“And then this druggist is sick because we have no money to buy medicine?”
“Exactly.”
After which, the workingman stands and scratches his head for a moment. “There is too much of everything,” he reflects. “There is no more work to be done.” And suddenly the light breaks. “Oh, I see!” he cries, “we have finished our work for the capitalists!” And you answer, “Exactly! Everything is complete, and of course there is no more room for you. Therefore you had best be off to another planet!”
So it would be, if the workingman were content to take his doctrines from the other side—from the retainers of those “to whom God in His Infinite Wisdom has entrusted the care of the property interests of the country.” But, meantime, the workingman has been thinking for himself—and evolving a quite new doctrine, all his own, concerning the property interests of the country. This doctrine is, in a word, that the means of production of wealth belong of right to no individual, but to the whole people; and that in the hour of the collapse of the profit-making system, the thing for the people to do is to take possession of the machinery, and use it to produce goods, no longer for those who own, but for those who work.
And that brings me to the second of my tasks. I have shown the “great underlying economic cause, working irresistibly to force the issue”; there remains to show the consequent “movement of protest.”
I have before me, as I write, a little pamphlet published by the “Standard Publishing Company,” of Terre Haute, Indiana, and entitled, “The American Movement,” by Eugene V. Debs. It opens with the statement that “The twentieth century, according to the prophecy of Victor Hugo, is to be the century of humanity,” and will witness “the crash of despotism and the rise of world-wide democracy, freedom and brotherhood.” The reader, continuing, soon discovers that the “American movement,” with which this pamphlet deals, is the American Socialist movement. The writer tells of its early “Utopian” forms, the Owenites and the Brook-farmers, and names the exiles who came from abroad in 1848, bringing the Marxian doctrine, and influencing such men as Horace Greeley and Parke Godwin. “The first large society to adopt and propagate Socialism in America,” he writes, “was composed of the German Gymnastic Unions. Through the sixties and seventies the agitation steadily increased, local organisations were formed in various parts of the country. Following the Paris Commune of 1871, and its tragic ending, many French radicals came to our shores and gave new spirit to the movement. In 1876 the Workingman’s Party was organised, and in 1877, at the convention held in Newark, it became the Socialist Labour Party. The Socialists were intent upon building up a working-class party for independent political action.” This party, “composed of thoughtful, intelligent men, aggressive and progressive, of rugged honesty and thrilled with the revolutionary spirit and aspiration for freedom, became from its inception a decided factor in the labour movement. The busy, ignorant world about the revolutionary nucleus knew little or nothing about it; had no conception of its significance, and looked upon its adherents as foolish fanatics whose antics were harmless and whose designs would dissolve like bubbles on the surface of a stream. In March, 1885, was inaugurated the strike of the Knights of Labour. On May 1st of the same year, the general strikes for the eight-hour work-day broke out in various parts of the country. In 1884, Laurence Gronlund published his “Coöperative Commonwealth.” In 1888 Edward Bellamy published his “Looking Backward,” and it had a wonderful effect upon the people. The editions ran into hundreds of thousands.”
The author then goes on to narrate his version of the Pullman strike of 1893. He declares that the American Railway Union, of which he was president, had won, when the General Managers’ Association caused the swearing in of “an army of deputies,” whom the Chief of Police of Chicago declared to be “thieves, thugs and ex-convicts,” and that it was these men who caused the violence which led to President Cleveland’s action, and the breaking of the strike. He then continues the story of the Socialist movement. The Coming Nation, started at Greensburg, Indiana, by J. A. Wayland, in 1893, was the first popular propaganda paper to be published in the interests of Socialism in this country. It reached a large circulation, and the proceeds were used in founding and developing the Ruskin coöperative colony in Tennessee. Later Mr. Wayland began the publication of the Appeal to Reason, and it now numbers its subscribers by the hundreds of thousands. It is not saying too much for the Appeal that it has been a great factor in preparing the American soil for the seed of Socialism. Its enormous editions have been and are being spread broadcast, and copies may be found in the remotest recesses and the most inaccessible regions. The periodical and weekly press, so necessary to any political movement, is now developing rapidly, and there is every reason to believe that within the next few years there will be a formidable array of reviews, magazines, illustrated journals, and daily and weekly papers to represent the movement and do battle for its supremacy. The last convention of the American Railway Union was the first convention of the Social Democracy of America, and this was held in Chicago, in June, 1897, the delegates voting to change the railway union into a working-class political party. The Railway Times, the official paper of the union, became the Social-Democrat, and later the Social-Democratic Herald, and is now published at Milwaukee in the interest of the Socialist Party. Since the election of 1900, there has been greater activity in organising, and a more widespread propaganda than ever before. In the elections of the past, it can scarcely be claimed that the Socialist movement was represented by a national party. It entered these contests with but few states organised, and with no resources worth mentioning to sustain it during the campaign. It is far different to-day. The Socialist Party is organised in almost every state and territory in the American Union. Its members are filled with enthusiasm and working with an energy born of the throb and thrill of revolution. The party has a press supporting it that extends from sea to sea, and is as vigilant and tireless in its labours as it is steadfast and true to the party principles.
“Viewed to-day from any intelligent standpoint, the outlook of the Socialist movement is full of promise—to the capitalist, of struggle and conquest; to the worker, of coming freedom. It is the break of dawn upon the horizon of human destiny, and it has no limitation but the walls of the universe.”
Whatever the reader may think about the foregoing narrative, there is one part of it which he cannot dismiss; the statements concerning the growth of the American Socialist Party. In 1888 the Socialist vote was two thousand. In 1892, it was twenty-one thousand. In 1896, it was thirty-six thousand. In 1900, it was one hundred and thirty-one thousand. In 1904, it was four hundred and forty-two thousand.
The Socialist Party has some twenty-seven thousand subscribing members, who pay monthly dues. It has over eighteen hundred “locals,” or centres of agitation; the members of these “locals” are for the most part workingmen, who give their spare hours to the cause, holding meetings and debates, and circulating the literature of Socialism. In the larger cities, there are generally several lectures each week, and there are a score of “national organisers,” who travel about, speaking night after night in various towns, forming new “locals,” and taking subscriptions to the Socialist publications. Of these there are four monthlies and about thirty-five weeklies. Since 1892, Wayland’s paper, The Appeal to Reason (Girard, Kansas), has increased its paid circulation from one hundred and twenty-six thousand to over two hundred and seventy-five thousand, and last year it printed one edition of two millions and a half, and another of over three millions. Another Socialist paper, Wilshire’s Magazine (New York), has increased its circulation from fifty-five thousand to two hundred and seventy thousand in a single year. In addition to this, there are many publishing companies, which distribute books, leaflets and pamphlets, at little more than cost. I have before me a treatise, the price of which is one cent, of which over five million copies have been sold since its publication some years ago. Its title is “Why Workingmen Should Be Socialists,” by Gaylord Wilshire.