"When the worker, either through experience or a study of Socialism, comes to know this truth [i.e., economic determinism], he acts accordingly. He retains absolutely no respect for the property rights of the profit takers. He will use any weapon which will win his fight. He knows that the present laws of property are made by and for the capitalists. Therefore he does not hesitate to break them."
Since Haywood and Bohn evidently had no intention of using paper-cap pistols and pop-guns as their weapons, and since they certainly did not mean to shoot at stone walls and forest trees, it seems strange that the Socialist Party, if it does not advocate such doctrines of violence, should sell these pamphlets at $6 per 100, according to a price list of its national office in Chicago.
To make matters still worse for the apologists of the Socialist Party of America, no less a personage than Eugene V. Debs commented as follows, in the "International Socialist Review," February, 1912, on the doctrines of Haywood and Bohn just referred to:
"We have here a matter of tactics upon which a number of comrades of ability and prominence have sharply disagreed. For my part, I believe the paragraph to be entirely sound. Certainly all Socialists knowing how and to what end capitalist property rights are established, must hold such rights in contempt.... As a revolutionist I can have no respect for capitalist property laws, nor the least scruple about violating them. I hold all such laws to have been enacted through chicanery, fraud and corruption, with the sole end in view of dispossessing, robbing and enslaving the working class. But this does not imply that I propose making an individual law breaker of myself, and butting my head against the stone wall of existing property laws. That might be called force, but it would not be that. It would be mere weakness and folly. If I had the force to overthrow these despotic laws, I would use it without an instant's hesitation or delay, but I haven't got it, so I am law abiding under protest--not from scruple--and bide my time."
In the "Appeal to Reason," Girard, Kansas, September 2, 1911, there is an excellent specimen of one of Debs' revolutionary articles, which reads in part as follows:
"Let us arouse the working class and invoke their power to smite the conspirators and set our brothers [the McNamaras] free. They can be saved in no other way. The lawyers will plead for them to deaf ears; organized labor will protest against their taking off in vain. We are confronted by a heartless, soulless plutocracy. Let us buckle on our armor and fight!... Let us marshal our forces and develop our power for the revolt! Let us develop without delay all the power we have, and prepare to strike in every way we know how. With a general strike we can paralyze the plutocracy from coast to coast. Hundreds of thousands will join eagerly and serve loyally in the fight. We can stop the wheels, cut off the food supply, and compel the plutocrats in sheer terror to sue for peace.... A few men may be needed who are not afraid to die. Be ye also ready.... Let us swear that we will fight to the last ditch, that we will strike blow for blow, that we will use every weapon at our command, and that we will never surrender! Roll up a united Socialist vote in California that will shake the Pacific Coast like an earthquake, and back it up with a general strike that will paralyze the continent.... Let the sturdy toilers of the Pacific Coast raise the Red standard of revolt."
It was no other than this same Eugene V. Debs, the advocate of violence and revolution, who on May 17, 1912, was nominated as the presidential standard bearer of the Socialist Party. If ever elected, what a fine president he would make, this "poor," "persecuted," self-styled "flaming-revolutionist," now in jail! What an honorable party it must be that nominated such a man for the fourth successive time to fill the office of the presidency of our country! Indeed it was on the very same day that the followers of Karl Marx chose Debs as their candidate to rule the United States that they also declared, in the constitution of their party, that any member who should advocate crime, sabotage or other methods of violence, as a weapon of the working class to aid it in its emancipation, should be expelled from membership in the party!
Never can political Socialists convince the American people of their sincerity and honesty while they nominate for office men like Debs, send to Congress representatives like Victor Berger, and choose as members of their national executive committee persons of the stamp of William D. Haywood. There was no better way for Socialists to convict themselves of hypocrisy than by retaining in their constitution the clause against sabotage, referred to above, while at the same time selling at their National Office books like "Industrial Socialism" and publishing in their papers and magazines articles advocating and approving "direct action." By their deeds we judge them, and not by their hypocritical words.
"The Call," on April 28, 1919, introduces with the following headlines the long comment that it makes on the Hart-Nearing debate of April 27th in New York City: "Revolution Is Only Solution of World-Wide Unrest, Says Nearing." In the course of the article Scott Nearing's suggestion of revolt is mentioned: "As against Professor Hart's proposal of a League of Nations, I suggest revolution." The "New York Times," April 28, 1919, commented in part on the debate as follows:
"'Who wants war?' asked Professor Hart. 'Scott Nearing wants war and the people who think as he does, want war. Revolution is nothing but civil war and we see its result in the Russian revolution. Russia passed through three revolutions and is that the kind of result we want in order to overthrow what he calls this robber nation?'
"A whirlwind of applause marked this and through the applause was heard a chorus of voices shouting 'yes.' The meeting cheered Nearing's frequent references to 'revolution,' to the Russian Soviet Republic and applauded his radical utterances, although he had requested that he be permitted to speak without interruption. The theatre contained about 3,000 persons who filled all the seats, the stage and stood in the aisles, after paying from 25 cents to $1.50 admission.
"Judging from the manifestations of approval of Nearing's remarks, the large audience appeared to be overwhelmingly composed of revolutionary Socialists, and when the speaker declared he believed in a League of Socialist Nations the crowd vigorously applauded in a way that left no doubt of its sentiment."