t 765 M14s McDEVITT THE "SOCIALIST 1 ROOSEVELT THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES r The "Socialist" Roosevelt Savior of the System : : : OR : : : " Socialists Whom You Can Work " SOME SIDE-LIGHTS ON THE GENEALOGY OF THE "BULL MOOSE" BY WILLIAM McDEVITT, LL.M., Former Editor Oakland "Daily World." "Socialist Voice." etc PUBLISHED BY BOOK OMNORIUM SAN FRANCISCO 1912 THOSE WHO DOUBT THE TRUTH OF MIRA- CLES SHOULD CLOSE THIS BOOK AT ONCE, AS THEY WILL FIND IN IT NOTHING TO INTER- EST THEM. (From "The Seven Apparitions of the Seven Sainted Ser- vites," in New Saints of 1888, page 154.) The "Socialist" Roosevelt. There be those who declare that the transfiguration of the man- ; killing, monkey-shooting, labor-baiting Rough Rider of 1908 into the " New Saint of the Social Crusade of 1912, is a MIRACLE. Others there are that assert in this wise : That Mr. Roosevelt, the man who in 1909, (according to his own words) (See Outlook, March 20, 1909) was utterly unable to supply language strong enough to ease his soul of his stinging abhorrence of the socialists, should now in 1912 be so enamored of even "blatant socialism," as to pilfer an imposing pile of planks from the latest socialist platform, this is unquestionably a MIRACLE. Yes, surely; but it is a POLITICAL miracle. Now political miracles, be it never forgotten, are not only quite natural (to wonder- working politicians), but are quite easy to explain to those who see beneath the surface and show of things into the springs of being and acting. m EGO SCABIES ROOSEVELTIANA OT> >~ The political miracle sheds most of its miraculous shell when it ^ is exposed to the gaze of those who understand the Ego scabies, the itch of personal leadership, or the urge (the cosmic urge, if we may ^ lift the lingo of some social evangelist with a "messianic message"), the cosmic urge of immanent influence. It is of course conceded generally that no greater case of this Ego scabies than the Roosevelt specimen has ever been exhibited ; but yet we are very far from imputing this as either crime or disease to Mr. Roosevelt (or any of the lesser militant messianics). The pro- found and universal craving for REFORM (that is, immediate relief usually by dosage) in periods of longdrawn stress, must of necessity create the type (Roosevelt, Ghost Dance, Moses, call it what you will) of individual fervor and consuming energy that serves to pre- cipitate or crystallize the permeating discontent of the times. THE COUP D' ETAT OF A NEW NAPOLEON Roosevelt, the "socialist," has arrived. The remorseless Chicago steam-roller that flattened out the Third- Term program of T. R. did not annul or annihilate the political career of the Rough Rider. No momentum is ever annihilated when impeded, it is absorbed or deflected. In the case of Roosevelt, the political momentum launched, in design, along the ways of conven- tional Republicanism, was hurled back from the broad bulwark of the institutional and constitutional G. O. P. The shock-absorber known as Taft took up some of the momentum of theHero of San Juan and other Hills ; but most of it was deflected into another channel, a channel like an unflooded canal already dug and waiting for the flow of the newly diverted waters. Roosevelt had been patiently building that canal the canal that would cut the isthmus of time and unite his past reign with his coming rule. When his political fortune should be forced to recoil from the court of plutocracy and the seat of public power, it must have an outlet to a vaster field. It was not for nothing that the ex-President visited and studied the capitals of industrial Europe ; not for nothing that he allied himself with the political ideals of radical Lyman Abbott and the Outlook crowd of ex-divines and ex-magnates ; not for nothing that he has frequented for a decade the society of "Brother" John Mitchell and Father Curran, the heads of the state and church among the miners of the East ; not for nothing that he gathered together his inner circle of Garfield and Pinchot and Lincoln Steffens and Heney and Whit- lock and the other "rational" radicals of the modern industrial era. He was "outlooking" ; he was building ; he was digging his own canal ; he was constructing his political fortunes for an inevitable future and a spectacular 'climax. THE FINGER ON THE POLITICAL DIAL Probably no Republican 'politician has studied the election re- turns of the world since 1904 more intensively than Roosevelt ; and certainly no other student of election returns had better chances to learn his'lesson and to "hear his master's voice." "The Supreme Court," says the sagacious Mr. Dooley, "follows the election returns." Roose- velt did more than that; he rooted and grubbed at the figures; he chewed and digested them; he assimilated their significance. One amazing sign ran thru all those messages from voting masses ; one dominant note sounded and resounded from all those elections ; one chord was constant and compelling. It could not evade the eager penetration or the facile ear of that master of political harmony, and that genius of ballot-box mathematics, Roosevelt. This sign, this note, this constant and compelling chord, was the expression of the upward curve, the forward sweep of the Social-Democratic, or "Socialistic" vote. Don't fail to observe that "Socialistic." The special meaning given to that term as distinguished from the other adjective or descrip- tive, "Socialist," will appear in this discussion and, it is very likely, in many future election campaigns. It did not take the astute student of returns very long to learn that, altho this tremendously significant upward sweep of votes was attributed, usually, to the rise and growth of the socialist movement, there was something else involved in the problem something of much more immediate and important purpose to an aspiring and careful politician or statesman. DOCTORING THE SYMPTOMS A deeper diagnosis, probing under the surface and show of things, discovered that in all these campaigns where "great gains" for "socialism" or "social democracy" were recorded, the campaign had been fought largely on certain "practical" measures. These measures were usually remarkable for their superficial nature and their easy popularity after the political "event." They were issues that lend themselves readily to a sort of "thundering-in-the-index" kind of radical fervor and eloquence. To the unscientific "doctor" the symptom is deemed the disease, and doctoring the symptoms is not only very natural and very popular with intellects of average ability, but is also very innocuous to the cause of the economic or political trouble. At the same time it was obvious to such political outlookers as Roosevelt, that in those campaigns where the more prominent candi- dates were clearly reactionary or standpattish, such other candidates as reflected both the "radical" discontent of their community and also some measure of personal achievement and respectability, invariably made remarkable gains in votes and even( in favorable cases) secured an election. Something very similar to this was seen in Los Angeles, Cleveland, Milwaukee, Toledo, Berkeley, and in other towns where Social Democrats, Socialists, or Radicals (like Brand Whitlock) made notoriously startling successes, since the era of Golden Rule Jones and Big Tom Johnson. Mr. Abraham Ruef, who shares with Roosevelt the distinction of being the ablest practical politician in this country (altho for state reasons Mr. Ruef is not actively engaged in "regular" politics now), understood these facts and applied them with success to his Union Labor party (so called). He explains in his memoirs, "The Road I Travelled," his "ways and means" of being radical without being "dangerous" to any strong interest. These facts were not lost on the keen political Watchman of The Outlook. All that was needed, while he was assimilating this "victories," was for him to prepare himself for a consistent or semi- consistent lining-up with the situation. ROOSEVELT OUTLOOKING IN 1909 Now, at last, those two articles of his in The. 1 Outlook in March, 1909, become very significant. In the ligtit of after events the full import of T. R.'s "outlooking" may be measured and probed. Those two articles serve as the key, the open sesame, to a sound under- standing of the later course of the career of this newest Ghost Dance Messiah of political evangelism. Those articles were, of course, Roosevelt's method of "whipping the stream," as it were, before making the deciding cast. He left them behind him, to the tender mercies of the socialist press and the guardian spirit of Dr. Lyman Abbott, while the great nimrod himself was penetrating the African jungle in his disguise as Bwana Tumbo. The first of the two papers on socialism was called "Where We cannot Work with the Socialists." Nothing newer or more startling than the average ignorance and calumny of the socialist movement of Europe and America, appears in this first paper. Roosevelt merely purges his perturbed system of his long pent-up bile against Debs (who so often and so mercilessly flayed him), and of his puritanical cant against Dr. Herron and others who had stung the famous propagandist of anti-race-suicide by their trenchant criticism of his shallow pulpiteering. The second paper, however, is the important and NOW illumin- ating expression of Roosevelt's readiness to line up as the leader of the new social crusade and as an American Bismarck. This article he calls, "Where We Can Work with the Socialists." I stated in 1909 that the right title for that article was, "Where We Can WORK the Socialists." Today anybody can see the justice of that statement. Today Roosevelt himself knows that the time is ripe and auspicious for the carrying out of his deep-laid purpose to utilize socialism, HIS kind of Socialism, for the one great purpose of SAVING THE SYSTEM If you contrast the purpose of the international socialist move- ment with the now apparent purpose of Roosevelt's patent brand of '"socialism," you will be easily able to decide which you prefer for your own. The real socialist movement has for its prime purpose the organization of the working class for the emancipation of society thru the emancipation of the workers. The genuine socialism is, therefore, necessarily and primarily a class movement. I have often defined socialism (the prevailing Marxian socialism) as "the organization of the working class on class lines for class interests"; nothing short of that IS socialism, and nothing more than that is needed, in the ripeness of industrial evolution, for the re- demption of humanity from the slavery of poverty, and from the degradation of being mere "hands" for the masters to drive and exploit. The verb "exploit," as used by Marx, is from the French form for the English expression, "legal robbery." Now, exploitation or legal robbery is both the base and the dome of capitalism. The abolition of exploitation will be the abolition of capital, capital being merely the social means of legal robbery, just as chattel slavery in this country before the Civil revolution was the main social means of robbery by the plutocrats of the South, from George Washington with his hundreds of slaves down to Jefferson Davis. THE SLAVE AND THE HUMAN BEING When slavery in the South was abolished, the chattel slave (of the plantation type) disappeared, altho the human being of the black race remained. The transformation was in the social status of the human being. So with "capital" ; when wage-slavery (the prevailing means of robbing under capitalism) is abolished, the wage-slave will disappear. Disappears also "capital," as such; but the human worker and the "means of production (now called "capi- tal" and being the stored-up and NOW unpaid "labor" or product of the social workers) will remain to be organized on he new social lines of industrial fraternity and co-operative social ownership and control. Hence the socialists do not believe in capitalism ; they denounce competition ; they abhor poverty, not alone for themselves, but for everyone else. With Bernard Shaw, they deem poverty the most damnable crime of the age. Hence they are pledged to abolish, root and branch, the system-tree that produces poverty and its fruitage of social crimes. WHAT T. R. BELIEVES HIS SYSTEM OF SOCIETY But Roosevelt believes in competition he, the greatest preacher in politics, preaches competition. He lauds the strenuous life; he loves the system that delimits the masses from the rich and rewards with wealth the natural "leaders" the fine and the fit, the strong and the efficient HIS KIND.. To save that system, he will go to any political length even to "socialism," HIS kind of socialism. If he were frank and open-minded he would cry aloud the slogan of the Progressive party, "ALL THE SOCIALISM NECESSARY TO SAVE CAPITALISM" His "Confession of Faith" to his psalmsinging legions that "stood at Armageddon (Chicago in the shade of the Steam-roller) and battled for the Lord," emphasizes ..this supreme conviction : In order to prevent a social revolution we must have political evolution in the form of the positive social program of the Pro- gressive Party. As Mila Tupper Maynard says in the N. Y. Call Sun- day, Sept. 1, 1912: "The only point on which the opposing interests in this Progressive Party are agreed, is that the tide sweeping toward Socialism must be met by some concessions which will appease the people. 'We must make the slaveowners be good, or slavery is gone/ is the real platform of progressivism." Now this "program" follows remarkably the lines laid down in that ominous second OUTLOOK article, "Where We Can Work the Socialists." Study the overpowering parallel furnished by Editor Ghent, of the National Socialist of Washington, in his lining up of the two platforms the Progressive and the Socialist, as given in facsimile on page 7 of this pamphlet. Never was there a more egregious example of monumental political pilfering. THE SAVING SALVE OF PSEUDO SOCIALISM Could any demonstration more completely prove the Roosevelt scheme?- Is any clearer proof that Roosevelt's conscious design is to save the system of competitive capital by salving it with pseudo socialism? All those planks of the Socialist party that smack of political popularity (as abundantly proved by the experience of the radical or Johnson republicans in California, and the* no less "radical" socialists of Milwaukee under Berger, or insurgents under La Follette in Wisconsin ; all those demands that do not go to the root of the social problems but that do body forth the yearnings of the social reformer and the discontented business element; all these are calmly appropriated by the super-prophet of the new political commandment "Thou shalt not steal " Yes, thou shalt not steal from ME take it from the other fellow ! "THE WHITE TERROR AND THE RED" In the latest issue of The International (of New York), the editor, Geo. Sylvester Viereck, who is so bounding an admirer of Roosevelt that he has burst into the flamboyant poetry of "The So the new party, which goes boldly forth to its first campaign with the inscription on its banners, "Thou Shalt Not Steal!" begins its career with the brazen theft of half the working programme of the Socialist party. The great Theodore, who has exhausted the vocabulary of in- vective in denouncing the wickedness of the Socialists, must needs write his own platform as a pale reflex of the Socialist platform. Just look at the parallel columns below. With scissors and paste pot and a copy of the Social- ist platform, Roosevelt started in on his task of presenting the American people with a catalogue of the evils which beset them and of the remedies which are necessary. After all his swashbuckling and rant against the Socialists, he is forced to accept the main points in the Socialist indictment of capitalist society, atid is further forced to promise some at least n the Socialis f the Socialist measures of relief. We present only the more striking parallelisms i you think of them and of Theodore : SOCIALIST PLATFORM. The abolition of the present restrictions upon the ion, so that -that instru- majority of the voters. m of the pre ncndmem of the Constitui ent may be amendable by 3 We demand: The conservation sources, particularly of the lives and workers and their families. the two platforms. Read them and. See what "PROGRESSIVE" PLATFORM. Trie Progressive party, believing that a free peo- \ / pie should have the power from time to time to amend \ / their fundamental law so as to adapt it progressively yf to the changing needs of the people, pledges itself to ^ > _ _ peopli provide a more easy and expediti ing the Federal Constitution. work unceasingly By securing a more effective 'inspection of work- shops, factories, and mines Effective legislation looking to the prevention of industrial accidents, occupational diseases, overwork, involuntary unemployment, and other injurious effects incident to modern industry. The prohibition of child labor. By establishing minimum wage scales. By securing to every worker a rest peri less than a day and a half in each week. The eight-hour day in contii twenty-four- By abolishing the brutal exploitation of convicts under the contract system, and substituting the co- operative organization of industries in and workshops for the benefit of convi< dependents. The general prohibition of night- work for women ind the establishment of an eight-hour work day for women and young persons. The abolition of the convict contract labor system, substituting a system of prison production for gov- ital consumption only, and the application of ings to the support of their dependent :.the full liberty of all schools of pra \Ve favor the union .of all the existing agencies or ihe*Fedcral government dealing with the public health into a single national health service, without discrimi- nation against or for any one set of therapeutic meth- ods, schools of medicine, or schools of healing. The separation of the present Bureau of Labor from the Department of Commerce and Labor and its elevation to the rank of a department. The adoption of a graduated income tax, the in- crease of the rates of the present corporation tax and portion to 'the value of the ctttte'imfto'nearnU/of kin the proceeds of these taxes to be employes in the socialization of industry The abolition of the monopoly ownership of pa enis. and ih* substitution of collective ownership, wit direct rewards o inventors by premiums or royaltie party to establish a department of n the Cabinet, and with wide juris- 5 affecting the conditions of labor labor with ; diction ovci and living. We believe in a graduated inheritance tax as a national means of equalizing the obligations of hold- ers of property to yovernmem. and we hereby pledge out party to enact such a Federal law as will tax large inheritances, returning to ihe States an equitable per. centage of all amounts colfeoed. We favor- the rati- fication of the pending amendment to the Constitution giving the government power to levy an income tax The Progressive party, believing that no people can justly claim to be a true democracy which denies political rights on account of sex. pledges itself to the task of securing equal siftfrage to men and women We pledge ourselves to the enactment of a patent law which will make it impossible for patents to be The adoption of the initiative, referendum, and recall and of proportional representation, nationally as well as locally The extension of the public domain to in< fed* The further conservation and development of iir.il resources for the use and benefit of all people- "he trolled by the nation. The collective ownership and democratic mar ways cy sy The immediate curbing of the power of the to issue injunctions We believe th.it the issuance of injunctions in case.s arising out of labor di-pmer, should be prohibit- ed when such injunctions would not apply when m. labor dispute, txi.tcd Hymn of Armageddon," says that Roosevelt's socialism is the "White" socialism, as opposed to the "Red," and that therefore all the "white" socialists are for Teddy, while the "Reds" are raving over-against him. True ; for to the militant worker, "white" social- ism, like the "white plague" and "white slavery," is ghostly and ghastly. THE PREVENTATIVE SOCIALISM OF OYSTER BAY The "socialism" of Roosevelt, therefore, is preventative socialism, just as the "unionism" of the A. F. of L. brand is preventative union- ism. Preventative socialism aims to save capitalism; preventative unionism endeavors or seems to endeavor to bulwark the boss in his ownership and his rule. Preventative socialism differs materially from international Marxian socialism (the 'kind, the only kind, says Professor Veblen, formerly of Stanford University, that "inspires hopes or fears). The slogan of preventative or Roosevelt socialism, as we saw, is, "As much socialism as is needed to save Capitalism. '- The real socialism stands for 'ALL THE SOCIALISM NECESSARY TO KILL CAPITALISM " Real socialism IS destructive, in a certain sense, and as has been charged ; it IS destructive of capitalism ; it IS destructive of wage-slavery and competition and war and every other form of social hell. To show how fundamentally antagonistic it is to his own assumed socialism, Roosevelt, in the paper above-cited, uses, un- wittingly, many illuminating adjectives 1 or phrases. He calls the socialism of Eugene Debs "advanced" Theodore is not "advanced," tho, like Bryan (16 to 1 years ago), he thinks he is advancing his own political career. The socialism of the advanced socialists, says Roosevelt, is "thoro-going" ; his is not it is neither thoro nor going. Again, he refers, in his typical and genially kind manner, to "these savage socialists." T. R. is of course the quintescence of "refined" socialism. Elsewhere, he calls! us "self-styled" and "catch- word" socialists; he himself is not a self-styled socialist, as that is (or was) a bad name to get "good" votes with ; nor is he a "catch- word" economist otherwise he would not be so insistent on calling himself by the catchword, "progressive." "So long as they (the socialists) make any proposals," says the volunteer Colonel, "which are not foolish (to me), and which tend towards betterment (for me), we can act with them." Much virtue in that little word "act," as used by a political star among the "good actors." "The real, logical, advanced socialists who teach their faith botlKas a creed and a political platform, may deceive to their ruin-- decent and well-meaning but shortsighted men," wrote Roosevelt ) in his capacity of consulting (or perhaps INsulting) editor. If we leave these decent, well-meaning, and shortsighted men to the lure of a "socialist," who proclaims himself as not "REAL, LOGICAL, ADVANCED," we must trust that the "savior of -the system" will lead them thru the primrose paths of political glory to that golden paradise wherein multi-millionaires like Perkins and Judge Gary are waiting to welcome them and set them to work in the Steel mills for seven days a week and twelve hours a day. Among the innumerable other accusing names that Mr. Roose- velt applies with so much gusto and Christian charity (in a Christian paper) to his socialist brethren, are "revolting," "radical," "straight- forward," "ultra," "scientific^," "certain," "recognized," and countless other tags, labels or libels. v < Yet, withal, in three short years he seeks out the platform of these very men and women whom he reviled in 1909 as "Debs socialists," and coolly swipes two-thirds of their latest program. Well may we ask some power that "wad the giftie gie us, To see ourselves as Teddy sees us," whether this nl'ching or snitching of the socialist platform is "straightforward," "scientific," "ultra," "logical," "advanced/" "REAL," "RADICAL"? Or is it merely "Revolting"? Would it come under the castigation he sought to serve out to Eugene V. Debs, of whom he wrote in that notorius Outlook outburst as one of those who "occupy" (I quote literally) "a position so revolting that it is difficult even to discuss it in a reputable paper"? "TAKE FROM THE STORM ITS STRENGTH!" Richard Watson Gilder, the ipoet, editor, and reformer, addressed under date of March 23, 1909, some lines in The Outlook to a certain distinguished personage, perhaps an ex-President of the United. R. W. G. had a fondness, I suspect, for ex-Presidents. I have an autograph original letter of his before me ; in it he speaks with evident pleasure of the fact that ex-Persident Cleveland is going to take dinner with him at his country place (up around Buzzards Bay) on the following evening. Well, in that poem of Gilder's, called "Live Now in Nature/' (Roosevelt was then on his mission of tender humanity to the be nighted monkeys and other dangerous beasts of Africa), the poet writes : "Let not one full hour pass Fruitless for thee, in all its weary length ; Take sweetness from the grass ; Take from the storm its strength!" The writer could not have realized how prophetic of today's denouement was his appeal. "Take from the storm its strength !" The storm what is the storm but SOCIALISM? And he, the new Jove (or Marlborough) to ride the whirlwind and direct the storm: nay, more ! "take from the storm its STRENGTH" why, bless your unsuspecting soul, it's TEDDY. To rob the socialist storm of its political terrors, to shear the locks of the new-menacing Samson, to place velvet gauntlets on the keen claws of the revolutionary proletariat, to redeem capitalism, to perpetuate competition, to restrain progress from overleaping the respectable, traditional, con- ventional, reasonable, safe, sound, conservative, SUCCESS- FUL channels of reform politics t h i s is the mission of the New Crusade and the Roosevelt evangel of the Pro- gressive party. If further proof were needed, the attitude of Hearst would supply absolute demonstration. ROOSEVELT HELPS HIMSELF TO HEARST'S PLANS For years Hearst has been planning to devise and launch a party of substituted reform for menacing revolution. His Independence party, his old government-ownership campaign, his truckling to the remnants of populism, his subtle appeals to the agrarian discontent, and his endeavors to wind himself and his influence into the inner circle of union labor politicians, all this has indicated that Hearst was preparing for the party that should be the buffer of national reform as against international socialism. Upton Sinclair's vision in 1907 of Hearst as the leader of the new crusade to save capital or organize the "Industrial Republic" by an overwhelming victory in 1913, suggested that, after all, Roosevelt might be the man to lead the new revolt. Hearst was ready, but he didn't happen to hold the strategic position at the crucial time. But even now he is adopting the position of foster-father to the new political weanling. He appears to expect the mantle of Elias (Teddy) to fall from the 10 doughty shoulders of T. R. and repose more gracefully upon the languid form of the father of the Independence League. The I. L , it will be remembered, sought to capitalize for itself the enmity of Standard Oil, just as the Roosevelt uprising is seeking to draw upon itself the open opposition of Archbold and other Standard Oil magnates. These magnates are wise in their regeneration ; they want their "friends" to "bust" them, just as the tariff wants its friends to reform it ; and when I speak of Hearst and T. R. as "friends" of Standard Oil, I mean, of -course, that they are devoted to the same system to which the Standard-Oil trust is devoted, the system of capitalism and competition. CBUT IS ROOSEVELT SINCERE? he universal reply to Roosevelt's claim that he is the supreme representative of the New Dispensation, is to assert that he is "fak- ing," that he is not sincere ; that he had seven years of presidential power and prestige, and did none of these great acts of reform ; that no man in modern industrial times had so much chance to show genuine sympathy with militant labor, and no man has shown less sympathy or understanding; that, in the language of Charles Edward Russell, his most penetrating and pulverizing critic, Roosevelt has never in a long private and public career displayed any rudiments, even, of humane tenderness. Even if all of these accusations were as well founded as the best-grounded of them are known to be, that neither explains nor answers the Progressive party and its pretentions. If you dispose of Roosevelt in that summary manner, how about Hiram Johnson? We in California know Johnson's caliber; we are apt to agree with Bryan in thinking and asserting that Johnson is more significant than Roosevelt, has a better record, and is more in sincere earnest. His "socialism," however, is of precisely the same brand as that of Roosevelt, and it is aiming at very similar purposes of bulwarking the "right kind of capitalism," in the interest of saving the system and perpetuating competition. Governor Johnson is no more engaged in killing wage-slavery than is Samuel Gompers or John Mitchell or John I. Nolan, the Republican-Roosevelt candidate for Congress in a labor district, with the backing of prominent labor leaders who, like himself, less than a year ago were manoeuvring for the support of the Socialist Party, and were giving it out that in all future campaigns they would be lined up as socialists with the socialists. But the recent develop- ments prove that these Roosevelt labor leaders were simply "playing the game" to get votes. They are hopelessly and pitifully burgess (meaning bourgeois) laborites in instinct and objects. So, likewise, with the rest of the outstanding figures around th-j chariot of the conquering Teddy Heney, Pinchot, Medill McCormick Beveridge, Garfield, et id omne genus. They cannot be disposed of by merely attacking Roosevelt on his Croton Dam record of a dozen years ago, nor by reiterating the story of how in a private letter he denounced Harriman for being as undesirable a citizen as Debs and Haywood were in the general* estimation. Incidentally, we socialists might as well confess that we seldom tell that "un- desirable citizen" story as accurately as we tell some other more important things, such as the diabolical cruelty of capital, even of the highly refored or municipalized kind. It is fatuous to assert that Roosevelt is the entire Progressive Party. Even the most cursory study of international politics de- velops the fact that every nation that has a ripening socialist, or socialistic (laboristic) political organization has also its "Progressive" party, under some one of many names. The father of progressivism, as a form of Preventive Socialism, is no less a man than Bismarck. T. R. has often been compared to the Little Napoleon, and there is much of parallelism in the upstart burgess political careers of Theodore R. and Louis N. ; but now conies the Bismarckian stage in the Roosevelt unfolding. The first great political captain of capital was Count Bismarck, and from his pilot brain developed the first great scheme for a "positive program of social reform," as a means of deflecting the menacing political revolution. The 'career of the German Social Democracy will furnish an illuminating expose of the natural course of political reform and political revolution in modern capitalist countries. PROGRAM OF "POSITIVE REFORM" SCHEME When Professor Schaeffle, the internationally renowned author of the Quintescence of Socialism (which has been a handbook used in many languages by friend and foe for a generation or more), wrote, probably at the behest of Fuerst Bismarck, his important work, "The Impossibility of Social Democracy," he pointed out and contended for this central fact of capitalist political opportunism : To meet and withstand, if possible, the march of socialism ("Real, logical, advanced socialism, as Roosevelt styles it), it is necessary to devise and present a program of POSITIVE REFORM. Neces- sarily, the longer you delay in devising and -presenting this program in a prominent and compelling manner (as the Progressives now do, and as Hearst failed to do in 1904-1906), the more essential it 12 becomes to make your program and platform socialistic (not social- ist, by any means, but socialistic that is, an imitation of socialism, or SUBSTITUTE SOCIALISM). Hence, because American politi- cians, like other American professionals, are notoriously traditional, superstitious, conventional, reactionary, and respectable (what used to be called "genteel," you know), the presenting of this program of positive reform has been impossible until the tide of international socialism has risen so high that it threatens to overwhelm the ausgespielt political parties at any election. All the recent campaigns in the United States have, it is admitted, proved this up to the hilt of absolute demonstration ; and the overwhelming total of 4,000,000 (four million) German Social-Democrat votes in the recent election necessarily aroused the political ostriches everywhere, even in old New England and in conventional New York. But (and this is supremely important), before the world of old-line politicians were awake to the possibilities of REFORM socialism, many of the shrewdest of the get-elected-qukk politicians among the avowed socialists saw the scheme and worked it to a wondrous conclusion. The leaders of the Bernstein revisionist move- ment in Germany and Austria, the J. Ramsey Macdonald type of Independent labor party leaders in Great Britain, the various "Labor" parties in Australasia, the Italian reformists, the Millerand-Briand Coterie in France, and, lastly but not "leastly," the Berger and the Harriman "Social Democrats" of Milwaukee and Los Angeles, all these gave a practical illustration of the political working of a species of ballot-box socialism that proclaimed itself as not TOO extreme, not too Utopian, not too UNconstructive, not too un-American (in this country un-English, in England, and, mutatis mutandis, in the other countries). SOCIAL DEMOCRATS AND SOCIAL REPUBLICANS In California, it now seems proved, a tacit understanding has been reached between representatives of the Union-Labor party (so-called) and representatives of the laboristic or reform wing of the Socialist Party that the name of the latter should become (after the Milwaukee and German fashion) "Social-Democrat," because, as stated in the now famous Noel-John Murray document, P. H. Mc- Carthy was willing to "fuse" if that name were adopted. Meanwhile programs were being adopted that Roosevelt might at any time have swiped without finding himself loaded down with any of "the socialism with which we can't work," as T. R. would put it. All this may have been done in the utmost good faith I do not find it necessary to charge either the Social Democrats or the Social 13 Republicans (as the Progressive Party might very well call them-" selves) with malice or high crime or low misdemeanor. I neither accuse nor excuse, as the French savant says ; I merely explain or, at least, define. The age-long contest between 'Opportunist and im- possibilist, like the precisely similar fight between insurgents and standpatters, or progressives and reactionaries, is the inevitable result of clashing judgments, and these are very frequently (tho not always) the effect of clashing interests, that give rise necessarily to antagonistic temperaments. AN INTERLUDE WHICH SHOULD BE SKIPPED BY ALL DELEGATES TO PEACE CONS Probably the most comical and conventional and hopelessly and helplessly middle-class attitude is the constant tendency on the part of certain very "respectable" socialist journals and organizers to deplore "quarrels" and "swat fesits" and other exhibitions of a very normal tendency to stand up for what you imagine to be best or, at least, better. These fights merely prove that both sides have sufficient spirit and conviction to FIGHT. It would indeed be deplorable if only ONE side was willing to fight for its convictions. Peace is easy when one side plays the craven or adopts some form of occult or oriental quietism as a philosophy of non-resistance or Christian magnanimity or muttony submissiveness. In San Fran- cisco the profoundest blight on the working class and on every form of resident humanity is what is known as "Industrial Peace ;" and no plague of Egypt was ever more potent and poisonous to the working class. At the same time it has paid big and safe dividends to the custodians who keep it in their safe deposit boxes or elsewhere. WILL THE ROOSEVELT "NEW SOCIALISM" SUCCEED? My answer to this question was ready long before I prepared this unpremeditated study of Roosevelt's N^w Socialism. Had I awaited the returns of the election just over, I should have been even more confirmed in my convictions that "Roosevelt IS the most dangerous man in .America." as Debs says but not for the reason that Debs gives. rRoosevelt's revisionism of socialism will necessarily succeed marvelously in deflecting "socialist" votes from the Socialist Party. Its inevitable success in this field is what is making the movement so popular with capitalists of all stripes and with Hearst and all the other innately conservative radicals.""N THE GENESIS OF JOHNSON'S REFORM LEGISLATION. Take California, as the nearest and strongest field for a test. As already shown, the new Rooseveltism is, of course, merely Hiram 14 Johnsonism, writ large; and Hiram Johnson's program of "positive reform" (which the laborite lobby and the Social-Democrat lobby flatter themselves they had some important part in creating) was of course born of those 47,000 votes secured by socialist candidate Wil- son in 1910, "and of the conditions that produced that startling "so- cialist' development from the 16,000 votes of the preceding governor- ship election. The California primary election of September, 1912, however, proved that wherever the socialist vote of recent years has been seem- ingly very large, there the falling-off this year has been the greatest. The official state organ of the Socialist Party, published in Los An- geles, where the "socialist" vote ran to 53,000 last year, has the following as the first editorial in its issue of September 7 : RESULTS AT THE PRIMARIES The returns in at this writing would indicate that the Socialist candidates for Judges of the Superior Court are all defeated in Los Angeles County. The humiliating thing, however, in this defeat is that it was accomplished with an opposing vote ranging from 6,400 to 7,800. If these figures be correct they mean that less than 6,400 was the entire Socialist vote of Los Angeles County for the judicial ticket. The Socialist who stayed away from the election Tuesday should hang his head in shame. With practically 22,000 Socialists registered in the county there can be no adequate excuse offered for this result. It is due to the almost criminal indifference of voters who call themselves Socialist but who have yet to learn what it means to be a Socialist. With the highest vote for a judicial candidate at 18,000, the Socialist candidates should have led the field. They did not. Someone is responsible for it. For a Socialist not to vote whenever there is an election, unless circumstances prevent, is treason. It is as though the soldier should go to sleep at his post or desert in the face of the enemy. (The "somebody" who is responsible is either the one who taught "Roosevelt" socialism LAST year, or Teddy himself THIS year or BOTH.) In Alameda county, where in recent elections the socialists elected the Mayor of Berkeley and came very close to electing the Mayor of Oakland, Socialist Mayor Wilson, running for Congress on the Socialist ticket and backed up by a strong paper, an enthusiastic 15 organization, and a live campaign (with the Progressive vote split into two wings), polled less than 10 per 'cent of the total; and, it must be remembered, that the socialists have been counting so con- fidently on Mayor Wilson's election as Congressman that, as I have heard some of the members say, they allowed him to keep out of the recent recall election in Oakland as an^active participant, so that his Congressional campaign might not be affected by the antagonism of those who might be for a Republican or independent candidate like Davi-e in the mayoralty election, but for the socialist candidate in the Congressman campaign. Nevertheless the Roosevelt candidate (or, even more accurately, the Hiram Johnson candidate), altho running a very bad second, beat the socialist candidate by over 3 to 1. On the other hand, in San Francisco, where the socialist vote hag been kept down to a clear-cut base since 1905 by the antagonism of the Union Labor party, and by the campaigning of candidates no more popular than their Party and on issues no more "popular" than the so-called rank socialism (that is, straight industrial socialism), the vote in the primary election of 1912 is encouragingly good and sound, under very hard conditions of competition with a Roosevelt- Union-Labor-'S'tate machine combination, fresh from a monster Labor day demonstration,