War of the Classes | Page 8

the two organizations

were antagonistic to each other. During a New Orleans street-car strike
not long ago, a whole company of militia, called out to protect
non-union men, resigned in a body. Mr. John Mulholland, president of
the International Association of Allied Metal Mechanics, has stated that
he does not want the members to join the militia. The Local Trades'
Assembly of Syracuse, New York, has passed a resolution, by
unanimous vote, requiring union men who are members of the National
Guard to resign, under pain of expulsion, from the unions. The
Amalgamated Sheet Metal Workers' Association has incorporated in its
constitution an amendment excluding from membership in its
organization "any person a member of the regular army, or of the State
militia or naval reserve." The Illinois State Federation of Labor, at a
recent convention, passed without a dissenting vote a resolution
declaring that membership in military organizations is a violation of
labor union obligations, and requesting all union men to withdraw from
the militia. The president of the Federation, Mr. Albert Young, declared
that the militia was a menace not only to unions, but to all workers
throughout the country.
These instances may be multiplied a thousand fold. The union
workmen are becoming conscious of their class, and of the struggle
their class is waging with the capitalist class. To be a member of the
militia is to be a traitor to the union, for the militia is a weapon wielded
by the employers to crush the workers in the struggle between the
warring groups.
Another interesting, and even more pregnant, phase of the class
struggle is the political aspect of it as displayed by the socialists. Five
men, standing together, may perform prodigies; 500 men, marching as
marched the historic Five Hundred of Marseilles, may sack a palace
and destroy a king; while 500,000 men, passionately preaching the
propaganda of a class struggle, waging a class struggle along political
lines, and backed by the moral and intellectual support of 10,000,000
more men of like convictions throughout the world, may come pretty
close to realizing a class struggle in these United States of ours.
In 1900 these men cast 150,000 votes; two years later, in 1902, they
cast 300,000 votes; and in 1904 they cast 450,000. They have behind
them a most imposing philosophic and scientific literature; they own
illustrated magazines and reviews, high in quality, dignity, and restraint;

they possess countless daily and weekly papers which circulate
throughout the land, and single papers which have subscribers by the
hundreds of thousands; and they literally swamp the working classes in
a vast sea of tracts and pamphlets. No political party in the United
States, no church organization nor mission effort, has as indefatigable
workers as has the socialist party. They multiply themselves, know of
no effort nor sacrifice too great to make for the Cause; and "Cause,"
with them, is spelled out in capitals. They work for it with a religious
zeal, and would die for it with a willingness similar to that of the
Christian martyrs.
These men are preaching an uncompromising and deadly class struggle.
In fact, they are organized upon the basis of a class struggle. "The
history of society," they say, "is a history of class struggles. Patrician
struggled with plebeian in early Rome; the king and the burghers, with
the nobles in the Middle Ages; later on, the king and the nobles with
the bourgeoisie; and today the struggle is on between the triumphant
bourgeoisie and the rising proletariat. By 'proletariat' is meant the class
of people without capital which sells its labor for a living.
"That the proletariat shall conquer," (mark the note of fatalism), "is as
certain as the rising sun. Just as the bourgeoisie of the eighteenth
century wanted democracy applied to politics, so the proletariat of the
twentieth century wants democracy applied to industry. As the
bourgeoisie complained against the government being run by and for
the nobles, so the proletariat complains against the government and
industry being run by and for the bourgeoisie; and so, following in the
footsteps of its predecessor, the proletariat will possess itself of the
government, apply democracy to industry, abolish wages, which are
merely legalized robbery, and run the business of the country in its own
interest."
"Their aim," they say, "is to organize the working class, and those in
sympathy with it, into a political party, with the object of conquering
the powers of government and of using them for the purpose of
transforming the present system of private ownership of the means of
production and distribution into collective ownership by the entire
people."
Briefly stated, this is the battle plan of these 450,000 men who call
themselves "socialists." And, in the face of the existence of such an

aggressive group of men, a class