The Red Conspiracy

by Joseph J. Mereto

"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 date, but no official figures subsequent 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 prosecutions," 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 include the "arrests" of two or three thousand "Communists" who were members of Stedman's 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 proceedings before the New York Assembly Judiciary Committee, on March 4, 1920, according to the "New York Times" of March 5, 1920, accused the Socialist counsel and witnesses of "evasive and hypocritical sentiments, expressed on the witness stand, to throw 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 support 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 responsible 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 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 happiness,' 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 "New 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 Government," and added:

"The explanation of the anti-American attitude of the Socialist 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 pronouncements 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 Socialist Bureau."

To complete our information concerning the Moscow International, 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 Russia, including, no doubt, the Socialist Party of America. Trachtenberg's Labor Year Book, 1919-1920, in its article, "The Moscow International Communist Conference" (held at Moscow, March 2-6, 1919), says, page 312: