lowly
Their sacrifice unknown;
Of the temple once held holy
There shall not last one stone."

304 THE BED CONSPiEACT

Only two stanzas of a poem which appeared iri " The Call,"
March 17, 1912, are hereby given:

" The Gods are dead ;

Dead lies their Heaven, their Hell.
The Gods are dead.

With all their terrors ! Well !

" Man now unmakes them.

Who made them in his youth;
He boldly breakes them

With shattering blows of truth."

Editorials and articles attacking religion are of very common
occurrence in " The Call." Several illustrations will suffice. In
the May 1, 1912, edition we read:

" In our combat with the natural forces we have been taught
by science to seek the cause and effect not in anything super-
natural; we have gotten rid of superstitution and fear of
revengeful gods."

The following short article appeared on November 19, 1911,
in the same paper:

" Our exploiters might as well understand now that we have
no use for the distorted and mystical figure that they present
as Christ, a conservative member of the Property Defence
League, a thing neither man nor woman, but a third sex — not
understood of us except as a rightful object of suspicion; we
have no use for this rant, cant and fustian of his holiness and
immaculate qualities. That presentation has always been repel-
lent to us and always will be, no matter how much he may be
proclaimed as the friend of the workingman. . . . Christ,
the democrat, the agitator, the revolutionary, the rebel, the
bearer of the red flag, yes we can understand that figure."

Under the caption, " The Old Year and The New," an edi-
torial, part of which is here given, was published in " The Call,"
January 1, 1912 :

" Interesting is it to see these clerical reactionists trying to
kindle into flame the dying embers and ashes of the religious
enthusiasm of past ages, now on the point of flickering out, and
marshalling the remnants of fear and ignorance against the
inexorable march of humanity and social progress.

" We have no verbal answer to expend upon them. They are
not worth it. Well do we know that their show of attack is
but a defensive movement. The only answer they need expect

AGAINST EELIGION IK AMERICA 305

from us will be given in the steady continuance of our -work.
For we can put a thousand workers into the field for their
one, and despite all they may do, we will take from them thou-
sands and hundreds of thousands of those who now follow them,
and in whose ignorance alone lies their defensive strength.
Economic conditions fight on our side. Their capitalist Christ
cannot feed the multitude. We can teach the multitude how to
feed themselves."

" The Proletarian," the Socialist paper of Detroit, in its
April, 1919, edition tells us that " Socialism is not a religion,
it explains the causes and fallacies underlying all religions."

In the "International Socialist Eeview," August, 1908, a
notable confession is made relative to religion:

"Eeligion spells death to Socialism, just as Socialism to
religion. The moment Socialism turns into a religion it loses
all its progressiveness, it ossifies and turns into a superstition
of fanatics, who never forget and never learn anything. Social-
ism is essentially, although not apparently, a free-thought move-
ment. The thinking Socialists are all free-thinkers."

In the "International Socialist Review" not only are there
many articles and editorials attacking religion, but also many
advertisements of atheistical and anti-religious books. For
instance, in the February, 1912, edition, among the many works
advertised on page 512 the following are listed under the head-
ing, " Free-Thought Pamphlets " :
" Holy Smoke in Holy Land.

Myth of the Great Deluge.

Eevelation Under the Microscope of Evolution.

Chas. Darwin, What He Accomplished.

Jehovah Interviewed.

Church and State — by Jefferson.

Mistakes of Moses — by Ingersoll.

Ingersolia : Gems from E. G. Ingersoll.

Age of Eeason — by Thos. Paine.

Ingersoll — 44 Lectures.

Ingersoll's Famous Speeches."
In the April, 1912, edition of the " International Socialist
Eeview" the subsequent additions are made to the advertise-
ments already mentioned:
" Voltaire.

Confessions of a Nun.

Merry Tales of the Monks.

Secrets of Black Nunnery."

306 THE RED CONSPIRACY

Surely such books as these would not be extensively advertised
in the " Eeview " and in the Socialist papers, nor would money
be spent in this way by their publishers, unless the atheistic
and anti-religious works found many purchasers among those
who inserted a plank in their party platform stating that the
Socialist movement was primarily an economic one and was
not concerned with matters of religious belief.

The following is part of an editorial taken from the " Com-
rade," New York, January, 1904, on the death of Herbert
Spencer :

" Dying at 84 years of age, Herbert Spencer leaves behind
hini an enduring monument such as few men have been able
to build for themselves. He helped to rid the world of super-
stition and to destroy priestcraft; he put the idea of a God-
direction of the world, and its counterpart, the eternal sub-
jection and the dependence of man, into the waste paper basket
of history. He cleared the way for the feet of the army of
progress."

In the propagation of atheism, the German Socialist papers
of the United States are worthy imitators of those that are pub-
lished in English. The " New Yorker Yolkszeitung," October
9, 1901, thus acknowledges the atheistic and anti-religious atti-
tude of the revolutionary movement:

" Socialism and belief in the Divinity as taught by Christian-
ity and its representatives do not agree, cannot agree, are
diametrically opposed to one another. Socialism is logical only
when it denies the existence of God, when it maintains that we
do not need the so-called assistance of God, since we are able
to help ourselves. Only he who has no faith begins to feel that
he can accomplish something. The laborer who places con-
fidence in God, and who, with Christian resignation, thinks that
all is done by God is well done ■ — how can that laborer develop
revolutionary forces for the overthrow of authority and social
order, both of which, according to his faith, are instituted by
God? As long as he clings to this belief he will not be able
to acquire a genuinely revolutionary spirit."

In the May 10, 1902, edition of " Yorwarts," a weekly sup-
plement of the " New Y'orker Yolkeszeitung," we read :

" New York, May 6. — Archbishop Corrigan died last night
after a protracted illness. Preparations are going on for a
grand funeral with the usual paraphernalia. The soul of the
prelate whizzed out of his mortal remains straight up into the
Beventh heaven, and now the bishop is staying there with

AGAINST RELIGION IN AMERICA 307

lovely little angels and other beautiful beings hovering about
him. Let him who is fool enough, believe it."

We are informed by "The Call," April 5, 1911, that at
XJtica, ISTew York, on April 4, 1911, churches of all denomiua-
tions were placed under the ban of the Italian Socialist Fed-
eration of the United States at the closing session of its
National Congress, which had been in session for the last three
days in that city and that strongly worded resolutions charging
all churches with being against the emancipation of the working
class and for the protection and perpetuation of capitalism and
moral and economic slavery were unanimously adopted amid
vociferous applause ; finally that by the adoption of these resolu-
tions, all members of the federation must sever their affiliations
with any and all existing churches and religious organizations
and refrain from all religious practices and rites.

Some information regarding the atheistic teachings of the
New York " II Proletario," the official organ of the Italian
Socialist Federation of the United States, will be of interest to
the reader. In the edition of December 23, 1910, there are
several attacks on Christianity. One of these entitled " Christ-
mas Is Here" is translated as follows:

" Christmas is a fib, Christmas is a fraud, Christmas is a
crime wanted and continued by the powerful to delude their
servants and to make them believe that there is really happi-
ness, justice and love on this earth. . . . There is no ever-
lasting joy. How long, poor and exhausted workingmen of
the world, will the shameful comedy continue ? When will you
finally perceive that not from a false and unexisting God, not
from a mystical and epileptic crucified man, who died without
rebellion and without protest, will come your redemption?
When will you open your eyes to the truth of Socialism, and
realize that finally upon you alone depends your salvation ? "

In the same edition of "II Proletario" there is a detailed
list of 170 books and pamphlets that are advertised as being
on sale at the book-store of the Italian Socialist Federation.
The first part of the list, under the heading "Anti-religious
Pamphlets," includes 22 works, whose prices range from 5 cents
to 30 cents. Among them are to be found :
" The Eeligious Pest — 5 cents.
The Crimes of God — 5 cents.
The Sins of My Lady Penitents — 8 cents.
The Last Eeli'^ious Lie — 5 cents.
JSTeither God Nor Soul— 15 cents,"

308 THE EED CONSPIRACY

Near the end of the detailed list 22 more works are advertised
as anti-clerical novels.

On May 1, 1912, while its editor, Arturo M. Giovannitti,
was in prison at Lawrence, Massachusetts, " II Proletario " pub-
lished an article under the caption, " The Priest " :

" Now at last the nations have understood that God is a
monstrous fable, and that hell, heaven, immortality, and all the
other devilish things are states created by rascals to despoil and
oppress the people." '

We are very much indebted to the Social Eeform Press for
favoring us with the translation of " The Little Catechism,"
edited by Bartos Bittner, whose dead and corrupt body was
found by neighbors in his lodging in Chicago. This blasphe-
mous Catechism, from which quotations are to be given, was
published for the use of the children of the Bohemian- American
Socialists :

" Question. What is God ?

Answer. God is a word used to designate an imaginary
being which people of themselves have devised.
Q. Is it true that God has never been revealed?
A. As there is no God, He could not reveal himself.
Q. What is heaven?

A. Heaven is an imaginary place which churches have
devised as a charm to entice their believers.
Q. How did man originate ?

A. Just as did animals; by evolution from their lower
kinds.

Q. Has man an immortal soul as Christianity teaches?
A. Man has no soul ; it is only an imagination.
Q. Who is Jesus Christ?

A. Jesus Christ is the son of a Jewish girl called Mary.
Q. Is he the son of God?

A. There is no God, therefore there can be no God's son.
Q. Did Christ rise from the dead as Christianity teaches ?
A. The report about Christ rising from the dead is a
fable.

Q. Is it true that after Christ's death the Apostles
received the Holy Ghost?

A. It is not ; the Apostles had imbibed too freely of wine

and their dizzy heads imagined all sorts of queer things.

Q. Did Christ ascend into heaven?

A. He did not ; what the church teaches is a nonsensical

fable, because there is no heaven, and there was no placa

to ascend to.

ASAINST RELIGION IN AMERICA 309

Q. Will Christ come to this earth?
A. He will not because no dead person can come back.
Q. Will Christ return on judgment day?
A. There will be no judgment day; that is all a fable
so that preachers could scare people and hold them in
their grasp. Man has no soul, neither had Christ a soul.
All these things have been invented by the church.
Q. \^Tiat is the Holy Spirit?

A. The Holy Spirit is an imagiaation existing only in
the minds of crazy religious people.
Q. Is Christianity desirable?

A. Christianity is not advantageous to us, but is harm-
ful, because it makes us spiritual cripples. By its teachings
of bliss after death it deceives the people. Christianity
is the greatest obstacle to the progress of mankind, there-
fore it is the duty of every citizen to help wipe out
Christianity. All churches are impudent humbugs.
Q. Is there communion of saints?

A. No, because there is no God, no saints, no soul, and
therefore our prayers are wholly useless, and only a waste
of time, which should be spent in more useful things.

Q. What is our duty when we have learned that there
is no God?

A. We should teach this knowledge to others.
Q. Should we take the name of God in vain?
A. Yes, because the name of God has no meaning."
Isador Ladoff, a Socialist of Cleveland, Ohio, and a candidate
for ofBce in 1911, speaks very frankly about religion on page 11..
of his pamphlet, " Socialism, The Anti-Christ " :

" The church knows that Socialism in spite of the declaration
pf neutrality of the latter in religious matters, undermines the
very foundation of the former. The church realizes that Social-
ism is anti-Christ. For the church it is a question of life and
^eath, a struggle for existence. Why, then, should the Socialists
not engage in an open aggressive campaign against the church ?
'^ould not an honest war between Christ and anti-Christ be
more dignified, more wise and more effective, than a false pre-
tence of neutrality and a defensive attitude toward the attacks
of the church? Let us have the courage of our convictions,
not only in matters of social and economic significance, but in
all things affecting the interests of the toiling masses of human-
ity, including religious institutions."

310 THE RED CONSPIRACY

Eev. E. E. Carr, writing in the " Christian, Socialist,"
Chicago, May 15, 1907, informs us that, " The Cliristian Social-
ists do not ask or desire that the party declare for religion.
Strictly speaking. Socialism is a purely economic proposition.
. . . We demand absolute freedom of religious opinion in the
party, and that oflBcials of the party cease teaching anti-religious
dogma as an essential part of Socialist philosophy."

Dishonest Socialists, when arguing that their party does not
advocate atheism as the " religion " of their contemplated state,
frequently appeal to the religious plank of their 1908 National
Platform, which declares that the Socialist Party is not con-
cerned with matters of religious belief.

Though this deceitful appeal of the " Knights of the Eed
Flag " has been exposed time and again, still it seems expedient
that the underhand methods of the party which boasts of being
the only one sufficiently honest and upright to fight for the
rights of poor and oppressed workingmen, be better known to
the American people, and that the more important parts of the
indoor convention speeches be presented in greater detail.

Pages 191 to 205 of the " Proceedings of the 1908 National
Convention of the Socialist Party," edited by John M. Work,
published by the Socialist Pary, and sold at 50 cents a copy at
the National GfBce of the party, Chicago, Illinois, bear the
following ample testimony to the hypocrisy of the Eevolutionists.

When Delegate Simons had finished reading the proposal of
the platform committee "that religion be treated as a private
matter — a question of individual conscience," Arthur M.
Lewis, a delegate from Illinois rose and moved its rejection,
saying :

" 1 am among those who sincerely hoped the question
of religion would not be raised at this convention. I am
willing to concede so far that we shall let sleeping dogs lie. I
know that the Socialist position in philosophy on the question
of religion does not make a good campaign subject. It is not
tiseful in the propaganda of a presidential campaign, and there-
fore I am willing that we sliould be silent about it. But if we
must speak, I propose that we shall go before this country
with the truth and not with a lie. . . . Now I do not propose
to state in this platform the truth about religion from the
point of view of the Socialist philosophy as it is stated in
almost every book of Standard Socialist literature; but if we
do not do that, let us at least have the good grace to be silent
about it, and not make hypocrites of ourselves. , , , I say,

AGAINST RELIGION IN AMEEICA 311

let US either tell the truth or have the good grace and the
common sense and the stamina and the manliood and the self-
respect to keep our mouths shut about it. Therefore I move
this be stricken from the platform."

Delegate Hillquit of New York urged the following amend-
ment as a substitute for the one the ratification of which
Lewis had tried to prevent : " The Socialist movement is pri-
marily an economic and political movement. It is not concerned
with the institutions of marriage or religion." Hillquit then
went on to say:

" The fact that Comrade Lewis as a scholar, as a student of
psychology, of history, of ethics and of everything else, has in
the domain of religion come to the position of an agnostic, and
that ninety-nine per cent of us have landed in the same spot,
does not make Socialism agnostic, nor is Socialism Christian,
nor is Socialism Jewish, Socialism hasn't anything to do with
that side of our existence at all. I say to you. Comrades, if
we are to follow Comrade Lewis's advise, and, to say in our
platform and declaration of principles what is true, let us not
be afraid to insert in it the things we are advocating day after
day and on all occasions."

Delegate Unterman of Idaho, speaking in favor of the adop-
tion of the religious plank as originally proposed by the plat-
form committee and read by Simons, added:

" Comrades, no one will accuse me with any sympathy with
Christianity, either as a church or as a religion. I am knovni
in the United States as a materialist of the most uncompromis-
ing order. But I want it clearly understood that my materialist
philosophy does not permit me to strike this plank out of the
platform. I want it understood that my materialist dialectics
do not permit me to forget the exigencies of the moment for
our ideals in the far future. . . . Would you expect to go
out among the people of this country, people of different
churches, of many different religious factions, and tell them
that they must become atheists before they can become Social-
ists? That would be nonsense. We must first get these men
convinced of the rationality of our economic and political pro-
gram, and then after we have made Socialists of them and
members of the Socialist Party, we can talk to them inside of
our ranks, talk of the higher philosophy and of the logical
consequences of our explanation of society and nature. . . .
We should not go out in our propaganda among people that are
as yet unconvinced and are still groping in ignorance and

312 IHE RED CONSPlkACY

obscurity, and tell tliem that they first must become materialists
before they can become members of the Socialist Party. No.
This declaration that religion is a private matter does not
mean that it is not a social matter or class matter at the
same time. It merely means that we shall bide our good
time and wait till the individual is ready, through his own
individual evolution, to accept our philosophy. It means that
we shall give him plenty of time to grow gradually to the things
that are necessary to him, and those material things that affect
his material welfare, the economic and political question of
Socialism. After he has grown into them, it will be so much
easier to approach him with the full consequences of the Socialist
philosophy. Therefore I ask you to retain this plank in our
platform."

Delegate Stirton gave the following reason for his opposition
to the adoption of any religious plank in the party platform :

" If this statement is true that religion is no concern of our
movement, as stated in the amendment, or in the original recom-
mendation that it is a private matter — if that is a true state-
ment, then we don't need it. If it is a lie, then we don't want it."

It will be remembered that Delegate Lewis at an earlier
session of the convention had said: "Let us either tell the
truth or have the good grace and the common sense and stamina
and the manhood to keep our mouths shut about it " (i. e.,
religion from the viewpoint of Socialist philosophy).

To show the insincerity of Lewis, we shall now quote parts
of a second speech made by him in the evening of the same
day on which he had spoken so eloquently in behalf of asserting
the truth and not telling a lie :

" I have gone into conference," he says, " between the after-
noon session and the evening session with most of the members
of the platform committee, and I have reached an agreement
with them which I am sure the convention would be glad to
hear, and it will dispose of this question, I think, amicably to
all concerned. ... I consider myself and every other dele-
gate on this floor as being present at this convention for the
sole purpose of promoting the best interests of the Socialist
Party. I am willing to waive any personal views of mine, and
I believe the members of the platform committee are in the
same position, to promote those interests. . . . While it may
not harmonize with my personal opinion to have this plank
remain in the platform, I am willing to sink those personal

ASAIJSrST RELIGION IK AMERICA 313

opinions rather than put the Socialist movement in America
in a false position and lay it open to the attacks of our enemies."

Victor Berger of Wisconsin mentioned expediency as his
reason for favoring the adoption of a religious plank and argued :

"In the first place, a plank of this kind you will find in
every platform or program of every other civilized nation in
the world. Yet in no country do they have as much reason
for it as in this country. There is not a race in the world that
is as thoroughly religious as the Anglo-Saxon race. If you
want a party made up of free-thinkers only, then I can tell
you right now how many you are going to have. If you want
to wait with our co-operative commonwealth, until you have
made a majority of the people into free-thinkers, I am afraid
we will have to wait a long while. I say this, although I am
known, not only in Milwaukee, but wherever our papers are
read, as a pronounced agnostic. . . . You can hardly find
a paper in which we are not denounced as men who want
to abolish all religion and abolish God. Something must be
done in order to enable us to show that Socialism, being an
economic theory — or rather the name for an epoch of civiliza-
tion — has nothing to do with religion either way, neither pro
nor con."

What reader, who elsewhere in this book has followed the
evidence linking together the cunning craft of Morris Hillquit
and Victor L. Berger in committing their party and followers
to deceit and hypocrisy to obtain votes under false pretenses,
will be surprised to find them thus also in the 1908 convention
uniting the tongues of two old foxes to put through Hillquit's
hypocrisy-plank on marriage and religion? These are the two
whose deceit and violence have now reduced the Socialist Party
of America to little more than a hollow echo of two lying
hearts.

Delegate Vander Porten opposed the adoption of the plank
as originally read by Simons and urged the adoption of Morris
Hillquit's amendment:

" STobody regrets more than I do that this question has arisen
in this convention, but as long as it occupies the position that
it does, I believe that there is to be an expression upon it, that
expression should be the truth and not a lie. . . . When we
talk of educating mankind and when we talk of raising mankind
above the level in which he is, then we have got to throw from
his arms those crutches that bind him to his slavery, and religion
is one of them. Let it be understood that the moment the

314 THE KED CONSPIRACY

Socialist Party's whole aim and object is to get votes, we can
get them more quickly by trying to please the religionists and
those whose only ambition is to pray God and crush mankind.
. . . Let us say nothing or say the truth. To spread forth
to the world that religion is the individual's affair, and that
religion has no part in the subjection of the human race, we
lie when we say it."

After several other delegates had spoken, the " Proceedings
of the 1908 National Convention" inform us that the chairman
put the question on the acceptance of the substitute offered by
Delegate Hillquit, and the result being in doubt, a show of
hands was called for, and the vote resulted in 79 for the substi-
tute, and 78 against it.

Those who honestly voted against the plank admitted thereby
that the Socialist Party was very much concerned with matters
of religious belief and that the Eevolutionists were then, just
as they are today, the bitter enemies of religion.

The 79 who voted for the plank did so, not because they had
any love for religion, for this is evident from their speeches
and from their method of procedure, but because they consid-
ered that a great deal of prejudice against Socialism would be
removed by the adoption of a plank stating that the Socialist
Party is primarily an economic and political movement, and
that it is not concerned with matters of religious belief.

On one single plank therefore there were 79 liars in the
Socialist National Convention out of a possible 157. Quite an
unenviable record for the party which is so fond of accusing
its opponents of lies and falsehoods !

When speeches against religion, such as the ones quoted, can
be delivered at the national convention of a political party,
without arousing anything like serious opposition among the
delegates present, or among the rank and file of the party who
afterwards read them, the only reasonable conclusion to be
drawn is that the vast majority of the members of the party
either advocate atheism or else are in sympathy with those
who do.

For four long years the Socialists all over the country
appealed to the religious plank of their 1908 platform to prove
that their party was not opposed to religion ; and although they
were aware that the plank was a lie, they were not sufBciently
honest to have it removed by referendum, as could have been
done at any time. The plank was finally dropped by the National
Convention of 1912 and has not since then be^n readopted.

AGAINST EELIGlON IN AMERICA 315

This, however, was not because the Socialists as a body had
become more upright through their adherence to atheism, but
because their lies concerning religion had become pretty well
known all over the United States.

No doubt the reader will be interested in the following quota-
tion taken from "The Communist," the Left Wing Socialist
paper of Chicago. In the April, 1919, edition there is an
article by John E. Ball, entitled, " Challenge of the S. P. [i. e.,
the Socialist Party] of Michigan " :

" When the delegates to a State Socialist Convention
gathered in Grand Eapids, Michigan, February 24, 1919, to
nominate candidates for the coming State Elections, they were
determined to do much more than to go through the mere
formalities of complying with State Election Laws

" There were many striking features about the personnel of
the delegates: not only were the preachers entirely absent, but
their following also. A Christian Socialist would have felt lone-
some indeed, with no one to act as a listener for him

" Fearless and unashamed, in true Bolshevik fashion, the dele-
gation paid no heed to the prejudice of some, but adopted, with
one opposing vote, an additional constitutional amendment,
guided solely by historic facts and scientific data. A Socialist
who understands the Materialistic Conception of History can-
not have faith in superstitions of any kind. In other words, a
' religious ' or ' Christian ' Socialist is a contradiction of terms,
and the statement that ' religion is a private matter ' is a lie.
The belief in a supreme being or beings is a social phenomenon
which can be explained on the materialistic basis, Just as all
economic phenomena can be explained. With persistent adher-
ence to honesty, the convention adopted a resolution and a
constitutional amendment declaring religion to be a social
phenomenon and instructing all organizers and speakers to
explain religion upon its materialistic basis.

" Here again, the Socialist Party of Michigan issued a direct
challenge to the National Organization. This time it is not
a challenge in regard to tactics, but we challenge the honesty
of the National Organization in declaring that ' religion is a
private matter.'"

Now listen to the words of Eugene V. Debs, published on the
editorial page of " The Call," New York, July 21, 1919, and
see what a fraud and hypocrite the leader of the Socialists of the
United States is:

316 THE KED CONSPIEACY

" If you have Bot already done so, read the platform of the
Socialist Party, and then let us know what you find in it to
warrant the lying charge of the sleek and fat leeches and para-
sites and their degenerates, tools and hirelings that Socialism
is atheism and free-love ( ?) and that it will tear up the family
by the roots, smash up the home and turn society into a raging
bedlam."

SuiScient evidence has now been given to prove that the
Socialists are the declared enemies of the church. They are
conspiring to destroy an institution which, apart from the super-
natural blessings that it has conferred upon mankind, has done
wonders to promote the happiness of nations. To the church
many countries owe their civilization and their conversion from
heathenism. She has preserved for us the priceless treasures
of art and learning that would otherwise have fallen a prey
to the ravages of the barbarians. For centuries she has trained
untold millions to observe the Commandments of God, and has
thus been instrumental in the prevention of innumerable crime9
and sins from which the human race would have suffered. Not
only has she taught the people the virtues of charity, justice,
temperance, humility, liberality, purity, meekness and forgive-
ness of enemies, and been a source of immense consolation to
the poor and oppressed, the sick and the injured, but she has
comforted millions of the dying, who, when they realized that
no earthly joys remained, took hope and delight at the thought
of an eternal reward in heaven.

It is this glorious institution, then, ' founded by Almighty
God Himself, that the Socialists hate with all their hearts, and
would destroy forever, because it prevents the spread of their
revolutionary doctrines by teaching respect for law, order and
authority, and by exposing to all the world the deceptions,
frauds and empty promises of the conspirators against religion.

CHAPTER XX
THE CONSPIRACY AGAINST THE FAMILY

Most of the Marxians in America, when confronted with the
charge that they advocate free-love, deny the truth of the accusa-
tion, claiming that it is a base calumny. False and calumnious,
indeed, would the charge be, if it were directed against each
individual among the Eevolutionists, or if from its universality
exceptions were not made for many, who, not having as yet
accepted the full consequences of International Socialism, go no
further than to cast their votes for the party candidates. Nor
would it be fair to except no others from condemnation, for
among the dues-paying members of the party are many who
are extremely averse to the system of loose morals that their
comrades propose to substitute for the monogamous form of
marriage now in vogue.

Books advocating free-love are advertised in the Socialist
press and receive favorable notice in editorial columns. They
have long been on sale at the leading Socialist book-stores of
the country and even at the National OfSce of the Socialist Party
in Chicago. Finally, the Eevolutionary clubs and locals all
over the United States have in their libraries books on free-love
that are standard works on Socialism.

The Marxians, in their endeavors to offset the charge that
a free-love propaganda exists within their party, frequently argue
that prostitution, now so prevalent throughout the world, will
under Socialism no longer remain the dreadful menace to society
that it is today. They attribute the prevalence of this vice
principally to poverty, and argue that in the new state, all per-
sons will be abundantly supplied with the goods of this world,
and consequently no one will be obliged to indulge in this sin
for obtaining a livelihood.

The Eeds, therefore, try to dodge the question at issue by
leading their opponents off on a tangent. The real question,
free-love, will, however, by no means be forgotten by us until
the Socialists have been shown up thoroughly. Since the con-
spirators against family life are so fond of harping on the
matter of prostitution, with a view to drawing critics away
from attacking their doctrine of free-love, the reader will be
shown that even prostitution, instead of decreasing in the Social-

317

318 THE RED CONSPIfiACY

ist state, would, together with immorality of every sort, become
far more prevalent under Marxian rule than it is today.

Prostitution and impurities of every sort may, of course,
be due to many different causes. First, let us consider prostitu-
tion in connection with poverty and destitution. The Socialists
claim that there will be far less prostitution in their state since
the people, as a whole, will be supplied more abundantly with
the needs of life. This talk about greater supplies for all in
the Socialist state is mere assertion. The Marxians have never
proven that such would actually be the case. If so, where is
their proof? Can they give any convincing argument? Can
they name any country, state or city, where they have ever
ruled, in which the people, as a whole, were better supplied
with the needs of life under the red flag than they were before
the Socialist rule began?

The fact is just the contrary. Look at any part of Europe
over which the Socialists have ruled and you will see far greater
destitution under Socialism than there was before. As for
places that have never yet tried Socialism, enough arguments
were given in the chapter, " Socialism a Peril to Workingmen,"
to show that there would be so many upheavals, so much tur-
moil, discontent and strife in a Socialist state, that production
would be at a minimum and entirely insufficient to supply the
needs of the people.

We concede that poverty often leads to prostitution, and this
is one reason out of many for sincerely wishing that our poor
people were better supplied than they now are with the necessities
of life. Still it must not be forgotten that poverty and want
are often greater factors in preventing prostitution than in
helping it. Think of the millions of poor people whose very
poverty indirectly makes prostitution and vice in general less
likely by keeping them from immoral theatres, movies, dances
and cabarets and association with bad companions of greater
means who would be attracted by better clothes and greater
wealth if these poor people had them.

Do the Socialists claim that the average poor woman is less
moral than the average rich one? Do not the Marxians know
that poverty, rather than wealth, fosters religion and piety, the
greatest of all factors in keeping persons pure? Do the Eeds
deny that millions and millions of the very poorest are chaste ?
If these souls can remain pure, notwithstanding their poverty,
so, too, can others; and when these others do not remain pure,
usually something other than poverty is the cause, e. g., irreligion,

AGAINST THE FAMILY 319

lawlessness or disregard of authority, all of wlucli the Socialists
are advocating, day after day, in their books, pamphlets, papers
and speeches.

Again, Debs and his followers, by having a separate party
for workingmen, are dividing the laboring class against itself,
knowing full well that millions upon millions of decent, honest
workingmen will never join them. And since Socialists are
making unjust and impossible demands, and injecting into labor
organizations radical leaders who cause general distrust and
fear, labor cannot succeed in its battles against the abuses of
capitalism nearly as well as it would if all were united. Hence,
because of the existence of the Socialist Party, low wages still
prevail in many cases, with extreme poverty which often leads
to prostitution.

If the Socialists ever gain control of our country they will
probably do so through a revolution. Or they will come into
power gradually, by an increased vote at each election. In the
meantime, as victory came near, there would be business failures
by the thousands, owing to the impending destruction of the
existing system of industry and government. In either case
there would be terrible destitution and a great dearth of the
necessities of life. This, according to the Socialists' own argu-
ment, would mean a great increase in prostitution.

It has been proven theoretically in the chapter entitled,
" Socialism, a Peril to Workingmen," and actually by events
in Europe, that a Socialist state, even should it endure, cannot
be a success. Hence, were the Marxian argument about prostitu-
tion as strong as the Socialists claim, picture the immorality
among the people where a Socialist government plunges the
industries and sources of production and distribution into total
chaos.

With this refutation of the claim that prostitution would
become a very rare thing under Socialism, the national con-
spirators must confess that the same argument they have for
years been using to further the interests of their cause, can
with telling efEect be turned against them.

Not alone are the Socialists defeated in their argument that
prostitution would be less prevalent in the Marxian state, but
they are hypocrites in using the argument they do. "The
Call," for instance, which frequently uses the argument which
has been refuted, in the magazine section of its issue of June 8,
1919, published a poem entitled, " The Harlot," to satisfy its
lustful patrons:

320 THE KED CONSPIEACT

"I do not -understand 3'oU' — •

I cannot see

How you can lie passive in my arms

When such a passion swells in me. . . .

You lie in my arms —

Your face is close to mine.

I look into your eyes,

Eevelation !

And you

Look into mine

Unmoved."
We now return to the question of free-love — we have not
forgotten it, though no doubt the Eeds wish we had. Socialists
who deny that an active free-love propaganda exists within
their ranks must either confess their ignorance of what is going
on, or plead guilty to the base charge of deceiving the American
people.

The " Few Encyclopedia of Social Eeform," edited by the
Socialist, W. D. P. Bliss, on page 484 contains an article on
the family which reads in part as follows :

"We then come to the third form of free-love, the free-love
theory par excellence, which is held today by many Socialists,
and an increasing number of radical men and women of various
schools of thought. According to these neither the state nor
organized religion should have aught to do with the control of
the family or of the sexual relation. They would make free-
love supreme. They would have it unfettered by any tie whatso-
ever. They argue that compulsory love is not love; that all
marriage save from love is sin; that when love ends, marriage
ends."

In another article, on page 1135, under the caption, " Social-
ism," Bliss informs us that it is perfectly true that Deville,
a French Socialist, said that "marriage is a regulation of
property. . . . When marriage is transformed, and only after
that transformation marriage will lose its reason for existence,
and boys and girls may then freely and without fear of censure
listen to the wants and promptings of their nature. . . . The
support of the children will no longer depend on the chance
of birth. Like their instruction it will become a charge of
society. There will be no room for prostitution or for marriage,
which is in sum nothing more than prostitution before the
mayor."

On page 897 of the old 1897 edition of the " Encyclopedia of

AGAINST THE FAMILY 321

Social Eeform," an earlier work edited by W. D. P. Bliss, we
are informed that Socialism would allow all to live in permanent
monogamy, but would not force people to remain married if
they were unwilling to do so. " The Communist Manifesto,"
the work that made Marx and Engels famous among Socialists
the world over, thus answers the charge made against the
Eevolutionists regarding their opposition to monogamy:

" What the communists might possibly be reproached with
is that they desire to introduce, in substitution for a hypo-
critically concealed, an openly legalized community of women."

Jules Guesde, a French Socialist, affirms in "Le Catechisme
Socialiste " that " the family is now only an odious form of
property and must be transformed or abolished."

The French Socialist leader, Jaures,- in a parliamentary
speech said that " They [i. e., married men and women] were
free to make the marriage and should in the same way be free
to unmake it. In fact, just as the will of one of the parties
could have prevented the marriage, so the will of one should be
able to end it. The power to annul should, of course, be all
the stronger when both parties desire it." It need scarcely be
added that free-love would in most cases begin with the volun-
tary dissolution of the marriage ties.

While the program of the French Socialist Party, adopted at
Tours in 1902, does not explicitly advocate free-love, still it
calls for " the most liberal legislation on divorce." Ernest Bel-
fort Bax, a prominent English Socialist, in " Outlooks From a
New Standpoint,^' affirms that " a man may justly reject the
dominant sexual morality; he may condemn the monogamic
m^arriage system which obtains today; he may claim the right
of free union between men and women; he may contend he is
perfectly at liberty to join himself, either temporarily or per-
manently with a woman; and that the mere legal form of
marriage has no binding force with him." [" Outlooks From a
New Standpoint," by Ernest Belfort Bax, page 114 of the 1891
edition.]

'■" Prostitution for private gain is morally repellent. But
the same outward act done for a cause transcending individual
interest loses its character of prostitution." [Ibid., page 123.]

" There are few points on which advanced radicals and Social-
ists are more completely in accord than their hostility to the
modern legal monogamic marriage." [Ibid., page 151.]

" There are excellent men and women, possibly the majority,
born with dispositions for whom a permanent union is doubtless

333 THE RED CONSPIRACY

just the right thing; there are other excellent men and women
born with lively imaginations and Bohemian temperaments for
whom it is not precisely the right thing." [Ibid., page 157.]

" Herein we have an instance of the distinction between bour-
geois morality and Socialist morality. To the first it is immoral
to live in a marital relation without having previously sub-
scribed to certain legal formalities. ... To the second . . .
to live in a state of unlegalized marriage defileth not a man,
nor woman." [Ibid., page 158.]

" Socialism will strike at the root at once of compulsory
monogamy." [Ibid., page 159.]

Quotations from this base free-love book will end with the
following : " If it be asked ' is marriage a failure ? ' the answer
of any impartial person must be ' monogamic marriage is a fail-
ure' — the rest is silence. We know not what the new form
of the family, the society of the future in which men and women
will be alike economically free, may involve, and which may
be generally adopted therein. Meanwhile we ought to combat
by every means within our power the metaphysical dogma of
the inherent sanctity of the monogamic principle." [" Outlooks
From a New Standpoint," by Ernest Belfort Bax, page 160 of
the 1891 edition.]

" Outlooks Prom a New Standpoint," from which these quo-
tations have been taken, was advertised in the price list of the
Social Democratic Publishing Company of Milwaukee; and
though it was sold for a dollar a copy at Victor Berger's estab-
lishment, it has never been used by the Socialists of America to
prove to the world that they do not advocate free-love.

In view of the fact that " Outlooks Erom a New Standpoint "
was sold at Berger's own publishing company, it is somewhat
surprising to see him, in the August 10, 1913, edition of his
paper, the Milwaukee " Social Democratic Herald," attacking,
in a party squabble, " the men in control of the ' International
Socialist Eeview,' . . . who publish books in defense of what
our enemies call free-love." Further on in the factional quarrel
he writes: "I shall leave out the Christian Socialists entirely.
Many of them are honest in this iight. But these Christian
Socialists — who are only a handful — are being used by
cowardly assassins and practical free-lovers as a cafs paw."
Perhaps the Socialist publishers would be a little more free
with their love for each other, if there was less competition for
the silver dollar.

Ernest Belfort Bax in another book, " Eeligion of Socialism,"

AoAll^ST THil faMIl? 323

thus denounces the present form of family life : " We defy
any human being to point to a single reality, good or bad, in the
composition of the bourgeois family. It has the merit of being
the most perfect specimen of complete sham that history has
presented to the world." ["Eeligion of Socialism," by Ernest
Belfort Bax, page 141 of the 1891 edition.]

" Socialism, Its Growth and Outcome," edited by Ernest Bel-
fort Bax and William Morris, also advocates free-love, for its
authors tell us that under Socialism " property in children would
cease to exist, and every infant that came into the world would
be born into full citizenship, and would enjoy all its advantages,
whatever the conduct of its parents might be. Thus a new
development of the family would take place, on the basis, not of
a predetermined life-long business arrangement, to be formally
and nominally held to irrespective of circumstances, but on
mutual inclination and affection, an association terminable at
the will of either party. . . . There would be no vestige of
reprobation weighing on the dissolution of one tie and the
formation of another." [" Socialism, Its Growth and Outcome,"
by Ernest Belfort Bax and William Morris, pages 299 and 300
of the 1893 edition.]

The " International Socialist Eeview," December, 1908,
states that " Socialism, Its Growth and Outcome," by William
Morris and Ernest Belfort Bax, is "a standard historical work
long recognized as being of the utmost value to Socialists."
According to the price list sent out from the National OfSce
of the Socialist Party this work on free-love was on sale there
for fifty cents a copy. Chas H. Kerr and Company, the Socialist
publishing company of Chicago, in their catalogue advertised
the same book as being one of the most important works in the
whole literature of Socialism, by the two strongest Socialist
writers of England. From these facts the reader may judge for
himself whether or not the Eevolutionists of America tell the
truth when they claim that they are not the enemies of the
family.

In a speech delivered on November 12, 1907, Henry Quelch,
editor of the Socialist paper, " London Justice," made the fol-
lowing statement : " I do want to abolish marriage. I do want
to see the whole system of society, as at present constituted,
swept away. We want no marriage bonds. We want no bonds
at all. We want free-love."

Edward Carpenter in his book, "Love's Coming of Age,"
tells us that "marriage relations are raised to a much higher

324 THE RED CONSPIRACY

plane by a continual change of partners until a permanent mate
and equal is found."

That this work on free-love might find a ready market among
Socialists, Chas. H. Kerr and Company advertised it as follows
in the "International Socialist Eeview," Chicago, December,
1903:

" He [i. e., Carpenter] faces bravely the questions that prudes
of both sexes shrink from, and he offers a solution that deserves
the attention of the ablest leaders of popular thought, while his
charmingly simple style makes the book easy reading matter
for any one who is looking for new light on the present and
future of men and women in their relations to each other."

In a 1912 catalogue the same publishing company volunteered
the information that " ' Love's Coming of Age ' is one of the
best Socialist books yet written on the relations of the sexes."
In a 1917 booklet it was advertised by the company as being
" by far the most satisfactory book on the relations of the sexes
in the coming social order."

Carpenter's work was sold for a dollar a copy at the National
Of&ce of the Socialist Party in Chicago, and yet the Eevolution-
ists persist in telling us that they do not advocate free-love.

August Bebel, the late leader of the German Socialists, was
the author of a book entitled, " Woman Under Socialism."
This work, however, is better known by the simple appellation,
" Woman." A simple quotation will suffice to show that Bebel,
like many other excellent Socialist authorities, advocates free-
love:

" If incompatibility, disenchantment or repulsion set in
between two persons that have come together, morality com-
mands that the unnatural and therefore immoral bond be dis-
solved." ["Woman Under Socialism," by Bebel, page 344 of
the 1904 edition in English.]

Bebel's book has had an immense circulation. Over thirty
editions have been issued, and translations have been made into
nearly all the European languages. Before his death in August,
1913, he was the admiration of millions of the Eevolutionists
the world over. His book is considered everjTvhere as a standard
work on International Socialism and is, of course, on sale with
the other free-love publications at the National Office of the
Socialist Party. Chas H. Kerr and Company in 1917 advertised
Bebel's work as being one of the greatest Socialist books ever
written.

Frederick Engel's " Origin of the Family," a work that has

AGAINST THE FAMILY 325

made its author famous among Socialists on both sides of the
Atlantic, contains the following statement relative to free-love :

" These peculiarities that were stamped upon the face of
monogamy by its rise through property relations will decidedly
vanish, namely the supremacy of men and the indissolubility
of marriage. ... If marriage founded on love is alone
moral, then it follows that marriage is moral only as long as
love lasts. The duration of an attack of individual sex love
varies considerably according to individual disposition, espe-
cially in men. A positive cessation of fondness or its replace-
ment by a new passionate love makes a separation a blessing
for both parties and for society. But humanity will be spared
the. useless wading through the mire of a divorce case." [" The
Origin of the Family," by Fredrick Engels, page 99 of the 1907
translation into English by Untermann.]

" The Comrade," New York, November, 1902, thus com-
mends Bngel's book : " One of the most important issues of
that excellent Standard Socialist Series published by Chas. H.
Kerr and Company is ' The Origin of the Family,' by Fredrick
Engels, now for the first time translated into English by Ernest
Untermann. This book, first published in 1884, has been
translated into almost every European language and has long
been regarded as one of the classics of Socialist philosophical

1 1 1 PTflTn Tf^

"The Call," New York, February 27, 1910, deems "The
Origin of the Family '' worthy of editorial comment : " The
one book that contains in small compass what every woman
ought to know is Fredrick Engel's ' The Origin of the Family.'
Every Socialist woman should become a book agent to sell this
book."

" The International Socialist Eeview," October, 1902, ex-
pressed its admiration of Engel's work by stating that "this
book has long been known as one of the great Socialist classics
and has been translated into almost every other language than
English. . . . The book is really one of the two or three
great Socialist classics; and now that it is in English, it must
find a place in the library of everyone who hopes to master the
real fundamental philosophy underlying Socialism."

" The Origin of the Family," nowithstanding the fact that it
contains matter too foul to comment on, for example a certain
comparison that is made on page 39, was listed with the books
sold at the National OfSce of the Socialist Party, and at Chas. H.
Kerr and Company, the largest Socialist publishing company
in the United States.

326 THE RED CdNSPItlACY

Ernest Untermann, the American Socialist who translated
Engel's work into English, writes on page 1 of the preface
of the 1907 edition : " The monogamie family, so far from
being a divinely instituted union of souls, is seen to be the
product of a series of material, and in the last analysis, of the
most sordid motives."

Eives La Monte, in " Socialism Positive and Negative," tella
his readers that "from the point of view of this Socialist
materialism, the monogamous family, the present economic unit
of society, ceases to be a divine institution, and becomes the
historical product of certain definite economic conditions. In
the judgment of such Socialists as Fredrick Engels and August
Bebel, we shall probably remain monogamous, but monogamy
will cease to be compulsorily permanent.'' ["Socialism, Positive
and Negative," by Eives La Monte, page 98 of the 1907 edition.]

In the " International Socialist Eeview," February, 1909,
there appears on page 628 a notice which reads as follows :

" The ' Eeview ' lately returned to a contributor a clever and
readable article in which he emphasized certain absurdities and
miseries of the present marriage system. His letter in the
reply to us raises some interesting questions, and we are glad
to publish it : . . . ' It is disappointing to be advised to
frankly discuss subjects of such importance as religion and
marriage only in hushed whispers behind closed doors. In the
fear of offending conservative prejudice on these topics, some
Socialists become more conservative than the bourgeois them-
selves. ... Of course, the main stream and most important
phase of Socialism is uhe political-economic agitation, but at
the same time the Socialist movement inevitably brings into
being, at least for a great part of its adherents, a new culture,
a new literature, a new art, a new attitude toward sex relations
and religion and individual freedom, a new conception of life
as a whole. In face of this fact it is sickening to see indi-
viduals, whom one knows to be atheists, defending Socialism as
the will of God and the fulfilment of Christianity; and other
individuals, whom one knows to be free-lovers, going out of
their way to defend the home and family against the inroads
of capitalism. Nevertheless such things are seen. . , . There
are thousands of women who are worn out with the bearing of
unwelcome children on account of ignorance of proper ways of
preventing conception. ... If sex life, the personal heart
life, of revolutionists were more free and joyous, if they breathed
an atmosphere of liberty and spontaneity, free from religious
and moral superstitions, if they became now as much like the

AGAINST THE FAMILY 327

free people of the future as possible, -would they not be that
much more ardent and joyous and unceasing workers of the
Great Revolution? And if former non- Socialists, especially
women who had suffered grievously from the evils of the
marriage system, or been intellectually blindfolded by religious
teaching, were first led into the light of more emancipated ideas
by some of us Socialists, would not they serve and glorify Social-
ism forever? ... If the Christian Socialists have a right
to their God, and monogamists to their eternal marriage, then
surely in a revolutionary movement like ours, the complete
revolutionists have, to say the least, an equal right to their
agnosticism and their free union.' "

Clarence M. Meily, before speaking explicitly of free-love,
praises lust and sensuality in the highest terms on page 139
of his book, " Puritanism " : " Freed from the privation of
millenniums of unrequited toil, with the wealth and wonders of
the world at its command, it is fairly certain that the emanci-
pated working class, still wan from its centuries of service and
sacrifice, will take great joy in repudiating, finally and forever,
the fallacies and aberration of asceticism. . . . Not the
denial of life, but the laudation and triumph of life, will be
the keynote of the new ethics. The lusts of the flesh, the lusts
of the eye, the pride of life, will become new formulas, holy
and pure in the light of the perfect development of the whole
man, and of all men, to which the race will dedicate itself."

Meily then approaches the marriage question and says:
" The question of the status of marriage in the new society is
one of extreme importance, since it is here that reactionaries of
all sorts center their opposition to social reconstruction. It is
both idle and disingenuous to assert that marriage as a legal
and civil institution is not likely to undergo profound modifica-
tion. . . . The artificial perpetuation of tlie marriage tie, in
the face of the disinclination of the parties involved to continue
the relation, will cease to be a matter of public concern, or the
occasion of state interference. The dissolution of the marriage
relation will become as purely a personal and private affair as
is the assumption of the relation now. Some sort of registra-
tion may be required for the purpose of vital statistics."

In July 2, 1901, "The Haverhill Social Democrat," appar-
ently without fear of offending its subscribers, asked : " What
is there sacred in the modern home? Can anything be sacred
which is based on a lie or on impurity, or on ignorance ? The

328 THE EED CONSPIBACT

marriage system today is based on impurity, on ignorance and
on a big lie."

" The Call," New York, December 4, 1910, tells its readers to
" give all women the vote, and they vt^ill strike ofE the rusty
chains that hold them still in marriage as the property of the
man."

That the same papSr is very lax as regards the divorce evil,
60 closely allied to free-love, is evidenced from the following
quotation taken from the edition of March 30, 1913: "Among
the many encouraging signs of woman's growing strength — of
her determination to be at last the captain of her soul and the
master of her faith — are recent divorce statistics

" Far from being a sign of moral decadence, the large number
of divorces granted to women is one of the healthiest portents
of the regeneration of the body social

" The divorced woman is today the connecting link between
the non-resisting, ignorant victim of the past and the self-
reliant, enlightened, eugenically minded woman of the future.
The divorce statistics of the present are perfectly logical and
the divorced woman is a cheering omen, as she fulfils her his-
toric mission."

" The Little Catechism " for the use of the children of
Bohemian Socialists, a book from which we have already had
occasion to quote in tlie previous chapter, shows us the exceed-
ingly low standard of morality that is taught to the youthful
Eevolutionists ; for in answer to the question, " Is adultery a
sin ? " we are astounded by the boldness of the reply, " It is not
a sin."

We shall finally corroborate our charge that the Eevolutionists
advocate free-love by quoting the words of no less an authority
than Morris Hillquit, who concedes in " Everybody's," February,
1914, page 233, that " Most Socialists stand for dissolubility
of the marriage ties at the pleasure of the contracting parties."

As many Socialist books on free-love have attained a high
circulation, and as they have not been repudiated by the party,
but have been praised and advertised in its newspapers, and,
moreover, since these very books have been sold as standard
works both at the National Office of the party and at the leading
Socialist book-stores of America, the only reasonable conclusion
to be drawn is that the number of party members who openly
advocate free-love, or at least tacitly approve of its propaganda,
must be in the majority, for otherwise the party would never
tolerate such a condition of affairs within its ranks,

AGAINST THE FAMILY 339

Once the Socialists gain control of a country, as in the case
of Eussia, laws legalizing free-love are very soon passed. In
the Ko. 2 edition of the Los Angeles magazine, " More Truth
About Eussia," its radical editor mentions many of the Bol-
shevist laws on marriage, divorce, etc., in vogue in Eussia.
Among them is one fully legalizing free-love, making it possible
for married parties to change partners whenever they wish
and for no other reason than their mutual or individual desire
to do so:

" 1. Marriage is annulled by the petition of both parties oi
even one of them.

" 2. The petition is submitted, according to the rules of local
jurisdiction, to the local court.

" Kote : A declaration of annulment of marriage by mutual
consent may be filed directly with the department of registra-
tion of marriages in which a record of that marriage is kept,
which department makes an entry of the annulment of the
marriage in the record and issues a certificate.

" 3. On the day appointed for the examination of the petition
for the annulment of marriage, the local judge summons both
parties or their solicitors.

" 4, Having convinced himself that the petition for the annul-
ment of the marriage really comes from both parties or from
one of them, the judge personally and singly renders the decision
of the annulment of the marriage and issues a certificate thereof
to the parties."

This chapter shows that free-love filth, to corrupt and demor-
alize our people, is being propagated by the Socialist Party
of America through its National Headquarters in Chicago,
Berger's publication company in Milwaukee, Hillquit's " New
York Call," and other publishing houses and papers afiiliated
with the party. Yet, because the question of the qualifications
of five representatives of this S3rstem of abomination to make
laws for the State of New York was so much as raised by a
judicial inquiry in the New York Assembly, that body of legis-
lators has been assailed and falsely charged with undermining
the fundamental principles of representative government. The
ignorance concerning the true character of the Socialist Party
of America is startling.

Is it not time for the American people to awake? Should
not every decent American petition all our legislative bodies,
state and national, to outlaw the Socialist Party of America
and curb its iniquitous propaganda?

CHAPTER XXI
THE CONSPIRACY AGAINST THE RACE

To most persons it will certainly be a surprise to hear that
race suicide has been openly advocated in the columns of lead-
ing Socialist publications. True it is that the number of indi-
viduals endeavoring to spread this practice by their writings is
camparatively small; still, as the articles have continued to
appear for years at more or less regular intervals, without
exciting anything like serious opposition, we are forced to con-
clude that advocacy of race suicide is looked upon by a very
large number of the Eevolutionists as one of their characteristic
virtues.

Though many vile articles advocating race suicide were pub-
lished in the 1910 and the 1911 editions of " The New York
Call," we shall pass them over, and discuss those of a more
recent date.

In the Sunday editions of " The Call," Anita C. Block has
for years been editing a page called " Woman's Sphere." This
section of the paper on the 24th of March, 1913, contained an
editorial comment under the caption " Enforced Motherhood
and the Law," in which the practice of base and criminal race
suicide is encouraged :

" Within a space covering not much more than a month, six
letters have been received by us, containing in substance about
what is contained in the following letter :
" ' Mes. a. C. Block, New York City :

" ' Dear Comrade Block. — I have been a reader of " The
Call " since December 1, 1911. I do not know whether you can
give me any information as to what I wish to know

" ' I have three children, 31/2 years, 214 years, and a baby
9 months. Now, you cannot blame me if I do not care for
more for some time to come

" ' Could you give any information ? Dr. . . . in " . . . "
[We suppress the author's name and the title of his work.]
and " . . . " by . . . contain the sentence, " Every woman
should know prevention of conception." I should be thankful
for any advice.

" ' Yours for the Co-operative Commonwealth.' "
330

AGAINST THE RACE 331

The editorial comment then goes on to say :

" Four of these letters we answered personally, stating the
impossibility of imparting this information under our present
laws. But when letters continued to come, we felt that any
subject that indeed meant everything in the world to the wives
of the working class, was entitled to publicity in these columns.

" These women ought to know exactly what the laws are that
make the giving of this terribly needed information — A Felony.
And so we print below the Federal or United States law on this
subject."

The law is then given in all its details, after which the New
York State law on the same subject is also quoted.

We are then told that " such are some of the laws on this
grave subject, and, of course, no sane person would endeavor
to violate them, openly at any rate. But as Dr. . . . states
elsewhere in this page, we cannot be prevented from agitating
for their repeal. Nor can we be prevented from educating the
people wherever possible to an understanding that a knowledge
of the means of preventing conception is a knowledge of one of
the means of regenerating the race.

" Moreover even under Socialism, where economic conditions
will be such that every woman can support a dozen children in
comfo-rt if she wants to, the volitional limitation of offspring
will be completely justifiable. For even parents in the most
comfortable circumstances should have the right to determine
how many children they want. Of all things in the world this
is a matter for the individual and not for society to determine."

Dr. . . . , to whom reference was made in the above edi-
torial comment, is also the author of another work advertised
as follows in "Woman's Sphere" of "The Call," March 24,
1912:

" The three most important measures for the improvement
of the human race from a eugenic standpoint. What are they?
I suppose everybody who has given the subject any thought
has his remedies. I have studied the subject for years and my
answer is :

" 1. Teaching the people the proper means of the prevention
of conception so that the people may have only as many children
as they can afford to have, and to have them when they want
to have them.

"2

«3

333 THE RED CONSPIEACT

" Of the three measures the first one is the most important
and still it will be the last one to come, because our prudes
think it would lead to immorality. And nevertheless I will
repeat what I said several times before, that there is no single
measure that would so positively, so immediately contribute
toward the happiness and progress of the human race as teach-
ing the people the proper means of regulating reproduction.
This has been my sincerest and deepest conviction since I have
learned to think rationally. It is the conviction of thousands
of others, but they are too careful of their standing to express
it in public. I am happy, however, to be able to state that my
teachings have converted thousands; many of our readers who
were at first shocked by our plain talk on this important subject
are now expressing their full agreement with our ideas. And
Congress may pass draconian laws, the discussion of this sub-
ject cannot, must not, be stopped."

On April 13, 1913, another article on the subject of race
suicide, by Clara G. Stillman, appeared in " Woman's Sphere "
of " The Call " under the caption, " The Eight to Prevent Con-
ception." Only part of the foul composition is here given :

" Those who are convinced that the voluntary prevention of
conception is a most important weapon in the modern fight with
poverty, disease and racial deterioration, will find their position
only strengthened by survey of their opponents' objections.
These objections are mainly of three kinds — and might be
classed as the pseudo-religious, the pseudo-moral and the
pseudo-scientific, because all are based on conceptions which our
present state of knowledge and social development have enabled
us to outgrow

" Prevention of conception is already an accepted principle
among the educated classes of every civilized country. Accord-
ing as the opposition of tlie law and public opinion are more or
less stringent, it is practised with more or less secrecy; but
secret or open, the practice is here to stay, and it is spreading.
The fear of most of its opponents is, therefore, not nearly so
much that the human race will become extinct as that its best
elements will gradually be replaced by the worst. At first this
may seem plausible. Granting our opponents' premise tempo-
rarily, the conclusion is logically unavoidable that in order to
restore a normal relation between the so-called more and less
intelligent or desirable classes of society, we must put into the
hands of all the methods of restricting their increase, now
utilized only by the few."

AGAINST THE EACB 333

On June 1, 1913, " Woman's Sphere " of " The Call " con-
tained a four-column article on race suicide, entitled, " Musings
of a Socialist Woman." The author, Antoinette P. Konikow,
who was a delegate to the Socialist National Conventions of
1908 and 1912, thus expresses her views :

" I consider the question of the prevention of conception to
be of greater value to women than even the knowledge of sexual
diseases

" After meeting hundreds of women and girls in heart to
heart talks, I came to the sincere conviction that lectures on sex
hygiene which do not give a thorough understanding of con-
ception in its definite bearings on practical life and also of its
possibilities of prevention — that such lectures miss their main
aim in bringing help to distressed humanity

"Instead of meeting every need and demand of the worker,
we are so hampered by the fear of getting a bad reputation
among our enemies that we express our support to a new
tendency only after it has acquired a certain respectability in
society

" Do the daring words of Comrade Clara G. Stillman or Dr.
. . .'s article not hurt the feelings of some of our Comrades?
ISTo doubt some readers felt dissatisfied but not more so than
others who had to read the conservative statement of Comrade
Carey in ' The Leader,' that he considers Bebel's conception of
the family un-Socialistic and anti-Socialistic

" Do our morals stand on a higher plane, thanks to the careful
guardianship of our laws? ....

" It is high time then to serve notice upon all our benevolent
censors and upholders of such laws, and declare ourselves fit to
get along without their superior guidance. It is time to open
a crusade against this hypocritical suppression of knowledge,
which leads to endless and needless suffering. It is time to
emphatically declare the right of the mother to control the
functions of her own body for her own good and the welfare
of her offspring."

The disastrous consequences of such a crusade to further the
cause of race suicide are very forcibly brought home to us by
an article which appeared in "The Call," May 10, 1914, on
" The Conscious Limitation of Offspring in Holland " :

" Our headquarters at The Hague and our subdivisions in all
our greater towns are spreading theoretical leaflets and pam-
phlets; but the special pamphlet giving practical information
in the prevention of conception, is only given to married people

334 THE RED CONSPIEACr

when asked. We are lecturing everywhere. But the essential
missionary work is done privately and modestly, often uncon-
Bcicusly by showing the happy results in their own families, by
the nearly 5,000 members of our league spread over the whole
country, among whom are physicians, clergymen and teachers,
etc. Every day information is asked by letters and still more
by our printed postcards; all information is given cost-free and
post-free. Almost all younger doctors and midwives are giving
information, and are helping mothers in the cases when it is
wanted on account of pathological indications. Moreover special
nurses are instructed in helping poor women. Harmless pre-
ventive means are more and more taking the place of dangerous
abortion. So, merely by our freedom of giving information, we
have reached the desirable results proved most brilliantly by the
statistical figures of our country."

On May 24, 1914, "Woman's Sphere" of "The Call"
devoted two more of its columns to the race suicide propaganda
in the form of an article by Sonia Ureles under the caption,
" Hats 0£E, Gentlemen, The Law ! " Since many parts of the
production are too foul to permit our quoting them, we shall
give but a feW short passages:

" But the doctors only scowled, and the nurse told her gently
that the law did not permit poor people to regulate the birth
of their offspring

" To the thought of a private practitioner she gave no heed ;
it was to her a luxury undreamed of

" The nurse, a well-meaning honest creature, writhed uncom-
fortably under her gaze. ' It's — it's against the law to give
out such information,' she stammered.

" ' I don't care about the law,' came the stubborn reply. ' You
promised. Now tell me.' Nevertheless she left the hospital
without the information

" She applied to the women of her neighborhood for informa-
tion. They told her things they thought they knew, and things
they thought they ought to know. And her health was the
price she paid

" They who knew, but would not tell, left her one alternative.
She chose it. And so,

" ' Hats off, gentlemen — the law ! ' "

In this same issue of " The Call," May 24, 1914, there is an
editorial comment that promised the base devotees of race
Buicide an abundance of filthy reading matter for the future ;

Against the back 335

" If unwelcome motherhood is not in accordance with a con-
structive eugenic program, then the free imparting of informa-
tion concerning the prevention of involuntary motherhood must
be. But as has been pointed out in these columns again and
again, to make this part of a constructive eugenic program is
to run up against vicious and barbarous state and federal laws
which make the giving of necessary information a crime, pun-
ishable by imprisonment.

" In connection with this entire subject we call the attention
of our readers to the grim sketch by Sonia Ureles, appearing
elsewhere on this page today.

" This is the first of a series of stories on the same subject
which Miss Ureles is writing for 'Woman's Sphere.' All who
know the vivid reality of this writer's work will look forward
to them with keen anticipation."

Let it not be thought for a moment that "The Call" has
yet given up its propaganda of race suicide. As recently as
May 25, 1919, there appeared in the magazine section of that
vile Socialist daily of New York City an article on the subject
entitled, " Birth Control and the War," the article being no
less than twelve columns long. Several quotations are hereby
given :

" Ever3rs(rhere the feudal-minded ones act upon substantially
the same impulse. Everywhere they impel and, to a large
extent, though by indirection, they compel, prolific breeding
among the less intelligent persons. These latter are also the
victims of the prevailing religious, political, economic and
industrial systems and superstitions. The feudalistic ones pro-
claim fecundity as a religious duty to God and a moral duty
to the state. By psychologic tricks a vanity of the unfortunate
classes is encouraged so as to make even the fools believe, or, at
least, feel that they, too, have a place in the sun

" By the uniform activities and lingering dominance of the
feudal mind we have remained in a state of development in
which we compete, like the stock-raiser, for an international and
intercredal supremacy in and through breeding

" As yet we have had no very urgent need for territorial expan-
sion. Our turn is coming and is coming soon, if only we will
heed our own feudal-minded ones, and will breed fast enough.
But, without being aggressors in this sense, we are yet unavoid-
ably dravm into the vortex of a world war inaugurated by the
feudal-minded of other nations and unconsciously promoted to
a small degree by our own feudal-minded ones by education

336 THE RED CONSPIEACT

for feudal-mindediiess and for prolific breeding in our people,

" The next world war may possibly be one in which the dis-
advantaged of all nations will fight the feudal-minded of all
nations. Something quite near to such an invitation already
has come from Eussia. Shall we hasten such a conflict by con-
tinuing to preach the sacredness of fecundity and of war ? Or
shall intelligent restraint of the feudalistic compulsion help us
toward a more perfect and peaceful adjustment with the
processes that make for the democratization of welfare, with and
by intelligent family limitation as one means ? "

" The Call " is one of the official papers recognized by the
Socialists of America. In 191-i, while the race suicide propa-
ganda was being carried on in its columns^ lectures to be deliv-
ered for its benefit by Eugene V. Debs in many of the cities
of New Jersey were advertised in its columns. It is most likely,
therefore, that such a splendidly informed leader of the Eevolu-
tionists as Debs, like many thousands of members of the rank
and file of the party, read some of the articles favoring race
suicide. As we have never yet heard of Debs or a single Social-
ist complaining against the race suicide propaganda so long
carried on in the columns of " The Call," we shall, unless the
Marxians repudiate this form of immorality of their paper, be
forced to conclude that their leader as well as a very large
number of his followers intend legalizing this vice if they ever
gain control of our country.

In April, 1919, a vile, crimson pamphlet was on sale in the
radical book-stores of the middle west. We shall not give the
title, for it is too foul and indecent. On page 4 it warns its
readers "not to forget this fact, celibacy, absolute continence
from want of desire congenial or acquired, monkish asceticism
are pathological states, diseased states of mind or body."
Further on, we read, on page 10 :

" Do not be a suffering Jesus. Do not take him as an example.
Do not whine or snuffle, but get ahead in the world while you
can. Get lands, property and independence somehow. ....

" The teachings of Christianity were designed for the castra-
tion of the human soul. Christ would make you, not a free
man, a hero, and a warrior, but a hireling, a submissive beast
of burden, a helot, a nobody. Christianity is cowardice institu-
tionalized and peace-on-earth is the philosophy of the tax
gatherer, the usurer, and the international exploiter." On the
inner side of the back cover of the foul pamphlet a book is

AGAINST THE RACE 337

advertised by the "International Socialist Control Association
of Chicago," which seems also to publish the crimson pamphlet
from which the above quotation was taken. The advertisement
of the book is hereby given in part :

"MOTHEES AISTD FATHEES, ATTENTION.

" The welfare of the world depends upon the bringing up
of children.

" Everything depends upon the right start, hence it is your
highest duty to see that your children are started right.

" Foremost men say and statistics show the stupendous peril
of our political, religious, and educational system. The root of
education is not merely knowing how to read and write, but
knowing men analytically and scientifically.

" Anything is possible to the man who knows how and why.
We develop and plan out your life according to your adaptions
and inclinations — no guess work but cold, hard, mathematical
facts. We show you how to control, manage, and handle human-
ity and make it your business to shape men's minds as easily
as clay.

" Misery, superstition and poverty must go."

On the back cover sheet of the pamphlet it is stated that the
International Socialist Control Association of Chicago is " An
organization that teaches the suppressed and downtrodden truth,
long controlled by the political and religious machine. The
only organization that- places health, happiness and marriage
upon solid, scientific principles."

In the summer of 1919, "The Call" of New York City,
Morris Hillquit's vile publication, became more bold than ever
in favoring race suicide. On June 29, 1919, for instance, there'
appeared a three-column article in the magazine section of the
paper, entitled, " The . . . League." Parts of the article
are hereby quoted:

" Many readers of ' Woman's Sphere ' have expressed them-
selves as eager to know the raison d'etre of The . . . League,
which is the latest development in the birth control movement.

" The answer is that this new league is started to speed up
the birth control movement. Its first aim is to take the question
straight to Congress and repeal the Federal statute which pro-
hibits the circulation of contraceptive knowledge. All the
restrictive state laws are modeled on this Federal obscenity
statute. If that is repealed, the state laws can easily be made
to follow suit

338 T3EII! mt) CONSPlEACt

" The repeal of this obnoxious out-of-date legislation is the
longest single step toward that end.

" The next step is to get the subject taught in the medical
schools, and to have the best possible scientific information
wisely and well distributed. Every health agency in the coun-
try should have it for the benefit of all who are in need. It
should be available at hospitals, clinics, dispensaries, maternity
centers, charity organizations and, most of all, through the
Federal Health Service and the National Children's Bureau.

" Most Socialists are already convinced of the Tightness of
birth regulation, but not all of them see the need for working
now to free the information. Some say, ' Oh, Just work to achieve
Socialism and when we have that, things like birth control will
come without effort.' ....

" Birth control is a necessary tool for the struggle after social
justice. Therefore, Socialists should insist upon it right now,
and not be content to wait for the Co-operative Commonwealth
to bring it to them, also they should not hesitate to co-operate
with non-Socialists to get it. Birth control is a blessing to
humanity as a whole. Everybody needs it."

On July 13, 1919, "The Call" published an editorial on Dr.
Abraham Jacobi who had recently died. In the course of the
editorial the following statement is made :

" Many honors have been showered upon Dr. Jacobi. but
probably none will be more brilliant than the fact that he
was one of the first to fearlessly discuss the question of birth
control."

On July 15, 1919, there appeared in " The Call " the letter
of the director of the birth control league similarly praising the
late Dr. Jacobi :

" . . . He did not wait till the baby was born, nor did
he limit himself to what is ordinarily known as the prenatal
care. He again and again proved his sincere belief that the
only way to give babies a fair chance in this world is for the
parents to know how to regulate the family birth rate."

"The Call" on July 14,. 1919, advertised seven birth control
meetings to be held during the week in New York City. Two
days later, on July 16, it advertised an open air birth control
rally.

In "Woman's Sphere" of the magazine section of "The
Call," July 27, 1919, there appears another three-column article

AGAINST THE RACBJ 339

favoring race suicide, entitled, "How Shall We Change the
Law ? " We shall quote briefly :

"Once it is no longer on the statute books that it is unlawful
to impart information on the prevention of conception, then
people may freely help each other to attain the precious informa-
tion so urgently needed. The ' limited ' bill would give this right
only to doctors and possibly to nurses and midwives

" And while we would not be so unscientific as to deny for a
moment that it would be better for every woman to get her
advibe and instruction concerning the use of contraceptive
directly from a doctor, nevertheless it is impossible to over-
estimate the help men and women could give each other were
the free exchange of information on methods of birth control
legal instead of illegal

"We feel quite sure that women will get infinitely more
sympathetic help and advice from each other than they will ever
get from any free clinic doctors."

"The Call" on July 26, 1919, announced that Anita C.
Block, editress of " Woman's Sphere " of the paper, had accepted
nomination as a delegate to the August 30, 1919, convention of
the Socialist Party in Chicago.

The September 2, 1919, issue of "The Call" states that it
received the congratulations of the National Convention of the
party then assembled at Chicago. There is, however, no record
of any Socialist complaint against its continued race suicide
propaganda. We can, therefore, draw our conclusions as to
whether the Socialists approve of propagating race suicide.

Away down in Mexico there lives a certain Linn A. B. Gale,
a young Socialist who fled to that country from the United
States to escape conscription. He is a "brave" fellow, for
not only did he shirk his duties as a soldier and flee from his
native land to escape jail, but he publishes a Socialist magazine
in Mexico City in which he seeks to deprive of life those who
have as much right to it as he himself has; in other words he
is carrying on a campaign for race suicide. We quote from the
August, 1919, issue of his Socialist publication, known as
" Gale's Magazine " :

" Me. Felix F. Palavinci,

" Manager of El Universal,

"Mexico City, D. F. Mexico:
« giE. — It is generally believed that you inspired the recent
act of the health department of this city in having conflseated

340 THE RED CONSPIRACY

copies of a Spanish translation of ... ""s famous book on
how to practise birth control, and in sentencing me to the peni-
tentiary when I refused to pay a $500 fine for publishing the
said translation, which outrageous and malicious penalty was
revoked by order of Mexico's Secretary of State, Manuel Aguirre
Berlanga.

" It is hard to believe that a man of your intelligence and
supposed progressive ideas would be guilty of such a con-
temptible act. Yet facts are facts and the facts leave little
room for doubt that you were to a large extent, if not almost
entirely, responsible. The persistent series of bitter and abusive
articles published by your newspaper. El Universal, against
birth control and against me personally, constitute convincing
proof of your interest in preventing contraceptive information
from being diffused among the Mexican people "

In the same issue of Gale's Mexican Socialist magazine there
appears an article entitled, " First Congress of the National
Socialist Party of Mexico." Speaking of the party platform to
be adopted. Gale says in part:

" Another clause should put the party squarely on record as
opposing the recent tyrannical and illegal effort of the Mexico
City health department to prevent the dissemination of scientific
birth control information among the poorer classes."

Hysterical critics of the New York Assembly have accused
the Judiciary Committee of that body of accepting as evidence
against the five suspended Socialist Assemblymen every con-
ceivable reproach against the Socialist Party of America which
could be scraped together out of its entire history. An inquiry
to ascertain the qualifications of Socialists to make the laws of
the land assuredly would be justified in searching every possible
source of information. But, as a matter of fact, the Judiciary
Committee confined its investigation to evidence bearing directly
upon the political and governmental aspects of the case.

Had the Judiciary Committee wished to bring out what would
most surely and deeply shock the moral sense of the American
people — the organized propagation of immorality with which
the five suspended Assemblymen were linked — the facts given
in this and the preceding chapter show that no difficulty would
have been found in digging up overwhelming evidence. The
preceding chapter shows the propagation of free-love doctrines
through all the publicity departments of the Socialist Party of
America. The present chapter shows that the " New York

AGAINST THE KACE 341

Call," the chief political organ of the New York State branch
of the Socialist Party of America, with which the five suspended
Asserabl3'nien were most intimately linked, has for years carried
on an unclean and indecent propaganda to teach all within its
polluting reach to violate one of the laws of the State of New
York.

CHAPTER XXII
SOCIALIST ORGANIZATION AND " BORING IN "

The avowed enemies of our constitutional government have
within recent years met with stupendous success in persuading
the credulous to rely on their extravagant promises and to
look forward to the golden era of Socialism with the same bright
hopes that little children do to the candies and toys in kid-
nappers' homes.

If it be asked why the conspirators against our country,
religion, family and everything dear to us are so successful in
their efforts to undermine the foundations of a grand and
glorious nation like our own, the answer is that their astound-
ing progress is due, first, to an exceptional zeal in the propa-
gation of their doctrines, and, secondly, to the deceptive and
specious arguments used for gaining recruits.

The extraordinary activity that has secured for the Socialists
of the United States by far the greater part of a million votes
in several presidential elections, and the acceptance of their
revolutionary doctrines by a much larger number of radicals,
who for one reason or another do not vote the Marxian ticket,
is manifested under many different aspects.

The Socialist Party of the United States in the early part
of 1919 contained a little more than 100,000 dues-paying mem-
bers, enrolled in approximately 7,000 locals and branches. The
members of these locals and branches frequently meet to devise
means for spreading the doctrines of Karl Marx and for over-
throwing the government of our country. It is almost needless
to add that their zeal would do great credit to men engaged in
a truly noble cause. The American people would be astounded
at their activity, should they carefully read, from the first to
the last page, a single copy of one of the foremost Socialist
papers such as the " New York Call." Socialists are working
by the tens of thousands every day, from January 1st to Decem-
ber 31st, endeavoring to undermine our government. They have
been doing this for years, and only recently have the American
people begun to wake up. "Waking up, however, will not suffice.
We must act, act quickly and vigorously, before it is too late

343

OEGANIZAIION AND BOKING IIC 343

and before the forces of destruction become too numerous to
control.

Supplementing the indoor work of the locals and branches,
one cannot but notice the so-called soap-box orators, found on
the street corners of nearly every city of importance in the
country. The specialty of these men is to preach class hatred
and arouse dissatisfaction in their audiences with the present
system of government and industry, and after this to assert,
but never to prove, that Socialism is the sole remedy for the
evils of our time.

It will be well to remember that the revolutionary Socialist
Party, even as far back as 1913, published in the United States
some 200 or more papers and periodicals in English, German,
Bohemian, Polish, Jewish, Slovac, Slavonic, Danish, Italian,
Finnish, French, Hungarian, Lettish, Norwegian, Croatian,
Eussian and Swedish. Attorney General Palmer made the num-
ber over 400 in 1919. Among the papers are two important
dailies in English, "The Call" of New York City and the
" Milwaukee Leader," two dailes in German, two in Bohemian,
one in Polish, and one in Yiddish, the " Forward," which in
the spring of 1919 had a circulation of about 150,000. The
" Appeal to Eeason " was once the greatest Socialist weekly in
the country having had, in the fall of 1913, a circulation of
nearly a million copies. About the latter part of 1917 it became
lukewarm in upholding Socialist anti-war principles. As a
consequence it lost most of its circulation, and in March, 1920,
was still looked upon contemptuously by most members of the
Socialist Party.

By the vivid pictures which the revolutionary papers and
periodicals draw of the abuses, corruptions and wrongs of our
age, they succeed in blinding many American citizens to such
an extent that the latter do not realize that they have been
caught in the snares of a deceitful and dangerous enemy. Like
the soap-box orators, these publications, besides criticising real
present-day abuses, frequently lie and exaggerate, and either
assert that in the Marxian state man would enjoy the choicest
blessings under heaven, or else arrive at this same conclusion
by arguing from false and unproven assertions as premises. The
Socialist papers and periodicals, notwithstanding their beauti-
fully painted pictures of the visionary state, should in no way
incline us towards enlisting under the red flag. For to say
nothing of their lies and exaggerations, neither their criticisms
of actual present-day wrongs, their unproven assertions of the

344 THE RED CONSPIEACY

benefits of Socialism, nor their conclusions drawn from false
and unfounded premises, show in any wise that the Marxian
state would remedy existing evils and be a source of blessings
to our people. Indeed, it would be just as foolish for us to
trust in these revolutionary publications as it would be to confide
in quacks who should ask us to purchase their so-called remedies
merely because they had pointed out the harmful effects of a
few drugs sold by a certain apothecary, or because they had
claimed excellent healing properties for their own potions.

Not only do the Marxians exert great influence through the
papers which they publish, but they help their cause to a great
extent by articles published in non-Socialist papers and maga-
zines of the United States.

Another way in wMch they have distinguished themselves
for their activity is by the immense number of books, novels
and pamphlets they have written, large numbers of which are
in circulation throughout our country and are rapidly under-
mining the very foundations of our National Government. As
these works are found in abundance and are available to all
classes of persons in public libraries, our country's library
system is supplying its enemies with well-stocked arsenals
wherein weapons are kept for the use of those who will one
day join the ranks of these national conspirators.

The leaflet campaign of the Socialists has long since reached
alarming proportions. To show what progress has been made
by the arch enemies of our country, two quotations are hereby
presented to the reader. The first is a letter which appeared
in " The Call," New York, March 31, 1919, and reads as follows:
" Editoe of ' The Call ' :

" We are living in the days of big events. The revolution
in Kussia has taught us some things that we ought to follow.
One of them is the distribution of literature. In the past we
have been climbing up four or five flights of stairs, standing on
the street corners handing out leaflets, wearing out our strength
and patience. I took a leaf out of the way the thing is done in
Germany at present. All over the city there are any number of
large window sills, at the top or very near the exits of the subway
and elevated stations, the window sills of large stores. These
window sills will hold a large amount of literature. Comrades
going to work in the morning could very easily place the leaflets
on them; it would take only a few seconds, the workers coming
after them will pick them up. There is also, in the downtown
districts, quite a few empty newsstands that are not used in

ORGANIZATION AND BOEING IN 345

the morning. These newsstands are generally at the very mouth
of the subway stations. Then there are a number of benches
in and on the stations that can be used. Our overcoat pockets
will easily hold 100 or 200 pieces of literature. The time it
takes to transfer the literature from our pockets to the window
sills, newsstand or bench is about two seconds. I have been on
the job for the last three weeks and the results have been
astonishing. What are not picked up by the workers are in a
few hours read by a large number of those out of work. "We
have got to come to it in the very near future. The halls are
closed to us; let's get busy.

" Very cold, windy and rainy mornings are not very good
ones. The one big drawback is to get some Comrade to write
the leaflets. The leaflet I have used is one taken from ' The
Call,' issued by local Kings, entitled 'Hell in Eussia.' The
way the workers grab it does your heart good.

" Yours for the education of the workers,

" Andrew B. DeMilt.

" P. S. — The above-named places are also good for that
' Call ' you have laying around the house."

In the April 24, 1919, edition of " The Call," under the cap-
tion, " Official Socialist News," and the subheading, " Queens "
(County, New York), we read:

" 100 Socialists Wanted

" One hundred are required tonight to aid in distributing
Socialist literature throughout the Eidgewood section. Those
who are able and willing to help should call this evening at the
Queens County Labor Lyceum, Myrtle and Cypress Avenues."

The number of revolutionarj^ books, pamphlets and papers.
on the market is really astounding, and all out of proportion to
the number of Socialists, Communists and I. W. W.'s who could
possibly support them. Money for their publication must be
forthcoming from other interested parties of considerable means.
In fact. Deputy State Attorney General Samuel A. Berger, in
a statement published in the " New York Times " on October
18, 1919, declared that rich radicals of the metropolis were the
means of support for all but two of the forty or fifty extremely
radical publications which reach 3,000,000 readers from New
York City as a center. The same public ofiicial added that he
did not have the authority to make known the names of the
well-to-do men and women engaged thus in financing the plot,
to overthrow our National Government.

346 THE EBD CONSPIRACY

Not only are the Eeds rapidly undermining our institutions
by means of literature, but also through the forces of organized
labor. Enough has already been said in a previous chapter
relative to the I. W. W. itself; but it will not be out of place
to comment on the revolutionary influence which the I. W. W.
and many Socialist labor leaders as, for example, Maurer of
Pennsylvania, are bringing to bear upon the American Federa-
tion of Labor.

The members of the I. W. W., as well as the Socialists and
Communists throughout the country, have all along made every
endeavor to fan the flames of class hatred between rich and
poor, the employer and employee. They have, moreover, left
notliing undone to promote discontent and strikes on as large
a scale as possible with a view to finally ruining our present
system of industry and the Government itself. Read any of the
radical papers and you will be convinced that the " Red " rebels
now place the greatest hopes for their rise to power in the
strikes they are fomenting wherever and whenever an oppor-
tunity is offered.

The Marxian leaders realize that the high cost of living is
constantly gaining recruits for their cause, and that
the greater the number of strikes and the greater the num-
ber of persons involved, the longer it will take to reduce
the cost of the necessaries of life. They know that if the
working class secures a six-hour day, a five-day week and, in
addition, an immense increase in wages, production will fall
far short of the demand, the cost of living will go up by leaps
and bounds, and business men will be ruined. Workingmen will
then lose their positions and discontent will be far more prev-
alent than ever. Again, if laboringmen can only be made to
break their wage contracts soon after every victorious strike, the
industries of the whole country will soon be " topsy-turvy."

What will bring on strikes more readily than to teach rebellion
against all conservative labor leaders who would oppose uncalled-
for walk-outs ? It is much easier to get men to strike by having
labor agitators harangue and deceive them, than it would be
to have the workingmen quietly discuss both sides of the ques-
tion honestly and fairly and then vote pro or con.

Sympathetic strikes are well calculated to bring on a general
strike, which might easily lead to the rebellion that the Reds so
much desire. Strikes very often induce the action of courts
against the workers involved and frequently demand the use of
police and the calling out of troops, and thus the rebel " Reds "

Organization And Boeing in 347'

obtain other arguments, sound or otherwise, to win more of the
working-class to their diabolical cause. If the Socialist strike
leaders are imprisoned, justly or not, Socialists do not fail to
start nation-wide agitations for amnesty. Strikes, therefore,
excessive demands, the breaking of wage contracts, revolts
against conservative labor leaders, and impassioned class-
conscious strike agitators are among the leading assets of the
Marxian rebels for starting a bloody rebellion.

Many of the laboring class, especially newly arrived immi-
grants, cannot see the ultimate aim of the radical leaders and
never dream of the terrible times that will soon overwhelm
them if the cost of living continues to rise, business is ruined,
and a terrible rebellion drenches our fair land with rivers of
blood, leaving in its trail anarchy, crime and evils without end.
Of what use are higher wages won by strikes, if the cost of living
ascends still more rapidly? Of what use are higher wages for
a short time if all industries and our Government with them
are to be ruined through continual strikes and unreasonable
demands suggested and agitated by men who have never yet
given a single proof that their Socialistic scheme would not fall
a prey to anarchy and war ? The Eeds, no matter of what type
they are, have never proven that their state would be a success,
or that it would not have a million times as many defects as
our present system. Their empty assertions prove nothing but
the empty-mindedness and ignorance of their illogical rank
and file.

Yes, Socialist, Communist and I. "W. W. influence is making
itself felt even in the American Federation of Labor. During
1919 many an nnauthorized strike took place against the will
of the lawful labor leaders. The printers' strike and long-
shoremen's strikes in New York City are examples. "Bed"
labor leaders and revolutionary propaganda ruined the cause of
the steel strikers.

The American Federation of Labor cannot afford to harbor
Socialists and members of the I. W. W. It is doomed to ship-
wreck if it does not rid itself of Marxian agitators. The vast
majority of the American people will not tolerate a revolutionary
American Federation of Labor any more than they will tolerate
a revolutionary I. W. W. If the principles of the American
Federation of Labor become radical like those of the I. W. W.,
the Socialists, Communists and the Bolsheviki, the name
" American " and past conservatism will never save our greatest
labor" organization from ruin. The greater part of the country

348 THE RED CONSPIRACY

is rapidly lining up against unreasonable demands made in
the name of organized labor, millions of farmers taking the
lead. Extreme advantages to city workingmen would spell ruin
to the farmers. Millions of others of the middle class in our
cities will also soon unite with the farmers, for they are getting
tired of the endless and costly series of unreasonable strikes.

The Socialists and agents of the I. W. W. have for years
been "boring from within" the A. F. of L. In other words,
these Marxians, though members of the A. P. of L., are under-
mining its conservatism, discrediting and seeking to displace
its less radical leaders, changing its policy of co-operation
between capital and labor into one of class hatred between
employee and employer, and attempting to reorganize it along
industrial lines, rather than along those of the various craft
divisions of each industry, with a view to making strikes more
widespread and dangerous for our Government. In a word, they
are seeking to turn the A. P. of L. into a second I. W. W.,
destined to join forces with Haywood's discredited industrial
union of rebels.

William Z. Foster, national leader of the steel strikers in the
fall of 1919, affords us an example of an I. W. W. agent "boring
from within" the A. P. of L.

Mr. Carl W. Ackerman informs us in the " Boston Evening
Transcript," September 24, 1919, that the first appearance of
Foster as a radical was in 1910, when, as a reporter for the
" Seattle Call," a Socialist paper at that time, he was .sent along
the Pacific Coast to report a number of so-called free speech
fights. " Prom this," continues Mr. Ackerman, " he appears to
have developed into a general agitator. As a result of his tour
of the west he joined the I. W. "W". and in this capacity he
began to advocate sabotage

" In 1911, while a member of the I. W. W., Poster went to
Europe and visited France, Germany and Hungary as a corre-
spondent of ' Solidarity,' the official organ of the I. W. W.
in America, at that time published at New Castle, Pa. He
wrote many articles for this publication, some of them signed,
' Yours for the I. W. W., W. Z. Poster,' and others, ' Yours for
the revolution, W. Z. Foster.' "

In a letter written by Foster in 1911 and on file in the office
of the United States District Attorney in Chicago, Poster said :

" I am satisfied from my observation that the only way for
an I. W. W. to have the workers adopt £.nd practice the prin-
ciples of revolutionary unionism, which I take it is its mission,

ORGANIZATION AND BORING 11$ 349

is to give up the attempt to create a new labor movement, turn
itself into a propaganda league, get into the organized labor
movement, and by building up better fighting machinery within
the old unions than these possessed by our reactionary enemies,
revolutionize these unions, even as our French syndicalist fellow-
workers have so successfully done."

This letter, showing Poster's plan of "boring from within"
the A. F. of L., was signed, " Yours for the revolution."

As late as 1915 Foster brought out a book entitled, " Trade
Unionism, the Eoad to Freedom." Several excerpts taken from
the sixth chapter show the true frame of mind of this leader,
who has recently gained such a following in the A. F. of L. :

" Under the new order as pictured above, government, such
as we know it, would gradually disappear. In an era of science
and justice this makeshift institution, having lost its usefulness,
would shrivel and die

" Criminal courts, police, jails and the like would go also.
Crime is due almost wholly to poverty. In a reign of plenty
for all, it would practically disappear. . . . People would
no longer have to wrangle over property rights. The industries
now in the hands of national, state and municipal governments
would be given over completely into the care of the workers
engaged in them. . . . With war, crime, class antagonisms
and property squabbles obliterated, and the management of
industry taken from its care, little or no excuse would exist
for government."

The November 8, 1919, report of the Senate Committee on
Education and Labor, in its investigation of the nation-wide
steel strike, commented as follows on Foster:

" Such men are dangerous to the country and they are danger-
ous to the cause of union labor. It is unfair to men who may
be struggling for their rights to be represented by such leaders.
It prevents them from securing proper hearing for their cause.
If Mr. Foster has the real interest of the laboring man at heart
he should remove himself from any leadership. His leadership
injures instead of helping. If he will not remove himself from
leadership the American Federation of Labor should purge itself
of such leadership in order to sustain the confidence which the
country has had in it under the leadership of Mr. Gompers."

CHAPTEE XXIII
ENLISTING RECRUITS FOR THE CONSPIRACY

The success or failure of the Marxian movement will, to a
great extent, depend upon the ability of the revolutionists to
gain control of the schools, colleges and universities of the
United States. That they have been long active in spreading
their pernicious doctrines among the young is evident to all who
are closely in touch with Socialist activities.

In our country there exist what are known as Socialist Sun-
day schools. The revolutionists themselves tell us that the aim
and purpose of these schools is the destructive work of tearing
down old superstitious ideas of territorial patriotism, and that
such schools should be founded in as many places as possible,
to counteract the influences of churches, synagogues and public
schools.

Page 68 of the " Proceedings of the 1910 National Congress
of the Socialist Party," clearly indicates the exceptional impor-
tance which Marxians attach to their training of the young:

" Among the special fields of Socialistic propaganda the edu-
cation of our boys and girls to an understanding of the Socialist
philosophy is one of the most important. The ultimate battles
of Socialism will largely be fought by the growing generation,
and we must begin early to train the latter for its part. The
Socialists of Europe have long appreciated the importance of
the task, and in almost every country they have built up a strong
organization of young people. The Socialists of America are
just beginning to turn their attention to the problem

" The teaching of infants is a task which requires a good deal
of professional training, and no Socialist ' Sunday schools ' for
very young children should be established where we do not have
experienced and reliable teachers to conduct them

"It is quite otherwise with children of the maturer age of,
say, fourteen years and upward. Young people of that age
normally possess sufficient strength of mind to grasp the main
philosophy and aims of our movement intelligently, and their
training into the Socialist mode of thought and action cannot
be conducted with too much zeal and energy. Young people's

350

ENLISTING RECRUITS 351

clubs, societies for the study of Socialism should be formed all
over the country as regular adjuncts to our party organization,
and very serious consideration should be given to them by the
adult Socialists. But they should remain primarily study clubs,
and should not be encouraged to engage in practical political
activity, which can do but little good to our movement, and
may tend to arrest the intelligent growth of the youthful
enthusiasts. When they will reach a maturer age they will
be better and more efficient workers in the movement for having
made a more thorough study of its theory and methods."

"The Call," New York, March 30, 1913, commenting on
teaching Socialism to the young, adds : " Up to the present
time only men vote in most of the states, and they do not use
the ballot until they are 21 years of age. It stands to reason
that for the intelligent use of the ballot there must be proper
preparation and education. We cannot expect people to vote
right unless they are trained right

" If you want or expect men and women to be good and
intelligent voters at the age of 21, then something most vital
must be done with them before they reach that age. From
5 to 21, that's a long road. That's the impressionable period.
That's the time at which the people are prepared to become
good Socialists or good opponents of Socialism. And the latter
quite as readily as the former

" Catch them young ! That's it. But how ? In lots of ways.
Get them coming our way. Let them lose their fear of us.
Have them come to a dance and find out that we are human.
It surprises them sometimes. When they realize that, they
are partly won.

" Educating the young to Socialism is a matter of ' indirect '
action rather than ' direct ' action. It would be the height of
folly to try to cram Karl Marx down these new young throats.
That will come in time. Start them on something easier, some-
thing less drastic. Sugar coat your bitter pills a little."

It is possible, in conformity with this last suggestion, that
after the parade of Socialist children of New York City, on May
Day, 1913, they were to be treated, as we are informed in " The
Call " on the same day, to a feast of ice cream and cake and a
series of thrilling moving pictures of the struggles between the
police and the strikers at Lawrence and Little Falls.

With this short diversion, we shall return to the article in
" The Call " of March 30, 1913, which goes on to say that " the

352 THE BED CONSPIRACY

young people should be gradually educated to rebellion and
revolution. Songs will help. Plays will help. Casual talk here
and there will aid. It must soak in. You can't flood them
with stuff in two days. Eebels that are made in two days may
stick in a crisis, but I don't believe they will."

It certainly is interesting to read "Lesson 34," taken from
the " Socialist Primer," a little book which a man named Klein
has prepared for the use of children attending the Socialist
Sunday schools:

" Here is a man with a gun ; he is in the troop. You see he
has a nice suit on. Does he work? No, the man with the
gun does no work. His work is to shoot men who do work.
Is it nice to shoot men? Would you like to shoot a man?
This man eats, drinks, wears clothes, but does no work. Do
you think that is nice? Yes, this is nice for the fat man, but
bad for the thin; so he owns the man with the gun. When
the thin man will have the law on his side, there will be no
more men with guns. Who makes the gun? The man who
works. Who makes the nice suit ? The man who works. Who
gets shot with the gun? The man who works. Who gets the
bad clothes? The man who works. Is this right? No, this is
wrong ! "

In " The Call," New York, April 17, 1919, there appeared
the following advertisement of a coming entertainment to be
given by a Socialist Sunday school of the Brownsville section
of Brooklyn:

" Sunday School Gives Concert ia Brownsville

" The annual entertainment and concert of the Brownsville
Socialist Sunday school will take place tomorrow evening at
the Brownsville Labor Lyceum. The capitalist press has lately
discovered that there are Socialist Sunday schools in the city.
They even send their reporters to discover what awful things
Socialist children are taught there. The American Defence
Society has just undertaken a vigorous nation-wide iight against
Bolshevism in general and Socialist Sunday schools in par-
ticular. All school children and the parochial schools are to
be enlisted in this glorious work. The Protestant churches,
not to be outdone, are also organizing to save the children
from Socialism. The growth of the Socialist schools is throw-
ing fear into the hearts of the capitalists. Brownsville parents
can do no better than to help make this school, now one of
the largest in the country, even better and stronger than it is-

ENLISTING EECEUITS 353

A splendid musical program has been arranged and, in addition,
the children will sing, dance and recite. Tickets may be bought
at the Lyceum."

Every parent will understand the subtle, insidious poison of
rebellion against parental authority and guidance instilled into
young minds by such items as the following, from the " New
York Call" of July 16, 1919:

" Independence is one of the finest qualities of youth. In an
inspiring postal card to her mother (copies of which might well
be put into the hands of young children everywhere), Hilda
Stydocker, 14, of 3 Washington Avenue, West Orange, states
that she is going to 'earn her own living and take care of
herself.' Previously gossip had been circulated to the effect that
Hilda had been kidnapped."

In a previous issue of " The Call," April 4, 1919, part of a
speech given by H. B. Shaen, president of the Brooklyn Sunday
School Union, is quoted:

"It is a question of great moment," President Shaen said
yesterday. " It must be dealt with drastically, effectively and
immediately. Bolshevism is a greater menace than we like to
believe. The proposed establishment of 3,000 so-called Social-
ist schools in this city will be a blow at religion, at- government,
at decency. It might be a fatal error to underestimate the
pernicious influence of this organization that seeks to sow dis-
quieting seeds by deceiving young America with false beliefs."

Mr. Woodworth Clum, of the Greater Iowa Association, in
volume 4, number 1, of " The Iowa Magazine," gives the fol-
lowing shocking account of Socialistic propaganda among school
children carried on in the northwest by Townley's Non-Partisan
League :

" The Non-Partisan League, under direction of Townley and
Le Seur, has taken possession of the schools of North Dakota — •
and may get control of the schools of Minnesota. . . . Eadical
doctrines are becoming part of the regular curricula. I have
a statement from 0. B. Burtness, representative in the North
Dakota Legislature from Grand Forks. Here it is :

" ' The board of administration has placed in charge of the
state library, to select the reading for our schools, C. E. Strange-
land. He is telling our school children what to read. I found
in our state library, the other day, a bundle of books, all ready
to be sent to one of our country schools — a circulating library.
If the farmers of North Dakota could have seen what I saw, they

354 THE KED CONSPIEACT

would have come to Bismarck and cleaned out the whole Social-
ist gang. Here are the titles of some of those books I saw:

" ' " Socialism and Modern Science," Ferri.

" ' " Evolution and Property," La Farge.

" ' " Not Guilty," Blatclif ord.

"'"Love and Marriage," Ellen Key.

" ' " Love and Ethics," Ellen Key.

" ' " The Bolshevik and World Peace," Leon Trotzky.

" ' " The History of the Supreme Court," Meyers.

" ' " The Profits of Eeligion," Sinclair.

" ' " Anarchism and Socialism," Harris.'

" Ellen Key is a pronounced advocate of free-love and the
dissolution of marriage."

In high schools, especially those of New York City, many
teachers have been using every opportunity for advocating
Socialism and other radical doctrines in the classroom and out
of it. Students, in order to win favor with some of these
teachers, at times show zeal for Socialistic tenets both in oral
and written composition. Quite a number of the teachers are
Socialists themselves, have become known as such throughout
the schools and use their influence to win over others. Many
books given by these teachers for outside reading are by Social-
ist or radical authors.

On the editorial page of "The New York Times," April 9,
1919, there is an article against the "Teachers' Union," a
Socialist and radical organization of many of the teachers of
Xew York City. Under the title, " Forbidden to Preach
Sedition," we read:

" There will be, presumably, much excited denunciation of
the Board of Education for closing the public schools to meet-
ings of the Teachers' Union. The familiar complaints about
infringing the right of free speech will be heard, and — well,
the complaints will be as ill-based as they usually are.

" In the first place, while speech is free in this country, it
is not, any more than it is or can be, anywhere, free to the
extent that anybody is free to say anything at any time and
any place. Eestrictions of several kinds there are and must
be, including those by which decency and the safety of our
institutions are protected. On the other hand, the members
of tlie Teachers' Union have not been reduced — as yet — to
silence. They have simply been told that they cannot use the
city's property in the campaign which they have undertaken
against an important branch of the City Government. They
are still privileged to hire as many halls as they please in which

ENLISTING RECRUITS 355

to accuse the Board of Education of tyranny, and to protest
against the enforcement of discipline against teachers with a
leaning toward Bolshevism, and a tendency to mingle Socialistic
and pro-Gei-man propaganda with instruction in the three E's.

" In this instance, as in so many others, the use of school-
houses for meetings of adults with opinions to express and
doctrines to preach has resulted unhappily. The adults who
gather seem always, or almost always, to be, not average, well-
disposed citizens, but a more or less incendiary minority who
want to change things — and to change them a lot and very
quickly. That aspiration is not wholly indefensible, for a good
many things would be the better for changing, but real light
and leading have not often been found on top at meetings in
schoolhouses, and experience has proved that the Teachers'
Union has neither to offer."

The following is from the " New York World " of November
20, 1919:

" Fifteen teachers in city schools vnll appear before Deputy
Attorney General Berger tomorrow afternoon to be questioned
to determine if they are dangerous radicals. Examination of
the records of the Communist Party seized in recent raids has
resulted in evidence indicating that each of the teachers is a
member of that organization

" Superintendent of Schools Ettinger revoked the license, yes-
terday, of Sonia Ginsberg, a teacher in School No. 170 in
Brooklyn, who admitted she would like to see the United States
Government displaced by one similar to the Bolshevist regime
in Eussia. Miss Ginsberg, born in Russia, was naturalized as a
citizen last June."

Eor many years the Intercollegiate Socialist Society has been
winning college and university students to the doctrines of the
Social Revolution through the medium of the various branches
that it establishes in such institutions. The Intercollegiate
Socialist Society sometime ago had, in the different colleges and
universities of our country, between 60 and 70 chapters, or
Socialist local societies, with Socialist libraries, and lecturers in
frequent attendance. Every year chapter-delegates are sent to
an intercollegiate convention from nearly all the important
American universities, including Harvard, Yale, Princeton,
Columbia, Barnard, Amherst, Brown, Pennsylvania, Michigan,
Wisconsin, Kansas, Missouri, and Chicago. Even Vassar, which
had 86 members in the first year in which the Intercollegiate
was organized, is included in the long list. Harry W. Laidler,

356 THE EED CONSPIBACY

organizer of the Socialist chapters and secretary of the Inter-
collegiate Socialist Society, claims that all the universities now
throw open their large assembly rooms for addresses by the
visiting lecturers, give quarters in the college buildings to the
Socialist chapters, and permit the use of the college publications
in the dissemination of propagandist literature, if it is written
by bona fide students.

We shall reproduce a letter which shows what is going on in
our colleges and universities. The identification of the writer,
person addressed, and others mentioned in the letter, is made
on the authority of Mr. Woodworth Clum, of the Greater Iowa
Association, Davenport, Iowa.

The letter was written July 29, 1919, by Arthur "W". Calhoun,
then instructor in sociology and political economy at Ohio State
University, Columbus, Ohio. It was written to Professor Zeuch,
then instructor at the University of Minnesota, now an
instructor at Cornell University. " Gras," mentioned in the
letter, is Professor N. S. B. Gras, a member of the Faculty
of the University of Minnesota. The letter also mentions B. C.
Hayes, who is professor of sociology at the University of Illinois,
President Grose of De Pauw University, Greencastle, Indiana,
and E. A. Eoss, professor of sociology at the University of
Wisconsin and Advisory Editor of the American Journal of
Sociology. The " Beals " mentioned in the letter, says Mr.
Clum, " was formerly a university professor and old friend of
Calhoun's. He is now openly advocating Bolshevism." Toward
the end of the letter, Calhoun says : " Greencastle is too small
to do much with the co-op." This " co-op " is the Tri-State
Co-operative Society of Pittsburg, and, says Mr. Clum, "the
society's business is the production and distribution of vicious
' red ' propaganda." Calhoun is or was one of its directors.

The letter, copied from a f ac-simile of the original in volume 4,
number 1, of " The Iowa Magazine," Davenport, Iowa, is as
follows :

" 55 E. NoEWicH Av., Columbus, 0., July 39.
" Dear Zeuoh : —

" I think I accept all you say about the condition of the
proletariat and the impossibility of the immediate revolution.
But I am less interested in the verbiage of the Left Wing than
in the idea of keeping ultimates everlastingly in the center of
attention to the exclusion of mere puttering reforms. One of
the things that will hasten the revolution is to spread the notion

ENLISTING RECRtriTS 357

that it can come soon. If the Left Wing adopts impossibHist
methods of campaign, I shall stand aloof, but if they push for
Confiscation, Equality of Economic Status, and the speedy
elimination of class privilege, and keep their heads, I shall go
with them rather than the yellows.

" If Gras is doing what he says and I am doing what he
says, he is right in saying that he is doing the better job. I
wonder, however, how many of his students draw the ' neces-
sary ' conclusions : and I wonder whether I do all my students'
thinking for them.

" Ellery is feeling at Columbus and also at Illinois. I had
a letter from Hayes about him.

" I have accepted the professorship of Sociology at De Pauw
University. The job pays $2300 this year with assurance of
$2400 if I stay a second year. The president has been here
three times and had long interviews with me. Besides we have
written a lot. I told him I belong to the radical Socialists.
I expounded my general principles on all important points.
He knows also of the circumstances of my leaving Clark and
Kentucky. He says he is in substantial agreement with most
of what I have said and that he sees no reason why I can not
get along at De Pauw. He says he feels confident it will be a
permanency. Eo^s had some hand in the game. Pres. Grose
interviewed him at Madison last week and Eoss wrote encourag-
ing me to take the place. I did not make any great effort.
Grose knew that I did not care much one way or the other.
He took the initiative almost from the start and I sat back
and waited. I'm afraid Greencastle is too small to do much
with the co-op. Population 4000, 30 miles north of Blooming-
ton. 800 students, mostly in college, a few in School of Music,
a few graduate students. Hudson is prof, of Ec. there.

" Beals was here last week. He is pushing the ' Nation.' Says
the circulation has quadrupled since they became Bolshevist.

" As ever,

" AWC "

The Band School, in New York City, is known as the Uni-
versity of Socialism and is said to have had 5,000 attending its
lectures in the year 1918. The purpose of the school, as origi-
nally conceived, and as adhered to throughout, is twofold, first,
to offer to the general public facilities for the study of Socialism
and related subjects. This is done by its reference library and
reading-room and by its large book store, in which are sold not

3.*)§ 'the red conspiracy

only Socialist books, but books on atheism as well; not only
the more conservative Socialist papers, but ultra revolutionary
papers such as " The Eevolutionary Age," " The Proletarian,"
many Bolshevist publications, and " The Eebel Worker " and
" The New Solidarity," the latter two being I. W. W. papers.

The last time the author of " The Eed Conspiracy " visited
the Band School book store, there was on sale a pile of Birth
Control Eeviews several feet high, " The One Big Union
Monthly," the I. W. W. organ, and enough foul and revolution-
ary matter to satisfy the filthiest or most blood-thirsty wretch
in the United States.

The second purpose of the Eand School is to offer to Socialists
such instruction and training as may make them more efficient
workers for the Socialist movement. This is done by means of
lectures, some 5,000 students attending, on an average, 20 lec-
tures each in the year 1918. The school also directs extension
classes in outlying parts of the city and neighboring places
and correspondence covirses for study classes and individual
students in all parts of the country. It conducts a bureau to
provide lectures on Socialism for clubs, trade unions, forums
and other organizations not otherwise connected with tlie school.
For years this school, which was raided under the direction
of the Lusk Committee, has been sowing the seeds of class hatred
and class discrimination, now everywhere springing up round
about us. The laws have been too tolerant, and it has been
permitted to go on without interference far too long. In refer-
ring to documents seized in the raids in the summer of 1919,
Deputy Attorney General Conklin said that the papers " are so
carefully and cleverly phrased " that no single sentence can be
picked out as in violation of the law. " Yet," he adds, " taken
as a whole, the documents are seditious, in my opinion." They
were made a matter of record, awaiting the disposition of the
District Attorney of New York.

These facts speak for themselves. It scarcely need be said
that unless this propaganda is checked, the power and strength
of the Socialist Party will soon assume tremendous proportions,
imperilling the existence of our nation.

Another field of work to which the enemies of our country
have been devoting special attention is the propagation of revolu-
tionary doctrines among the non-English speaking residents of
the United States. Page 69 of the " Proceedings of the 1910
National Congress of the Socialist Party " informs us that " the
American people are, after all, a nation of immigrants. We

ENLISTING EBCRUITS 359

count our Americanism by a very few generations, and the
foreign population lias always played an important part in the
industrial and political life of the country. At this time there
are over ten million foreign born persons in the United States.
Most of them are workers, and most of them still speak, write
and read in their native tongues.

" The powers of capital, through their political and so-called
educational agencies, and often with the aid of the churches,
are constantly at work prejudicing them against Socialism and
arraying them against organized labor.

" The Socialists must make energetic efforts to counteract
these baneful influences and to reach the foreign workers with
their propaganda.

" The Socialist Party has branch organizations among all, or
almost all, of these nationalities, and a few of these organiza-
tions have reached a high degree of strength and a large measure
of influence among the people of their nationalities

" These organizations work under conditions different from
those of the party as a whole. In each case they deal with a
special type of persons, of a psychology and of economic condi-
tions peculiarly their own, and they are the most competent
judges of the methods of propaganda best suitable to their own
countrymen. The party should allow such non-English speak-
ing organizations the greatest freedom of action, and should
assist them in every way in their special work of Socialist
propaganda."

It may interest the reader to learn that the Socialist Party is
so much concerned with its propaganda among foreigners, that in
its 1913 May Day parade in New York City pink leaflets headed
"WOMEN, BECOME CITIZENS," were distributed. They
read:

"If you hope to be a voter, remember that yoU must be a
citizen! Don't delay! Come to the NATUEALIZATION
BUEEAtr of the SOCIALIST PAETY next Tuesday evening,
and let us help you to become naturalized." It was, of course,
an understood fact that the Socialist Party would, besides help-
ing such women to become naturalized, also help them to become
Eevolutionists.

On May 18, 1912, May Wood- Simons reported to the
National Convention of the Socialist Party the recommendations
of the Woman's National Committee, urging the carrying of
the propaganda of Socialism to the housewife, the woman on

360 THE RED CONSPIRACY

the farm, to teachers, foreign speaking women and womeil in
industry. (" The Call," New York, May 19, 1912.)

Though the zeal of the national foe in its propaganda of
revolutionary principles is manifested in many other ways, only
a few more illustrations will be given. Many thousands of copies
of the " Appeal to Eeason," when it was the foremost American
Socialist paper, found their way into the camps and upon
the battleships of our country.

At the Socialist National Convention of 1913, held in Indian-
apolis, Delegate Kate Sadler pointed out how Socialist locals had
been organized on various battleships in the navy and how she
was accustomed to hold meetings on Sunday afternoons on the
men-of-war at the navy yard, Bremerton, Washington. " W»'U
get the boys organized into the Socialist Party," she declared,
and the Socialist Convention voted to adopt the resolution.
("The Call," New York, May 17, 1912.)

During recent years no one who has carefully read the pmblic
press could have failed to notice that the Socialists have been
carrying on an active campaign of lies and deceptions in the
form of letters which they have sent to the editors of the daily
papers, with the request that the same be published for the
enlightenment of the public regarding the general excellency of
the Socialist movement.

In "The Call," New York, March 23, 1913, it is said that
"the man or woman who can convey the message of Socialism
through speaking is fortunate, and when it can be done through
speaking and writing, the Comrade is doubly lucky. But Kyan
Walker can do it through speaking and writing and the cartoon
that makes you laugh or makes you mad. . . . The cartoons
that Walker has been putting over in ' The Call,' ' The Coming
Nation ' and the ' Appeal to Eeason ' have been copied in Socialist
papers all over the world, in England, Scotland, Germany,
Australia, and they are doing their work in these countries the
same as they do it here. The Socialist cartoonists have been
accomplishing some of the biggest propaganda work that is done
by any one of our active members, and while they are getting
the laugh on capitalism, and getting the laugh on the fool
workingman, they are arousing the worker to cast aside his
foolishness, and at the same time cast aside the foolishness of
the capitalist. Getting the laugh on the capitalist, showing
how ridiculous and weak he is, is a great preliminary to getting
rid of him."

ENLISTING EECEUITS 36l

The Socialists are inspired with such an ardent desire for
the success of their movement, that they have written theatrical
plays and have even had moving picture films made, so that
by representing in a most vivid manner the evils and abuses of
our day, they may persuade the unwary that Socialism would
mean the absence of sufferings and wrongs of every description.

We elsewhere have called attention to I. W. W. effort to
organize the negroes of America. The work of making rebels
of the negroes is also carried on assiduously by the Socialist
Party of America. Says " The National Civic Federation
Eeview," July 30, 1919 :

" Among the propaganda material found on sale by agents of
the Lusk Committee in the Eand School book store were copies
of ' The Messenger,' on the front page of which it is called, ' The
Only Eadical Negro Magazine in America,' of which Chandler
Owen and A. Philip Eandolph are editors

"Both of the editors of this magazine, who are negroes, are
instructors at the Eand School of Social Science."

In " The Open Porum " of the September, 1919, issue of
" The Messenger " three letters are given as follows :
" Dear Comrade Owen :

"I enclose a check for $25.00 as a contribution to the
organization fund being raised by ' The Messenger.' I know
of no more important and vital work in the field of American
Socialism and Labor today than the effort of your group to
incorporate the large masses of Negro workers in the ranks
of the advanced and class-conscious white workers in the indus-
trial and political fields.

" My heartiest wishes for the success of your movement.
" Sincerely and fraternally yours,

" Morris Hillqdit."
" To THE Editors of ' The Messenger ' :

" Dear Comrades. — The work which you are doing is vital.
Your people constitute more than a tenth of the total population
of the United States. We are all native bom Americans. If
there is to be progress made, particularly in the great Southland,
by the Socialist Movement, it must be made by and through
colored people. Enclosed is my check for Five Dollars, for the
first share of stock in ' The Messenger.' With it goes my heart
good wishes for the success of your work.

"Yours truly,

" Scott Nearinq."

3g2 the red conspieact

" Dear Sir and Brother :

" Enclosed please find check for the amount of $100.00 in
reply to the appeal presented by you at the last meeting of
our Board of Directors for support to enable you to continue
the noble work you have undertaken to enlighten the colored
worker in this country upon his being exploited by the master
class.

" We wish you success in the work you are conducting on this
field and you can rely upon the assurance of our organization
for all possible assistance in the future.

" Fraternally yours,

"P. MONAT."

In view of the frightful character of the very active propa-
ganda that is being carried on by the enemies of our country,
does it not behoove every loyal and patriotic American to rise
in his power and wipe out the Eed plague that is rapidly dis-
seminating its destructive germs throughout the United States?

CHAPTEE XXIV
EXPERTS IN THE ART OF DECEPTION

It remains to be shown that the rapid spread of Socialism,
besides being due to the extraordinary zeal of the Eevolutionists,
is largely the result of artful deception.

The Marxians, who are fond of being called " scientific "
Socialists, may very aptly be compared to little boys who might
try to prove to their teacher that the solution of a certain
problem in mathematics was correct, because that of another
problem of an entirely different nature was wrong. Or, better
still, they may be likened to an egg dealer who would attempt
to prove to a customer that every egg in one crate was good,
because a few in another were unfit for use. The appropriate-
ness of comparing the " scientific " Socialists to the amusing
youngsters, or to the illogical egg dealer, will be evident to the
reader when he reflects that the revolutionists, north, south,
east and west, from the first day of January till the last of
December, condemn the present system of government and
industry, endeavoring thereby to persuade the people that
Socialism is the only remedy for the evils from which they are
suffering.

Most of the speeches and writings of the "Knights of the
Red Flag" consist in severely criticising prevalent evils. By
attacking the present system of government and industry they
hope to have the workingmen conclude that the Socialist Party
alone can save mankind from complete ruin. This, then, is
the way in which " scientific " Socialism leads unrefiecting
laborers to believe that the contemplated state would be the
most perfect institution under heaven, replete with countless
blessings and free from every evil.

It often happens that the revolutionists dazzle the eyes of the
weary with the vivid pictures that they draw of intolerable civil
and economic conditions, whether these be true, false or
imaginary. The result is that the poor people frequently brood
over the wrongs from which they happen to be suffering. They
become so thoroughly discontented and blinded with class
hatred that they aj-e jio longer able tp see the advantage of

2S3

364 THE RED CONSPIRACY

reforming the present system by constitutional and lawful
methods. Finally, when they have almost lost their reason and
can no longer realize that the drug offered them has never been
proven capable of remedying the evils that weigh heavily upon
them, they accept and swallow the poisonous dose of Socialism
and become a thousand times more wretched than they were
before. The very potion they drink, with a view to being cured,
makes them most unhappy for the rest of their lives, and in
many cases for all eternity. If there is anything that non-
Socialists should be on their guard against it is this base form
of tactics by which the revolutionists have been eminently suc-
cessful in gaining new recruits.

If those whose party emblem is a flaming torch could even
prove that everything without exception in the present system
of industry is worthy of condemnation, and that the entire
government is corrupt to its very core, it would no more follow
from this that Socialism was the remedy than it would follow
that the solution of one problem in mathematics must be correct
because another solution of an entirely different nature was
wrong, or that all the eggs in one crate must be good because
there were some in a second crate unfit for use.

It is very common for Socialists to assume that certain funda-
mental principles have been proven to be true, whereas the fact
is that these very premises, from which they draw their conclu-
sions, are often false and without the slightest foundation. An
excellent illustration of this has already been given in preceding
pages, where it was shown that the Socialists incorrectly assumed
that there would be no poverty in their state, and argued from
this that there would be very little prostitution. It is evident,
therefore, that unless those who listen to the Marxians are on
their guard and demand that the premises be proven the Social-
ists may deduce from incorrect premises conclusions which will
make it appear that their intended state will bestow heaven's
choicest blessings upon mankind.

Though examples of deceit have already been given, the atten-
tion of the reader will be called to the testimony of no less
an authority than Eugene V. Debs, who in the following article,
published in the " International Socialist Review," Chicago,
January, 1911, will be seen to substantiate our charge:

"The truth is that we have not a few -members who regard
vote getting as a supreme importance, no matter by what
methods the votes may be secured, and this leads them to hold
out inducements, and make representations which are not at

THE ART OF DECEPTION 365

all compatible with the stern and uncomprising principles
of a revolutionary party. They seek to make the Socialist
propaganda so attractive — eliminating whatever may give
offence — to bourgeois sensibilities — that it serves as a bait
for votes, rather than as a means for education, and votes thus
secured do not properly belong to us."

It is not unfrequently that we hear Socialists appealing to this
or that plank of their party platform as proof sufBcient that their
organization favors or opposes a certain policy. An argument
of this sort should have very little weight with careful thinking
men, once their attention has been called to the fact that the
Socialists have been proven guilty of a base lie by stating in
their 1908 platform that the party is not concerned with matters
of religious belief. But even if the revolutionists had never
inserted in their platform a statement that was untrue, never-
theless the following facts show that their platform planks are
very far from being reliable.

The delegates of the party assembled in national convention
on May 15, 1908, by a vote of 102 to 33 passed a plank declar-
ing for the collective ownership of all the land. (" Proceedings
of 1908 JSTational Convention of the Socialist Party," page 186.)
It was on September 7, 1909, less than a year and four
months after the adjournment of the convention of 1908, that
the words declaring for the collective ownership of all the land
were, by a referendum, stricken from the party platform, while
by another referendum it was decided to insert among the
principles of the platform that the party was not opposed to
the occupation and possession of land hy those using it in a
useful and bona fide manner without exploitation. (" Proceed-
ings of the 1910 N"ational Congress of the Socialist Party,"
page 25.)

About eight months after the adoption of this substitute
plank, a bitter contest concerning the ownership of " all " the
land took place in the ISTational Congress of the party, which
was held in Chicago from May 15, 1910, till May 21, 1910.
(" Proceedings of the 1910 Ifational Congress of the Socialist
Party," pages 220 to 235.) Thus, during the 1910 Congress,
notwithstanding the fact that there existed at that time a plank
in the party platform guaranteeing the possession of land to
persons who would use it in a bona fide manner, the representa-
tives of the party in national congress assembled, being unable
to decide whether or not it was to the best interests of the party
to abide by this planJc, referred the matter to the next convention.

366 THE RED CONSPIEACY

(" Proceedings of 1908 Kational Convention of the Socialist
Party," page 235.)

Then, when the 1912 Convention met, it made another change,
and declared for the collective ownership of land wherever
practicable. ("The 1912 Platform of the Socialist Party" —
Cf. "The Call," May 19, 1912.) In addition to this, it stated
that occupancy and use shall he the sole title to land. ("The
1912 Platform of the Socialist Party'' — Cf. "The Call," May
19, 1912.)

It is noteworthy that the Convention of 1908 had previously
voted down this proposition to make occupancy and use the sole
title to land, after the proposition had been denounced as being
anarchistic, unsocialistic, nonsensical, foolish, and a dream.
("Proceedings of 1908 National Convention of the Socialist
Party," pages 188, 189 and 191.) One of the foremost
opponents of the proposition was Delegate Morris Hillquit, who
asked :

" What does the amendment mean ? Occupancy and use the
basis of title to land. How do we know whether the co-operative
commonwealth will infer and arrange it in that way? Aren't
we taking a long excursion into the domain of the future and
into the domain of speculation ? It may be true that the dream
of the dreamer may become a reality, if this dream is the dream
of the nation. But we have not come here to dream dreams and
leave it to the future to realize them or to show them to be
just mere pipe dreams. . . . The Socialist state may just
as well decide on an entirely different basis for the distribution
of land. It may not at all be bound to our resolution here
today that occupation forms a title." (" Proceedings of 1908
National Convention of the Socialist Party," page 189.)

WTien the Marxians are brought face to face with the charge
of adopting a program today, rejecting it tomorrow, hesitating
about it on the next day and compromising it on the fourth,
as they did in respect to the collective ownership of " all " the
land, let them not argue that such changes are to be expected in
Liie evolution of Socialism. They should be forced to confess
that they acted in such a way solely to gain votes. Confront
them with the speeches delivered in their National Convention
of 1908 and in their National Congress of 1910, both by the
delegates who advocated the collective ownership of " all " the
land and by those who opposed it. For the convenience of the
readej- passages from eome of these speeches will now be given;

THE ART OP DECEPTION 367

Delegate Cannon of Arizona: "I contend that the public
ownership of all machinery and land is one of the things for
which the Socialist Party is working. If some of the Comrades
get up and tell us in Germany they are not working for that,
I move that we inform the German Comrades that they are
behind the times. The idea of not including the land is nothing
more or less than political expediency." (" Proceedings of 1908
National Convention of the Socialist Party," page 175.)

Delegate Payne of Texas : " I want to know if this conven-
tion of this movement which we call the great revolutionary
movement is going to go down in history as catering to a small
middle class of land owners, or are you going to stand for the
great proletarian farming class?" ("Proceedings of 1908
National Convention on the Socialist Party," page 181.)

Delegate Morrison of Arizona : " Is it possible that we
have so far forgotten ourselves, that we will attempt to
curry favor with a few capitalist farmers? Why is this
resolution here? "What is the object of it? What is the
purpose of it? Is it to secure votes? Do you hope to
deceive some one as to the actual, real program of scientific
Socialism? Or are you, in other words, going to lie to the
farmers of this country in order to secure their suffrage? Are
you going to present something to them that you know is not
contained in the Socialist program? Can you afford, as repre-
sentatives of this great revolutionary party, to do that which
in a few years you will be ashamed of ? I say no." (" Proceed-
ings of 1908 National Convention of the Socialist Party,"
page 184.)

Delegate Goaziou of Pennsylvania: "I know we have in
this country a growing movement among Socialists who are
wanting votes no matter how they will get them. They are
willing to put in appeals to the farmers, appeals to the middle
class and appeals to everybody, so that they can get votes."
(" Proceedings of 1908 National Convention of the Socialist
Party," page 209.)

Delegate Thompson of Wisconsin: "We know that there
is a very large portion of votes of this country on the farm,
under agricultural conditions and environment, over forty per
cent. Less than thirty per cent of the votes of this country
are under industrial conditions. When we get to the point
where we want to do something, we must have some way or
other of getting these two forces welded together. We can
never win out with thirty per cent of the vote. We will have

368 THE RED CONSPIRACY

to have at least a substantial majority, and that we cannot have
without the farmers." (" Proceedings of 1908 National Con-
vention of the Socialist Party," page 185.)

Delegate Victor Berger of Wisconsin: "We cannot have
Socialism in this country, if we don't get the farmers in some
way. If you try to take away the farms of twelve millions
of farmers of this country, you will have a big job on your hands.
You might as well try to reach down the moon. . . . You
remember how much effort and how many men it cost England
to conquer 30,000 farmers, Boers — -Boers, mind you — and now
try to take the farms from these 12,000,000 American farmers
and you will have about a million times harder job. Besides,
they don't need to fight. All they have to do is to stop bringing
food to Chicago for six weeks, and Comrade Morgan and the
rest of Chicago would be knocked out." (" Proceedings of the
1910 National Congress of the Socialist Party," page 230.)

Delegate Simmons of Illinois : " There is just one thing on
earth that I will toady to and that is a fact. And when I
meet a fact so big as the farmer question in America, a fact
that has in it the future of 12,000,000 of people of the pro-
ducing classes, without whom we stand no more chance of
a Socialist victory in this country than we do of changing the
orbit of a comet, and when I face a fact as big as that, I don't
try to stand in front of it, and howl empty phrases, in the hope
that the fact will get out of the way." (" Proceedings of the
1910 National Congress of the Socialist Party," page 231.)

Since the revolutionists, to win votes, frequently point to the
reforms they have proposed or in some cases accomplished, we
should all be on our guard lest, being allured by these reforms,
we be led into the Socialist camp, and later on suffer the dread-
ful evils that have been shown would result from the adoption
of the Marxian system of government.

Those who vote the Socialist ticket insist on calling the atten-
tion of non-Socialists to the immediate demands enumerated
in their party platform, many of which are excellent. Work-
ingmen, however, should remember, first, that many of them
are only meant for the time our present Government is still in
power; moreover, that a crime-ridden, anarchical and bankrupt
state could not grant them, and, furthermore, that there is no
reason why our Government, in its present form, could not
grant all the Marxian demands that are really advantageous.

The Socialists often argue from some successful results in
government ownership of public utilities to the success of

THE ART OF DECEPTION 369

Socialism itself. Thougli it cannot be denied that govern-
ment ownership of public utilities has in some instances
been a success, still anti-Socialists can just as well argue the
failure of Socialism from failures in government ownership,
which are entirely too numerous to require comment. If in the
future it should become evident that great benefits would accrue
from the national, state, or municipal ownership of certain public
utilities, which are now privately owned, our present form of
government, without becoming Socialistic, could take them over,
just as many of our cities have already taken over water, gas
and power plants. But the number would have to be limited,
for it has already been shown in Chapter XVII what terrible
consequences would follow from adopting the scheme of Social-
ism, whereby the people would collectively own and manage all
the principle means of production, transportation and communi-
cation. Public ownership on such a large scale, so as to conform
with the plans of the revolutionists, implies that the vast
majority of workingmen would be government employees. The
result, as has been shown, would be a terrible reign of discon-
tent, strife, crime, revolution and chaos; whereas the prudent
purchase of a small number of public utilities, under the present
system of government, would entail none of these evils, since
most workingmen could refuse positions that they did not care
for or where the wages would not satisfy them, and do this
without injuring the government.

The Socialists, especially when they appeal to the less edu-
cated, frequently argue that since their party platform says
nothing concerning the teaching of a certain doctrine, for
instance free-love, it is evident that the party does not advocate
it. Such a method of reasoning is, of course, absurd and utterly
unworthy of men who style themselves scientific ; for by arguing
in exactly the same way, it would follow that their flag is
not the red flag because there is no plank in their party platform
stating that it is.

Although many Socialists have written an abundance of anti-
religious literature, other members of the party have composed
books, pamphlets and articles that in no way attack the church.
Some of the revolutionists, in their endeavors to make their
movement attractive to Christians, go so far as to claim that
even Christ was a Socialist. Since, therefore, the enemies of
our country have at their disposal writings which attack
religion, as well as those that are in no way hostile to it, they
are well able to supply with attractive reading matter not only

370 THE BED CONSPIRACY

atheists who are opposed to all forms of religion, but Christians,
no matter to what denomination they may chance to belong.

In like manner there are to be found within the Socialist Party
writers who advocate free-love and others who are opposed to
its propagation, either through a personal repugnance to legal-
ized sin, or else because they think that by teaching loose
morals the party would alienate many prospective members.
Hence, the Socialists can satisfy the depraved by recommending
to them the different works on free-love, and at the same time
they can give satisfaction to those who are opposed to the base
doctrine by referring them to books which not only do not
advocate it but even condemn it in the most emphatic way.

In this double-dealing party there is a very strong faction
whose members advocate direct action, in other words, violence,
as a means for bringing about the downfall of our Government
and of the entire industrial system. Opposed to these men, who
are f reqiTently termed the " Beds," there is a rapidly disappear-
ing faction of so-called "Yellows," who rely upon the use of
the ballot, and decry direct action, either through personal
repugnance to violence, or, as seems most likely, because they
deem peaceful methods more prolific of votes, and consequently
of future political advantage to themselves. The direct action-
ists by their inflammatory speeches and writings are especially
successful in gaining recruits from among the more disorderly
elements of society, whereas the political actionists appeal rather
to those persons who are opposed to the destruction of life and
property.

It is by no means uncommon for the revolutionists to avoid
as far as possible the discussion of knotty problems relative
to the working details of their contemplated state. They often
do this by telling us that the people of the future will be the
ones to solve the problem in question. In illustration two
examples will be given, the first of which is taken from the
" Appeal to Eeason," January 6, 1913 :

" Do Socialists think all men should be paid alike — the
man with the pick the same wages a-s the lawyer or doctor ? "

" Socialists differ on this proposition. Whatever a majority
of the people may decide will prevail."

Again we read, in the April 6, 1912, edition of the same
paper :

" Will producers get paid for the number of hours worked,
or for the amount of production ? "

THE AKT OV DECEPTION 371

" No one knows just how the returns will be regulated,
for the reason that they are to be regulated according to the
will of the whole people and not according to the scheme of the
' Appeal to Eeason.' It is possible that both methods may be
tried, and the best prevail."

A subterfuge that often meets with success, and which for
this very reason is a favorite one among the revolutionists when
they are on the point of being defeated in an argument, consists
in this, that they do their best to dodge the question at issue by
leading their opponents ofE on some side topic, such as the evils
and abuses of the present day. Every anti-Socialist ought,
therefore, to be on his guard, and as soon as he notices the
national enemy trying to draw him off on a tangent, he should
steadfastly refuse to take up the new line of argumentation,
but should compel the evader to stick to the question at issue.

It happens, too, and not unfreqiiently, that in the course of
a dispute, when a Socialist is being defeated, he will ask the
non-Socialist to prove that the present system is superior to
that which is pictured in such beautiful colors by the followers
of Karl Marx. Now, in the first place, the burden of proof
rests with the Socialist, for if he wishes to lead another into
his camp, it is his task to prove to him that everything there
is congenial and attractive. The non-Socialist would indeed act
very imprudently if he should attempt to prove that the present
sj'stem offers more attractions than the Socialist Utopia whose
perfections exist only in the imaginations of the revolutionists.
What he might do, however, would be to show that the present
system of government and industry, even in its unreformed
state, is far superior to the condition of affairs that would
actually exist if our constitutional government should ever have
to give way to the regime of the revolutionists.

On reading Socialist literature or listening to the speeches of
the revolutionists one is impressed with all the wonderful bene-
fits that the party proposes to confer upon our citizens if it
sliould ever rule the land. Of course very many of the proposals
are made solely on the authority of the speaker or writer. But
even if they have the approval of the Party, we must not forget
that it is one thing to propose to grant a favor and quite another
thing actually to grant it. There are lots of things that men
say they propose to do, without ever intending to do them.
And it frequently happens that after having had the best inten-
tions, they change their minds or else are utterly unable to
carry out their plans.

373 THE KED CONSPIRACY

Karl Marx about half a century ago tauglit the absurd
doctrine that as all wealth is produced by labor, to the laborers
all wealth is due. He held, on the one hand, that all the profits
arising from the sale of goods should accrue to the workingmen
in virtue of the labor required for their production, and, on
the other, that the capitalists who had not performed any work
should not be entitled to a share in the profits.

This old doctrine, unreasonable as it is, is still taught at the
present day not only by European Socialists but also by the
revolutionists of our own country. During the May Day parade
in Kew York City on May 1, 1913, when some 50,000 men
marched behind red flags, great numbers of leaflets, entitled,
" The Issue," were distributed among the spectators. These
leaflets had been published by the Socialist Party of New York
City and openly advocated the old doctrine of Karl Marx, the
Father of modern Socialism, for on the third page appeared
" A Parable," from which we quote the following :

" A man was once engaged in making bricks just outside the
wall of a lunatic asylum. Presently a lunatic looked over the
fence and asked:

" ' What are you doing ? '

" ' Making bricks.'

"'What are the bricks for?'

" ' I don't know. What does it matter to me ? '

"'But why do you make them, if you don't intend to use
them for anything ? '

"'Why? Well it's my work.'

"'But I don't see why you should work for no object. If
you don't use the bricks, who will ? '

" ' How should I know ? It's nothing to do with me.'

"'Don't know what you are going to do with your own
bricks ? '

" ' They are not my bricks. They belong to the boss.'

" ' But didn't you make them ? '

"'Yes.'

" ' Then how comes it that the boss owns them ? '

" ' It's his brick kiln and his clay hole.'

" ' Oh, didn't he make the kiln ? '

'"No; the bricklayers built them.'

"'Did he dig the clay hole?'

" ' No ; those men over there dug it.'

'"Why do they dig clay holes?'

" ' It's their work. The boss pays them to do it.'

THE ART OF DECEPTION 373

" ' Oh ! does he pay you, too, to make these bricks ? '

"'Yes.'

" ' But where does he get the money to pay you with ? '

" ' He sells bricks.'

"'And you made those bricks he sold?'

" ' Yes.'

" ' Don't you think you'd better come inside ? . . . .

" ' But I say, how much will the boss sell those bricks for ? '

" ' Oh ! about $500.'

" ' How long will it take you to make them ? '

" ' About ten weeks.'

" ' How much does the boss pay you for working so hard ? *

" ' Two dollars and fifty cents a day.'

" ' That will be $150 in ten weeks. Ha ! ha ! ha ! aha ! he !
he ! he ! '

" ' I don't see (wiping the sweat from his brow) the joke, you
confounded ass.'

" ' You must come inside. He ! he ! he ! ! ! ' "

American Socialists, therefore, as well as the early German
revolutionists, teach that to the laborer all wealth is due.

Though the low wages that many workingmen receive is a
disgrace to our civilization and an abuse that cries to heaven
for vengeance, still it is absurd to hold that wages should be so
much increased as to leave nothing for the capitalists. For, in
the first place, if the workingmen should enjoy the entire profits
of their firms or industries all the owners would soon become
bankrupt and fail, and, in the upheavals due to unemployment
and the impossibility of supplying the necessaries of life, the
present system of our Government would certainly fall a prey
to revolution, the Socialists would come into power and then
would follow the terrible disturbances shown in Chapter XVII,
" Socialism, a Peril to Workingmen."

We have no defence whatsoever to offer for dishonest capital-
ists, but maintain that honest capitalists are entitled to a rea-
sonable share in the- profits arising from their investments.
For, in the first place, if it were not for the capital in the
possession of honest capitalists, millions of workingmen would
be terribly handicapped in earning a living. If this fact is
not immediately evident to the reader it will become so when
he reflects that many farm, mill and factory workers, and the
employes of many big business houses would have to seek
other positions if the capital required for the industries was
not supplied by the owners. The buildings, machinery, raw

374 THE RED CONSPIEACT

materials, etc., in most cases are not and cannot be supplied
by the laborers and workingmen, but are furnished by the
capitalists who, if they wished, could sell them and spend the
money obtained from the sale for their own personal enjoyment.
For this reason, and also because the capitalists referred to are
subject to many financial worries, assume great responsibilities,
run the risk of incurring serious losses of one kind or another,
including business failure and bankruptcy, it is only just that
they should receive a reasonable recompense for their share
in the production of the goods.

From what has been said regarding the falsity of the Marxian
doctrine, that to the laborer all wealth is due, it follows that
the Socialists, by teaching this false principle, have been mis-
leading the laborers and workingmen for over half a century.

Some of the best known American Socialists, when confronted
with the evident fallacy of the Marxian doctrine concede that
Marx was mistaken and that they do not approve of his teach-
ings on this subject. Now, if these leaders and their followers
are in the majority, they should long ago have compelled the
minority in the party to stop deceiving the uneducated. On
the other hand, if they themselves constitute the minority, their
own personal opinions amount to little, since the majority of
the members of the Socialist Party would in that case be guilty
of advocating foolish and absurd doctrine.

The attractive and popular motto, " Workingmen of the world
unite. You have nothing to lose but your chains," has moved
many a poor workingman to enlist in the revolutionary cause.
Very little reflection, however, is needed to expose the absurdity
that is found in the second part of the motto. For no matter
how badly off men may be financially, it has been shown that
they not only would not lose their chains by uniting under
the red flag of Karl Marx but would be completely crushed by
the much heavier ones of bloody revolution and a wretched form
of government which would bring with it a religious prosecution
and widespread lawlessness, crime and chaos.

Eealizing that the police would do much to help the revolu-
tionary movement, if they could be made friendly to it, some
Socialists have been extremely anxious to win them over. To
certify this statement we shall quote part of an article which
appeared in "The Call," Few York, April 25, 1911, urging
Socialists to get control of the police force:

" A policeman's vote, like any other person's vote, counts ope.
Policemen are \vage-earners, wbO; lik§ other wage-earners, are

THE ART OF DECEPTION 375

eager to improve their circumstances. Policemen will vote the
Socialist ticket when they realize that the Socialists in office
will insist upon their receiving more pay, more leisure, more
sick and old age benefits, more privileges. . . . Adopt con-
structive resolutions demanding that constables be paid higher
wages, that they be granted shorter hours, that they be given
more days off each week, that they be exempted from paying
part of their wages into the superannuation fund, that they
be accorded the right of combination, that a more generous
system of sick benefits be drawn up, that they have the right
of appeal against dismissal and abuse to a representative com-
mittee of citizens."

The revolutionists are leaving nothing undone in their
extraordinary efforts to gain recruits for the overthrow of our
National Government. This is evidenced by the appearance
in their papers of articles like the following, entitled, " The
Pure "Water Problem," which was published in " The Call,"
April 30, 1913:

" As a political organization, the Socialist Party must address
itself to every question that interests the electorate. And in
each case it must offer the public a carefully thought out solu-
tion instead of mere generalities and hackneyed phrases. Other-
wise it will not succeed in winning the confidence of the
majority of voters. Now almost every city in America is con-
fronted with a pure water and sewage disposal problem. . . .
If the Socialist Party steps into the arena with clear-cut pro-
posals that deal in a radical, constructive and common sense
way with this problem, it will not only help to secure pure
drinking water for citizens, but it will break down considerable
prejudice against the Socialist movement, and cause people to
study the more revolutionary features of our own official
platform."

Information comes to us that on account of recent Govern-
ment raids the Eed organizations are assuming a variety of
aliases. The Communist Party has taken the innocuous title
of "The International Publishing Company," alias "The
International League of Defense." The I. W. W. operates
under any local name which comes handy. Individual Eeds
often spread their doctrines, and incite workingmen to take
part in outlaw strikes, while professing to be members of no
radical organization.

The Young People's Socialist League, closely affiliated with
the Socialist Party, planned to use disguises, if necessary, after
the Socialist Party adopted its anti-war program in 1917. Thus

576 SHE RED CONSPIEACT

in " Outlines of the Evidence Taken Before the Judiciary Com-
mittee of the Assembly of New York," pages 608-9, appears a
letter of William F. Kruse, National Secretary of the Young
People's Socialist League, written to the secretaries of its dif-
ferent branches, in which he urged them to have an " unofficial
emergency committee," have " several copies of your most
important records and especially your mailing list stowed away
in various safe and secluded places," and have " three trust-
worthy officers broken in for each important Job." " At least
one of these officers should be a girl," he continued, " so that
if our boys are jailed for refusal to serve, the girls can keep
the League going." He added : " If ever the Y. P. S. L. is
suppressed you will immediately get together all its members
as quietly as possible under the name of some athletic club,
dance society or pleasure club. The name of this organization
should have nothing in common with Socialism."

In concluding this chapter the attention of the reader is called
to the fact that the Socialists are trying their best to make it
appear that the interests of the American workingmen in gen-
eral are jeopardized when a member of their party is put in jail
or is on trial. This is rank hypocrisy. Even if the Socialist
Party was a real workingman's party, this fact would not give
it the right to set up its justly condemned bomb throwers, its
preachers of Bolshevist revolution, its teachers of race suicide,
etc., as working-class martyrs and protagonists of free speech,
which they claim is no longer allowed in our country.

There are millions of workingmen in the great Eepublican,
Democratic, and other American parties who don't need and
don't want bomb-throwers, imported Marxian revolutionists,
race suiciders, free-lovers, atheists, hypocrites, professional liars
and deceivers to petition the Government in their name for the
release of imprisoned Socialists on the plea that these are
being prosecuted because they are leaders of the working-class.
First of all. Debs, Haywood and their crews are leaders of
blood-thirsty revolutionists, and not the leaders of the law-
abiding workingmen who maintain the Democratic and Eepub-
lican parties. They are the enemies of the latter, and the real
object of the Socialists is to stir up trouble in our country
by endeavoring to procure amnesty for a set of scoundrels who,
after their release, would, by their subversive and dangerous
doctrines, try to plunge the country we love and all honest
labor into a much more terrible abyss than that into which
the Bolsheviki have plunged Socialist Eussia.

CHAPTER XXV
THE CAMPAIGN AGAINST THE REDS

It has been shown in the preceding chapters that the base
doctrines propagated on every side by the revolutionists are
among the gravest evils threatening the welfare of our nation.
No doubt the reader perceives that unless this conspiracy against
our country, religion and family is checked, the Socialists will
soon overwhelm us with a bloody rebellion and establish a
government that will mean nothing less than a reign of terror
and a widespre„d prevalence of discontent, strife and crime,
finally terminating in chaos or anarchy.

Provisions must, therefore, be made for averting the dire
calamities that would attend the unfurling of the red flag over
Washington in place of the Star- Spangled Banner. Measures
of defense must quickly be taken and an army of attack must
immediately be set in motion. In this way alone can we hope
to prevent the success of the revolutionary propaganda that is
characterized by a marvelous activity and an ever-increasing
popularity among the unwary and uneducated. The country we
love and the Government which has bestowed upon us innumer-
able blessings, notwithstanding abuses, call upon us for help
in the hour of need. True patriotism bids us take up suitable
weapons and wage relentless war against that which would
destroy our present constitutional form of government.

Who can turn a deaf ear to the call ? In our heroic work we
shall be helped by millions of patriotic citizens whose devotion
to their country has already rallied them to the defense of the
Stars and Stripes. All that we need do, to fan into flame the
fire of patriotism already glowing in their hearts, is to arouse
them to a full realization of the dangers that threaten the very
existence of our nation. Now is the time to act, before we hear
the cry " Too late ! " The great weapon must be education and
the ones to be enlightened on the evils of Socialism are not
merely scholars, professors and teachers, but the great masses
of the people.

If we wish to bring home to the American people a clear
realization of the threatening calamity, we ourselves must not

377

378 THE KED CONSPIEACT

only be thoroughly equipped with knowledge of the Socialistic
teachings and their evil consequences, but must also be able to
refute the alluring and deceptive arguments of the revolution-
ists. We must acquire a thorough knowledge of Socialism.
But to do this, it almost goes without saying that we should
carefully read and study the excellent and thoroughly up-to-date
anti-Socialistic works that can be had at a moderate price
or readily obtained in the public libraries.

Among the best anti-Socialistic books in the English language
may be mentioned " Socialism, the Nation of Fatherless
Children," edited by Goldstein and Avery. This book, whose
authors were once Socialists, contains hundreds of very strong
and useful quotations and is of the highest value to every
student who is studying the evils and dangers of the revolu-
tionary movement. Published by T. J. Flynn & Co., 62 Essex
Street, Boston, Mass.

" Socialism," by Cathrein and Gettelman, a very scholarly
and learned work, admirably explains and refutes the various
Marxian doctrines. It is published by Benziger Bros., New
York City.

A third book of recent publication and of great value to the
anti- Socialist student is " The World Problem," by Eev. Joseph
Husslein, S. J., published by The America Press, 175 East
83rd Street, New York, N. Y.

One who is truly interested in the fight against the national
enemy should not content himself with the reading of anti-
Socialist literature, but should pass the matter on to others
who may become interested in the battle against the enemies
of our country.

Business men and persons of wealth should not only urge
their friends to read anti-Socialist works that have appealed
to themselves, but should show their patriotism and generosity
by extensively purchasing anti-Socialist literature, whether in
the form of books, pamphlets or leaflets, to be sent to public
libraries, clubs, high schools, colleges and universities, and
reading-rooms, and placed within easy reach of their employes
and customers.

The workingmen of our country, to whom the Socialists are
especially appealing, often fall an easy prey to the deceptive
arguments of the " Eeds." Many of them do not weigh matters
carefully and do not realize how far the acceptance of radical
doctrines may lead them. The men who started the Eussian
revolution did not know how far it would go. The party of

CAMPAIGN AGAINST THE REDS 37^

Lvoff and Miliukofl did not foresee Kerensky. The followers
of Kerensky did not foresee Lenine and Trotzky; and probably
few of the followers of Lenine and Trotzky dreamed of the
abyss of barbarism into which they in turn have plunged bleed-
ing Russia. The Socialists of the United States use pamphlets
and leaflets, much more than books, in appealing to working-
men. Books are more expensive and require more time to read.
Leaflets are attractive, short, to the point, easily remembered
and almost costless. Anti-Socialist leaflets, distributed by the
millions, would do untold good and would soon start a tre-
mendous opposition among laborers to the Eed Flag movement.

Since the foreigners in our country, especially Eussians,
Italians and Jews, take to Socialism very readily, something
should be done to protect them by native Americans who are
especially able to do so. Patriotic persons and organizations
should have immense numbers of anti- Socialist books, pamphlets
and leaflets published in the different languages and distributed
free of charge to foreigners who are not yet acquainted with
English.

Socialism has made terrible inroads among the Jews. To
give one example, " The Forward," a Yiddish daily of New
York City, has a circulation of about 150,000 copies. This
paper should be watched very carefully by the government, for
it has been doing some very dangerous work in the line of
revolutionary propaganda without English-speaking people being
aware of the doctrines it is advocating.

In order to counteract Socialist propaganda among girls and
boys, a simple and limited knowledge of the evil plottings of
the "Eeds" ought to be imparted in all the grammar and
high schools of our country. With a view to this, text-books
should be prepared. The boards of education in the different
cities should see to it that anti-Socialist instruction be given
to the children.

Editors who have a good understanding of the evil conse-
quences of Socialism have a fine field rapidly opening up to
them. Since the Marxian principles are spreading, there is a
rapidly growing demand for articles to refute and combat them ;
yet many on the editorial staffs seem to have little definite
knowledge concerning the teachings of the revolutionists.

All patriotic citizens who understand Socialism and the
tactics of the " Knights of the Eed Flag " should expose them,
violently attacking them in their conversations wii;h others, so
that it may no longer be said that the revolutionaries are more

380 THE RED CONSPIRACY

zealous in trying to rum our country and overthrow oui govern-
ment than loyal Americans are to save them.

Attention should be paid to the men who are advocating
Socialism in the mills, factories, shops, stores, mines, etc. A
thorough exposure of their unsound doctrines will be prolific of
much good. The ardor and zeal of the anti-Socialist should
go still further, and the illogical revolutionary orators should
be driven from their soap boxes, not by violence nor by physical
force — for this would only give them another opportunity for
complaining and enable them to win the support of sympa-
thizers — but by arguments with them so effective as to compel
them to step down and walk off in disgrace under the jeers of
their audiences. In arguing with the visionaries, proofs for the
truth of their statements should be demanded and the fact ought
always to be insisted upon that, even if they could show that
the present system of government and industry was corrupt
and useless, it would in no way follow from this that the Social-
ists' regime — however magnificently pictured by an unbridled
imagination — would provide a true remedy for any of the
evils and abuses of our day.

The letters that Socialists send to the daily papers for publi-
cation, to further their cause, can, as a rule, easily be refuted.
All that is required, in most instances, after a brief introduction
of the question at issue, is to connect, by a few short sentences,
several of the damaging quotations that can be found, for
example, in the present volume.

Men who have talent for public speaking can make good use
of their eloquence in the warfare against our nation's foes by
giving lectures and delivering speeches. Good writers should
devote their talents to the preparation of books, pamphlets and
leaflets against the revolutionists, and should furnish suitable
articles for the newspapers and magazines. The follies of Social-
ism also afford an abundance of suggestions for dramatists and
cartoonists.

Socialist school teachers and principals, because of the revolu-
tionary doctrines that they gradually instill into the minds of
the young, should be eliminated from the school-room. Students
of colleges and universities, in which the Intercollegiate Socialist
Society is organized, could give a noble example of patriotism
and loyalty to our country by forming clubs to oppose the influ-
ence of the Socialist chapters and offset the great harm they
are doing.

CAMPAIGN AGAINST THE REDS 381

Patriotic members of the American Federation of Labor
ehould attend as many of its meetings as possible in order to
prevent the Marxians and radicals from gaining the upper hand
in the organization, endorsing the Socialist Party, or adopting
revolutionary principles of any kind.

As Socialist women are trying to destroy onr Federal Gov-
ernment, the women who are opposed to Socialism should give
ample proofs of their loyalty and devotion by taking an active
part in the defense of their country.

Anti- Socialist clubs should be formed throughout the country
to study Socialism and to devise means for combating the
zealous propaganda carried on by the thousands of Socialist
locals and branches. Influential members of the anti-Socialist
clubs should see to it that the public libraries were well stocked
with anti-Socialist literature and that Socialist publications are
kept only for legitimate purposes of reference.

Several very important works of defence remain to be under-
taken by our National Government, if the conspirators are to be
prevented from destroying it. Socialism has already struck
deep roots into the soil of America. Consequently, the Govern-
ment of the United States, in leaving to individuals the defence
of the nation against the well organized forces of the revolu-
tionists, is running a risk almost as great as if it were to
entrust the suppression of an armed insurrection to individual
action. The Socialists availing themselves of every opportunity
for spreading their propaganda among foreigners, have already
gained many recruits from the immigrant class. With tliis
serious condition of afEairs confronting it, the National Govern-
ment should employ strenuous measures to break the grip that
Socialism already has on the nation, and to prevent the immi-
grants who are landing on our shores from becoming a menace.

A law should be passed by Congress forbidding the publica-
tion or circulation of any paper, magazine or book which advo-
cates the unlawful destruction of our present form of govern-
ment. The officers of the army and navy should take precau-
tions for preventing the spread of such publications among
soldiers and sailors.

So far we have spoken only of the negative measures that the
United States Government should adopt for its defence. _ It
remains to add a few words concerning a positive campaign
against the conspirators. If the Government neglects to stem
the rising tide of Socialism it will not be long before a dis-
astrous insurrections will be upon us. Millions of dollars a day

383 THE RED CONSPIRACY

would then be spent in defraying the expenses of what might
turn out to be an unsuccessful campaign. Congress should now
appropriate the sums of money necessary to suppress the Marxian
uprising and entirely uproot Socialism out of the United States.

The American people as a body will never tolerate Socialism,
once they have been made to realize its full meaning and ruinous
consequences. This knowledge could be brought home to them
most effectively by means of anti-Socialist information issued
periodically under the direction of one of the departments of
the Government and furnished to the press of the country.
Such material should also be distributed to all labor organiza-
tions and every public library in the country, and to clubs,
societies, clergj'men, legislators, judges, and men and women
of influence. If such a plan were adopted, the forces arrayed
in the line of battle against the Socialists would become tre-
mendously strong and the danger now seriously threatenirig our
nation would presently disappear. Surely the Government could
afford to spend a few million dollars a year against revolutionists
who are already undermining its very foundations and whose
activities, if unopposed, will bring upon us evils incomparably
greater than those coming from a foreign foe.

Orators attacking Socialism could be recruited by the Govern-
ment to speak all over the country for five or ten minutes at a
time, after the fashion of the Pour Minute Men.

Those who have read this book have seen that the principles
of the revolutionists are logically unsound and would deluge the
land we love with rivers of blood and plunge us into an abyss
of discontent, strife, crime and chaos. It has been shown that
the Socialist Party is an organization controlled by bosses and
politicians with the avowed object of gaining votes by the most
unscrupulous methods. Notwithstanding their pretentions to
honesty and sincerity, evidence has been cited time and again
of the deceitfulness of their propaganda, and of their plottings
to overthrow our constitutional form of government, destroy
religion and ruin family life.

We, however, who sincerely love America, will never tear
down the Star-Spangled I'anner and in its place fling to the
breezes the blood-stained flag of Karl Marx.

INDEX

Absolutism in Russia, 281-2, 286,
290.

Action, See Direct Action and
Mass Action.

A. E. F. ridiculed by N. Y. " Call,"
208-9.

Albany Trial, See N. Y. State
Socialist Assemblymen.

Aliases of "Reds," 376.

AUaben, Frank, 258.

Alvarado, 96, 298-9.
American Federation of Labor,
381; against Bolshevism and
L W. W.'ism, 283-4; "Boring
in," 346-9; Opposed by Social-
ists, 126, 219.

American Flag, 118.

American Soldiers ridiculed, 207-
9.

Amnesty, Agitations for, 347, 376.

Anarchy, Danger of, 279.

Andreiev's S. O. S., 168-9.

Anti-" Red " Campaign. among
foreign-born, 379.

Anti-Socialist authorities, 378;
Letters, 380; Literature, 378-9;
Speeches, 380.

"Appeal to Reason," 343, 359.

Argentina, Socialism in, 11, 12.

Aristocracy in Bolshevist Russia,
280-1.

Assemblymen, Socialist, on trial,
See N. Y. State Socialist
Assemblymen.

Atheism of Socialists, 293, 301-
16; in Austria, 295; Belgium,
295-6; Canada, 298; England,
296-8; France, 295; Germany,
294; Italy, 295; Mexico, 298-9,
300; United States, 292-3, 297.

Atheistic Catechism, 308-9 ;
Poems, 302-4; Works on sale,
297, 305, 307.

Austria-Hungary, Socialism in, 5.

Aveling, 8.

B

Bavaria, Socialism in, 4, 178-9.

Basle Manifesto, 18.

Bax, Ernest Belfort, 297, 321-3.

Bebel, August, 2, 198, 200, 294,
324.

Bela Kun, 75, 178, 180, 190.

Belgium, Socialism in, 10.

Berger, Victor L., 13, 15, 51, 54,
56, 62, 67, 69, 70-1, 89, 201-2,
220-1, 232-3, 242-3, 290, 313,
322, 368; "We must shoot,"
201; "rifles" and "bullets,"
202.

Berne Conference, 9, 18-21, 25, 46,
61, 68.

Bernstein, 3.

Bible, attacked by Socialists, 297,
303.

Blasphemies of Socialists, 296-7,
303-5, 307-9.

Blatchford, 8, 296.

Bolsheviki, Russian, Advocacy of
rebellion in other lands, 171-2;
Criticised by Catherine Bresh-
kovsky, 139; Disperse parlia-
ment, 4, 138; Edvcaticnal Sys-
tem, 151; Freeing of criminals,
161; Murder women, 158; Op-
posed to liberty, 145; Rise to
power, 4, 138; Shooting of chil-
dren, 155-7; Uprisings against,
161; Victories, 5.

Bolshevism, Advocated by Ameri-
can Socialist Party, 59, 60-2, 68,
70, 72, 74-5, 77, 142, 168, 171-3,
184-5, 187-94, 198, 205, 234-6,
238, 248, 250, 255; identical
with Socialism, 291; in America,
185; in Russia, Against freedom
of speech, of the press and of
Toting, 145, 155; Against jus-
tice, 146, 154; liberty, 145; re-
ligion, 146-51; An economic
failure, 174-5; Starvation un-
der, 282-3, 286.

383

384

THE RED CONSPIRACY

Bolsheviat Constitution, 139-40;

propaganda, 256.
Bolshevist reign of terror, 141,

143, 145-8, 153, 154-63.
Bomb plot, 118-19.
Bonds, under Socialism, 273.
Books, anti-Socialiat, 378.
"Boring in," 348-9.
Bossism in Socialist Party, 14, 15.
Bourgeoisie, 30.
Branting, Hjalmar, 11.
Breshkovsky, Catherine, 139, 170.
Bulgaria, Socialism in, 12.
Bureau, International Socialist,

17.
Business under Socialism, 83,

272-3.

Cadets of Russia, 4.

Calhoun, Arthur W., 356-7.

Call for Moscow International,
31-3.

Call for Proletarian International,
247.

Campaign against the Reds, 377-
82.

Canada, Socialism in, 12.

Capital invited back by Socialist
Russia, 288.

Capitalism, 76, 106, 174, 373.

Carillo, Felipe, 299.

Cartoons, Socialist, 360; anti-
Socialist, 380.

Children, anti-Socialist instruc-
tion for, 379; Deprived of re-
ligious education under Social-
ism, 302; 'Shot in Bolshevist
Russia, 155-7.

Chinese and the I. W. W., 120.

Christ ridiculed by Socialists,
303-5; 307-8.

Christian Socialists, 292, 310, 315,
322.

Christianity attacked by Social-
ists, 292-316.

Citizenship tags, 99.

Civil discord under Socialism,
269-79.

Class consciousness, 265.

Class hatred, 63, 107, 346, 348,
352, 363-4, 372-3.

Class struggle explained, 30, 107-
8, 265.

Clubs, anti-Socialist, 381.

Committee against Socialism, Pub-
licity, 257-8.

Compensation, I. W. W. plan. 111.

Commune, Paris, 200-1.

Communism, in Bavaria, 4, 178-9;
in Russia, See Bolshevism and
Bolshevist reign of terror.

Communist, the name, 59.

Communist Labor Party of
America, Chicago Convention,
55-8; Conspiracy against U. S.
Government, 214-19; Origin, 52-
3, 64; Principles, 53-4, 58, 74,
218-19, 225; Socialist Party's
attitude toward, 74-5.

Communist Labor Party of Ger-
many, See Spartacans.

Communist Manifesto, 1, 46, 198,
321.

Communist Party of America,
Chicago Convention, 55-8; Con-
spiracy against U. S. Govern-
ment, 214-19; Origin, 52-3; Plan
to organize Negroes, 217-18;
Principles, 53-4, 58; 74-5, 217-
19, 224; Socialist Party's atti-
tude toward, 74-5, 225.

Communist Propaganda League,
25, 64.

Communists of Hungary, 1^-91;
Favored by American Socialists,
, 180, 186, 188-93.

Conscription of labor in Socialist

Russia, 281-5.
Conspiracy against our country,
212-67; against the family, 317-
29; against the race, 330-41;
against religion, 292-316.

Constituent Assembly, Russia, 4.

Convention, Socialist Party, 75,
91-3.

Co-operative organizations, Rus-
sian and Siberian, 162-3.

Corruption, political, among So-
cialists, 97, 277-8.

Criminals freed in Bolshevist Rus-
sia, 161.

Czecho-Slovakia, Socialism in, 10-
11.

INDEX

385

D

Debs, Eugene V., 59, 81, 92, 105,

126-7, 194-7, 203-4, 210-11, 239-

45, 264, 290, 315-16, 336.
DeLeon, Daniel, 13, 105.
Demands of Socialist Platforms,

Immediate, 368.
Determinism, Economic, 293.
Dictatorship of the Proletariat, 4,

47, 49-50, 53-4, 128, 145, 189,

220.
Direct action, 24, 31, 98, 124-5,

201, 370.
Discontent, Socialist apostles of,

343, 346-8.
Divorce in Bolshevist Russia, 164,

167, 329.
" Dope " of " Scientific Socialists,"

96-102, 363-4.
" Down with the Stars and

Stripes," 210.
" Drunk with man," a Socialist

masterpiece, 87.
Dynamite, use advocated, 299-300.

E

Ebert, 3, 177, 179, 187-90.
Economic conditions in Bolshevist

Russia, 174-5.
Economic determinism, 293.
Education in Bolshevist Russia,

151.
Eisner, Kurt, 4, 7, 178, 187.
Emergency Convention, Socialist

Party, 242.
Employment schemes in Socialist

srate, 273.
Engels, Frederick, 1-2, 294, 325-6.
Ettor, Jos. J., 105-6.
Exploitation, 49-50, 83, 106, 110,

272 365.
Expropriation, 49, 50' 53, 98-9,

108, 123, 143, 179-80, 189-90,

270-1.
Expulsion, Michigan organization,

from Socialist Party, 42.
"Eye Opener, The," 192.
Eyre, Lincoln, interview with

Lenine, 173-4; with Trotzky,

174-6; with Zinoviefl, 253-5; on

Bolshevist Russia, 253-6, 279-84,

286-90.

Fabian Society, 8.

Failure of Socialism, in Mexico,
101-2; in Bolshevist Russia, 2,
279-90; in Yucatan, 101-2.

Farming under Socialism, 32, 49,
83, 271-2.

Ferguson, I. E., 133-4.

Fighting the " Reds," 377-82. _

Financial conditions in Socialist
Russia, 287-8.

"Flag, to hell with the," 210.

Foreign language papers of Social-
ist Party, 343.

Foster, William Z., 348-9.

Fraina, Louis C, 26, 55, 214-15.

France, Socialism in, 5, 7-8.

Freedom of Speech, 114, 242, 354;
in Bolshevist Russia, 145.

Free love, advocated by Social-
ists, 317-29; Hypocricy of So-
cialists regarding, 370; in So-
cialist Russia, 164, 166, 329;
Socialist books on, 317, 321-26,
329.

G

Gale, Linn A. E., 339-340.

Germany, Socialism in, 2, 3.

Germer, Adolph, letter to " Ap-
peal," 92-3.

Giovannitti, Arturo, 108-9, 111,
308.

Government ownership of public
utilities, 368-9.

" Grandmother of the Russian
Revolution," See Breshkovsky,
Catherine.

Great Britain, Socialism in, 8-9.

Guesde, Jules, 6, 321.

H

Haase, Hugo, 3.

Hardie, J. Keir, 8.

Haywood, William D., 123-4, 127,

199, 241, 248.
Herron, George D., 302; day dream

of, 94, 95.
High Schools, Socialism taught in,

354.

386

THE RED CONSPIRACY

Hillquit, Morris, 13, 17, 23, 34,
40-1, 50-1, 54, 62-3, 73-5, 79,
81, 85, 89, 184, 188, 220-1, 224-
6, 232-4, 236-7, 239-40, 243-5,
248-53, 255, 259-60, 263-6, 274-
5, 290, 311, 313-14, 328, 337,
361, 366.

Hoan, Mayor of Milwaukee, 69,
202.

Holland, Socialism in, 10.

Hostages in Bolshevist Russia,
154, 159.

Hypocrisy of the I. W. W., 246.

Hypocrisy of Socialists, 204-5,
210, 219-21, 225, 233-6, 239-40,
246, 252-4, 266, 363-71, 375-6;
On religion, 292, 309-16, 326;
On free love, 317, 319-20, 322-4,
326.

Hyndman, Henry M., 8.

Iglesias, Pablo, 9.

Immediate demands of Socialist
Party platforms, 24, 87, 91, 368.

Immorality under Socialism, 317-
41.

Independent Labor Party of Great
Britain, 8.

Ingeraoll argument of Socialists,
293.

Inheritance, rights of, 110.

Industrial action, 77, 228-9, 234,
237-8.

Industrial Unionism, Endorsed by
Communists and Communist
Laborites of America, 54; by
Socialist Party, 238; I. W. W.,
107-8.

Insurance policies under Socialism,
273.

Inter-alied Socialist and Labor
Conference, 21-2.

Intercollegiate Socialist Society,
355-6, 380.

International, First, 16; Second,
7, 16, 17-19, 32, 68; Third, 6-7,
9, 11-12, 18, 20-1, 33, 45-50, 61,
67-9, 74-5, 216, 218, 228, 233-6,
239, 252-6.

International character of Social-
ism, 17.

International Congresses, 17.

International Socialist Bureau, 17.

International Workingmen's Asso-
ciation, 1, 2.

" Internationale Communist," or-
gan of Moscovr International,
255-6.

Irreligious poems of Socialists,
302-4.

Italian labor unions, 9.

Italy, Socialism in, 9.

I. W. W., Advocates rebellion,
109, 115-17; Affiliated with
Moscow Bolshevists, 247-8;
Atheistic and anti-religious,
118; Bomb threat, 119; Chinese
to be organized, 120; Encour-
aged by Socialist Party, 114-15;
Growth, 136; Industrial union-
ism, 107-8; In foreign lands,
136-7; Method of organization,
106-7; Negroes to be organized,
119; Organized by Socialists,
105; Paterson strike, 117-18;
Plans destruction of society,
109; Preamble to platform, 107;
Principles, 105-13, 115, 125,
130-1; Publications, 116-17;
Relations with Socialist Party,
105, 108, 114-15, 122-7, 129,
131-6; Songs, 120-2; Tactics,
109; Terrorism, 118; Views on
Bolshevism, 128-33.

Jaur^s, 6, 321.

K

Kautsky, Karl, 2, 233.

Labor certificates, 273.

Labor Conference, Inter-allied, 21.

Labor conscription in Socialist

Russia, 281-5.
Labor Party of Illinois, 173.
Labor under Socialism, 273-7.
Land ownership under Bolshevism,

139; under Socialism, 271-2,

365-8.
Lassalle, Ferdinand, 2.

Index

38t

Law and order in Socialist Rus-
sia, 282, 290.

Leaflet campaign of Socialists,
192, 344-5.

Leaflets, anti-Socialist, 378-9.

League of Resistance, 299, 300.

Leathan, 8.

Lectures, anti-Socialist, 380.

Left Wing, Conference, 52; Criti-
cises the Right, 25, 28-9, 36, 37;
Defined, 23; Development, 24,
39, 45; Directed by Russian
Bolsheviki, 31-3; Expulsions
and suspensions, 42-5; Merges
into Communist and Communist
Labor Parties, chapter 5; Op-
posed by Socialist Party bosses,
36-7; Origin, 24; Principles,
24-31, 36; Relations with I. W.
W., 135-6; Tactics at party
meetings, 35, 37, 38.

Legion, Loyal, rediculed by Social-
ists, 208-9. _

Lenine or Lenin, Nicolai, Autocrat
of Russia, 5; Letter to American
workingmen, 142, 170, 174,
183-4, 216, 223-4.

Lesson 24, Socialist Primer, 352.

Liebknecht, Karl, 3, 7, 30, 177-8,
185-7 191-3.

Liebknecht, Wilhelm, 2, 294.

Longuet, Jean, 6.

London, Jack, 199, 200, 268.

Looters, Socialist, 102.

Loriot, F., 6.

Love, See Free-love.

Lusk Committee evidence, 248-50,
264, 358, 361.

Luxemburg, Rosa, 3, 7, 30, 177-8,
187, 191-3.

M

MacDonald, J. Ramsay, 18-19.

Manifesto, See Communist Mani-
festo; of Left Wing, 28; of
3I0SCOW, See Moscow Manifesto;
of National Emergency Conven-
tion of Socialist Party, 72-8,
181, 228-9, 236-7, 239.

Marriage ia Bolshevist Russia,
164.

Martens, Ludwig C. A. K., 172,
184-5, 194, 233-4, 248, 251.

Marx, ICarl, 2, 198, 200, 372.
Mass Action, 11, 26-8, 32, 69, 92,

217, 227, 228-9, 231, 234, 237,

262.
Materialistic conception of history,

293, 315.
May Day riots, 196-7.
Mensheviki of Russia, 4.
Mexico, Socialism in, 12, 96.
Militarism in Bolshevist Russia,

176.
Millerand, 6.
Money situation in Bolshevist

Russia, 287.
Money under Socialism, 272-3.
Morris, 8.

Moscow Conference, call to, 233.
Moscow International, See Third

International.
Moscow Manifesto, 46-9, 67, 216-

18, 228, 235, 237, 239-40.
Moscow propaganda methods, 253-

4, 256.
Moving pictures. Socialist, 351.

N

National Emergency Convention,
Socialist Party, 43, 55-7, 66-7,
69-72, 76-8; Manifesto of, 72-8.

Nationalization of women, 163-8.

Nearing, Scott, 205, 361.

Negroes, organized by I. W. W.,
119; by Socialist Party, 361.

Newspapers in Bolshevist Russia,
145.

" New Unionism, The," 108.

New York State Socialist Assem-
blymen on trial at Albany, 34,
74-5, 221-7, 232, 234, 239,
242-6, 249-50, 252-3, 255, 257-
65, 329, 340-1.

Norway, Socialism in, 11.

Oaths, Socialist, 260.
Old Age Pension, Berger's, 89.
One Big Union, See I. W. W.
"One Big Union MontHly," 105.
Origin of modern Socialism, 1.
Ownership, Government, 368-9.

388

THE BED COKSPIKACX

Papers, Socialist, of the U. S., 14.

Parental authority undermined by
Socialists, 353.

Paris Commune, 200-1.

Parochial schools under Social-
ism, 302.

Parties affiliated with the Third
(Moscow) International, 33.

Paterson, N. J., strike of 1913,
117-18.

Petrograd under Bolshevist rule,
161.

Platform planks of Socialists ut-
terly unreliable, 365-8.

Poems, anti-religious Socialist,
302-4.

Political action, 24, 26, 201.

Political corruption among Social-
ists, 97, 277-8.

Primer, Socialist, Lesson 24, 352.

Private business under Socialism,
83.

Private ownership of land in So-
cialist state, 271-2.

Private property, 32, 47, 53, 76,
80-3, 110, 365-8.

Private property under Bolshevist
rule, 139.

Private schools under Socialism,
302.

Profit under Socialism, 82, 273.

Proletarian International, call for,
247.

Proletariat, 30.

Promises, golden, of Socialists,

342-4, 349, 371.
Propaganda, Socialist, 192, 342-

61, 363-5, 368-76.

Prostitution under Socialism, 318-
21.

Publications of 1. W. W., 116-17.

Publications of Socialist Party,
343-5.

Publicity Committee against So-
cialism, 257-8.

Q

Quelch, 8,

R

Race suicide, 326-7.

Raids, Government, on Communist
and Communist Labor Parties,
215.

Raids on L W. W. 116.

Rand School, 248-50, 357, 361.

Rebellion advocated by Socialists,
47-50, 63-4, 71-2, 75, 78, 109,
115-17, 123, 128, 131, 134, 170-2,
183-4, 186, 189, 197-9, 201-2,
204-5, 212-20, 222, 227-9, 234-5,
237, 240-1, 243, 247, 249, 251,
254, 255-6, 262, 265, 266, 269,
270, 351, 356.

"Reds" and "Yellows," 23, 24.

Reed, John, 55.

Refinery, sugar, 100, 102.

Religion, conspiracy against, 292-
316.

Religion in Bolshevist Russia,
146-51, 168.

Remuneration for work under
Socialism, 83, 273-7.

Rents under Socialism, 82, 273.

Resistance, League of, 299, 300.

Revolution without the " r," 23.

Right and Left Wings, 23.

Riots, Socialist, 194-5, 196-8.

" Rows and Rows of 'em march,"
208-9.

"Russia going to pieces,'' 174.

Russia, Socialism in, 4; See Bol-
sheviki, Bolshevism and Bol-
shevist.

Russian Industrial Unions appeal
to workers in Allied countries,
247-8.

S

Sabotage, 111-13.

Scheidemann, 3, 177, 179, 187-8,

190.
Schools under Socialism, 302.
School teachers. Socialist, 380.
Seventy-seventh Division, A. E. F.,

208.
Shaw, 8.
Soap box orators, 343, 363-5, 368-

71, 380.
Social Democratic Federation of

Great Britain, 8.

INDEX

389

Social reforms hypocritically ad-
vocated by Socialists, 87-91,
368-9.

Socialism a peril, 268-84, 286-90,
347; Explained, 76, 79-93, 198-9,
270-8, 349, 365-£, 372-3; Fails
in Yucatan, 101-2.

Socialist beggars, 92.

Socialist blasphemies, 296-7, 303-
5, 307-9.

Socialist legislators, criticism of,
29.

Socialist oaths, 260.

Socialist papers of the U. S., 14.

Socialist school teachers, 380.

Socialists and the I. W. W., 105,
108, 114-15, 122-7, 129, 131-6.

Socialists, varieties of. See Vari-
eties.

Soldiers and Sailors proselytized
by Socialists, 359-60.

Soldiers of America ridiculed by
Socialists, 207-9.

Songs, I. W. W., 120-2; Socialist,
351.

Soviets of Russia, 18, 138, 142-3.
157-8; Origin, 4; Uprisings
against, 143-5.

" Soviet Russia," magazine, 172.

Spain, Socialism in, 9, 10.

Spargo, John, 123, 303.

Spartacans, 3, 30, 53, 177-8, 190;
Favored by American Socialists,
177, 187-93.

Spartacides, See Spartacans.

Speculators in Socialist Russia,
282, 286.

" Stars and Stripes,'' down with,
210.

Starvation in Socialist Russia,
282-3, 286.

St. Louis platform of Socialists,
75, 91-2, 125.

Stokes, Rose Pastor, 55.

Strikes, Bring death in Socialist
Russia, 290; in Belgium, 10;
Paris, 7; Prelude to armed re-
bellion, 26-8, 32, 109-10, 241,
346-8; in Rome, 9; Sympathetic,
346, 108, 109; Under a Social-
ist form of government, 276;
Winnipeg, 125, 229-30, 245-6.

Struggle, See Class struggle.

" Struggling Russia," magazine,
142.

Students' warfare against Social-
ism, 380.

Sugar refinery in Yucatan, 100,
102.

Suicide, See Race suicide.

Sunday schools. Socialist, 350-3.

Sweden, Socialism in, 11.

Tactics of the Left Wing, 35.

Teachers of public schools. Com-
munists, 355.

Teachers' Union of New York
City, 354-5.

Terrorism of I. W. W., 118.

Theatrical plays. Socialist, 351,
360.

Thomas, Albert, 6.

Trial at Albany of Socialist
Assemblymen, See New York
State Socialist Assemblyman.

U

Underground, " Reds " working,
375-6.

"Uniform, spit on it," 208.

Union among Socialists of all
nations, 17. ,

Unionism, Industrial, See Indus-
trial Unionism.

United States, Socialism in, 13

Vandervelde, Emil, 10, 270, 296.
Varieties of Socialists, 79.
Voting in Bolshevist Russia, 140,
145.

W
Wage courts under Socialism,

276-7.
Wage system, abolition Of, 107,

108.
Wages under Socialism, 273-7.
Walling's criticism of Socialist

Party, 251.
War, Socialist opposition to, 91-3.
Wings, Right and Left, 23.
Winnipeg general strike, 230-1.

390

THE RED CONSPIRACY

Work, assignment to, under So-
cialism, 273-7.

Works, anti-Socialist, 378.

Workingmen, beware of the Reds,
375-6, 378-9, 382.

Women must work imder Social-
ism, 84-5, 277.

Wreckage resulting from Social-
ism, 101-2.

Wynkoop, David, 10.

'Yellow" Socialists, 63.
'Yellows" and "Reds," 23-4, 58,
66.

Young People's Socialist clubs,

350-1.
Young, Teaching Socialism to,

350-5.
Yucatan, Atheism of Socialists in,

298-9.
Yucatan, Socialism in, 96.

Zapata, Emiliano, 98, 101-2.
Zeuch, letter to by Socialist pro-
fessor, 356-7.
Zimmerwald resolutions, 6.
Zinovieff, 252-5.

APPENDIX

THE NATIONAL CONVENTION OF THE

SOCIALIST PARTY OF THE UNITED

STATES, MAY 8-14, 1920

After " The Eed Conspiracy " went to press, this Convention
was held at Finnish Hall, New York City. Of its 156 delegates,
sixty were of foreign birth. By some newspapers the Convention
was incorrectly styled " mild " and " conservative," so well were
the avowed revolutionary designs of the Socialists camouflaged
behind seemingly harmless innocuous phrases for the deception
of the uninformed. "Vote-catching" was the key-note of the
proceedings. As this book shows, the Socialist Party in 1919
lost the vast majority of its members to the Communists and
the Communist Laborites and had, therefore, to seek new mem-
bers. These, however, could be won only by concealing for the
time being the true revolutionary objects of the Socialist Party.
This covering-up of its conspiracy against the United States,
and the resultant gathering into the conspirators' net of the
timid halfway Socialists as yet members of other political
Parties, could be accomplished only by the lure of a Convention
Platform so worded as to convince the unwary that the Socialists
as a Party had discarded their ultra radicalism and blatant
un-Americanism.

The Convention of May, 1920, therefore, was guided, under
the adroit management of Morris Hillquit and Victor L. Berger,
toward a Platform worded more mildly and conservatively than
might have been expected. No thinking person, however, Social-
ist or decent American, will be deceived into believing that the
beast of prey has changed its ugly spots because a gauzy veil
of lies has been thrown over them.

" The Eed Conspiracy " has proven that the Socialists in the
United States have been, almost to a man, in thorough accord
with the principles and workings of the blackest Bolshevism.
They have consistently and completely supported the I. "W. "W.
They are avowed foes of the Am&rican Federation of Labor,
though willing enough to use this organization by sending
traitors to join it and to bore their rat-holes of corruption from
within its respectable membership. One of the delegates to the

391

392 THE RED CONSPIEACT

Socialist Convention of May, 1920, George Bauer, of Kew Jersey,
said : " We must remember that there are four or five million
men in the A. F. of L., and I don't believe we can establish a
co-operative commonwealth without them." The Convention,
following this argument of expediency, adopted a resolution
stating that the Socialist Party did not intend to interfere with
the internal affairs of labor unions ; but added a statement that
the Party favored the organization of workers along the line
of industrial unionism, acting as one organized working-class
body. The I. W. W. is, of course, the leading industrial union
in America, and the Convention's resolution set another seal to
the sj'mpathetic bond between Socialism and I. W. "W.'ism, with
the added encouragement of the Socialist Party's support of the
less powerful industrial unions now within the American Fed-
eration of Labor.

The Camouflagists at the Convention politely declared that
the Socialist Party did not seek to interfere with the institution
of the family. But Hilkovitz whitewash is not white enough to
obscure the lurid red of of the free-love and race-suicide propa-
ganda carried on in the Socialist press, Hillquit's favorite sheet,
" The New York Call," being one of the chief offenders. A
visit to the Eand School in New York City and examination of
the books for sale on its book-store shelves and the periodicals
and pamphlets there for sale will present appalling and convinc-
ing evidence of the Socialist efforts to destroy elementary
decency as well as the institutions of marriage and the family.

Another declaration of the Camouflagists at the Socialist Con-
vention of May, 1920, stated that the Socialist Party "recog-
nizes the right of voluntary communities of citizens to maintain
religious institutions and to worship freely according to the
dictates of their conscience." As August Claessens warned the
Convention : " Cry out against that which men cherish as holy,
and you rouse an antagonism which no argument can defeat."
This counsel of discretion is interesting side by side with
another Convention statement, made by William Karlin of New
York : " If the churches do stand for the old order, it will
be a bad day for them when the new order comes, because the
churches will go down with the old order." Mr. Karlin, however,
accepting discretion as valor's better part, admitted that " There
are many people to whom we can appeal if we don't arouse their
religious prejudice;" while Delegate Mclntyre, of the District
of Columbia, prudently advised the members of the Convention
to " get the voters first and talk religion out of them afterward."

APPENDIX 393

Again, a visit to the boolj-shop of the Eand School is suggested
if proof is desired of the Socialist propaganda of atheism, sacri-
lege, and, specifically, hatred of Christianity. The reader of
" The Bed Conspiracy " will have noted enough of the Social-
ists' blasphemies to prevent the Convention Camouflagists' hedg-
ing on this subject from having any effect but added disgust at
hypocrisy.

The Convention declared in favor of political action for the
attainment of the Socialists' ends. Exactly ! Chapter XVI of
this book, " The Conspiracy Against Our Country," has shovirn
for what purposes political action and political power are to be
used. Get traitors in office and when the Eevolution comes the
forces to coerce the American people and destroy the American
Government will be in the traitors' control.

Canouflagists and their opponents of the Convention united
in the nomination of Eugene V. Debs, convicted criminal, for
President of the United States. Let us hear the words of this
man whom Morris Hillquit stated resembles "the Nazarene,"
and who styles himself " a flaming revolutionist." A press
report, from Atlanta, Georgia, dated May 14, 1920, quotes him
as sa.ying:

" Personally I am a radical. I have always been one. My
only fear has always been that I might not be radical enough.
In my own party I always led the minority, but I hope to lead
a united Socialist Party to the polls this Pall. They are fight-
ing within my own party today. It is a good healthy sign. The
radicals keep the conservatives from giving away too much to
popularize the movement. That is what killed the Populist
Party. The leaders sought to popularize its political propaganda
by pandering to more conservative elements. They lost the
radical support of their party, which became the Socialist Party,
and naturally the conservatives had no further use for them. To
begin to placate your enemies is to invite decay."

The radical minority in the Socialist Party formerly com-
prised the Left "Wing members who later on became Communists
and Communist Laborites. J. Louis Engdahl of Chicago at
present leads a new Left Wing radical minority within the Party.

The American public may at times be gullible, but hardly
suiSciently so as to believe in the sincerity of Hillquit and Vic-
tor L. Berger, who filled the air at the Convention with phrases
of moderation and disclaim of treason and revolution, following
their gentle verbiage by nominating Debs who scores those who
" sought to popularize " " political propaganda by pandering to

394 THE RED CONSPIEAOT

more conservative elements."' " Panderer " is not a pretty thing
to be called, but the pleasant Messrs. Hilkovitz and Berger swal-
low it. That their conservative phraseology would fool no one
was recognized at the Convention by Irwin St. John Tucker,
who said: "You can disguise yourself by sprouting pink
whiskers." Mr. Tucker, however, would not join the Camou-
flagists, remarking : " It may be that the American people are
not yet ready to accept Socialist principles, but I would rather
lose an election than lose those principles."

Hillquit himself said in the Convention, on May 13, 1920,
that the nomination of Debs "proves that we have not receded
from our position of revolutionary Socialism and that we will
be more effective and still more revolutionary than ever before."

J. Louis Engdahl may be an enemy to the United States and
to society in general, but he is man enough to say boldly what
lie really thinks. At the Convention he declared : " I say that
it is time to inaugurate the revolution immediately. The time
to prepare for victory is now. . . . We can't fool anybody
liere by decorating the walls with the flag of "Wall St."

Delegate Oneal, one of Hillquit's own faction of political
actionists, volunteered to furnish a reason why camouflage was
a useful policy for the Socialists to adopt until " The Day "
arrived, — the black day when the United States of America
should be gasping in the throes of death-agony, like wretched
Eussia. Oneal sapiently remarked at the Convention : " The
time and conditions which favored the Eussian revolution must
be studied before we attempt to adopt them here."

But the Camouflagists of the Convention did not sever and
did not wish to sever the close bond of union between the Social-
ist Party of the United States and the Third or Moscow Inter-
national, the Convention, in its majority report, stating that
" The Moscow organization is virile and aggressive, inspired as
it is by the militant idealism of the Eussian revolution," the
majority report further stating that the Socialist Party of the
United States, "retaining its adherence to the Third Inter-
national," "instructs its executive committee, its international
secretary and international delegates to be elected" "To par-
ticipate in movements looking to the union of all true Socialist
forces in the world into one International and to initiate and
fiirther such movements whenever the opportunity is presented."
The said majoritv report follows, as reported in "The ISTew
York Call," May 15, 1920:

APPENDIX 395

" The international organization of Socialism has been dis-
rupted as a result of the world war.

" The old Second International is represented principally by
the majority party of Germany, the Socialist parties of the coun-
tries carved out from the former Austro-Hungarian empire, and
of most of the countries of Europe that remained neutral during
the war.

" The parties affiliated with this organization have largely
abandoned the revolutionary character and the militant methods
of working class Socialism. As a rule, they co-operate with the
middle class reform parties of their countries.

" The Third or Moscow International was organized by the
Communist party of Eussia with the co-operation of several
other Communist organizations recruited in the main from the
countries split off from the former Russian empire and some
Scandinavian and Balkan countries. The Third International
also includes the Labor party of Norway and the Communist
Labor party of Poland. Of the other important countries, the
Socialist parties of Switzerland, Italy and the United States,
and the British Socialist party have expressed their intention to
affiliate with it.

" The Moscow organization is virile and aggressive, inspired
as it is by the militant idealism of the Eussian revolution. It is,
however, at this time only a nucleus of a Socialist International,
and its progress is largely impeded by the attitude of its present
governing committee, which seems inclined to impose upon all
affiliated bodies the formula of the Eussian revolution ' The
dictatorship of the proletariat in the form of Soviet power.'

" The Independent Socialist party of Germany, the Socialist
party of Prance and the Independent Labor party of Great
Britain are unaffiliated. They have initiated a movement to
unite all truly Socialist parties of the world, including those rep-
resented in the Moscow organization, into one International.

" At no time was an active and effective organization of a
Socialist International more vitally necessary for the success of
Socialism than at this crucial period of the world's history.
Socialism is in complete control in the great country of Eussia.
It is represented in the bourgeois governments of several impor-
tant countries of Europe. The Socialists constitute the leading
opposition parties in most of the remaining modern countries.
It should be the task of the Socialist International to aid our
Comrades in Eussia to maintain and fortify their political con-
trol and to improve and stabilize the economic and social condi-

396 THE EED COISrSPIEACY

tions of their country by forcing tlie great powers of Europe and
America to abandon the dastardly policy of intrigue, war and
starvation blockade against Soviet Eussia. It should be its task
to help the Socialists in countries of divided political control to
institute full and true Socialist governments, and to support the
struggles of the Socialists in the capitalist-controlled countries,
so that they may more speedily secure victory for the workers
in their countries.

" But above all a true Socialist International would at this
time fulfill the all-important function of serving as the frame-
work of the coming world parliament.

"To accomplish these great tasks the International of Social-
ism must be truly international.

" It cannot be truly Socialist if it is not based upon the pro-
gram of complete socialization of the industries, and upon the
principles of class struggle and uncompromising working class
politics. It cannot be truly international unless it accords to its
affiliated bodies full freedom in matters of policy and forms of
struggle on the basis of such program and principles, so that
the Socialists of each country may work out their problems in
the light of their own peculiar economic, political and social con-
ditions as well as the historic traditions.

" In view of the above considerations the Socialist party of
the United States, while retaining its adherence to the Third
International, instructs its executive committee, its international
secretary and international delegates to be elected

"(a) To insist that no formula such as 'the dictatorship of
the proletariat in the form of Soviets' or any other formula for
the attainment of the Socialist commonwealth be imposed or
exacted as condition of affiliation with the Third International.

"(b) To participate in movements looking to the union of all
true Socialist forces in the world into one International, and to
initiate and further such movements whenever the opportunity
is presented."

The brotherly sympatfiy between the Socialist Party of the
United States and the Eed Vandals of Soviet Eussia is exhibited
by the following, also from "The ISTew York Call," May 15,
1930, reporting the proceedings of the Socialist Convention in
Finnish Plall :

" A mission of three members was provided for to carry fra-
ternal greetings to Soviet Eussia and to investigate and report
on conditions in the first working class republic, and the inter-
national delegates were further instructed to get into comm^-

APPENDIX 397

nicatioa with Socialist organizations in North and South
America for the purpose of creating Sociali^Pan-American
congresses."

The majority reporters, or discreet Camouflagists, despite the
prudent efforts of careful Mr. Hillquit to separate the Socialist
Party of the United States from the Communists and other
out-in-the-open enemies of our Country, evidently believed it
wise to throw out a beckoning hand to all radicals in general,
especially to the Eed Left Wing Socialists who left the Party
to become Communists and Communist Laborites in the fall of
1919. At the Convention of May, 1920, the following resolution
was adopted :

" Eesolved, that we, the national convention of the Socialist
party, in order to carry into effect this desire for unity, make
the following proposals :

" That any individual, branch, local or state or language fed-
eration that left the party last fall because of tactical differences
and now desires to re-enter on the basis of the Socialist party
platform and constitution, be welcomed to return.

" That where Socialist party locals and other groups of the
labor movement exist side by side in the same locality, we pro-
pose the creation of joint campaign committees for the manage-
ment of a working class electoral campaign upon the basis of
our platform.

" That after the campaign is over, whenever the situation
promises practical results, steps be taken to confer with repre-
sentatives of other factions of the movement with a view to estab-
lishing possible basis for organization unity.

" That a national advisory council of all working class organi-
zations for the purpose of combatting the reactionary forces be
formed so that wherever possible there be voluntary united action
by all political and economic organizations who take their stand
on the basis of the class struggle."

There was a family fuss over a proposed clause, finally
stricken out, that " due stamps or other evidence of membership
in the groups formed by the split in the party shall be recog-
nized as evidence of good standing " in the Socialist Party. In
this connection, William Kruse of Illinois, who is far from a
Camouflagist, said : " Debs believes that the Communist and
Communist Labor members are as good Socialists as any." The
authorities of our Nation have condemned membership in the
Communist organization as illegal and have proven Debs a
criminal. The Socialists welcome the Communists and Com-

39'S IHE RED CONSPIRACY

mimist Laborites, "whenever the situation promises practical
results " (when the time for " shooting," for " bullets " rather
than "ballots," has arrived?), and the Socialists, Camouflagists
as enthusiastically as their opponents, acclaim Debs the criminal.
Debs the convicted enemy of the United States of America, and
nominate this criminal enemy for President of the United
States of America !

The entire record of the May, 1920, Socialist Convention is a
series of insincere, futile, clever attempts to whitewash the blood-
red of the known and proved Socialist principles and aims, these
attempts in turn combated by the more honest delegates, and
the net result being the re-afQrmation in tangible and impor-
tant matters of these same menacing principles and aims, though
set forth in wilier and more guarded language than has been
heretofore the case.

The Eed Conspiracy has been proven, and every new move
of the Socialists but confirms, in the minds of sane and loyal
Americans, the extent and peril of the conspiracy, and intensi-
fies our will to combat this evil thing in our midst until
righteous combat has fought to glorious victory. Down
with the Eed Flag of Socialism, Communism, Bolshevism,
I. W. W.'ism, and Anarchy ! Victory and glory to the Stars
and Stripes of our beloved Country !

illlllfllllh

,Ji