It is said that on the person of one of the arrested comrades in New York a list of membership has been found, and that all the comrades compromised have been arrested. Therefore, away with all rolls of membership, and minute-books, where such are kept. Clean your guns, complete your ammunition. The hired murderers of the capitalists, the police and militia, are ready to murder. No workingman should leave his house in these days with empty pockets.
The consummate inconsistency of the Socialists is thus no better illustrated in what has already been shown than in their record in Chicago. They have always been eager to jump on top of the band wagon, to paraphrase a famous expression of Emery A. Storrs, when they thought that it gave them a chance to join in the lead of the procession; and, the moment they had a voice in directing the music, they led it beyond the mere sentiments of a Marseillaise. Take each formidable strike in the city, and invariably they have instigated the rabble to deeds of disorder and violence. What care they for labor reforms accomplished through peaceable agitation? It is only when a pretext is presented for widening the breach between capital and labor, and hastening the time for revolution, that the Socialists join in any movement looking to the real benefit of labor. It is true, they have figured in labor reforms, such as the agitation for national and State bureaus of labor statistics, the abolition of convict labor in competition with outside industries, the prevention of child labor in factories and work-shops, the sanitary inspection of tenement-houses and factories; but all these have been merely side issues to their one and controlling purpose—Revolution. For appearance’ sake they have boasted of their achievements in the lines indicated, but it is a fact of history that, without the efforts of non-Socialistic labor, none of the reforms so far accomplished would ever have been secured. The fact is that Socialists and Anarchists are radically opposed to the whole wage system and only join in the demands of law-observing and peace-loving labor as a means to one end—opportunity for disturbance. For this purpose alone they have become members of the Knights of Labor, and, once in, they have proved an element of disorder and contention. So pronounced had they become in fomenting trouble during the eight-hour agitation that Mr. Powderly finally found it necessary to issue a secret circular to the order in the spring of 1886. In that circular, among other things, he said:
INTERIOR VIEW OF NEFF’S HALL.—From a Photograph.
Men who own capital are not our enemies. If that theory held good, the workman of to-day would be the enemy of his fellow-toiler on the morrow, for, after all, it is how to acquire capital and how to use it properly that we are endeavoring to learn. No! The man of capital is not necessarily the enemy of the laborer; on the contrary, they must be brought closer together. I am well aware that some extremists will say I am advocating a weak plan and will say that bloodshed and destruction of property alone will solve the problem. If a man speaks such sentiments in an assembly read for him the charge which the Master Workman repeats to the newly initiated who join our “army of peace.” If he repeats such nonsense put him out.
Wise words and well spoken.