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 Sunday 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 importance which Marxians attach to their training of the young:
"Among the special fields of Socialistic propaganda the education 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 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, something 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 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. Rebels 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 24," 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 in 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 fight against Bolshevism in general and Socialist Sunday schools in particular. 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 throwing 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. 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 Socialist 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 disquieting 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 following 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.... Radical doctrines are becoming part of the regular curricula. I have a statement from O. 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. Strangeland. 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 would have come to Bismarck and cleaned out the whole Socialist gang. Here are the titles of some of those books I saw:
"'"Socialism and Modern Science," Ferri.
"'"Evolution and Property," La Farge.
"'"Not Guilty," Blatchford.
"'"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 Religion," 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 Socialist 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 New 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 meetings 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. Restrictions 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 the 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 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-German propaganda with instruction in the three R's.
"In this instance, as in so many others, the use of schoolhouses 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 will 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, yesterday, 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 Russia. Miss Ginsberg, born in Russia, was naturalized as a citizen last June."
For 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, organizer of the Socialist chapters and secretary of the Intercollegiate 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 E. C. Hayes, who is professor of sociology at the University of Illinois, President Grose of DePauw University, Greencastle, Indiana, and E. A. Ross, 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 fac-simile of the original in volume 4, number 1, of "The Iowa Magazine," Davenport, Iowa, is as follows:
"55 E. Norwich Av., Columbus, O., July 29.
"Dear Zeuch:--
"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 that it can come soon. If the Left Wing adopts impossibilist 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 'necessary' 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 $2200 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. Ross had some hand in the game. Pres. Grose interviewed him at Madison last week and Ross wrote encouraging 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 Bloomington. 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 Rand School, in New York City, is known as the University of Socialism and is said to have had 5,000 attending its lectures in the year 1918. The purpose of the school, as originally 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 only Socialist books, but books on atheism as well; not only the more conservative Socialist papers, but ultra revolutionary papers such as "The Revolutionary Age," "The Proletarian," many Bolshevist publications, and "The Rebel Worker" and "The New Solidarity," the latter two being I. W. W. papers.
The last time the author of "The Red Conspiracy" visited the Rand School book store, there was on sale a pile of Birth Control Reviews several feet high, "The One Big Union Monthly," the I. W. W. organ, and enough foul and revolutionary matter to satisfy the filthiest or most blood-thirsty wretch in the United States.
The second purpose of the Rand 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 lectures each in the year 1918. The school also directs extension classes in outlying parts of the city and neighboring places and correspondence courses 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 the 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 referring 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 revolutionary 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 count our Americanism by a very few generations, and the foreign population has 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 organizations 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 conditions 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 speaking 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 NATURALIZATION BUREAU of the SOCIALIST PARTY next Tuesday evening, and let us help you to become naturalized." It was, of course, an understood fact that the Socialist Party would, besides helping such women to become naturalized, also help them to become Revolutionists.
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 the farm, to teachers, foreign speaking women and women 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 Reason," 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 1912, held in Indianapolis, 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. "We'll 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 public 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 Ryan 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 Reason' 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."
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 Review," July 30, 1919:
"Among the propaganda material found on sale by agents of the Lusk Committee in the Rand School book store were copies of 'The Messenger,' on the front page of which it is called, 'The Only Radical Negro Magazine in America,' of which Chandler Owen and A. Philip Randolph are editors....
"Both of the editors of this magazine, who are negroes, are instructors at the Rand School of Social Science."
In "The Open Forum" 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 industrial and political fields.
"My heartiest wishes for the success of your movement.
"Sincerely and fraternally yours,
"Morris Hillquit."
"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 born 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,
"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 propaganda 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 Red plague that is rapidly disseminating its destructive germs throughout the United States?