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 Hillquit 
 
 Socialism on Trial
 
 THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 THE FREEMAN PAMPHLETS 
 
 SOCIALISM ON TRIAL 
 
 by 
 MORRIS HILLQUIT 
 
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 PUBLISHED BY 
 
 B. W. HUEBSCH 
 
 INC. 
 
 NEW YORK
 
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 SOCIALISM ON TRIAL 
 
 BY 
 
 MORRIS HILLQUIT 
 
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 NEW YORK, MCMXX 
 
 B. W. HUEBSCH, INC.
 
 TO MY WIFE 
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1920, BY 
 B, W. HUKBSCH, INC.
 
 HA 
 
 -i -4^ 
 
 PREFACE 
 
 On the first day of April, 1920, the lower house of 
 the legislature of the State of New York by an over- 
 whelming vote adopted a resolution expelling the five 
 Socialists who had been elected members of that body. 
 The unprecedented action was the culmination of a 
 sensational political proceeding, which was followed with 
 tense interest by the whole country. It had its incep- 
 tion on the opening day of the legislative session, January 
 7th, 1920, when the Speaker of the Assembly, Thaddeus 
 C. Sweet, without preliminary debate or notice of any 
 kind, suddenly ordered the Socialist members to the 
 bar of the House and coolly informed them that they 
 would not be allowed to take their seats in the Assembly 
 on the ground that they had been elected "upon a plat- 
 form that is absolutely inimical to the best interests of 
 the State of New York and of the United States." The 
 Speaker was immediately followed by the majority leader 
 of the Assembly, who offered a resolution in substance 
 condemning the Socialist Party as a revolutionary and 
 unpatriotic organization, and directing that the seats of 
 the Socialist Assemblymen be declared vacant "pending 
 the determination of their qualifications and eligibility." 
 The resolution was passed with only six dissenting votes. 
 After thus convicting a whole political party without 
 trial, the entire matter was referred to the Judiciary 
 Committee of the Assembly "for investigation" — a sort 
 of post-mortem inquest. The hearings in the peculiar 
 proceeding resulted in a divided report, seven members 
 
 1362304
 
 vi PREFACE 
 
 of the Committee recommending the expulsion of all the 
 Socialist Assemblymen, while five members upheld their 
 right to their seats and one favored the expulsion of 
 three and the seating of two of the defendants. 
 
 From a legal aspect the proceeding was a monstrosity. 
 
 The entire scheme of our political system is that the 
 people should govern through their elected representa- 
 tives. The right of the people to choose their own rep- 
 resentatives is supreme. The provisions of the New 
 York State constitution which had any bearing upon the 
 issue, are based upon this political axiom. The law 
 prescribes the qualifications of Members of the Assembly. 
 They are few in number and plain in meaning. A Mem- 
 ber of the Assembly must be of full age, a citizen of 
 the United States and a resident of the State. He 
 must, of course, also have been elected by a plurality of 
 the votes legally cast in his district at an election duly 
 held. 
 
 Since the existence of these qualifications and the fact 
 of the election may be, and in practice often are, ques- 
 tioned, and an appropriate tribunal must exist to de- 
 termine such questions, the constitution of the State 
 ordains that each house shall be "the judge of the elec- 
 tions, returns and qualifications of its own members." 
 
 In passing upon the qualifications of its members, the 
 Assembly acts in a judicial capacity. It is legally and 
 morally bound by the provisions of the Constitution, 
 and the latter leaves no room for doubt as to the rights 
 of elected public officials. 
 
 After directing that all such officials take an oath to 
 support the Constitution of the United States and the 
 constitution of the State of New York, and prescribing 
 the form of such oath, it specifically and solemnly or- 
 dains that "no other oath, declaration or test shall be 
 required as a qualification for any ofiice of public trust." 
 To an unbiased mind it must be quite patent that the
 
 PREFACE vii 
 
 intentions of this provision was to prohibit the exact 
 thing which the Assembly has done in the case of its 
 Socialist members. 
 
 Now that the proceeding has passed from the agitated 
 realm of controversy into the serene domain of history, 
 the full significance of the precedent set in Albany gradu- 
 ally begins to dawn upon thinking America. As time 
 goes on the irretrievable ravages which the reckless ac- 
 tion has wrought upon the precious fabric of popular 
 government will become more obvious. In the calm 
 retrospect of future years the lawless disfranchisement 
 of a whole political party will rank with the Dred Scott 
 decision as a national calamity. 
 
 The baneful precedent may never be applied again, or 
 it may be made the basis of an even more outrageous- 
 political crime in some future fit of emotional public 
 hysteria. It will always be with us. Like Banquo's 
 ghost, it will hover about the constitution — a sinister 
 reminder of the insecurity of representative govern- 
 ment and popular elections. 
 
 The action of the Assembly will not destroy the So- 
 cialist Party. Nor will it force it to modify its substan- 
 tial aims or character. The Socialist movement is too 
 strongly intrenched as a vital and organic part of the 
 modern political system to be annihilated by the edict 
 of a handful of naive politicians. 
 
 On the other hand, the action of the Assembly may 
 prove to be the making of the Socialist Party. The 
 plot for the ouster of the Socialist members of the As- 
 sembly undoubtedly originated with the Republican 
 machine in the Assembly. Had the Democratic members 
 of the Assembly or the Democratic Party as such pos- 
 sessed the political honesty, courage and wisdom to op- 
 pose the measure, the odium of the proceeding would 
 have fallen with its entire weight upon the Republican 
 Party. But the Democrats chose to make common cause
 
 viii PREFACE 
 
 with their Republican rival in the perpetration of the 
 outrage. 
 
 The Socialist Party thus becomes the only place of 
 refuge for the liberty-loving citizen. The irony of the 
 political game has decreed that at the very moment when 
 the Socialist Party has been barred from a legislative 
 body as a "foe of the constitution," it finds itself the 
 sole political guardian of popular constitutional rights. 
 Henceforward Socialism will have a double appeal to the 
 voters, a political as well as an economic. 
 
 The following pages represent a full stenographic 
 record of my closing address as counsel for the Socialist 
 Assemblymen before the Judiciary Committee of the 
 Assembly. The hearing, which began on the 20th day 
 of January and was concluded on the 9th day of March, 
 covered most of the important phases of modern So- 
 cialist thought and policy. It leaves behind it a record 
 of more than 2200 closely printed pages. The closing 
 address, which attempted to summarize the issues from 
 the Socialist point of view, thus resolved itself into an 
 attempt at a rather complete exposition of the present- 
 day philosophy, program and methods of the Socialist 
 Party and its attitude towards the late war and the 
 great world problems arising from it. This character of 
 the speech and the historic circumstances under which 
 it was made, will, I hope, justify its present publication. 
 
 New York, May 15th, 1920 
 
 Morris Hillquit
 
 SOCIALISM ON TRIAL 
 
 The Charges. — Before beginning my argument, I 
 wish to thank you, Mr. Chairman, and the other mem- 
 bers of the Committee, for the great patience and for- 
 bearance which you have shown throughout this pro- 
 ceeding. I also wish to express my appreciation to counsel 
 on the other side for their conduct, which, on the 
 whole, has been courteous, and to say that if, in the 
 course of my remarks I should have occasion to criticize 
 some of their conduct in this proceeding it shall by no 
 means be taken as personal, but only as necessitated 
 by the exigencies of the case itself. 
 
 True to his promise, the Chairman has allowed a great 
 latitude to both sides in the introduction of evidence. We 
 have had an extraordinary wide range of testimony, some 
 relevant, some irrelevant; and today, when we come to 
 sum up the case, we are confronted by an unusual record, 
 I believe, of about 2,000 printed pages, covering every 
 conceivable historical, economic and sociological subject. 
 
 I believe it to be the object of a summing up to sepa- 
 rate the wheat from the chaff ; to come down to the actual 
 issues; to discuss the principal evidence on such issues, 
 and to give the view of counsel for the respective sides, 
 on the purport and meaning of such evidence; and I be- 
 lieve I can render no better service to the Committee in 
 their deliberations than to recall to them at the threshold 
 that after all is said and done, and after all the testi- 
 mony is sifted and weighed, we are here in a definite 
 proceeding and for a definite and concrete object. We 
 have gotten away from the facts of the case. We have 
 gotten away in some respects from the objects, and it may 
 be well to recall here the origin of this proceeding. 
 
 In the last general election of 1919, Louis Waldman,
 
 2 SOCIALISM ON TRIAL 
 
 August Claessens, Samuel A. deWitt, Samuel Orr and 
 Charles Solomon were duly elected by their respective 
 constituencies in the city of New York, to be members 
 of this body. They received a plurality, or majority 
 vote in each case. Their election was not contested. A 
 certificate of election was issued to each of them, and on 
 the 7th day of January, 1920, the opening day of the 
 first session of this Assembly, they duly presented them- 
 selves, took the constitutional oath of oflBce, participated 
 in the work of organizing this Chamber and in some other 
 preliminary work until such time as they were, upon the 
 motion of the Speaker of the House — upon his own 
 motion — called before the Bar of this House and, after 
 being lectured by the Speaker, a resolution was intro- 
 duced, submitted to a vote and adopted; and they 
 thereupon and under the terms of that resolution, were 
 suspended from their office pending this hearing. 
 
 This resolution is the authority under which your 
 Committee acts. It not only states the subject of your 
 inquiry, but it also defines and limits your authority in 
 the matter. It is the only legal warrant under which 
 you gentlemen of the Committee are here to-day ; and it, 
 therefore, becomes very important to have that resolu- 
 tion and its wording clearly before you. I shall take the 
 liberty of reading it now. It is as follows: 
 
 "Whereas, Louis Waldman, August Claessens, 
 Samuel A. deWitt, Samuel Orr and Charles Solomon 
 are members of the Socialist Party of America ; and 
 
 "Whereas, the said Socialist Party did, at its 
 official party convention, held in the city of Chicago, 
 Illinois, in the month of August, 1919, declare its 
 adherence and solidarity with the revolutionary 
 forces of Soviet Russia and did pledge itself and its 
 members to the furtherance of the International 
 Socialist Revolution; and 
 
 "Whereas, by such adherence and such declaration 
 made by the said party, the said party has endorsed 
 the principles of the Communist Internationale now 
 being held at Moscow, Russia, which Internationale
 
 SOCIALISM ON TRIAL 3 
 
 is pledged to the forcible and violent overthrow of 
 all organized government now existing; and 
 
 "Whereas, section 5 of article 2 of the Constitu- 
 tion of the Socialist party of America provides that 
 each member of the Socialist party of America must 
 subscribe to the following: 'In all my political ac- 
 tion, while a member of the Socialist party, I agree 
 to be guided by the Constitution and platform of 
 that party'; and 
 
 "Whereas, section 13, subdivision 8, of the State 
 Constitution of the Socialist party of the State of 
 New York provides: 'A member may be expelled 
 from the party, or may be suspended for a period 
 not exceeding one year, for the following offenses: 
 (f) for failing, or refusing when elected to a public 
 office, to abide and carry out such instructions as 
 he may have received from the dues-paying party 
 organization, or as prescribed by the State or 
 National Constitution'; and 
 
 "Whereas, such instructions may be given by an 
 executive committee made up in whole or in part of 
 alien enemies owing allegiance to governments or 
 organizations inimical to the interests of the United 
 States and the people of the State of New York ; and 
 
 "Whereas, the National Convention of the Social- 
 ist party of America, held at St. Louis, from April 7, 
 to about April 14, 1917, did duly adopt resolutions 
 that the only struggle which would justify taking up 
 arms is the class struggle against economic exploita- 
 tion and political oppression, and particularly 
 warned against the snare and delusion of so-called 
 defensive warfare ; and such resolutions further pro- 
 vided "as against the false doctrine of national 
 patriotism, we uphold the idea of international 
 working-class solidarity"; and 
 
 "Whereas, the Socialist party of America did urge 
 its members to refrain from taking part in any way, 
 shape or manner in the war, and did affirmatively 
 urge them to refuse to engage even in the production 
 of munitions of war and other necessaries used in
 
 SOCIALISM ON TRIAL 
 
 the prosecution of the said war, and did thereby 
 stamp the said party and all of its members with an 
 inimicable attitude to the best interests of the United 
 States and the State of New York; and 
 
 '^Whereas, the said Louis Waldman, August 
 Claessens, Samuel A. deWitt, Samuel Orr and 
 Charles Solomon, members of the Socialist party of 
 America, having been elected upon the platform of 
 the Socialist party of America, have thereby sub- 
 scribed to its principles and its aims and purposes, 
 against the organized government of the United 
 States and the State of New York, and have been 
 actively associated with and connected with an or- 
 ganization convicted of a violation of the Espionage 
 Act of the United States; 
 
 "Therefore, be it resolved, that the said Louis 
 Waldman, August Claessens, Samuel A. deWitt, 
 Samuel Orr and Charles Solomon, members of the 
 Socialist party, be and they hereby are denied seats 
 in this Assembly pending the determination of their 
 qualifications and eligibility to their respective seats, 
 and be it further 
 
 "Resolved, that the investigation of the qualifi- 
 cations and eligibility of the said persons to their 
 respective seats in this Assembly be and it hereby is 
 referred to the Committee on Judiciarj^ of the As- 
 sembly of the State of New York, to be hereafter 
 appointed, and that the said Conamittee be em- 
 powered to adopt such rules of procedure as in its 
 judgment it deems proper, and that said Committee 
 be further empowered to subpoena and examine wit- 
 nesses and docimientary evidence, and to report to 
 this body its determinations as to the qualifications 
 and eligibility of the said Louis Waldman, August 
 Claessens, Samuel A. deWitt, Samuel Orr and 
 Charles Solomon, and each of them respectively, to a 
 seat in this Assembly." 
 
 Now, Mr. Chairman, I call your attention, first of 
 all to the object for which this investigation has been
 
 SOCIALISM ON TRIAL 5 
 
 instituted, and which is stated twice in the resolution. 
 One is that the Assemblymen mentioned be denied their 
 seats "pending the determination of their qualifications 
 and eligibility to their respective seats"; and by the 
 other: you are asked to report finally your determination 
 as to "the qualifications and eligibility" of these five 
 men. So that the only question before you — the only 
 question upon which you have the power to take testi- 
 mony and to pass upon it — is the question of the eligi- 
 bility and qualification of these five men. You have no 
 other authority under this resolution. I say this for the 
 reason that the nature of this proceeding and its legal 
 status have never been made quite clear; and in fact, 
 when you go through the record, you will find several 
 conflicting allusions to the nature of this proceeding. 
 
 There is, as you well know, first of all, the constitu- 
 tional provision to the effect that each House — and, of 
 course, also this Assembly — shall be the judge of the 
 elections, returns, and qualifications of its own members ; 
 and that is the only provision which the Assembly had 
 in view in passing this resolution under which you are 
 proceeding. 
 
 You cannot adopt any other theory but that these five 
 men were denied seats not on account of their conduct 
 in the Assembly; but they were denied their seats at 
 the threshold of their terms, just upon a challenge of 
 their qualifications and eligibility. 
 
 The other provision which has been mentioned here 
 is the one of the Legislative Law, section 3, to the effect 
 that each House has the power to expel any of its mem- 
 bers after the report of a Committee to inquire into the 
 charges against him shall have been made. ^ Clearly, 
 this proceeding does not come within that provision ; first, 
 because the expulsion or suspension of these members 
 took place before any inquiry into charges; and also 
 because I think it has been held uniformly — and it is 
 quite clear from the context — that this section of the 
 Legislative Law deals only with conduct of members of 
 the Assembly in office. It could not be anything else. 
 For that matter I doubt that the Legislature would have
 
 6 SOCIALISM ON TRIAL 
 
 a right to go back to original qualifications by the enact- 
 ment of a similar provision. 
 
 Another provision which also has been referred to in 
 the course of this proceeding is that of the Public Officers 
 Law, section 35-a, reading: "A person holding any public 
 office shall be removable therefrom in the manner pro- 
 vided by law for the utterance of any treasonable word 
 or words, or the doing of any treasonable or seditious act 
 or acts during his term." 
 
 Now, it is perfectly clear that this provision has abso- 
 lutely no application to the case before you ; first, because 
 the offense here mentioned must be committed during 
 the term of oflfice; and, of course, the term of office of 
 these Assemblymen covered a period not beyond two 
 hours, during which time they are not charged with mis- 
 conduct in any shape, form or manner. Furthermore, 
 from the reading of this provision it is perfectly clear 
 that all that it meant to do was to specify one of the 
 offenses referred to in a general way in the Legislative 
 Laws, an offense for w^hich a member may be expelled, 
 because this provision — "a person holding any public 
 office shall be removed therefrom in the manner pro- 
 vided by law" — assumes and refers to a definite 
 procedure for such removal, mentioned elsewhere, 
 
 I do rLot suppose it will be seriously contended by 
 the other side or that any member of the committee 
 would entertain any serious doubts on the subject, 
 namely, that these five Assemblymen are tried here as 
 to their qualifications or eligibility for office under the 
 provisions of the Constitution of the State of New York, 
 article 3, section 10. That is one very important in- 
 ference we must draw from the reading of the resolution. 
 
 Thus you are asked to inquire into the eligibility and 
 qualifications of these men and to report your determina- 
 tion. Does that mean that you are given a general 
 roving commission? Does that mean that you are 
 limited in any way in the scope of your inquiry by the 
 provisions of that resolution? I hold it does not. What 
 I maintain, Mr. Chairman, is that the numerous pre- 
 ambles in the resolution in form charging these Assembly-
 
 SOCIALISM ON TRIAL 7 
 
 men with the commission of certain offenses or with the 
 possession of certain disqualifications are not meant to 
 be and could not have been meant to be conclusions in 
 the nature of a judgment. In other words, when the 
 Assembly, by its resolution said: "Whereas, the said 
 Socialist party did at its official party convention held at 
 the City of Chicago, Illinois, in the month of August, 
 1919, declare its adherence and solidarity with the revo- 
 lutionary forces of Soviet Russia, and did pledge itself 
 and its members to the furtherance of the International 
 Socialist Revolution," and when it further said, in the 
 next clause, "That Whereas, by such adherence and by 
 such declaration made by the said party, the said party 
 has endorsed the principles of the Communist Inter- 
 nationale now being held at Moscow, Russia, which 
 Internationale is pledged to the forcible and violent over- 
 throw of all organized governments now existing," the 
 Assembly did not mean to convey the impression that it 
 had investigated all these alleged facts, passed upon 
 them, and rendered judgment as therein set forth, for if 
 that had been the case there would be nothing to refer to 
 this committee. Also, it would be a perfectly novel pro- 
 cedure to render judgment without a trial, without a hear- 
 ing, without any evidence to support it. I take it, there- 
 fore, Mr. Chairman, that while the resolution is perhaps a 
 little unskillfully worded, the intention was to consider 
 these various recitals as charges, not as findings of facts, 
 somewhat analogous to the form of an indictment in which 
 the defendant is charged in positive and concrete terms 
 with the commission of certain offenses, but which does 
 not stand as the judgment of the court but merely as a 
 basis for trial and investigation. And I hold that these 
 various recitals do not intend to do more than that ; that 
 they merely represent charges against these Assembly- 
 men or their party in concrete form, and if my conten- 
 tion is correct, and I don't see how any other conclusion 
 could be held, it means that this resolution, other than its 
 first enacting clause, is an indictment. And you gentle- 
 men of the committee are limited to the investigation of 
 these charges. There is nothing else before you.
 
 8 SOCIALISM ON TRIAL 
 
 In other words, tlie Assembly has said to you as fol- 
 lows: "Whereas, it is chiimed that the party to which 
 these five Assemblymen belong is committed to certain 
 policies, and has committed certain acts, and whereas, 
 it is claimed that such policies and acts are inconsistent 
 with their holding office, disqualify them and render 
 them ineligible." Therefore you gentlemen of the Com- 
 mittee are directed by this Assembly, through this resolu- 
 tion, first to ascertain the facts. Are these charges upon 
 which the Assembly acted in the suspension of these 
 members, are these charges true or are they false, or are 
 they true in part and false in part? If so, in what par- 
 ticulars are they true, and in what particulars are they 
 false? And if your decision on the question of fact is 
 that these charges are supported by evidence, or any of 
 them are supported by evidence, then you must determine 
 a second question, as a question of law, whether 
 upon the existence of such facts as you have ascertained, 
 these men have been rendered disqualified or ineligible 
 to office by the Constitution or by law. So that your 
 task is a two-fold one. You must inquire into the facts, 
 and I repeat, the facts recited in the resolution, determine 
 the truth or falsity of the charges, and then determine as 
 a question of law, whether or not the existence of such 
 conditions render these five men eligible or qualified to 
 hold the office as members of the Assembly. 
 
 Curiously enough, at the very outset of this proceeding, 
 at the first session of this Committee, a statement was 
 read by the Chairman presumably in behalf of the Com- 
 mittee, giving a somewhat different version of the issues 
 before this Committee. A version not in all respects in 
 accord with the resolution. The source of the statement 
 has never been made clear in this proceeding. Whether 
 it was the individual opinion of the Chairman, a state- 
 ment of the Committee, or in the nature of an attempted 
 superseding indictment, we do not know, but the fact is 
 that this statement contained several additional charges 
 not found in the original resolution. 
 
 These were: First, that these five Assemblymen were 
 "members of a party or society whose platform or prin-
 
 SOCIALISM ON TRIAL 9 
 
 ciples and whose doctrines, as advocated today, call for 
 or demand, the complete destruction of our form of gov- 
 ernment by the fomentation of industrial unrest, the 
 bringing into play of force and violence and direct action 
 of the masses. That was not, the latter part, at least, 
 contained in the original resolution. Further, that these 
 men affiliated with that party or society, have subscribed 
 to and advocate such principles, and are in favor of abso- 
 lute substitution of minority for majority rule." That, 
 likewise, is a new charge, not embraced in the resolution. 
 
 Then, "that in 1917, when our country was at w^ar with 
 Germany, and summoned the strength of the people to 
 that great struggle, the party or society to which these 
 men belonged, and to whose program they have sub- 
 scribed in open convention, and with calculated delibera- 
 tion, denounced the war as criminal, its purpose capital- 
 istic, its motive profiteering, and pledged every man in 
 the party to oppose the war, and all means adopted by 
 the government for carrying on the war in every possible 
 way." 
 
 And further, "that the men herein named, by voice and 
 vote, in public and in private, opposed every measure 
 intended to aid the prosecution of the war to a success- 
 ful conclusion, and gave aid and comfort to the enemy." 
 
 I wish to call the attention of the Committee to the 
 fact, that this charge contained in the statement read by 
 the Chairman, is the first attempt to lay any definite 
 charge upon the five men individually. In the resolution 
 the only connection between them and guilty conduct is 
 their membership in the Socialist party of the United 
 States. There is not a word; there is not an inference 
 in the entire resolution which would hold any of these 
 five men individually guilty of any misconduct. Here, 
 for the first time, in a supplemental, informal statement, 
 they are charged individually that they have, by their 
 votes and by their voice, committed certain acts of 
 alleged misconduct. 
 
 Then, further, "that they secured their nomination and 
 procured their election under the pretense to the people 
 that they were merely availing themselves of a legal
 
 10 SOCIALISM ON TRIAL 
 
 establisaed means for political representation; whereas 
 in truth and in fact it is claimed that this was done to 
 disguise and cover up their true intent and purpose to 
 overthrow this government, peaceably if possible; forc- 
 ibly, if necessary." 
 
 ^ This, the alleged procuring of their election or nomina- 
 tion, by false pretenses, is likewise an entirely new sup- 
 plemental charge. 
 
 Then, "the claim is made that these men, with others, 
 engaged in a large and well-organized conspiracy to 
 subvert the due administration of law, to destroy the 
 right to hold and own private property, honestly ac- 
 quired; to weaken the family ties which they assert is 
 the seed of capitalism, to destroy the influence of the 
 Church and overturn the whole fabric of constitutional 
 form of government." 
 
 Here, for the first time, the theory of a conspiracy is 
 sprung upon us. In the original resolution these five 
 members of the Assembly were charged with membership 
 in a political party, and it was claimed that that polit- 
 ical party had rendered itself unfit for membership of 
 the political community in the country by its conduct. 
 
 In the supplemental charge, it is no more a party. 
 It is a conspiracy between these five men and various 
 other persons unknown, to do certain things, likewise 
 not mentioned in the original resolution. And to show 
 how far the statement goes and how ill-advised were 
 those that prepared it, it will suffice to call attention 
 to this particular charge, namely, that one of the objects 
 of the alleged conspiracy was to destroy the influence of 
 the Church. 
 
 The charge is ridiculous. It is controverted by the 
 evidence, but the point alone — the idea of a legislative 
 body in any State of the Union making the object of a 
 charge that certain men are alleged to have conspired 
 to undermine the influence of the Church ! Since when 
 is the State, since when is any legislative body con- 
 stituted a guardian of the influence of the Church? 
 Isn't every political and social doctrine of this country, 
 from the early days of the Colonies, down to this last
 
 SOCIALISM ON TRIAL 11 
 
 day, absolutely opposed to the theory that it is the busi- 
 ness of the State to preserve the influence of the Church? 
 Does not the Constitution of the United States, at least 
 by implication, emphasize that very foundation of our 
 social and political life? And how does this Assembly 
 of the State of New York come to charge, as an offense, 
 that any of its members were engaged in any conspiracy, 
 to undermine the influence of the Church? I repeat the 
 charge is absurd ; but I also wish to call attention of the 
 Committee to the desperate length to which the framers 
 of these charges went when they prepared the supple- 
 mental charge. 
 
 Now, Mr. Chairman, I hope that the entire supple- 
 mental statement, inasmuch as it is supposed to be part 
 of this proceeding, in so far as it is supposed to constitute 
 a basis of additional evidence against these Assembly- 
 men now under charges, should be disregarded from 
 beginning to end; should be thrown out of your 
 minds, and from your consideration, together with all the 
 testimony based upon it. 
 
 The charges which were made against us, the charges 
 which we were summoned here to defend ourselves be- 
 fore you, are charges formulated by this Assembly. If 
 any additional charges were to be made against us, there 
 was only one way of effecting it. The Assembly could 
 amend or supplement its resolution. You gentlemen of 
 the Committee could not do it. The agent can not 
 extend the authority conferred upon him by the principal. 
 
 I say you have no legal right to add any charges. You 
 had no legal right to hear evidence on those additional 
 charges. You should absolutely disregard it. But, if 
 there was, at least, a semblance of legality or propriety 
 in those additional charges made by the Committee, in 
 the statement read by the Chairman, there certainly was 
 none in the further additional charges made by counsel 
 for the Committee; and they have made additional 
 charges. 
 
 It seems to be a sort of general free for all proceeding. 
 Here are five men brought before a court on something 
 or other. Everybody who feels like hitting them, go on 
 and do so and do it in your own way.
 
 12 SOCIALISM ON TRIAL 
 
 Counsel in submitting their so-called brief at the 
 close of their case, I repeat, did make definite and addi- 
 tional charges against these five men. These are, first 
 that the provision contained in the national constitution 
 of the Socialist Party, prohibiting members of the party 
 from voting for any appropriation for military or naval 
 purposes, or for war, that this is in conflict with the pro- 
 vision of the Constitution of the State of New York 
 which enjoins upon the Legislature to make annual 
 appropriation for the maintenance of the militia, and that 
 consequently that fact disqualifies these five men from 
 taking seats in the Assembly. I am not going at this 
 time into the merits of the contentions. We will do that 
 later, but I call your attention to the fact that this is 
 distinctly a new charge, not contained in the resolution, 
 not contained even in the Chairman's statement, but 
 wholly invented by counsel for the Committee. 
 
 Likewise, the charge that the Socialist party has for 
 its purpose the substitution of the Soviet form of gov- 
 ernment in the United States. That was not contained 
 in any of the previous charges. That was discovered 
 by counsel for the Committee; and so, likewise, that 
 the Socialist party is an anti-national party ; and finally, 
 counsel for the Conmiittee take it upon themselves to 
 prefer, formulate and state specific charges of individual 
 misconduct against these five Assemblymen. I call 
 attention to the fact that when the resolution was adopted 
 there was no such charge, or shadow of a charge, in it. 
 But, in order to conform the charges to the evidence im- 
 properly introduced, specific charges are made against 
 the Assemblymen, and learned counsel on the part 
 of the Committee even go so far as to suggest that these 
 five men are guilty of a violation or violations of the 
 Espionage Law and should be convicted under the terms 
 of that law. 
 
 To what extent counsel for the Committee have gone 
 in the preparation and formulation of charges against 
 these five men can be best judged by this: that they 
 have had the said courage to take up the records of these 
 men in previous sessions of the Assembly, to drag out
 
 SOCIALISM ON TRIAL 13 
 
 their votes, their action in such Assembly and to make 
 that a basis of their criticism. If ever there was a sacred 
 right recognized in the political fabric of our country it 
 is the untrammeled right of an elected representative 
 to any legislature, State or national, to speak his mind 
 freely and according to the dictate of his conscience, to 
 vote and act upon all measures before him as an abso- 
 lutely free and untrammeled agent. And our Constitu- 
 tion specifically provides that the acts and votes of 
 members of the legislature should not be questioned any- 
 where else in any proceeding of any kind including a 
 proceeding of this kind. 
 
 Nor is that all. Counsel go so far as to make the 
 charge with reference to August Claessens that during 
 his term of office, previous terms, he had introduced 
 "affirmative legislation of an offensive character." Think 
 of it, gentlemen. Consider it soberly. Have they come 
 down to that? Have they come down to the point where 
 a measure introduced by a member of your House or of 
 any other legislative body which to him, we must assume, 
 represents a measure of public welfare, that such a 
 measure of affirmative legislation, not personal miscon- 
 duct, not personal misbehavior, but a measure of affirm- 
 ative legislation, subsequently happens not to meet with 
 the approval of learned counsel for your Committee and 
 is made a basis of a proceeding for removal from the 
 A^embly? I merely point that out to show to your 
 Committee the length to which .this modification of 
 charges has gone, the piling of charges upon charges, and 
 I again repeat that with respect to all these new charges 
 discovered by counsel for your Committee, they are not 
 before you. You have no right to go into them. You 
 have no authority from your parent body for it. You 
 must disregard them and disregard all the evidence in 
 connection with them. This proceeding otherwise will 
 certainly set a precedent, a very novel precedent in the 
 jurisprudence of this country. 
 
 Imagine for a moment a defendant charged with 
 larceny brought to trial. The District Attorney tries 
 the case upon an indictment of forgery. The judge sub-
 
 li SOCIALISM ON TRIAL 
 
 mits it to tlie j ury upon the theory of arson and perhaps 
 the jury brings out a verdict of assault and battery. 
 This is practically what you have before you for the 
 record will show that even with all this latitude, with 
 all this superstructure of various charges, the evidence is 
 not confined to the charges. 
 
 The Evidence 
 
 Now, with reference to that evidence there is one point 
 I wish to make, and gentlemen of the Committee I wish 
 to impress that upon your minds as strongly as I can. 
 I say regardless of the question of the relevancy or 
 irrelevancy of the testimony offered here and regardless 
 of the intention of my friends on the other side, whom I 
 do not charge with wilful malintentions, I say the evi- 
 dence so absolutely distorts the vision of those who read 
 it as to be absolutely worthless and worse. My criticism 
 is based upon two points, not so much on the point that 
 utterances, platforms, declarations and other statements 
 of the party or certain individuals have been miscon- 
 strued or misread. That may pass. But there is an- 
 other important point and that is this. The testimony is 
 so one-sided as to absolutely blur the vision. Let me 
 tell you what I mean by it. 
 
 The Socialist movement is about 70 to 75 years old 
 in its modern phases. It has produced a literature of 
 hundreds upon hundreds of volumes in all modern lan- 
 guages. The Socialist movement in the United States 
 is almost half a century old. The present party is 20 
 years old. It has had numerous conventions, national, 
 state and local. It has adopted hundreds of official 
 proclamations of all kinds. Its press is large. Take for 
 instance the Call alone that has been cited here so often. 
 It is a daily. There are 365 editions of it every year. 
 It is in its 13th year of existence. Consequently it has 
 published roughly about 4,500 numbers. Each of them 
 contains an average of from four to five editorials or 
 contributed articles. So that this paper alone has pub- 
 lished about 20,000 different editorials and contributed
 
 SOCIALISM ON TRIAL 15 
 
 articles. Now, this its onlj^ one paper. The Socialist 
 party at all times has had an average of about 100 
 papers, daily, weekly, monthly, in English and other 
 languages, supporting its policies. Imagine how many 
 statements of all kinds these have contained. The 
 Socialist party is always campaigning, almost every 
 member is a speaker, a propagandist. Millions of 
 Socialists' speeches have been made in this country within 
 the last couple of decades. Now, here is my point. 
 Every indiscreet statement that creeps into our literature, 
 our press or our public forum, every foolish, irrespon- 
 sible statement — and such are bound to occur occasion- 
 ally — is at once seized upon by our professional 
 opponents, the anti-Socialist leagues, the National Civic 
 Federation, and they are immortalized ; they are printed, 
 and transmitted from book to book and from paper to 
 paper and then all are collected and turned over ready- 
 made to a Lusk Committee or any other committee that 
 investigates great social problems. Learned counsel on 
 the other side, I make bold to state, have practically 
 every incriminating utterance of any kind ever made by 
 the Socialist party or any of its subdivisions or any of its 
 members or any of its adherents and of everyone who 
 ever called himself a Socialist. They have it all, and 
 what do they produce before you, twenty, thirty, forty 
 utterances and they ask you to judge the character of the 
 Socialist party by these. What becomes of the thousands 
 and hundreds of thousands, the millions of other ex- 
 pressions of the Socialist party which are not brought up 
 here? Do you think you can get a real conception of 
 the Socialist movement by reading these conglomerations, 
 these collections of slip-ups, if you want, and nothing 
 else; nothing of the whole literature, proclamations, 
 speeches, statements of the Socialist party? Why, 
 gentlemen, imagine, if you please; imagine I am a for- 
 eign correspondent in the United States and I am re- 
 porting back to my country conditions in the United 
 States. I am perfectly truthful except that I select my 
 material. I don't care for marriages. I don't care for 
 births. I don't care for ordinary politics. I don't care
 
 16 SOCIALISM ON TRIAL 
 
 for the every-day life of the United States, but every 
 crime, every murder, every assault, every lynching, every 
 strike, every boycott, every political scandal, I report 
 at once. I am absolutely truthful. In every case I 
 am painstakingly truthful. What conception will they 
 get on the other side? Why that the United States is a 
 country in perpetual war. That it is the most lawless 
 nation existing. Would that be correct? No. Would 
 they have a right to arrive at tliosc conclusions upon the 
 basis of the testimony before them? Yes. Is the testi- 
 mony false? Not formally so, but actually it is. It is 
 true in the dry word. It is a lie in its soul and substance. 
 And that is, gentlemen, the nature of the testimony be- 
 fore you. Think of it. To drag in here the one indis- 
 creet article written by Victor L. Berger in 1909, eleven 
 years ago. He is a man sixty years old, the editor of a 
 daily paper, writing day after day, and he once in a 
 moment of caprice or whim, as it may happen, writes 
 one article which makes him the good-natured butt of 
 his friends. It doesn't represent him truly. It isn't a 
 very incriminating article if you read it knowing Victor 
 L. Berger, but it contains some rather extravagant state- 
 ments. Gentlemen, what professional writer doesn't have 
 one such slip-up on his conscience in a career of thirty or 
 forty years of daily newspaper work? That is brought 
 up here. That is paraded before you. From that you 
 are asked to infer not only that Victor L. Berger is a 
 firebrand (and he is just the opposite), but that the 
 party endorses and approves of that one little slip of his 
 and that we stand for violent revolution. There is a man 
 by the name of Pcrrin, who is engaged on the Call. He 
 writes an article, a shocking article, I admit. We all 
 admit it. We read it the next day and the telephone wire 
 of the Call begins to get busy with inquiries. *'How 
 does an article of this kind come to be printed in the 
 Call?" The man is fired, but the article is here and 
 it is asked of you to make it a basis of your decision of 
 the qualification, or the eligibility of these five men, who 
 at that time were not of age and who at no time approved 
 of the article, because the Socialist party distinctly dis-
 
 SOCIALISM ON TRIAL 17 
 
 approved of it. Then they produce every kind of gossip 
 they can possibly get. There is a man who ran against 
 one of these defendants and was beaten by him. Natu- 
 rally he is somewhat sore and he has certain unfavorable 
 opinions about his opponent. He is allowed to testify as 
 to them. Then there is another man who goes around 
 and heckles speakers and gets answers. He makes no 
 notes. The speeches are oral. In due course he comes 
 here and gives his version of them, and it goes. Finally 
 they call an expert, an expert on Socialism, the only ex- 
 pert you gentlemen, counsel for the Committee, have 
 called. You know Socialism by this time is not a dark 
 mystery. It is a perfectly well-known subject. The 
 libraries are filled with volumes on it. It is a science. 
 It is taught in the colleges and universities as part of 
 political economy. Whether you agree or disagree with 
 it, it is there and it is a recognized science. You want 
 authorities, non-Socialists. Why don't you call some- 
 one who has made a study of it, call the professor of 
 any university, a non-Socialist, but who knows the sub- 
 ject — Professor Ely, Professor Commons. You do not. 
 But there is a certain man, a professional anti-Socialist, 
 who knows his Socialism from the various excerpts I 
 have referred to and from talks with individual Social- 
 ists. He comes before you and you ask him what is the 
 Socialist attitude on religion? "Oh, hostile." How do you 
 know? "I spoke to thousands of Socialists about it." And 
 if you don't believe him all you have to do is to call 
 those thousands of unnamed Socialists in rebuttal. That 
 is easy. 
 
 You might as well take a policeman who makes love 
 to the maid of a great authority on geology and call him 
 as an expert on geology because he knows all the 
 kitchen gossip of the authority on geology. That is pre- 
 cisely what Collins did. Gentlemen, to all those who 
 know anything about the subject, that is a joke. Before 
 a serious body of this kind, in a proceeding of this 
 importance, to introduce these anti-Socialist peddlers of 
 rumors an an authority when you could have had^ so 
 many competent authorities, by no means pro-Socialists
 
 18 SOCIALISM ON TRIAL 
 
 — people who liavc made n study of it and who have 
 the proper qualifications! 
 
 The Chairman. — We will take a recess until two 
 o'clock. 
 
 (Whereupon, at 12:35 p.m., a recess was taken until 
 two o'clock.) 
 
 AFTERNOON SESSION, 2:15 p.m. 
 
 The Chairman. — Proceed. 
 
 Mr. Hillquit. — Mr. Chairman, I have been en- 
 deavoring at the outset of my remarks to prove to you 
 that many of the charges, and much of the evidence be- 
 fore you, are irrelevant to the issues in this proceeding, 
 and that they are outside and beyond the scope of your 
 authority. 
 
 The fact, however, is that the charges have been made; 
 that the evidence is on record, and I am, therefore, at 
 this time to meet it — all the charges and all the evi- 
 dence, and for the convenience of the presentation and 
 discussion, I have summarized the charges under eight 
 main heads. 
 
 They are as follows: 
 
 First: That the Socialist Party is a revolutionary 
 organization. 
 
 Second: That it seeks to attain its ends by means of 
 violence. 
 
 Third: That it does not sincerely believe in political 
 action, and that its politics is only a blind, or 
 camouflage. 
 
 Fourth : That it is unpatriotic and disloyal. 
 
 Fifth: That it unduly controls public officials elected 
 on its ticket. 
 
 Sixth: That it owes allegiance to a foreign power, 
 known as the Internationale. 
 
 Seventh: That it approves of the Soviet Government 
 of Russia, and seeks to introduce a similar regime in the 
 United States; and, finally, 
 
 Eight: That the Assemblymen personally opposed the
 
 SOCIALISM ON TRIAL 19 
 
 prosecution of the war and gave aid and comfort to the 
 enemy. 
 
 I think you will find as we proceed in the discussion of 
 these points, that every charge, major or minor, comes 
 within one of these heads. I wish to call your attention 
 at this time that the only charge against the Assembly- 
 men individually, improperly introduced as we claim it 
 to be, is the last or eighth charge. To this charge I 
 expect my colleague, Mr. Stedman, to reply. Personally, 
 I am concerned in this argument with the first seven 
 charges. All of these charges, if you examine them care- 
 fully, are distinctly charges against the Socialist party 
 as such. In other words, it is the Socialist party of 
 the United States that is on trial before you. On its 
 qualification to be a member of the political community 
 of this country, your decision will depend. Hence, it is 
 very important for your committee to know something 
 more or less definite about this Socialist party which is 
 on trial before you. 
 
 Socialism 
 
 We come thus squarely, Mr. Chairman and gentlemen 
 of the Committee, to the question: What is the Socialist 
 Party of the United States? What are its aims, and its 
 methods? I think that it is highly important for all 
 of you gentlemen to understand that, or at least our 
 view of it. 
 
 It would be somewhat too simple, almost childishly 
 naive, to ascribe the Socialist movement in this country, 
 in every country in the world, a movement which has 
 sprung up many decades ago, a movement which has 
 proceeded and is growing rapidly and steadily, a move- 
 ment which is in control of a number of very important 
 countries of Europe, I say it would be childish to ascribe 
 it to the machinations, to the malevolence or malice of a 
 few agitators determining to create a movement of oppo- 
 sition in order to raise disturbances. 
 
 A movement of such age and such achievements, as 
 well as dimensions, must have some more real, some more
 
 20 SOCIALISM ON TRIAL 
 
 rational cause; and I believe that if the special Legis- 
 lative Committee wanted to investigate into the cause 
 and conditions of radical movements in this country — 
 and your Committee also — would start with this 
 inquiry: "What causes have produced the Socialist move- 
 ment here or elsewhere," you would come very much 
 closer to a scientific, satisfactory and rational solution 
 of the question confronting you. 
 
 We Socialists differ from the other political parties in 
 our first, and cardinal, assumption, which is that organ- 
 ized government everywhere has for its primary object 
 and function to secure the physical, mental, moral and 
 spiritual well-being of its members. W'e do not consider 
 the government as a mere policeman, sitting over us and 
 passing upon our daily quarrels. We believe the func- 
 tions of the government are more substantial, more vital ; 
 and in that we really do no more than endorse, and per- 
 haps extend, the very well-known declaration which the 
 founders of this republic have made popular all over the 
 world, and that is that the object of every government 
 and of every people is to attain and maintain the right 
 to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. To us, these 
 are not phrases to be recited glibly on the Fourth of July. 
 To us, this declaration is a living truth. 
 
 What we mean when we assert the right of the people 
 to life is the right of the people to actually live; not 
 merely to breathe, but to have the means of maintaining 
 their lives; to have food, to have clothing, to have 
 shelter, to have all the means to sustain modern civilized 
 life. 
 
 When M'e speak of liberty we do not mean merely a 
 condition outside of jail. We mean by it actual polit- 
 ical and economic independence; the freedom of men 
 from men ; the equal freedom of all insofar as such free- 
 dom is compatible with the existence of organized gov- 
 ernment. 
 
 And when we speak of the right to the pursuit of 
 happiness we mean the right — the concrete right — of 
 every man, woman and child to sunshine, to air, 
 to enjoyment, to amusement; to the blessings of civiliza-
 
 SOCIALISM ON TRIAL 21 
 
 tion; to the products of arts and science. We mean by 
 it the right to enjoy life as fully, as nobly, as the best 
 members of our coramunity are privileged to do. 
 
 Starting out with these premises we say that 
 neither our government nor any other modern govern- 
 ment has at all achieved those fundamental objects or 
 functions for which they have been organized. 
 
 We assert that every advanced country can to-day 
 easily assure the physical, moral and mental well-being 
 of every member of such country; that it can produce 
 with the modern resources all the food, all the clothing, 
 all the necessaries of life, and that it need not suffer any 
 one, any member of the community, to go hungry or to 
 succumb in misery in their daily existence. 
 
 Take our own country, the United States, and 
 we probably have the most striking illustration of this 
 proposition. Here is a great and powerful country, 
 3,000 miles wide, 3,000 long, blessed wath every element 
 of natural wealth. The land is abundant, mostly fertile. 
 It yields products of practically every clime and yields 
 them in abundance. We have inexhaustible wealth of 
 metals and minerals and forests; w^e have coast lines on 
 both sides from one end of the country to the other. 
 We have ports and waterways, and we have an alert, 
 active capable population of about 120,000,000, of whom 
 the vast majority are ready and eager to lend a hand 
 in the production of the wealth required for the suste- 
 nance of the life of the nation. We have developed the 
 modern processes of wealth production to such an 
 extent that we can create to-day ten times, in some cases 
 100 times, more than our fathers or forefathers could 
 with the same effort, and we have an industrial organiza- 
 tion the like of which history has never known. If all 
 this wealth, if all these resources, if all these great indus- 
 trial factors had been scientifically, rationally and 
 reasonably organized, there is no reason in the world 
 why there should be slums in any of our cities, why there 
 should be under-feeding of children, and appalling child 
 mortality, why there should be want, why there should
 
 22 SOCIALISM ON TRIAL 
 
 be misery, why there should be those ghastly struggles 
 for existence going on in the heart of this country day 
 after day everywhere. 
 
 Capitalism 
 
 But our country and our industrial system are not 
 organized rationally. In fact, they are not organized 
 at all. The people of this country, as the people of every 
 other country, do not own their country, and that is the 
 fundamental indictment of Socialism against present 
 conditions. It is not the people of the United States — 
 the one hundred and twenty million men, women and 
 children who constitute that people, that own the United 
 States. 
 
 There is the tremendous stretch of land, a large slice 
 of the surface of the globe, that if anything, should be 
 the common heritage of all those who live on it, but it 
 is not. It has been parceled out into lots and plots, and 
 turned over by the gradual processes to a comparatively 
 speaking, small number of landowners, who own the sur- 
 face of the United States, and by whose permission the 
 rest of the people who own no land, the vast majority, 
 are tolerated upon the surface of this country. 
 
 And when we come to the natural wealth below the 
 surface of the earth, the vast stocks of minerals and 
 metals, the stocks which a benevolent Nature has created 
 in the course of many thousands of years, and upon 
 which today we depend for our light, for our heat, for 
 our energy in the production of wealth, we find another 
 group, and a comparatively small group, of our fellow 
 citizens who hold that against the rest of the whole 
 country, and say, "this is ours; the Almighty God has 
 not meant the sources of life for the people who need it 
 for their lives — no, he has reserved it for us to turn it 
 into franchises, to capitalize it into stocks and bonds, to 
 derive profits, and make our individual fortunes on it"; 
 and so, with the oil wells, and so with the great arteries 
 of trade and commerce and life in this country, the rail- 
 roads, and so with our factories, with the marvellous
 
 SOCIALISM ON TRIAL 23 
 
 machinery of modern production created by the agency 
 of many, many generations past as well as present, and 
 the natural heritage of all men. They are owned by a 
 small minority, comparatively speaking, a handful of the 
 people who hold it as against the rest of the country. 
 
 So that the situation is this, for the majority of the 
 people, the working class of the United States : they stand 
 there to-day ready, willing, eager and capable of turn- 
 ing those natural resources, that raw wealth, into con- 
 sumable products for themselves, their wives and chil- 
 dren, to turn it into food, into clothes, into dwellings, to 
 turn it into other necessaries. They cannot do it at 
 this time without the use of modern implements of labor ; 
 that they cannot do it without the natural resources, the 
 raw material, and between them and these sources of 
 their lives stands that small capitalist class and says, 
 "Hold on, this is ours, the land and the fullness thereof, 
 the land and all above it and all below it, is ours, and 
 if you want to live, if you want to eat, if you want to 
 work, you must first secure a license from us and such 
 license we shall not give you unless you stipulate to pay 
 us a tribute, unless you stipulate to turn over to us for 
 our personal profits a large and substantial portion of 
 the product of your toil." 
 
 The great masses of the American people, as the 
 great masses of the people in every modern country, are 
 held in submission to this small class of industrial auto- 
 crats. They work or they starve, according to the dic- 
 tate of that class. If a time arrives when it does not 
 pay the owning class to continue the operation of the 
 industries of the country, they are not responsible to 
 anybody for continuing it. They shut their factories, 
 their mines and mills, they throw millions of workers out 
 of employment, cause the direst poverty, because it suits 
 their business ends, and the whole country stands there, 
 powerless to interfere with this industrial autocracy; 
 absolutely impotent to assert its own will. Again it 
 bows. 
 
 And so we have all the social evils of modern days 
 resulting from this condition; the few millionaires and
 
 24 SOCIALISM ON TRIAL 
 
 multi-millionaires, and the millions and millions of men, 
 women and children whose whole life is one of toil and 
 privation; who are deprived of all joy, all sunshine, all 
 life in the true sense of the term. And so we have the 
 class of the idle, who take pleasure after pleasure with- 
 out rendering any useful service to society; and on the 
 other hand, the children of the poor beginning their 
 lives — their joyless lives — in the factories, at a tender 
 age, growing up stunted physically and mentally, making 
 miserable citizens, a weak foundation for the hope of 
 future generations. 
 
 We have made that indictment; we have made it more 
 than once, and once in a while, we are met with this 
 lucid statement, "Well, if you don't like this country 
 what is there to hold you? Take the first ship and go 
 elsewhere." There has been even some implication of 
 an argument of this kind in the course of this hearing, 
 and I want to take this opportunity to say and to assert 
 that an argument more silly and more immoral has 
 never been advanced. I say "silly" because it isn't the 
 United States alone in which these conditions prevail. 
 They prevail in every modern country. Our complaint 
 is not specifically against the regime or system of the 
 United States. It is an indictment of the whole civilized 
 or capitalist Society. 
 
 And then again, "Leave this country; go to a country 
 that suits you better." Just think of that argument, 
 gentlemen. Suppose in this city of Albany you have by 
 misfortune a corrupt, incompetent administration on ac- 
 count of which you find your streams polluted, the sani- 
 tary conditions neglected, your health menaced, your ex- 
 istence poisoned. A number of citizens get together and 
 protest against these conditions and against this admin- 
 istration and its misdeeds and the political ring turns 
 to such protesting citizens and says, "Gentlemen, if con- 
 ditions in Albany don't suit you there are plenty of other 
 cities in the United States. You may go elsewhere." 
 
 Suppose, to take another illustration, you and I and 
 somebody else have entered into a partnership in busi- 
 ness and have given our joint efforts to the business for
 
 SOCIALISM ON TRIAL 25 
 
 years and years. At a certain moment I, as one of the 
 partners, discover that another partner of mine has been 
 inefficient, perhaps dishonest, that the business is suffer- 
 ing, going bad, our joint interest being gradually de- 
 stroyed. I try to introduce reforms in our business 
 management and methods and the very partner who 
 profits by his own dishonesty turns to me and 
 says, "If you don't like the way we conduct this business 
 there is nothing to hold you in this partnership ; you can 
 get out." You wouldn't consider this a good argument, 
 and so exactly does the other argument present itself to 
 us. Gentlemen, bear in mind once and for all that we 
 take the position that America is ours just as much as it 
 is yours; that America is ours just as much as it is that of 
 any other class of persons or individuals in this country. 
 These men, here, these five Assemblymen under charges, 
 come here as representatives of many thousands of work- 
 ingmen who have given their youth, probably the greater 
 part of their lives to the enhancement of the wealth of 
 this country, who have been instrumental in building up 
 this country, in making it what it is, great and powerful 
 and prosperous, and these men have a right to say 
 to-day that the wealth which they have helped create be 
 equitably distributed and that the workers have a 
 proper share of it and a proper share of life. They 
 are not going to quit this country. They do not have 
 to quit this country any more than you. They propose 
 to stay. They propose to contribute the best that is in 
 them for the advancement, for the benefit, for the better- 
 ment of this country and also for the bringing in of a 
 better, juster social system of wealth production and 
 wealth distribution. 
 
 Had it been merely an economic question perhaps it 
 would not have been so vital, but it isn't a purely eco- 
 nomic question. It is very much more than that. It 
 goes to the very substance, to the very life nerve of our 
 national existence. You see this condition, the condi- 
 tion of the small class owning the country, and a large 
 populous class working for it, has created what we have 
 referred to here in the evidence, from time to time, as the
 
 20 SOCIALISM ON TRIAL 
 
 class struggle, and we have been I'oolishly charged with 
 fomenting that class struggle. Do you know, gentlemen, 
 we are the only political party that not only is not fo- 
 menting class struggles but tries to eliminate all classes 
 and all class struggles. But the fact of the matter is 
 that, under present conditions, there is nothing but a 
 struggle of classes in the country. You may not call it 
 struggle ; you may call it antagonism, but it is a persist- 
 ent and vital antagonism. 
 
 And it operates throughout the entire field of our life 
 and economy. It exists between employer and worker 
 everywhere, whether it expresses itself in strikes or 
 walkouts or blacklists or in no overt acts at all; and 
 whether the personal relations between employer and em- 
 ployee are very bitter, or on the contrary very friendly. 
 The fact of the matter is that the employer, under present 
 conditions, must see to it that he makes profits, must see 
 to it that he pays as little in wages as he possibly can, 
 and that he gets as much out of his worker as he possibly 
 can. It is the law of present economics. It would mean 
 business extinction if he were to follow it. 
 
 The worker who has nothing but his labor power must, 
 whether he wants or not, see to it that he gets every 
 dollar of wages he can; that he conserves his energy — 
 his only property — as much as possible; and between 
 these two opposing interests there is, and must be, a con- 
 stant conflict. There is warfare between employer and 
 employee; there is a constant competitive warfare be- 
 tween capitalists of different classes, and within each 
 class separately. You know all about it. You know the 
 history of our great financial and industrial institutions. 
 You know how they have been built up on. the 
 ruin of smaller industrial concerns. You know 
 how they have been devouring their smaller brethren. 
 And there is just the same war between worker 
 and worker, because whenever, in times of industrial 
 depression particularly, a job is open, there are 
 hundreds of workers looking for it, each one eager to 
 get it, each one — or most of them — having wives and
 
 SOCIALISM ON TRIAL 27 
 
 children to support; each of them ready to take any pay 
 so long as he is allowed the privilege of working and 
 earning some wages, and underbidding each other and 
 cutting the wages against each other and bringing chil- 
 dren from their homes to work and compete with the 
 adults and bringing their wives into the factories to 
 compete against the men — all because necessity compels 
 them. 
 
 And there is antagonism between landlord and tenant ; 
 there is antagonism between producer and consumer. It 
 is not an industrial system operated for the benefit of 
 all the members of the community. It is a system of 
 strife and violence, where each is engaged in war against 
 all, and all against each. 
 
 And in this war of interests, every class and every 
 individual of necessity tries to exert the greatest possible 
 power in its, or his, behalf: and so it comes that the 
 capitalist classes, the most powerful classes, in order to 
 maintain their supremacy, go into politics and see to 
 it that their interests are in control of the government 
 and all its departments as much as they can. All we 
 have been hearing and saying about political corrup- 
 tion and machinations in this country in the last decades 
 — and many volumes have been written on the sub- 
 ject — have had their mainspring in this desire of the 
 privileged classes to maintain their privileges against the 
 people; and all the corruption of our schools and of our 
 presses and of our public institutions — of which there 
 have been many and various public indictments — had 
 their mainspring in the same source. 
 
 This is not a mere Socialist contention. No! It is 
 borne out by the naked facts and conditions in this 
 country. Only so far back as 1914 the Industrial Rela- 
 tions Commission — a Commission appointed by the 
 President of the United States and composed of men who 
 may be considered more or less neutrals in the class war, 
 and at any rate not Socialists — found and published the 
 following illuminating facts: 
 
 Speaking of certain industrial communities dominated 
 by corporations, they say: "In such communities demo-
 
 28 SOCIALISM ON TRIAL 
 
 cratic government docs not as a rule exist except in name 
 or form, and as a consequence there now exists within 
 the body of our Republic industrial communities which 
 are virtually principalities, oppressive to those dependent 
 upon them for a livelihood and a menace to the peace 
 and welfare of the nation. The wealth of the country 
 between 1890 and 1912 rose from $65,000,000,000 to 
 $187,000,000,000, or 188 per cent; whereas, the aggre- 
 gate income of wage earners in transportation and mining 
 and factories has risen between 1890 and 1909 only 95 
 per cent. It was found that the income of almost two- 
 thirds of these families was less than $750 per year, and 
 almost one-third were less than $500; the average for 
 all being $721. The average size of these families was 
 5.6 members. Elaborate studies of the cost of living 
 made in all parts of the country at the same time have 
 shown that the very least that a family of five persons 
 can live upon in anything approaching decency is $700. 
 It is probable that owing to the fact that the families 
 investigated by the Immigration Commission were to a 
 large extent foreign born, the incomes reported are lower 
 on the average than for the entire working population. 
 Nevertheless, even when fair allowance is made for that 
 fact, the figures show conclusively that between one-half 
 and two-thirds of these families were living in a state 
 which can be described only as abject poverty. 
 
 It has been proved by study here and abroad that there 
 is a direct relation between poverty and the death of 
 babies ; but the frightful rate at which poverty kills was 
 not known, at least in this country, until very recently, 
 when, through a study made in Johnstown, Pa., the 
 Federal Children's Bureau showed that babies whose 
 fathers earned less than $10 per week died during the 
 first year at the appalling rate of 256 for every thousand. 
 On the other hand, those whose fathers earned $25 per 
 week or more died at the rate of only 84 per thousand. 
 The babies of the poor died at three times the rate of 
 those who were in fairly well-to-do families. The tre- 
 mendous significance of these figures will be appreciated 
 when it is known that one-third of all the adult workmen
 
 SOCIALISM ON TRIAL 29 
 
 reported by the Immigration Commission was earning 
 less than $10 per week, which is exclusive of time lost. 
 
 On this showing of Johnstown, these workmen may 
 expect one out of four of their babies to die during the 
 first year of life. The last of the family to go hungry 
 are the children, yet statistics show that in six of our 
 largest cities from 12 to 20 per cent of the children are 
 underfed and ill-nourished. The most alarming con- 
 dition is that of the rapid growth of tenant-farmers — in 
 1910, in each 100 farms in the United States 37 as com- 
 pared with 28 in 1890, an increase of 32 per cent during 
 20 years. 
 
 Between one-fourth and one-third of the male workers, 
 18 years of age and over, in factories and mines, earn 
 less than $10 per week. From two-thirds to three-quar- 
 ters earn less than $15, and only about one-tenth earn 
 more than $20 a week. This does not take into con- 
 sideration loss of working time for any cause." 
 
 Then follow the final observations, which are so very 
 eloquent, so very telling, that I should like the Committee 
 to retain it. "The rich, two per cent of the people in 
 the United States, own 60 per cent of the wealth. The 
 middle class, 33 per cent of the people, own 35 per cent 
 of the wealth — that is approximately the average. The 
 poor, 65 per cent of the people, own 5 per cent of the 
 wealth." That is a telling story. Sixty-five per cent 
 of the people — over 75,000,000 people of the United 
 States together own one-twentieth part of its wealth, and 
 if you will exclude the highest strata of these workers, 
 if you will reduce it, say, to 50 per cent, or a little more, 
 that is half of the people of the United States, you will 
 be justified fully in saying that they own practically 
 nothing in this world; that this country with its wealth, 
 to which they have contributed by their toil, has not 
 given them any return of any kind, and that they face 
 the dread of starvation from day to day. 
 
 "This means," says the report in brief, "that two mil- 
 lion people who would make up a city smaller than 
 Chicago own 20 per cent more of the nation's wealth than 
 all the other ninety millions of the country." Then, to
 
 30 SOCIALISM ON TRIAL 
 
 prove the extent to which concentration has gone, the 
 report makes this interesting observation. "There is 
 at least one individual, one out of the 110,000,000, who 
 owns approximately one billion dollars in wealth. The 
 average wealth of the working people is $400 per head. 
 Hence, this one individual owns as much as two million 
 and one-half workers in the country." And bear in 
 mind, gentlemen, that was the condition in 1914, before 
 the war. Since that time conditions have become incom- 
 parably worse and the contrast very much greater. In 
 that year there were only seventy-five hundred million- 
 aires in the United States. Today we count about thirty- 
 five thousand, more than four times the number. The 
 cost of living since 1914 has more than doubled. Wages 
 have not kept pace. The picture so eloquently sketched 
 by this report of the Industrial Relations Commission is 
 rosy, as compared with conditions as they exist today. 
 
 Now then, in view of that, the Socialist Party says that 
 there is nothing wrong with this country or its people 
 except the industrial system. The Socialist proposes as 
 a remedy for this evil the nationalization of the country's 
 principal industries. They say it is altogether wrong; 
 it is immoral, if 3'^ou want, to allow such a vital function 
 as feeding the people and maintaing them in health, to 
 be carried on by a group of irresponsible capitalists for 
 their private profit and aggrandizement without any con- 
 cern for the men, women and children who have to be 
 fed day after day, and who often die from mal-nutrition. 
 We say it is an absolute wrong to allow the great industry 
 of clothing, of sheltering the people of this country to be 
 carried on by individual capitalists or profiteers for their 
 own private interests. We say this country, as every 
 other country has it as its first concern to see to it that 
 the wealth which an Almighty nature or Providence has 
 placed within their reach, which an industrious people 
 have increased a hundred fold by their efforts, and which 
 generations and generations of thinkers, inventors and 
 workers have brought to the present degree of perfection, 
 shall be the common heritage of the whole people. We 
 say it is the duty of every self-respecting, rational people
 
 SOCIALISM ON TRIAL • 31 
 
 organized in a proper way and on a civilized basis, to 
 take tliese life-sustaining agencies out of the hands of 
 private individuals, out of the realm of speculation, out 
 of the chaos of competition that rules and ruins at the 
 same time, and turn it over to the people to organize it 
 properly, to organize it rationally, scientifically, to or- 
 ganize it with a view of eliminating waste, to organize 
 it with the view of producing the maximum of wealth and 
 distributing it as equitably as possible among all of 
 the people. 
 
 This is the program of the Socialist party. It is not 
 a thing we have adopted just here or within the last 
 years. It is the program upon which our party has 
 been founded many, many years ago. It is the program 
 which has been underlying all of our activities, ever 
 since the existence of the Socialist party. And if you 
 want, you may call that a revolutionary program. It 
 is revolutionary, and in that sense, we the adherents 
 of that program, we Socialists, are revolutionists. We 
 don't object to the term. We glory in it. So long as the 
 end sought to be accomplished by us is commendable, 
 is for the welfare of humanity, we don't care how you 
 label it. But we ask you, gentlemen, and we ask those 
 who framed the charges against us, since when is it that 
 the term "revolution" or "revolutionary" has become a 
 term of opprobrium in a country which owes its existence 
 to a successful revolution? Since when has the doctrine 
 been proclaimed in this country that a change, a funda- 
 mental, radical, revolutionary change in our mode of 
 government, in our mode of life, is not permissible so 
 long as the people wish to introduce it? There has been 
 a very characteristic incident in that connection. You 
 remember when Mr. Littleton opened this case in a very 
 eloquent address, he took me to task for having said this. 
 "What is treason today may become the law of the 
 land tomorrow." And he said to you by way of warning, 
 "It will, if you let traitors write your laws." It seemed 
 to be an eloquent argument but what it revealed is that 
 my good friend Mr. Littleton and those of the same social 
 and economic school with him have gone to the point
 
 32 SOCIALISM ON TRIAL 
 
 where they already consider the fundamental law of this 
 land, the constitution of this country, with its bill of 
 rights, and the Declaration of Independence, as traitor- 
 ous. They are ashamed of it; they discard it. Aye, 
 they don't have the courage to repeat it all. Mr. Little- 
 ton on that occasion read from the Declaration of Inde- 
 pendence, and he read only a portion of it which I shall 
 repeat to you. He said, quoting the Declaration of Inde- 
 pendence, "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that 
 all men are created equal and endowed by their Creator 
 with certain inalienable rights among which are life, 
 liberty and the pursuit of happiness; that to secure these 
 rights governments are instituted amongst men deriving 
 their just powers from the consent of the governed." 
 And he stopped right here and stopped dead because he 
 did not dare to read what follows, and what follows is: 
 "Whenever any form of government becomes destructive 
 of these ends it is the right of the people to alter or to 
 abolish it and to institute new government, laying its 
 foundations on such principles and organizing its powers 
 in such form as to them shall seem most likely to effect 
 the safety and happiness," — well, gentlemen, we are 
 here to remind you that this eloquent sentence is a legiti- 
 mate and organic part of our Declaration of Inde- 
 pendence just as the part read by Mr. Littleton and we 
 say to you that we believe, sincerely believe, that the 
 present form of our industrial system, our industrial 
 regime, has become destructive of the very ends pro- 
 claimed as inalienable rights in our Declaration of 
 Independence; that life, liberty and the true pursuit of 
 true happiness have become impossible today under the 
 prevailing iniquitous, economic system, and we say that 
 we have the right and that we have the duty to demand 
 that this system, this pernicious system, be altered; that 
 it be abolished, and that the people of the United States 
 form a new industrial system, basing it upon such prin- 
 ciples, upon such conceptions, as they, the people of the 
 United States, not Mr. Littleton, not counsel for the 
 other side, not even you gentlemen of the Committee or 
 members of the Assembly, deem proper, but the people 
 as the people, the people as a whole, deem proper.
 
 SOCIALISM ON TRIAL 33 
 
 That is all there is to the first point or charge against 
 us, that we are a revolutionary party. 
 
 The Chairman. — We want to suspend for 15 minutes. 
 
 Mr. Hillquit. — I shall be very thankful. 
 
 (Whereupon, at 3:15 p.m., a recess was taken for 15 
 minutes.) 
 
 AFTER RECESS. 
 
 Violence 
 
 The Chairman: Proceed. 
 
 Mr. Hillquit: The first charge, Mr. Chairman, to 
 which I addressed myself before adjournment — the 
 charge that the Socialist party is a revolutionary organ- 
 ization — acquires real significance and legal importance 
 only in connection with the second charge, namely, that 
 the Socialist party seeks to attain its ends by means of 
 violence; and I take it that this Conmiittee will proceed 
 upon the theory that if we advocate a change, no matter 
 how radical ; so long as we advocate it by peaceful, con- 
 stitutional and lawful means, we are within our rights. 
 If we advocate it by means of violence, by illegal and 
 unlawful means, then, of course, we become lawbreakers. 
 The charge that the Socialist party advocates a violent 
 change is contained in the resolutions of the Assembly 
 and in the supplementary charges in the following form: 
 
 First, that the Moscow Internationale is pledged to 
 the forcible and violent overthrow of all organized gov- 
 ernments existing. 
 
 Second, that the Socialist party has endorsed the prin- 
 ciples of the Moscow Internationale, therefore, by in- 
 ference also the policy of overthrowing all forms of 
 government by violence, and by a second inference, 
 also overthrowing the government of the United States 
 by violence. 
 
 In the Chairman's statement this is somewhat ampli- 
 fied by the charge that the Socialist party strives to 
 foment unrest and *'to bring into play force, violence and 
 direct action of the masses." In the course of the testi-
 
 34 SOCIALISM ON TRIAL 
 
 mony the general strike has been added as one of such 
 charges. Then, also one portion, or paragraph, of the 
 St. Louis Resolution was introduced into the evidence in 
 support of this charge. The portion reading, "The only- 
 struggle which would justify taking up arms is the class 
 struggle against economic exploitation and political op- 
 pression." 
 
 Now, the testimony on both sides has been pretty clear 
 on the subject. The prosecution has sought to establish 
 this point principally by inferences. I think I shall 
 not be contradicted if I say that they have not read a 
 single official party declaration or any other authoritative 
 Socialist statement advocating violence as a means of 
 attaining the Socialist ends. It has been rather a matter 
 of innuendo and inference from certain scattered utter- 
 ances here and there as against all the testimony of all 
 Socialist witnesses, which has been perfectly definite and 
 consistent. I shall say to you now, gentlemen, that there 
 was not on this point, nor on any other point, a desire 
 on the part of the Socialist spokesmen to cover up or 
 conceal anything in their program. They have been 
 perfectly frank. To conceal or to cover up any part 
 of the Socialist program would go directly against the 
 Socialist interests and the entire existence and aims of 
 the Socialist movement. 
 
 Our is a movement of propaganda. We are a minority 
 party. Our object is to convert the majority of the 
 people to our views. Consequently, we must advocate 
 our views publicly. To hold certain views and conceal 
 them would be diametrically opposed to the purposes of 
 the Socialist party. If we had assumed that anything 
 in our program is such that we cannot stand for it 
 publicly, what object would there be having it in our 
 program as a part of our propaganda? I don't know 
 whether I make myself clear. As a political party, we 
 are not paid or hired to stand for certain things. We 
 stand for the things which we believe to be true, and 
 for the things that we stand we always make public 
 propaganda. In other words, we are never in a posi- 
 tion to deny any part of our program.
 
 SOCIALISM ON TRIAL 35 
 
 On the question of violence in connection with the 
 Socialist propaganda, we have made it perfectly clear 
 that we wish to introduce a radical, economic and indus- 
 trial change. A change of this kind cannot be intro- 
 duced by methods of conspiracy. It cannot be introduced 
 by acts of daring or violence of a minority. Because it 
 means a process of social or economic evolution. If 
 it were a question of an old time revolution, hav- 
 ing for its aim the deposing of one sovereign and 
 electing, or proclaiming another sovereign; or even for 
 that matter, deposing a dynasty and proclaiming a 
 republic, perhaps a few conspirators could undertake the 
 task and get away with it ; but to transform the economic 
 basis of society; to socialize all the principal industries 
 of the country and to organize the whole working com- 
 munity as a public instrumentality for the operation and 
 management of such industries, how can that conceivably 
 be accomplished by conspiracy or by violence? 
 
 We Socialists, as strong believers in social evolution 
 have always been the first to decry and ridicule the 
 romantic notions of changing the fundamental forms of 
 society, the economic basis of society, by acts of violence 
 or by conspiracy; and as has been brought out in this 
 testimonj'-, in the very early days of the Socialist move- 
 ment — in the days of the First Internationale this was 
 the bone of contention between the Marxian Socialists 
 on the one side, and the Bakunin anarchists on the other. 
 Our position is a simple one. We say we are striving 
 for the industrial transformation of society and the polit- 
 ical changes which, of necessity, must accompany them. 
 
 When we say "we," we mean the Socialists of all the 
 world. Now, of course, there are cases where there is 
 no way except the way of violence for political changes. 
 For instance, absolute monarchies with no parliamentary 
 systems of representation, no ballot boxes to introduce 
 innovations in governmental systems. Say, Russia, 
 under the Czar, even before the days of the Duma. 
 What kind of change could the people of Russia ac- 
 complish politically, economically, or otherwise, except 
 by overthrowing the Czar? They could not vote the
 
 36 SOCIALISM ON TRIAL 
 
 Czar out of office because they couldn't vote. They 
 could only throw him out physically. In an instance 
 of this kind, of course, whether we say it, or don't 
 say it, everybody of any political sense knows that 
 where there is no medium of popular expression; where 
 there is nothing but a system of repression, violence 
 alone will change that system. Let me give you another 
 example. There was our own Revolution. What was 
 the situation? The majority of the people of the 
 Colonics wanted certain changes, at first not even inde- 
 pendence; later independence from England. Could 
 they accomplish it peacefully? No. Why not? Be- 
 cause they had no voice in the matter. They could not 
 determine their own destiny. They were subject colo- 
 nies. Their policies and their life were directed from 
 England. Consequently they could only emancipate 
 themselves by a physical act, by simply saying "We shall 
 no longer be your subjects," and taking the consequence 
 of a war. The Revolution was not accomplished by 
 parliamentary methods because such methods did not 
 exist. But where there is a machinery for righting of 
 grievances, for changing of governmental forms, we 
 Socialists say that that is the method which we adopt. 
 That is part of our program. At the same time we can- 
 not blind ourselves to history. We cannot ignore 
 the fact that in actual practice revolutions, changes, 
 fundamental, governmental and economic changes, have 
 often been accompanied by violence. We say that in 
 most cases the violence has come not from the victorious 
 majority but from the defeated minority. In most cases 
 it has been forced upon the majority. And we have 
 cited a number of such cases to you. Now, we say the 
 Socialist Party is not a party of non-resistance and we 
 say further, the hypothesis having been placed before 
 us, that if a majority of the people of this country were 
 to vote for a Socialist change in the form of government 
 and the capitalist minority were to attempt force to 
 prevent them from coming into their lawful inheritance, 
 we would repel or advise repelling such force by force. 
 Did you expect a different answer? Would any Amer-
 
 SOCIALISM ON TRIAL 37 
 
 ican make a different answer? No. And that is all 
 there is to the theory of violence in the Socialist move- 
 ment. 
 
 Notwithstanding all the disjointed fragmentary state- 
 ments that sometimes have been made in the course of 
 an impromptu speech, or perhaps in an ill-considered 
 article, I say there is absolutely nothing as definite, as 
 concrete, as conclusive as this position of the Social- 
 ist Party. In order to clinch this argument, gentlemen, 
 I want to read to you a few very brief passages from 
 a little booklet of mine which is in evidence here, "So- 
 cialism Summed Up," not because I want to quote 
 myself as an authority, but because, and I want you to 
 bear this in mind, gentlemen, this book was written before 
 these Assemblymen were suspended, before we had any 
 idea of ever being called before any bar to defend the 
 political tenets of the Socialist Party. It was written 
 both for the purpose of making converts and, of course, 
 you do not make any converts unless you place your 
 actual position before them; and also for the purpose 
 of enlightenment of our young party members. 
 
 It has been officially published by the national office 
 of the Socialist party. It has been circulated in many, 
 many thousands all over the country. This, having been 
 WTitten at a time when it could not have had for its 
 object controversial points surely states the true position 
 of the Socialist party on that subject. It is as follows: 
 "The introduction of the Socialist regime depends on 
 two main conditions. First, the economic situation of 
 the country must be ripe for the change." Bear that in 
 mind, gentlemen. We do not claim that we can go to 
 Zululand to-day and organize a Socialist party, or a 
 Socialist movement, because economic conditions are 
 not ripe for it. We do not maintain that we can intro- 
 duce a Socialist regime before the economic conditions 
 of a country are ripe for it, and we must wait for such 
 point to be reached. 
 
 "Second, the people of the country must be ready for 
 it." The people of the country, not a small minority 
 party, not a group, but the people of the country.
 
 38 SOCIALISM ON TRIAL 
 
 The first condition takes care of itself. The task of 
 the Socialist movement is to bring about the second 
 condition, and it is this aim which determines the 
 methods and practical program of the movement. 
 
 Whether the Socialist order is to be ushered in by 
 revolutionary decree or by a series of legislative enact- 
 ments or executive proclamation, bearing in mind, of 
 course, the conditions in the different countries, "it can 
 be established and maintained only by the people in 
 control of the country." 
 
 'Tn other words, Socialism, like any other national 
 political program, can be realized only when its ad- 
 herents, sympathizers and supporters are numerous 
 enough to wrest the machinery of government from their 
 opponents, and to use it for the realization of their 
 program." 
 
 Does that sound like a conspiracy to overpower the 
 government of the United States and overthrow it by 
 force and violence? But to make it still clearer: 
 "Modern Socialists do not expect the socialist order to 
 be introduced by one great cataclysm, nor do they 
 expect it to be established by a rabble made desperate by 
 starvation. The Socialists expect that the cooperative 
 commonwealth will be built by a disciplined working 
 class, thoroughly organized, well-trained and fully quali- 
 fied to assume the reins of government and the manage- 
 ment of the industries. Next to the education of the 
 workers in the philosophy of Socialism, the prime task 
 of the Socialist movement is therefore the political and 
 economic organization. The Socialist movement of each 
 country presents itself primarily as a political party." 
 
 And again: "The objective point of the Socialist 
 attack is the capitalist system, not the individual capital- 
 ist. The struggles of the movement represent the organ- 
 ized efforts of the entire working class, not the daring 
 of individual leaders or heroes. The intellectual life of 
 the working class is determined by the training of the 
 men and women constituting that class, and not by the 
 more advanced conditions of a small group of it. A 
 country may be educated, led and transformed into
 
 SOCIALISM ON TRIAL 39 
 
 socialism ; but it cannot be driven, lured or bulldozed into 
 it. The Socialist's conception of the world process is 
 evolutionary, not cataclysmic. Socialism has come to 
 build, not to destroy. This is the accepted position of 
 the modern Socialist movement." 
 
 Now, gentlemen, I want to say that if, in print and 
 publicly, I referred to this position as the accepted posi- 
 tion of the modern Socialist movement, it certainly was 
 the accepted position of the modern Socialist movement, 
 for I could not afford in the face of the opposite, to 
 write that sentence. 
 
 Then: "The accepted position of the modern Socialist 
 movement is, however, not to be taken as an assurance, 
 or prediction, that a Socialist victory will in all cases" — 
 that means in all countries — "come about by orderly 
 and peaceful methods, and will not be accompanied by 
 violence. It may well happen that the classes in power 
 here or there" — that means in one country or another — 
 "will refuse to yield the control of the government to 
 the working class even after a legitimate political vic- 
 tory. In that case a violent conflict will necessarily 
 result, as it did under somewhat similar circumstances 
 in 1861 ; but such spectacular and sanguinary outbreaks 
 which sometimes accompany radical economic and polit- 
 ical changes are purely incidental. They do not make 
 the Social transformation. Thus in England the revo- 
 lution which transferred the actual control of the country 
 from the nobility to the capitalists was accomplished 
 by gradual and peaceful stages, without violence or 
 blood-shed. In France the same process culminated in 
 the ferocious fights of the great revolution of 1789; but 
 who will say that the transition in England was less 
 thorough and radical than in France? As a matter of 
 fact, street fights do not make a social revolution any 
 more than fire-crackers make the Fourth of July." 
 
 Now then, gentlemen, I think our position on the sub- 
 ject could not be made clearer than it has been made. 
 
 Another point was tacked onto this proposition, 
 namely, that we advocate mass action and the general 
 strike, and I shall say a very few words on that sub-
 
 40 SOCIALISM ON TRIAL 
 
 ject. The phrase "mass action" occurs quite frequently 
 in our phraseology. What we mean by it, gentlemen, is 
 the opposite of what you impute to us. We distinguish 
 between mass action and individual action. Mass ac- 
 tion is organized action of the people. Political action 
 is mass action. Organized strikes are mass action. 
 Individual attempts, individual assassinations, individual 
 acts of sabotage are not mass action, and we deprecate 
 them. The mass action we have in view is the legal 
 organized action of large masses of the community. 
 
 And as to general strikes let me state our position: As a 
 matter of history, the Socialist Party of the United 
 States, together with the greater number of Socialist 
 organizations in the world, has always consistently re- 
 jected the idea of a general strike for political purposes; 
 and our argument has been that if we have a number 
 of workers in a parliamentary country, determined to 
 the point of striking for a political reform, it is strong 
 enough and numerous enough to cast its votes for such 
 reform and the strike becomes unnecessary. If the 
 working class is ready to go to the limit in such demand, 
 it is ripe for them, and if it is ripe, we do not need the 
 general strike. If it is not ripe, there will be no effective 
 general strike. 
 
 The first and only endorsement of the general strike 
 method by the Socialist party in the United States is 
 contained in the proclamation in connection with the 
 U-boat warfare, which has been read here several times. 
 At that time under special pressure the Socialist party 
 declared its opposition to the war not yet declared to 
 be so strong as to sanction even a general strike for its 
 prevention. Now, gentlemen, we maintain that a reso- 
 lution of this kind, whatever view you may have of its 
 political wisdom, was perfectly legal, that we had a right 
 to adopt such a resolution — and I shall say more regard- 
 less of the attitude of the Socialist party on general 
 strikes for political purposes — I will say that the 
 workers of this country have such right, and that it is 
 well that they should at least hold it in reserve as a 
 possible instrument in some cases, in exceptional emer-
 
 SOCIALISM ON TRIAL 41 
 
 gencies. When Mr. Lee was here on the witness stand 
 he was questioned very closely, very adroitly by Mr. 
 Conboy — "Under what circumstances would you admit 
 the necessity or propriety of a general strike?" Mr. Lee 
 gave some instances. I will say that the general strike 
 is very often used, has been used abroad for the purposes 
 of enforcing parliamentry action or political action, and 
 I can well imagine such concrete instances now. Let 
 me give you this hypothetical instance. A labor party is 
 now being formed at least in some parts of the country. 
 Suppose the workingmen of an}^ state get together and 
 say, "We want to form a party of our own; we are not 
 satisfied with the way the representatives of the old 
 parties are legislating on labor matters. We want our 
 own representatives to come into legislative bodies and 
 to voice our demands, our aspirations, our interests. We 
 want them to speak for us by our mandate," and suppose 
 an election is held and being confronted with all sorts 
 of election frauds, they still manage to elect a few 
 representatives, and those representatives come to the 
 legislative body and their working constituency is wait- 
 ing and watching, hoping that at last their own direct 
 representatives will speak for them in the halls of the 
 Legislature, and suppose a big capitalist in the same 
 Legislature thereupon gets up and tells them, "Look 
 here, gentlemen, I don't approve of your program, of 
 your principles, of your platform. Get out of my Legis- 
 lature." I say this would be eminently a case where the 
 workers would be justified in declaring a general strike 
 until such time as their constitutional rights are accorded 
 to them. 
 
 I should not be surprised if there ever does arise a 
 condition of this kind on a large scale that that will be 
 what will happen. We do not apologize for that view. 
 We have a right to safeguard the political rights of our 
 constituents, and of the people, by every legal means 
 without exception, and the general strike for such pur- 
 pose is one of such legal methods. It has been recog- 
 nized in every civilized modern country.
 
 42 SOCIALISM ON TRIAL 
 
 I hope personally that the occasion may never arise 
 where it shall be necessary to be resorted to in this 
 country, but if it should, the workers have a full and 
 perfect right to use it for the protection of their 
 interest. 
 
 Politics 
 
 The next point made against us is somev/hat analogous 
 to this. It is the point, that the Socialist party is a 
 political party only in appearance, but that as a matter 
 of fact it does not believe in politics ; that its politics are 
 only a blind and camouflage. This charge is contained 
 in the Chairman's statement, that the nomination and 
 election serve only to disguise and cover up our true 
 intent and purpose to overthrow the government peace- 
 ably or forcibly; also in the very eloquent statement of 
 Mr. Littleton that we are "masquerading as a political 
 party": and finally, in a few statements quoted from our 
 platforms and declarations, such, for instance, as that 
 the reform measures advocated by us are merely pre- 
 liminary to the realizatioin of our whole program, or that 
 our politics is only a means to the end. 
 
 Now, gentlemen, it requires a great legal acumen to 
 construe upon the basis of these statements a theory that 
 we really are not a political party. Is there a political 
 party, anywhere in the world, a true political party in its 
 prime and vigor that does not consider politics as a mere 
 means to the end? Every political party is supposed to 
 have a platform. Its end is the realization of such 
 platform. The means are politics, office, control of gov- 
 ernment. It is only when a political party degenerates 
 into an office and patronage-holding concern that politics 
 becomes an end in itself. When the Republican party 
 was organized first it had a great mission to perform, no 
 doubt, and politics was the means to the performance 
 of that mission, to the attainment of that end; and we 
 Socialists tell you, Of course, we are not in politics for 
 the purpose of giving Claessens, Waldman, Solomon,
 
 SOCIALISM ON TRIAL 43 
 
 deWitt and Orr offices at the remunerative salaries of 
 $1500 a year. We are not in politics for spoils — de- 
 cidedly not. To us politics is only the means to the 
 end; and the end is the introduction of the Socialist 
 system of society which I have outlined before. 
 
 I should go a little further, gentlemen, I should say 
 this: that the charge is frivolous. The mere fact that 
 these five men, members of the Socialist Party, elected 
 on the Socialist ticket, come here seeking office, is abso- 
 lute and incontrovertible proof of the fact that the 
 Socialist Party is a political party. Groups and move- 
 ments that do not believe in politics as an instrument of 
 social improvement, do not engage in politics. You 
 never find an anarchist group nominating for public 
 office or voting for public office, or sending representa- 
 tives to legislatures or other political bodies. The Social- 
 ist Party, which adopts a political platform, nominates 
 candidates, votes for them, sends them here, certainly 
 is a political party. 
 
 I was a little amused when we had Mr. Waldman on 
 the stand here and he described the methods of the 
 Socialist delegation in this Assembly: how they came 
 together and first took up their political platform in 
 order to ascertain the pledges or promises upon which 
 they had been elected, and then said, "It now becomes 
 our duty in pursuit of our pre-election promises to the 
 electorate to attempt to enact legislation along these 
 lines," and then assigned different tasks to each one, and 
 each of them spent days, and sometimes weeks, in study- 
 ing the subjects; then introduced bills and followed them 
 up and tried to get them out of the committee, and on 
 the floor of this House. I was asking myself in the face 
 of these uncontroverted facts, is it really the charge 
 that they are not enough in politics that worries our 
 opponents, or is it perhaps the opposite? Are they 
 perhaps too much in earnest about their politics for 
 the health and comfort of their opponents? ^ 
 
 I can not take seriously the charge that their politics is 
 a sort of camouflage. If an Assemblyman of the Social- 
 ist Party came here not to introduce a bill but a bomb ;
 
 44 SOCIALISM ON TRIM. 
 
 if an Assemblyman of the Socialist Party came here not 
 to debate, but to shoot;* if he came here to commit acts 
 of violence instead of legislating; if there had been any 
 such record on their part I could conceive of the justice 
 of such a charge ; but the very record of these men proves 
 that they and their party take their tasks seriously, and 
 again, I shall read you, very briefly, a quotation from 
 the same booklet to define our position on politics. It is 
 this: 
 
 "In the Socialist conception, politics is only a means to 
 the end. Temporary and local political power is valu- 
 able mainly as affording an opportunity for economic 
 reform and the final national political victory of the 
 workers will be of vital importance only as a necessary 
 preliminary to the introduction of a system of collective 
 and cooperative industries. A general political victory 
 of the workers would be barren of results if the workers 
 were not at the same time prepared to take over the 
 management of the industries. The Socialists, therefore, 
 seek to train the workers in economic no less than in 
 political self-government. It is for this reason that the 
 movement everywhere seeks alliance with economic or- 
 ganization of labor, the trade unions and the cooperative 
 societies." 
 
 In all kindness towards our opposing political parties, 
 the Republican and Democratic, I want to say that in 
 the Socialist program and in the Socialist activities, 
 politics holds a much higher and nobler place than in 
 the conceptions and tactics of the old parties. Just 
 because we consider politics as a means to an end, just 
 because we consider politics as an instrument of social 
 betterment, just because we consider politics an educa- 
 tional function and not merely an office hunting or spoil 
 dividing process, not merely a pedestal for personal ele- 
 vation, I say, we, the Socialists, are genuinely and prop- 
 erly a political party and more so than the other parties. 
 
 And then again in order to vary the subject somewhat, 
 
 ♦ An allusion to a member of the Judiciary Committee, who 
 declared on the floor of the Assembly that the Socialist Assem- 
 blymen, if guilty, should be shot.
 
 SOCIALISM ON TRIAL 45 
 
 comes the next cliarge, namely, that the Socialist party 
 is too much of a political party. You say in the former 
 charge our politics is a camouflage, that we are not 
 a political party at all, and in the next charge you say 
 that the Socialist party is too much of a political party, 
 that it dictates the policies and actions of its members 
 elected to public office. The consistency of the two 
 charges is not very obvious to me, but they both are here 
 and we shall discuss the second now — that the Socialist 
 party unduly controls public officials elected on its ticket. 
 That is based upon several pieces of evidence before you. 
 One is the pledge which every Socialist in becoming a 
 member of the party, takes, namely, to be guided by 
 the Constitution and platform of that party in all his 
 political actions. The second is contained in the State 
 Constitution of the Socialist Party, and is to the effect 
 that a member of the party may be expelled or sus- 
 pended if he does not comply with the directions given 
 to him by the dues-paying membership of the party. 
 The third is the provision in the same State constitution 
 that every candidate of the Socialist party for public 
 office should sign an advance resignation. 
 
 I must confess I cannot clearly see the force of these 
 objections or the contentions based upon them. The 
 promise to be governed in political policies by direction 
 of a political party is not an improper promise, not pro- 
 hibited by law, statute or constitution anywhere. 
 
 There is a very distinct prohibition against making 
 promises of any things of value in consideration of secur- 
 ing the vote of the voters. That is all. There is no 
 other prohibition. And it seems to me we have drifted 
 into a very peculiar line of reasoning in this connection. 
 In the first place, as it appears from the record, the 
 Socialist party representatives are probably the most 
 unhampered representatives of any party. The 
 fact of the matter is, first, that advance resignations are 
 not as a rule required of candidates of the Socialist 
 party. Only two instances have been mentioned, one, 
 that of Mayor Lunn, who admitted that it applied only 
 to his first term and not to his second terai, or the
 
 46 SOCIALISM ON TRIAL 
 
 third time when he ran, I believe, on the Socialist ticket; 
 and then Mr. Collins referred to some occasion in some 
 town in Ohio, of which nobody knows and which could 
 not be verified. But the uniform testimony of our 
 National Secretary, our Secretary in New York, the 
 elected officials themselves, all given solemnly under 
 oath, is that in no instance within years and years has 
 the practice been followed. 
 
 Now, gentlemen, we have introduced that evidence be- 
 cause W'O wanted the fact established; but it is not im- 
 portant. Suppose such resignations had been signed by 
 candidates for office on the Socialist Party ticket. As 
 it happened, they would have had no value because, of 
 course, everyone can withdraw his own resignation be- 
 fore it has been acted upon. You all know that. But 
 even if it had a binding force, it would have meant only 
 one thing, and that is that a candidate elected on a 
 Socialist party ticket agrees to carry out the platform 
 and pledged promises of the Socialist Party or quit the 
 Socialist Party, be fired out of it, if he does not comply 
 with it. 
 
 I want to call your attention, Mr. Chairman and 
 gentlemen, to one phase of it: all through the pro- 
 ceedings there have been eloquent speeches about the 
 "oath" that the Socialist party members take to their 
 organization and to their Internationale as against the 
 constitutional oath. There is not any oath being taken, 
 nor has there ever been any oath taken by any member 
 of the Socialist party in any way. They merely sub- 
 scribe, in their application, to the ordinary, natural — 
 even implied — obligation to live up to the Constitution 
 and principles of the party while they are members of 
 the party. If they do not, they are thrown out. Wliat 
 concern is that of yours? Every party, every organiza- 
 tion, has a right to say they will tolerate a member as 
 long as he complies with their constitution, and it has 
 nothing to do with you, whether they are fired out of 
 the party or not. But the fact of the matter is that 
 this voluntary obligation cannot be weighed against the 
 only oath the defendents have taken, the constitutional
 
 SOCIALISM ON TRIAL 47 
 
 oath of office, when they came to the door of this 
 Assembly. 
 
 There has been very little direction by the Socialist 
 party, it appears, during the entire period of existence of 
 Socialist members in the Assembly. There was only one 
 occasion, the question of voting upon the constitutional 
 amendment on prohibition. It appears there was a 
 conference held between the Assemblymen and party 
 representatives, and an agreement was reached that they 
 should advocate submitting the question to referendum. 
 The Assemblymen themselves determined on that course 
 before the decision was reached and that is the only 
 instance of interfering with their activities. Mr. Lunn, 
 who was not a friendly witness, testified to the fact that 
 never in his experience, and even in his quarrels, has the 
 Socialist party attempted to interfere with his adminis- 
 trative acts for corrupt or improper motives, or motives 
 of material gain. In all cases it was a question of main- 
 taining party principles; of living up to party promises 
 and party pledges, which the Socialist party has a right 
 to do. 
 
 You know, gentlemen, there is a story about the 
 Roman augurs. The Roman augurs used to tell fortunes 
 from the entrails of animals, and the people believed 
 in them; but there was the historic and proverbial wink 
 which they used to give each other when meeting. They 
 knew each other. And when you gentlemen of the Re- 
 publican and Democratic parties charge us — the Social- 
 ists — with permitting too much party interference in 
 the performance of our public duty, we feel like wink- 
 ing at you off the record, because where do we come in 
 with you on party interference? Everything charged 
 against us applies truly to the Republican and Demo- 
 cratic parties. 
 
 Do you remember we had recently informal conven- 
 tions of both parties, and each of them recommended 
 certain persons for office delegates to the national con- 
 vention. It was a recommendation. That was all. But 
 you can imagine that it will go with the party and with 
 the voters just the same.
 
 48 SOCIALISM ON TRIAL 
 
 I have heard before of such expressions as "the party 
 leader," or, vulgarly, "the party boss," who represents the 
 party and stands between the party and the elected pub- 
 lic officials. Perhaps such a thing does not exist. Per- 
 haps it is only a myth; but when you terni of office 
 expires, gentlemen, and you want a renomination, try to 
 find out whether you will go to the electorate as a whole 
 to get that renomination or perhaps pay, first, a little 
 friendly call on the political party leader, or party boss. 
 
 In this very House, as in every other House, you 
 recognize the existence of political parties and their 
 right to control the actions of their representatives. 
 What is your majority leader? — what is your minority 
 leader? — other than instruments of the respective 
 parties to influence and control the conduct of their 
 representatives, and inasmuch as such control is not for 
 corrupt purposes, but for proper political purposes, for 
 the purpose of securing party unity in action, it is per- 
 fectly legitimate and we recognize it. 
 
 What are your caucuses, caucuses of the Republican 
 Party, caucuses of the Democratic Party, announced 
 from the floor here? What else but another instru- 
 mentality for bringing about uniformity of action among 
 the members of the respective parties on the floor of this 
 House or any other legislative body. Why, gentlemen, 
 this proceeding itself — this proceeding in which we 
 are charged with unduly controlling our representatives 
 in the Assembly — is an eloquent testimonial of the 
 control by the old parties of their members. 
 
 Here, we read in the record, the Assembly came to- 
 gether the first time. A resolution of unusual importance 
 is suddenly sprung upon the members. They are not pre- 
 pared for it. We have heard the public testimony of As- 
 semblyman after Assemblyman, that they knew nothing 
 about it, that they were absolutely unprepared for it, 
 that they could not in conscience vote for it. But the 
 resolution is introduced by the majority leader._ Every 
 Republican votes for it. The minority leader is called 
 upon to vote. He votes for it. Every Democrat, with 
 two exceptions, follows. The next day they wake up
 
 SOCIALISM ON TRIAL 49 
 
 and say, "What have we done?" Is it anything more 
 than a demonstration of the power of political parties 
 and their control of the action of the representatives on 
 the floor of this Assembly? We don't say that by way 
 of indictment or charge, but we say that to remind you 
 gentlemen that the political control by a party of its 
 elected officials, is not a peculiar institution of the 
 Socialist Party. 
 
 And now, since we are all politicians, I will say a 
 few words to ease our conscience. I will say this: 
 The objection to political parties interfering with 
 the conduct of their elected officials is not one based on 
 law or morals, but on old, outworn prejudices. There 
 was a time when political parties were anathema in this 
 country, and in every other country. You will all re- 
 member Washington's Farewell Address, and his warn- 
 ing against political cliques and political parties. 
 
 At a time when the country consisted of a few million 
 inhabitants, when the general social conditions were 
 largely equal, there was no occasion, no need for polit- 
 ical parties. 
 
 The constitution does not provide for and does not 
 recognize, the existence of political parties. But as times 
 went on, as the population grew, as class distinctions 
 sprang up, as economic interests were diversified and all 
 other interests likewise, political parties became an abso- 
 lute necessity, a supplement to our constitutional struc- 
 ture without which the Republic could not survive. And 
 it was only within the last forty years, or thereabouts, 
 that the law began to recognize and to legalize existing 
 political parties, to accord them certain rights, and to 
 subject them to general supervision. Political parties 
 to-day are the bulwark of democracy and the control by 
 political parties of their elected officials is the most 
 democratic, the most honest feature in our political life. 
 
 Why? Because the voter today cannot rely upon the 
 individual merits of any candidate. You take a city like 
 New York where a million and a half voters choose the 
 mayor. How many men know him personally? Citi- 
 zens are called upon in every national election to vote
 
 50 SOCIALISM ON TRIAL 
 
 for twenty or thirty different candidates. How many 
 know any of them? How many of the ordinary folks 
 know even to-day their representatives in the State 
 Senate, in Congress, and so on? Very, very few, it has 
 been found on a number of occasions. The individual 
 candidate is unreliable. He may change his views, his 
 policies; he may be influenced in some obnoxious direc- 
 tion; he may fall sick; he may be affected mentally, but 
 the party is a permanent factor appearing before the 
 electorate year after year. Like a corporation, it has 
 perpetual existence. The party as such by adopting a 
 platform expresses the views of a certain group of the 
 electorate. The party not only expresses its views by 
 adopting its platform but makes definite pledges, definite 
 promises to the electorate. The voter knows, or ought to 
 know, that the Republican party stands for this policy; 
 the Democratic party for that; the Socialist for the 
 other. The voters say in effect: "We will vote in office 
 the party that represents our views and interests, and 
 we charge the party with responsibility to make good its 
 election pledges and promises as expressed in their plat- 
 form, and if it does not it will have to meet us next time, 
 and we will get square on it, and if one of its representa- 
 tives does not, and the party does not discipline him 
 but tolerates him, we will know how to deal with the 
 party next time. 
 
 The party is the political framework of our modern 
 institutions. The elected representatives are nothing 
 but agents of these parties, spokesmen for them. Who 
 cares whether Mr. So and So, or Mr. So and So sits in a 
 seat in this Assembly? How many of you Assemblymen 
 or members of any other legislative body are known to 
 have been chosen for their personal political merits? 
 Very, very few. 
 
 And we say we recognize the fact fully and frankly, 
 and we recognize it as a proper fact. The Socialist party 
 above all other parties insists upon the right and the 
 duty of the party as such, the party as a party, to see to 
 it that its representativs live up to the pledges, to the 
 promises, to the representations which we make in 
 elections.
 
 SOCIALISM ON TRIAL 51 
 
 And if any one of our representatives, chosen on our 
 platform, receiving the votes of the electorate, on the 
 faith of that platform should turn untrue to these pledges 
 and promises because, forsooth, he has changed his 
 mind, or his individual conscience docs not agree with 
 the party position, we tell to him to get out of the Social- 
 ist party, and to go where his position places him. The 
 Socialist party, as such, stands for definite principles. 
 The Socialist party appeals to the electorate on a defi- 
 nite platform. The Socialist party guarantees, by impli- 
 cation, the performance, the honest performance, of its 
 platform promises. 
 
 We shall see to it that our representatives live up to 
 the principles of political honesty, or if they do not, 
 they are to be separated from our party as quickly as 
 possible. 
 
 War 
 
 I think the most telling point, at any rate the one that 
 was emphasized more than any other, is the charge that 
 the Socialist party is unpatriotic and disloyal. This 
 charge is based upon various utterances contained in the 
 St. Louis resolution which, I have no doubt, my friends 
 on the other side will read and read to you again in 
 their summing up. It is also charged that "the Socialist 
 party urged its members to refrain from taking part in 
 the war and that it affirmatively urged them to refuse 
 to engage even in the production of munitions of war and 
 other necessaries used in the prosecution of the war." 
 And then there are our expressions "the snare and de- 
 lusion of so-called defensive warfare," and the "false 
 doctrine of national patriotism." The one serious 
 charge in it — the charge that we urged party 
 members to refuse to engage in the production of muni- 
 tions of war and other necessaries used in the 
 prosecution of war has never been sustained by any 
 testimony. It was challenged by Mr. Stedman in his 
 opening. He said if it can be proved we will admit that 
 a serious charge has been established against us. We
 
 52 SOCIALISM ON TRIAL 
 
 maintain that there has been no proof of any kind on 
 that point. What has been proved, gentlemen, and 
 what undoubtedly has been the fact, is this: That the 
 Socialist Party has consistently, emphatically and at 
 all times opposed the war; that it has been opposed to 
 the entrance of the United States into the war, and that 
 when the United States entered the war it has been in 
 favor of a speedy cessation of hostilities. It remained 
 opposed to the war as such. 
 
 We claim, I think we proved, that with all that, we at 
 all times recognized that the war was on; that war had 
 been declared ; that it had been legally declared, and that 
 we complied with all the concrete enactments of war legis- 
 lation in every respect. We did not surrender our opinion 
 — our sincere belief that the war was wrong, monstrously 
 wrong, and that every day of its continuance entailed 
 unnecessary misery and privations upon our people. We 
 voiced those sentiments. We voiced them because we 
 maintained, and maintain, Mr. Chairman, that there 
 isn't an act of the Legislature, that there isn't an act of 
 the highest type of legislative measures, such even as a 
 constitutional enactment or amendment, which intends 
 to silence the tongues and stifle the thought of the people, 
 to which the people must bow, not merely in the sense 
 of practical submission, but in the sense of intellectual 
 and moral submission against their honest convictions. 
 We say that it was never intended that this doctrine 
 should ever be tolerated in this country. It was never 
 intended that upon the declaration of war or the happen- 
 ing of any other great national emergency, that all 
 thoughts of the people in this great Republic should cease, 
 all democratic institutions should come to an end, and 
 the destiny of more than 110,000,000 persons should be 
 placed in the hands of one individual, no matter how 
 exalted. This is not democracy. It is the worst form of 
 autocracy. 
 
 We proceeded upon the assumption that it is not only 
 the right, but the duty of every citizen at all times, and 
 in connection with all measures, to use his best judgment, 
 and if he honestly, conscientiously thought that a meas-
 
 SOCIALISM ON TRIAL 53 
 
 ure enacted was against the interest of his country, of 
 his fellowmen, that it was his right and his duty to do 
 all in his power to have it righted, to have it repealed, to 
 have it undone. We had ample authority in the prec- 
 edents of this country for the theory, that the greater 
 the crisis the greater the duty to speak, the greater the 
 danger of expressing opposition, the higher the call of 
 duty to brave that danger. It is only the arrant political 
 coward who supinely submits to what he in good 
 faith considers a crime. I again want to make it per- 
 fectly clear that this does not conflict at all with the 
 other as well established proposition that in a land of 
 laws, the minority must always submit to the concrete 
 enactment of the majority without necessarily approving 
 of it; without ceasing to advocate its repeal. 
 
 Now, I say we had abundant authority in this country 
 to hold this position. In fact, this was the American 
 position. The proposition advanced against us now is 
 a novel, un-American proposition. And, to support this 
 I shall read a few quotations from what my friend, 
 Mr. Roe, has submitted here in support of this contention. 
 In connection with the War of 1812, Mr. Daniel Patten, 
 representative of Virginia, said in 1813: "It is said that 
 war haAdng been declared, all considerations as to its 
 policy or justice are out of the question, and it is re- 
 quired of us as an imperious duty, to unite on the meas- 
 ures which may be proposed by them (that is, the 
 Government), for its prosecution, and we are promised 
 a speedy, honorable and successful issue. Do gentlemen 
 require of us to act against our convictions? Do they 
 ask that we should follow with reluctant step in the 
 career which we believe will end in ruin? Or do they 
 suppose that while on the simplest subject an honest 
 diversity of sentiment exists, in these complicated and 
 all-important ones, our minds are cast in the same mold? 
 Uniformity of action is only desirable when there is 
 uniformity of sentiment, and that we must suppose will 
 only exist where the mind is enchained by the fear which 
 despotic power inspires. But it has been said that obe- 
 dience to the will of the majority is the first principle of
 
 54 SOCIALISM ON TRIAL 
 
 representative government, and enjoins wliat gentlemen 
 require. Obedience to all constitutional acts is a high 
 and commanding duty on the part of the minority of the 
 people, and all factious opposition is highly criminal; but 
 this does not prevent any one in this house, or in the 
 nation to use every effort to arrest the progress of evil, 
 or to effect a bill or measures in relation to the public 
 interests. And how can this be done, unless there is a 
 full liberty to think and to speak and to act as our con- 
 victions shall dictate? If this be denied then there is 
 an end to free government. A majority can never be 
 corrected. They are irresponsible and despotic. They 
 may prepare the yoke when they please and we must sub- 
 mit in silence." 
 
 And with reference to the Mexican w^ar let me just 
 read a quotation from Sumner, While the war was 
 in progress he said: "The Mexican war is an enormity 
 born of slavery, base in object, atrocious in beginning, 
 immoral in all its influences, vainly prodigal of treasure 
 and life. It is a war of infamy w4iich must blot the 
 pages of our history." That was said during the exist- 
 ence and continuation of the war, and how does that 
 compare with our mild statement that this was a capi- 
 talist war, having its origin in commercial rivalry and 
 leading only to the gain of profiteers? 
 
 The proposition was stated still more clearly by Mr. 
 Charles H. Hudson, of Massachusetts, who said: "Has 
 it come to this, Mr. Chairman, that a President can 
 arrogate to himself the warmaking power, can trample 
 the Constitution under foot, and wantonly involve the 
 nation in war, and the people must submit to this 
 atrocity and justify him in his course or be branded as 
 traitors to their country? Why, sir, if this doctrine pre- 
 vails, the more corrupt the administration is, if it has 
 the power or the daring to involve this nation in a 
 war without cause, the greater is its impunity, for the 
 moment it has succeeded in committing that outrage 
 every mouth must be closed and everyone must bow 
 in submission. A doctrine more corrupt was never 
 advanced: a sentiment more dastardly was never advo-
 
 SOCIALISM ON TillAL 55 
 
 cated in a deliberative assembly. Gentlemen who pro- 
 fess to be peculiar friends of popular rights may advance 
 doctrines of this character and they may be in perfect 
 accordance with their views and feelings and in conform- 
 ity with their democracy; but I have too much of the 
 spirit which characterized our fathers to submit to dic- 
 tation from any source whatsoever, whether it be for- 
 eign monarch or an American President, 
 
 "I believe, Mr. Chairman, that the first principal 
 declaration in the message of the President — that the 
 war exists by the act of Mexico and that we have taken 
 all honorable means to prevent it — to be an untruth." 
 
 I could read any number of similar statements. I shall 
 refrain. I call attention to only one thing, and that is 
 that the accepted American policy up to this war was as 
 stated, namely, the right to criticise the war, to oppose 
 the war, exists after the declaration of war ; if it did not 
 exist, this nation could be turned into an autocracy 
 by means of declaring war; if it did not exist, 
 there would be no way of bringing a war to an end by 
 popular will. It was only when this war came upon us 
 that the doctrine changed, and I will tell you why: you 
 see, as was the case in all previous wars, we had orig- 
 inally two parties on the subject, an anti-war party and 
 a pro- war. party. The Democratic party was the peace 
 party; the Republican party was generally considered 
 the war party. You remember, I suppose, that our 
 President was re-elected on the slogan "He has Kept us 
 Out of War." You remember the speech of Honorable 
 Martin Glynn at the Democratic National Convention 
 on the subject. Now, imagine for a moment that Mr. 
 Wilson had not been re-elected and Mr. Hughes was 
 elected. What would have been the logical develop- 
 ments? Just this: That the Republican party would 
 have drawn us into the war, as they proclaimed their 
 intention very definitely; and the Democratic party 
 would have remained an opposition party, a peace party. 
 The Democratic party then, as a matter of policy and 
 consistency, would have taken the position taken by these 
 earlier American opponents of war when war was on.
 
 56 SOCIALISM ON TRIAL 
 
 But it so happened that it was the Democratic adminis- 
 tration that had gone into the war and it became a war 
 party from a peace party. What could the Republican 
 party do except to go it one better and to become an 
 ultra war party; and so instead of having a contest 
 between peace and war, we had a contest between war 
 and more war, and this entirely abnormal un-American 
 psychology of war terror and war hysteria took posses- 
 sion of us. 
 
 Now, then, the only party that still remained a peace 
 party in American politics, was the Socialist party. 
 
 Knowing these precedents, construing the general spirit 
 of American public rights, as we have stated them, we 
 viewed our entry into the war unhampered by the fear of 
 manufactured public sentiment. We thought it a great 
 calamity. We knew that at the time we were about to 
 enter the war, about six million human beings had been 
 slaughtered on the battlefields, a greater number than 
 had ever been killed in any war or the wars of any 
 century, I believe, in the past. We knew that all Europe 
 was in chaos, going to ruin and destruction, and we 
 argued: "What will the entry of the United States in 
 this war mean? It will add to the conflagration; it will 
 subject thousands, hundreds of thousands, and if it con- 
 tinues long enough, millions of our boys to slaughter; 
 make millions of American widows and orphans ; destroy 
 this nation industrially ; destroy it morally ; breed hatred 
 in our ranks as it has bred hatred in Europe, and not 
 accomplish anything good, nothing certainly commensu- 
 rate with the sacrifice required. We did not believe that 
 democracy would be assured as the result of this war." 
 
 We thought on the contrary that as a result of this war, 
 certain classes of war lords, profiteers and reactionaries 
 would set up a reign of terror in almost every country. 
 We did not believe that human civilization would be ad- 
 vanced by this war. We could see nothing in it but a 
 colossal carnage brought on by the conmiercial rivalries 
 of the capitalists of Europe. We could see in it nothing 
 but a cataclysm of human civilization. We could see 
 in it nothing but the greatest blot upon human intelli-
 
 SOCIALISM ON TRIAL 57 
 
 gence and we said, "Here are wc, tiie United States, about 
 four thousand miles away from the seat of this insane 
 carnage, a powerful people, powerful in wealth, power- 
 ful in influence, a people that has set out to create a new 
 civilization on this hemisphere, a people that has turned 
 away from the intrigue, from the machinations of the 
 old w^orld. Here is our opportunity; let's stay out of 
 this insane carnage. Let us preserve all our resources, 
 all our strength, in order to render it plentifully to the 
 distracted nations of Europe w'hen the carnage is over 
 and the process of reconstruction and reconciliation and 
 rebuilding sets in," 
 
 And when we heard what we considered this insane, 
 stimulated cry for participation in this slaughter, we 
 said, the men who do that, the men who are pushing this 
 Republic into this European carnage, with which it has 
 no direct vital concern, may mean well, may be per- 
 sonally honest, but they are committing or are about to 
 commit, the gravest crime every committed in the annals 
 of history against this nation and also against the world. 
 
 And we said "holding these views as we do, it is our 
 sacred duty as citizens of this country, our sacred duty 
 to our fellowmen, to protest against the war, to oppose 
 it with every fibre of our existence, come what may, 
 in the shape of opposition, persecution or suffering," and 
 we say to you, gentlemen, if any of you had held those 
 convictions, and if you were true to yourselves, true to 
 your country, you couldn't have acted otherwise. We 
 did not. And now that the war is over and the entire 
 world is quivering under the tortures inflicted upon it, 
 now that the war is over and ten millions or more human 
 beings have been directly slaughtered and many more 
 millions killed by the ravages of epidemics, now that all 
 Europe is in mourning, now that the greater part of Eu- 
 rope is starving, succumbing, bringing up a new genera- 
 tion of anaemic, under-nourished weaklings, now that we 
 helplessly behold the ruins of our civilization and are un- 
 able to rebuild the world ; now, we Socialists say we have 
 absolutely no reason to repent our stand. If we had, 
 we would be men enough to say so. but in view of what
 
 58 SOCIALISM ON TRIAL 
 
 has happened, we say, on the contrary, if ever there was 
 anything about which we feel we were right, in which we 
 feel we performed a great imperative moral duty, it was 
 this opposition to the hideous, inhuman slaughter called 
 war, and if occasion should present itself again, under 
 similar circumstances, we will take exactly the same 
 position. 
 
 It was, gentlemen, with this attitude in mind 
 that we formulated our proclamations; formulated our 
 programs. We have been asked on this stand by elo- 
 quent counsel on the other side, time and time again, 
 "You say you submitted to the law?" "Yes, yes, 
 we do." "Did you do anything more than the law 
 compelled you to do?" No, we did not. How could 
 we? We regarded the war as an inhuman institu- 
 tion. We submitted to the concrete will of the 
 majority as good citizens of a democratic republic, 
 but to go out in any way of our own free will to 
 contribute to what we consider nothing but a senseless 
 insane slaughter of our fellow men, how could we con- 
 sistently do it? How would you, or you, or any of you 
 act in the face of a law which you would consider abso- 
 lutely obnoxious. You would comply with it. You 
 wouldn't do more than that. You couldn't if you re- 
 mained true to yourselves. 
 
 Then a peculiar construction has been placed upon 
 our platform, principally the statement of our opposition 
 to war at all times. "Unalterable opposition to the war, 
 just declared," it was. We said to you, gentlemen, "that 
 doesn't mean that we will break the law. No. We com- 
 ply with it. We are drafted. We go. We are taxed. 
 We pay. But we do not and we cannot approve of this 
 war in our frame of mind." It seemed to be impossible 
 for the gentlemen to understand this position. 
 
 Now, let me read to you something from very recent 
 history, oh, in fact, about a week old. A certain political 
 party adopted this statement or proclamation: 
 
 "We are unalterably opposed to prohibition by Federal 
 amendment. We believe it to be an unreasonable inter- 
 ference with the rights of the States as guaranteed by
 
 SOCIALISM ON TRIAL 59 
 
 the Constitution. We feel that the recent enactment was 
 the imposition of the ideas of an active minority against 
 the wishes of the great majority of the American people. 
 We therefore declare for its speedy repeal and to the 
 end that the personal liberty of the people of our State 
 may be thoroughly safeguarded, until such time as this 
 repeal may be brought about, we declare the right of our 
 State in the exercise of its sovereign power to so construe 
 the concurrent clause of the 18th Amendment as to be 
 in accord with the liberal and reasonable view of our 
 people." 
 
 Now, there was a constitutional enactment, a con- 
 stitutional amendment, a higher type of law, than a mere 
 act of Congress. The declaration of war was an act of 
 Congress. The 18th amendment was an act of the sov- 
 ereign people. 
 
 What did the Democratic Party say? ''We are un- 
 alterably opposed to prohibition by Federal amend- 
 ment." We said, "We are unalterably opposed to the 
 war just declared." Did we say anything different 
 except that the Democratic Party felt more strongly on 
 drink, and we felt more strongly on war? Otherwise, is 
 it not the same philosophy? "We believe it to be an un- 
 reasonable interference with the rights of the states as 
 guaranteed by the constitution. We feel it was the im- 
 position of the ideas of an active minority against the 
 wishes of the great majority of the American people." 
 That is just what we said. We said the Congress of 
 the United States had been stampeded into the war by 
 the active minority of war agitators, and we are haled 
 before your Bar to answer for it. You declared for a 
 speedy repeal, we declared for a speedy peace, but we 
 never went so far as to say that while the law remains 
 law, we here will make our own law in defiance of the 
 United States Constitution, and have our drink anyhow. 
 
 Now, then, I ask you if it was perfectly legal and 
 proper for the Democratic Party to oppose the supreme 
 law after its enactment, why not for the Socialist 
 Party? We will assume the Democratic Party was per- 
 fectly honest about this resolution, we ask you to assume
 
 60 SOCIALISM ON TRIAL 
 
 the same about us, all the more, that not a charge has 
 been made that any Socialist, the Party as such, or its 
 members, have been improperly influenced in any way 
 towards the position which they took. There is not a 
 semblance or suspicion of a charge that our resolutions, 
 proclamations and stand are anything but the pure, 
 honest expression of our conscience. Bear that in mind 
 when you come to pass upon that point. 
 
 In this connection also, we are charged with having 
 adopted a resolution for the repudiation of war debts. 
 You remember the history of it. It was adopted in 
 the platform before any Liberty Bonds were in existence. 
 It was suppressed by the National Executive Committee 
 because Liberty Bonds had been issued at the time of 
 its ratification by the party members. I will merely 
 say this, gentlemen: The Socialist party, even in Russia, 
 in nationalizing private property, has taken care to com- 
 pensate the small investors. I think the small people, the 
 employees who bought with their savings, a fifty dollar 
 bond, a hundred dollar bond or two hundred dollars' 
 worth of bonds, should be safeguarded. So that we shall 
 not be misunderstood, I shall say that if there is no law 
 to the contrary, the best, the sanest thing that the world 
 can do to-day is to repudiate all war debts, and to begin 
 life anew with a clean slate. These war debts today 
 mount into staggering figures, requiring annual interest 
 of many billions. The "small employees" hold a very 
 small part of it. The vast bulk is in the hands of the 
 very rich. Now, what does that mean, gentlemen? For- 
 get the terms, "bonds," "interest" and all other legal 
 terms. Take the whole institution into consideration and 
 it means this: that we have, on account of the war, 
 created a certain class or certain classes all over the 
 world which hold a mortgage upon their fellow men ; that 
 every year the workers and the people of every country 
 must produce billions to pay interest on these bonds ; that 
 when we are gone, when our children are born and grown 
 up, they will have to work in order to pay the interest on 
 those bonds to the children of those who now hold them. 
 We have created a new class. We have created a new
 
 SOCIALISM ON TRIAL 61 
 
 form of bondage by these tremendous unprecedented 
 loans, and as a measure of self -protection, I say mankind 
 represented by all nations involved in this war would, 
 in my opinion, and I believe in the opinion of a great 
 many non-Socialists, do well to repudiate them all, 
 except small holdings, and start out afresh. 
 
 It has nothing to do with the Socialist party's posi- 
 tion, which, for reasons of the time, had suppressed and 
 did not circulate this particular plank; but I do not 
 want it to be understood that at any time we wished 
 to renounce the position taken by us. The position taken 
 by us in the convention, on the repudiation of war debts 
 was a proper and sound one. It would have saved our 
 generation and the generations to come and it would have 
 discouraged war profiteers and munition manufacturers 
 from urging wars ever hereafter. But it is not there. 
 It is not in our platform. 
 
 I have two short points, Mr. Chairman, — 
 
 The Chairman. — Well, you can use your judgment. 
 
 Mr. Hillquit. — Then let us recess for five or ten 
 minutes. 
 
 The Chairman. — We will take a recess for 15 minutes 
 Mr. Hillquit. 
 
 (Whereupon, at 5:20 p.m., a recess was taken for 15 
 minutes.) 
 
 AFTER RECESS, 5:35 p.m. 
 Internationalism 
 
 The Chairman. — Proceed. 
 
 Mr. Hillquit. — I have two more points, Mr. Chair- 
 man, and then I shall conclude. 
 
 One of them is the charge that the Socialist party owes 
 allegiance to a foreign power known as the Internationale.
 
 62 SOCIALISM ON TRIAL 
 
 That has been embellished and decorated somewhat by 
 my eloquent friend, Mr. Littleton, who, among other 
 things, charged that they (the Assemblymen) "gave their 
 allegiance wholly and solely to an alien, invisible em- 
 pire, known as the Internationale," and also that it is 
 that alien state to which, before the five members had 
 entered into this Chamber, they had pledged their sup- 
 port, honor and allegiance," going even so far as to say 
 that it was through the instrumentality of this Inter- 
 nationale that the Socialist Party of the United States 
 received orders from Lenine and Trotzky and carried 
 them out in this country. This was somewhat supple- 
 mented by counsel's brief, which charged the Socialist 
 party with being an anti-national party. 
 
 In the progress of the evidence the invisible empire — 
 that mysterious body to which the Socialists owed alle- 
 giance — has become more and more invisible until at 
 this time, looking through the evidence, you cannot see it 
 with a magnifyiug-glass. 
 
 The position of the Socialist party on the subject is 
 very simple: the Socialist party is not an anti-national 
 party. Socialists recognize the existence of nations and 
 their right to exist as nations, and also the great cul- 
 tural contributions of nations as nations to the civiliza- 
 tion of the world ; in fact, the Socialist party, more than 
 any other party, has always stood for the right of nations 
 to maintain their independence. I think there is not 
 a movement in the world today which is as warm and 
 consistent a friend of the Irish movement for national 
 independence as ours. It has been for Polish indepen- 
 dence before the statesmen of Europe and America ever 
 were made aware of the existence of such a problem ; and 
 the same thing applies to the aspirations of all nations 
 to independent national existence, such as Egypt, or 
 India and other countries similarly situated. But 
 the fact that we recognize the national existence and 
 national rights docs not limit our interest to one nation 
 in each case. We recognize that today a nation is no 
 longer a rounded-out, separate entity. It has become, 
 whether we are aware of it or not, a member of the
 
 SOCIALISM ON TRIAL 63 
 
 international community. Socialism is international, it 
 is true. It is international in the sense, first, that its 
 platform, its program, its ideals and aspirations are 
 substantially the same in every country. It is inter- 
 national inasmuch as it cooperates with similar move- 
 ments in every other country in joint discussion of many 
 problems, at congresses ; occasionally in material support 
 of the Socialist movement in a country that is engaged in 
 a particularly important fight. It is international, 
 finally, in the sense that we have a vision of an inter- 
 national federation of free socialist nations, which even- 
 tually will come to exist and guarantee the well-being, 
 the national security, the national existence and the peace 
 of all nations. 
 
 But, gentlemen, that is not a peculiarity of the Social- 
 ist movement. If Socialism is international, so is capital- 
 ism, so is banking, so is commerce, so is industry, so is 
 science, so is art, so is all modern life. 
 
 We exist to-day as a part of the International Frater- 
 nity of men everywhere, and even governmental func- 
 tions are becoming more and more internationalized. 
 
 I shall not go into details at this time. It would lead 
 us too far afield, but if I may call your attention to two 
 works, which I would recommend you to read, Prof. 
 Sayre's on "Experiments in International Administra- 
 tion," and "International Government" by Mr. Woolf, 
 with a Committee of the Fabian Society of London. 
 You will find, perhaps, somewhat to your surprise, 
 that there are at least a dozen international gov- 
 ernmental institutions, in which the governments 
 of all civilized countries participate. There are 
 between 200 and 300 social, political and educational 
 movements organized on an international basis, meeting 
 in international congresses just as the Socialist party, 
 discussing their problems, just in the same way, passing 
 resolutions, just in the same way. 
 
 The Socialist party is affiliated with the International, 
 or rather, to be more accurate, was affiliated with the 
 Socialist International while it fully existed. It has ex- 
 pressed at this time its intention to join a new Inter-
 
 64 SOCIALISM ON TRIAL 
 
 national — the Moscow International — and the evi- 
 dence is before you as to what that means. It means the 
 foundation of a modern international organization of 
 Socialism, but with no greater powers than the old Inter- 
 national possessed. The Socialist Party of the United 
 States never submitted itself in its practical work in this 
 country to the dictates of the International. 
 
 If you want to have a clear conception of what this 
 International means and how far you may go in pre- 
 scribing to a political party or any group of citizens their 
 right to meet with similar groups in other countries, to 
 deliberate with them and to come to a common under- 
 standing, there are but two instances which I want to 
 mention to you. One is the organized labor movement 
 in the United States, the conservative movement led by 
 the American Federation of Labor and Samuel Gompers. 
 It may not be known to you that the American Federa- 
 tion of Labor is affiliated with an International Labor 
 Bureau, which is in every respect equal to our Inter- 
 national Congresses in function, coming together peri- 
 odically, having an International Executive Committee, 
 an International Secretary, International publications, 
 and discussing methods of common concern to the labor 
 movement of the world. And if you say to us that 
 because we meet internationally with Socialists of other 
 countries we may be made to follow a policy in this 
 country dictated by foreign interests, how much more 
 directly would that apply to the labor movement which 
 considers such points as hours of labor, wages, immigra- 
 tion, safeguards in factories and other concrete proposi- 
 tions? How much more can you say that in their con- 
 crete industrial actions, declarations of strikes, industrial 
 demands, they may be guided by competing rival foreign 
 powers, and don't forget that even the late enemy powers 
 are also represented in that Bureau. 
 
 And there is another thing. If you speak of the dicta- 
 tion of foreign powers over citizens of this country, if you 
 speak of internationalism in tones of reproof and abhor- 
 rence, let me remind you that it is not only the industrial 
 labor movement that is international, but also religion
 
 SOCIALISM ON TRIAL 65 
 
 and also the church, and that a very notable example 
 of it is the Catholic Church, which is the one definite 
 international organization, actually claiming authority 
 — spiritual authority, at any rate — over its members in 
 all countries of the world, and actually having a supreme 
 Pontiff to direct the spiritual policy all over the world. 
 I can think of nothing more impressive to show the 
 danger of this line of attack than a little paragraph in 
 a letter written by my good friend and sturdy opponent, 
 a thorough non-Socialist, but a good citizen, the 
 Reverend John A. Ryan, when he said: 
 
 "Possibly my personal desire to see your cause tri- 
 imiph" — meaning this cause before you — "is not 
 altogether unselfish. For I see quite clearly that 
 if the five Socialist representatives are expelled from 
 the New York Assembly on the ground that they 
 belong to and avow loyalty to an organization which 
 the autocratic majority regards as inimical to the 
 best interests of the State, a bigoted majority in a 
 state, say, like Georgia, may use the action as a pre- 
 cedent to keep out of that body regularly elected 
 members who belong to the Catholic Church, for 
 there have been majorities in the Legislature of more 
 than one southern state that have looked upon the 
 Catholic Church exactly as Speaker Sweet looks 
 upon the Socialist party." 
 
 There are certain bounds; there are certain limits, 
 which even in the heat of partisan controversy should 
 be respected and this is one of them. Beware of this 
 charge of internationalism and foreign domination. It 
 may lead to a point at which it will recoil against those 
 who are making these charges against us. Remember 
 also that at a time when our administration is straining 
 every nerve to bring about what it is pleased to call a 
 League of Nations, an international organization of which 
 the entire country is to become part, it is somewhat too 
 late to charge it up against us as a crime that we are 
 international, in the sense of recognizing the interna-
 
 66 SOCIALISM ON TRIAL 
 
 tional solidarity of men alongside of the existence and 
 the rights of national governments. 
 
 Russia 
 
 The final point made against us is that the Socialist 
 party approves of the Soviet Government of Russia and 
 seeks to introduce a similar regime in the United States. 
 
 That charge contains two flaws. We do not "approve" 
 of the Soviet Government of Russia. We are not called 
 upon to approve or disapprove of it. We do not seek 
 to introduce a Soviet system of government in the United 
 States. We recognize the right of every people in every 
 country to choose their own form of government as a 
 moral right. We recognize besides the fact that the gov- 
 ernment of every country must correspond to the eco- 
 nomic, political and historic conditions of that particular 
 country; that a form of government that may suit one 
 country may not suit the other country; and we say, 
 just because we recognize this verity we hold that the 
 Soviet form of government seems to be good for Russia, 
 and that the Parliamentary form of government seems 
 good for the United States. 
 
 We do not attempt to force a form of government 
 upon the United States which is not suitable to the 
 genius of its people. We do not approve of any attempt 
 to force a form of government upon Russia, which is 
 not suitable to the genius of its people. We sympathize 
 with the Russian Communists in maintaining their Soviet 
 government. Why? Because it is a Soviet government? 
 Oh, no. Because it is a government of their own choos- 
 ing; because it is a government of the workers and peas- 
 ants, of the people. We do not believe in the political 
 nursery tale that it is a form of government forced upon 
 the people of Russia by Lenine and Trotzky, or any other 
 handful of ''agitators." We believe it is a form of gov- 
 ernment which has evolved from conditions in Russia, 
 and which the Russian people have adopted instinctively 
 and have adhered to. We believe that if in the many 
 months of its existence no counter-revolutionary powers
 
 SOCIALISM ON TRIAL 67 
 
 within, no military powers from without, have been able 
 to disrupt it, there must be reason for its existence. AVe 
 do not believe for one moment that a government 
 which is entirely arbitrary, which is fictitious, wh eh 
 is forced upon a people, will endure under the condi- 
 tions under which the Russian Soviet government has 
 endured; and we say, therefore, that we believe it is the 
 goverrmient which the Russian people have chosen for 
 themselves and under which they are likely to work out 
 their eventual salvation. And because we believe in it 
 and we express our sympathy with it, we are opposed 
 to any external attack upon it. 
 
 Suppose, however, the same Russian workers and peas- 
 ants — the same Russian Socialists — had adopted a dif- 
 ferent form of government, say one that would have 
 sprung from the constituent Assembly, we should not 
 have supported it any the less ; we should have supported 
 it in exactly the same measure, for we support their gov- 
 ernment not because we endorse that particular form; 
 we support their government because it is theirs and be- 
 cause they want it and because we know they are the 
 ones, and the only ones, to determine upon the mode and 
 form of government under which they choose to live. 
 
 When we say we sympathize with the Russian Social- 
 ists in the maintenance of their Soviet government, and 
 the Soviet government as a whole, we do not lose sight 
 of the fact that much of what has been done by that 
 government has been crude; that some of what it has 
 done has probably been wrong. It would have been a 
 marvel; it would have been an impossibility if they 
 should not have blundered ; if they should not have done 
 a wrong thing occasionally in the conditions confronting 
 them. But we say to ourselves: "Here is a people 
 which, only three years ago at the utmost, began to 
 emerge from a chaos created by mismanagement of gen- 
 erations, of centuries even. They are trying to find their 
 way under obstacles, such as never have existed in 
 their history before and never have confronted 
 any people in the past — the industrial and economic 
 breakdown in their own country, the political
 
 68 SOCIALISM ON TRIAL 
 
 breakdown, the shakeup of all the institutions, the 
 collapse of the war, the intervention of foreign 
 powers, the blockade, the limited means of transporta- 
 tion. Now, it has taken our revolution a great many- 
 years before the country has settled down to a condition 
 of orderly national existence, and we only had at that 
 time three or four million people. They had a popula- 
 tion of 160,000,000. Let us give them some time. Let us 
 give them an opportunity. Let us give them a chance 
 to arrange their own affairs. We Socialists believe that 
 if the absolutely unwarranted hostility and aggression 
 from the outside is removed, if trade is restored with 
 Russia, if normal communication is restored, if Russia 
 is given a chance to rebuild its shattered economy, Russia 
 will find herself and may become one of the most ad- 
 vanced and enlightened nations in the international 
 brotherhood. That is one of the reasons — one of the 
 main reasons — why we support Soviet Russia; why we 
 are opposed to all interference with it; why we are 
 opposed to the blockade. 
 
 Now, gentlemen, the interesting part about it is that 
 while we have been discussing this proposition pro and 
 con, the governments of Europe seem to have begun to 
 see the thing in the proper light. You will have noticed 
 that the entire tone of the European governments toward 
 Russia has changed within the last few weeks. They 
 begin to see the futility of trying to impose a regime of 
 their own liking upon a foreign people. They begin to see 
 the futility of trying to install their own brand of civili- 
 zation by bayonets among the Russian people. They are 
 making peace with Russia; they are establishing rela- 
 tions with her, and, gentlemen of the Committee, if you 
 do not hurry up with your decision, you may find Soviet 
 Russia recognized by the United States before you file 
 your report. 
 
 We have never disguised, we do not disguise now, our 
 sympathy for Soviet Russia. It is legitimate on our 
 part. We may have our preference for any form of 
 government in any foreign country, or for any class of 
 people in any foreign country. We recognize that in
 
 SOCIALISM ON TRIAL 69 
 
 Russia an attempt is being made to solve a 
 great social problem; to work out a great social ex- 
 periment. We know the process is painful ; we 
 know they falter and stumble occasionally; they fall 
 occasionally in their way, but we believe that given 
 liberty of motion they will arrive at their ideal. We 
 believe that when they do, they will become stabilized, 
 more practical and efficient, and they will have a contri- 
 bution to make to human civilization which will be of 
 prime importance. This is our belief, and that is why 
 we sympathize with them. 
 
 We do not advocate the same form of government here 
 for the reasons we have stated, but we hold that even 
 if we had advocated the Soviet form of government for 
 the United States by peaceful means, we would be fully 
 within our rights. 
 
 I believe it was you, Mr. Chairman, who once re- 
 marked in the course of the argument, that if the ma- 
 jority of the people of the United States declared for a 
 Soviet, you would have to live in it. I believe you would, 
 and I believe, as law-abiding citizens, we will all admit 
 that aside from the question of political consideration or 
 wisdom; on the sole test of legality or constitutionality, 
 we have the full right to advocate the Soviet form of 
 government for the United States, even though we do 
 not advocate it. 
 
 Democracy 
 
 And now that I am through with my argument, I will 
 say in conclusion, that after all is said and all is done, the 
 entire discussion — I mean my discussion and probably 
 the discussions to follow — are absolutely immaterial and 
 irrelevant as bearing upon the question before you. 
 
 What have we had here after all? A delightful, and 
 let us hope somewhat useful, academic discussion on the 
 tenets, merits and demerits of Socialism, That was all. 
 We should have liked to convert you, all of you, if we 
 could, but if we cannot, it does not matter for the pur- 
 poses of these proceedings. You do not have to believe
 
 70 SOCIALISM ON TRIAL 
 
 as we do. We do not have to believe as you do. This 
 is not a question as to whether or not you gentlemen 
 approve of the Socialist philosophy or the Socialist pro- 
 gram; whether you consider us wise or unwise, rational 
 or irrational. That is not the question. The question is, 
 if you do not consider us right, or wise, have you the 
 right to say to the constituents of these five men, that 
 they have not the right to consider the Socialist program 
 right or wise? See the peculiar situation into which 
 this proceeding has led us. There you are, a lot of 
 Republicans and Democrats, sitting in judgment upon 
 the Socialist platform, the Socialist principles, Socialist 
 tactics. That is what it has amounted to. Go through 
 all the evidence. See all the examination by the other 
 side of the details of our party philosophy. Imagine 
 for a moment, gentlemen, that we, the Socialists, would 
 do the same. We would sit down on thirteen chairs — 
 I think we can get thirteen members of the party some- 
 where — and begin to consider the Democratic party, the 
 Republican party, their platform, their social philoso- 
 phies, their aims, their principles, their leaders; all that 
 every Republican or every Democrat ever said or did; 
 the manner in which he conducted himself in his family ; 
 go through all the utterances of prominent Republicans 
 and Democrats in print, in public speeches, and so on, 
 and then pass solemn judgment among us. Do you think 
 you would have much of a chance? Probably not. 
 
 And if it were a question merely of the correctness or 
 incorrectness, the wisdom or unwisdom of our philosophy, 
 I should not expect much of a chance from you. You 
 gentlemen belong to different political persuasions. 
 Your views, your station in life, your surroundings, your 
 education, your preconceptions — all of that predisposes 
 you against our views and we know it. But we say that 
 doesn't matter. What about it! This Assembly and 
 every representative body in this country is instituted for 
 the purpose of harboring the representatives of different 
 and conflicting social views, with the sole provision that 
 those who can command a majority for any measure 
 rule on that measure at that particular time. If you
 
 SOCIALISM ON TRIAL 71 
 
 take it upon yourselves, largely or solely because you 
 disagree, and srtongly disagree with the Socialist party, 
 ils program and policies, to bar these five representatives 
 of the party, then what you will have said in effect is 
 this: "We will tolerate none in this Assembly except 
 those whose views and platforms are approved by us" — 
 in other words, Republicans and Democrats. And you 
 will have said to the constituencies of these five men: 
 "You are altogether mistaken in your choice; you have 
 to go back and you have to elect Republicans or Demo- 
 crats, for otherwise we won't allow them to come into 
 our Assembly." 
 
 Now, gentlemen, when I say that, I am practically 
 hearkening back to my first argument, and that is that 
 the only questions before you are the constitutional 
 qualifications of these men — absolutely nothing else. 
 This very proceeding has shown the danger of trying to 
 introduce any other tests or qualifications. Of the scores 
 of charges against these men produced here before you, 
 urged against them by counsel for the Committee, how 
 will you determine which is and which is not the proper 
 test or qualification? If these numerous charges have 
 been introduced against these five men, why not a similar 
 number of charges against any other man or representa- 
 tive of any other group or any other party in the 
 Assembly in the future? Where is your compass in this 
 wild political navigation? Where is your stable, definite, 
 solid test, by which to uphold popular representation? 
 If there was anything to illustrate and prove conclusively 
 and concretely the danger of departing from constitu- 
 tional qualifications, the danger of inscribing into the 
 law new tests, new qualifications based upon your con- 
 cepts of what is right and what is wrong, it has been, 
 I say, this proceeding. 
 
 I expect, of course, that in the consideration of this 
 case and in arriving at your conclusions you will bear 
 that point in mind. I cannot see how you can possibly 
 refuse to seat these five men and at the same time comply 
 with that part of the Constitution which specifically pro- 
 hibits the imposition of any tests or qualifications for
 
 72 SOCIALISM ON TRIAL 
 
 members of this House other than those contained in 
 the Constitution and recited in the oath of oflBce. In 
 order to unseat these men you will have to reverse your- 
 selves in your unanimous decision in the Decker case, 
 in which you have taken that position very clearly. 
 
 And I will say to you in conclusion: "We are through, 
 gentlemen. Throughout all these weary days of testi- 
 mony, we have been trying to be helpful to the Commit- 
 tee; we have not withheld anything in our possession. 
 We have freely submitted to your Committee; we have 
 answered all questions; we have stated our creed; w^e 
 have given you all facilities to arrive at a proper con- 
 clusion. Let me be frank with you. If we had been 
 guided only by motives of political advantage, we 
 might have sabotaged this proceeding a little; we might 
 have goaded you into a decision against us, for from a 
 political point of view I cannot see anything that would 
 benefit the Socialist Party more than an adverse decision. 
 Remember, gentlemen, we are a rival political party. 
 Your political mistakes are our gains. Your political 
 ruin will be our political making, and we cannot con- 
 ceive of a more flagrant political mistake, of a more 
 crying political and moral wrong than the unseating of 
 these five men. But, gentlemen, we also recognize 
 the higher and more important principle involved in 
 this proceeding, the principle greater than any possible 
 immediate political advantage. 
 
 We recognize that in trying this issue you are making 
 political history. For the first time since the existence 
 of this Republic, aye, I will go a step farther and say 
 for the first time in the history of any country of parlia- 
 mentary government, has a case of this kind come up, a 
 case involving the outlawry of an entire political party, 
 a oase in which the majority parties would take it upon 
 themselves to bar a minority party because they disagree 
 with such minority. I recognize the conditions under 
 which this case has sprung up; the peculiar psychology 
 which has taken hold of the people in this country, 
 largely on account of the war; the psychology of reck- 
 lessness, of partisanship, of hate, of reaction and per- 
 secution.
 
 SOCIALISM ON TRIAL 73 
 
 I can see clearly the procession of events which led up 
 to this proceeding, the slight infractions of law in the 
 prosecution of radicals, of dissenters, of so-called "dis- 
 loyalists." First it was a question of straining a little 
 deta,il in the law and getting a conviction where a con- 
 viction could not be had under ordinary circumstances. 
 Then it was the imposition of sentences which in ordi- 
 nary civilized tune would be considered atrocious, for 
 purely nominal offenses. Then it was a little mob rule, 
 and condoning it complacently. Then it was the rounding 
 up of radicals. Then it was the deportations of radicals. 
 Then it became a mania, and every individual in this 
 country who had any political ambition or any political 
 cause to serve, saw in this great movement an occasion 
 to get in and cover himself with glory, and one by one 
 the popular heroes of the type of Ole Hanson, and others, 
 arose and the number of those who envied them their 
 laurels and sought to emulate them was legion. 
 
 And then finally, unexpectedly, like a blow, a sudden, 
 stunning blow came this action of the Speaker of the 
 House in connection with these five Socialists. It was 
 overstepping the limit somewhat. It has caused a re- 
 action, and to that extent it has done good. 
 But let me say to you, gentlemen, it is absolutely incon- 
 ceivable that in times of normal, rational conditions, any 
 such proceeding would have been undertaken, and it 
 never has been. Socialists have been Socialists of the 
 same kind as they are now, all the time, many and many 
 years. They have been elected to various offices and 
 they have been allowed to hold office. These very mem- 
 bers, or a majority of them, have been in this House, 
 last year and the year before, after their attitude on the 
 war had been made public and was generally known, 
 after these various manifestos dated from 1916 up had 
 been adopted, after these articles written in 1909 and 
 1908, had been published. Their seats were never ques- 
 tioned. Attempts were made on the part of one or 
 another individual to bring about their unseating. It 
 was frowned down and squelched by the very same 
 Speaker of the House. And I say it is only the morbid
 
 74 SOCIALISM ON TRIAL 
 
 political psychology which prevailed in this country a 
 short time ago that made this proceeding possible. 
 
 Now, gentlemen, this will pass. We shall return to 
 normal conditions. We shall return to a normal state of 
 mind. We shall return to the condition of a democratic 
 republic, with toleration for all political opinions, so long 
 as they meet on the common ground of the ballot box 
 and constitutional government. And I say if in the 
 meantime you unseat these Assemblymen, that stain 
 upon our democracy will never be washed off, never 
 be removed. That precedent once created will work 
 towards the undoing of the entire constitutional, repre- 
 sentative system so laboriously built up. 
 
 It is from this larger point of view, from the point 
 of view of the effects of your decision upon the future 
 of the political institutions in this country, that I ask 
 you to consider the evidence before you, fairly, on its 
 merits, without partisan bias, and if you do that I have 
 no doubt and no fear of the outcome of your delibera- 
 tions.
 
 University of California 
 
 SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY 
 
 305 De Neve Drive - Parking Lot 17 • Box 951388 
 
 LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA 90095-1388 
 
 Return this material to the library from which it was borrowed. 
 
 THE GREAT STEEL STRIKE: and Its Lessons 
 
 By WILLIAM Z. FOSTER 
 
 The gnat >tcel strike was a victory in tliat it proved the possibility of orRanizntion amonc i 
 trial wc-l-.ers. The story of the organization and of the strii^e is of the first importance to 
 who anticipalc further restlessness on the part of the frustrated workers. The significance ( 
 book extends far beyond the particular industry of which it treats. Paper, Si.oo; cloth, S1.7 
 
 B. W. HUEBSCH, Inc., Publisher, New York
 
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