Part 9

In the name of the workers the Socialist party condemns the capitalist system. In the name of freedom it condemns wage-slavery. In the name of modern industry it condemns poverty, idleness and famine. In the name of peace it condemns war. In the name of civilization it condemns the murder of little children. In the name of enlightenment it condemns ignorance and superstition. In the name of the future it arraigns the past at the bar of the present, and in the name of humanity it demands social justice for every man, woman and child.

The Socialist party knows neither color, creed, sex, nor race. It knows no aliens among the oppressed and down-trodden. It is first and last the party of the workers, regardless of their nationality, proclaiming their interests, voicing their aspirations, and fighting their battles.

It matters not where the slaves of the earth lift their bowed bodies from the dust and seek to shake off their fetters, or lighten the burden that oppresses them, the Socialist party is pledged to encourage and support them to the full extent of its power. It matters not to what union they belong, or if they belong to any union, the Socialist party which sprang from their struggle, their oppression, and their aspiration, is with them through good and evil report, in trial and defeat, until at last victory is inscribed upon their banner.

_Fighting Labor's Battles._

Whether it be in the textile mills of Lawrence and other mills of New England where men, women and children are ground into dividends to gorge a heartless, mill-owning plutocracy; or whether it be in the lumber and railroad camps of the far Northwest where men are herded like cattle and insulted, beaten and deported for peaceably asserting the legal right to organize; or in the conflict with the civilized savages of San Diego where men who dare be known as members of the Industrial Workers of the World are kidnaped, tortured and murdered in cold blood in the name of law and order; or in the city of Chicago where that gorgon of capitalism, the newspaper trust, is bent upon crushing and exterminating the pressmen's union; or along the Harriman lines of railroad where the slaves of the shops have been driven to the alternative of striking or sacrificing the last vestige of their manhood and self-respect, in all these battles of the workers against their capitalist oppressors the Socialist party has the most vital concern and is freely pledged to render them all the assistance in its power.

These are the battles of the workers in the war of the classes and the battles of the workers, wherever and however fought, are always and everywhere the battles of the Socialist party.

When Moyer, Haywood and Pettibone were seized by the brutal mine owners of the western states and by their prostitute press consigned to the gallows, the Socialist party lost not an hour in going to the rescue, and but for its prompt and vigorous action and the resolute work of its press another monstrous crime against the working class would have blackened the pages of American history.

_Persecution of Loyal Leaders._

In the unceasing struggle of the workers with their exploiters the truly loyal leaders are always marked for persecution. Joseph Ettor and Arturo Giovannitti would not now be in jail awaiting trial for murder had they betrayed the slaves of the Lawrence mills. They were staunch and true; their leadership made for industrial unity and victory, and for this reason alone the enraged and defeated mill-owners are now bent upon sending them to the electric chair.

These fellow-workers of ours who are now on trial for murder are not one whit more guilty of the crime with which they are charged than I am. The man who committed the murder was a policeman, an officer of the law; the victim of the crime was as usual a striker, a wage-slave, a poor working girl. Ettor and Giovannitti were two miles from the scene at the time and when the news came to them they broke into tears--and these two workingmen who would have protected that poor girl's life with their own are now to be tried for her murder.

Was ever anything in all the annals of heartless persecution more monstrous than this? Have the mill-owners gone stark mad? Have they in their brutal rage become stone-blind? Whatever the answer may be, it is certain that the Socialist party and organized labor in general will never see these two innocent workers murdered in cold blood, nor will their agitation and protest cease until they have been given their freedom.

_The Campaign Now Opening._

In the great campaign now pending the people, especially the toilers and producers, will be far more receptive to the truths of Socialism than ever before.

Since the last national campaign they have had four years more of capitalism, of political corruption, industrial stagnation, low wages and high prices, and many, very many of them have come to realize that these conditions are inherent in the capitalist system and that it is vain and foolish to hope for relief through the political parties of that system. These people have had their eyes opened in spite of themselves. They have been made to see what the present system means to them and to their children, and they have been forced to turn against it by the sheer instinct of self-preservation.

They look abroad and they see this fair land being rapidly converted into the private preserves of a plutocracy as brutal and defiant as any privileged class that ever ruled in a foreign despotism; they see machinery and misery go hand in hand; they see thousands idle and poverty-stricken all about them while a few are glutted to degeneracy; they see troops of child-slaves ground into luxuries for the rich while their fathers have become a drug on the labor market; they see parasites in palaces and automobiles and honest workers in hovels or tramping the ties; they see the politics of the ruling corporations dripping with corruption and putridity; they see vice and crime rampant, prostitution eating like a cancer, and insanity and disease sapping the mental and physical powers of the body social, and involuntarily they cry out in horror and protest, THIS IS ENOUGH! THERE MUST BE A CHANGE! And they turn with loathing and disgust from the Republican and Democratic parties under whose joint and several maladministration these appalling conditions have been brought upon the country.

The message of Socialism, which a few years ago was spurned by these people, falls today upon eager ears and receptive minds. Their prejudice has melted away. They are now prepared to cast their fortunes with the only political party that proposes a change of system and the only party that has a right to appeal to the intelligence of the people.

_First Socialist Congressman._

The political beginning of the Socialist party in this country is now distinctly recognized by its most implacable enemies. A single Socialist congressman has been sufficient to arouse the whole nation to the vital issue of Socialism which confronts it. Victor L. Berger as the first and until now the only representative of labor, has had the power, single-handed and alone, to compel the respectful consideration of the American congress, for the first time in its history, of the rights and interests of the working class. To be sure the capitalists do not relish this and so they have consolidated the Republican and Democratic forces in Berger's district to defeat him, but the rising tide of Socialism will overwhelm them both and not only triumphantly re-elect Berger but a score of others to make the next congress resound with the demands of the working class.

Now is the time for the workers of this nation to develop and assert their political as well as their economic power, to demonstrate their unity and solidarity.

Back up the economic victory at Lawrence with an overwhelming victory at the ballot box! Sweep the minions of the mill-owners from power and fill every office from the ranks of the workers! Deliver a crushing rebuke to the hireling-officials of San Diego by a united vote of the workers that will rescue the city from the rule of the degenerates and place it forever under a working class administration.

_The Only Democratic Party._

The Socialist party is the only party of the people, the only party opposed to the rule of the plutocracy, the only truly democratic party in the world.

It is the only party in which women have equal rights with men, the only party which denies membership to a man who refuses to recognize woman as his political equal, the only party that is pledged to strike the fetters of economic and political slavery from womanhood and pave the way for a race of free women.

The Socialist party is the only party that stands a living protest against the monstrous crime of child labor. It is the only party whose triumph will sound once and forever the knell of child slavery.

There is no hope under the present decaying system. The worker who votes the Republican or Democratic ticket does worse than throw his vote away. He is a deserter of his class and his own worst enemy, though he may be in blissful ignorance of the fact that he is false to himself and his fellow-workers and that sooner or later he must reap what he has sown.

_Wages and Cost of Living._

The latest census reports, covering the year 1909, show that the 6,615,046 workers in manufactories in the United States were paid an average wage of $519 for the year, an increase of not quite 9 per cent in five years, and an increase of 21 per cent in ten years, but the average cost of living increased more than 40 per cent during the same time, so that in point of fact the wages of these workers have been and are being steadily reduced in the progressive development of production under the capitalist system, and this in spite of all the resistance that has been or can be brought to bear by the federated craft unions. Here we are brought face to face with the imperative need of the revolutionary industrial union, embracing all the workers and fighting every battle for increased wages, shorter hours and better conditions with a solid and united front, while at the same time pressing steadily forward in harmonious co-operation and under the restraints of self-discipline, developing the latent abilities of the workers, increasing their knowledge, and fitting them for the mastery and control of industry when the victorious hosts of labor conquer the public powers and transfer the title-deeds of the mines and mills and factories from the idle plutocrats to the industrial workers to be operated for the common good.

_Industrial Unity._

If the printing trades were organized on the basis of industrial unionism the spectacle of local unions in the same crafts pitted against each other to their mutual destruction would not be presented to us in the City of Chicago, and the capitalist newspaper trust would not now have its heel upon the neck of the union pressmen. For this lamentable state of affairs the craft union and William Randolph Hearst, its chief patron and promoter, are entirely responsible.

The Socialist party presents the farm workers as well as the industrial workers with a platform and program which must appeal to their intelligence and command their support. It points out to them clearly why their situation is hopeless under capitalism, how they are robbed and exploited, and why they are bound to make common cause with the industrial workers in the mills and factories of the cities, along the railways and in the mines in the struggle for emancipation.

The education, organization and co-operation of the workers, the entire body of them, is the conscious aim and the self-imposed task of the Socialist party. Persistently, unceasingly and enthusiastically this great work is being accomplished. It is the working class coming into consciousness of itself, and no power on earth can prevail against it in the hour of its complete awakening.

_Socialism Is Inevitable._

The laws of evolution have decreed the downfall of the capitalist system. The handwriting is upon the wall in letters of fire. The trusts are transforming industry and next will come the transformation of the trusts by the people. Socialism is inevitable. Capitalism is breaking down and the new order evolving from it is clearly the Socialist commonwealth.

The present evolution can only culminate in industrial and social democracy, and in alliance therewith and preparing the way for the peaceable reception of the new order, is the Socialist movement, arousing the workers and educating and fitting them to take possession of their own when at last the struggle of the centuries has been crowned with triumph.

In the coming social order, based upon the social ownership of the means of life and the production of wealth for the use of all instead of the private profit of the few, for which the Socialist party stands in this and every other campaign, peace will prevail and plenty for all will abound in the land. The brute struggle for existence will have ended, and the millions of exploited poor will be rescued from the skeleton clutches of poverty and famine. Prostitution and the white slave traffic, fostered and protected under the old order, will be a horror of the past.

The social conscience and the social spirit will prevail. Society will have a new birth, and the race a new destiny. There will be work for all, leisure for all, and the joys of life for all.

Competition there will be, not in the struggle for existence, but to excel in good work and in social service. Every child will then have an equal chance to grow up in health and vigor of body and mind and an equal chance to rise to its full stature and achieve success in life.

_Socialist Ideals._

These are the ideals of the Socialist party and to these ideals it has consecrated all its energies and all its powers. The members of the Socialist party _are_ the party and their collective will is the supreme law. The Socialist party is organized and ruled from the bottom up. There is no boss and there never can be unless the party deserts its principles and ceases to be a Socialist party.

The party is supported by a dues-paying membership. It is the only political party that is so supported. Each member has not only an equal voice but is urged to take an active part in all the party councils. Each local meeting place is an educational center. The party relies wholly upon the power of education, knowledge, and mutual understanding. It buys no votes and it makes no canvass in the red-light districts.

The press of the party is the most vital factor in its educational propaganda and the workers are everywhere being aroused to the necessity of building up a working class press to champion their cause and to discuss current issues from their point of view for the enlightenment of the masses.

_This Is Our Year._

Comrades and friends, the campaign before us gives us our supreme opportunity to reach the American people. They have but to know the true meaning of Socialism to accept its philosophy and the true mission of the Socialist party to give it their support. Let us all unite as we never have before to place the issue of Socialism squarely before the masses. For years they have been deceived, misled and betrayed, and they are now hungering for the true gospel of relief and the true message of emancipation.

This is our year in the United States! Socialism is in the very air we breathe. It is the grandest shibboleth that ever inspired men and women to action in this world. In the horizon of labor it shines as a new-risen sun and it is the hope of all humanity.

Onward, comrades, onward in the struggle, until Triumphant Socialism proclaims an Emancipated Race and a New World!

THE FIGHT FOR FREEDOM.

Campaign Speech, Pabst Park, Milwaukee, Wis., July 21, 1912.

Friends, Fellow-Socialists and Fellow-Workers: The existing order of things is breaking down. The great forces underlying society are steadily at work. The old order has had its day and all the signs point to an impending change. Society is at once being destroyed and re-created.

The struggle in which we are engaged today is a struggle of economic classes. The supremacy is now held by the capitalist class, who are combined in trusts and control the powers of government. The middle class is struggling desperately to hold its ground against the inroads of its trustified and triumphant competitors.

This war between the great capitalists who are organized in trusts and fortified by the powers of government and the smaller capitalists who constitute the middle class, is one of extermination. The fittest, that is to say the most powerful, will survive. This war gives rise to a variety of issues of which the tariff is the principal one, and these issues are defined in the platforms of the Republican and Democratic parties.

With this war between capitalists for supremacy in their own class and the issues arising from it, the working class have nothing to do, and if they are foolish enough to allow themselves to be drawn into these battles of their masters, as they have so often done in the past, they must continue to suffer the consequences of their folly.

_Parties Express Economic Interests._

Let us clearly recognize the forces that are undermining both of the old capitalist parties, creating a new issue, and driving the working class into a party of their own to do battle with their oppressors in the struggle for existence.

Parties but express in political terms the economic interests of those who compose them. This is the rule. The Republican party represents the capitalist class, the Democratic party the middle class and the Socialist party the working class.

There is no fundamental difference between the Republican and Democratic parties. Their principles are identical. They are both capitalist parties and both stand for the capitalist system, and such differences as there are between them involve no principle but are the outgrowth of the conflicting interests of large and small capitalists.

The Republican and Democratic parties are alike threatened with destruction. Their day of usefulness is past and they among them who see the handwriting on the wall and call themselves "Progressives" and "Insurgents," are struggling in vain to adjust these old parties to the new conditions.

_Two Economic Classes._

Broadly speaking, there are but two economic classes and the ultimate struggle will narrow down to two political parties. To the extent that the workers unite in their own party, the Socialist party, the capitalists, large and small, are driven into one and the same party. This has happened already in a number of local instances, notably in the City of Milwaukee. Here there is no longer a Republican or Democratic party. These have merged in the same party and it is a capitalist party, by whatever name it may be known.

Temporarily this united capitalist party, composed of the two old ones, may stem the tide of Socialist advance, but nothing more clearly reveals the capitalist class character of the Republican and Democratic parties to their own undoing and the undoing of the capitalist system they represent.

The great capitalists are all conservatives, "standpatters"; they have a strangle-hold upon the situation with no intention of relaxing their grip. Taft and Roosevelt are their candidates. It may be objected that Roosevelt is a "Progressive." That is sheer buncombe. Roosevelt was president almost eight years and his record is known. When he was in office and had the power, he did none of the things, nor attempted to do any of the things he is now talking about so wildly. On the contrary, a more servile functionary to the trusts than Theodore Roosevelt never sat in the presidential chair.

_La Follette vs. Roosevelt._

Senator La Follette now makes substantially this same charge against Roosevelt, but by some strange oversight the senator did not discover that Roosevelt's presidential record was a trust record until after Roosevelt threw him down in the "Progressive" scramble for the Republican nomination.

When Senator La Follette supposed he had Roosevelt's backing, he pronounced him "the greatest man in the world," and it was only after he fell victim to Roosevelt's duplicity that he made the discovery that Roosevelt had always been the tool of the trusts and the enemy of the people.

_Test of Parties._

There is one infallible test that fixes the status of a political party and its candidates. Who finances them?

With this test applied to Theodore Roosevelt we have no trouble in locating him. He is above all "a practical man." He was practical in allowing the steel trust to raid the Tennessee Coal and Iron Company; he was practical when he legalized the notorious "Alton Steal"; he was practical when he had Harriman raise $240,000 for his campaign fund, and he is practical now in having the steel trust and the harvester trust, who made an anteroom of the White House when he was president, pour out their slush funds by millions to put him back in the White House and keep him there.

_Financed by the Trusts._

Taft and Roosevelt, and the Republican party of which they are the candidates, are all financed by the trusts, and is it necessary to add that the trusts also consist of practical men and that they do not finance a candidate or a party they do not control?

Is the man not foolish, to the verge of being feeble-minded, who imagines that great trust magnates, such as Perkins, McCormick and Munsey, are flooding the country with Roosevelt money because he is the champion of progressive principles and the friend of the common people?

The truth is that if the Bull Moose candidate dared to permit an itemized publication of his campaign contributions in his present mad and disgraceful pursuit of the presidency, as he has been so often challenged to do by Senator La Follette, it would paralyze him and scandalize the nation.

Roosevelt must stand upon the record he made when he was president and had the power, and not upon his empty promises as a ranting demagogue and a vote-seeking politician.

For the very reason that the trusts are pouring out their millions to literally buy his nomination and election and force him into the White House for a third term, and if possible for life, the people should rise in their might and repudiate him as they never have repudiated a recreant official who betrayed his trust.

So much for the Republican party, led by Lincoln half a century ago as the party of the people in the struggle for the overthrow of chattel slavery, and now being scuttled by Taft and Roosevelt in base servility to the plutocracy.

_The Democratic Party._

The Democratic party, like its Republican ally, is a capitalist party, the only difference being that it represents the minor divisions of the capitalist class. It is true that there are some plutocrats and trust magnates in the Democratic party, but as a rule it is composed of the smaller capitalists who have been worsted by the larger ones and are now demanding that the trusts be destroyed and, in effect, that the laws of industrial evolution be suspended.

The Democratic party, like the Republican party, is financed by the capitalist class. Belmont, Ryan, Roger Sullivan, Taggart and Hinky Dink are liberal contributors to its fund. The Tammany organization in New York, notorious for its corruption and for its subserviency to the powers that rule in capitalist society, is one of the controlling factors in the Democratic party.