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Cornell University Library 
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 As to politics : 
 
 olin 
 
 3 1924 030 333 144 
 
DANIEL DE LEON. 
 
AS TO POLITICS 
 
 A Discussion Upon the Relative Importance 
 Of Political Action and of Class- 
 Conscious Economic Action,, 
 and the Urgent Necessity 
 
 of Both : 
 
 SECOND EDITION 
 
 Published by 
 
 NATIONAL EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE 
 
 SOCIALIST LABOR PARTY 
 
 45 Rose Street 
 
 New York 
 
 1915. 
 
"The working class and the employing class have 
 nothing- in common. There can be no peace so long- 
 as hunger and want are found, among millions of 
 working people, and the few, who make up the em- 
 ploying class, have all the good things of life. 
 
 "Between these two classes a struggle must go on 
 until all the toilers come together on the political, as 
 well as on the industrial field, and take and hold 
 that which they produce by their labor through an 
 economic organization of the working class, without 
 affiliation with any political party." — Preamble, of 
 the I. W. W. 
 
National Executive Committee, 
 
 Socialist Labor Party, 
 
 45 Rose Street, New York 
 
 1915 
 
 TABLE OF CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Introduction • 5 
 
 First Letter of Sandgren, and Answer Thereto 7 
 
 Letter of La Bille, and Answer Thereto 19 
 
 Letter of Wagner and Vasilio, and Answer Thereto.... 24 
 
 Letter of Giovannitti, and Answer Thereto 32 
 
 letter of Hoffman, and Answer ThemJto 39 
 
 Second Letter of Sandgren, and Answer Thereto 45 
 
 Letter of Kopald, and Answer Thereto S3 
 
 Questions by Spettel, and Answers 57 
 
 Questions by Eherich, and Answers 59 
 
 Questions by Kiefe, and Answers 62 
 
 Questions by Rice, and Answers (6 
 
 Supplementary 76 
 
"The Trades Union should never be connected 
 with, nor made dependent upon a political party, if 
 the former is to fulfill its task. The moment that is 
 done, tfhe death-blow is dealt to it. The Trades Union 
 is the school for Socialism-. In the Trades Union the 
 workingmen are trained into Socialists, because there 
 the struggle with capital is daily carried on under 
 their very eyes. All political parties, whatever their 
 complexion may 'he, and without exception, warm up 
 the working class only for a season, transitorily. The 
 Trades Union, on the contrary, captures the mass of 
 the workingmen. permanently. ONLY THE TRADES 
 UNION IS CAPABLE OF SETTING- ON FOOT A 
 TRUE POLITICAL PARTY OF iLABOR, AND THUS 
 RAISE A BULWARK AGAINST THE POWER OF 
 CAPITAL."— Karl Marx. 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 The contents of this pamphlet is a discussion that took place 
 in the columns of The People, under the head "As to Politics," 
 during the months of' November and December, 1906, and January 
 and February, 1907. 
 
 The discussion consisted in letters written to The People by 
 correspondents who advocated the dropping of political action alto- 
 gether, and reliance exclusively upon revolutionary, class-conscious 
 Industrial Unionism; and The People's answers. The letters are 
 published in this pamphlet together with the answers given to each 
 by The People, combating the error. An important part of the 
 discussion consisted in a number of questions asked and answers 
 to them by The People- These are also included, closing with, an 
 editorial from The People entitled "Supplemental" to the subject, 
 and answering the last question put. 
 
 The subject-matter of the discussion, besides being of deep 
 interest, is timely. True to the Marxian observation that, contrary 
 to the law of bourgeois revolutions, the law, obedient to 
 which the revolutionary movement of the proletariat acts, is to 
 "criticize itself constantly; constantly to interrupt itself in its own 
 course; to come back to what seems to have been accomplished, in 
 order to start over anew; to acorn with cruel thoroughness the 
 half measures, weaknesses and meannesses of its first attempts; 
 to seem to throw down its adversary only in order to enable him 
 to draw fresh strength from the earth, and again to rise up against 
 it in more gigantic stature; to constantly recoill in fear before the 
 undefined monster magnitude of its own objects — until, finally, that 
 situation is created which renders all retreat impossible, until the 
 conditions themselves cry out: 
 
 "Hie Rhodus, hie salta !" — true to that Marxian observation, the 
 Labor Movement of America is to-day thoroughly criticizing itself. 
 No more important subject af criticism can there be than half- 
 measures — one time purely of physical force, another time purely 
 of political action — which the movement has, in previous years, 
 pursued. No more important a subject to be clear upon than the 
 proper tactics of the movement. Means and ends supplement, they 
 even dovetail into each other. No clearness, as to ends, is well 
 conceivable without correctness of means ; no correctness of means 
 can well be hit upon without clearness as to ends. This principle 
 is peculiarly applicable to the ends and the nftans thereto of the 
 Socialist or Labor Movement. 
 
 The publication, in pamphlet form, of the discussion conducted 
 during those four months in The People is intended to furnish in 
 compact form the information whereby to arrive at the correct tac- 
 tics wherewith to reach the goal of the Socialist Commonwealth. 
 
 Daniel De Leon. 
 
 New York, July 8, 1907. 
 
AS TO POLITICS. 7 
 
 FIRST LETTER 
 
 By JOHN SANDGREN 
 
 San Francisco, Cal. 
 
 The most important issue confronting the working class to-day 
 is the question of the proper method, the proper tactics, to adopt 
 in order to attain the aim upon which even the most hostile factions 
 agree, namely the overthrow of the capitalist system. A discussion 
 of this kind leads us immediately to the question : shall it be accom- 
 plished through political organization, or through economic organ- 
 ization, or through both. It is imperative that this question should 
 be openly, honestly, and widely discussed, in order to arrive at a 
 solid basis upon which all workingmen may unite; it is imperative 
 that the cloudiness and uncertainty which now divides revolutionary 
 workingmen and frustrates in part their best energies and efforts, 
 should be dispelled. Having very decided opinions on the subject, 
 I beg leave to submit my views, hoping they will be received in the 
 same good faith as they are given, without prejudice or rancor, 
 solely with the aim of benefitting the working class movement. 
 
 The first preamble of the Industrial Wlorkers of the World says 
 that "the workers must come together on the political, as well 
 as the industrial field and take and hold that which "they produce 
 by their labor through an economic organization without affiliation 
 with any political party." The second convention of the I. W. W-, 
 held this year, adopted an amendment to this clause to the effect 
 that the I. Wl W. does not wish to endorse or to be endorsed by 
 any political party, which amendment will no doubt be adopted 
 by referendum vote- The amendment does not materially change 
 the original clause. This clause declaring for political unity, but 
 at the same time striking a nolle-me-tangere, don't-touch-me atti- 
 tude to all political parties, has been, is, and will be subject to an 
 endless variety of interpretations. A document like the preamble 
 should be positive in its statements, not negative. It should outline 
 a definite, absolutely definite, policy, which could leave no room for 
 essential disagreement, between those who endorse its program at 
 least. Its weakness on this point lies in enumerating two things 
 out of the thousand and one things which it does not want, namely, 
 it does not want to endorse any political party and it does not want 
 to be endorsed by a political party. Instead of doing this, the 
 preamble ought to state most positively what the I. W. W. does 
 want and thus serve as a fixed star to steer by, instead of present- 
 ing us with a moving cloud to steer by, on this most essential point, 
 the question of tactics. 
 
 However presumptuous it may appear, the writer will undertake 
 to suggest an amendment for the next convention to consider, an 
 
8 AS TO POLITICS. 
 
 amendment which will remove the apparent contradiction and ex- 
 press the ideas and the conception of revolutionary workingmen, 
 and it would be as follows : 
 
 To strike out all reference to politics in the I. W. W. preamble- 
 In defence of a preamble thus amended, may I be allowed to 
 submit the following reasons. 
 
 It is not in order to dodge or to escape a difficult situation 
 with which two I. W. W. conventions have unsuccessfully wrang- 
 led, that this amendment is submitted for discussion. It is submitted 
 because political activity may justly be considered of little or no 
 value for the overthrow of the capitalist system. If the following 
 arguments in support of such a sweeping statement are defective 
 to the point of making the conclusion wrong, they should be anni- 
 hilated, in the best interest of the working class. 
 
 It is being asserted by the adherents of a revolution at the 
 ballot box, that the working class outnumbers the other class as 
 vomers (some enthusiasts say "as 10 to i"). If this statement is 
 true, it would be theoretically possible to vote capitalism out of 
 existence, provided nearly all workingmen could be made to vote 
 solidly for revolution, and provided the class in power would count 
 their vote, and provided the ruJing class would abide by their vote, 
 and provided that an economic organization is in existence to 
 "back up" the vote, if the ruling class does not abide by it. But 
 in the final analysis this contention is based upon the statement 
 that the workers are a majority of the voters. The contention 
 stands or falls with the question whether the workers are in a 
 majority at the ballot box or not. Thus far nobody can disagree 
 with me, except those who depend for political success upon the 
 votes of people who do not belong to the working class. 
 
 The writer maintains that the working class is no*t in a majority 
 at the ballot box, which he will proceed to prove in the following 
 simple manner, by the aid of statistics. 
 
 According to United States statistics, as summed up in the So- 
 cialist Almanac, page 101, the working class was in 1870, 62.81 per 
 cent, of the population, in 1880, 58.91 per cent., and in 1890, 55 per 
 cent, of the total population. Later statistics I can unfortunately not 
 quote, my little library having been destroyed in the great San 
 Franaisco fire. But I am certain that later statistical figures are 
 not such as to wreck my conclusions, as we will find further on. 
 
 Taking the figure of 1890 the wage working class is 55 per cent, 
 of the population and the plutocrat, middle, and professional class 
 45 per cent. Assuming that we have universal and equal manhood 
 suffrage it would then be correct to assume that the working class 
 controls 55 per cent. 'of the votes and the master al'ass 45 per cent. 
 
 But these 55' per cent, are by no means all voters. In this per- 
 centage of workingmen are included men of foreign parentage 
 who have not become voters and the disfranchised negroes, and 
 many other non-voters. 
 
AS TO POLITICS. 9 
 
 Considering first the foreign-born, included in the 55 per cent., 
 we find that in 1900, according to my best recollection they were 
 about 18 per cent, of the whole population. Of these approximately 
 12 per cent, may be counted as belonging to the working alass, and 
 the other 6 per cent, to the other class, these 6 per cent, being 
 nearly all citizens and voters. Of the 12 per cent, belonging to 
 the working class only a small part are voters. A large percentage 
 are not in the country a sufficient time to be citizens, and outside 
 the Celtic and Teutonic races comparatively few foreigners acquire 
 citizenship,- partly because they do not learn the language well 
 enough to become citizens, partly because their imperfect knowledge 
 of the language makes them indifferent to citizenship "privileges," 
 partly on account of the difficulty in securing witnesses in accord- 
 ance with law, partly because they have lost faith in the ballot in 
 the country where they came from. Taking all these factors into 
 consideration it is safe to assume that of the 12 per cent, counted 
 with the working class about 8 per cent, have no vote. 
 
 Subtract 8 from 55 you have 47 per cent-, as against the 45 per 
 cent, of the other class. Your majority is dwindling dangerously 
 already. 
 
 Now we come to the negroes included in the 55 per cent. They 
 number about 10 per cent, of the population. Mjost negroes being 
 wage workers about 7 per cent, of them are included in the 55 
 per cent- Of these approximately 5 per cent, are disfranchised 
 directly. 
 
 Subtract 5 per cent, from 47 per cent, and you have 42 per 
 cent, as against the 45 per cent, of the other class. Now where is 
 your majority? You are already in the minority, and I have 
 already proven my statement that you do not outnumber the 
 other class at the ballot box. 
 
 But in addition to these large groups who have no voice in 
 the nation's affairs we have an immense number of citizens, who 
 are counted in the 55 per cent., who lose their vote through poll 
 tax, property, and residence qualifications and through the nature 
 of their occupation. About 200,000 seafaring men can not vote. 
 Hundreds of thousands of workers, aye over a million, who work 
 in railroad construction, in the woods, or drift from Manitoba to 
 Louisiana with the harvest season, or between the different crops 
 in California and the Northwest, or from mining camp to mining 
 camp or from one industrial town to another, are disfranchised. 
 It is safe to deduct 5 per cent, more from the 55 per cent. Deduct- 
 ing 5 per cent, from -42 per cent, we get 37 per cent, as opposed 
 to the 45 per cent, of the other class. You are now 8 per cent. 
 behind, which leaves a generous margin, to cover any errors made 
 in this argument. That the figures will not stand essentially differ- 
 ent in 1910 or 1920, counting by per cent., is also safe to assume. It 
 may be said with some truth that since 1890 the working class has 
 been largely swelled by accessions from a dying middle class, and 
 
io AS TO POLITICS. 
 
 that nearly a million wage workers (largely disfranchised) come 
 to this country every year, and that the working class as a con- 
 sequence is now more than 55 per cent, of the population. But 
 as stated above the figures were for 1870, 62.81 per cent-, for 1880, 
 58.91 per cent., for 1890, 55 per cent. If the pendulum has swung 
 the qther way since 1890, it is still hardly probable that it has 
 swung far. enough to give the working class a majority at the 
 ballot box. It is up to my critics to prove that it has, by quoting 
 later, authentic statistics. 
 
 It is proven, then, that the working class does not outnumber 
 the ruling class at the ballot box. And a miss in politics is as good 
 as a mile. To fall short 100 voters of a majority is, for all prac- 
 tical purposes, as bad as getting only 100 votes in all. 
 
 But this argument against the value of the ballot as a working 
 class weapon is so strong that I can afford to be generous. I will 
 grant, for the sake of argument that we do outnumber the ruling 
 class at the ballot box. 
 
 Qan we, then, judging by past and present success, entertain 
 the hope of gathering, in any reasonable time, that problematical 
 working class majority upon one program, under one revolutionary 
 banner? Probably not. The ruling class holds the strings of the 
 bread and butter of millions of slaves so tightly that they can not 
 vote for revolution. Furthermore the ruling class controls the 
 schools and poisons the young minds of the children. It owns 
 the press and controls the minds of the fullgrown. It controls the 
 pulpit, and there pollutes the mind of child and man. What becomes 
 of your working class majority before these facts? 
 
 Again, granting for the sake of argument, that we now out- 
 number the master class at the ballot box, is there any reasonable 
 justification for hoping that the master class will cease to impose 
 new restrictions upon the right to vote, when that has been their 
 course for the last ten years, as witness Texas, Louisiana, Missis- 
 sippi, Georgia, North Carolina, Virginia and other states? Or is 
 there any guarantee whatsoever that our ruling class will not resort 
 to gerrymandering or election geometry, that is, redistributing of 
 districts and representation as has been done in Germany, Sweden 
 and other countries, in order to curtail the effect of a working 
 class vote? 
 
 Granting, again, that we not only outnumber the ruling class, 
 but have actually succeeded in getting a majority vote, what hope 
 is there that they will not count us out, as is being done in every 
 ejection, not only against workingmen's parties but between the 
 masters themselves? What would it matter if we had the vote 
 "backed up with an economic organization"? As long as we insist 
 on accomplishing our aim "legally," so long can the master endure 
 the game of showing us black on white that we are in the minority, 
 and if we were to attempt the "backing up" of this minority, we 
 
AS TO POLITICS. ii 
 
 would be "illegal" in the eyes of the ruling class anyhow, as 
 long as they are in power. 
 
 Having granted so many impossible things, for the sake of 
 argument, let us grant one more. Let us assume that a revolutionary 
 political party carries a national election, and is allowed to take 
 possession of all offices from President down. What will be the 
 result ? _ 
 
 As has so frequently been demonstrated, that day of our 
 political victory would be our political funeral- The function of 
 government is to make and enforce laws for the running of the 
 capitalist system and to safeguard it against all comers. Or in 
 other words, the sole purpose and function of government is to 
 regulate the relations springing from the private ownership of the 
 means of production and distribution, and everything connected 
 therewith. But the new form of society, which we are preparing 
 for, does not recognize this private ownership, it proposes to 
 recognize production and distribution on collective lines, a func- 
 tion which cannot possibly be filled by politicians, by a President, 
 a Secretary of War, a Secretary of the Navy, a House of Represen- 
 tatives, a Senate, a Custom House Department, an Internal Revenue 
 Department, etc. Like Shakespeare's Moor, the_ politicians would 
 find their occupation gone. There would be positively nothing for 
 them to do, unless they were to continue to run society on capitalist 
 lines, the very thing they were supposedly elected to discontinue. 
 Neither can it reasonably be suggested that these men, thus elected, 
 should instantly sit down and reorganize society on co-operative 
 lines. Society may be reformed by decrees and resolutions, but a 
 complete organic change, a revolution, as we contemplate, must 
 begin at the bottom, is a matter of evolution within the constituent 
 parts of the organism itself, is a building of cell upon cell until 
 the organism is completed. The so-called political organization 
 does not occupy itself with this task. This task is left to the! 
 economic organization such as the I. W. W. which is even now 
 grouping and arranging the individual human units as cells in the 
 future organism of society. Such an organization as the I. W. W. 
 will, when the proper time comes, pass society over from private 
 to collective ownership with no more jar, than when a railroad 
 train, after crossing a steel bridge, glides over the narrow slit 
 which separates the bridge from terra firma, no matter what its 
 struggle may be before it reaches that point. And such an organiza- 
 tion, instead of having to abdicate on the day of victory, reaches 
 first then its perfection, and becomes the permanent form of the 
 new society. Of course I realize that Kttle, if any, objection "will 
 be made to this manner of stating the function of the economic 
 organization. The objection I anticipate is that we need the polit- 
 ical movement as an auxiliary at least, in the every day battle with 
 the master class. Against this objection I maintain, and will try 
 to prove, that the political propaganda far from being needed as 
 
12 AS TO POLITICS. 
 
 an auxiliary for the overthrow of capitalism, is positively harnilr 
 to true working class interests. Such propaganda fosters and 
 maintains the illusion that all the evils of society can be mended 
 at the ballot box, which I have shown not to be the case. Reforms 
 tan be enacted through the ballot, but not revolutions contrary 
 to the interests of those who control the ballot. Political activity 
 puts us on a par with the capitalist parties and places us in a 
 position where we have to tacitly endorse and co-operate in main- 
 taining the capitalist system. I will illustrate. 
 \ Suppose Jackson of the S. LP. had been elected governor 
 of New York, Haywood of the S. P. governor of Colorado, or 
 Lewis of the S. P. governor of CaKforn.a, and all three supposi- 
 tions are unreasonable, for the capitalist class is not going to allow 
 us to play at governing, simply for the pleasure of having us dem- 
 onstrate our impotency. 
 
 ,What would happen if these three men had been e'ected to- 
 gether with their whole tickets, controlling state legis.ature and 
 everything else? 
 
 Could they have declared the co-operative commonwealth in 
 existence? Everybody answers no. The legislature would have 
 to sit down and tackle the bitter tasks of making, amending and 
 improving the laws pertaining to the private ownership of the 
 means of production and distribution. To do anything e.se wou.d 
 bring upon them the U. S. Supreme Court and eventually the U. S. 
 regular troops. They would perforce have to be accomplices of 
 the capitalist class in administering capitalist law to the workers. 
 Could they even shorten the hours of toil or increase the pay of 
 the workers ? ' Experience tells us no. Ten hour laws have been 
 declared unconstitutional in the State of New York. An eight-hour 
 law was passed by a referendum by the people of Colorado, but 
 it never was taken up by the legislature, so it never had a chance 
 to be declared unconstitutional, but nobody doubts that it would 
 have been so declared had the legislature passed it. Even a local 
 victory would thus be futile. Oh, but you will say, we could keep 
 the militia off in case of strike. Yes, but could you keep the fed- 
 eral troops off? No, we could not. 
 
 In the meantime the Western Federation of Miners and many 
 unions of the American Federation of Labor even have an eight- 
 hour day and a minimum wage. Have they been declared uncon- 
 stitutional? No, and they did not gain it through political action, 
 tut through economic organization. 
 
 The advocates of political working class activity predicate their 
 success upon being "backed up" by an economic organization which 
 is to take the chestnuts out of the fire for them. The economic 
 organization stands on its own legs and declines political "assist- 
 ance." The economic organization makes just such demands as it 
 is able to enforce, and it is able to make demands and to enforce 
 them from the very first, it does not have to wait for that hazy 
 
AS TO POLITICS. 13 
 
 day when we shall have a majority. For them to waste their 
 energy on the building up and maintaining of a political organiza- 
 tion, which they afterwards would have to "back up," only to 
 awaken to a realization of its impotency,* would be like crossing 
 the river to fill your waterbucket, when you can just as well get 
 your water on this side. 
 
 One more objection I will anticipate and meet. It will be said 
 perhaps: "The workers have the right to vote, and, if we do not 
 give them a chance to vote for revolution, they have no choice 
 but to vote for capitalism-" But this objection has, only a senti- 
 mental value. Some workingmen may feel some satisfaction in 
 teasing the bear with a vote for revolution. I, for one, do not 
 any longer. I do not enjoy practical jokes, and still less do I 
 enjoy being insulted by having my ballot counted out. I wish 
 to see my fellow workers quit wasting their time and energy on 
 an illusion, drop politics, and unite on a plan of action which will 
 bring about the results we desire, and that plan of action I find 
 expressed in an economic organization on the lines of the I. W. W» 
 
 You will then, finally, ask: "What are we going to do with 
 the political working class organizations already in existence, the 
 Socialist Labor Party, and the Socialist Party?" The question 
 is simple and easily answered. Both these organizations maintain 
 that there is war between the two classes. In the war both of them 
 have rendered splendid service, especially the S. L. P., in educating 
 the workers up to the point where they were able to see the neces- 
 sity of, and to form an economic organization like the I. W. W. 
 They have done well as propaganda societies, but that is all they 
 have ever been, their names' and platforms notwithstanding. That 
 they should have originally chosen the political field was natural,. 
 due to the deep rooted idea that all social evils can be cured at 
 the ballot, in a "free" country. But their role is now played. 
 In war, success depends often upon a complete change of front, 
 upon a swift flank movement, upon abandoning one position and 
 taking up a new one. Such movements are often necessary to avoid 
 exposing your own men to your own fire. Such is the position 
 of the S" P. and the S- L P. now. They are right in the line of fire 
 Their war cries are confusing and demoralizing the gathering 
 proletarian army and may cause a temporary reverse. What kind 
 of organization is theirs for war purposes! It is a machine, a 
 general staff, composed of sections, of locals, calling on their army 
 (and an unreliable army it is) every two or four years for parade 
 and review at the ballot box and then dismissing it. What sensible 
 man could any longer participate in that sort of stage war? It is 
 up to you to break up camp and take up the struggle from a point 
 of vantage in the I. W. W. and get out of the line of fire. Turn 
 over your funds and your institutions at the earliest possible date 
 to the I. W. W. and let us join in the drilling and perfecting of the 
 revolutionary industrial army which is never dismissed, but fight* 
 
14 AS TO POLITICS. 
 
 and forges forward irresistibly to the goal, the overthrow of capi- 
 talism and the establishing of the new society. 
 
 Before closing allow me again to request that my arguments be 
 considered exclusively on their merits, and that every critic give 
 as much time and sincere thought to the subject as I have. 
 
 ANSWER. 
 
 [Sandgren's article falls within the general province of the 
 burning question of Unionism, with a special eye to political activ- 
 ity, as its title indicates. The writer plants himself upon the 
 industrial form of organization, or the I. W. W., as essential to 
 the emancipation of the working class, and proceeds to present a 
 chain of reasoning from which he concludes that the political 
 movement is worthless, harmful and should be discarded, and 
 he calls upon the Socialist Labor Party and the Socialist Party to 
 "break up camp," and to "turn over their funds and institutions" 
 to the I. W. W. Finally, the writer makes an earnest appeal for 
 the serious consideration of his arguments, and invites discussion 
 thereupon. 
 
 The writer's premises are in the main wrong, and his con- 
 clusion is not only wronger, but not even logical, his own premises 
 being defective. Nevertheless, the article is timely. Due to its 
 timeliness, seeing that a perceptible anti-political sentiment has 
 latterly broken out in several quarters, the article is published. 
 Moreover, in honor to the good spirit which prompts the article, 
 and for the purpose of systematizing the discussion which it invites 
 and preventing the same from degenerating, as such discussions 
 unfortunately but too frequently do, into an indefinite rambling 
 that wanders more or less from the conclusion or the premises 
 under consideration, the article will here be divided into its two 
 main component parts, and these dissected. 
 
 I. 
 
 WORKING CLASS STRENGTH AT THE BALLOT BOX. 
 
 After the first' four introductory pages which can be safely 
 left undiscussed, whether pro or con, the writer devotes much 
 space to prove statistically that the working class does not out- 
 number the capitalist class at the polls, and hence the workingman's 
 ballot can never win. The figures are wrong. For one thing, part 
 of them are nearly twenty years old; for another, the deductions 
 are made only from the figures for the working class, whereas 
 many a deduction should also be made from the figures for the 
 voting strength of the capitalist class. Here are, for instance, a 
 few serious discrepancies between the writer's figures and the fig- 
 ures of the Census for 1900 : 
 
AS TO POLITICS. 15 
 
 The writer estimates the foreign born population in 1900 at 
 18 per cent. ; the census states 23.7. The writer estimates the 
 number of citizens among the foreign born at considerably below 
 10 per cent. (6 per cent, as capitalists and all voters, and of the 
 remaining 12 per cent., workingmen, he says, "only a small part 
 are voters") ; the census for 1900 gives 80 per cent, of foreign born 
 males as citizens, and only 20 per cent, of them as remaining 
 aliens. The writer climaxes his errors under this head by sub- 
 tracting his deductions, not from the working class population in 
 1900 (about 70 per cent.), but from the working class population 
 in 1890 (about 55 per cent.). 
 
 Again, the writer deducts in lump from the voting strength 
 of the working class "about 200,000 seafaring men" as unable to 
 vote; the census for 1900 gives less than one-half that number, 
 only 78,406 as the total for "boatmen and sailors," exclusive of 
 U. S. sailors and marines who are comparatively few, seeing that,, 
 together with the soldiers, they number only 43,235 men. 
 
 Again, the writer overshoots his own mark. He points to the 
 influence, physical and mental, that the ruling class exercises 
 through "the strings of the bread and butter of millions of slaves" 
 which that class "holds tightly," as well as through its schools, 
 press and pulpit, and concludes therefrom that these slaves "cannot 
 vote for revolution." If these influences, which no doubt must 
 be reckoned with, are so absolutely controlling that these wage 
 slaves will be too timid to perform even such a task as voting, a 
 task that the veriest coward could perform with safety, and they 
 must be deducted in lump from the voting strength of the working 
 class, upon what ground can the writer feel justified to enroll those 
 same slaves as reliable material for the revolutionary act of the 
 I. W. W.? If they must be excluded from the former, they cannot 
 for a moment be thought of in the latter. 
 
 No doubt deductions must be made from the voting strength 
 of the working class; but the necessary deductions are not the 
 slashing ones made by the writer. So overwhelming is the nu- 
 merical preponderance of the working class that, all justifiable 
 deductions notwithstanding, it preserves an ample majority at the 
 polls. Moreover, the revolutionary working class ballot may safely 
 count with re-inforcements from the middle and kindred hard- 
 pushed social layers. While corrupt and vicious is all attempt to 
 secure split votes for the revolution from classes that vote the 
 rest of capitalist tickets, legitimate is the attempt to induce hard- 
 pushed middle class elements to tear themselves from their class 
 prejudices and plump their vote for the revolution — and justified 
 is the expectation that big chunks of that class will hearken the 
 summons.— If the decision for or against politics were to depend 
 exclusively upon the numerical strength of the working class at 
 the polls the decision would have to be for, not against. 
 
16 AS TO POLITICS. 
 
 II. 
 
 THE MISSION OF POLITICS. 
 
 The second of the two main component parts of the writer's 
 article is devoted to proving that even if the working class ballot 
 were more numerous than the ballot of the foe, the former would 
 be counted out by the latter; and that, even if it were not counted 
 out, working class political victory would be a Barmicide's Feast, 
 in that the Socialist Republic has no use for the political or modern 
 form of government. Both these points have been enlarged upon 
 and proven in detail in De Leon's address on "The Preamble of 
 the Industrial Workers of the World;" they were proved so 
 thoroughly that the pure and simple political Socialists, who felt 
 the cold steel of the argument enter their bourgeois souls, have 
 handled the argument like a hot potato, and confined themselves 
 to vapid slurs about "vagaries," or the more vapid indulgence in 
 "calling names" against the maker of the argument. That argu- 
 ment, however, was made in support of the I. W. ,W. position 
 regarding the necessity of uniting the working class on the "polit- 
 ical as well as upon the industrial field ;" the. writer of the article 
 under discussion, on the contrary, makes the argument in opposition 
 to the I. W. W. position. The opposite application of the identical 
 argument brings out the basic error that underlies Sandgren's 
 reasoning — he confuses political agitation with the ballot. The 
 two are distinct. How completely the vital distinction is missed 
 by those who oppose political action is graphically illustrated by a 
 favorite argument among them, an argument that Sandgren repro- 
 duces in beautifully pictorial style when he says that for the work- 
 ing class "to waste their energy on the building up and maintaining 
 of a political organization, which they afterwards have to 'back 
 up,' only to awaken to a realization of its impotence, would be 
 like crossing the river to fill your water-bucket, when you can just 
 as well get your water on this side." This is begging the question. 
 [""The very point at issue is whether that economic organization, able 
 / "to fill the water-bucket," can at all be brought together without 
 \ the aid of political agitation; the very point at issue is whether 
 the politics-ignoring economic organization has hitherto accom- 
 plished anything of lasting value to the working^ class at large; 
 J or to put it in yet a third and summary form, whether the '.ecline 
 \ of power with the economic organization is not due to its contra- 
 dictory posture of "voting" for one thing and "striking" for its 
 \ opposite. Of course, if such a thing is conceivable as the bringing 
 together of an industrial organization, able "to fill the bucket" 
 without the aid of political agitation, it were folly to waste time, 
 energy and funds in building up and maintaining a political organ- 
 ization. But the thought is visionary. To him in whom such 
 a thought can find lodgment the blood spilt in Russia during the 
 
AS TO POLITICS. 17 
 
 last sixteen months is blood wasted — and the error is born of the 
 confusion of "political agitation" with the "ballot." 
 ^—-'The value of the "ballot" as a constructive force is zero; 
 s[the value of "political agitation" is immeasurable. 
 
 Not everything that capitalism has brought about is to be 
 rejected. Such a vandal view would have to smash the giant 
 machine of modern production as well. Among the valuable things 
 that capitalism has introduced is the idea of peaceful methods for 
 settling disputes. In feudal days, .when lords fell out, produc- 
 tion stopped; war had the floor. The courts of law have become 
 the main fields of capitalist, at least internal capitalist battle, and 
 production continues uninterfered with. It matters not how cor- 
 rupt the courts have become, or one-sided against the working 
 class. The jewel of civilized or peaceful methods for settling; 
 disputes is there, however incrusted with slime. Capitalism, be- 
 ing a step forward as all Socialists recognize, cannot help but 
 be a handmaid, however clumsy, to civilized methods. Of a 
 piece with the court method for the peaceful settlement of dis- 
 putes, is the political method. The organization that rejects this 
 method and organizes for force only, reads itself out of the pale 
 of civilization, with the practical result that, instead of seizing 
 a weapon furnished by capitalism, it gives capitalism a weapon 
 against itself. The "filling of the bucket" must be done by the 
 million-masses. The agitation for force only clips the wings of 
 the agitation for the "filling of the bucket." The inevitable result 
 is that the agitation has to degenerate into "conspiracy;" con- 
 spiracy can be conducted in circumscribed localities only, such 
 localities ' exclude the masses — and the wheels of time are turne. 
 back. The bringing together of the physical force organization 
 becomes impossible. Political agitation equips the revolution with 
 a weapon that is indispensable^. Political agitation enables the 
 revolution to be preacneor"in" the open, anoTtEereby enables the 
 revolution to" be brought before the million-masses— -without which 
 there can be no "bucket" fashioned to do the "filling." In short, 
 political agitation, coupled with the industrial organization able 
 to "take and hold," or "back up" the political movement, or "fill 
 the bucket," places the revolution abreast of civilized and intel- 
 ligent methods— civilized, because they offer a chance to a peaceful 
 solution; intelligent, because they are not planted upon the vision- 
 ary plane of imagining that right can ever prevail without the might 
 to enforce it. Of course, "political agitation" implies the setting 
 up of a political ticket, and that, in turn, implies the ballot. 
 Indeed, the "ballot" may be lost; let it; the fruits, however of 
 the "political agitation" are imperishable. Under the shield of 
 that agitation the "bucket" is shaped. To Father Time the final 
 issue may be 'safely left. No doubt there are many thorns to the 
 rose of the political movement. No rose is without them. Irrelevant 
 is the enumeration of these thorns. What the adversaries of political 
 
18 AS TO POLITICS. 
 
 action in the I. W. W. should do in the endeavor to- convert their 
 fellow workers of the opposite view is not to indulge in the super- 
 fluous repetition regarding the folly of the political movement when 
 the ' "bucket" is in shape, but how the "bucket" can be put in 
 shape without the aid of the agitation and education which the 
 political movement places in the hands of the revolution. 
 
 The Socialist Party will as little "break up camp," by the 
 argument, however crushingly convincing, of the futility of the 
 "ballot" only, as the ' capitalist class will break up camp by the 
 argument, however' crushingly convincing, that it is doomed. For 
 that the S. P. is too legitimate an offshoot of bourgeois thought, 
 which is clogged with "reform" notions, and for which the pure 
 and simple ballot is a useful weapon. The S. P. will break up camp 
 only, when the revolutionary element in its ranks discovers that it 
 is upon their shoulders that such a caricature of Socialism actually 
 rests; and that it is from them only that the caricature draws its 
 strength: • The S. P. will "break up camp" only when this revolu- 
 tionary element, by withdrawing, removes the plug from under the 
 concern. As to the Socialist Labor Party, it never will need to be 
 appealed to "to break up camp" after the "bucket" of the I. W. W, 
 having gathered sufficient solidity, will itself have reflected its own 
 political party. That day the S. L. P. will "break up camp" with 
 a shout of joy — if a body merging into its own ideal can be said 
 to "break up camp." — Ed. The Peopled 
 
AS TO POLITICS. 19 
 
 SECOND LETTER 
 By J- A. LA BILLE 
 
 St. Louis, Mo. 
 
 I have been much interested in the discussion under the head- 
 ing of "As to Politics" ; so much so that I was sorry to 3ee it stop 
 almost before, it started. The article by John Sandgren was very 
 good except in regard to the vote which does not affect the ques- 
 tion. All we need to know is that the working class is in the ma- 
 jority. We do know they will be counted on the economic field. 
 So I will take a stand in this discussion that working class political 
 action, parliamentary or agitation is not only harmful to the mar- 
 shalling of the working class but that the industrial organization is 
 all sufficient, hence, I contend the I. W. W. should change its pre- 
 amble by declaring against political action. 
 
 Comrade De Leon says we confuse "political agitation" with 
 the "ballot," so we will analyze "political agitation" and endeavor to 
 determine if its va'ue is 'immeasurable" ; also if "the bringing to- 
 gether of an industrial organization able 'to fill the bucket' without 
 the aid of political agitation" is impossible. Political action may be 
 summed up as follows : Political organization, business meetings, 
 mass meetings, conventions, propaganda meetings, placing tickets 
 on the ballot, watching at polls, burning midnight oil studying elec- 
 tion laws and tricks of the professional politician, spending tremen- 
 dous sums of money, all of which means a great deal when the 
 organization attains any size of importance. Then Mr. Working- 
 man is in -politics so confused and befuddled that he don't know 
 whether he is a workingman or a professional politician. Comrade 
 De Leon is correct when he states : "In feudal days, when the lords 
 fell out, production stopped ; war had the floor ; the courts of the 
 law have become the main field of capitalist, at least internal capi- 
 talist, battles, and production continues uninterfered with." Thus 
 showing the capitalists have good reason to settle their disputes by 
 the courts through politics because they are property owners and 
 needs must have their revenues uninterrupted. The working class, 
 on the other hand, are propertiless, giving them advantage on the 
 economic battlefield, having nothing to lose but their chains. It is 
 there where the struggle must be, and it is there and there only 
 where the working class will reach the heart of capitalism. 
 
 Every victory won, every hour of leisure gained, every "supply 
 wagon" captured, will be of unlimited more value to the revolution 
 than the conquering of a piece of paper called the ballot. Then 
 what is political agitation but the urging of the working class to 
 go into politics and when you do that you can't give it any mate- 
 rial reason for so doing because the fight of the working class is 
 
20 AS TO POLITICS. 
 
 economic in character, not political. The economic organization can 
 "back up" the political, but the political cannot back up the eco- 
 nomic in this country any more than in Germany or- Russia. Those 
 expecting to secure power on the political field will some day find 
 themselves chasing the rainbow which appears very beautiful, but 
 always out of reach. The workingman is not exploited by the 
 political "burg" of capitalism, but through the private ownership of 
 the means of production, hence his malady is not a political disease 
 but economic. His environment in the mills, factories, mines, fields, 
 etc., gives him an economic character out of which it is folly to 
 lure him into a field of battle entirely foreign to his characteristics 
 and environments for no other purpose than agitation. The reason 
 he first took to the "ballot" was from an illusion that all that was, 
 was the result of the ballot. The slave saw his master feed the 
 slaves, hence, he thought the slaves were supported by the master. ' 
 The workman to-day kisses the hand that pays his wages and be- ' 
 lieves he is exploited as a consumer because he sees the prices go 
 up. He sees the police, soldiers and the politicians in office come 
 after him with "fixed bayonets," so he thinks his struggle is a po- 
 litical one. He does not know that like Russia the army and police 
 is here to stay until the end of the struggle and the only way to 
 get the best of them is by cutting off their base of supplies. 
 
 I further contend the I. W. W. is all sufficient, both as to edu- 
 cation and force. Comrade De Leon says: "Of a piece with the 
 court method for the peaceful settlement of disputes is the political 
 method. The organization that rejects this method and organizes 
 for force only, reads itself out of the pale of civilization with the 
 practical result that, instead of seizing a weapon furnished by cap- 
 italism, it gives capitalism a weapon against itself." The impression 
 seems to be that the economic organization, the embryo of the 
 coming republic, is physical force only. 1 take the position that it 
 not only has the force, but all the means of educating the working 
 class necessary, in fact, it is only through the industrial organiza- 
 tion that the proletariat can be educated to their true class inter- 
 ests. And if they go into politics the longer they are there the 
 more befuddled they become. If they must have politics let them 
 have it in the I. W. W. as the Socialist Republic, where a vote 
 qualification will be had. "No producer, no voter." The worker 
 does not need political agitation in order to reach the masses, and 
 I believe at this stage of the game the capitalist "committees" will 
 have their hands full suppressing agitation by the industrially or- 
 ganized workers. If it be the case, that agitation will be ham- 
 pered, and the economic organization cannot protect itself, then 
 how is it to protect both itself and the "fiat of the ballot?" The 
 idea of a "general strike" entailing many hardships on the part of 
 the working class, to defend the ballot, in my opinion is absurd. 
 We are not fighting for the privilege of registering our votes on) 
 capitalist books. We are fighting for bread and butter now and our 
 
AS TO POLITICS. 21 
 
 emancipation as soon as we are well enough organized to take 
 charge of the various industries and operate them entirely in the 
 interests of the workers therein. If the worker centralizes his 
 struggle for liberty on the economic field only, then his education 
 need be very simple. Yea; he could travel the path of his cl'ass in- 
 terests almost by instinct, but if he divides his fighting forces, one 
 on the political, one on the economic then his education will re- 
 quire years of study and experience to know which one of the many 
 paths is safe for him to walk over (these remarks apply to the 
 working class as a rule). We must remember also that only a 
 small percentage of any organization must shoulder the greater 
 part of the work and when the strength of these valiant workers 
 is divided between two organizations it handicaps the general 
 movement to a great extent. 
 
 As I said before, if the working class devotes its efforts to 
 the building up of the industrial organization, the foundation of the 
 future republic, his education need be very simple and along such 
 as (1) Labor is the source of value, therefore should have full 
 product; (2) Capital does not produce value, therefore the capital- 
 ist is not entitled to any part of the product and show him how he 
 is exploited and the method to his emancipation as we do to-day 
 except cut out all agitation for politics and show him the fallacy 
 of expecting to derive benefits from political action. It appears 
 to me that the honest workingman who would go into political ac- 
 tion for agitation is a pure and simple borer from within as much 
 so as the honest man who votes and agitates in the A. F. of Scabs 
 and S. P. who also works and agitates to educate the rank and file 
 of those organizations. The result, in all three cases, is the same. 
 Will we smash the capitalist institution of politics by boring from 
 within or smashing from without? Let the workers do their voting 
 in -the I. W. W., a place the capitalist cannot vote. Let them do 
 their fighting in that army and when the industries have been thor- 
 oughly organized let them move the I. W. W. in the capitol building 
 if they so will, and if there be senators and representatives of 
 capitalist hell there, sweep them with the rest of the rubbish into 
 the sewer if necessary and remember it won't require a single 
 workingman in political office from president up to dog catcher to 
 do it, either, for the moment the source of the capitalists' existence 
 is cut off by the industrially organized workers the dome of capi- 
 talism will crumble and fall of its own weight. In the meantime 
 let the capitalists have the ballot all to their precious selves. Let 
 them fill their offices with all the rotten eggs in the country, let 
 them make the laws to their hearts' content. Yes, all the laws and 
 fill their political citadels with law books, lawyers and jurists, too. 
 We will rest at ease, knowing their laws and interpretation of laws 
 will be as a bullet without force to propel it, their politics will be 
 impotent. It matters not how many laws or what they are, the 
 whole question is in their ability to enforce them and their ability 
 
22 AS TO POLITICS. 
 
 to enforce them depends not on their political supremacy but on 
 their economic supremacy over the working class. It is the same 
 with the working class whose demands will be limited only by the 
 full product of their toil and their ability to enforce. So with these 
 few suggestions (I could make many more but do not wish to 
 abuse a privilege), I will say in conclusion that it is practically the 
 same for the pioneer to attempt to be an Indian in order to capture 
 their war councils as for the worker to be a politician in order to 
 capture the war councils of the capitalist class; in other words, 
 we want the pig, we will not waste energy following echoes trying 
 to capture the squeal ; when we get the pig we've got the squeal, too. 
 
 The S. L. P. undoubtedly has done and is doing a great service 
 for the revolution and deserves to be called the "Fighting S. L. P." 
 But its real great service lies in its economic teachings. 
 
 A little discussion on this subject will be beneficial for the 
 members of the S. L. P. and I. W. W., myself included. We should 
 all study it thoroughly and know the whys and wherefores and 
 avoid taking things for granted. 
 
 [The above is published out of excess of courtesy to the side 
 that our correspondent holds with. The columns of The People 
 were held open for a month to the matter and not one contributor 
 to the discussion having sustained the anti-political action position 
 the discussion was closed. Out of courtesy to views different from 
 those of The People the discussion is re-opened to the extent of 
 allowing space to the above.] 
 
 ANSWER. 
 
 [There may be those who suppose that some slight perfidy is 
 alloyed with our courtesy. Perhaps these are not wholly wrong. 
 The courtesy may be perfidious that allows the great space which 
 our correspondent takes and yet leaves unanswered the only ques- 
 tion that is pivotal to the issue — How are the masses to be recruit- 
 ed and organized into capacity to take and hold if the agitation is 
 to be conducted upon lines that wholly reject the peaceful theory 
 of "counting noses?" 
 
 It is time wasted to point out the thorns on the political stalk. 
 They are all admitted beforehand. The question is, — Is that stalk 
 all thorns and no rose? Nor do we get any nearer to the truth 
 by incorrect definitions. Our correspondent's definition of what 
 political action embraces is woefully deficient. That is the system 
 of "giving a dog a name and then killing him." The rose on the 
 stalk of "political action" is the posture it enables a man to hold 
 by which he can preach revolution without having to do so under- 
 ground ; in other words, by which he can teach the economics and 
 sociology of the Social Revolution in the open, where the masses 
 can hear, and not in the dark, where but few can meet. The nomi- 
 nation of tickets, together with all the routine that thereby hangs; 
 
AS TO POLITICS. 23 
 
 is Tmt an incidental — like the making of a motion to which to speak, 
 and without which motion being before the house, speaking degen- 
 erates into disorder. Simply to assert that the masses can be 
 reached, educated and drilled for the revolution by any other pro- 
 cess does not remove the fact that it can not be done ; at any rate it 
 does not enlighten those who hold otherwise, and who, having no 
 hobby to serve, but only a goal, the emancipation of the working 
 class, to reach, are ever ready to learn. Assertions teach nobody. 
 
 Finally, the just compliment our correspondent pays to the 
 "Fighting S. L. P." should cause him to ponder and overhaul his 
 anti-political-action views. He will have a hard time to explain 
 how it comes about that it is the S. L. P. that has been teaching 
 the real fighting economics, if political action is the worthless thing 
 that he takes it for. 
 
 The theory of preaching revolution against the capitalist class 
 only by brandishing the sword, in a country where the suffrage - is 
 in vogue, leaves unexplained the phenomenon of the unquestionable 
 hatred that the capitalist press manifests for the S. L. P. — for that 
 political • organization that admits its impotence to carry out its 
 program, unless the working class is organized into possession of 
 the national machinery of production, in other words, that is aware 
 of and admits the fact that it is only a shell, but the necessary 
 shell, within which the physical force is to be hatched whereby to 
 enforce the demands peacefully made by the ballot. The capitalist 
 class of the land dotes upon pure and simple political Socialism 
 (the hollow shell, without the substance) ; it likewise dotes upon 
 pure and simple, or non-political Unionism (the amorphic sub- 
 stance, amorphic because shell-less within which the mass can 
 grow and gather shape.) For that combination that combines both 
 shell and substance — for that combination the capitalist class, to- 
 gether with its pickets of all grades, has only the hatred which it 
 manifests upon the slightest provocation for the S. L. P., and for 
 the I. W. W. with its political clause. — Ed. The People.'] 
 
24 AS TO POLITICS. 
 
 THIRD LETTER 
 
 By JOS. WAGNER and LEON VASILIO 
 
 Springfield, J 11. 
 
 It is with doubt as to being allowed space in the columns of 
 The People that the undersigned take the decision to express their 
 opinion in regard to Comrade Sandgren's article. We realize the 
 degree of annoyance that we are causing the editor by our action ; 
 and were it not for the fact that we have seen in The People so 
 many reflexions cast at the privately owned press of the S. P. in 
 regard to refusals to publish whatever is not to their heart, we 
 would, most assuredly, try to kill our temptation to give out what 
 is our honest and sincere conviction. 
 
 We know that our opinion is that of thousands of members of 
 the Industrial Workers of the World, and consequently ask. for the 
 same privilege that we both have been granted in the past, when 
 our views were not at variance with the attitude of The People. 
 After both reading and rereading carefully Sandgren's article, 
 and the answer of the editor of The People ; after giving the matter 
 earnest consideration from all view points for the last three weeks, 
 we arrived at the conclusion that, of all the answers that Comrade 
 De Leon has made in his life in capacity of editor of The People, 
 the one just mentioned must be the poorest and the weakest one. 
 Not that he is no more the same brilliant writer, but that the 
 time has come when he is in the wrong, defending a wrong cause. 
 Why and how is this thus? We shall see. 
 
 In order to be better understood, we would like to refer the 
 reader to the two articles in question, which are published in the 
 Weekly People of December 1, 1906, under the title "As to Poli- 
 tics." But as every one who will happen to lay hands on this num- 
 ber may not be in position to get that one, we shall give here the 
 quintessence of Sandgren's article. 
 
 His contention is that the political activity is useless and harm- 
 ful, and that the emancipation of the working class can be accom- 
 plished through economic revolutionary organization only. 
 
 In the first part of the article, which in our opinion is a com- 
 plete failure, Sandgren endeavors to prove that the working class 
 are not in the majority at the ballot box. Unless Sandgren wanted 
 to be altogether "original" we cannot understand how a man of his 
 calibre could have ventured such an absurdity. This we consider 
 a waste of time to take up for discussion. 
 
 In the second part of the article, he admirably shows the im- 
 potence of a political organization, and also how fitted an economic 
 organization is to bear the struggle. "Ten hour laws have been 
 declared unconstitutional in the State of New York. . . In the 
 
AS TO POLITICS. 25 
 
 meantime the Western Federation of Miners and many unions of 
 the A. F. of L., even, have an eight-hour day and a minimum wage. 
 Have they been declared unconstitutional ? No, and they did not 
 gain it through political action, but through economic organization. 
 The advocates of political working class activity predicate their 
 success upon being 'backed up' by an economic organization which 
 is to rake the chestnuts out of the fire for them. The economic 
 organization stands on its own legs and declines political 'assist- 
 ance.' 
 
 "The economic organization makes just such demands as it is 
 able to enforce, and it is able to make demands and enforce them 
 from the very first; it does not have to wait for the hazy day when 
 we shall have a majority." i 
 
 And now comes De Leon's answer. He says that "the basic 
 error that underlies Sandgren's reasoning" is the confusion of the 
 political agitation with the ballot. 
 
 The two are distinct, says the editor. "How completely the 
 vital distinction is missed by those who oppose political action is 
 graphically illustrated by a favorite argument among them, an 
 argument that Sandgren reproduces in beautifully pictorial style, 
 when he says that for the working class to waste their time on the 
 building up and maintaining of a political organization which they 
 afterwards have to 'back up' only to awaken to a realization of its 
 impotence, would be like crossing the river to fill your water-bucket 
 when you can just as well get your water on this side." 
 
 First of all Comrade Sandgren— as well as all of us, industrial 
 workers, who dropped ballot box activity — gives the Socialist polit- 
 ical agitation its due credit when it says: "Both these organiza- 
 tions (the S. P. and the S. L. P.) maintain that there is a war be- 
 tween the two classes. In the war both of them have rendered 
 splendid service. . . They have done well as propaganda socie- 
 ties, but that is all they have ever been, their names and platforms 
 notwithstanding. . . Their role is now played." 
 
 This means that Sandgren does not confuse political agitation 
 with the ballot; he only rejects the ballot, which, as a constructive 
 force, even in the opinion of the editor is zero. In order to make 
 this point clear, let us analyze the nature of a Socialist political 
 party activity. In the first place it is an incessant criticism of the 
 actual system of society based on the private ownership of the 
 means of life, for which it intends to substitute another system, 
 based on the social or collective ownership of those means — the 
 co-operative commonwealth. This is the political nature of it. 
 
 On the other hand this Socialist political party activity consists 
 of a laborious propaganda for the attainment of that social system, 
 a propaganda for the class struggle on the political field, which 
 "implies the setting up of a 'ticket,' and that, in turn, implies the 
 'ballot.' " 
 
 But if the ballot, as a constructive force is zero, so must neces- 
 
2o AS TO POLITICS. 
 
 sarily be all the amount of work spent in getting that ballot, such 
 as holding nomination conventions, caucuses, getting signatures on 
 petitions, watching at the polls, etc., etc. And we know that most 
 of the energy of a Socialist political party is wasted on that zero 
 proposition. 
 
 A revolutionary organization of the working class that aims 
 at the overthrow of the capitalist system and the establishment 
 of the co-operative commonwealth is essentially political in charac- 
 ter — and such is the I. W. W., as Comrade De Leon himself ably 
 proved in his Chicago speech on September 12, 1906. 
 
 The one who does confuse the political agitation with the ballot 
 is De Leon. On page 32 of the Preamble of the I. W. W., he says : 
 "A part, the better, the constructive part of Socialist economics, 
 translates itself into the industrial organization of the working 
 class ; it translates itself into that formation that outlines the mould 
 of the future social system; another part of Socialist economics, 
 however, inevitably translates itself into politics." Should he not 
 confuse the political agitation with the ballot, he would never dis- 
 mantle a revolutionary industrial organization "that outlines the 
 mould of the future society" of its sufficiency to carry on the po- 
 litical agitation of the working class, and give this function to an- 
 other organization which, as we have seen is spending its energy 
 on a zero proposition — at the working class expense. 
 
 The Industrial Workers of the World sufficiently fulfills that 
 role of a political party of Socialism by- that, that it aims at the co- 
 operative commonwealth and it teaches the class struggle on the 
 industrial field where every victory is a step towards the social 
 revolution — and doesn't waste the energy of the working class on 
 ,a zero proposition, on something that not only may be lost, but 
 that is always lost. 
 
 So much in regard to confusing the political agitation with the 
 ballot. 
 
 Now to "the point at issue." "The very point at issue," the 
 editor says further, "is whether that economic organization, 'able 
 to fill the bucket' can at all be brought together without the political 
 agitation; the very point at issue is whether the politics-ignoring 
 economic organization has hitherto accomplished anything of last- 
 ing value for the working class at large; or to put it in a third and 
 summary form, whether the decline of power with the economic 
 organization is not due to its contradictory posture of 'voting' for 
 one thing and 'striking' for its opposite. Of course, if such a 
 thing is conceivable as the bringing together of an industrial organ- 
 ization able 'to fill the bucket' without the aid of political agitation, 
 it were folly to waste time, energy and funds in building up and 
 maintaining a political organization." 
 
 Let us ask Comrade De Leon, why is he beating around the 
 bush? What does -he mean by politics-ignoring economic organ- 
 ization? Does he mean the Industrial Workers of the World, or 
 
AS TO POLITICS. 27 
 
 the American Federation of Labor? His allusion to "the decline 
 of power with the economic organization" on account of "its con- 
 tradictory posture of voting for one thing and striking for its op- 
 posite" conveys to our minds the A. F. of L., and not that eco- 
 nomic organization "able to fill the water-buckets," the "I. W. W.," 
 which is now under discussion. 
 
 And since when is Comrade De Leon willing to admit that 
 the A. F. of L. as an organization, is doing on the economic field 
 the opposite of what its members are doing on the political field? 
 This sounds very familiar to those who have heard the pure and 
 simple political Socialist appeal te the pure and simple craft union- 
 ist to vote as he strikes. But let us not indulge any longer in 
 these non-essentials. 
 
 The question is "whether that economic organization able to 
 fill the bucket can at all be brought together without the aid of 
 political agitation." Before answering this question, let us consider 
 the nature and the activity of an economic organization, such as 
 the I. W. W. 
 
 Like the political party of Socialism, it aims at the overthrow- 
 ing of the present system : it aims to take possession of the tools 
 of production from the capitalist class and operate them for the 
 benefit of the working class, which will be the whole of society. 
 
 But for the attainment of this end, the economic organization 
 fighting the class struggle on the industrial field, it organizes the 
 workers in their various locals, industries and departments in order 
 to make them able to cope with modern capitalism in their everyday 
 fight, and wrest concessions from that class locally, industrially or 
 generally, as the case may be — concessions which, unlike the poli- 
 tician's reforms, are steps towards the revolution, as they put the 
 working class more and more in control of the industries in which 
 they are working. 
 
 It is founded on the recognition of the fact of the division 
 of society into two classes, between which a struggle must go on, 
 until all the toilers will come together and take over the means 
 of production. Its aim is revolutionary, its activity political. It is 
 revolutionary and political because its aim is to change the founda- 
 tion of this society from an exchange of commodities to the co- 
 operative commonwealth. In other words it is not like the pure 
 and simple union, which acts as buffer between the opposing forces 
 — the capitalist class and the working class — but it is one of these 
 forces organized. 
 
 Such an organization as the I. W. W. is brought about by the 
 modern economic conditions, that is, by the indastrial development 
 and the revolutionary propaganda, absolutely independent of any 
 ballot party activity, which has an altogether different function, as 
 we have seen. 
 
 In all that preceded we cannot see at all where the role of a 
 ballot organization comes in. In his attempt to answer Comrade 
 
28 AS TO POLITICS. 
 
 Sandgren, the editor tells us of the "jewel" of "civilized or peace- 
 ful methods of settling disputes." If this is the only argument left 
 to defend an organization which wastes our time, energy and funds, 
 then we can rest assured that the industrial organization is the only 
 thing able to fill the bucket or to accomplish the revolution. He 
 might as well tell us about those lovely seances of looking each 
 ■other in the eyes. They are more to the question. 
 
 But it is an irony of fate to hear men telling us of settling 
 ^disputes. Is that the reason for which we are organizing? We 
 are organizing to struggle, and not to settle disputes, which have 
 never been settled in the interests of the working class. 
 
 Nothing could settle disputes better than a powerful organiza- 
 tion — able to strike terror in the heart of the capitalist class — 
 would. Confronted with such an organization the capitalist class 
 would either have to submit or bear the consequences. 
 
 The methods employed by the revolutionary industrial organ- 
 ization are peaceful and civilized enough for the working class. We 
 are assembling peacefully and in a civilized manner discuss matters 
 of our class interest which we afterwards submit to the capitalist 
 class in form of demands. We cannot understand how Comrade 
 De Leon jumps at the conclusion that the I. W. W. agitation — 
 •which he terms "agitation for force only" — has to degenerate into 
 conspiracy, which excludes the masses. The industrial agitation 
 is not and cannot degenerate into a "conspiracy" for the simple 
 Teason that it is preached in the open, and thereby enables the 
 ■revolution to be brought before the million masses. Not only does 
 the industrial organization bring the revolution before the million 
 masses, but it also draws the million masses to its ranks and keeps 
 aloof the hard pushed middle class element, with its lawyers, priests 
 and intellectuals in general — in a word all that is foreign to the 
 ■working class. It draws all the toilers of all nationalities; citizens 
 and non-citizens; all the disfranchised, all the tramps and "coffee- 
 and-doughnuts-bums," which are able to beat their way from Frisco 
 all the way through the "wild west" to Chicago in order to do 
 their own business. 
 
 As far as the "chance to a peaceful solution" goes, we are 
 very little concerned about it. It does not depend on the working 
 class how the last blow will have to be struck. If the capitalists 
 will not be satisfied with a decree to step out, we can rest assured 
 that they will, most likely, get worse. 
 
 The events that have taken place in the last sixteen or seven- 
 teen months have taught us more than the preceding two decades. 
 They have taught us not only that the political party agitation is 
 useless, but harmful to the industrial organization from the Pa- 
 cific to the Atlantic. We have seen men eagerly listening to the 
 industrial speaker, accidentally being an S. L. P. man, start to 
 show the "difference" or something of that sort, then the men 
 ■would turn away with a sneer at "the politician." 
 
AS TO POLITICS. 29 
 
 That the ballot agitation is harmful to the bringing together 
 of an economic organization able to fill the bucket, is obvious; so 
 obvious is this fact that, at the last convention of the I. W. W. 
 we have witnessed Comrade De Leon make a motion to the effect 
 that no organizer of any political party should be employed as 
 organizer for the Industrial Workers of World. Yes, one year 
 of I. W. W. agitation and experience has brought about great 
 changes in the revolutionary thought in this country. 
 
 Men that but a few months ago were feeling as touching an 
 extremely delicate spot when speaking of the non-party affiliation 
 clause of the I. W. W. preamble, are now dropping politics without 
 any reservatio mentalis. 
 
 And let us not for a minute fool ourselves and think that this- 
 is merely a passing crisis, a temporary manifestation of a few 
 over-heated brains. 
 
 No ! This let-alone politics tendency that we now are noticing: 
 in this country is the American expression of a general tendency 
 of the revolutionary working class the world over. In Italy, Spain,. 
 Switzerland, and France and even Germany with its great three- 
 million-strong-paper-party we can see the same thing. 
 
 In a lengthy article by our Parisian comrade A. Bruckere, re- 
 cently published in The People, we can see how the working class 
 of France, tired of political parties, is gathering in a revolutionary- 
 organization, "The General Confederation of Labor," after drop- 
 ping politics altogether and adopting the "direct action." The his- 
 tory of this let-alone-politics tendency in Europe would make a 
 mighty interesting and instructive work, which would considerably 
 help in the understanding of the great change that is going on iru 
 the revolutionary thought of the working class of the world. 
 
 Before closing we would like to say that, in writing this arti- 
 cle, we have not been actuated by any prejudice against any par- 
 ticular man or party; that in speaking against ballot activity we- 
 have meant all the Socialist parties of the world. 
 
 We have been good, faithful members of Socialist parties in- 
 Europe and in America for many years, but our experience as 
 wage slaves has shown us that we have been in the wrong. We 
 expressed our opinion, which we are sure, will not meet with the 
 approval of those who have forgotten nothing and learned nothing, 
 by years of bitter experience. 
 
 ANSWER. 
 
 [The question repeatedly asked of the advocates of physical 
 force only, who have favored us with their contributions, remains- 
 unanswered : "How do you expect to recruit and organize your In- 
 dustrial army if you begin by rejecting the peaceful method of solv- 
 ing the Social Question, to wit, the political method? It is signifi- 
 
30 AS TO POLITICS. 
 
 cant that none of our opponents has cared to meet this point. They 
 all give that question a wide berth. Instead of covering the only 
 point that is decisive they go into a vast number of subjects tkat 
 may or may not be so, but have nothing to do with the real point 
 —HOW? 
 
 The nearest our above esteemed contributors come to an an- 
 swer on this particular point is the passage : "The I. W. W. suffi- 
 ciently fulfills the role of a political party of Socialism by that that 
 it aims at the co-operative commonwealth and teaches the class 
 struggle on the industrial field." This statement is doubly defective. 
 
 If to "aim" at a thing is enough, then to "wish" for it should 
 be equally sufficient. Every practical mind knows that wishes and 
 aims, like steam, must be in the boiler of a properly organized ma- 
 chine before results can be obtained. Wishes are good, aims still 
 better. Without the organization to realize them they are — well, 
 so much hot air. The question is how to recruit the elements that 
 will constitute the requisite organization. 
 
 The second defect in the passage is still more marked. It is 
 fatal to the contention of the anti-political agitation. Indeed the 
 I. W. W. "teaches the class struggle," and can teach it freely, and 
 freely can proclaim its purpose to "take and hold ;" but it can do so 
 only because it plants itself upon the non-Russian, that is, upon the 
 civilized principle of solving social difficulties. The I. W. W. ex- 
 pressly recognizes the necessity of working class unity "on the 
 POLITICAL as well as upon the industrial field." So doing the 
 I. W. W. can preach and teach in the open. Its posture is clear — 
 to organize the economic body that shall be able to reflect its own 
 political- party, whereby to give a chance to the. peaceful settlement 
 of the present social "unpleasantness," and that shall, withal, have 
 the requisite power to enforce the fiat of its ballot. To say that the 
 I. W. W. can freely teach the class struggle, now that its preamble 
 is so wise and sound, is a substantial denial of the claim put forth 
 by our correspondents that political agitation is worthless. Let the 
 I. W. W. follow our correspondents' views and strike out the po- 
 litical clause, that moment they will find out that the present revo- 
 lutionary agitation conducted by the I. W. W. will have come to an 
 end. Having placed itself upon the plane which the Russian revolu- 
 tionists are constrained to agitate on, the I. W. W. will be treated 
 to a dose which it will itself have invited, a dose of Russian gov- 
 ernmental terrorism. So far from having contributed to raise the 
 tone of the country, the I. W. W. will have helped the capitalists 
 to drag that tone down to the level from which the Russian revo- 
 lutionists are now seeking to raise their country. 
 
 This disposes of the only remotely relevant argument made by 
 our correspondents. There are, nevertheless, two others that should 
 not be ignored, however irrelevant. 
 
 Our correspondents say: "We can not understand how Com- 
 rade De Leon jumps at the conclusion that the I. W. W. agitation 
 — which he terms 'agitation for force only' — has to degenerate into 
 
AS TO POLITICS. 31 
 
 conspiracy." The answer to this is: Either our correspondents 
 claim that De Leon has said that "the present I. W. W. agitation 
 has to degenerate into conspiracy ;" if that is their meaning then 
 they will have a hard time to prove that De Leon made any such 
 statement. The I. W. W. is what the I. W. W. is to-day, not what 
 our friends, who sign the letter published above, seek to turn it 
 into. They are not yet so far. If, however, our correspondents 
 merely made a slip in their statement, and what they meant to say 
 is that De Leon holds that by removing the political clause from 
 the preamble of the I. W. W. AND RETAINING THE "TAKE 
 AND HOLD" CLAUSE, then the I. W. W. would have to degen- 
 erate into conspiracy — if that was their meaning then they have 
 quoted De Leon correctly. A simple denial of this conclusion does 
 not refute a conclusion drawn from the irrefutable historic expe- 
 rience from which the conclusion flows. 
 
 At this point a serious illusion seems to reveal itself as taking 
 possession of the minds of our esteemed contributors. They seem 
 to believe that the preaching of the "industrial" form of organiza- 
 tion would be sufficient to drill a revolutionary economic organiza- 
 tion. We would like to hasten to dispel the illusion by suggesting 
 to them the following principles. 
 
 1. The exclusion of the political clause from the I. W. W., 
 leaving the "take and hold" clause extant, would drive the agita- 
 tion" into the narrow quarters of a conspiracy, with all the evil re^ 
 suits thereof. 
 
 2. The exclusion of both the political clause and the "take and 
 hold" clause, leaving extant only the "industrial" form of organiza- 
 tion, would fatally steer the I. W. W. into the quagmire of the 
 Gompers-Mitchell A. F. of L. 
 
 The other of the two irrelevant arguments that should be taken 
 up is the one contained in the passage : "So obvious is this fact [the 
 harmfulness of the ballot agitation] that, at the last convention of 
 the. I. W. W., we have witnessed Comrade De Leon make a motion 
 to the effect that no organizer of any political party should be em- 
 ployed as organizer of the I. W. W."— De Leon is correctly quoted 
 there; the purport of his motion is, however, misinterpreted. So 
 far from his motion being an evidence of the harmfulness of the 
 political agitatiori, it is an evidence of his position that such agita- 
 tion is essential to .success. Considering such agitation essential to 
 success, he is earnestly bent upon the bringing together of arevolu- 
 tionary economic organization powerful enough to reflect its own 
 political party, that is, its own forerunner that may afford a chance 
 to a peaceful solution. Consequently, recognizing the fact that 
 there are to-day in this country two rival and hostile political par- 
 ties, both flying the colors of Socialism, it should be obvious that 
 organizers of either of the two parties, acting simultaneously as 
 I. W. W. organizers, could not choose but hamper, rather than 
 promote the growth of the I. W. W.—Ed. The People.] 
 
32 AS TO POLITICS. 
 
 FOURTH LETTER 
 
 By ARTURO GIOVANNITTI 
 
 New York 
 
 I have read very attentively the articles by Comrades Wagner 
 and Vasilio in The People of Tuesday, and the few remarks by 
 Comrade De Leon, and, as a result, I should like to give my hum- 
 ble opinion and try to answer the still unanswered questions of The 
 People's Editor. 
 
 It seems to me that both Sandgren and De Leon have given a 
 wrong definition of what they term "the political activity of the 
 working class," an error which has been but partly redressed when 
 they drew a line between ballot and agitation. Yet although Sand- 
 gren and his followers want no politics, they want a revolution, 
 and whilst De Leon excommunicates the ballot, he still persists in 
 having an S. L. P. ticket on the very same ballot. The first for- 
 gets that a revolution must be essentially political before it can be 
 anything else, the latter is a little afraid to reconduct the revolu- 
 tionary method on the straight road of the "outside political ac- 
 tion," to wit, the general strike and the revolt. 
 
 The question is not whether we should bother about politics or 
 not, but how we should conduct our political fight; should we re- 
 main even temporarily within the orbit of legality, or should we get 
 out of it altogether and enforce our rights and will with new means 
 and weapons adequate to the opportunity of the historical moment 
 which we cross? In Europe, to define this legal fight, for to be 
 peaceful it must be legal, we have coined a new word : Parlia- 
 mentarism — and all the question, according to me, lies in that 
 word, that is to say, the political struggle of the working class 
 within the capitalist state machine. 
 
 Does then Comrade De Leon mean parliamentarism when he 
 speaks of a peaceful method of solving the Social Question? If not, 
 where is then the necessity of having a ticket in the field so far as 
 we don't expect and don't want to send our "Honorable Com- 
 rades" to Washington? 
 
 I shall consider only the first hypothesis and endeavor to prove 
 as briefly as I can that parliamentary action, to use an imported 
 word, spells simply reform and not revolution, 'in the real historic 
 sense of the word. Parliament is a bourgeois institution, the cor- 
 nerstone of capitalism, as it is the very same organ with which the 
 republic struck the monarchy and through which capitalism emerg- 
 ed from feudalism. Previous and through the insurrectional phases 
 of the French Revolution, the rising bourgeoisie knew that it could 
 not fight feudalism with the legal weapons that were then possible, 
 and realized that in order to transform society it needed first the 
 absolute destruction of the existing State, and therefore forced and 
 
AS TO POLITICS. 33 
 
 developed a new form of State that had nothing common with the 
 old one, i. e., the Parliament. It must be so of the proletariat as it 
 was of the bourgeoisie. "The proletariat does not escape the com- 
 mon rule of all the revolutionary classes that preceded it. It also 
 forms itself an organ for the representation of its collective inter- 
 ests. This organ is the labor organization, the trade syndicate. Not 
 a class truly revolutionary can think that the use of legal machines 
 of the existing regime can be enough to guarantee the collective in- 
 terests. It must form itself its own organ and strive to make it 
 prevail on those of the existing society." (Labriola.) In other words 
 a class that really intends to fulfill its historical function must be 
 revolutionary, not in aim, but in methods and means. The task of 
 revolution is not to construct the new society but to demolish the 
 old one and therefore its first aim should be at the complete de- 
 struction of the existing state so as to render it absolutely power- 
 less to re-act and re-establish itself. When revolution fails to do 
 so, the old regime may absorb some of the new ideas but will al- 
 ways remain, as it was the case in Italy and Germany and as it will 
 happen in Russia if the working class does not strike violently at 
 the root of the monarchy and forcibly impose its own political or- 
 gan both against the Czar and the Duma. In other words, when 
 the revolutionary process gets off the track of violence and insur- 
 rection without having achieved its destructive function and comes 
 to argue and discuss within the circle of legality, when it does not 
 strike at the existing political machine from the outside, but comes 
 to bore from within, it utterly fails to its new ideal, but a new ac- 
 tion to realize historical mandate and does nothing but a mere act 
 of reform. "To use the organs of the existing society to transform 
 the same society means to collaborate to defend and guarantee it, 
 to wit, do a work openly anti-revolutionary." (Sorel.) 
 
 Consequently, if the S. L. P. goes to Congress, it means that it 
 recognizes its usefulness, and in so doing it will co-operate to its 
 perpetuation and give the state, and therefore capitalism, a longer 
 lease of life. Therefore, it is not only an organization with a rev- 
 olutionary aim that we need, but one ready to follow the revolu- 
 tionary process in not only a new ideal, but a new action to realize 
 the same. By this, it is evident that such an organization cannot 
 and must not employ legal and lawful methods, neither can it hope 
 in a peaceful solution, as the simple fact that a class is^revolution- 
 ary implies that it is outlaw. This, Comrade De Leon does not 
 discuss, neither does he answer arguments with arguments and 
 facts with facts. He does not say that such an organization would 
 not lead the working class to victory, but he is simply worried as 
 to how we are going to recruit it if we abandon the idea of a pos- 
 sible peaceful solution of the Social Question. 
 
 This peaceful solution could be attained only through parlia- 
 mentary action, but, again, if capitalism has opened its Holy of 
 Holies to an enemy class that wants not less than its head, it means 
 
34 AS TO POLITICS. 
 
 that it is no more afraid of the proletariat when the latter is willing 
 to visit capitalism at home and talk matters over. My enemy is my 
 enemy and I fear him while he waits for me outside with a gun or 
 a stiletto, but when he comes in and sits down to expose his reasons 
 1 cease to fear him and the whole quarrel is liable to end with a 
 merry supper and abundant glasses of wine with relative toasts and 
 madrigals. How can we believe that even with the most rigid logic 
 and with the fear of a strong revolutionary organization we could 
 convince the master class to give itself up into the hands of the 
 rival class that knows no Christian charity and will not commute 
 the death sentence of capitalism? Are we then to understand that 
 capitalism will commit suicide rather than to face the I. W. W. 
 executioner? Is there an example in history that can justify such 
 a sweet dream of peace and love? Not even the Holy Father, .who 
 believes in turning the left cheek when somebody slaps his right 
 one, ever refrained from the sweet help of the hangman and 
 other Christian accessories any time he saw his throne and holy 
 purse attacked. Suicide is not the act of a normal being, neither 
 have we any reasons yet to believe that the capitalist class will get 
 crazy all at once in the last moment. 
 
 It is then by main force and through violence only that we can 
 transform society, but collective, organized violence, not as it is 
 now in Russia but as it was in this country fifty years ago. It is 
 not a conspiracy but an open and loyal fight, not an assault but a 
 regular duel, and it will not be a- riotous outbreak but a good and 
 proper civil war, if you wish to call it so. If an act of Congress 
 can prevent all that and yield to the working class the land and the 
 means of production and distribution, so much the better, but this 
 is their business, not ours. How can we get the men together for 
 this glorious proletarian epopee? Well, how did the International 
 get them? How did we build Local 199, Tailors' Industrial Union, 
 the strongest and most numerous in the city, where not even once 
 was election day mentioned, although every member is fully ac- 
 quainted with the take and hold clause? HOW? Why by going to 
 them and telling them all about it without considering them either 
 tigers or rabbits, but men who, once having understood, can prove 
 that they are right in the good old American fashion, and put up a 
 good fist fight when words and arguments fail. 
 
 Are then the S. P. and the S. L. P. so necessary to the I. W. 
 W. that without the former the latter could not exist? Are the 
 polls the only means to convince them to unite, to go to strike, to 
 resist, and to press their action so on the political field (political 
 agitation) that those from above will let something drop every 
 once in a while before the whole edifice tumbles down? 
 
 Why should we speak to the working class of a peaceful set- 
 tlement when probably not ONE of the S. L. P. members believe in 
 it? Fifty vacant seats in Congress will frighten capitalism more 
 than fifty "Honorable" Socialists sitting there and doing nothing," 
 
AS TO POLITICS. 35 
 
 and if we must use the ballot for something let us use it for the 
 sole purpose of emptying their ranks. The future of Socialism lies 
 only in the general strike, not merely a quiet political strike, but 
 one that once started should go fatally to its end, i. e., armed in- 
 surrection and the forcible overthrow of all existing social condi- 
 tions. It may be objected that it is yet too early to throw the alarm 
 of parliamentarism in America, but the fact is that the Socialist 
 movement has degenerated so in all European countries on account 
 of parliamentarism, that it would be simply foolish not to take ad- 
 vantage of their lesson and follow another road. Let us not strike 
 out the political clause from the I. W. W. constitution, but let us 
 understand that the I. W. W. must develop itself as the new legis- 
 lature and executive body of the land, undermine the existing one 
 and gradually absorb the functions of the state until it can entirely 
 substantiate it through the only means it has : The Revolution. 
 
 ANSWER. 
 
 [First of all let the fact be once more recorded that this week's 
 opponent of the S. L. P. posture, like each and every one who pre- 
 ceded him, leaves unanswered the practical question put by The 
 People at the beginning of this discussion — how can the ranks of 
 the I. W. W., of the revolutionary army intended to take and hold 
 the means of production, recruit the necessary forces f8r that event- 
 ful and final act of the revolution, if it starts by rejecting the civil- • 
 ized method of settling disputes, offered by the political platform, 
 and plants itself instead upon the principle of physical force exclu- 
 sively? Surely this is a question worth answering. It is essential 
 to a common understanding. Why is the question persistently 
 evaded? Every evasion thereof can only be construed as an evi- 
 dence of inability to answer it; consequently, as demonstration of 
 the soundness of the practical principle that it implies. The demon- 
 stration is only made all the stronger by the indulgence in vast 
 digressions, and the taking up of space on side matters. 
 
 In the instance of this week's correspondent the evasion is all 
 the more marked. Giovannitti starts with the admission that the 
 question put by The People has not been answered. Indeed, it is 
 for that very reason that he asks for space to "try to answer the 
 still unanswered questions of The People's Editor." Does he an- 
 swer that question? With not a word. 
 
 Or is this sentence, perhaps, an answer: "How can we get the 
 men together for this glorious proletarian epopee? Well, how did 
 the International get them?" — The sentence implies that the Inter- 
 national did get the men together for this glorious proletarian epo- 
 pee. That's news to us. If the International had "got the men to- 
 gether for this glorious proletarian epopee" there would be no cap- 
 italist class to-day to overthrow ; the epopee would have been en- 
 
36 AS TO POLITICS. 
 
 acted. That it has not been enacted, that Giovannitti recognizes 
 the epopee has yet to be enacted, is ample refutation of the im- 
 plied claim that the International "got the men together." 
 
 Or is, perchance, this other sentence the answer promised by 
 
 Giovannitti : "How can we get the men together for this glorious 
 proletarian epopee? Well . . how is the I. W. W. getting them?" 
 — This sentence is of a piece with that analyzed last week from the 
 correspondence of two St. Louis opponents. That sentence does not 
 "answer" The People's question ; the sentence confirms The People's 
 question; the sentence is fatal to the posture of The People's op- 
 ponents. This discussion was initiated by Sandgren's proposition 
 "to strike out all reference to politics in the I. W. W. preamble. 
 Upon that The People's question, re-stated above, was put, and the 
 .contention both of Sandgren and of all who sided with him, this 
 week's correspondent included, was and is, logically enough from 
 their premises, that political agitation should be excluded as harm- 
 ful and unnecessary. No opponent of The People's position can 
 quote the successful agitation of the I. W. W., whose platform has 
 the political clause, as an evidence that the ranks of the I. W. W. 
 can be recruited with the necessary numbers upon the principle of 
 physical force only. 
 
 Giovannitti, accordingly, leaves unanswered the question he 
 promised to answer; and strangest of all he closes by opposing 
 Sandgren's proposition to expunge the political clause from the 
 I. W. W. platform! Inextricable are the contradictions that this 
 week's opponent tangles himself in. 
 
 We might stop here. The gist of the above letter is disposed 
 of. Nevertheless our correspondent incurs a number of collateral 
 errors that we trust he will thank us for calling his attention to. 
 And this we do for reason of the knowledge that frequently it hap- 
 pens that collateral errors are responsible for central ones. So long 
 as the former becloud the mind, the latter remain unperceived. 
 
 Giovannitti says: "A class that really intends to fulfill its his- 
 torical function must be revolutionary, not in aim but in methods 
 and means." This sentence sins doubly against social science. Its 
 first sinfulness lies in the use of the expression, "revolutionary 
 methods and means." There is no such thing as "revolutionary- 
 means" or "methods." Means and methods may be good or bad, 
 wise or unwise, timely or premature — "revolutionary" never. Phys- 
 ical force, the revolutionary method^ and means meant by our cor- 
 respondent, is by no means essentially revolutionary, it may be 
 archly reactionary. If physical force were the test of "revolution" 
 the palm for revolutionariness would have to be awarded to Czar's 
 establishment. Unconsciously Giovannitti himself acts obedient to 
 this view of the matter. If he did not he would not now be in the 
 revolutionary camp of the I. W. W. ; he would have fallen in with 
 
AS TO POLITICS. 37 
 
 the Sherman crew of reactionists who resorted to physical force.* 
 The second sinfulness of the sentence lies in its first part, the no- 
 tion that the function of the proletariat "must be revolutionary, 
 NOT IN AIM, but in methods and means'." In other words, that 
 the aim is a negligible quantity in determining the revolutionary 
 or non-revolutionary character of a body. Such a conception of 
 Social evolution or of the march of human events is untenable. 
 Marx well said that force has ever been the MIDWIFE of revolu- 
 tions. According to our correspondent's idea of things, however, 
 all that is needed for the birth of a child would be the midwife; 
 the function of the father and the mother count for nothing. There 
 is a violent clash of physical force now in progress in Russia. If 
 physical force were the test of "revolution" then both the contend- 
 ing sides would be revolutionists. We all know this is false. How 
 do we all determine which is the side of revolution and which that 
 of reaction? Why, by their respective AIMS. 
 
 This serious error on the part of Giovannitti leads to the fol- 
 lowing other error, which runs like a black warp through the woof 
 of his argument. He says in one place : "Should we remain even 
 temporarily within the orbit of LEGALITY ;" in another place : 
 "the LEGAL fight, for, to be peaceful it must be LEGAL ;" again : 
 "the use of LEGAL machines of the existing regime;" still in an- 
 other place : "such an organization [the organization that we need] 
 must not employ LEGAL and LAWFUL methods;" and so forth. 
 The continuous iteration and re-iteration of the terms "legal," "le- 
 gality," "lawful," betray a misconception of The People's posture. 
 Giovannitti will not find the words used once by The People in 
 this discussion. The People is not troubled with the thought of 
 "legality." The People planted itself upon the principle of "civil- 
 ization." Giovannitti and the Editor of The People are civilized 
 men. Being civilized men they are discussing the subject politely. 
 Were the two a couple of barbarians they would have begun by 
 breaking each other's heads. Giovannitti's confusion of thought in 
 the matter is such that he has read "legal'' for "civilized," "legal- 
 ity" for "civilization," and that has interfered with his understand- 
 ing of The People's arguments in this discussion, beginning with 
 the answer to Sandgren where the principle of civilization was 
 treated at large. Political action is the civilized, because it is the 
 peaceful method of social debate and of ascertaining numbers. He 
 who rejects that method places himself upon the barbarian plane, 
 a plane where the capitalist class would be but too glad to see him, 
 seeing that he thereby would give the capitalist class a welcome 
 pretext to drop all regard for decency and resort to the terrorism 
 that would suit it. But civilization is CIVILIZATION. It implies 
 
 * Chas. O. Sherman was the deposed president of the I. W. W. 
 who pronounced the ballot "paper wadding," and sought to steer 
 the I. W. W. back into A. F. of L. craft unionism. 
 
38 AS TO POLITICS. 
 
 not only the effort for peace, but also the knowledge of the fact 
 that Right without Might is a thing of air. Accordingly the civ^ 
 ilized revolutionary organization proclaims the Right, demands it, 
 argues for it, and willingly submits to the civilized method of 
 polling the votes— AND IT ORGANIZES ITSELF WITH THE 
 REQUISITE PHYSICAL FORCE IN CASE ITS DEFEATED 
 ADVERSARY SHOULD RESORT TO THE BARBARIAN'S 
 WAY OF ENFORCING HIS WILL. The civilized man answers 
 force with force; the barbarian begins with force. "Civilization" 
 not "legality" demands the political clause. 
 
 A third collateral error committed by Giovannitti happens in 
 the passage in which he quotes Labriola in support of what Lab- 
 riola does not hold. Labriola belongs to the "Syndicalist" (Union- 
 ist) wing of what? Of the Socialist PARTY of Italy. The quo- 
 tation from Labriola becomes a misquotation in the place where it 
 occurs. It is perfectly sensible in connection with Labriola's po- 
 sition, which is as exactly that of the S. L. P. as two positions in 
 two different countries can be. 
 
 Finally a luminous insight is obtained into the loose methods of 
 thought of our opponents by the following passage from Giovan- 
 nitti's letter: "Fifty vacant seats in Congress will frighten capital- 
 ism more than fifty 'Honorable' Socialists sitting there and doing 
 nothing, and if we must use the ballot for something let us use it 
 for the sole purpose of emptying their ranks," — a notion that can 
 only proceed from a mistaken comprehension of facts in the case. 
 Even if the whole Working Class abstained from voting, there 
 would be NOT ONE SINGLE SEAT VACANT, the capitalist 
 candidates would then be elected unanimously by the capitalists 
 themselves. 
 
 The theme of this discussion is serious. It should be ap- 
 proached, not with anger or preformed thoughts, but with a mind 
 open to apprehend the facts and to reason from them. — Ed. The 
 People.] 
 
AS TO POLITICS. 39 
 
 FIFTH LETTER 
 
 By H. B. HOFFMAN 
 
 New York ' 
 
 Whether the debate on the political situation is closed or not 
 it is up to the editor of the Daily People to reply to the following 
 trite questions and answers. And as no comment can be made 
 without presenting the matter from which the argument is drawn 
 I would be pleased to see this contribution printed in full : 
 
 The questions are addressed to an S. L. P. man: 
 
 1. "Are you a revolutionary body?" "We are and decidedly so." 
 
 2. "Very well. If, then, you are a political party you are or- 
 ganized to enforce or evolve legislative enactments?" (Hesitating- 
 ly). "Yes, we are organized for legislative purposes." 
 
 3. "And yet you call yourself revolutionary. Legislation within 
 the capitalist state, in order to be declared valid, must be of a mild 
 constitutional nature. It must partake of the capitalists' notion of 
 validity. It must harmonize with the existing order of things, 
 must it not?" "Yes." 
 
 "So that if you harmonize with the capitalist state you can ef- 
 fect reforms, radical or ultra radical but such reforms are drawn 
 within the boundary lines of private property. In fact you succeed 
 in paliating rotten conditions, you ease the lot of the workingman 
 and make him able to bear up. You unconsciously harmonize the^ 
 workingman to existing conditions because you build up a hope in 
 him that you are there to help him, and that through legislation. 
 You are in fact doing the work of the reformer which he as a use- 
 ful lieutenant of the capitalist can better do himself. Hearst can 
 bring about more reforms through legislation in a shorter time 
 than can five revolutionary parties. 
 
 "You furthermore build up a false hope which the working 
 class will not forgive you, when they realize the emptiness of it. As 
 a conscious Socialist you know that the capitalist is well entrench- 
 ed; legislatures, courts and police make up his armaments of war, 
 all effective legislation can be nullified by the courts which are gen- 
 erally not of an elective nature. You know the helplessness of 
 your situation and yet you would goad the workers on and make 
 them believe in the strength of legislation." 
 
 "No! No! We are in politics for agitational purposes," an- 
 swers the disturbed S. L. P. man. 
 
 "Ha ! ha ! in politics for agitational purposes ! Were I not fully 
 conscious of your extreme honesty I would call you a knave. As it 
 is I am content to think you are in the wrong. 
 
 "A political party means something. It has its classical mission 
 which is popularly understood. A political party is a body either in 
 office or trying to get in office. It nominates men for especial offices. 
 
40 AS TO POLITICS. 
 
 In coming before the electors k makes certain specific promises 
 which it also promises to enforce if elected. Absurd is it not to 
 imagine that it can masquerade as a political party with no polit- 
 ical intentions. Absurd is it not to simply spread agitational prop- 
 aganda and yet go to the trouble of organizing a political body. It 
 is misrepresentation, culminating in a farcical tragedy. And how 
 absurd would it be to practice both politics and agitational propa- 
 ganda through a political party and yet sustain its revolutionary 
 character of the body. It is a reformer's carnival with the fitting 
 mask of the masquerader." 
 
 ANSWER. 
 
 [Again let, first of all, the significant fatt be recorded that, 
 along with his predecessors, this week's opponent of the S. L. P. 
 position also leaves unanswered the question put by The People at 
 the beginning of this discussion — how can the ranks of the I. W. 
 W., of the revolutionary army, intended to take and hold the means 
 of production, etc., recruit the necessary forces for that eventful 
 and final act of the revolution if it starts by rejecting the civilized 
 method of settling social disputes, offered by the political platform, 
 and plants itself instead upon the principle of physical force only? 
 
 Surely none can claim the question to be a trick, or unfair. 
 Men who aim at the overthrow of the capitalist system ; men who 
 recognize the necessity of a revolutionary economic organization of 
 the working class to accomplish the revolution; finally men who re- 
 ject the civilized method of social warfare, political action; — such 
 men certainly owe to the public, the working class public, an an- 
 swer to the question put above — how do you expect to recruit your 
 forces ? 
 
 The persistent avoidance to answer this question justifies the 
 conclusion that it is unanswerable; that it knocks the bottom from 
 under the notion of rejecting political action; that indeed, the ques- 
 tion needs but to be put in order to expose the error of the notion. 
 Nor is the evasion at all concealed by an answer which puts other 
 questions and, as Hoffman does this week, himself furnishes a 
 series of answers unwarranted, in the main, by the exhaustive an- 
 swers given by The People to previous correspondents on the sub- 
 ject, and the well known posture of the S. L. P. in the premises. 
 
 The facts in the case are simply these : 
 
 The Socialist party asserts that political action is all-sufficient 
 to emancipate the Working Class. "Elect us to office," it says, 
 "and we will emancipate you." 
 
 Whatever there is intellectually clear and clean in the Labor 
 Movement readily sees through the error; it even sees deeply and 
 perceives that such a body, if it does not start corrupt, must in- 
 evitably degenerate into a fraud upon the proletariat. The eman- 
 cipation of the proletariat, that is, the Socialist Republic, can not be 
 the result of legislative enactment. No bunch of office holders will 
 
AS TO POLITICS. 41 
 
 emancipate the proletariat. The emancipation of the proletariat can 
 only be the mass-action of the proletariat itself, "moving in," tak- 
 ing possession of the productive powers of the land. 
 
 This correct, this indisputable position leads directly to the 
 principle that the revolutionary proletariat can not fulfill its his- 
 toric mission unless it is so organized economically, that it can take 
 possession integrally, shed the slough of the capitalist political 
 State, and assume the reins of industrial administration of the 
 country. The industrially organized revolutionary Union, in short, 
 the, I. W. W., was the product of this insight into things. 
 
 This position, by reason of its very purity, brought its lees 
 along with it. An element there arose, which — whether nauseated 
 by the unavoidable corruption in the pure and simple political So- 
 cialist party; or whether, dazzled by the very brilliancy of the po- 
 sition itself, disabled them from seeing aught but that — contends 
 that political action should be wholly discarded; accordingly, that 
 the I. W. W. should drop the political clause from its preamble 
 where it 'expresses the necessity of uniting the working class "on 
 the political as well as on the industrial field." 
 
 The I. W. W. denies the soundness of such a position. It goes 
 further; it points to the fatal error involved in the same. The re- 
 jection of political action would throw the I. W. W. back upon the 
 methods of barbarism — physical force exclusively. Where, as in 
 Russia, no other method exists, none other can be taken up. Where, 
 however, as in the rest of the Western Civilization, especially in 
 America, the civilized method exists of public agitation, and of 
 peaceful submission to the counting of the ballots that express the 
 contending views; — where such methods exist, the man or organ- 
 ization that rejects them does so at his or its peril. This is espec- 
 ially, the case in the capitalist America of to-day. The capitalist 
 class, however powerful, is not omnipotent. It feels constrained to 
 render at least external homage to the Genius of the Age. The 
 Genius of the Age demands free speech and a free vote. So soon, 
 however, as a Labor Organization were to reject the peaceful trial 
 of strength, the capitalist class would be but too delighted to apply 
 the system of Russian Terrorism. The long and short of it all is 
 that the revolution could not gather the necessary recruits. On the 
 other hand, clad in the vestments of civilized, fully civilized con- 
 flict, the I. W. W. recognizes the indispensible usefulness of polit- 
 ical agitation whereby it may demand the unconditional surrender 
 of the capitalist class; whereby it may preach and teach the rea- 
 sons thereof; whereby it may express its willingness to abide by 
 the fiat of the ballot, that is, by the peaceful trial of strength ; and 
 by reason of such conduct, recruit, drill and organize the physical 
 force which it may need in order to safeguard the civilized because 
 peaceful victory that it has striven to win. Putting the matter in 
 a nut-shell — without the revolutionary economic organization of the 
 Working Class the day of the Socialist political victory would be 
 
42 AS TO POLITICS. 
 
 the day of its defeat; without the revolutionary political action of 
 Socialism, the revolutionary economic organization of the Work- 
 ing Class can not be fully shaped for action. 
 
 The Socialist Labor "Party represents this view. Though recog- 
 nizing its preponderatingly economic importance, it perceives its 
 incidental political necessity. 
 
 "Ha!" cries out Hoffman, our this week's opponent. "A mas- 
 querade !" 
 
 The ways of civilization are no mask on the face of civilized 
 man. The ways of civilization are part and parcel of the civilized 
 man's being; they sharply mark the profile of his face: 
 
 For the same reason, and by the identical principle, that Sher- 
 man's defeat in the I. W. W. could be encompassed only by the 
 policy of those delegates who went to last September's convention 
 sincerely believing, not masked with the belief, that the man was 
 honest, but who soon as they found him out a scoundrel, grabbed 
 him by the slack of his reputation and threw him out of the Con- 
 vention and the I. W. W., — for the same reason, and by the iden- 
 tical principle, the overthrow of the Capitalist Class will be the 
 work of those men only with whom the ways of civilization are, 
 not a mask but part of their nature; men who insist upon exhaust- 
 ing the ways of civilization, and who, when Capitalism shall have 
 dropped its mask, will be found ready to resort to the ways of bar- 
 barism — all the more determinedly so because the method is repel- 
 lant to the civilized cause that they are the apostles of. 
 
 For the same reason, and by the identical principle, that Sher- 
 man would have remained in possession of both the convention and 
 the I. W. W. if the policy of those delegates had prevailed who 
 went to the convention convinced in advance of the man's scoun- 
 drelism, and who wanted to throw him out from the start, — for the 
 same reason, and by the identical principle, the Capitalist Class 
 would remain enthroned if the policy- were to prevail of that impa- 
 tient and angry element who reject in advance the expectation of a 
 peaceful trial of strength, and would start with resort to physical 
 force. 
 
 The S. L. P. ballot demands the unconditional surrender of 
 the Capitalist Class. The S. L. P., accordingly preaches the Revo- 
 lution, teaches the Revolution, and thereby enables the recruiting 
 and organizing of the physical force element requisite to enforce 
 the Revolution. The S. L. P. does all this, including the latter, 
 because it strikes the posture of holding the Ruling Class to the 
 civilized method of a peaceful trial of strength. 
 
 Maybe the S. L. P. will triumph at the hustings, that is, win out 
 and be rightly counted. In this case the S. L. P. would forthwith 
 dissolve ; the political State would be ipso facto abolished ; the in- 
 dustrially and integrally organized proletariat will without hin- 
 drance assume the administration ofthe productive powers of the 
 land. Is this impossible? We admit it is highly improbable. 
 
 More likely is the event of S. L. P. triumph at the polls, but de- 
 
AS TO POLITICS. 43 
 
 feat by the election inspectors, or resistance, as the Southern slave- 
 holders did at the election of Lincoln. In that case also the S. L.. 
 P. would forthwith dissolve into its economic organization. That 
 body, having had the opportunity to recruit and organize its forces, 
 and the civilized method of peaceful trial of strength having- been 
 abandoned, the Might of the proletariat will then be there, free to- 
 resort to the last resort, and physically mop the earth with the bar- 
 barian Capitalist Class. 
 
 Most likely, however, the political expression of the I. W. W- 
 will not be afforded the time for triumph at the polls. Most likely 
 the necessities of capitalism will, before then, drive it to some law- 
 less act that will call forth resistance. A strike will break out; 
 capitalist brutality will cause the strike to spread; physical, besides 
 moral support, will pour in from other and not immediately con- 
 cerned branches of the Working Class. A condition of things — 
 economic, political, social-atmospheric — will set in, akin to the con- 
 dition of things in 1902, at the time of the great coal miners' strike, 
 or in 1894, at the time of the Pullman-A. R. U. strike. What then? 
 The issue will then depend wholly upon the degree, in point of 
 quality and in point of quantity, that the organization of the I W. 
 W. will have reached. If it has reached the requisite minimum,, 
 then, that class-instinct of the proletariat that Marx teaches the So- 
 cialist to rely upon, and the chord of which the Capitalist Class in- 
 stinctively seeks, through- its labor fakirs, to keep the Socialist from 
 touching, will readily crystallize around that requisite I. W .W. 
 minimum of organization. The Working Class would then be 
 organically consolidated. Further efforts for. a peaceful measuring, 
 of strength would then have been rendered superfluous by Capital- 
 ist barbarism. Capitalism would be swept aside forthwith. For 
 this consummation, however, in the eventuality under considera- 
 tion, be it remembered, the I. W. W. must have reached the requi- 
 site quantitative and qualitative minimum of perfection, AND 
 THAT IN TURN WILL DEPEND UPON THE FREENESS 
 OF ITS PREVIOUS AGITATIONAL WORK, A FREEDOM 
 THAT IT NEVER COULD ENJOY EXCEPT TT PLANTS- 
 ITSELF UPON THE PRINCIPLE THAT RECOGNIZES 
 THE CIVILIZED METHOD OF PEACEFUL TRIAL OF 
 STRENGTH— THE POLITICAL BALLOT. 
 
 Accordingly it all comes back and boils down to the question,. 
 How is the I. W. W. to recruit and organize its forces if it starts 
 with the absolute rejection of the political ballot? 
 
 All talk concerning the thorns that beset the political stalk are 
 beside the question. Such talk our opponents should reserve for the 
 pure and simple political Socialist party men. Addressed to the 
 S. L. P. men, such talk is superfluous and inconsequential — as in- 
 consequential as would be extensive dissertations on the stench that 
 periodically is felt in dissecting rooms, and of the diseases such 
 stenches occasionally breed: THE DISSECTING ROOM IS 
 
-44 AS TO POLITICS. 
 
 NECESSARY; — as inconsequential as would be extensive disser- 
 tations on the accidents and discomforts that result from ocean 
 travel: OCEAN TRAVEL IS REQUISITE. The pure and sim- 
 T>le political Socialist man is on the political question what a man 
 would be who favors the dissecting room for the sake of its stench, 
 •or the man who favors ocean travel for the sake of its perils and 
 'discomforts. That, our physical force opponents know, is not the 
 S. L. P. position. The S. L. P. knows that the political State is 
 worthless, and can not legislate the Socialist Republic into life. 
 The S. L. P. man clings to political action because it is an abso- 
 lute necessity for the formation of that organization — the I. W. 
 W. — which is both the embryo of the Workers' Republic and the 
 -physical force that the proletariat may, and in all likelihood will, 
 need, to come to its own. — Ed. The People.l 
 
AS TO POLITICS. 45 
 
 SIXTH LETTER 
 
 By JOHN SANDGREN 
 
 San Francisco 
 
 Having been granted the privilege of answering the criticism 
 of my views "As to Politics," I shall gladly avail myself thereof. 
 
 First, as to the strength of the working class at the ballot box,. 
 I have no alternative but to accept the figures given by the Editor 
 of The People, namely that the working class in 1900 constituted 
 seventy per cent, of the population and that we would, theoreti- 
 cally, be able to muster a majority at the ballot box. But it must 
 be admitted that the change from 1890, when the working class- 
 were fifty-five per cent., with a downward numerical tendency, is. 
 so astonishing, that one may justly question the correctness of at 
 least one set of the figures. 
 
 However, seeing that little importance is attached by my crit- 
 ics, who must be considered to represent the S. L. P. position, to- 
 the ballot as such, and to the question of our strength at the ballot 
 box, discussion on this point may be dropped. 
 
 But, from another point of view the figures I gave under this. 
 head, somewhat amended, are of great significance in attempting 
 to determine the proper posture toward political activity on the- 
 part of the working class, namely in the following sense: 
 
 Out of the whole mass of actual wage workers, men, women, 
 and children, there are approximately eighteen millions who can 
 in no manner be directly interested in politics, to wit: l,700,000 u 
 children wage workers, 4,800,000 women wage workers, 3,500,000 
 foreign wage workers, 5,000,000 Negro wage workers, 3,000,000- 
 floating and otherwise disfranchised wage workers ; total, 18,000,000: 
 approximately. 
 
 And nobody will deny that in the building up of the economic 
 organization and constructing the frame work of the new, collec- 
 tive form of society, we will sooner or later have to take account 
 of every one of these eighteen million wage workers. In fact, they 
 are "grist for our mill," but what is to be done with them politi- 
 cally? 
 
 This open admission on the part of spokesmen for the S. L. 
 P., although not new or brought out for the first time in this dis- 
 cussion — this admission that the ballot counts for little or nothing, 
 will come as a shock to many faithful adherents of the ballot, who. 
 with one of my critics bravely exclaim : "Outvote them we shall P 
 This admission is another sign of the fact that working class "par- 
 liamentarism" has come upon evil days, the tendency throughout, 
 the whole world being to bring economic organization to the fore- 
 front and relegate politics to the rear. It may be hard for those- 
 who have seen and helped the revolutionary movement grow oni 
 
•46 AS TO POLITICS. 
 
 political lines to vigorous manhood to now discard politics; the 
 new tendency to reorganize the forces on exclusive economic lines, 
 ■entering the political arena only in the negative way of "direct ac- 
 tion" may strike them as unholy violations of sacred principles. But 
 as Marx says in effect: "The proletarian movement ever comes 
 back to its starting point, ever retraces its step's and begins anew, 
 until it has finally struck solid foundation." So it is now. Par- 
 liamentary experience having brought out the weak points of the 
 political method, a revolt from the "million masses" brings into 
 existence an organization in which the workers shall meet the mas- 
 ter class face to face (direct action), thus realizing, as Comrade 
 Bruckere says, the Marxian motto : "The emancipation of the 
 workers by the workers themselves." 
 
 In regard to the position that we needs must continue political 
 oiganization for the sake of political agitation, to be used as a 
 shield under which to mold and form the working class movement 
 proper, i. e., the economic organization, I am far from convinced 
 of its correctness. 
 
 Political organization and agitation without faith in the ballot 
 or without, as in Russia, demanding the ballot, or as in Sweden, an 
 extension of the franchise, is like running a windmill without any 
 grain to grind or without any millstones to grind it with. The 
 position being an artificial one, it will soon become untenable. It 
 WILL FAIL to accomplish what, it was intended for : to deceive 
 the master class as to our purpose; it WILL accomplish what we 
 least desire ; to deceive our fellow workers and confuse. Such is 
 the penalty one always has to pay for one of the gravest tactical 
 errors in the revolutionary movement: double sense, dissimulation, 
 upon which see page 85 in De Leon's work: "Two Pages from 
 Roman History." 
 
 Political organization and agitation becomes an absurdity with- 
 out the ballot, without parliamentarism. On this score allow me to 
 quote from a recent article in the International Socialist Review on 
 the Italian movement : "Parliaments are not and cannot become or- 
 gans of social revolution. The inherent social and economic quali- 
 ties and tendencies of parliamentarism limit the possibilities of 
 reforms. . . It is a most ridiculous Utopian supposition that a 
 Socialist party ever can obtain a majority in the parliaments of any 
 country. The social revolution which shall establish 'the autono- 
 mous government of production managed by the associated work- 
 ing class' (Labriola), is above all a technical and economic fact 
 which cannot be called into existence by an incompetent assembly, 
 such as the parliaments of all countries are, but must result from 
 the autonomous development of the capacity, and from the spon- 
 taneous initiation of those who attend to the process of produc- 
 tion." 
 
 Again, I hold that my critics have not established the fact that 
 the I. W. W. needs any shield or that the political organizations 
 have any shield to offer. While the I. W. W. certainly needs the 
 well trained membership of the S. L. P., I cannot but see that we 
 
AS TO POLITICS. 47 
 
 must respectfully decline their offer to hold a shield over us to 
 protect our coddling infancy. The I. W. W. can do, and is doing, 
 everything in the way of agitation that the political organization is 
 doing, it can address by word of mouth, it can distribute arid sell 
 literature, it can organize, and what more can the S. L. P. do? In 
 fact, it would be a direct advantage to have the shield out of the 
 way, as we could then address our fellow-workers somewhat in 
 this way: 
 
 "Politics is the game of capitalism ; it is a flimsy shell game in 
 which your very lives are the stakes played for. As long as you 
 workingmen are allowing yourselves to be bamboozled into pinning 
 your faith to the ballot, the capitalist class does not want any bet- 
 ter snap. For no matter how you vote, capitalism is perfectly safe. 
 'Praise be to God,' the capitalist class whispers, 'the blamed fools 
 are still voting!' Therefore, throw away that old weapon of times 
 bygone, the boomerang-vote, and spring into the ranks of the mil- 
 itant industrial army, where shoulder to shoulder with our fellows 
 we shall gain victory through organized strength." But here are 
 some of the best fighters of the I. W. W., one night fearlessly pro- 
 claiming emancipation through organization and the next night 
 "holding the shield" and exorting street audiences to vote the S. 
 L. P. or S. P. ticket, when they well knew that such course is 
 about as fruitless as an Eskimo dog's barking at the moon. No, 
 the shield is not needed, not appreciated, and does not shield. Past 
 has shown that the political agitator enjoys no more immunity or 
 security than others. He may be "legal" and "constitutional," but 
 legal opinions and supreme court decisions are made to order and 
 cost only the paper on which they are written, so we are as much 
 exposed to "law and order" if we parade in the masque and dis- 
 guise of politicians as if we come openly forward as an economic 
 organization, not to speak of the advantages of an open, straight- 
 forward course. 
 
 To those who defend political organization and agitation, be- 
 cause it would suggest to the ruling class our willingness to adorn 
 ourselves in the conventional garb of legality, civilization, peace, 
 etc., I would put the question : when did economic organization 
 cease to be a legal, civilized and peaceful weapon? In fact, 1 
 would maintain that it is one of the newest and most perfected 
 products of modern civilization. To those who plead for a much 
 to be desired peaceful solution of the social problem, I wish to say 
 that economic organization even with the purpose of taking and 
 holding is primarily a peaceful organization, and it is a straining 
 at gnats to maintain that politics is a more civilized, more peaceful 
 weapon, when the political organization proposes to carry behind 
 its back "the big stick" of the economic organization, ' with which 
 to emphasize its civilized and peaceable intentions. The whole dif- 
 ference is the difference between direct and indirect action. 
 
 The question of peace or war is optional with the master class, 
 it is not for us to decide which it shall be. But it is our duty to be 
 prepared for both. Only the economic organization can do this. The 
 
48 AS TO POLITICS. 
 
 political organization is capable of preparing for neither. It is in- 
 competent to bring about a peaceful solution, because society will 
 have to be reconstructed on economic lines; it would be incapable 
 of preparing for war because its organization is only a general staff 
 without a regular army. ' But why speak of peace or war ! The cap- 
 italist class has already chosen war. Our blood has run in torrents, 
 as in the Paris Commune, or bespattered the road to Hazelton and 
 Cripple Creek; the rope has strangled some of our early champions 
 and is in preparation for others. To speak of a possibility of peace- 
 able settlement between us and the master class, is the same as the 
 mutual agreement between the man flat on his back and him who 
 holds the dagger to his throat. The war has been going on these 
 many years and is raging fiercely now. How can anybody suggest 
 a peaceable settlement, especially as we demand complete surren- 
 der? 
 
 Another thing which seems to worry some of my critics is that 
 if we were to discard politics and have only an economic organiza- 
 tion, we would, Peter Sehlemil-like, be without a shadow or reflex, 
 which is against the rule, as no economic manifestation should ap- 
 pear in public without its political reflex or shadow any more than 
 a self-respecting citizen would go out without his shadow. These 
 critics seem to forget that a revolutionary, economic organization 
 with an aim to reconstruct society, has its reflex or shadow pro- 
 jected forward, and that no true reflex could be contained in the 
 frame of politics. Insofar as the organization also serves the in- 
 cidental purpose of fighting the every-day battles of the working 
 class it is entitled to a shadow on the political field. But that 
 shadow will be thrown as indicated in Bruckere's report of the 
 French movement; our organized strength will cause the ruling 
 class to fall all over themselves in an attempt to "reflect" us on 
 the political field, in order to save themselves from a worse ca- 
 lamity. 
 
 For these and other reasons I still maintain that the Preamble 
 of the I. W. W. should be so amended as to exclude political ac- 
 tion. Only thus will we have found a solid basis upon which all 
 workingmen can unite. The operation may be painful, but it must 
 be endured. 
 
 ANSWER. 
 
 [Again, for the sake of keeping the record clear, the first thing 
 to be done is to record the fact thatthe question asked by The Peo- 
 ple at the incipience of this discussion remains unanswered, to wit, 
 how are the. ranks of the I. W. W. ( of the revolutionary army in- 
 tended to "take and hold" the means of production, etc., to recruit 
 the necessary forces in America for that eventful and final act of 
 the revolution, if the I. W. W. were to start by rejecting the civil- 
 ized method of settling social disputes, the method of a peaceful 
 trial of strength, offered by political action, and plant itself, in- 
 
. AS TO POLITICS. 49 
 
 stead, upon the principle of physical force only? — This is the is- 
 sue. Sandgren, like the others who hold with him, leaves it un- 
 touched. 
 
 We say Sandgren leaves it untouched. That is putting the case 
 mildly for him. in so far as he can be said to have at all touched 
 it, he overthrows himself. What was Sandgren's motion, so to 
 speak? It was that THE I. W. W. DROP THE POLITICAL 
 CLAUSE FROM ITS PREAMBLE. He who comes with such a 
 proposition, and is met with the question, How are we to recruit 
 our forces if we start by discarding the political, or peaceful trial 
 of strength? — he who comes with a motion such as Sandgren's, and 
 is met with the question just put, cannot do, as Sandgren does, 
 show that the I. W. W. to-day, with the political clause which he 
 would strike out, is doing the very work that we claim it could not 
 do in the long run without that clause. If such a statement was 
 meant as an answer to our question, the answer overthrows the 
 original motion. It yields the point at issue. 
 
 We may again stop here. All that is essential to the issue is 
 covered by the above observation. Nevertheless, again mindful of 
 the experience that central errors often derive their nourishment, 
 if they do not actually rise, from collateral errors, we shall here 
 take up the principal mistakes, in Sandgren's reply — mistakes, 
 which, though irrelevant to the real issue are important, relatively 
 and absolutely. 
 
 First — Those critics of Sandgren, who agree with him against 
 political action but find fault with his looking for support in sta- 
 tistics, do him and their cause injustice. There is no theory but 
 should be based upon facts. Sandgren yielded to a correct instinct 
 in seeking the support of figures for his conclusion. Who knows 
 to what extent his erroneous conclusion was due to the erroneous 
 figures that he quoted. Yielding to the same correct instinct he cor- 
 rectly returns to statistics. Again his statistical reasoning is at 
 fault. The array of items that foot up eighteen million child, wo- 
 man, foreigner, Negro, floating, and otherwise disfranchised wage 
 workers by no means warrants the conclusion that they "can in no 
 manner be directly interested in politics." Far from it. The con- 
 clusion reveals one of the false notions that dominate the anti- 
 political action mind. That mind cannot disengage itself from the 
 notion that political action begins and ends with conventions, nom- 
 inations of tickets and voting. This is false. Political action, con- 
 ducted by revolutionists, consists in something else besides those 
 acts; it consists in something else infinitely more important than 
 any or all of those acts; it consists in revolutionary agitation and 
 education upon the civilized plane that presupposes a peaceful trial 
 of strength ; that is, settlement of the dispute. "What is to be 
 done with them [these child, woman, foreign. Negro, floating and 
 otherwise disfranchised wage workers! politically?" asks our 
 friend. What? Fully sixty per cent, of them, that is, all, except 
 the infants and the sick, can be made the carriers of the agita- 
 tional and educational propaganda of the revolution conducted upon 
 
50 AS TO POLITICS. 
 
 the civilized plane. Though they be not entitled to cast a single 
 vote, they can distribute literature, and those who have the gift — 
 though foreign, female, Negro or otherwise disfranchised — can by 
 speech promote the revolution by teaching it on the political plat- 
 form. — We all know that this actually happens. 
 
 Second — The indisputably correct and, indeed, cheering fact 
 mentioned by Sandgren concerning the widespread revulsion from 
 "parliamentarism," or be it pure and simple Socialism, by no means 
 warrants kis conclusion that, therefore, the other extreme, total re- 
 jection of political action, is correct. Such a conclusion is a "non 
 sequitur," is illogical irom his own premises ; indeed : his own 
 premises warn against the conclusion. The knowledge that the 
 pendulum just was at one extreme is a warning against, rather 
 than an argument in favor of the point which the pendulum is 
 bound to strike immediately after — the other extreme. 
 
 Aye, Sandgren correctly alludes to Marx. The proletarian rev- 
 olutions as Marx says, "criticise themselves constantly; constantly 
 interrupt themselves in their own course ; come back to what seems 
 to have been accomplished, in order to start over anew ; scorn with 
 cruel thoroughness the HALF-MEASURES, weaknesses and 
 meannesses of their first attempts ;" etc. The proletarian revolu- 
 tion started with exclusive physical force attempts ; it "criticised," 
 "interrupted" itself, and swung over to the other extreme of exclu- 
 sive politics; it is again "criticising" and "interrupting" itself and 
 receding from that second extreme posture. The experience it has 
 been making teaches it to "scorn with cruel thoroughness the 
 •HALF-MEASURES, weaknesses and meannesses of its first at- 
 tempts." Experience teaches it that all extremes are HALF- 
 MEASURES; that all half-measures are WEAKNESS; that all 
 weakness leads to MEANNESS— corruption and treason. What 
 corruption and treason the half-measure of pure and simple polit- 
 ical Socialism leads to is palpably shown by the record of the 
 Socialist party Careys of Massachusetts, Hillquits of New York, 
 Buechs and Bergers of Wisconsin. At the same time, written in 
 the blood of the workers is the corruption and treason that flows 
 from the half-measure of exclusively physical force, or so-called 
 "direct" action. The names of the McParlands, of Molly Maguire 
 fame, and of the McKenneys of modern Colorado fame should 
 suffice as hints — to say nothing of what the more recent Dumases 
 and Petiiellas are capable of. 
 
 ■ The S. L. P. seeks not patronizingly to officiate as a shield to 
 the I. W. W. The endeavor of the S. L. P. is directed toward pro- 
 moting the vigorous development of the I. W. W., to the end that 
 the I. W. W. may, schooled by the experience of previous half- 
 measures, itself set up its own shield and itself hold up that shield 
 which will protect it, in front, against the pure and simple politic- 
 ian ; in the rear, against the "agent provocateur." 
 
 Third— Sandgren slips badly when he quotes, against the S. L. 
 P. attitude, page 85 of De Leon's "Two Pages from Roman His- 
 tory," wherein the warning is correctly uttered and illustrated 
 
AS TO POLITICS. 51 
 
 against the practice of double sense and dissimulation in revolu- 
 tions. The passage is recommended to our readers. It describes 
 Gaius Gracchus as bent upon overthrowing the power of the Sen- 
 ate, but keeping the secret "locked in his breast," and indulging in 
 a bit of pantomime that could not throw his foes off their guard, 
 and only succeeded in confusing, thereby "keeping away forces 
 needful to his purpose, whom straightforward language would have 
 attracted." We take Sandgren for too honest a seeker after truth 
 to wish to imply that anything the S. L. P. has done, said or print- 
 ed, whether with regard to the economic or the political action, 
 can even remotely be compared to that HALF-MEASURE of 
 Gaius Gracchus. T:ie ballot of the S. L. P., and the ballot of that 
 political reflex which the I. W. W., as a full-measure body, is 
 bound to reflect, demands and will demand plump and plain the 
 unconditional surrender of the capitalist class ; that' ballot does, 
 and will, place the revolution on the civilized plane of a peaceful 
 trial of strength; last not least, and above all, that ballot, equipped 
 with all the experience of our Age, will school the proletariat in 
 the absolute necessity of organizing the physical force — the integ- 
 rally industrial Union of the working class — which it may and in 
 all probability will need in order to enforce its program in case the 
 capitalist class resorts to the brute measures of the barbarian. 
 There is no "double sense" or "dissimulation" in that posture. 
 
 Fourth — Not unless Sandgren would make out of Marx a sort 
 of Bible — a compilation of scraps from different periods of civil- 
 ization, and therefore often contradictory — can he quote the Marx- 
 ian saying "the emancipation of the workers by the workers them- 
 selves," as an argument against political action, seeing that the 
 same Marx stated : "only the Trades Union can give birth to the 
 true party of Labor." Was Marx's idea that the Union would give 
 birth to a useless thing? If "the emancipation of the workers by 
 the workers themselves" excludes the thought of political action, 
 then Marx floundered when he made the latter utterance. Marx 
 was not infallible. If he is found to have erred the error should 
 be specifically pointed out. Otherwise, in quoting Marx, he should 
 be quoted fully. 
 
 Fifth — The next slip made by Sandgren is closely related to 
 the previous one. He quotes Labriola. The quotation is a mis- 
 quotation. It is that because it is put in a way suggestive of the 
 idea that Labriola wholly spurns political action. The idea is 
 wrong, Labriola's syndicalists (substantially the attitude of the S. 
 L. P.) are affiliated with— what ?— with the Socialist PARTY of 
 Italy!— A POLITICAL ORGANIZATION! The sentiments in 
 the quotation from Labriola are not different from those of the 
 S. L. P. Such sentiments recognize the necessity of the ballot, 
 without "pinning our faith" to it. They recognize in the ballot a 
 potential means of a peaceful trial of strength, and they, so far 
 from "pinning their faith to the ballot," provide for the organiza- 
 tion of the physical force, which the political agitation enables us 
 
52 AS TO POLITICS. 
 
 to organize, Mid which in all likelihood will be needed, but which 
 the Movement will not allow itself to be heated into the blind pas- 
 sion of pushing out of the proper perspective. 
 
 Sixth — We must frankly admit our utter inability to handle 
 Sandgren's contention that an economic organization determined to 
 ignore the political ballot, is "a peaceful organization." Either he 
 is color blind, or we are on the subject. 
 
 Seventh — Finally, Sandgren's closing paragraphs, declaring that 
 there is WAR now, consequently, what is the use of considering 
 peaceful solutions, reflects the unfortunate psychology of our anti- 
 politics friends. Why spend so much time with claims about the 
 peacefulness of the revolutionary economic organization, quotations 
 from Labriola and Marx, statistical figures, parallels in history, 
 etc., etc.? What they mean is that there is WAR now, and conse- 
 quently we might as well fight. THERE IS NO WAR NOW. 
 Unreliable are the conclusions of men who take a word, used in a 
 technical sense, transfer that word to another technical sphere, and 
 then give it, in the second, the meaning it has in the first sphere. 
 There is CLASS WAR to-day; but the word WAR in that sense 
 means something esentially different from the word WAR in the 
 sense used by Sandgren when he says we might as well wage 
 WAR now against the capitalist class. War, in the sense used by 
 Sandgren, has not yet broken out. If it had his articles could not 
 be published in The People, this discussion could not be going on, 
 the capitalist institutions would not be available for the transpor- 
 tation of our thoughts, and neither could write with the peace and 
 comfort that we do. There is no such WAR now. If there were, 
 the discussion would be superfluous; the very fact that Sandgren 
 has raised his anti-politics point is proof that there is no such 
 WAR now. The only justification for Sandgren's contention 
 would be the actual existence of war. Seeing there is none, the 
 ground fails on which to sustain his point. 
 
 In the absence of the only reason why political action should 
 be dropped — the existence of actual war — the only question of 
 moment is how to equip ourselves for that war that we are all 
 agreed we shall in all likelihood be involved in. The question put 
 by The People at the incipience of this discussion remains unan- 
 swered. The glove, thrown down to our anti-political friends, re- 
 mains on the field challenging to be picked up. — Ed. The People.] 
 
AS TO POLITICS. S3 
 
 SEVENTH LETTER 
 By V. H. KOPALD 
 
 New York 
 
 At the time Comrade Sandgren started the discussion "As to 
 Politics," I was in complete accord with the Editor. Since, I have 
 gone over to the other side, and I wish to give a few reasons why. 
 
 In actual fact we live now in a state of war, a war of classes. 
 It was always a maxim of war: Do what the enemy does not want 
 you to. The capitalist class let you do all the- political agitation 
 you want, but use all obstacles possible, even force and gallows 
 against economic agitation. 
 
 No matter what anybody thinks, the end of all political agita- 
 tion must be the ballot; and the ballot and election is one of the 
 principal assets of capitalism. After every election the whole capi- 
 talist class is elated, the proletarian is depressed. Naturally so. 
 The sight of even a would-be people's tribune, like Hearst, getting 
 "defeated" by a majority of 75,000 makes comrade Sandgren argue 
 that the capitalists are more numerous than the proletarians, and 
 makes thousands of proletarians think, Socialism is hundreds of 
 years away. It puts at the disposal of the capitalist the unanswer- 
 able argument, We'll give in to Socialism, whenever the majority 
 of people want Socialism. As to civilized argument and agitation ; 
 
 What is "civilized agitation?" Are we in a state of war, or 
 not? If we are in a state of war, then war is hell and civilization 
 is impossible. We have only one object in view : emancipation of 
 the working class. Civilized agitation between bandits and vic- 
 tims ! Nonsense ! 
 
 With all my means in my power I shall still support The Peo- 
 ple, as The People is more industrial than political. But I shall 
 support no political party. The little energy I could give to the 
 .former before I shall now turn to the Industrial Workers of the 
 World. 
 
 ANSWER. 
 
 [The distinguishing feature of this week's contribution against 
 the position of the Industrial Workers of the World, whose pre- 
 amble proposes the unification of the working class "on the polit- 
 ical as well as on the industrial field ;" or the correlative position 
 of the S. L. P., whose literature announces that, without the eco- 
 nomic organization the day of the political victory of Socialism 
 would be the day of its defeat, and that, without political action, 
 which places the Social Revolution in America upon the civilized 
 plane of endeavoring to reach a peaceful trial of strength, the 
 emancipation of the workers would be indefinitely postponed, and 
 
54 AS TO POLITICS. 
 
 could then be reached only by wading through a massacre, both 
 the delay and the then assuredly vast amount of bloodshed being 
 brought on and rendered necessary by the workers themselves ; in 
 short, the distinguishing feature of this week's contribution against 
 all political action and in favor of physical force only — that dis- 
 tinguishing feature lies in that this week's contribution indulges in 
 no feints. Kopald wastes no time upon the corruption that politics 
 engender; he consumes no space with recitals of the dangers that 
 beset politics ; he resorts to no needless quotations concerning the 
 revolutionary character of the Labor movement ; he leaves alone all 
 attempts at statistical display; he gives a wide berth to phrases 
 and to controversial finessings; — he says plump and plain what 
 he means. What he means is that there is actual war to-day. If 
 all the previous contributors against politics, and in favor of phys- 
 ical force only had been as clear in their minds upon the thought 
 that was working upon them, then they would have taken less 
 space ; they would have saved us much work ; and the question — 
 how are the ranks of the Industrial Workers of the World, of the 
 economic revolutionary army intended to "take and hold" tne 
 means of production, etc., to recruit the necessary forces in Amer- 
 ica for that eventful and final act of the revolution if the Indus- 
 trial Workers of the World were to start by rejecting the civilized 
 method for settling social disputes, the method of a peaceful trial 
 of strength, offered by political action, and plant itself, instead, 
 upon the principle of physical force only? — this question, put by 
 "The People" at the inception of the discussion, and left unan- 
 swered up to date, would not have been put. It would have been 
 uiinecessary. The question could be met only in one of two ways 
 — either by answering it straightforwardly, or by pronouncing it 
 preposterous. Kopald is the only contributor who can not be 
 charged with having evaded the question. His contribution amounts 
 to pronouncing the question preposterous. From his premises he 
 is right. But his premises are wrong. 
 
 Of course, if indeed our present state were one of actual war, 
 then a question that proceeds from the premises of there being 
 actual peace, would be preposterous. Of course, if actual war had 
 already broken out, then none but a lunatic would strike the post- 
 ure of a possible "peaceful trial of strength." Such a posture 
 would not rest upon the elevation of civilization ; it would be a 
 mockery of civilization. Such a posture would rest upon the depths 
 of stupidity. With bullets flying around, and the "dead line" estab- 
 lished by pickets, there is nothing left but force. Woe would be to 
 the proletariat of America, woe to the emancipation of the prole- 
 tariat of the world, whose emancipation depends upon that of their 
 American fellow wage slave, if the outbreak of actual war found 
 the working class of America as disorganized as now they are. Were 
 that to happen, then that which The People has been warning 
 against, as the inevitable result of a system of organization that 
 
AS TO POLITICS. 55 
 
 started with the rejection of the civilized method of striving for a 
 peaceful trial of strength, which political action alone offers— then, 
 that result would not be questioned by our opponents. The move- 
 ment of the American working class would find itself dwarfed into 
 a conspiracy ; and they could see their actions reflected in the ac- 
 tions of the Russian revolutionists : compelled to move about in 
 disguise, creeping stealthily at night to place bombs in the chimneys 
 of the residences of the American Wittes, the heroines among 
 their women sacrificing their chastity upon the altars of Freedom 
 as the only means to gain access to the soldiery of the Despot class 
 in order to stir them to mutiny, as was done by several heroic Rus- 
 sian revolutionary women in the fortress of Kronstadt. We are 
 confident in the belief that Kopald thanks his stars that actual war 
 is not yet. The statement that the "Capitalist class use all obsta- 
 cles, even force and gallows against economic agitation" is mere 
 rhetoric. The issue in this discussion can not be settled by rhet- 
 oric. Obstacles? yes, many; force? yes, quite often; the gallows? 
 that also, occasionally; — these and other devices does the capital- 
 ist class apply against the economic agitation — and it has applied 
 them, though net yet the gallows, against revolutionary political 
 agitation as well. It has done all that in the course of the class 
 war. But the "class war," that socio-economic term, is not actual 
 wai . 
 
 All reasoning, proceeding from the premises that there is 
 actual war now, proceeds from incomplete premises; being incom- 
 plete the reasoning is premature ; such reasoning can not choose but 
 be false in consequence, and, by every operation, multiplying into 
 wider error. 
 
 There is no actual war now. The question put by The People 
 at the incipience of the discussion stands. 
 
 We rely upon it that the sense of right on the part of our 
 opponents will do us the justice to admit their side has been treat- 
 ed with fairness. The contributors have not been limited in space ; 
 their contributions have not been mutilated; the subject has during 
 these months been thoroughly and courteously ventilated ; an im- 
 partial and thoughtful audience, bent upon ascertaining the best 
 in behalf of our common cause, will have read and reflected. Fur- 
 ther discussion on the subject should be unnecessary. There must 
 be an end even to the best of things. Moreover, there are impera- 
 tive calls upon the limited space of the Weekly People for other 
 matters. 
 
 Accordingly the discussion is closed with this issue. We say 
 the discussion. The columns of The People will remain open 
 under the head "As to Politics" to any reader who will furnish 
 a direct answer to the question that The People has propounded, 
 and which has been repeated above : what that question purports, 
 the discussion has made clear. None but direct answers will be 
 
56 AS TO POLITICS. ' 
 
 accepted ; such answers, if forthcoming, need occupy but little 
 space. If the question is answerable, the movement is entitled to 
 it. The S. L. P. is not nailed to any special "means;" it is bent 
 upon a "goal." The S. L. P. will hail any "means" that will stand 
 the test of reason and experience, and would give justifiable prom- 
 ise of reaching the goal more swiftly than the means of combined 
 political and economic action, to which the Party now holds. 
 
 There still remain unpublished five communications. Four of 
 them — George F. Spettel's of St. Paul, Minn. ; O. Eherich's of Oak- 
 land, Cal. ; Charles Rice's of New York; and Julius Kiefe's of 
 Cincinnati, Ohio — will be successively published in the course of 
 the next two weeks. With the exception of Kiefe's these com- 
 munications contain bona fide questions exclusively. Under ordinary 
 circumstances they would have been answered in the Letter Box. 
 It is, however, preferable in this instance to publish the questions 
 themselves. They will appear under the head "As to Politics," 
 with the answers attached. Kiefe's communication, while embody- 
 ing questions, might be justly excluded seeing that it trends on the 
 controversial, and also wanders from the question. Nevertheless 
 its shortness assists in giving it the benefit of being considered as 
 bona fide questions only. It will go in.. 
 
 The fifth communication, from Goldie Karnoil, St. Louis, Mo., 
 is barred by the decision to close the discussion. It is a lengthy, 
 eleven-page closely written and merely controversial production, 
 that merely repeats past assertions made by the lady's side of the 
 issue, and that, although it is the last one received, having come 
 in only last week, again evades the question put by The People. 
 Phrases like these — "every lost strike is a lesson ;" "since our 
 planet revolves through space nothing of lasting value for the 
 working class has ever been accomplished through preaching ;" etc., 
 etc.; — are no answer to the question. Of course, every event is a 
 lesson : even the Thaw trial is a lesson. Of course, preaching- 
 alone is worthless : "aims" without "organization" to carry them 
 out are, as The People has shown before, just so much hot air. Still 
 less are phrases of which the following is a type — "once class-con- 
 scious and organized, there is no power on earth to keep the work- 
 ing class from taking over production" — an answer to the question. 
 That is a begging of the question. Finally, and least of all, is th^; 
 repetition of the statement that the Industrial Workers of the 
 World (with its present preamble proclaiming the necessity of 
 "working class unity "on the political, as well as on the industrial 
 field") is organizing grandly — least of all is that an answer to the 
 question, especially when the "answer" comes from those who wish 
 to remove the political clause from the Industrial Workers of the 
 World preamble. It does not follow that because a man, in pos- 
 session of both his legs, walks steadily, therefore one of his legs 
 being sawed off he will be able to keep from hobbling and falling. 
 Reason dictates an opposite conclusion. The discussion is closed. — 
 Ed. The People.] 
 
AS TO POLITICS. 57 
 
 EIGHTH LETTER 
 By G. F. SPETTEL 
 
 St. Haul, Minn. 
 
 In your answer to Arturo Giovannitti you say "Accordingly, 
 the civilized revolutionary organization proclaims the Right, de- 
 mands it, argues for it, and willingly submits to the civilized meth- 
 od of polling the votes. And it organizes itself with the requisite 
 physical force in case its defeated adversary should resort to the 
 barbarous way. of enforcing his will." 
 
 Now my question is: How is the organization to know when 
 its adversary is defeated? Is there any probability that the polit- 
 ical machine that counts the votes will become good or terror- 
 stricken, and honestly count the votes, and thereby proclaim the 
 •defeat of the idle ciass by the working class? 
 
 ANSWER. 
 
 [A political movement knows from a thousand and one sources 
 whether its numerical forces are strong or weak. In this city, for 
 instance, Hearst was selected Mayor two years ago. Everybody 
 knows that. The reason he is not in the City Hall to-day is that 
 he was not equipped with the physical force to enforce his victory. 
 The counting out of Hearst deceived nobody. 
 
 The above answer is on the supposition that the political move- 
 ment of Labor would triumph, and the Capitalist Class then at- 
 tempt the trick played on Hearst. The chances are against such a 
 contingency. The chances are as stated several weeks ago in the 
 answer to Hoffman. Some capitalist outrage on the economic field 
 will precipitate war. In that case the issue will depend upon the 
 degree of integrally industrial organization that the proletariat 
 may find itself in. 
 
 If they should find themselves in so weak a degree of integ- 
 rally industrial organization as they now are in, or in a stronger 
 one, yet not possessed of the minimum of strength needed for re- 
 sistance, cohesion and attraction, then the armed force of the cap- 
 italist class will mop the earth with them. Then there will be born 
 an "Underground America," as there has long been an "Under- 
 ground Russia." The handful of revolutionists will be forced into 
 surreptitious propaganda, and the Revolution will have to raise 
 itself above ground by its own boot-straps. 
 
 If, however, the proletariat should, at such a time, find them- 
 
58 AS TO POLITICS. 
 
 selves organized to such a degree of integral industrialism (and 
 the more strongly the better) that sufficient resistance could be 
 offered to the capitalist, and sufficient attraction could be exercised 
 upon the rest and not yet organized workers, — then the proletariat 
 would mop the earth with the capitalist class. It would be able 
 to do so because its industrial form of organization would not only 
 furnish it the required physical force, but would also enable it 
 forthwith to conduct production. But — 
 
 But that possibility, or eventuality, is out of all question if 
 the industrial organization were to start upon the theory that there 
 is actual war now. If it did, it would be throttled in short order. 
 Only by recognizing the civilized method of peaceful trial of 
 strength, implied in political action, will the proletariat be able to 
 recruit the physical force (industrially organized workers) with the 
 aid of which, under the first supposition, it will be in position to 
 enforce its political triumph; or with the aid of which it may be 
 able, under the second supposition, to meet successfully capital, 
 brutality. 
 
 Thus, in either case, political action is as necessary as indus- 
 trial organization is indispensable. — Ed. The People.] 
 
AS TO POLITICS. 5* 
 
 NINTH LETTER 
 By O. EH ERICH 
 
 . Oakland, Cal. 
 
 Since the controversy as to politics has tapered down to this, 
 point, I feel constrained to ask the question of the Editor: "Have- 
 the workers in reality the choice left as to effective tactics?" 
 
 Granted the validity of the assertion by the Editor, that with- 
 out open political agitation the working class movement will nar- 
 row down to conspiracy, is it not being driven that way by the. 
 tactics of the ruling class? And must not the ruled class adopt, 
 the same methods if it wishes to meet and vanquish the opponents? 
 Was it any more or less than a "conspiracy" that the mine-owners 
 resorted to in the war in Colorado? Did it not burst through the. 
 thin veneer of constitutionality and brag of it in words? Did not 
 the men in Colorado express their political will in regards to an 
 8-hour law by a majority vote of 47,000, for a constitutional 
 amendment? If all the laborers in that state had been organized, 
 in as sound and solid an organization as the W. F. M., could they 
 not have borne the brunt of the battle without the political move- 
 ment? Could an utterly irresponsible autocratic power in Russia, 
 have gone any further after the same amount of provocation? 
 Could these things not happen in any other State than Colorado,- 
 after the late Supreme Court decision? Let us not deceive our- 
 selves, but do we really live in a constitutional country or is it 
 only an illusion? The powers in Colorado were only provoked to< 
 the extent of being compelled to employ three shifts of men in- 
 stead of two, yet when they could not starve the men into sub- 
 mission, did they not play their last trump? Could they have done- 
 any worse in the face of an existing conspiracy on the part of the- 
 miners? Is it not a merit for the W. F. M. to have unmasked the 
 law arid order brigands by tearing the mummery of hypocrisy from 
 the faces of the plutes and shown the working class with what 
 kind of an enemy they must reckon? Is there a possibility o 4 
 emancipation by peaceful methods after these experiences? Will 
 not the ruling class provoke violence if the demands for better 
 conditions of the workers threaten the profits of the former? Has 
 the working class really a choice left as to tactics, or is not the 
 manner of resistance determined by the method of oppression? 
 
 Fully realizing the importance of keeping the proletarians 
 from indulging in a headlong reckless, unheedful rush, can the 
 class-conscious workers be trusted enough to learn from past expe- 
 riences and shape their course accordingly? Have we any choice? 
 
<60 AS TO POLITICS. 
 
 ANSWER. 
 
 [Boiled down to their substance, the above questions proceed 
 from the error of holding that actual war exists now. In last 
 week's answer to Kopald the error was exposed. Eherich himself 
 would recognize his error if he allowed his eyes a wider sweep of 
 the horizon. 
 
 It is true that the capitalist class has violated the constitution 
 in the instance of the Colorado men. But that is not evidence 
 enough of the existence of actual war. The rest of us are doing 
 what Haywood was kidnapped for, and yet we are at large. The 
 •kidnapping and other outrages had taken place, and yet the con- 
 vention of the Industrial Workers of the World met and worked 
 in peace, although the capitalists aimed at its destruction, and 
 .evidently had their agents there to do their bidding. 
 
 Of identical nature is the error implied in the question whether 
 the workers should not "adopt the same methods" as the capital- 
 ists. In this, as in the instance just touched on above, Eherich just 
 sees one thing, but overlooks other things that are necessary for 
 a correct conclusion. Eherich correctly points out the barbaric 
 methods resorted to by the capitalists. He overlooks another thing 
 that these self-same capitalists resort to, and without which their 
 barharic methods would not work in the manner they do. That 
 •other thing that capitalists resort to is external homage to the 
 ways of civilization, external homage to the Genius of the Age. 
 He who says, the workers should adapt themselves to the methods 
 of capitalism and cites their barbarism may not exclude their ex- 
 ternal homage to civilization. Adaptation in this instance would 
 consist in a hypocritical posture towards political action, plus prep- 
 aration of the means of barbarism. Adaptation, accordingly, would 
 reject Eherich's suggested repudiation of political action. The bona 
 fide Movement of Labor may not "adopt" the methods of the cap- 
 italist class in the class war. The Labor Movement must, on the 
 contrary, place itself upon the highest plane civilization has reached. 
 It must insist upon the enforcement of civilized methods, and it 
 must do so in the way that civilized man does. Civilized man acts 
 ■equipped with experience. Experience teaches that Right is a toy 
 unless backed by Might; experience teaches also that the capitalist 
 class is a brigand class bearing the mask of civilization, and that 
 it is helped in the cheat by the undoubted circumstance that it has 
 been a promoter of civilization. Equipped with this experience and 
 knowledge, the civilized man will take up political action as the 
 ■only means that, theoretically, promises a peaceful trial of strength ; 
 and he will simultaneously organize the integrally industrial union 
 as the only available and the all-sufficient Might to enforce the 
 Right that his ballot proclaims. 
 
 As to the question, whether or not the capitalist does not now 
 ""conspire" and "act in secret," and whether the worker should 
 
AS TO POLITICS. 61 
 
 not adopt that method also — that question, partly answered above, 
 deserves special treatment. No; secrecy is the bane of the union 
 generally; it would be the destruction of the revolutionary union! 
 The Mahoneys and Shermans wanted secrecy. The widest publicity 
 is essential to safety. Secrecy leaves the majorities in the Unions 
 in ignorance of what happens at Union meetings; secrecy pro- 
 motes the trade of the police spy, the "agents provocateurs," those 
 raw-boned "anti-political revolutionists," like McParland, in the 
 pay of the capitalist politicians. Left in ignorance of what hap- 
 pens .in the Union, the majority of the membership -is ever depen- 
 dent upon private information; the informant may Be honorable,, 
 he may also be dishonorable; the revolution must not be exposed 
 to trip upon misinformation. On the other hand, the "agent prov- 
 ocateur" will find his occupation gone if publicity is enforced; the 
 blood and thunder ranter, knowing his words would be published 
 as coming from him will love his neck too well to indulge in 
 crime-promoting declamation. Secrecy is death; publicity, life. 
 
 Has the Movement any choice? Certainly it has. — Ed. The 
 People.] 
 
<62 AS TO POLITICS. 
 
 TENTH LETTER 
 By JULIUS KIEFE 
 
 •Cincinnati, O. 
 
 The S. L. P. members of the Industrial Workers of the World 
 always claimed, that poL-tical (parliamentary) action is an absolute 
 fluke : except, if it is backed up by economic organization on the 
 lines of the Industrial Workers of the World. They also tell us 
 in word and print, that people, believing in the economic organiza- 
 tion to be the sole factor, by using the general strike tactics are 
 just as wrong in their theory as the Socialists from the Socialist 
 party who are of the opinion that the ballot only will bring them 
 economic and political liberty. Another argument we hear at pres- 
 ent quite often and that is : How could we (non-parliamentary 
 Socialists) organize the workers on general strike tactics without 
 being jailed or hanged at present? Indeed very easy to answer. 
 We tell the working class that the Industrial Workers of the World 
 (and that is the reason we belong to it) is a revolutionary eco- 
 nomic organization, whose ultimate object will be to free the work- 
 ers, who are robbed under the capitalist system of exploitation in 
 the production of wealth by not owning the necessary tools to pro- 
 duce commodities for themselves. For this reason the Industrial 
 Workers of the World was organized and not like pure and simple 
 unions a la American Federation of Labor to get for the workers 
 an increase in wages and possibly a shortening of hours. — If the 
 capitalist class fears this proposition so much, that it would not 
 tolerate such an organization, because it trains its members for the 
 Socflal Revolution, how is it, that it allows a political party such 
 .as the S. L. P. or even S. P. to make propaganda for Socialism? 
 In my opinion this looks very funny indeed, or is it perhaps that 
 the capitalist attorneys and the leaders of the different parliamen- 
 tary Socialist parties have some kind of an agreement to blind the 
 workers if you please, when the day of the social revolution ar- 
 rives and is declared by the working class themselves by refusing 
 to work any longer for the capitalist parasites? In fact Mr. Igle- 
 sias of Spain and also Mr. Vandervelde of Belgium, two of the 
 prominent members of the international political Socialist parties 
 blinded the workers of their respective countries, when they were 
 in conflict several years ago, while the social general strike was 
 tested there. (This information I received by reading a leaflet on 
 the general strike by Walter Arnold about a year ago.) As far as 
 the preamble of the Industrial Workers of the World in regards 
 to organizing the workers on the political as well as on the eco- 
 nomic field is at least said confusing and should be changed at our- 
 next convention to read : The workers should be organized on the 
 economic field to overthrow the economic and the political state 
 of capitalism. 
 
AS TO POLITICS. 63 
 
 ANSWER. 
 
 [Upon a more careful reading of the above the impression that 
 it asked some questions was found to be false. Had a first glance 
 at the communication conveyed the correct impression, it would 
 have been excluded by last week's decision to close the discussion. 
 Kiefe's contribution not only evades the question repeatedly put by 
 The People to the total opposers of political action, but it is cast 
 in an unhappy controversial mold, unhappy because in not a single 
 instance are its premises correct, the whole thing reveals a woeful 
 confusion of facts and rashness in arriving at a conclusion. The 
 promise of an answer having been made last week, the promise 
 will be kept. 
 
 When ten years hence — 'tis to be hoped sooner — Kiefe, a mem- 
 ber of last year's Industrial Workers of the World convention may 
 happen to read his above argument, he will feel quite charitable 
 toward those workers, who, notwithstanding they have frequently 
 heard his arguments against the American Federation of Labor 
 and the capitalist class in general, still keep coming back with re- 
 torts that prove they still are muddled, still remain tangled in pre- 
 vious misconceptions, still continue stuffed with prejudices, and 
 still have failed to learn the lesson that reckless accusation can 
 only work against the unification of the working class. 
 
 If Kiefe can still use the term "parliamentary" action as iden- 
 tical with "political" action in this discussion ; if he can still ven- 
 ture to insist that, without political action so as to recognize the 
 civilized method of peaceful trial of strength, the working class 
 (not a handful of men behind closed and barred doors) can or- 
 ganize itself for the revolution, and to insist by simply insisting; 
 if he still does not see the difference between the power that apo- 
 litical body, (a body recognizing the peaceful method of trial of 
 strength) enjoys, by the mere fact of its civilized posture, to force the 
 capitalist class to draw in its horns against it, and the contrary power 
 which a body, that preaches physical force only, does, by the mere 
 fact of its own uncivilized posture, suicidally exert to furnish that 
 same capitalist class a welcome excuse to draw out and sharpen 
 its horns against it ; if he still does not see that, and can only con- 
 sider "funny" the arguments of those who do see, explain, and de- 
 clare the difference; if he still is so confused on the subject at is- 
 sue that he perceives not the radical difference between a "strike" 
 and a "general strike;" if he still is so reckless 'as to repeat, wholly 
 without verification of the charge, such slander against the integ- 
 rity of Iglesias and Vandervelde, as he hurls at them and' insin- 
 uates indiscriminately against all other Socialist political parties, 
 is satisfied with merely stating the source from which he borrows 
 his slanderous conclusion, is ready to appear as a swallower of the 
 untested charge of somebody else, and ventures to make such a 
 sequence the basis of his stand ; — if notwithstanding his contribu- 
 
64 AS TO POLITICS. 
 
 tion is dated as late as February 7, months after the discussion 
 started, and enjoying better opportunities than the average worker, 
 whom he addresses in behalf of the Industrial Workers of the 
 World, Kiefe himself is found guilty of their foibles, himself 
 comes back with retorts that prove he still is muddled, still re- 
 mains tangled in previous misconceptions, still continues stuffed 
 with prejudices, and still has failed to learn the lesson that reck- 
 less accusation unaccompanied with even a vestige of evidence, 
 can only work against the unification of the working class — if this 
 is thus, Kiefe should not despair of the "dullards." 
 
 Taking up Kiefe's statements seriatim we shall rapidly run 
 through them. 
 
 "Parliamentary'' action is not "political" action. Without "polit- 
 ical action," true enough, there could be no "parliamentary" action. 
 But the latter need not follow the former. For instance. There 
 was a campaigning and election for delegates to last year's conven- 
 tion of the Industrial Workers of the World. Some of the dele- 
 gates tried to parliamentarize at the convention. Those were the 
 ones who favored compromise with treason and corruption. The 
 revolutionists refused to "parliamentarize." They stood to their 
 guns. They neither compromised nor bolted, and they triumphed. 
 
 Superfluous to heap up further proof that a body that organ- 
 izes for war only can expect to remain unbattered by the capital- 
 ist, from above, or unscuttled by the MacParland "agents provo- 
 cateurs," or their kindred the Dumases and Petriellas, from below. 
 The style of argument adopted by the woman who insisted against 
 her husband that a knife was a pair of scissors, and who, when 
 finally ducked under water, stuck out her arm, and with her fingers 
 made the motion of scissors, will not stead in the discussions of 
 the labor moyement — least of all by folks who evade a direct an- 
 swer to a pointed, legitimate and fair question. 
 
 If the ballot, an acquisition of civilization for peaceful trial of 
 strength, is a concession from the capitalist class, then all other 
 conquests of civilization are concessions, the right to organise eco- 
 nomically, included. If it is "funny" to utilize the concession of 
 political action; it must be side-splitting for any inflexible non- 
 accepter of concessions to start Unions. Consequently, if "funny" 
 is the claim that the capitalist class should "allow a political party 
 such as the S. L. P." but will not tolerate an organization that 
 repudiates the civilized method of trial of strength, if that claim 
 is "funny,'" then roars-provoking must be the hint that the S. L. P. 
 and all Socialist political bodies indiscriminately are in the pay of 
 the capitalist class. 
 
 The organizing for the ordinary strike is no social act; the 
 organizing for the general uprising of the working class is an act 
 of high social significance. The latter is a political act in that its 
 purpose is the remodeling of society. Consequently, though "phys- 
 ical force," after a fashion, rather than the "ballot," is the means 
 
AS TO POLITICS. 65 
 
 for the trial of strength in ordinary strikes, civilization does not 
 condemn the Union that organizes for such "physical" demonstra- 
 tion. In the instance of the so-called "general strike" (a most in- 
 felicitous and contradictory term in the mouths of those who mean 
 the dispossession of the capitalist class) the union that organizes 
 for that to the tune of "down with political action !" would to-day, 
 in America, tactlessly and uselessly bring down upon itself the 
 condemnation of civilization. 
 
 Walter Arnold libeled Iglesias and Vandervelde. As to the 
 latter, The People has more than once expressed its opposition, 
 to his methods. To suspect his integrity, however one may suspect 
 his judgment, is gratuitous insult. As to Iglesias, the gratuitous- 
 ness of the insult is still crasser. Spanish conditions are among, 
 the most backward. Difficult is there the part of the revolutionist. 
 So difficult that suffering has bred unreasoning rage in many heads 
 and breasts. Not even of these would it be fair to say they "blind- 
 ed the workers" by "some kind of agreement," although they have 
 more than once led the workers to useless slaughter — and then 
 themselves escaped over the mountains into France, or over the 
 water to Italy. The charge that Iglesias "blinded the workers" by 
 "some kind of agreement" is an unqualified libel. — Ed. The 
 People.! 
 
66 AS TO POLITICS. 
 
 ELEVENTH LETTER 
 By CHARLES RICE 
 
 New York 
 
 The controversial columns "As to Politics" have proved in- 
 tensely interesting and suggestive even to workers outside of the 
 ranks of the Socialist Labor Party or the Industrial Workers ot 
 the World. Quite a notable element, ever growing numerically, of 
 the Socialist party men, members as well as non-members (the 
 writer among them) are on the point of turning a new leaf in So- 
 cialist theory and tactics. Many of us are disgusted with the un- 
 tenable, double-faced hobnobbing of the Socialist party organiza- 
 tions and its prominents (a la Hanford, Hoehn, etc.), with the A. 
 F. of L., not to speak of campaigning methods frequently resorted 
 to by the Socialist par_ty in different States that nauseate by their 
 stench of Rep-Dem vote-catching. We are now taking stock of 
 our traditional parliamentarian Socialism and are looking around 
 us for new light. 
 
 I am confident that I voice the sense of a great number of 
 Socialist party members and sympathizers in propounding the fol- 
 lowing questions for our especial benefit: 
 
 I. 
 
 What is the exact position of the Daily People on the ques- 
 tion of so-called political action in connection with a class-con- 
 scious labor consolidation of the Industrial Workers of the World 
 type? So far, unfortunately, we have not been able to cull from 
 the columns of The People a definite and exhaustive exposition of 
 The People's attitude on this head, an exposition definite as to the 
 terms involved (e. .g. "political action") and as to practical steps to 
 carry out that attitude. Let the Editor take the trouble to give 
 an exhaustive statement of all that his position implies, taking care 
 to define preliminarily every doubtful, or involved, or ambiguous 
 term or expression, and assuming nothing for granted until he 
 has covered this part of his work (i. e. definition) and he will 
 have cleared the way for a much more effective and beneficial dis- 
 cussion of this question of the utmost importance to all wage slaves. 
 
 II. 
 
 Is the position taken by the Daily People on this question 
 identical with that of the S. L. P. itself? 
 
 III. 
 
 This query is put here simply as a hint to the Editor to take 
 account of it in formulating his answer to the first query, as the 
 answer to the third is necessarily involved in the answer to the 
 
AS TO POLITICS. 67 
 
 first. The platform of the S. L. P. states that "The time is fast 
 coming' when, in the natural course of social evolution (italics are 
 mine), this (capitalist) system, through the destructive action of 
 its failures and crises, on the one hand, and the constructive ten- 
 dencies of its trusts and other capitalist combinations, on the other 
 hand, will have worked out its own downfall," and "We, there- 
 fore, call upon the wage workers of America to organize under the 
 banner of the Socialist Labor Party into a class-conscious body, 
 aware of its rights and determined to conquer them." 
 
 In view of this, the following queries under this head are 
 legitimate : 
 
 (a) What is there to conquer and from whom to conquer, if 
 this system will naturally work out its own downfall? 
 
 (b) If some conquering has to be done, who will do it — the 
 Socialist Labor Party or the Industrial Workers of the World 
 (through a political organization of its own) ? 
 
 (c) What shall we, in quest of new and certain light in our 
 sea of doubts, meanwhile do? Shall we join the S. L. P., help 
 build it up, get ourselves drilled for the final "conquering" and 
 then disband and walk over to the political organization that the 
 Industrial Workers of the World will have by that time evolved? 
 
 (d) Will the Industrial Workers of the World at all be likely 
 to evolve such an organization if we persist in building up the 
 S. L. P.? If we are to join the Industrial Workers of the World 
 and to try to steer its course away from politics, that is from 
 indorsing any existing Socialist political organization, and at the 
 same time band ourselves outside as a body of staunch S. L. P.-ites, 
 then where will our Industrial Workers of the World political ex- 
 pression through an organization of its own come in? 
 
 (e) Shall we not join the S. L. P., but stay in the S. P. and 
 try to do what we oan to counteract the semi-bourgeois tendencies 
 and dubious methods of the Bergers, Wilshires, and their ilk, and 
 wait till the Industrial Workers of the World will work out its 
 own political machinery for "taking" and afterwards "holding" 
 the means of wealth-production and distribution, as we will have 
 to at any rate ; to disband, to strip ourselves of our S. L. P. or 
 S. P. garments in order to don the full revolutionary dress suit 
 of the Industrial Workers of the World? 
 
 ANSWER. 
 
 [Answer to T.— A rapid sketch of the social evolution that 
 underlies the word "political" may aid in understanding the difier- 
 ent shades of meaning that the word conveys. 
 
 Genesis 2:24, proclaims this maxim: "therefore shall a man 
 leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife;" 
 
68 AS TO POLITICS. 
 
 the same Genesis 3:16, proclaims this other maxim: "and thy de- 
 sire shall be unto thy husband, and he shall rule over thee." 
 
 The two maxims are obviously contradictory. They can not 
 stand abreast of each other. They were not reflected by the same, 
 they were reflected by different social stages. The first was reflect- 
 ed by an earlier, the second by a later social stage. At the earlier 
 social stage a male of one gens marrying a female of another gens 
 (marriage was not allowed within the same gens) went over to 
 and was absorbed by his wife's gens; at the later social stage it 
 was the wife who left her own and passed over into her husband's 
 gens. At the earlier social stage inheritance was in the female 
 line; at the later social stage it was in the male line. At the earlier 
 social stage property was communal, at the later social stage it 
 became private. Hand in hand with these changes went a series 
 of institutional changes. "Government," "administration," or what- 
 ever name may be given that central guidance found indispensable 
 in organization, was revolutionized. The' original system, under 
 which "government" rested upon the people, not upon territory, 
 was reversed. "Government" resting upon territory, not upon the 
 people, reached the latter only through the former, only as they 
 came within the territorial property demarkation. This change of 
 institutional "government" was in keeping with the change that 
 property had undergone. Natural enough the institutional change 
 Culminated in the building of cities and the establishment of class- 
 rule. The word "political" has its root in the Greek word for city. 
 For fuller information read Lewis H. Morgan's "Ancient Society." 
 It furnishes the ethnic ground-work for Socialism, and at the 
 same time sheds light upon terminology. 
 
 Obedient to its origin the word "political" has more than one 
 application. 
 
 The word occurs, for instance, in the Socialist maxim: "The 
 'political' concept dominates the economic aspirations of a Union; 
 hence no Union is worth the name whose economic aspirations are 
 not dominated by Socialist thought." Slovenly users of words 
 have misconceived the meaning of the word "political" in the max- 
 im ; self-misled, they have come to cite the maxim as follows : 
 "The political organization must dominate the economic organiza- 
 tion." This is nonsense. Political organization neither does nor 
 can dominate economic organization. Such a notion is at war with 
 the Morgan-Marxian materialist conception of history and the er- 
 ror leads to grave false steps in tactics. The word "political" in 
 the maxim, as correctly quoted, means the conception that a Union 
 may have regarding the social structure. A Union whose concep- 
 tion of society is capitalistic will find its economic aspirations dom- 
 inated accordingly. Ignorant of the wage slave nature of its mem- 
 bership, it will seek to deal with the employers as peers. At first 
 blush this view also may be considered at war with the Morgan- 
 Marxian principle of the material basis of thought. There is no 
 
AS TO POLITICS. 69 
 
 contradiction. It is a fact, insisted upon by these scientists, that 
 thought lingers behind newly formed and forming material bases. 
 Indisputable is the fact that most of the economic efforts on the 
 part of workingmen to-day — despite their material conditions, 
 which no longer furnish a basis for "conservatism" — are conserv- 
 ative. The circumstance is only additional argument why such ef- 
 forts are fatedly ineffective. On the other hand, a Union whose 
 conception of society enlightens it on the wage slave status of its 
 membership, together with the rest that thereby hangs, such a 
 Union will not circumscribe itself to conservative aspirations. There 
 is no economic organization without a "political" concept, con- 
 sciously or unconsciously. The word "political" in that connection 
 has no reference to voting. It simply means conception appertain- 
 ing to social structure. In identical sense, the word "political" re- 
 curs in the term "political economy." 
 
 The word "political" occurs also in the expressions "political 
 government," or the "political State," etc. In these connections 
 the word "political" is the equivalent of "class rule." "Political 
 government" means class rule government. The social theory of 
 Anarchy (the term is used in its strictly technical sense, as given 
 by Anarchists themselves) presupposes government to be identical 
 with class rule, or despotism. The theory is based upon a myth. 
 It is not the myths of the Bible only that ethnology overthrows. 
 It also overthrows the myths of Anarchy. Man appears on the 
 stage of traceable or inferable history in organized society, and 
 with government. Government was then wholly compatible with 
 freedom. (See the address Reform or Revolution, pp. 6-9.) The 
 social evolution and revolutions that culminated in the overthrow 
 of the mother-right, the rise of private property, inheritance in the 
 male line and territorial institutions, divided society into economic 
 classes ; government lost its former character of a function in co- 
 operation, it became a means of oppression by property-holders. 
 The building of cities being the culmination of the external devel- 
 opment, government became "political." This "political govern- 
 ment" means "class rule government," the "political State" means 
 a social order reared upon the class system. 
 
 Finally a third order of connection, in which the word "polit- 
 ical" recurs, appears in the term "political action." Here "polit- 
 ical" means neither "appertaining to social structure," nor "class 
 rule." At the International Socialist Congress of Zurich, 1893, 
 Landauer, an Anarchist of the bomb-throwing variety, demanded 
 admission on the ground that the blowing up of capitalists was 
 also "political action." He used the word "political" in the first of 
 the two senses just considered. He was denied admission, and the 
 delegate of the Socialist Labor Party contributed his vote towards 
 the motion that kept Landauer out, and preserved for the term 
 the technically historic meaning it had acquired. "Political action" 
 is a purely technical expression. It means the peaceful trial of 
 
70 AS TO POLITICS. 
 
 strength in social issues. As such, the term is generic. It embraces 
 a number of things, that is, all the things necessary for its realiza- 
 tion. It embraces primaries; conventions, or any other established 
 method for the nomination of candidates for office in the "polit- 
 ical," that is, the "class rule" government; campaigning, that is, 
 agitation in favor of the principles and, of course candidates, of 
 the party: voting (not private voting) but voting in the same place 
 where the opponents vote; finally as a consequence, "parliamen- 
 tary activity." 
 
 None of these details of "political action" has a doubtful or 
 double meaning, except the last — "parliamentary activity." 
 
 Parliamentary activity is of two natures. One style of parlia- 
 mentary activity takes place between opponents who have a com- 
 mon ground to stand upon. That sort of parliamentary activity is 
 marked by "log-rolling," or "compromise." It is the parliamentary 
 activity of free traders with protectionists, gold standard with sil- 
 ver standard men, pro and anti-Trust people — in short, elements 
 who stand upon the common ground of the capitalist system. An- 
 other sort of parliamentary activity is that observed between op- 
 ponents who have no common ground to stand upon. Such par- 
 liamentary activity is the only one permissible to the representa- 
 tives of a party of Socialism in the parliament of a country, such 
 as America, where feudalism is tracelessly abolished, and the two 
 classes— Capitalist and Proletarian — face each other. Such parlia- 
 mentary activity does not tolerate "log-rolling." Such parliamen- 
 tary activity, wherever obtainable, is, to a great extent, the contin- 
 uation, upon the much more widely heard forum of parliament, of 
 the agitation and education conducted by such a party on the forum 
 of the stump during the campaign. Such parliamentary activity 
 preaches and demands the revolution — the surrender of the capi- 
 talist class. Anything short of such activity by the elected candi- 
 dates of a party of Socialism is "log-rolling;" "log-rolling" implies 
 a common ground between the "log-rollers ;" consequently the "log- 
 rolling" Socialist must have shifted his ground to that of his capi- 
 talist opponent. Such a Socialist betrays the Working Class. (See 
 Flashlights of Amsterdam Congress, Addendum M., Review of the 
 Dresden Convention, pp. 124-127.) A branch of what may be 
 called "parliamentary activity" is the activity in executive offices. 
 There also the principle above laid down is enforcible. Socialist 
 incumbents may act only obedient to the principle that impossible 
 is the attempt to represent two classes engaged in the conflict of 
 the class war; that, consequently, they represent only one class — 
 the Working Class. 
 
 Summing up "political action" by the revolutionary Working 
 Class, the action means the endeavor to settle, by the peaceful 
 method of trial of strength, the issue between the Working Class 
 and the Capitalist Class. That issue demands the overthrow of the 
 capitalist regimen, implies the razing to the ground of that peculiar 
 
AS TO POLITICS. 71 
 
 structure of government that arose with the rising of cities from 
 which it took its name — political government, class rule govern- 
 ment. The overthrow of the capitalist regimen, in turn, means the 
 restoration of administrative co-operation in production (see Ad- 
 dress on the Preamble of the Industrial Workers of the World, 
 pp. 29-47). 
 
 Answer to II. — The discussion "As to Politics" started more 
 than three months ago — Daily People, November 23, 1900. It was 
 started with a letter from John Sandgren, California, a non-Party 
 man, opposing political action and proposing that the S. L. P., 
 and the S. P., both "break up camp." The same issue of The 
 People contained The People's answer. The principles, set up in 
 that answer, are the principles that have been upheld throughout 
 these more than three months. 
 
 That whatever member the S. L. P. may happen to put in 
 charge of the editorial management of the Party's English organ 
 may fail to voice the Party's views on this, or any other vital ques- 
 tion that may spring up, is quite imaginable. t/M-imaginable is 
 that state of things under which such an S. L. P. Editor would not 
 have been ousted long ago. The Party's constitution, together with 
 the strict discipline that it enforces, would have suspended the 
 Editor of The People within 48 hours after his first misstatement 
 of the Party's position; and long before the discussion would have 
 lasted three months and more, he would have been removed. 
 
 In view of this fact; in view of the further fact that not the 
 slightest evidence of dissatisfaction has manifested itself on the 
 part of the Party, but quite the reverse; the conclusion is justified 
 that the position taken by The People in this question is the posi- 
 tion of the S. L. P. 
 
 The word "identical" is here avoided because it is unnecessar- 
 ily sweeping, although there is nothing to indicate that it would 
 not be justified, and everything to warrant the belief that the word 
 would fit the situation. 
 
 Answer to III, (a) — What is there to conquer? — Economic 
 freedom, which involves all other freedoms. 
 From whom? — From the ruling class. 
 
 It does not follow that, because the capitalist system works 
 out its own downfall, therefore class rule will have ceased. 
 
 It may be a question whether we are now under the capitalist 
 system proper. Much may be said on the side of the theory that, 
 if we are not yet under a different system, we are fast tending 
 towards it. The downfall of capitalism from the causes indicated 
 in the S. L. P. platform, is by no means equivalent with the up- 
 rise of the Socialist Republic. Readers of The People are recom- 
 mended to read the booklet "Two Pages from Roman History," 
 especially the first of the "Two Pages" in the latter third of which 
 this very subject is handled in detail. The country is now moving 
 into a social system to which the name "Capitalism," in its proper 
 sense, is applying less and less. A monopoly period is now surging 
 
72 AS TO POLITICS. 
 
 upward to which the designation "Plutocratic Feudalism'' is the 
 fitter term. It does not follow that, if the very Few are gathered 
 on one side, and very Many are lumped on the other, the latter 
 will necessarily swamp the former. They will do so only when 
 they shall have understood their own revolutionary mission, and 
 organized accordingly. Contrariwise — let the Working Class con- 
 tinue a sufficiently longer spell befuddled by the labor-lieutenants 
 of the Capitalist Class; confused by the clatter of pure and simple 
 political Socialists on the one side, and the shrieks of pure and 
 simple Physical Forcists, on the other; periodically swamped by 
 the floods of misinformation with regard to things and men ; and 
 perpetually the victims of such sinister characters as the "Man 
 of the Furred Cap" in Eugene Sue's master story "The Iron Trevet" ; 
 and let those within or in the . suburbs of the Movement who are 
 neither labor-lieutenants of the Capitalist Class, nor pure and sim- 
 ple politicians, nor pure^and simple clubbists, nor spreaders of false 
 information, nor yet "Men of the Furred Cap," persist in the 
 apathetic course of philosophically standing by and looking' on, and 
 fatuously expect to see things straighten tip, instead of contributing 
 emphatic share towards order — then, whatever periods of senseless 
 (senseless because un-revolutionary and, therefore merely riotous) 
 upheavals may betide, the Many will sink to the depths of serfs, 
 actual serfs of a plutocratic feudal glebe. 
 
 There will be everything to conquer — and from whom to con- 
 quer it. 
 
 Answer to III, (b) — Proceeding from the belief that the con- 
 quering will be done without the country having first to go through 
 the ordeal of Plutocratic Feudalism — proceeding from that belief, 
 the conquering will be done- by the Industrial Workers of the 
 World, assisted, step by step, by a political party that blazons the 
 Revolution ; assisted, accordingly, by a body that expresses, in the 
 only practical manner known, the civilized sentiment of the Indus- 
 trial Workers of the World to seek a peaceful trial of strength. 
 
 What the name of that political party will be it is now too 
 early to know. What the leading characteristics of that Party will 
 be — that is knowable to-day. That political Party must demand 
 the unconditional surrender of the Capitalist Class ; that Party 
 must be aware of the fact, and its every act must be in accord 
 thereto, that the necessary evolution, which has to precede the 
 evolutionary crisis known as "revolution," has already taken place 
 in the womb of society in the shape of development and concen- 
 tration of the means of production; consequently, that all talk about 
 "evolution" as an excuse for bourgeois improvements, or "one 
 thing at a time," is born either of hopeless stupidity, or of designing 
 corruption, or of a constitutional poltroonery, from any one of 
 which the Revolution can only expect betrayal at the critical mo- 
 ment ; that. Party must be one thing only to all men, one thing 
 in all latitudes and longitudes of the land — no perfidy to principle 
 
AS TO POLITICS. 73 
 
 under the guise of "'autonomy;'' that Party must have room with- 
 in its camp for all the desirable social elements whose occupa- 
 tion excludes them from bona fide membership in the Industrial 
 Workers of the World, and who attest their desirability, in point 
 of sentiment and intellect, by standing unswervingly upon the class 
 interests of the Working Class, and gladly submitting to the dis- 
 cipline such a Party requires; last, not least, and fundamentally to 
 the above four features, that Party must recognize that the eco- 
 nomic organization can no more be subject for "Neutral" treatment 
 than the crew of a ship can be subject for "Neutral" treatment by 
 the ship itself; that the Union, industrially organized and revolu- 
 tionarily animated, is the embryo of future society, the sole constit- 
 uency of the Congress of the future, the fated supplanter of "po- 
 litical government," hence the only available, and, withal, the all- 
 sufficient physical power to enforce the Party's program. 
 
 The only Party that to-day promotes the Industrial Workers 
 of the World program is the Socialist Labor Party. How things 
 will shape themselves — whether the clear-headed and upright ele- 
 ments in the Socialist party will be able to attain control of and 
 cleanse their own party and in that case whether that cleansed 
 party will merge in the S. L. P., or, jointly with it, perfect a new 
 party, under a new name ; or whether those clear-headed and up- 
 right elements in the S. P. will fail within their own party, be ab- 
 sorbed in the S. L. P., and they, who alone impart whatever fiber 
 and respect the S. P. to-day possesses and enjoys, having with- 
 drawn and the old S. P. having inevitably collapsed in consequence, 
 the Industrial Workers of the World will accept the S. L. P. or 
 the newly-organized Party as its political reflex; or, as a third hy- 
 pothesis, whether in any event the Industrial Workers of the 
 World will prefer to cast its own political reflex, disentangled from 
 all annoying reminiscences of past political conflicts — "all that, for- 
 sooth, rests on the knees of the gods." 
 
 Answer to III, (c) and (e) — These two questions are too in- 
 terdependent for separate treatment. 
 
 Since the founding of the Industrial Workers of the World, 
 Fellow Worker Eugene V. Debs wrote a number of articles on 
 the merits of the new organization, and the wrongfulness of the 
 hostile posture held towards it by men of his own party, the S. P. 
 Among these articles, two — the one originally published in the 
 "Miner's Magazine," October 25, 190S, and the other published in 
 "The Worker," July 28, 1906 both of which were reproduced in 
 The People — are especially to the point. Debs ridiculed with pun- 
 gent satire the "peculiar logic" that led those S. P. men to set up 
 the theory of "boring from within" the American Federation of 
 Labor and expect success, notwithstanding they justly reject the 
 idea of "boring from within" the Democratic and Republican par- 
 ties; and he correctly stigmatized association with the American 
 Federation of Labor as "contamination." Debs was left unan- 
 
74 AS TO POLITICS. 
 
 swered. The only retort that would have turned the edge of the 
 points he made — that retort the A-F-of-L-first-S-P-next men who 
 dominate the S. P. did not dare to come out with. That retort 
 was : "If you consider 'peculiar' the logic of expecting success from 
 'boring from within' the American Federation of Labor, and are 
 of the conviction that association with the American Federation of 
 Labor is 'contamination,' by what process of reason are you ex- 
 pecting success from 'boring from within' the S. P.?" 
 
 This retort embodies the answer to III, (c) and (e). 
 
 An organization is a structure. A steamer constructed for an 
 excursion boat can not be transformed into a battle ship. No 
 amount of pruning, nursing and grafting will turn a sour apple 
 tree into a tree that will bear oranges. The S. P. was not a 
 scheme — though schemers may have joined it, and did. It arose 
 obedient to a principle — the wrong principle that political action is 
 all-sufficient, the obverse of which is the denial of the essential 
 function of the Union in the achievement of the Social Revolution. 
 Such a political structure cannot be "bored from within." The 
 nuisance can be- abated only by its own decay — which has visibly 
 set in. The joining of, or staying in it by fresh and sound elements 
 could have for its effect only to retard the politico-geologic and 
 atmospheric conditions that doom the false political structure to 
 decline and fall. 
 
 Otherwise with regard to the S. L. P. Whatever defects there 
 may be in the Party, these defects can only be of secondary nature. 
 They are not structural. On the fundamental issue of Unionism 
 the Party is sound to the core. Those who would not waste their 
 efforts should join it. By doing so, not only will they not retard, 
 they would promote the politico-geologic and atmospheric condi- 
 tions that will ripen the well rounded, full-orbed revolutionary 
 movement. 
 
 Should the third of the three hypotheses, considered under 
 Answer III, (b), come to pass, then, as stated in the answer to 
 the first Sandgren letter in this discussion, "the S. L. P. will 'break 
 up camp' with a shout of joy if a body merging into its own ideal 
 can be said to 'break up camp.' " 
 
 Answer to III, (d) — The bulk of the answer under this head 
 has been given under the heads of the answers to III, (b), (c) and 
 (e) — at least indirectly. 
 
 More than once has the remark been heard that it was un- 
 fortunate for the normal growth and development of the Industrial 
 Workers of the World that there were two rival parties of Social- 
 ism in the field. Quite possibly Sandgren's position has its roots 
 in that experience. To the obvious fact of the retarding effect upon 
 the Industrial Workers of the World of the rivalry of these two 
 parties probably is due his wish that they both "break up camp;" 
 and probably hence, and not due to any conscious objection to 
 
AS TO POLITICS. 75 
 
 political action, he has unwittingly flown to the extreme of the 
 theoretical rejection of political action altogether. 
 
 However this may be, vain are all tears over facts. The only- 
 wise thing to do is to see the facts squarely in the face. 
 
 The two rival parties are in existence. Their rivalry proceeds 
 from different conceptions regarding the function of the Union, 
 and, inferentially, regarding the function of political action. The 
 conception of the one, the S. L. P., tallies with that of the Indus- 
 trial Workers of the World; the conception of the other, the S. P., 
 is at variance with that of the Industrial Workers of the World. 
 Inevitable was the experience that members of both parties should 
 find themselves in the Industrial Workers of the World — members 
 of the Socialist Labor Party, graduates from the Socialist Trade 
 and Labor Alliance, entering the Industrial Workers of the World 
 as ducks do a mill-pond; and members of the S. P., segregating 
 into that party's component elements ; one element, like ducks that 
 had been hatched out by hens, fraternizing on and in their common 
 other element, like hens who had hatched out ducks, cackling and 
 fluttering and scolding, incensed at a thing that is contrary to their 
 nature. 
 
 A comprehensive grasp of all these facts, and these confront- 
 ing conditions, dictates the conclusion that the growth and full- 
 orbed development of the Industrial Workers of the World could 
 only be benefited, indeed, will be mightily subserved, by multiply- 
 ing the "ducks" for the Industrial Workers of the World pond. 
 Ducks are more naturally hatched by their kind : henneries are less 
 safe. The S. L. P. is to-day the hatchery of revolutionists, and 
 of the propagandists of the aims and methods of the revolution. 
 Wisdom may be relied upon, in the fullness of time, to dictate the 
 Industrial Workers of the World's political expression— an expres- 
 sion that will materialize under one or other of the three hypoth- 
 eses advanced under Answer to III, (b).— Ed. The People.] 
 
76 AS TO POLITICS. 
 
 SUPPLEMENTARY 
 
 Since the closing of the discussion "As to Politics" was an- 
 nounced in these columns a correspondent, who prefers not to have 
 his name published, sent in this question : 
 
 "I'm no 'pure and simple political Socialist,' as you will see ; 
 and I am no 'pure and simple physical forcist,' as you will also 
 see. I believe with you that political action is necessary. The 
 Labor Movement may not step down from the plane of civilized 
 methods. If it did, none would be better suited than our capitalist 
 masters. I hope I've set myself clear on that score. I also believe 
 with you that the ballot is just so much paper thrown away, with- 
 out the physical force to back it up, or, as you have neatly said, 
 'to enforce the Right that the ballot proclaims.' I've set myself 
 clear on that score also, I hope. 
 
 "Now, what I want to know is this: Does it follow, as you 
 seem to think, that we must have the Industrial Workers of the 
 World, I mean an industrial Union, to supplement the ballot? I 
 think not. I think we should concentrate our efforts, instead of 
 •dividing them. Why should we divide our efforts, and our money, 
 and our time between a political and an economic organization? 
 I'll watch the Letter Box." 
 
 The answer merits more thorough than off-hand treatment in 
 the Letter Box. Both the question and the answer will fitly sup- 
 plement the discussion which closes in this issue with the answers 
 to Rice's questions. 
 
 What our correspondent desires is to avoid a division of en- 
 ergy. A wise desire. Does his plan answer his desire? Evidently 
 he fails to see that it does not. The only interpretation his pla« 
 admits of is the organizing of a military, of an armed force to 
 back up the revolutionary ballot. The division of energy is not 
 avoided. It is only transferred to an armed, instead of to an 
 economic organization. 
 
 Seeing that, in either case, the evil of divided energies is in- 
 curred, and cannot be escaped, the question resolves itself into 
 this — which of the two organizations is it preferable to divide en- 
 ergies with, the economic or the military? 
 
 A military organization implies no one, or two, it implies a 
 number of things. Bombs, explosives, generally, may be left out 
 of the reckoning. They may be of incidental, but not of exclusive 
 use by an organized force. 
 
 First of .all powder is needed. The best of powder needs bul- 
 lets and balls to do the business. The best of powder, bullets and 
 balls are useless without guns. Nor are inferior guns of much 
 
AS TO POLITICS. 11 
 
 avail when pitted against the up-to-date guns 'at the command of 
 the capitalist class. The military organization of the revolutionary 
 proletariat will need the most effective weapons. The question has 
 often been asked from capitalist sources, Where will you get the 
 money from to buy the railroads and the other capitalist plants ? 
 The question is silly. No one proposes, nor will there be any 
 occasion, to "buy" those things. Not silly, however, but extremely 
 pertinent, is the question, Where will the proletariat get the bil- 
 lions needed to purchase such a military equipment? 
 
 Supose the billions be forthcoming. Weapons, in the hands 
 of men unskilled in their use, are dangerous, primarily, to those 
 who hold them. Numbers, undrilled in military evolutions, only 
 stand in one -another's way. Where and how could these numbers 
 practice in the use of their arms, and in the military drill ? Where 
 and how could they do the two_ things in secret? In public, ol 
 course, it would be out of question. 
 
 Suppose finally, that the problem of the billions were solved, 
 and the still more insuperable problem of exercise and drill be 
 overcome. Suppose the military organization of the proletariat took 
 the field and triumphed. And then — it would immediately have to 
 dissolve. Not only will it not have been able to afford the incidental 
 protection that the revolutionary Union could afford to the prole- 
 tariat while getting ready, but all its implements, all the money 
 that it did cost, all the tricks it will have learned, and the time 
 consumed in learning them, will be absolutely lost. Its swords wil 1 
 have to be turned into pruning hooks, its guns into ploughshares; 
 its knowledge to be unlearned. 
 
 How would things stand with the integrally organized In- 
 dustrial Union? 
 
 First, its cost is trifling, positively within reach; 
 
 Secondly, every scrap of information it gathers while organ- 
 izing, is of permanent value; 
 
 Thirdly, it will be able to offer resistance to capitalist encroach- 
 ments, and thereby to act as a breast-work for its members, while 
 getting ready; 
 
 Fourthly, and most significant and determining of all, the 
 day of its triumph will be the beginning of the full exercise of its 
 functions— the administration of the productive forces of the Na- 
 tion. , . . 
 
 The fourth consideration is significant and determining. It is 
 the consideration that Social Evolution points the finger to, dictat- 
 ing the course that the proletariat must take; — dictating its goal; 
 —dictating its methods ;— dictating its means. The proletariat, 
 whose economic badge is poverty; the proletariat, whose badge, 
 the first of all revolutionary classes, is economic impotence ;— for 
 the benefit of that class, apparently treated so stepmotherly by 
 Social Evolution, Social Evolution has wrought as it has wrought 
 for none other. It has builded the smithy of capitalist Industrial 
 
78 AS TO POLITICS. 
 
 concentration; and, in keeping with the lofty mission of the Work- 
 ing Class to abolish class rule on earth, Social Evolution has gath- 
 ered ready for the fashioning, not the implements of destruction, 
 but the implements of future peace, withal the most potent weapon 
 to clear the field of the capitalist despot — the industrially ranked 
 toilers. The integrally organized Industrial Union is the weapon 
 that Social Evolution places within the grasp of the proletariat as 
 the means for their emancipation. 
 
 Division of energy being unavoidable, can there be any doubt 
 what organization should divide the energies of the proletariat 
 with their political organization — the military or the Industrial? 
 
VALUE, 
 / PRICE, 
 
 AND 
 
 PROFIT 
 
 From a Mechanical Standpoint 
 
 It is the first one of Marx's works 
 published in America that can be 
 looked upon as a careful piece of 
 publishing. It is to be hoped that 
 this excellent volume is the fore- 
 runner of other volumes of Marx, 
 and that America will have the 
 honor of publishing an edition 
 that is accurate as to text, thor- 
 ough in annotations, convenient 
 in size, and presentable in every 
 way. The present book will de- 
 light the lover of Marx, and every 
 Socialist will desire a copy of it. 
 — N. Y. Daily People. 
 
 By Kakl Makx. Edited by his daughter Eleanor Marx 
 Aveling. With an Introduction and Annotations by Lucieh 
 Sanial. 
 
 THIS book is especially timely, like everything else that Marx 
 wrote. Written a couple of years before his "Capital" 
 appeared, it is an address to workingmen, and covers in 
 popular form many of the subjects later scientifically 
 expanded in "Capital."" 
 
 Lucieu Sanial says of it : "It is universally considered as the 
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 is invaluable to the beginner in economics. It places him squarely 
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 power vitiated by the very use of his eyesight; whereas, by the 
 Tery nature of his capitalist surroundings, he now stands on his 
 head and sees all things inverted." 
 
 Special interest attaches to what Marx says relative to strikes. 
 Were the working Class thoroughly acquainted with the subject 
 matter of this little work, we should hear no more of the "common 
 ground" on which capital and labor might meet to settle their 
 differences. 
 
 The thousand and one schemes that are daily being flaunted in 
 the faces of the working class by the lieutenants of the capitalists 
 Show the necessity there is on the part of the working class for 
 a comprehensive understanding of the matter of wagps, the relation 
 of the wage worker to the employer, the source of profits, an'! fho 
 relation between profits and wages. These and other subjects are 
 here presented, and so clearly does Marx present them that all he 
 has to say can be understood by any person willing to pay close 
 attention to his words. 
 
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FIFTEEN 
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