"Class Unionism: Speech at South Chicago," by Eugene V. Debs [Nov. 24, 1905] In 1905, Socialist leader Gene Debs went on the campaign trail on behalf of the newly organized Industrial Workers of the World, singing the organization's praises. This is one of Debs' longest preserved speeches, an analysis of the evolution of trade unionism from its "old and outgrown and out-of-date" origins in craft association to its present necessity for organization on an industrial basis to correspond with the concentration and enlargement of industry. Debs characterizes the situation as thus: "You have this great body of workers parceled out among scores of petty and purposeless unions, which are in ceaseless conflict with each other, jealous to preserve their craft identity. As long as this great army of workers is scattered among so many craft unions, it will be impossible for them to unite and act in harmony together. Craft unionism is the negation of class solidarity." Debs cites his previous experience attempting to organize the American Railway Union on an industrial basis in 1894 and the way in which state power was brought to bear in an attempt to crush that fledgling labor organization. The Industrial Workers of the World is depicted as the continuation of the spirit and practice of the ARU on a broader basis. Debs hails the revolutionary industrial union, leading strikes of "class-conscious, revolutionary workingmen, who, while they are striking for an immediate advantage, at the same time have their eyes clearly fixed upon the goal. And what is that goal? It is the overthrow of the capitalist system, and the emancipation of the working class from wage-slavery." Debs declares: "We have declared war upon the capitalist class, and upon the capitalist system. We are of the working class. We say: Arouse, you workingmen! It is in your power to put an end to this system. It is your duty to build tip this great revolutionary economic organization of your class, to seize and take control of the tools with which you work, and make yourselves the masters instead of being the slaves of industry. Wipe out the wage system, so that you can walk this earth free men!"

 

"Where Miss Strong Stands: Statement by Anna Louise Strong, Member of Seattle School Board," by Anna Louise Strong [March 2, 1918] Anna Louise Strong, a minister's daughter, was elected to the Seattle School Board in 1916. An outspoken radical, in February and March of 1918 Strong was subjected to a recall campaign for her alleged participation in anti-war activities. This is Strong's unsuccessful statement in her own defense, published in the pages of the Seattle Union Leader -- a publication for which she wrote regularly. Strong asserts that she is the victim of "false charges and twisted rumors." She states that her opposition to the war came before American entry and her opposition to conscription came before the passage of the draft law. She implies support for President Woodrow Wilson and his "war to make the world safe for democracy." Strong states that "I take patriotism to mean love of country and devotion to its service. My whole life has been given to the service of my country, in efforts to establish better and more wholesome conditions for its citizens, more equal opportunities for the children who are to build its future, and a steadier maintenance of those ideals for which this national was founded -- freedom of thought and expression and democratic control. This I take to be the essence of patriotism." Includes a photo of Anna Louise Strong from the time of the School Board Recall campaign.

 

"The "Reds" in America From the Standpoint of the Department of Justice," by Arthur Wallace Dunn [Feb. 1920] An informed (if slightly unhinged) discussion of the "Red" menace from the perspective of Attorney General Mitchell Palmer, published in the pages of the popular intellectual magazine, The Review of Reviews. Dunn states that "The evidence which has been collected by the Department of Justice is so conclusive of a gigantic conspiracy to destroy the government of the United States that it is really alarming." He has great confidence that "the machinery of the law -- once set in motion and backed by public sentiment" will defeat this "gigantic conspiracy," however, since when "stripped of all subterfuge, and held up to the light of day in all its hideous aspects, the anarchistic movement is simply an attempt of the very few to control the vast majority." Dunn makes precious little distinction between anarchism and communism in his analysis, stating matter of factly that "The principal activities of the anarchists in this country are through what is called 'The Communist Party.'" Dunn sees this group as consisting very largely of radical immigrants: "Of the arrested and suspected anarchists and communists, 9 out of every 10 are foreigners," he states. The native-born element is said to be "less bloodthirsty and less given to violence than the foreigners," although adding that "many of them border on the verge of insanity; many others are women with minds gone slightly awry, morbid, restless, and seeking the sensational, craving for something, they know not what." By way of contrast, Dunn states that "the foreign element, on the other hand, is absolutely destructive, very aggressive and determined, and constitutes a large proportion of the anarchists. This element is deemed by the Department of Justice to be very dangerous, and it must be handled vigorously if the spread of communism and anarchism is to be checked." Dunn notes that Attorney General Palmer and the Department of Justice were pursuing alien radicals vigorously and that they would continue deporting those arrested and charged to the countries of their origin, which would be obliged to take back their citizens under the established principles of international laws.

 

"Socialism -- The Hope of the World: Keynote Address to the 1920 Socialist Party Convention: New York City -- May 8, 1920," by Morris Hillquit Morris Hillquit marks his return to active political life with this keynote address to the 1920 convention of the Socialist Party of America. Hillquit's perspective on the split of the Socialist movement is sanguine rather than sanguinary, a byproduct of the world war and a difficulty through which the SPA had steered a middle course between social-patriotism on the one hand and revolutionary phrase mongering on the other: "All over the world Socialism was split into contending and antagonistic camps, ranging from those who had betrayed the vital principles of the movement during the war and were cooperating with its enemies after the war, to those who, in their impulse of resentment and impatience, were ready to surrender the most effective methods of the Socialist propaganda, the slow but certain methods of political education and struggle. The question then was whether the Socialists of America would remain true to the fundamental principles and methods of the militant working class Socialist Party, rejecting the suicidal compromises of the extreme right as well as the sterile revolutionary phrases of the extreme left. We did." In the current period, then external enemy -- the forces of reaction -- represented the most grave threat to the SPA. Hillquit declares that "within the last year all the powers of darkness and reaction in the country have united in a concerted attack upon the Socialist movement unparalleled in ferociousness and lawlessness. The obvious object of the provocative onslaught is to crush the spirit and paralyze the struggles of the Socialist movement or to goad it into a policy of desperation and lawlessness, thus furnishing its opponents the pretext for wholesale violent reprisals and physical extermination." Hillquit slams Woodrow Wilson for his hypocrisy and remains upbeat about the SPA's prospects. "The only active and organized force in American politics that combats reaction and oppression, that stands for the large masses of the workers and for a social order of justice and industrial equality is the Socialist Party," Hillquit states, adding the prediction that the party will "double or treble its membership before the year is over and will poll upward of 2 million votes for its Presidential candidates" in the 1920 campaign.

 

"Kate O'Hare Visits Debs in Atlanta," by Frank O'Hare [event of July 2, 1920] An account of the July 2, 1920, prison visit by recently-released Socialist orator Kate O'Hare to imprisoned Socialist orator Gene Debs, as published in the Socialist Party's general propaganda weekly, The New Day. The tone of the article is sappy and sentimental, playing up Gene's watering eyes over the Wilson regime's oppression of youthful anarchist Mollie Steimer and Kate's heartfelt gift of an autographed family portrait. Debs is quoted as offering this analysis of the factional situation in the American radical movement: "This is no time for division. The rank and file will speak as they have never spoken before. Although some of my most dear friends, who are in the different factions and parties, who I know to be absolutely sincere, will someday realize that they are mistaken in their tactics, and they will discover that the Socialist Party is best adapted for emancipating the American working class."

 

"Debs Speaks from Atlanta," by Irwin St. John Tucker [Aug. 28, 1920] A de facto campaign speech from behind prison bars by Gene Debs, running his 5th campaign for President of the United States. Tucker provides extensive quotations from Debs, who concentrates on the coal situation in America as the "supreme and vital issue" in the coming campaign. The preoccupation of the Democrat Cox and the Republican Harding is with the false issue of American endorsement of the League of Nations, Debs observes, while proclaiming that institution to be dead: "Our entry into it could not revive it, could only still further putrefy the corpse. And men who are fighting on an issue such as that are degrading themselves." On the other hand, the critical issue of the nation's coal supply -- which imperiled thousands -- was being pointedly ignored by Governor Cox and Senator Harding. In contrast, Debs' outlines his plan: "The Socialist proposition is this: we are proposing to take possession of the coal fields, to pay the miners at work the full value of all the coal they dig, so that they may build decent homes, educate their children, and live in comfort; and then charge to the public exactly what it costs to dig and distribute the coal." Debs critically asserts that "We have some comrades in our Party who have been too timid and who have patterned after the capitalist politicians whom I utterly detest. These comrades have no convictions about anything and are willing to say or omit almost anything for the purpose of corralling votes." This he considers an error, as those voters who are won by soft-selling Socialist principles were sure to depart the cause when the reaction counterattacked. "We have some comrades in our Party who have been too timid and who have patterned after the capitalist politicians whom I utterly detest. These comrades have no convictions about anything and are willing to say or omit almost anything for the purpose of corralling votes. I never could find it in me to make a speech and withhold anything for fear that I might shoo away a voter. If a man is shooable, I do not want him. I want those who are responsive to my message and who will stick when the crisis comes," Debs declares.

 

"America Turns to Socialism," by Morris Hillquit [Sept. 4, 1920] An upbeat assessment of American Socialist prospects in the 1920 campaign by the SPA's leading figure outside of prison walls. Hillquit notes a trebling of the socialist vote throughout Europe and sees the likelihood of a similar circumstance developing in the USA: "The people here as elsewhere are disillusioned with the war and its results. They feel that the colossal destruction of life and property has been in vain; that the victory of our arms brought to the world neither security nor social justice. They know that true wages have been badly cut, that prime necessaries of decent existence have been put beyond their reach through monstrous price increases, and that their standards of life are being steadily depressed, while profiteering capitalists have made and are still making fabulous new fortunes. They see industries dislocated, commerce disrupted, and the precarious world peace menaced anew by the incapable and rapacious governments of the ruling classes -- and they turn to Socialism for relief." Hillquit notes that the success of the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia had "opened new vistas to the oppressed of all nations," while the ham-handed intervention against the fledgling Soviet Republic had "served to intensify class feelings." Despite the economy's comparative strength in America, Hillquit asserts that "our government has managed to create an immense volume of political resentment through an absurd reactionary policy of repression," alienating the workers of the primary industries of coal and the railroads by one-sidedly enforcing the employers' line on wages and hours. Hillquit does not see the new Farmer-Labor Party as a significant threat to the SPA, believing it to an "indigestible combination" of labor, farmer, and middle class programs and as such "doomed to failure." "The conservative trade unionists and farmers will vote for the old parties. The radicals among them will vote for Debs," Hillquit declares.

 

"Wherefore Stand Ye Divided?" by William Z. Foster [May 28, 1921] This article is a bit of a curiosity -- a piece written by closeted Communist union leader William Z. Foster and published in The New Day, propaganda weekly of the Socialist Party of America (probably distributed by the Federated Press as the conduit). Foster outlines the fundamental principles of his union philosophy: "For a generation virtually the whole radical movement has been wasting itself on utopian union projects," Foster declares, dedicating themselves to futile radical dual unions and abandoning the mass organizations to the control of a conservative bureaucracy. In Foster's view the dual unions violate what Foster calls "the first principle of unionism, namely the solidarity of labor." Foster states that the dual unions are essentially utopian attempts to bypass the normal development of mass unions -- which in other countries typically include a broad array of ideological tendencies, including "Anarchists, Socialists, Communists, Catholics, Protestants, atheists, craft unionists, industrial unionists, etc.," instead basing themselves on narrow ideological tenets "not held by the great masses." The normal course of union development includes 3 phases, Foster believes, including "(1) Isolation; (2) Federation; and (3) Amalgamation." Foster bitterly notes: "but our dual unionists ignore it all. They have their spick and span, blueprinted, perfected organizations. And they ask an ignorant working class, habituated to craft unionism, to throw aside their old unions, built through 40 years of strife and struggle, and to join themselves forthwith to the highly advanced type they propose. They would abolish the law of labor union development. That's all. Is it any wonder that the American radical movement stagnates, resting as it does upon such a bizarre and unworkable economic program?"

 

"The Party and the Future," by Victor L. Berger [Aug. 13, 1921] The year 1921 was a watershed for the Socialist Party of America. The internecine war of 1919 had been "won" by the Regular faction and control of the party maintained -- but the administration had managed to both rule and ruin. Mass purges and ongoing disillusionment had caused party membership to plummet from more than 100,000 in the first half of 1919 to less than 15,000 by the middle of 1921. A severe financial crisis had followed. The vision of an inevitably glorious future for the SPA had vanished in the wind, and a broad fundamental reevaluation of the party's ideology and tactics followed. This article by the Socialist Party's leading realist, Victor Berger, is based upon the observation that the SPA had failed to become "the great opposition party against capitalism" during the subsequent half decade. Berger places blame for this failure on the fragmented American working class, consisting of dozens of nationalities, combined with the revival of "innumerable national prejudices and race hatreds that had slumbered for years" as a byproduct of American entry into the world war. The SPA had additionally be trapped between what Berger likens to "two millstones" --one being the opposition to the party's principled opposition to the war, the other being the "Communistic ideas among the workers, especially those of foreign birth," developing because of the war. Its membership atrophied by these external factors, Berger states that the party's development was additionally handicapped by "an impossible and ironclad set of rules that were considered sacred - from the old and defunct Socialist Labor Party." "It was and is actually considered a crime to vote for anybody who is not a regular card member," Berger observes, arguing that the net result was the reduction of the party to a sort of "perfectionist sect." Berger concludes that sectarian tactics must be cast aside and "we must by all means support, strengthen, and uphold our Socialist organization at the present time as well as in the future. At the same time, however, we must show our willingness to cooperate with any radical group - no matter what its makeup or complexion -- that is willing to assist us and to cooperate with us on the political or economic field in our continuous and ceaseless battle against the capitalist system."

 

CLICK THE LOGO AT THE TOP OF THE PAGE TO GO TO THE EARLY AMERICAN MARXISM WEBSITE.