Cornell University Library HX 86.D4 Two pages from Roman history. (I 3 1924 002 673 725 ' ,„ TDV I PLEBS LEADERS AND LABOR LEADERS II TEWING OF THE GRACCHI HX D4 DANIEL DE LEON PRIOe FIFTEEN CENTS PUBLISHED BY THE MTIONAL EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE SOCIALIST LABOR PARTY NEW YORK THE LIBRARY OF THE NEW YORK STATE SCHOOL OF INDUSTRIAL AND LABOR RELATIONS AT CORNELL UNIVERSITY TWO PAGES FROM ROMAN HISTORY I. Plcbs Leaders and Labor Leaders ii. The Warning of the Gracchi By DANIEL DELEON Published by the NATIONAL EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE SOCIALIST LABOR PARTY . New York 1915. MS There Is nothing better calculated to put upon a class a worthy and deeply moral stamp, than the consciousness that it is destined to become the ruling one, that it Is called upon to raise the underlying prin- ciple of its own rank to the dignity of the principle of the age. to make the Idea that animates It the leading idea of the whole of society, and to remodel the latter in its own image, —Ferdinand Lassallb. Copyrighted, 1903 New York Labor News Co. All Rights Reserved INTRODUCTORY NOTE The translation of nearly all the Socialist classics into the English language has placed Socialist argument upon a sound economic basis in America. While these theoretical contributions of the thinkers in Europe are valuable to the American Movement, capitalist development in this coun- try and the social and political phenomena inseparably con- nected therewith, have peculiarly fitted the American So- cialist militant for the practical consideration of questions arising from them. Just now, when Aesop's fable of the philosopher who fell into the well is being illustrated by many of the mental giants in theoretical lore who are lead- ing the working class movement in Europe into the pitfalls of petty bourgeois Socialism or into the mire of official inac- tivity, American Socialists can repay their debt of grati- tude to the European philosophers by pointing out the dangers that lie in the path along which Socialism must labor. Fact, in America, has taken the place of theory. The tragedy of Capitalism is no longer" produced on the stage, but is enacted in everyday life. Idealism has given way to realism. And the "American invasion" will soon force similar conditions in Europe. Daniel DeLeon's former addresses on Socialism have ap- peared in popular leaflet form, and have had a rndgapread circulation. "What Means This Strike ?" "Eeform or Eev- olution ?" "Socialism versus Anarchism," and the "DeLeon- Harriman Debate" exhausted several editions. This is the first time a morPpjdPtiJPJiPYty^oLPSWwtJom has been adopted. The "Two Pages from Roman History" are two lectures delivered in Manhattan Lyceum, New York City, on Wednesday evening, April 2, and "Wednesday evening, April 16, 1902, under the auspices of Section Greater New York, Socialist Labor Party. The lec- tures were delivered extemporaneously, and were the fruit of extensive research. They were stenographically reported, substantially as here printed. National Executive Committee, Socialist Labor Party. New York, January, 1903. PLEBS LEADERS AND LABOR LEADERS Comrades of Section New York: It is. now close on sixteen years since a "catf s-paw" of the Labor Movement drew me within its whirl. It is now close on twelve years that I have been intimately connected with the Movement, my whole time, my whole thought devoted to it. A certain impression that I gained at a very early date of my connection with the Movement has grown upon me with ripened experience. As a rule it happens that when one joins a movement of this magni- tude, with all the natural greenness that I did in 1886, he, after a few years of activity, finds it necessary to wipe out a good many of the notions he came with, and a good many of the impressions he gathered at the start. And so it was in my case. Nevertheless, out of the wreck of all the false opinions and notions, and of the illusions that I had brought along with me, and out of the wreck of all the false impressions that I gathered early, and that experience showed me should be abandoned, one impression did not prove false. On the contrary, that one grew upon me day by day. And the more I learned of the Movement in America, the more I saw of it — and, as you may judge, my opportunities have been exceptional during these twelve years — the more I observed what happened in other coun- tries in which the Socialist or the Labor Movement is active, all the stronger did that first impression grow upon me, and all the completer shape did it take. That impres- sion was this: That the^Socialist Eepublic, another way for saying the "emancipation of the working class," would never, come about unless a good deal more time and thought 6 PLEBS LEADERS AND LABOR LEADERS were devoted to certain lines of observation, of study and of activity, which I found were neglected, at least not fully appreciated. The essence of Socialist theory, of Socialist philosophy, is simple. The combined economic law of Exchange Value, and sociologic law with regard to man's being a tool-using animal, can be put in a nutshell. And the deductions from them are obvious. The former demonstrates that the man who produces with tools that render his labor more expen- sive than the labor socially necessary, cannot possibly hold his own against the man who, producing with improved machinery, devotes less labor upon the production of cer- tain goods. The latter demonstrates that the tool is the weapon of man's supremacy over Nature: master of the tool, man harnesses Nature to his service, and maintains his freedom against his fellows ; without it, he is the slave of him who is equipped therewith. Coupling these two laws, the philosophy of Socialism radiates in all the lumi- nousness instinct in simple truth; and, in its rays, the Socialist Eepublic rises in all its splendor, not as a mere "Haven of Refuge," but as truly a "Promised Land" to the human race, freed at last from the nightmare of class rule. Now this theory or philosophy can be enlarged upon; broader and deeper researches may impart greater breadth and depth thereto; it may be enriched by excursions into the manifold subjects that branch off from, or are tributary to it; men of eloquence may add thrill to the presentation. That is all true ; and it is well that that be done. Such a a theme calls for and needs the amplest efforts of the mind. But this other is also true : that not all the efforts expended upon that line, nay, not if we were to pile up essays upon essays on those subjects mountain-high and indulge in the most marvelous refinements of science, will bring the FLEBS LEADERS AND LABOR LEADERS 7 Socialist Republic one inch nearer its realization. A}^, on the contrary, all such noble efforts might even turn to ite undoing. I say it deliberately, turn to its undoing, unless, hand in hand with all that, something else is attended to also. And that something else I missed, and missed from the start, and missed all along. As the ship of our Party got into deeper and deeper waters, and severer and severer gales beat against it, I had occasion to feel more and more how much time had been lost in furnishing the masses with instruction upon just that thing that I have in mind; and that is, a knowledge of what I may call the strategy and the tactics of the Movement. The words strategy and tactics have acquired in the public estimation a false meaning. They are generally identified with trickery, deception, duplicity. Now strata egy and tactics may degenerate into all that; but deception, trickery, duplicity are not at all times inseparable from strategy or tactics. Take an army that, under the blazing noon-day sun, marches directly, in a straight line, upon the enemy's fortifications and storms them. There can be no- duplicity there, there can be no trickery there, there cannot be there any question of cheating. Everything is done in a straight line, over and above board. And yet that army moves obedient to strategic laws, and its every motion is in rhythm with tactical principles. If it neglected either at any time, it would be destroyed. Strategy and tactics imply simply a military knowledge of the topography of the field of action, and of the means at command. Strategy implies a military knowledge of the strength that lies in that hill, the weakness that lies in yonder hollow, to the end that the one may be seized, the other avoided ; or to the end that, if the strategically strong place is in the enemy's hand, no disastrous surprise over- take us ; and if we happen to find ourselves on the strategic- 8 PLEBS LEADERS AND LABOR LEADERS ally weak place, we may know enough to throw up intrench- ments. Similarly, tactics implies a military knowledge of the strength, the weakness; the qualitieSj in short, of the forces under fire, to the end that we may proceed accord- ingly. Now the Socialist Movement may be likened to an army ; and it travels over a field that may be closely com- pared with that over which an army advances. The Socialist Movement should, accordingly, be posted upon the military topography of the field it is operating on, and of the tactics dictated by the nature of the forces ifr is oper- ating with. The purpose of these two lectures is to supply, to a certain extent, the existing deficiency on these subjects. Of these two lectures on "Two Pages from Koman History," the second, "The Warning of the Gracchi," will cover a tactical weakness of the Socialist Movement, and thereby help to point out certain pitfalls that are to be avoided. The first lecture, "Plebs Leaders and Labor Leaders," is intended to point out a certain strategically strong post held by the enemy, the capitalist interest, and thereby draw due attention to the danger that lurks from that quarter. With these introductory words I shall enter upon my subject. PLEBS LEADERS AND LABOR LEADERS. Any one who glances over the Labor Movement in the English-speaking world cannot fail to be struck somehow — favorably, unfavorably, or half-and-half — by a. certain apparition not known in any other Labor Movement, except in that of the English-speaking countries, namely, Eng- land, the United States particularly, Canada and Australia. That apparition is the Labor Leader, together with the trades organization back of him. The question that I pose here to-night, the question that is of interest to the Socialist PLEBS LEADERS AND LABOR LEADERS 9 Movement of the English-speaking countries to answer, if it is to banish the illusions that otherwise lead to Paris Commune disasters, or cause great Movements to be switched awry, is this : What does that Labor Leader sig- nify ? What strength is there in him ; and, if there is any, what is the nature thereof, and to whose interest does it accrue? In other words, what is the strategic significance of the Labor Leader on the field of the modern social question? Is it a hilltop whose strategic posture accrues to the benefit of the Labor Movement, or is it one whose strategic posture accrues to the benefit of the capitalist system ? We should profit by the experience back of the age we live in. History has not commenced with us. Other nations have preceded us. Other nations, now among the dead, also had to deal with their Social Questions. In order to understand what is going on to-day, it is well to, look at what has gone on in ages gone ijjy, in states long since passed away. Karl Marx, in that remarkable brochure of his, "The Eighteenth Brumaire," says, that when man wants to interpret what is going on in his own day, he tries to find a parallel in the past; and that such action is like the action of a person trying to learn a new language; he always keeps on translating that language into his own, the new language being the new event, his own language being the events that lie behind him, and which, having rounded their course, can be fully understood. In order to interpret the new language that is being spoken by modern events, let us translate it back into the well known lan- guage of now well understood past events. We shall under- stand the new term "Labor Leader" when we recall the~ career of the old term "Plebs Leader" in Eoman history. The page of Eoman history to which I here turn covers about 120 years, say a hundred years. It covers the period 10 PLEBS LEADERS AND LABOR LEADERS of about 500 B. C: to about 400 B. C. It starts substan- tially with the chasing away of the kings. The Bome that fills our minds, our eyes and our ears ; that Bome, insatiable of plunder, reckless of human life ; that potent of Tapine — that Bome has her formative period during the century of her life that I propose to take up with you. When the kings were chased away, all the social and political ele- ments that later turned into the Fury we know of, were yet in ferment only. During that period of about 100 years they take shape. When that period closes, it is substan- tially a new social-political compound that steps upon the stage: the Bome, that, driven like a Fury from her own seething cauldron, becomes a scourge to the world, and ends by consuming herself. Let us look at these political and social elements. First at the political. POLITICAL MECHANISM. It will not be necessary to go into a minute account of the constitutional law of the Roman state. It will here suffice to designate the principal wheels of the political mechanism, and to point out their leading functions and features. In doing this I shall use modern terms,' f amilar to all. That will answer all practical purposes. The wheels of the Roman political mechanism that con- cern us were: The Consuls. The Senate. The Centuries. The Colleges of Priests. You may wonder how the Colleges of Priests came to have a place in the machinery of government. We will come to that. Broadly using modern parlance, the Consuls represented the Executive, the Senate and Centuries the Legislative, the Colleges of Priests the Judicial Power. PLEBS LEADERS AND LABOR LEADERS 11 The Consuls were two; they were elected jointly and annually by popular vote, in the Forum. The Senate consisted theoretically of 300 members ; they hell office for life; vacancies were filled by the Consuls. The body partook of the character of a House of Lords, in that its legislative functions consisted mainly in passing upon measures ordered in the popular branch. The Senate sanctioned these, or refused its sanction. The Centuries were military divisions of the people. Tog^her, -the Centuries constituted the whole people in "Committee of the Whole," gathered at the Forum. They elected the elective officers, and enacted the laws, subject to the sanction of the Senate. The singular method of voting by the Centuries is of importance in the subject in hand. I shall come back upon that later on. Finally, the Colleges of Priests. I said they represented the Judiciary. They did in this way: If a law or an election distastef ul to the ruling class was forced through ; if, for any one of the thousand and one causes apt to arise wherever actual oligarchic power is draped in the drapery of democratic forms, the ruling class of Rome found it prudent to yield in Forum and Senate Hall; in such case the Colleges of Priests would conveniently discover some flatr in the auspices, some defect in the sacrifices. That annulled the election or the law, as "condemned by the Gods." The fact suggests another parallel, a parallel be- tween what happens to-day in Organized Churchdom, and what happened in Eome. The allurement is strong to branch off into that. But I shall resist it, and move on. SOCIAL CONDITIONS. Such was the political machinery of the Roman State. Now to the social aspect. What was the composition of the people who operated these four wheels of government, and 12 PLEBS LEADERS AND LABOR LEADERS who were affected by them ? What I was compelled to say, in order to explain the political function of the Colleges of Priests, indicated that the Roman people was not a homo- genous mass ; that in Eome there was a ruling class and a ruled class. Indeed these classes were well marked. Socialists need not to be told that so long as the machin- ' ery of production is not in the hands of the people collect- ively there must be a ruling class and a ruled class; there must be a working class and an idle class ; there must be a class that toils and does not enjoy life, and there must be a class that toils not and does the enjoying; and that the enjoying and not toiling coincides with the ruling, while the toiling and not enjoying coincides with the ruled part. Socialists need not to be told that. It is of prime interest, in connection with the subject in hand, to have>a distinct appreciation of the line of class-cleavage in the Soman Commonwealth. The Roman peoples were divided into two Orders. One Order was called the Patricians, the other Order was the Plebeians. PATRICIANS. The patricians can be easily denned. They were the clan nobility of Rome; they were the descendants of the old houses, of whom there were few in comparison to the rest of the population. Although some of the patrician houses had declined in property, the patricians were, as a whole, large property holders, both in land and money. Being a nobility, the patricians were the political rulers. PLEBEIANS. The word plebeians is harder to define, and here is where the interest of the subject begins to centre. Huxley some- where lays to the door of Milton the unscientific oonceptien PLEBS LEADERS AND LABOR LEADERS IS of creation that is popular to-day. He claims that the beauty of the rhythm of a certain passage in "Paradise Lost," and the majesty of its language, has popularized an error that civilization has long since discarded. And so may we charge Shakespeare with being responsible for the popular misconception there is with regard to the word "plebeians." In one of Shakespeare's great tragedies, "Coriolanus," there occurs a certain passage, in fact the play almost opens with the passage. In the very first act, a crowd of rioting Eoman citizens, are introduced, and one of them, addressing the mob, says : "We are accounted poor citizens ; the patricians good. What author- ity surfeits on, would relieve us ; if they would yield us but the super- fluity, while it were wholesome, we might guess they relieved us humanely ; but they think we are too dear ; the leanness that afflicts us, the object of our misery, is an Inventory to particularize their abundance ; our sufferance is a gain to them. Let us revenge this with our pikes, ere we become rakes ; for the gods know I speak this in hunger for bread, not in thirst for revenge." Owing, I think, very extensively to this remarkable pres- entation, the popular conception of the Plebeian Order is that that element was made up of the poor, of the working- men of Rome; and that conception you will find cultivated even in the schoolbooks on history. Here and there some- thing leaks through to indicate that there were rich plebe- ians, but the point is never made that the term "plebeian" in Rome did not designate people effected like this plebeian that Shakespeare puts in the front of his play of "Coriola- nus." The term plebeian meant in the Roman language, the "multitude." It was a term used in contradistinction to the few, the patricians. In other words, it was the antithesis of oligarchy, the patricians being the few, the plebeians being the many. It was not an economic dis- tinction. Indeed, there was no such economic line of cleavage between patricians and plebeians. There were rich men, in land and money, among the plebeians; probably more of 14 PLEBS LEADERS AND LABOR LEADERS them than among the patricians. The difference betweenr the two sets — patricians and rich plebeians — lay in this : a patrician who lost his property did not, therefore, lose caste; artificial social corks kept him in his patrician rank and the political attributes of his clan-nobility, with th« aid of which he might again attain economic nower ; on the contrary with the rich plebeian, the loss of his property carried with it the loss of the only power he had — economic power. So absolutely of the same economic class was a considerable portion of the Plebeian Order with the patri- eians, that rich plebeians and patricians shared together the spoils that their economic power conferred upon them. CLASS LINES. Again using modern parlance, the plebs, the multitude, fell into three economic classes: the "bourgeoisie" or large property-holding plebeian, the "middle class" plebeian, and the "proletarian" plebeian; this last forming the majority of all, a working class, stripped of all property and forced to hire themselves out for a living. So that, in point of economic, or class distinctions, the Roman commonwealth was divided, not between "patricians" and "plebeians," but the class line of cleavage ran between patricians and "bour- geois" plebeians, on the one hand, and "proletarian" plebe- ians, on the other, with a "middle class" plebs in between. Patricians and "bourgeois" plebeians, holding the economic power, or means of exploitation, jointly wielded their power: the "proletarian" plebs were exploited, the "middle class" plebs were uprooted, very much in th& way the process goes on to-day. Now what was the means of exploitation ? It was not machinery. Machinery, as we understand the things did not then exist. The means of exploitation bore, all the same, close resemblance with the modern means. Already PLEBS LEADERS AND LABOR LEADERS IS then the law of exchange value was bound to affect things. The same as to-day the man who works with a large factory has a power over the man who works with only t. small factory, and can smoke~him out, and throw him nto the class of the proletariat; so likewise the man who h .d large farms could produce so much more plentifully, could pro- dne^with so much more economy that the middle class landholder could not hold his own, and was proletarianized. It goes without saying that the power of economic tyranny that manifested itself in the uprooting of the small holders, or middle class, had a direct manifestation in the direct exploitation of the workingman, and rendered the position, at first of the agricultural and subsequently of the urban proletariat, all the harder to bear. The specific sources of the increasing economic tyranny and exploitation, which manifested themselves in the Roman State were the fol- lowing : SOURCES OF ECONOMIC TYRANNY AND EXPLOITATION. Rome was almost always engaged in war. As a rule she won. The immediate result of the victories of Rome was the enlargement, not of the Roman territory merely, but of the estates of the large landlords. The territory of the conquered nations in Italy was partitioned among the conquerors. Theoretically, the allotments were to be equal among all. In point of fact the large landlords, patrician and bourgeois plebs, grabbed the bulk; the middle class was allowed a sop ; the proletarians were left out in the cold. The larger the estates grew, all the more precarious became the existence of the middle class. Again, after making the allotments, a portion of the conquered territory was always left undivided. It was reserved for the "public domain," a "common," so to say. On that public domain the whole people, theoretically, were 16 PLBBS LEADERS AND LABOR LEADERS allowed to graze their cattle. In point of fact, the large property-holders, patrician and bourgeois plebs, virtually appropriated these public domains for their own herds. Under the guise of usufruct, for which they paid the gov- ernment a rental that was nominal, and that often was not paid at all, they kept the public domain in perpetuity, to the still greater injury of the middle class, and in some instances, even of proletarians. Again, in the extensively commercially developed Rome, money was a staple of prime need. The patricians and bourgeois plebs were not landlords only — the "Single Tax" get6 knocked out in Rome at the very start — they were also money-lenders, usurious money-lenders. The hard-pushed middle class farmer readily found a patrician or bourgeois plebeian money-lender waiting to "help him out." The result was his expropriation. Again, in the instinctive hankering of their class after the property of the small holders, the Roman large prop- erty-holders speedily descried in taxation a prime means to their end. In this maneuver the Roman large property- holders gave points to the Dutch Pensionary De Witt, points that he did not fail to take 2,000 years later. The commu- nity of interest between patricians and bourgeois plebs drew them into close alliance. The patricians laid on the taxes ; patricians and bourgeois plebs shifted them deftly over to the shoulders of the small holders, and thus directly urged on the wholesale sweeping away of the middle class, and reduced them to proletarians. There was a fifth source of economic oppression, which does not manifest itself at the very start,' but that grew, and grew, and became a crying evil, bearing directly upon the proletariat. It was chattel slavery. Along with the territories that Rome appropriated from the nations that she overcame, she appropriated their people, too. Thus an PLEBS LEADERS AND LABOR LEADERS 17 ever increasing horde of slaves swelled the Roman labor market, raising there a question suggestive of that of "prison labor" to-day. The middle class had no means to invest in the slave market, or occasion to use the slave. Patricians and bourgeois plebs were the investors. Slaves in such abundance were cheaper than free labor. They were bought cheap, treated worse than cattle, worked for all they were worth, and, when exhausted, were cast off to die like dogs. The page of slavery in Rome is the darkest in the whole history of chattel slavery. The hordes of slaves threw the proletariat on the streets and highways. Finding it hard to compete with the large landlords, owing to the smallness of their own farms and their exclu- sion from the public domain, compelled to yield to the large I>roperty-holders large shares of their product through the usurious rates of interest extorted from them, and stagger- ing withal under the burden of taxation, the middle class plebeians grew desperate. In even step, their ranks swelling by the accessions of the smoked-out middle class, and their labor rendered still more valueless by the gradual substitu- tion of slaves, the proletarian plebeians became restive. Thus stood things at the opening of the period of Roman history under consideration — about 500 B. C. An economic struggle, a struggle for economic redress, a struggle — as this plebeian in Shakespeare's "Coriolanus" puts it — "in hunger for bread," and to ward off "being made rakes," in short, a Class Struggle, however incipient, yet well marked, was on in that Roman Commonwealth. The line of class cleavage, it should seem, showed itself distinct enough to be per- ceived. Was it perceived? No. Why? We shall see. And, seeing, we shall also see the dire results of the over- sight. The period under consideration is the period during which the Class Struggle within the Roman Commonwealth 18 PLEBS LEADERS AND LABOK LEADERS moves from stage to stage, until it closes its first epoch, about 400 B. C. Of course the struggle continues- beyond that; that struggle cannot cease but with the abolition of class rule, which is to say, with the Co-operative State, the Socialist Eepublic. But during this period the Class Struggle was twisted and beaten and turned, no longer into an instrument of possible deliverance, but into a weapon for future national suicide. This period progresses through seven stages, PLEBS LEADERS IN THE SENATE. The rising revolt of the plebeian masses against economic tyranny and exploitation threw, of course, patricians and bourgeois plebeians together. But they were not a unit. Both had the same economic interests at stake ; but they did not both stand on a par. On theone side, the patrician was clad with exclusive, aristocratic, political privileges; the bourgeois plebeian was consumed with an ambition to share such privileges. On the other side the bourgeois plebeian, by the very reason of his hereditary rank as a plebeian, enjoyed the confidence of the plebeian middle class and proletariat, and was thereby vested with the requisite qual- ifications to "jolly" and cajole his "fellow plebeians/' The patrician, by his very hereditary rank, was barred from such confidence, and deprived of such useful qualifications. These circumstances gave the two divisions, into which the usurping class of Borne fell, not a common cause only, but 'also something to barter on. And thus the keynote was struck at an early date for the policy that these two sets were thenceforth to pursue — jointly against their joint ex- ploitees, and severally toward each other. The Plebs Leader sprang therefrom. Of course, he was a bourgeois plebeian. The first fruit of the first rumblings of the class revolt in Bome was the appearance in the Senate of the Plebs PLEBS LEADERS AND LABOK LEADERS 19 Leader. Picked bourgeois plebeians, picked out by patri- cian Consuls — and picked out with an eye to what qualities you may judge — were allowed the privilege of a seat in the Senate. But there, among the august and haughty patrician Senators, the Plebs Leaders were not expected .to emit a sound. The patricians argued, the patricians voted, the patricians decided. When these were through then the tellers turned to the Plebs Leaders. But they were not even then allowed to give a sign with their mouths. Their mouths had to remain shut : their opinion was expressed with their feet. If they gave a tap, it meant they approved; if they gave no tap, it meant they disapproved; and it didn't much matter either way, no more than do the dead sounds, made by the Labor Leader, picked out and placed to-day by the grace of the capitalist class in the legislative bodies of America, Canada, England or Australia, New Zealand in- cluded, where his vanity may be gratified with the hollow honors of his prototype, the Plebs Leader, dumb appendage of the Koman Senate. And this was the "first step" towards the economic redress that the middle class and proletarian plebs were demanding; this was the first "vic- tory" of the exploited and tyrannized plebs. TRIBUNE OF THE PLEBS. Sweet words butter no parsnips. It goes without saying that the hobnobbing of the Plebs Leader with patrician aristocrats in the Senate relieved not one of the economic burdens complained of by the plebs. Wars continued, and they brought on, as before, their train of fresh allotments to the already large estates, wider public domains for the large landlords to appropriate for their own cattle and an in- crease of slaves to displace free labor. The deepening penury of the middle class heightened the burden of its debt. Taxation urged on its downfall. And the whole 20 FLEBS LEADERS AND LABOR LEADERS mass pressed upon the proletariat. Demands for relief were made and pressed, but only to deaf ears. They were made louder and pressed harder. A promise was made of their being attended to after the particular war in hand should be over, and the promise was forgotten by the-Sen-^ ate. Finally, after another war, before disbanding, and after ineffectual parleys, the plundered plebs mass, under arms, withdrew to the Sacred Mount, threatening to build a city of their own. The Senate then yielded and entered into serious negotiations. The result was the Tribunate of the Plebs. The newly created officers had extensive powers. The Tribune of the Plebs could checkmate the Consuls, while he himself was inviolable ; he could place his seal on the public treasury and thus put a spoke into the wheels of the whole machinery of government, and so on. In other words, the Tribunate of the Plebs was a powerful political office, but an office, mark you, that, seeing it had no salary attached, none but Plebs Leaders could fill. The trick was taking fuller shape. The Plebs Leaders were utilizing popular economic distress to the end of conquering from the patri- ciate political power for themselves. The plebs masses had asked for relief from debt and for bread ; instead, the Plebs Leaders gained added strength to fight their own particular battles with the patricians. And this was the second "vic- tory" of the exploited and tyrannized plebs. THE PUBLILIAN LAW. The Tribunate of the Plebs proved, of course, as barren of economic benefits to the people as the dumb participation of the Plebs Leaders in the Senate had done — as barren as the Bureau of Statistics of Labor and other such fruits of "labor legislation" do to-day. Nor did it take long for the plebs masBes to make the discovery, or for the Plebs Leaders PLEBS LEADERS AND LABOR LEADERS 21 to utilize the fresh ferment. The next ferment bore the Publilian law as its fruit. You will remember that, in describing the Centuries, I stated they were in the nature of a "lower legislative Chamber." This is the place to look at the Centuries a little closer. The Centuries were military subdivisions of the whole people. The population was distributed among the Centuries according to wealth — landed wealth. The richest citizens were placed in the First Century, the next richest in the Second, and so on. As always in such cases, the ranks were thinnest in the highest Century; the Second, where the standard of wealth was lower, contained larger numbers ; and so on until the Seventh Century was reached, fliat of the proletariat, who were propertyless and most numerous. Again, as usually where property qualifications officially determine rank, the number of votes east by the Centuries was not equal, least of all proportionate to the numbers in each. Altogether, the Centuries polled 193 votes. But the Knights, a sort of Century that headed the list and the nominally First Century, polled together 97 votes, leaving only a minority for all the rest. The system of polling the Centuries accentuated the preponderance of the Knights and the First Century. These two voted first. If they agreed, the others were dispensed with. Accord- ingly, only- in the exceptional instances, when the Knights and the First Century disagreed, did the suffrage of the rest of the Centuries come into play. It followed from all this that, well represented though the Plebs Leader element was in the upper and controlling Centuries, it did not there 'have its hands free, and could be dominated by the patri- cians. It also followed that, in the exceptional instances when the upper Centuries disagreed and the proletarian plebs came into play, it had to be considered in the manipu- lations of the Plebs Leaders. The Plebs Leaders sought to 22 PLEBS LEADERS AND LABOR LEADERS rid themselves of both inconveniences. They accomplished their purpose through the Publilian law, which they com- pelled the Senate to sanction in the midst of a violent popular try for bread and the reduction of debts. And what was the Publilian law?" It was a law that vested in councils of plebeian landlords the right to initiate laws, thus conferring upon these councils co-ordinate pow- ers with those enjoyed by the Centuries. In this way the Plebs Leaders freed themselves at one stroke both from dependence upon the patricians and from compulsion to consider the proletariat in the initiation of laws; a bold stroke for equality upward and for tyranny downward — the third "victory" of the tyrannized and exploited plebs. THE DECEMVIRATE. > Within twenty years of the firing of the shot just de- scribed, conditions were ripe for another. Indeed, con- ditions had never changed : there was only a temporary lull of the storm while waiting for the "beneficent" results of the latest "victory" to materialize. These failed to; and the Plebs Leader element, meeting with annoying resistance from the patriciate to the Plebs Leaders' encroachments on their privileges, needed but to give the signal for the storm to be again unchained. The signal was, accordingly, given, and the storm broke loose afresh. In this storm the pre- vious magistrates went down. Consuls, -Tribunate of the Plebs and Plebeian Councils — all were swept away, and a "Decemvirate," rule of Ten Men, was established in their stead. It was as if the Plebs Leaders, tired of effort along the beaten paths of the old methods of procedure, dictated by the old institutions, resolved upon a "shuffling of the cards'," so to speak, or a "new throw of the dice," as a quicker means to reach their private aims. In a manner they succeeded. For the first time in the history of Rome PLEBS LEADERS AND LABOR LEADERS 23 Plebs Leaders appeared in the magistracy, clothed with powers equal to those held by their patrician colleagues. Among the ten men elected to the Decemvirate, two were Plebs Leaders. But no sooner was the victory won than its hollowness was discovered. Not only did the patrician majority lord it over their plebeian colleagues, but it also took occasion to emphasize its rank-superiority. An unwritten law forbade the intermarriage of patricians with plebeians. The patrician majority on the Decem- virate, no doubt feeling the flood of bourgeois invasion threatening the clan supremacy of the patriciate, decided to throw up dikes. This it did by putting into written law the bar between patrician and plebeian marriage. This act sealed the doom of the Decemvirate. The burning eco- nomic questions having been,' just as before,, left wholly un- touched, it took no great effort to re-arouse the plebeian masses into revolt, with the result that down went the Decemvirate. VALERIO-HORATIOJST LAW. This stage, in the period under discussion, is marked by the Valerio-Horation law which restored the previous wheels of the government machinery, the Tribunate of the Plebs included, and enlarged their authority, but still, as before, left untouched the economic abuses complained of by the very masses used to gain these political privileges for the Plebs Leaders. And thus further "victories" were recorded for the distressed plebs, and were declaimed about from the stump in the Forum to the enchanted plebs multi* tude, much as in our own days, the Labor Leader, who, by means of strikes and other devices, is laying up treasures, not in heaven, but on earth, is seen to expatiate upon hie vast achievements in behalf of the starving crowd of worfc ingmen, who listen to him open mouthed. 24 FLEBS LEADERS AND LABOR LEADERS CANULEIAN LAW. The Valerio-Horation law was strictly an interlude, a preparatory step. The Plebs Leader element was stung to the quick by the statute on marriages and it was impatient for full equality in political privileges. A bitter fight was soon started with the abolition of marital restrictions and access to the Consulship as the silent objects in view, the matters declaimed about being those that arose from the wrongful allotments, the extortions of the usurers, the vex- ations that the proletariat were subjected to. The patri- cians resisted with stubborn tenacity. A compromise was the result; and that was embodied in the Canuleian law. The patriciate yielded the point on marriages, but it shuffled on the Consulship. The Consuls were abolished. In their stead "Military Tribunes with Consular power" were set up. What that meant the Plebs Leaders were not yet fully aware of. They believed they had gained their point in both respects; and when the Canuleian law was enacted they cabled off their "dogs of war," the plebs. And this was the sixth "victory" of the exploited and tyrannized^ plebs. With the economic distress of these as a weapon, the? Plebs Leader element, that itself produced and profited by^ such conditions, gained the point of qualifying for Consulafl powers, and also the privilege of selling their daughters to scions of patrician houses. The plebs mass demanded" bread : to the orchestration of this mournful dirge, the Plebs Leader qualified for fathers-in-law of patrician youths ; not . unlike the Labor Leaders of to-day, who, to the orchestra- tion of a declining wage and deepening misery among the Working Class, qualify for guests fit "to place their legs under the mahogany," at banquets given by the capitalist exploiters. CASSIUS AND MANLIUS. Between the Canuleian law and the next and dosing PLEBS LEADERS AND LABOE LEADERS 35 stage — the Lieinian Law — the longest span of years oc- curred of any that divided the previous stages of this epoch of Roman history. The contending forces gathered during this interval their whole strength for a last and decisive effort. And the lines were exactly those along which the conflict was waged thitherto. Two incidents during these first fifty years contribute not a little to underscore the significance of events. Only twice since the struggle started were there concrete propositions made looking to the relief of economic distress, and toward removing the causes thereof. In other words, only twice were propositions brought forward in line with issues that were raised by the Plebs Leaders. Both propo- sitions proceeded from patricians. And in both instances the noble movers of the motions were immolated upon the altar of the Plebs Leader element, this element distancing the patriciate in its ferocity to "save the Republic" — just as the Labor Leader of our own days distances the capi- talist class in the deep malignity of his hatred of the Socialist. The first instance was that of Spurius Cassius. Cassius was no ordinary patrician. With him achievements did not lag behind birth. Often had he led the Roman legions to victory ; vast were the domains his powers had added to the territory of the Commonwealth, and twice, the spoils of war carried before, he rode at the head of his army in triumphal march through the streets of Rome to" give thanks to the Capitoline Jupiter — no ordinary share of Roman distinction. Cassius perceived that not one of the laws scored by the Plebs Leaders at all touched the cause of the evil. The evil had to be attacked at its root. Despite his patrician economic interests, he proposed a law to. re- allot the land, and make provision to prevent the re-occur- rence of the disparity of wealth, which, he foresaw, was 26 PLEBS LEADERS AND LABOR LEADERS driving Rome to the brink of ruinT Class interests asserted themselves. In solid mass, the patricians and Plebs Lead-; era arose against the daring innovator. Cassius and his proposed law went down, drowned in his blood. The second instance was even more tragically dramatic. The Celt invasion of Italy had carried everything before it, and virtually swamped Rome herself. The inhabitants had fled -to the burgs to the south and east. The Celts camped in the streets of Rome. Only one spot in the city had remained free from the desecration of the invader. That was the Capitoline Hill. There a patrician, Marcus Manlius, entrenched himself with a few other brave com- panions, resisted all attempts to scale the hill, and held out until the Celtic marauders, tired out and disheartened by such (persistence, fell back — never again to reappear before the walls of Rome, except as captives of war. Manlius, surnamed Capitolinus from that act of success- ful daring, seeing one day one of the soldiers who had fought with him dragged to prison for debt, stopped the tip-staves, emptied his purse in the interest of the afflicted plebeian, and declared that so long as he had a farthing no Roman should suffer want. His attitude and proposals flew in the face of the property-holding class. Again Plebs Leaders vied with the patriciate in "patriotism" and "re- spect for the laws of the land." Manlius was seized and thrown headlong down the Tarpeian Rock — whence ihe proverb, "There is but a step from the Capitoline Hill to the Tarpeian Rock," from glory to martyrdom. LICINIAN LAW. During the fifty years that elapsed between the passing of the Canuleian law and the Licinian law, Rome made the greatest progress thitherto made in the expansion of her twritory. Wars were numerous, successful ; and the spoils PLEBS LEADERS AND LABOR LEADERS It were in proportion. It needs no argument to show that all that merely furnished the Plebs Leader element with vaster material to work on. Indeed, the terror of being proletarianized never before weighed heavier upon the minds of the middle class, nor had the distress of the pro- letariat ever before reached such a pitch. The Plebs Leader element fructified the economic distress to the utmost, and, after considerable sparring, framed the Licinian law, and fought it through to a successful finish. The Licinian law may be termed a platform with six planks : 1. Restoration of the Consulships. 2. At least one of the two Consuls to be a plebeian. 3.1 Admission of plebeians to the Colleges of Priests. 4. Limitation of the number of cattle and sheep to be allowed on the commons, as well as the quantity of addi- tional allotments to be allowed to individual holders. 5. The number of free laborers to be proportionate to that of slaves employed on each farm. 6. Alleviation of debtors. It will be noticed that the first three planks are political, the last three are economic demands. The first three could be enforced immediately upon the enactment of the law; the last three required supplementary legislation. It will also be noticed that the first three cut at the very root of the existing political inequality between patricians and plebeians. Upon the enactment of the Licinian law the Plebs Leader would have supplemented his economic power with the political privileges requisite to safeguard it, and thenceforth he could enjoy with the patriciate the' double power of economic exploitation and political usur- pation, including the useful privilege of, whenever conve- nient, discovering "flaws in the auspices" and "defects in sacrifices." On the other hand, the three economic planks, 28 PLEBS LEADERS AND LABOR LEADERS even if enforced, could, by that time, do hardly more than afford temporary relief, and that to some few only. They left class economic inequality untouched and thereby the power of exploitation unclipt. The patricians did not fail to perceive all this. They also knew it was "now or never" with them. And they made ready for their last stand. The struggle is said to have lasted eleven years. More than once in this interval did the patricians offer to grant the last three planks, the economic demands. But the Plebs Leaders resisted — ex- actly as the Labor Leader of to-day, who rejects the employer's offer to accept the economic demands made by the men, unless also "the Union is recognized," that is; unless the Labor Leader's status is maintained. The Plebsf Leader refused to "settle," unless settlement was made? with him. At last, a new migration to the Sacred Mount being threatened, the patriciate surrendered. The PlebsJ Leaders had won out to the fullest. And this was the last and crowning "victory" of the series won by the exploiter and oppressed plebs. ( THE TEMPLE OF CONCORD. The Licinian law closes this epoch, and I might here close the sketch of it^ But there is still one more event to record. ^The seven stages just touched on are like beads: on a string. The string has a knot. And the knot is wort! all the beads put together. It summarizes the set. TJpoa the final passing of the Licinian law, a distinguished Eoman patrician, Camillus by name, the Mark Hanna of the Home of that day — not that the vulgar Jerry Sneaky of the bourgeois, Mark Hanna, could compare, either in point of breeding or of culture, with that distinguished patrician; nevertheless, a Mark Hanna in the sense that Camillus was then, as Mark Hanna is to-day, the type of p£ebs leaders and laboe leaders 29 the economic and political usurping class — Camillus, then, in order to celebrate the event, built a temple at the foot of the Capitol, and dedicated it to the Goddess of Concord. Looked at closely, one cannot help but be startled at the close lines of resemblance between Camillus's Temple to the Goddess of Concord and a certain creation of our own days, Hanna's Civic Federation Commission of Industrial Peace. The Temple to the Goddess of Concord was meant for a monument to commemorate the end of internal discord. Did the Temple of Camillus commemorate a fact ? Was discord at an end ? Did the Licinian law dry up the sources of the discontent that had been gathering during the pre- ceding hundred years? Was crass economic inequality, with its resultant evils, dealt the blow that ended it, or were at least measures taken for its extinction ? Giving the Licinian law time to operate, and looking 200 years for- ward, we find that the census of Italy — Rome having mean- time conquered the whole of Italy — showed in all Italy not two thousand families of solid wealth! Looking, forward 100 years further, we find Tiberius Gracchus, in Plutarch's life of that Roman, giving the following bird's-eye view of his country : "The wild beasts of Italy have their cares to retire to, but the brave men who spill their blood In her cause have nothing left but air and light. Without houses, without any settled habitations, they wander from place to. place with their wives and children ; and their generals do but mock them, when, at the head of their armies, they exhort their men to fight for their sepulchres and domestic gods ; for, among such numbers, perhaps there is not a Roman who has an altar that belonged to his ancestors, or a sepulchre In which their ashes rest. The private soldiers fight and die, to advance the wealth and luxury of the great : and they are called masters of the world, while they have not a foot of ground in their possession." Indeed, there was no concord, and none, properly speak- ing, could be. The Licinian law neither cauterized the evil, nor even placed a salve upon it. The slight economic im- provements it promised were hardly attended to. On the other hand, the vaster wars that Rome undertook brought 30 PLEBS LEADERS AND LABOR LEADERS. vaster property into the hands of the already overpowering ruling class. The expropriation of the small holders went on amain. The usurer held high carnival. Slaves deluged the free proletariat. All the evils complained of at the start were there, only in a form infinitely more aggravated. Was then the Temple to the Goddess of Concord a lie, robust and unqualified ? No. The Temple to the Goddess of Concord did record a truth. There was concord, but among whom ? The only true warring factions had been patricians and Plebs Leaders ; the participation of the plebs masses being only in the nature of food for cannon. The Plebs Leader element craved political power. It did so out of vainglory;' it did so also and especially in response to its true class instincts : it needed political power in order to secure and expand its economic power. That political power was in the hands of a clan nobility. What to do? Overthrow the patriciate? That would be to open the sluice gates to the plebs masses, and endanger the economic power" of the Plebs Leader element itself. Note this: the Plebs Leader was not in arms against patricianism; least -of all was he in arms to overthrow plebism, meaning economic slavery. Whether or not the Plebs Leader ever indulged in speculations upon the beauty, or the sacredness, or the wisdom, or the necessity concerning "the poor ye will always have with you," I know not^ nor does it matter. What does matter is that the Plebs Leader "followed no ideals," he "pursued no visions," he was "practical." The Plebs Leader justly saw in plebism a hell ; he saw no way for the extinction of the flames that devoured the plebs masses, at least none that did not inter- fere with his own interests ; his political and social economy tallied exactly with that of the patriciate; he sought to secure himself against the dire ordeal of plebs insecurity PLEBS LEADERS AND LABOR LEADERS 31 and poverty. Given such premises, a policy of deception was the inevitable result. The Plebs Leader was bound to work for the perpetuation of all that was essential in the patriciate, with himself, however, as a sharer in the privi- leges. As a consequence, the Plebs Leader could feel not a throb in favor of any plan, nor could his mind be open to any thoxight that made for the abolition of the economic usurpation that he enjoyed, and the obverse of which was the dreaded hell of plebism. In the deliberate and instinc- tive pursuit of his class safety, the Plebs Leader was aided by the circumstance of his Order — the name of plebeian. The non-;patrician landlord and plutocrat was a plebeian. The designation of "plebeian" covered him, along with the racked middle class man and the exploited proletarian. The common designation raised the common delusion of a "common cause" : only that, as delusions always do, this delusion deluded only those whom it was baneful to. It deluded the plebs middle class and proletariat ; it deluded the patricians themselves, who saw in the bourgeois plebs a "plebeian," and -ostentatiously showed their contempt for him with aristocratic-oligarchic haughtiness. The plebs bourgeois himself never succumbed to the delusion. A phrase thus took the place of a fact, fractional truth substi- tuted square- jointed scientific truth, the line of class cleav- age was blurred, and sentiment did the rest. These were the circumstances that manured the soil from which sprang that rank vegetation — the Plebs Leader. The Plebs Leader saw his opportunity and used it with masterly skill. He needed but to pursue the routine tenor of his own class interests in order to increase the size of the club — Social Discontent — that the mere name of "plebeian" placed in his hands, and that he swung over the heads of the patriciate. At first alarmed for their_ economic power as well as for their political privileges,- the patriciate soon 32 PLEBS LEADERS AND LABOE LEADEBS felt reassured upon the score of the former, and presently discovered in the Plebs Leader the surest protector of both, provided only he were admitted to participation in the latter. The patrician eye was gradually opened. The seven stages of this epoch— beginning with the sop thrown at the Plebs Leaders of admitting picked ones from among them to the role of dumb appendages in the Senate, down to the complete surrender dictated by the Licinian law, when the whole Plebs Leader class was admitted to full patrician political rank — mark the stages of the eye-opening process. During the process, there was discord and struggle enough, but we perceive that the real combatants were the patriciate and the Plebs Leader element. We perceive more; we perceive that, peace being established, the plebs masses could, at least for a time, be dominated, and that the form their now warped class struggle would thenceforth take, would, if it ever again took dangerous form, be something materially distinct from what it had been. And so it happened. For the present, at any rate, the patriciate breathed freely, and with it the Plebs Leader element. Accordingly, we perceive the strategic significance of the Plebs Leader to have been a buttress for patricianism, fraught with the evilest effects upon the plebeian masses. The Temple that Camillus raised to the Goddess of Concord did accordingly commemorate a Truth; concord did now reign, and that Temple, though a monument cast in antique mold, throws out no faint suggestion of the meaning, at least the aspiration, of Hanna's modern monu- ment of guile — the Industrial Peace Commission, on which capitalists and Labor Leaders are seen in fraternal peace and concord.* •About 300 years later, the Temple of Concord being rebuilt. Its misnomer no longer escaped notice. Somebody in the night wrote tbiB line under (he Inscription on the Temple : "Madness and Discord rear the fane of Concord." .PLEBS LEADERS AND LABOR LEADERS 33 Need I, after all this, answer the questions that I posed, at starting: What strength, if any, is there in the Labor- Leader, and what is the nature and source thereof? What is the strategic significance of the Labor Leader on the- field of the modern social question ? Is it a strategic force that accrues to the benefit of the Labor Movement or is it one that makes for capitalist interests ? Need I now answer these questions? Meseems such an answer is superfluous. Well known facts, known to you all, must have all along - suggested themselves in the course of my narrative on the career of the Plebs Leader. He who is at all informed must have detected the startling resemblance there is be- tween the leading lineaments on the physiognomy of the. Plebs Leader and those on the physiognomy of the modern Labor Leader; and he must have perceived that the latter, is to modern capitalism what the former was to the patri- ciate — a strategic post of strength for usurpation, of danger, for its victims. But I prefer to take nothing for granted. The social aspect of the country reveals, on the one side, the Capitalist Class possessed to-day of over 71 per cent, of the wealth of the Nation, and thereby in possession of the political powers — a veritable oligarchy, barely 8 per cent, of the population; on the other side, the Working Class, the modern proletariat, in point of numbers over 52 per cent, of the population, in point of property having less than 5 per cent, of the national wealth — a veritable slave class, groaning under the yoke of wage slavery. And this is no sudden apparition : it has been a slow but steady development. Where such conditions are, it means that a fierce Class Struggle has been on and continues. Leaving aside the Middle Class, that stands between two fires, hitting at and hit by both, and by both destroyed, the struggle is between the Capitalist Class and the Working Class. But the days of single combats are no more. It is now organiza- 31 PLEBS LEADERS AND LABOE LEADERS. tion against organization, and he who says "organization" says 'leadership." A cursory view reveals the capitalist leader at the head of one column; at the head of the other column there has long figured the Labor Leader, the leader in the Trades Unions. The significance of the Plebs Leader was disclosed by his acts and the effect thereof. Let his own acts also speak for the Labor Leader. These acts, illumined by the career of the Plebs Leader, will cause the strategic significance of the modern specimen to stand in no doubtful light. LABOR LEADER RECORD. I have a mass of documents upon the subject. It will be impossible to* go through all of them. I shall take from this mass mainly the facts furnished by the Labor Leader in political office. In many cases, facts as striking are furnished by the Labor Leader outside of public office — the same as Plebs Leaders out of office rendered material aid to their confreres in office. I shall even omit Taany that come under the category of the official political conduct of the Labor Leader. Voluminous as are the' doc- uments I have so far gathered, the collection is far from complete. A pamphlet on the record, even only the official political record, of the Labor Leader will be found to be an invaluable contribution to the arsenal of the Labor Movement. The first document I wish to quote from is the answer of Comrade J. A. Leach of Phoenix, Ariz., to my inquiry touching the Labor Leaders in public office in his Territory. He says : "There are no Trades Unionists holding office in Arizona, that I know of, either elective or appointative. They tried to get an eight-hour law passed In last Legislature, making it illegal to work the miners over eight hours per day. But when the bill was under discussion in the House, It was there held up to rdlcule, and referred to as likely to bay? * bod effect on the miners, and cause them to become gouty. The miners of the town of Globe were so dissatisfied with the conduct of PLEBS LEADERS AND LABOK LEADERS 35 the Kepresentative of their county in the Legislature that the first .time he came to town, they seized him, put him on a rail, rode him out of town, and ordered him not to return or they would give him another dose of rail-riding." This gives the key to the situation ; it gives an inkling of what the Capitalist Class would have to expect if it endeav- ored, of and by itself, to rivet the chains of exploitation upon the Working Class ; it also points the Capitalist Class quite clearly to the policy to pursue ; to wit, avail itself of what strategic position there may be to enable it to mask its moves. Did the Capitalist Class take the hint given it by its early experience ? LENDING A COLOR OF LABOR TO CAPITALISM. The profits of the Captialist Class represent wages with- held from the Working Class. The fleecing of Labo^ im- plied in the raking in of profits, is predicated upon the existence of a wage-slave class, a Working Class, in short, a proletariat; and the continuance of the existence of such a class is in turn dependent upon the private ownership of the means of production — of the land on and the machinery, capital, with which to work. Given the private ownership of these combined elements of production, and the Capitalist Class will congest ever more into its own hands the wealth of the land, while the Working Class must sink to ever deeper depths of poverty and dependence, every mechanical improvement only giving fresh impetus to the exaltation of the capitalist and to the degradation of the workingman. The issue between the two classes is one of life and death; there are no two sides to it; there is no compromise possible. Obviously, it is in the interest of the Working Class that the issue be made and kept clear before the eyes of the rank and file, and that capitalism be held up to their view in all its revolting hideousness. What does the Labor Leader do? He lends to the monster that preys 36 PLEBS LEADERS AND LABOR LEADERS upon the workers the color of Labor by his sanction of its methods. As leading instances of Tenderers of this service to the Capitalist Class may be quoted, among many others of less note, Henry Broadhurst, William Abrahams and Richard Bell in the British Parliament, and, in America, Robert Howard, late of the Massachusetts Legislature. Member of Parliament Broadhurst is a member of the Stonemasons' Union. At the same time he is a large holder of shares in the Brunner-Mands Chemical Works in England, where 50 per cent, profit is made under conditions of fearful slavery. Member of Parliament Abrahams is a member of the Miners' Union. At the same time he is a director of the London, Edinburg and Glasgow Assurance Company and of the Calais Tramway, on the latter of which, especially, the unpaid wages of the employes are "directed" into the pock- ets of the shareholders, this M. P. among the lot. Member of Parliament Bell is the Secretary of the Amal- gamated Society of Railway Servants. During the Taff Vale Railway dispute he was complimented by the Board of Trades representative as "a labor organizer who was capable of seeing that a question had two sides." Howard, who had strenuously upheld the Capitalist Sys- tem in the Massachusetts Legislature, was of the Fall River, Mass.,- Spinners' Union. When his mind recently failed him, and his property had to be administered, he was found to be worth $100,000, a large part of it in stocks in the very mills in which were fleeced to the skin the spinners of whose organization he was an officer. Nor should omission be made under this head, especially not at this season when the electric motor is throwing the locomotive engineers on their beam ends, of P. M. Arthur Grand Chief of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers. PLEBS LEADERS AND LABOR LEADERS 37 While Capitalism was slaughtering his union men on the roads, and was getting ready to reduce them to unskilled labor, he, though not holding political office, pulled the wool over their eyes and filled his pockets with railroad stock from which he derived large dividends, yielded by the mem- bers of his Union. NURSING ANTI-LABOR DELUSIONS. The Capitalist Class knows no country and no race, and any "God" suits it so that "God" approve of the exploita- tion of the worker. Despite all seeming wranglings, som&- times even wars, among them, the Capitalist Class is inter- national, and presents a united front against the Working Class. But for that very reason the Capitalist Class is interested in keeping the workingmen divided among themselves. Hence it foments race and religious animosi- ties that come down from the past. Again, the earnings of the Working Class decline. This is due to the ever larger supply of labor relative to the demand. The Capitalist Class knows that what brings on the increased supply is not immigration so much, but the improved and ever improving machinery, held as private property. For every immigrant by whom the labor market is overstocked, it is overstocked by ten workingmen in the country whom privately owned machinery displaces. The Capitalist Class is full well aware that if this fact be known the conclusion would leap to sight ; to wit, that the solution oi" the Labor Problem is simply the public ownership of the machine. If fifty men, working ten hours a day, can, with improved machinery, produce as much as one hundred did before without such improved machinery, the publicly owned machine would not, as the privately owned machine „ does, throw out fifty men; it would throw out five of the former ten hours of work. It is clear as day to the Capi- 38 FLEBS LEADERS AND LABOB LEADERS talist Class that it must raise dust over this fact so as to conceal it; and no better means to this end is offered than the fomenting of the plausible delusion that the evil lies in immigration. Anti-immigration laws are the fruit of these two purpose^. Such laws kill two flies with one slap ; they draw attention away from the nerve that aches, and simul- taneously they help to set the workers of the land in racial and creed hostility against the newcomers, who, of course, the Capitalist Class itself sees to shall not be lacking. Obviously, it is in the interest of the Working Class that this brace of fatal delusions be dispelled from their minds. What does the Labor Leader do? He helps nurse both delusions. It is no accident that the Edward F. McSweeneys of the Shoemakers' Union, the McKims of the Carpenters', the T. V. Powderlys of Knights of Labor antecedents, and now a Frank P. Sargeant, Grand Master of the Locomotive Firemen, are the ones picked out by the Capitalist Presi- dents, and are found ready to fill the places in the Depart- ment of the Commissioner of Immigration. LENDING A COLOR OP LABOR TO CAPITALIST MEASURES. Capitalism demands ever larger profits. Upon the vol- ume of its profits depends the power of the Capitalist Class to dominate the Working Class. It follows that capitalism requires an ever intenser exploitation of the adult worker; that it hungers after the marrow of the children of the Working Class as one of the most efficient means for the lowering of wages and earnings ; that it seeks to keep these in the ignorance and illiteracy "befitting the station thai God has assigned them to in life f that it aims at preparing the field in such way as to leave the Working Class at the greatest possible disadvantage whenever it rises in the revolt implied in the strike; and that, while thus seeking PLEBS LEADERS AND LABOR LEADERS 39 1o augment its profits, it strains to reduce its taxes, those slices taken from its profits. Obviously, it is in the interest of the Working Class that a spoke be put into each of these wheels. What does the Labor Leader do? He lends the color of labor to these capitalist maneuvers. As instances of this particular service to the Capitalist Class may be quoted, among a great many others, the con- duct of John Wilson, Fenwick and Thomas Burt in the British Parliament; of Henry Blackmore and Clarence Connolly, Labor Commissioner and Factory Inspector, re- spectively, in Missouri ; of Stephen Charters in the mayor- alty office of Ansonia, Conn.; of Sam Boss in the Massa- chusetts Legislature; of J. J. Kinney, E. J. Bracken and James L. Cannon in the Ohio Legislature, and of Samuel Prince and William Maher in the New York Legislature. In Northumberland and Durham, England, the miners only work six hours per day, but their children, who act as drawers of coal, and are paid by the men, work ten hours, one set of children serving two sets of men. Fenwick and Wilson, both of the Miners' Union, are Members of Parlia- ment from those two counties ; and both of them, together with Thomas Burt, Member for Marpeth, and also of the Miners' Union, oppose tooth and nail all propositions for the legal eight-hour day. On the last occasion, when the bill was up, March 5 of this year, Wilson, in voting against it, said "he regretted that Mr. Burt, who took the same line as he did in the matter, was not present; when he found himself on the same side with Mr. Burt, he felt he was on the side of the angels." Accidents to children in the factories of Missouri have become shockingly frequent. The law provides for fire- escapes and forbids the employment of children under 14 years. These laws are coolly ignored and no prosecutions arc ius f ituted. Blackmore of the St. Louis Carpenters and 40 PLEBS LEADERS AND LABOR LEADERS »f the Building Trades Council is the Labor Commissioner, ■and Connolly of the St. Louis International Typographical Union is the Factory Inspector under whose shield these Crimes on Labor are permitted and committed. Under the auspices of Charters, the Carpenters' Union "Mayor of Ansonia, a proposition was introduced this spring to retrench on the school appropriations, so as to lower tax- ation. Thus, besides saving for the capitalists of Ansonia the profits that would otherwise have to go to the school tax, the Charters proposition amounted to cutting off fully two years from the educational opportunities of the children of the Working Class, and thereby and additionally hurl these young ones into the factories to compete with and lower the wages of the workers. A favorite capitalist flank move to increase the exploita- tion of his hands, where he cannot reduce wages outright, is the "fines system." Under the name of "fines" enough can be whacked out of the workers' wages to very materially increase the plunder in the capitalist's pockets. The prac- tice was threatening a revolt among the weavers of New Bedford, Mass. Thereupon the secretary of their Union, Boss, is picked out by the capitalists to run for the Legis- lature on one of the capitalist tickets, on the express issue of legislating the "fines system" out of existence. Boss was elected, and an anti-fines law passed. Nevertheless, the "fines system" continued in full blast; an aggrieved weaver hauled one of the violators of the law before the Court; the Court pronounced the law "unconstitutional" — and Boss continued in the Legislature, where he neither moved the impeachment of the Judge, nor any new anti- fines bill, and by his sepulchral dumbness gave the sanction of Labor to such a capitalist iniquity. Conscious of the fact that, despite all the drag that the Labor Leader is on the impulses of Labor,\the workingmen PLEBS LEADERS AND LABOR LEADERS 41 periodically take the bit into their own mouth, the Capital- ist Class is intent upon so arranging things beforehand that when the workingman goes on strike he may find himself "in a hole, with the wind blowing upon him from all sides." One of the many devices to this end is the enactment of laws clothing street railway employes with police powers. Such powers do not add inches to the work- ingman in behalf of his class; on the contrary. A strike being on, these employes fall under the command of Chiefs of Police and can be handled with effect. A bill to this effect came up in the Ohio Legislature Only the other day, and it passed with the support of the following Labor Leader members: Kinney, ex-International Secretary of the Metal Polishers' Union and Business Agent of the Cleveland Local; Bracken, ex-National Secretary of the Lathers' Union of Columbus and Secretary when elected, and Cannon, of the International Cigarmakers' Union of Columbus. Parenthetically it is of no slight interest here to note that when, in 1899, a corrupt conspiracy now well known in the annals of the American Labor Movement as the "Kangaroo Conspiracy" broke out against the Socialist Movement and an attempt was made by the Cleveland wing of the conspirators to pack a certain meeting of the Cleve- land Section of the Socialist Labor Party, so as to cause the Section to kangaroo, the above named J. J. Kinney was on deok ; paid up two years' back dues, and, though vainly, yet 'strenuously, sought to scuttle the Section. Other de- vices looking to the placing of the workers in a helpless hole during strikes are "Tramp Laws," so-called, whereby a workingman on strike can be adjudged a "tramp" and sent to work in the identical factory against which he struck; "Military Codes" vesting the Courts with power to call out the militia, etc., etc. Such conspiracies against the Work- ing Class have been enacted into law in this State of New 42 PLEB6 LEADERS AND LABOR LEADERS York, and they received the support of Prince of the International Cigarmakers' Union, and Maher of the Cab- drivers' Union, both members of the Legislature. CONCEALING DISREGARD OF THE WORKERS' SAFETY. , It is not merely by the process of sponging up the wealth produced by the Working Class that the Capitalist Class undermines the health and life of the workingman. The Capitalist Class is, not constructively or inferentially only, a cannibal class. The roots of capitalism are literally watered with the blood of the proletariat. The fields of production — mills, shops, railroad beds, yards — are strewn with the limbs and fallen bodies of workingmen. Capitalist "progress" is built upon the skulls and crossbones of its Working Class victims. Obviously, in the interest of the Working Class is the tearing of the veil of hypocrisy with which the Capitalist Class seeks to conceal these deeds of mayhem and murder, and the giving to them the greatest publicity possible. What does the Labor Leader do? He aids in the act of concealment, and thereby lends direct support to the capitalist's reckless disregard for the safety of the workingman's limb and life. Of this particular service to capitalism, the following few instances, taken from an inexhaustible quarry, may give an idea. In Silver Bow County, Mont., Sam Johnson, the Secre- tary of the Mill Smelters' Union, is Coroner, and Peter Breen, of the Miners' Union, is County Attorney. "Acci- dents," by which miners and smelters are injured for life or killed, due entirely to capitalist reckless methods, are matters of daily occurrence in the County. Johnson has been in office now seventeen months. Aided by Breen, not one — aye, not one — case has been prosecuted; they are all hushed up. Here in this State the cry went up, it was eleven years PLEBS LEADEHS AND LABOR LEADERS 13 ago, on the outrages perpetrated by the Adirondack Bail- road Company, Vanderbilt System, upon the men who were shanghaied to build the road. Florence F. Donovan, of the International Typographical Union, at the time a Com- missioner of Arbitration, was appointed to investigate. He was shown to have been bribed by the Company with $500 to whitewash it; and he earned his bribe; and though he went down and out of office in disgrace, the Company went off scot free ! In the State of Washington, when the Great Northern Tunnel, called the "Cascade Tunnel," owing to its heavy grade and length, was first opened, three or four working* men were suffocated to death, owing to the company's hurry to operate the road. The State Legislature appointed a Committee to investigate. William Blackman, a member of the Seattle Typographical Union, and, at the time, Labor Commissioner, was put on the Committee to "represent Labor." The Committee reported unanimously the tunnel perfectly safe, and none responsible for the accident. And in Pennsylvania. The Mine and Factory Inspectors in that bloodstained region, a region shaken up periodically by shocking "accidents" to miners, are Labor Leaders almost to a man. I shall not cumulate instances on this head. You know that the maimed and murdered miners go unavenged, the crimes being screened by those Labor Leaders. GIVING A COLOK OF LABOR TO CAPITALIST BRUTALITY. And yet, not all this will stead the Capitalist Class. And they know it. As a last and most effective string to their bow, when all other means fail, the Capitalist Class thrums on the public powers that it is entrusted with. If, despite all their efforts at suppression and misleading, cajoling*, and cheating, the indignation of the Working Class breaks 44 PLEB8 LEADERS AND LABOR LEADERS loose, the policeman's club, the rifle of the militia, and, if. necessary, the military power of the Nation itself, are brought into requisition. What deception, cajolements and chicanery may. have failed to accomplish, brute force is ordered to bring about, and the workingmen are clubbed, or butchered into subjection. Obviously in the interest of the Working Class is, at least, emphatic protest against /such deeds. What does the Labor Leader do? From his safe perch in office he condones by his silence the brutality of capitalism, occasionally even applauds it. A few instances in which this particular service is ren- dered to the Capitalist Class are these : John Burns, Labor Leader in the British Parliament, when the miners were shot down by the troops in 1893, and the Liberal Home Secretary Asquith "took upon himself the responsibility of the act" — John Burns upheld the hand ©f Mr. Asquith. I Dave C. Coates, President of the State Federation of Labor of Colorado, as Lieutenant Governor of that State, remains silent at the periodical clubbings and shootings of workingmen in his State, and by his conduct accentuates the meaning of his taking the stump for Charles S. Thomas, who, in 1898, was rewarded by the Colorado capitalists with the nomination for Governor in return for his denunciation of the miners of the Bull Hill district as "thugs and in- cendiaries." In New York, the Sam Prince and William Maher, al-, ready mentioned, and before them Williams of the Carpen- ters' Union, sat quietly in their seats in the Legislature while Governors Flower, Morton and the present incumbent Odell successively hurled the militia of the State against the railway workers in Buffalo, Brooklyn and Albany, striking to enforce the ten-hour law, and in support of the capitalists who were violating the law. Vested PLEBS LEADERS AND LABOR LEADERS ' 45 as they were with the power to move the impeachment of these law-breaking magistrates, the silence of that batch of Labor Leaders was an emphatic expression of approval. Nor should it escape us in this connection that, fresh upon Governor Flower's conduct, and the applause bestowed upon him by his supporter and fellow-Democrat, Jacob Cantor, this Cantor becoming a candidate for the Senate, he was pronounced a "friend of Labor," and he who said the con- trary "one who said what is not true," by another- Labor Leader, Samuel Gompers. In St. Paul, Minn., one B. F. Morgan, a member of Lodge 31 of the Switchmen's Union, enjoys a place on the police force of the city, and despite — or is it, perhaps, because of — this double capacity, appeared as a delegate at the recent Milwaukee, Wis., national convention of his trade. What virtues qualified that Labor Leader for selec- tion as policeman by the capitalist government of St. Paul you may judge. You may also judge what influences secured his election to the convention, and what his mission was there. In Detroit, Mich., one C. P. Collins had earned ( his spurs with the Capitalist Class for shooting down the city em- ployes at Conners Creek. Wishing after that to run for Sheriff, and his capitalist backers fearing that his Conners Creek record would militate against him with the work- ingmen voters, his backers hired Henry Eickoff of the Detroit Polishers' Union to impart to Collins a "Labor flavor." Collins was elected, and his capitalist backers re- warded Eickoff with the office of Factory Inspector. BREAKING OFF THE HEAD OF LABOR' LANCE. Obviously, independent, class-conscious political action is the head of Labor's lance. Useful as any other weapon- may be, that weapon is the determining factor. Entrenched 4* PLEBS LEADERS AND LABOR LEADERS m the public powers, the Capitalist Class command the field. None but the political weapon can dislodge the tfeurpers and enthrone the Working Class; that is to say, 'emancipate the workers and rear the Socialist Eepublic. And none are better aware of the fact than the Capitalist Class, nor, consequently, more anxious to have the Labor forces turned from the field of independent Labor political activity. Obviously, in the interest of the Working Class, is it to arouse them to class-conscious political action. What does the Labor Leader do ? From England, westward over the United States and Canada to Australia, we find the Labor Leaders solidly arrayed against the very idea. A veritable bulwark of capitalism, they seek to turn the polit- ical trend of the Labor Movement into the channels of capitalist politics, where the head of Labor's lance, its independent, class-conscious political effort, can be safely broken off. LABOR LEADER AND PLEBS LEADER. Such are the facts thrown up by the career of the Labor Leader everywhere, every one of whom, in public office, is there by the grace of capitalist parties. Even in the in- stances that would seem exceptional, the exception is in seeming only. As far, then, as this goes, the parallel be- tween the Labor Leader and the Plebs Leader is accurate : Just as with the Plebs Leader, the Labor Leader is "practical," he makes a boast of that; he nurses no "visions," he "chases no rainbows." Just as with the Plebs Leader, the Labor Leader sees no way out of the existing Social System. He will admit the evils of capitalism ; it is profitable that he should ; but no more than did the Plebs Leader of old, does the Labor Leader of to-day aim at the extinction of the flames that devour the wage-slave class. Just as with the Plebs Leader, the Labor Leader accepts PLEBS LEADERS AND LABOR LEADERS 47 the social economy of the ruling class : "Poverty alway was ; poverty always will be." Just as the Plebs Leader looked down upon the plebeian proletariat and middle class as a hopeless, helpless element, fit only to be used, and brought his religion to sanction the exploitation of these classes, the Labor Leader places no, faith whatever in the capacity of the Working Class to emancipate itself. Finally, and by reason of all this, just as the Plebs Leader sought to secure himself against plebs distress, and, in doing so, propped up both the economic power and the political privileges of patricianism at the expense of the plebs masses, the Labor Leader of to-day limits his aspirations to the feathering of his own nest, and, in pursuit of this purpose turns himself, at the expense of the Working Class, into a prop of capitalism. There remains just one feature to consider, and that the most significant of all, in the physiognomy of the Plebs Leader — the circumstance that placed in the Plebs Leader's hands the means to carry out his designs. That circum- stance, it will be remembered, was his sharing the designa- tion of "plebeian." That designation raised the delusion of "community of interests" between him and the plebeian middle class and proletariat; it secured for him the con- fidence of these ; it placed in his hands the club that we saw him swing over the head of the patriciate, and with the aid of which he wrenched from the patriciate the privileges ho needed to safeguard himself against the hell of plebsism. This feature was the determining factor in the physiognomy of the Plebs Leader. It was the feature that constituted him into the strategic force that buttressed patricianism, and, consequently, could and did operate with deadly effect upon the victimized masses. How, on this point, stands the case with the Labor Leader? Exactly the same. 48 PLEBS LEADERS AND LABOR LEADERS The common designation of "Labor" that clings to the .Labor Leader, and which he is zealous to cultivate, does for the Labor Leader what the common designation of "plebeian" did for the Plebs Leader : it covers him, along with the toiling and fleeced wage-slaves in the shops, mills and yards, placing him before these in the light of a "f ellow- workingman." In this instance, as in that of the Plebs Leader, the people — capitalists as well as proletarians — gen- erally fall victims to the delusion, a delusion that, just as in the instance of the Plebs Leader, the Labor Leader alone remains free from. Accordingly, in this instance, as in that of the Plebs Leader, the common delusion arms the Labor Leader with the club wherewith to wrench from the Capi- talist Class safety for himself. True enough, the character of that safety differs markedly from that which the Plebs Leader needed, aimed at and got. Theoretical political equality in capitalist society, especially in a capitalist republic, eliminates the political issues that arose in patrician Eome. To-day the only question among the elements that accept the existing Social System is eco- nomic. And that question is considered solved by the folks of the "practical" brigade when a "living" is secured ; that is to say, when immunity is gained from work as a wage- slave. Obviously, the landing on the "stairs of safety" with the Labor Leader is far below what it necessarily had to be with the Plebs Leader ; with the Labor Leader the landing is brought down to the level of the "bribe." The lowering of the character of the "safety" with which the Labor Leader is satisfied, quite in keeping with the lowering mor- ality of capitalist atmosphere, does not affect the essence of the Labor Leader's exploit, nor the nature of its effect. That he can secure such safety; that he is enveloped in a popular delusion which enables him to secure such safety, and that imparts direction to would-be imitators; finally, PLEBS LEADERS AND LABQH LEADERS 49 that, bundle of ignorance, perver3eness and corruption as he is, he succeeds in his double game of double dealing — that is the important fact. And that fact makes the Labor Leader of to-day, just as the Plebs Leader of old, a masked position, a strategic post and force that buttresses capital- ism, and the very quality of which cannot but operate demoralizingly, disastrously upon the Working Class. And this strategic power for evil on the part of the Labor Leader has so far been effective. With increasing rafts of them in public office by the grace of capitalist parties, and still larger rafts of them qualifying for the distinction, we see to-day that, despite an increasing percentage of work- ingmen, even the census admits a decreasing percentage in wages. And the general situation of the Working Class in the land to-day is well pictured by the now com- mon grim joke: "When a workingman has reached forty- five years, take him out and shoot him ; he is too used up to be of any further account, and is too poor to take care of himself." And yet, despite these facts, there are those who say : "The Labor Leader amounts to nothing, ignore him" — which goes to prove that the ostriches are not all of the feathered tribe. And others there are who declare: "The Labor Leader and his organizations need not concern the Socialist Movement, capitalism itself is destroying both" — which goes to show how wide of the mark abstract scientific principles, when recited by rote, will fall ! THE DUTY OF THE HOUR. The Socialist knows that popular well-being implies the emancipation of the race from class rule, and he knows that such was not possible at the time the Licinian.law was being struggled for — 400 B. C. The abolition of class rule had to await the modern machinery of production. Not until mechanical perfection in production can render 50 PLEBS LEADERS AND LABOR LEADERS the production of wealth ample and easy enough to afford to all the leisure that civilization craves, does it become at ill possible to abolish involuntary poverty. The Socialist knows all that, and, knowing it, does not suppose that in 400 B. C. aught could have been done to remove the causes at the root of popular suffering. But this other he knows also, that even if the effects could not then be wholly wiped out, neither was their aggravation inevitable, and that their aggravation was the result of fortuitous circumstances. Those fortuitous circumstances were the Plebs Leader, together with the superstitions in his favor that he was able to exploit; In the Plebs Leader there was a strategic post of incalculable strength for usurpation, and of consequent weakness for the revolutionary class, the Roman proletariat The fact having escaped the revolutionary elements of Some, they, and the whole Commonwealth with them, suf- fered the full consequences. The net result of these com- bined causes — deepening poverty among increasing num- bers; increased power of usurpation in an oligarchy; and, as the hoop to hold these staves together, the delusion born of the term "plebeian," that fastened the oppressed in blind attachment to the oppressor, — the net result I say, of these combined causes was one that neither side looked for, but was forced upon both : it was the transmuting of the Roman people into a prof essional^ army of freebooters ; the revolu- tionary pulse was turned into the channels of rapine, a development, that, having satiated itself with plunder abroad, finally turned, as I indicated at the start, into a weapon, not for national comfort, but of national suicide. That the revolutionary elements of Rome should have slipped and fallen is pardonable. Not so with the revoluaj tionary elements of to-day — the wage-slave or Working Glass, together with the materials whom its great Cause! attracts. In the first place, to slip is easy where to run is PLEBS LEADERS AND LABOR LEADERS 51 yet impossible. The primitiveness of production made it, I explained, impossible for the revolutionary element of Rome to accomplish its emancipation. In the second place, the steps of the Eome of 500 B. C. to 400 B. C. were not lighted by the experience of older civilizations. Not so to-day. To-day the condition precedent for proletarian emancipa- tion has been reached: the mechanism of production has reached the point where "the wheels move of themselves." No longer are civilized conditions for some predicated upon the unavoidable privations of any, let alone of most. Civi- lized conditions are to-day possible for all; and the class interests of the revolutionary class — the Working Class — dictate the programme, the collective ownership of the land on and the tools with which to work ; in short, the Co-oper- ative Commonwealth, or Socialist Republic. Furthermore, to-day we need not grope in historic darkness. The past throws its light, and no flickering light it is, across our path, to guide our steps. By that light we may read the strategic significance of the Labor Leader; by that light we may perceive him to embody, as the Plebs Leader did of old, those fortuitous circumstances that, unless made decided front against, certainly will nullify all the possibilities for good of the age, turn awry "enterprises of great pith and moment," and make them lose the name of action. The blindness of the Roman revolutionary, elements was par- donable; blindness on our part would be unpardonable to- day. The army that operates upon hostile territory may not "ignore" a strategic post from which it may be mowed down; nor should a parrot-like recitation of Socialist phi- losophy be allowed to lull the Socialist Movement into imaginary safety. Item no doubt, would the Capitalist Class of to-day smash the Labor Leader and, along with him, the "Organ- 52 PLEBS LEADERS AND LABOR LEADERS ized Labor" that he operates, but no more so than, and for the same reason, that the Roman patriciate would gladly have smashed the Plebs Leader, together with the organiza- tions on and with which he operated. Why should we expect the modern usurping class to have less wit than the patriciate of Rome in utilizing a popular delusion, and seeking to curb Labor with the aid of the Labor Leader? We have seen the patriciate do the trick, though at the cost of no mere trifles yielded by it to the Plebs Leader; why should the modern capitalist be supposed to be less "clever," especially seeing that mere bones to gnaw at suffice to cause the Labor Leader hound to do his bidding? But we are past the point of "expecting," "supposing" and "speculating" upon the subject. Hanna's imitation, premature though it is> of Camillus's Temple to the Goddess of Concord removes all conjecture. Along with twenty- four active limbs of capitalism, we find in the niches of Hanna's Temple to the Goddess of "Industrial Peace" a choice collection of twelve Labor Leaders — Samuel Gom- pers; John Mitchell, President of the United Mine Work- ers; Prank P. Sargent, Grand Master Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen; Theodore Shaffer, President Amal- gamated Association of Iron, Steel and Tin Workers ; James Duncan, General Secretary Granite Cutters; Daniel J. Keefe, President Longshoremen's Association; James O'Connell, President International Association of Machin- ists; Martin Pox, President Iron Molders; James Lynch, President International Typographical Union; Edward E. Clark, Grand Chief Order of Railway Conductors ; Harry White, General Secretary United Garment Workers, and W. Macarthur, Editor Coast Seaman's Journal, each of whom, without exception, prates of "Harmony between Employer and Employe"; in other words, each of whoipl upholds the capitalist system of society. This should bef warning enough. PLEBS LEADERS AND LABOR LEADERS 53 I mean not to, I shall not here, take a hand in the dis- cussion that is going on in our Party press on the Socialist Trade and Labor Alliance. Nevertheless, at this point I must quote a passage from Letter XX in that discussion. Comrade Francis A. Walsh, of Lynn, says there : ."If by some great strike taking place the workers turned in the direction of the ballot box, if the Socialist Trade and Labor Alliance was not there to guide them right, they would naturally elect the labor fakirs to office who happened to be misleading them, and by so doing they would defeat the purpose of their own spontaneous, honest, well- intended movement." I admit the dialectic point that it does not follow because a certain thing is bad, therefore a certain other is the proper means to remove it. Such a conclusion would need demonstration. Accordingly, I here leave aside that part of this passage which argues that the Socialist Trade and Labor Alliance is needed to avoid the particular danger that he points out. What I here want to underscore is the point made, that the Labor Leader — "Labor Fakir" is the term he uses — would, under ordinary circumstances, nat- urally be chosen by the rank and file to head their political on ^breaks' and that the Working Class would thereby unin- tentionally defeat their own honest and serious purposes. The Labor Leader would sell out. The Lynn Comrade there hit a nail, and no unimportant one, squarely on the head ; so squarely that the blow rings. Moreover, there is nothing to prevent the Labor Leader from committing to memory a few Socialist phrases — the more scientifically sonorous all the better for his purpose — and thus adding, to the delusion of "Labor" that of "Socialism" in his favor. Indeed, the trick is already being tried. And thus, as I stated in my introductory remarks, abstract scientific dis- sertations, unaccompanied with accurate knowledge on the military topography, so to speak, of the field of the Social Question, may redound to the undoing of the Socialist Movement. 54 PLEBS LEADERS AND LABOR LEADERS In the fire of the revolutionary discontent during the formative period from 500 B. C. to 400 B. C, the Koman Commonwealth was forged awry into a weapon of eventual national suicide. Let there be no fatalism in our councils. 'The Socialist Kepublic is no predestined inevitable develop- ment. The Socialist Republic depends, not upon material conditions only; it depends upon these — plus clearness of vision to assist the evolutionary process. Nor was the agency of the intellect needful at any previous stage of social evolution in the Class Struggle to the extent that it is needful at this, the culminating one of all. Is the revolutionary class of this Age living under rip- ened conditions to avail itself of its opportunity and fulfil its historic mission? Or is the revolutionary spark of our Age to be smothered and banked up till, as in the Rome of old, it leap from the furnace, a weapon of national suicide? In sight of the invasion of the Philippine Islands and the horrors that are coming to light, is there any to deny that the question is a burning one? The answer depends, to-day, not upon a knowledge of scientific Socialist economics and sociology alone. It de- pends upon that and, hand in hand with that, upon an accurate knowledge of the strategic features of the field. Nor is there a strategic post that the Socialist or Labor Movement should keep its weather eye more firmly on and take more energetic measures against than the Labor Leader. As the Plebs Leader of old was a strategic post of peculiar /strength for the patriciate and of mischief for the prole- tariat, so and for like reasons is the the Labor Leader of to-day nothing but a masked battery, from behind which the Capitalist Class can encompass what it could not with- out—the work of enslaving and slowly degrading the Work- ing Class, and, along with that, the work of debasing and ruining the country. THE WARNING OE THE GRACCHI Comrades of Section New York: The purpose of this second page from Eoman history, "The Warning of the Gracchi," is in a measure supple- mentary to the first. The first page, "Plebs Leaders and Labor Leaders," was strategic, this one is tactical. The first pointed out a peculiar danger that threatens the Socialist or Labor Movement from without ; this one is to point out an inherent weakness of our forces under fire. As the first was intended for aggression, this one is intended for precaution. LAW OF REVOLUTIONARY SUCCESSION. The Socialist is not like the chicken in the fable that, having on its back still a bit of the shell of the egg from which it just crawled, looked out into the world and said : "Why, as things are, they have always heen,' and will.be." The Socialist, whether with such a shell on his back or not, knows that, as things are, they have not always been; and he knows that neither will they always remain so. , ■ The Socialist looks back over history and finds "things," so far from being in a state of placid, stable equilibrium, convulsed by violent upheavals ; and he shrewdly stfrmises the end is not yet. The Socialist looks below the agitated surface : of ■• that agitated mass, and he discovers that its aspect is not that of turmoil and chaos, merely. He discovers there is a succes- sion of well marked social changes, many of them 'having existed and gone down long before his days, and been sue- 5o THE WARNING OP THE GRACCHI ceeded by others, that also disappeared before he was born, to make place for the Social system under which he now lives. The Socialist looks still closer, and he recognizes in these social changes, not merely a succession, but a progres- sion of revolutions. He perceives that it is not a case of "wave following wave," but a case of development. With eyes increasingly trained, the Socialist detects the active agency in each of these progressive upheavals. Each . of these upheavals is found to mark the downfall and ex- tinction of a Killing Class, achieved by a Ruled Class, which, in turn, develops, and enthrones itself on a new Ruled Class, which, again in its turn, supplants its oppress- ors ; and so on. Finally, equipped with the key that these researches fit him out with, the Socialist fathoms the secret of the force latent in, and that brings on this progression of revolutions. It is the law of economic evolution. Every Ruling Class represents a distinct Economic System, born of that that went before. The overthrow of a Ruling Class means the overthrow of its Economic System. When the Economic System of a Ruling Class has worn out, When it has been sapped by the Economic System carried in the womb of the then subject Class, it is cast aside. The downfall of a pre- vailing Social or Economic System is conditioned upon the ripeness of the Economic System next in order to substitute iti and the executor of such fiats in social evolution is the subject Class, whose class interests dictate the new system, and that then takes the reins of government. One illustration will do for all. Going no further back than the Feudal System, it is seen to have declined in the measure that — nursed into vigor by the sheltering boughs of the very tree of Feudalism — there rose and gathered strength a new Economic System, that was able to sap the THE WARNING OP THE GEACCHI 57 Feudal System and render the feudal lords dependent upon it. Feudal rule was grounded on land. All the same, among the subject Class — the bourgeoisie, or future , Capi- talist Class — there rose a new, the capitalist Economic System, grounded on capital, slowly undermining the foun- dation of the Ruling Class, until the day came when an Economic System different from its own held it by the throat. And then came the toppling over; and then came the struggle; and the Capitalist Revolution was accom- plished. Along identical lines we notice things are proceeding to-day, under the Capitalist System. Again — nursed into vigor by the sheltering boughs of the capitalist tree itself — there has been rising and gathering strength a new Eco- nomic System, that is sapping the Capitalist System and rendering the modern Ruling Class, the Capitalist Class, dependent upon it. Capitalism is grounded upon the indi- vidual operation and ownership of the machinery of pro- duction. And again, among the now subject class — the Proletariat, or Working Class — there has risen, obedient to their own class interests, a new Economic System — Social- ism, grounded on the collective operation and ownership of the machinery of production. The Socialist Economic System has been gradually undermining the Capitalist: individualism in production is vanishing. When the Eco- nomic Principles of a Ruling Class are worn out, that Class itself is nearing its finale. The Capitalist Class is on its last legs. When matters came to that pass in feudal days, the victory of Capitalism followed inevitably, as night does day. Is the victory of Socialism, the emancipation of the Working Class, therefore equally inevitable? The danger is natural, and, therefore, serious, of draw- ing automatic — or, as the Germans call it, schablone — conclusions. "The Feudal System," one often hears as- 58 THE WARNING OF THE GEAOCHI serted from many a sincere Socialist source, "overthrew the Theocratic System; the Capitalist System overthrew the Feudal System; the Socialist System must, therefore, inevitably overthrow the Capitalist System." Some put it this way : "Theocratic rule was overthrown by the Feudal Class; the Feudal Class was overthrown by the Capitalist Class ; therefore the Proletariat will overthrow the Capital- ist Class." And they consider that, by saying that, all is said that is to be said on the matter. At best these auto- matic reasoners may grant the usefulness of stimulating the people at large, the proletariat in particular, with descrip- tions of the beauties of the Socialist New Jerusalem; and there you are. The Capitalist Class will stand by, cap in hand, and allow the Proletariat — some call it "the people" — to step in — and there you have your Socialist Republic. Socialist science is no automatic affair. It knows and teaches that nothing is the result of any one, but of many causes, operating togther. Accordingly, Socialist science submits to the microscope the solemn procession of past class uprisings. The additional observations thus gath- ered disclose this important fact : The Working Class, the subject class upon whom depends the overthrow of Capital- ism and the raising of Socialism, differs from all previous subject classes called upon by History to throw down an old and set up a new Social System. Going again no further back than the days of Feudalism, the distinctive mark of the bourgeoisie, or the then revo- lutionary class, was the possession of the material means essential to its own Economic System ; on the contrary, the distinctive mark of the proletariat to-day is the being wholly stripped of all such material possession. While wealth, logically enough, was the badge of the revolu- tionary bourgeoisie, poverty, likewise logically enough, is the badge of the proletariat. The sign, the symptom, the THE WAHNING OF THE GRACCHI 59 gauge of bourgeois ripeness, as of the ripeness for emancipa- tion of all previous subject classes, was their ownership of the physical materials essential to their own Economic System; the sign, on the contrary, of the proletariat is a total lack of all material economic power — a novel accom- paniment to a revolutionary class, in the whole range of Class Revolutions. Does this difference establish a difference in kind between the proletariat and the old bourgeoisie as a revolutionary class ? It does not. But it does establish a serious differ- ence in the tactical quality of the two forces, a difference that imparted strength to the former revolutionary forces under fire, while it imparts weakness to the proletariat There was nothing imaginable the feudal lord, for in- stance, could do to lure the bourgeois from the path marked out to it. Holding the economic power, capital, on which the feudal lords had become dependent, the bourgeois was safe under fire. All that was left to Feudalism to maneuver with was titles. It might bestow these hollow honors, throwing them as sops to the leaders of the bourgeoisie. The bourgeois was not above "rattles and toys ;" but not all such "rattles and toys" could have led the bourgeois revo- lution into the ground. On the contrary. If already stripped of economic power, the feudal lords had also stripped themselves of exclusive feudal filigrees, they would only have abdicated all the sooner. A "good king," a "soft- hearted duchess," might have stayed the striking arm for a while. The ( striking arm was bound to come down. Wealth imparts strength; strength self-reliance. Where this is coupled with class interests, whose development is hampered by social shells, the shell is bound to be broken through. The process is almost automatic. Differently with the proletariat. It is a force, every atom of which has a stomach.to fill, with wife and children 60 THE WABNING OF THE GKACCHI with stomachs to fill, and, withal, a precarious ability to attend to such urgent needs. Cato the Elder said in his usual blunt way: "The belly has no ears." At times this circumstance may be a force, but it is only a fitful force. Poverty breeds lack of self-reliance. Material insecurity suggests temporary devices. Sops and lures become capti- vating baits. And the one and the other are in the power of the present Ruling Class to maneuver with. Obviously the difference I have been pointing out be- tween the bourgeois and the present, the proletarian, revo 5 - lutionary forces shows the bourgeois to have been sound, while the proletarian, incomparably more powerful by ife numbers, to be afflicted with a certain weakness under fire, a weakness that, unless the requisite measures of counter- action be taken, must inevitably cause the course of history to be materially deflected. It is upon this vital point that the career of the Gracchi utters its warnings across the ages to the Socialist. THE ROME OF THE GHACCHI. The Rome of the Gracchi — about 100 B. C. — was the Rome of 400 B. C, the time when the address "PlebS Leaders and Labor Leaders" closed, only with the then existing evils intensified by 300 years. All the causes that, 300 years previous, brought on those evils were at work now, only with the added swing of 300 years' additional momentum. To those causes there should be added just one, so as to help explain and complete the picture. Actuated by the giddy notions of aristocracy that had seized the Ruling Class, it took the fancy of being the lords of large cattle and sheep ranges, rather than of farms. It .carried on its designs in this way : Corn was imported free from Sicily and the Asiatic possessions. That rendered valueless, at least not marketable,- the corn raised in Italy. • THE WAHSTUffO OF THE GRACCHI 61 Borne having by that time become mistress of all Italy, this policy spread ruin over the whole peninsula. The farmers were bankrupted; their farms were expropriated, and these were added to the lands of the ruling Komans, who thus changed the face of the Italian soil into immense cattle ranges and sheep walks, run entirely by slaves. The social-economic situation of the time is summed up graphically in the words of Tiberius Gracchus, which I quoted in the course of the first address of this series, to in- dicate the utter hollowness of the Plebs Leader victories, as far as the middle class and the proletariat were con- cerned. I shall quote it here again for the sake of com- pleteness : "The wild beasts of Italy have their caves to retire to, but the brave men who spill their blood in her cause have nothing left but air and light. Without houses, without any settled habitations, they wandei- from place to place with their wives and children ; and their generals do but mock them, when, at the head of their armies, they exhort their men to fight for their sepulchres and domestic gods ; for, among such numbers, .perhaps there is not a Roman who has an altar that belonged to his ancestors, or a sepulchre in which their ashes rest. The private soldiers fight and die, to advance the wealth and luxury of the great : and they are called masters of the world, while they have not a foot of ground in their possession." A language that reminds one of the language of the Naza- rene, about 150 years later. When to this is added that a horde of 14,000,000 slaves is said to have been then in Italy ; that not 2,000 families were possessed of solid wealth, and that the vertigo had reached the point that a Roman knight, finding himself bankrupt, tried his luck by freeing his slaves, having them elect him their king, and starting a servile uprising, which, of course, was speedily suffocated, a picture may be formed of the social condition of the Rome of the Gracchi. As to the political situation, it had remained unchanged, barring one circumstance that is of importance, having quite a bearing on this subject. Rome, like most of the empires of antiquity, was a city empire. Like Athens, like Sparta, like Carthage, Rome was 62 THE WARNING OF THE GHACCHl a city-government, a city-commonwealth, and one may say she was ruled on democratic principles, in the sense that all those who had the right to a say in the government had a say directly, by appearing at the Forum, at the market place, at a certain place, and there 'giving their vote. The territorial expansion of Eome brought on a change. So long as Eome was absorbing only tribes contiguous to the city the Eoman citizen who settled upon the newly acquired territory could, with comparative ease, appear in Rome on election, or voting, day, and have his voice heard. In the measure, however, that the conquered territories lay further and further away, this direct participation in the government became more difficult. When, finally, all Italy was a Eoman possession, even the Eoman citizen colonists were de facto, though not de jure, disfranchised. Presence at the Forum in Eome was out of the question. Somehow the minds of the ancients ran up against a dead wall in face of the problem thus presented. Modern civilization has solved the problem through "representative government." In Washington, for instance, the laws are enacted that govern this vast country, infinitely larger than the Italy that Eome owned. The laws proceed from Wash- ington, but it is not the people of Washington that enact the laws. The laws are enacted by representatives of the whole country, chosen by the whole people, and in that way the whole people actually legislate. If the laws as passed do not suit them, theirs is the fault. A country can now consist of so many active citizens that it would be impossible for them all to meet and legislate, and yet, however far apart they may reside, they can exercise the suffrage and control the national legislation. Eepresentative government makes that possible. Antiquity had no conception of this. As the Eoman citizen abroad in Italy had none but a potential vote — THE WARNING OF THE GRACCHI 63 potential inasmuch as it became actual only by his presence in Eome — the Italians, who had not been turned into slaves, were mere political pariahs. They were ruled from Rome. This brought on a social alignment of dire results. Economically, the Italian population, Eome included, re- mained divided between the landlord-plutocrat and the proletarian classes, with the middle class cutting ever less of a figure; but both these classes fell again into two hostile camps, with the line of cleavage drawn by the Eoman suf- frage. On the one side stood the denizens of Eome, rich and poor together ; on the other stood the Italians outside of Borne, poor and rich together. Now then, by the^ slow alluvial accretions of over 500 years of habit, the ragged Eoman proletarian came to consider himself a limb of the ruling power, held together with the Eoman landlord- plutocrat by a common bond of political superiority over the vast numbers of free peoples in Italy, outside of Eome. We have seen, in the course of the address on "Plebs Leaders and Labor Leaders" the baneful results of the superstition that enabled the bourgeois plebeian, under the cloak of the common designation of "Plebeian," to pull the wool over the eyes of his "fellow plebeians," the proletariat and middle class, just as in our own days the Labor Leader does to his "fellow laboring men," under the cloak of the common designation of "Labor." So now. Whenever the question came of granting the franchise to the Italians, the downtrodden proletarian of Eome joined his oppressors m violent opposition to sharing with the Italians "the purple of government." I hope I have made the point clear enough to warrant the conclusion that the situation that confronted the Gracchi at about 100 B. C. had passed the stage of reform. No tinkering could any longer stead. No enactment of 'laws" and waiting for their slow operation could then touch the 64 THE WARNING OF THE GEACCHI evils that afflicted Rome, and, along with Rome, her Italian domain. The day for constitutional methods was gone by. Whenever a nation has reached that point, there are no longer "institutions" in existence: the institutions have become shadows. There is extant nothing but usurpation. In such emergencies nothing short of revolution is in order.- Such were the conditions that confronted the Gracchi, and which they addressed themselves to correct. Did they realize the nature of the task before them ? Did they under- stand the qualities, the tactical strength and the tactical weakness of the material at hand to accomplish their task with? In putting these two questions, I am dividing into two a question that can hardly be divided. They are like the obverse and reverse >of a medal. They are the two sides of one and the same thing : the task to be accomplished and the element necessary to accomplish ' it with. Did the Gracchi understand that? I shall show you they did not, and from the series of blunders that they committed, and the dire result of their blunders, we to-day, in the Rome of to-day, should take warning. THE GRACCHIAN TACTICS. The Gracchi were two brothers of distinguished extrac- tion and connections — Tiberius, the elder ; Gaius, the younger. They did not figure together; they figured suc- cessively. Tiberius began in 133 B. C. His work was cut short by assassination committed by the Senators. Gaius took up the work of Tiberius a few years later, and carried it on successfully for a while, in the teeth of the Senate, until, left in the lurch by the proletariat, he fled from Rome, and committed suicide in the contiguous Grove of the Furies. And that ended it, in 121 B. C. This consti- tutes the Gracchian episode, strictly speaking. Its start, however, should be placed several years earlier, in certain THE WARNING OF THE GRACCHI 65 incipient reformatory movements, the forerunners of the Gracohian episode proper. The whole period would, ac- cordingly, cover something like a generation, reaching its climax in the Gracchi. And now, as to the series of steps taken to accomplish the gigantic task in hand. I shall not here go into a detailed account of the numerous legislative enactments of this period. It is not necessary, any more than in my previous address, a detailed account of the Koman constitution was needed. That would only surcharge the picture. The salient and successive acts will answer all practical purpose. FIRST ACT. The first act of this period consisted in a reform of the suffrage. You will remember that the Roman suffrage was exercised by Centuries; that the Centuries were military divisions of the people, ranked according to property; that the highest Centuries, including the Knights, had the fewest numbers and the largest vote ; that the Knights and the First Century together polled 97 votes, an absolute majority of the 193 polled by all, and that the order of voting was according to the rank of the Centuries,- so that if, as happened usually, the first two agreed, the others were not "called upon to express their opinion, seeing the voting was by word of mouth. All this was certainly vexatious. The majority of the citizens were placed at a decided disadvantage : wealth pre- ponderated, poverty was aggravated. The Gracchian Movement attacked this wrongful system first. But how? Did it restore the preponderance of power to where it be- longed? No. It tinkered around the form, and merely reduced the evil. It lowered the vote of the First Century from 80 to 70, so that, instead of the first two, it now required the solid vote of the first three Centuries to 66 THE WARNING OF THE GRACCHI carry the day. Instead of two Centuries having the power to out-vote five, three Centuries — still a minority— were left with power to out-vote four. And the shuffling was carried a step further by the provision that the Centuries were to vote promiscuously and not by rank, as formerly — as though trump cards became any the less trumps by the order in which they were played. There was a third pro- vision that properly comes under this head. It preceded the others. It was a provision for a secret ballot — thereby attuning a vast revolutionary purpose to clandestine meth- ods. SECOND ACT. The Licinian law, described in full in the address on "Plebs Leaders and Labor Leaders," had remained a dead letter. The Licinian law, among other things, limited the number of additional acres that could be acquired by an iadividual from the public domain. Despite its provision*; the landlord-plutocracy had proceeded, if anything, more highhandedly than ever, to appropriate what it never had a right to, State property; but, moreover, did so now in violation of express enactments. The Sempronian law — < so called from the middle name, Sempronius, of the Gracchi — dug up the old Licinian law, and, at a time when even its provisions had lost whatever curative power there may have been in them 300 years before, proposed, not the old Licinian law in all its fulness, but that laM in a diluted form. Besides the number of acres allowed by the Licinian law to be appropriated from the public lands, one-half the number was now allowed in addition to each holder for each son; the remainder was to be redistributed, and indemnity was provided for possible property expropriated from the expropriator. The Sompronian law was a compromise with Usurpation. THE WARNING OF THE GRACCHI 67 THIRD ACT. But although Tiberius Gracchus sought to circumvent the Revolution, the Counter-Revolution promptly locked horns with him. His colleague in office had the power to block him, and he did ; at Jeast he tried to. His support was constitutionally necessary for the enactment of the law. "Seen" by his patriciate colleagues, Tiberius's colleague refused his sanction, and though at times he wavered under the fervid pleas of Tiberius, he finally resisted all entreaties and even threats. For a moment Tiberius seems to have caught a glimpse of the revolutionary requirements of the task he had set his cap to. He threw legality to the dogs. 'TJnconstitutionally" he ordered the proletariat to depose his colleague, and, walking roughshod over the tatters of the torn Constitution, pushed the law through. But the glimpse of the requirements of his task, caught by Tiberius for a moment, vanished as soon as caught. In- stead of fanning to a flame the spark that his conduct had kindled in the breast of the revolutionary mass behind him, he grew apologetic, sought refuge and justification in legal parallels, and thus cooled off and extinguished the spark. The Senators were not slow in taking advantage of the reaction in their favor. Tiberius speedily fell by their hands, clubbed to death in plain view of the populace that stood by, or ran off awestricken. FOURTH ACT. Pour years later Gaius took up the work where his brother Tiberius had been forced to drop it. Gaius saw the Senators' hands red with his brother's blood, and looked upon that body as the barrier against which Tiberius had been dashed. Gaius determined to pro- tect himself against danger from that quarter, first of all. 68 THE WARNING OF THE GRACCHI How? By sweeping it away? No. By raising a rival to it. Did he, then, at least raise the rival power to the dreaded Senate out of the revolutionary forces at his back ? Yet, again, no. The Equestrian Order, the Knights, consisted of the same economic interests that had been incensed at the measures of Tiberius, and they, though not the direct per- petrators of his assassination; had seconded, and rejoiced in, and profited by the crime To all intents and purposes, they were as guilty as the Senate itself. And yet tihat element it was that Gaius Gracchus turned to. He halved the powers of the Senate and clothed the Equestrian Order therewith. When warned, his answer was: "I am raising an enemy to the Senate: the Senate and the Equestrian Order will kill each other off." We shall see whether they did. FIFTH ACT. For a while the Gracchian policy, seemed successful. Senate and Equestrian Order did get into each other's hair. In the meantime, anxious to strengthen his own. hands in a positive, and not merely negative, way, Gaius put through successively two laws, which set the coping stone on the series of Gracchian blunders and, watched by the light of certain modern occurrences, look as if enacted for the ex- press purpose of causing the Gracchian tactics to serve as a bell-buoy to warn the Socialist Movement of this genera- tion of sunken rocks in its course. The first of these was a law providing for 'three colonies. With funds from the Koman Treasury, these colonies were to be set up, outside of Italy, of course, so as to afford imme- diate relief to the proletarian mass. The patriciate promptly parried the thrust. It outbid Gaius for popu- larity with the proletariat by offering them twelve colonies. \ THE WARNING OF THE GRACCHI 69 SIXTH ACT. The second of these two laws was a provision for the free distribution of corn among the poor. The proletarian masses, the revolutionary class, were expected by that measure in particular to become firmly attached to their leader — like domestic animals or children to him who feeds them. Proceeding along these lines, and having arrived at this point, Gaius Gracchus thought himself in condition to take up a question that his penetration told him was a sine qua non to all lasting improvement in the condition of Italy, and, withal, the most ticklish, in view of the existing popu- lar prejudices and habits oV° thought. That question was the question of the Italian franchise. But the moment he men- tioned the subject, it was as if by magic touch he had solidi- fied the denizens of Eome against himself. Knights and Senators suspended their wranglings, on the one hand, and, on the other, all recollection of the "improved form of the suffrage" in Eome ; all recollection of the Sempronian law ; all expectations of relief from the prospective three colonies, aye, all gratitude for free corn was forgotten and thrown to the winds. So completely did the proletariat fall away from its idol that the Senate and Knights found no difficulty in fomenting a sedition against him. Forsaken by all but a few close friends and one devoted slave, Gaius first took refuge in the Temple of Diana, where, falling on his knees, he implored the gods to punish the Eomans with eternal slavery for their base ingratitude. Beseeched to save himself for better days, Gaius left the Temple and fled from the city across the river. But his pursuers were hot upon him, and suicide freed him from further agony in the Grove of the Furies. CANONS OF THE PROLETARIAN REVOLUTION. Out of the shipwreck of the Gracchian Movement and 70 THE WASHING OF THE GRACCHI tactics ten planks come floating down to our own days. They may be termed the warnings uttered by the shades of the Gracchi. They may be erected into so many Canons of the Proletarian Eevolution. These canons dovetail into one another. At times it is hard to keep them apart, eo close is their inter-relation, seeing they are essentially dif- ferentiations of a central idea thrown up by the singular nature, already indicated, of the proletariat as a revolu- tion force: 1. The Proletarian Eevolution Abhors Forms. It was a blunder of the Gracchian Movement to devote time and energy to the changing of the forms of the suf- frage. The characteristic weakness of the proletariat ren- ders it prone to lures. It, the least favored of all historic revolutionary classes, is called upon to carry out a revolu- tion that is pivoted upon the most complicated synthesis, and one withal that is easiest to be obscured by the dust that its very foe, the Capitalist Class, is able to raise most plen- tifully. The essence of this revolution — the overthrow of Wage Slavery — cannot be too forcefully held up. Nor can the point be too forcefully kept in evidence that, short of the abolition of Wage Slavery, all "improvements" either accrue to Capitalism, or are the merest moonshine where they are not sidetracks. It matters not how the voting is done; it matters not whether we have the Australian ballot or the Maltese bal- lot; it matters not whether we have the secret ballot or the viva voce ballot — aye, if it comes to it, it should not matter whether we have the ballot at all. All such "improvements" — like the modern "ballot reforms" and schemes for "ref- erendums," "initiative," "election of Federal Senators by popular vote," and what not — are, in the very nature of things, so many lures to allow the revolutionary heat to THE WARNING OF THE GBACCHI ¥1 radiate into vacancy. They are even worse than that : they are opportunities for the usurper to prosecute his own usurpatory purposes under the guise, aye, with the aid and plaudits of his victims, who imagine they are commanding, he obeying their bidding — as we see happening to-day. The proletarian's chance to emerge out of the bewilder- ing woods of "Capitalist Issues" is to keep his eyes riveted upon the economic interests of his own Class — the public ownership of the land on and the tools with which to work — without which the cross he bears to-day will wax ever heavier, to be passed on still heavier to his descendants. No "forms" will stead. 2. The Proletarian Revolution Is Relentlessly Logical. Often has the charge been made against the Socialist labor Party that it is "intolerant," that its officers are "unyielding." The Proletarian Revolution can know no "tolerance," because "tolerance" in social dynamics spells "inconsistence." Tiberius Gracchu^ overlooked the prin- ciple, and all that therefrom flows, in his revamped Licin- ian law. If the Sempronian law meant anything; if the attitude of Tiberius, together with that of the prole- tarian mass that took him for its paladin, meant anything, it meant that the landlord-plutocracy of Borne was a crim- inal class — criminal in having plundered the Common- wealth of its estate, doubly criminal in turning its plunder to the purpose of degrading the people and thereby sapping the safety of the State. The only logical conclusion from such premises and posture is a demand for the uncondi- tional surrender of the social felon. The Sempronian law, so far from taking this stand, took the opposite. By its confirmation, implied only though the confirmation was, of proprietary rights in stolen goods, by its provision for in- demnity to the robbers, the Gracchian Movement became 72 THE WARNING OF THE GRACCHI illogical ; it thereby became untrue to itself. It truekled to Usurpation; it thereby emasculated itself. With the Proletarian Revolution, not a point that it scores, not an act that it commits deliberately, not a elami that it sets forth may be at fisticuffs with one another, or with the principles that they are born of. Capitalism is a Usurpation: the Usurpation must be overthrown, labor produces all wealth : all wealth belongs to Labor. Any act that indicates — or, rather, I shall put it this way: any action that, looking toward "gentleness" or "tolerance/' sacrifices the logic of the situation, unnerves the Revolu- tion. With the Proletarian Revolution, every proposition must be abreast of its aspirations; where not, it limps, it stumbles and falls. 8. Palliatives Are Palliations of Wrong. Plausible are the phrases concerning the "wisdom of not neglecting small things," and the suggestions to "accept half a loaf where a whole ,loaf cannot yet be had." The Gracehian Movement yielded to this optical illusion. Even the old Licinian law, much more so its revamped form of a Sempronian law,, was cast in that mold. "All that the people were entitled to they could not get." They were to have a "first installment," a slice of what was due ; in short, a palliative. The Gracehian Movement thereby gave itself a fatal stab. If the palliative could trammel up the consequence; if it could be the be-all and end-all here, then, what ills might flow might be ignored as neglectable quantities. But here also the relentless logic of the Proletarian Eevolution com- mends the ingredients of his poisoned chalice to the bun- .gler'B own lips. In the first place, the same hand that reaches out the "palliative" to the wronged, reaches out the "palliation" IHE WAENING OF THE GEACCHI 73 to the wrong. The two acts are inseparable. The latter is an inevitable consequence of the former. Eequest a little, when you have a right to the whole, and your request, what- ever declamatory rhetoric or abstract scientific verbiage it be accompanied with, works a subscription to the principle that wrongs you. Worse- yet: the "palliative" may or may not — and more frequently yes than otherwise — be wholly visionary; the "palliation," however is ever tangible; tan- gible to feeling as to sight; no visionariness there. The palliative, accordingly, ever steels the wrong that is pallia- tioned. In the second place, the palliative works the evil of inocu- lating the Bevolutionary Force with a fundamental miscon- ception of the nature of the foe it has to deal with. The tiger will defend the tips of his mustache with the same ferocity that he will defend his very heart. It is an in- stinctive process. The recourse to palliatives proceeds from, and it imperceptibly inculcates the theorjrthat he would not. It proceeds from the theory that the Capitalist Class will allow itself to be "pared off" to death. A fatal illusion. The body of Tiberius Gracchus, mangled to death by the landlord-plutocratic tiger of Eome, sounds the warning against the illusion. The tiger of Capitalism will protect its superfluities with the same ferocity that it will protect its very existence. Nothing is gained on the road of pallia- tives ; all may be lost. 4. The Proletarian Revolution Brings Along Its Own Code. When, at the critical stage of the revolution he was active in Tiherius Gracchus took a "short cut across lots," and removed, regardless of "legality," the colleague that blocked his way, consciously or unconsciously he acted obedient to that canon of the Proletarian Eevolution that it must 74 THE WARNING OF THE GRACCHI march by its own light, look to itself alone, and that, what- ever act it contemplates, it judges by the Code of Law, that, though as yet unformulated into statute,-it is carrying in its own womb. When, afterwards, Tiberius looked for justi- fication to the laws of the very class that he was arrayed against, he slided off the revolutionary plane, and dragged his revolution down, along with himself. The revolutionist who seeks the cloak of "legality," is a revolutionist spent. He is a boy playing at soldier. It was at the Denver Convention of the American Feder- ation of Labor,in 1894, that a scene took place which throws much light on the bearing of this particular point on the Movement of our own days. The A. F. of L. at a previous Convention, had ordered a general vote upon a certain "declaration of principles." Among these principles there was one, the tenth, which a certain class of people, wh» called themselves Socialists, were chuckling over with naive delight. They claimed it was "Socialistic." One of their number had bravely smuggled it into the said "declarations." They were by that maneuver to capture the old style Trades Unions, and thereby "tie the hands of the Labor Leaders." For a whole year these revolutionists had been chuckling gaily and more loudly. The Unions actually polled a ma- jority for all the "principles," the celebrated "Plank 10" included. At the Denver Convention the vote was to be canvassed ; but the Labor Leaders in control threw out the vote on the, to them, good and sufficient reason that "the rank and file did not know what they had been voting for." That is not the point ; that it only the background for the point I am coming to. But before coming to that, let me here state that the rank and file meekly submitted to such treatment. The point lies in a droll scene that took place during the debate to throw out that vote. The scene was this: THE WARNING OF THE GRACCHI 75 The revolutionist who had surreptitiously introduced "Plank 10" in the "declaration of principles," and thereby schemed to capture the Unions by ambush, a gentleman of English Social Democratic Federation antecedents, one Thomas J, Morgan, now of Chicago, was storming in that Denver Convention against the Labor Leaders' design to throw out his "Plank 10," and incidentally, as he expressed it himself, was "putting in fine licks for Socialism." Sud- denly his flow ■zi oratory was checked. A notorious Labor Leader, to whom the cigar manufacturers of America owe no slight debt of gratitude, Mr. Adolf Strasser of the Inter- national Cigarmakers' Union, had risen across the- con- vention hall and put in : "Will the gentleman allow me a question ?" "Certainly." "Do you favor confiscation?" The answer is still due. Mr. Morgan collapsed like a punctured toy-balloon. The scene should have been engraved to preserve for all time pictorially the emasculating effect of ignorance of this canon of the Proletarian Revolution upon that venturesome man who presumes to tread, especially as a leader, the path of Social Revolution, notwithstanding he lacks the mental and physical fiber to absorb in his system the canon here under consideration. As I said, the Proletarian Revolution marches by its own light ; its acts are to be judged by the Code of Legality that itself carries in its folds, not by the standard of the existing Law, which is but the reflex of existing Usur- pation. Indeed, in that respect, the Proletarian Revolu- tion shares a feature of all previous revolutions, the Capitalist Revolution included. A new Social System brings along a new Code of Morals. The morality of the Code that the Proletarian Revolution is impregnated with 76 THE WARNING OF THE GEACCHX reads like a geometric demonstration: Labor alone pro- duces all wealth, Idleness can produce maggots only; the wealth of the land is in the hands of Idleness, the hands of Labor are empty; such hard conditions are due to the private ownership by the Idle or Capitalist Class of the land on and the tools with which to work ; work has become collective, the things needed to work with must, therefore, also become collective property; get from under whosoever stands in the way of the inevitable deduction, by what name soever he may please to call it! Accordingly, no militant in the modern Proletarian Eevolution can be knocked all of a heap by the howl of "Confiscation." Plutarch, whom Prof; Lieber shrewdly suspects of re- sponsibility for much of the revolutionary promptings of modern days, touching upon these two acts of Tiberius Gracchus, produces without comment — a severe sarcasm in itself — Tiberius's elaborate legal plea in defense of his re- moval of his colleague. A revolution that needs to apolo- gize for itself had better quit. And he comments upon the Sempronian law in these touchingly incisive terms : "There never was a milder law made against so much Injustice and oppression ; for they who deserved to have been punished for their in- fringement of the rights of the community, and fined for holding the lands contrary to law, were to have a consideration for giving up their groundless claims, and restoring the estates of such of the citizens as were to be reliev»*." Preach to the Proletariat, in the most convincing way a man may please, the abstract principles of their own, the Socialist Eevolution, and then let that man seek to sugar- coat the dose with suggestions or acts that imply the idea of "buying out the capitalists," and he has simply wiped out clean, for all practical purposes, all he said before : he has deprived the Eevolution of its own premises, its pulse of its own warmth. THE WAENING OF THE GEAOOHI Tt 5. The Proletarian Revolution is "Irreverent." Karl Marjfc— the distinctive feature of whose philosophy is that it stands with its feet on earth, and is supremely practical— throws put, right in the midst of an abstract economic chapter, the point, that it is essential to the stability of Capitalism that the Proletarian look upon the conditions surrounding him as of all time. Eeverence of the blind type is a fruit of latter-day Cap- italism. Starting as an iconoclast, the capitalist winds up as a maw-worm. And it is essential to his safety that the proletarian masses take him seriously. The root of this blind reverence is the belief in the antiquity of the subject revered; and that implies the future, as well as the past. Capitalism, along with its gods, its gods along with it, are all pronounced "sacred," "ever were and ever will be, life without end." The capitalist foments such "reverence"; and, while he pushes his parsons forward to do the work, he holds himself out as the High Priest. The Usurper ever needs the cloak of sanctity ; and therefore it is of importance to strip him bare of the cover. The posture of Tiberius materially played into the hands of this useful capitalist deception. He cultivated reverence for the Magistracy. The plea in defence of his deposition of his colleague was a sanctification of the class of, the Usurper. It riveted superstitious awe on the minds of the proletariat, whose striking arm never could be free until its mind was emancipated. When the reverenceful prole- tarians trampled over one another, reverently to make way for the Senators, who, sticks and staves and broken furni- ture in hand, rushed forward to slay Tiberius, the luckless reformer could not have failed to notice that the arrow that killed him was steadied by a feather plucked from his own reformatory pinions. 78 THE WARNING OF THE GRACCHI 1 Irreverence — not the irreverence of insolence, which is the sign-manual of the weak, but the self-sustained irrever- ence that is 'the sign-manual of the consciously strong because consciously sound — is one of the inspiring breaths of the Proletarian Eevolution. Eeverence for the Usurper denotes mental, with resulting physical, subjection to Usurpation. 6. The Proletarian Eevolution is Self-Reliant. The tactics of Gaius Gracchus in seeking support or pro- tection in the Equestrian Order, by raising it to Senatorial powers, was a grave tactical misstep. Instead of inspiring the Proletarian Movement with self-reliance, he thereby trained it to lean on others than itself. The Proletarian Eevolution must, under no circumstances, play the role ef the horse in the fable. You know the fable? It is a pretty one. A horse was being harassed by a lion. The horse found that his oppor- tunities to graze were impaired by that roaring beast that lay low in the bushes and threatened to jump upon him, and frequently did jump upon him, and not infrequently scratched him to the point of bleeding; so that the horse, finding the area of his pasture narrowing, and his life threatened either way, entered into a compact with a man. According to agreement, the man mounted the horse, and by their joint efforts the lion was laid low. But never again could the horse rid himself of the man on his back. By the action with which he clothed the Equestrian Order with the powers it had not formerly wielded, Gaius Gracchus certainly weakened the Senate, but he thereby also, and in the same measure, extended the number of the political participants in the political usurpations, that had backed and brought on the social distress which he was com- bating. The Equestrian Order was of the identical claw THE WARNING OF THE GRACCHI 79 that profited by the Senatorial iniquities. By setting up the Equestrian Order with powers formerly wielded by the Senate alone, Gaius Gracchus was safer from the latter, but only in the sense that the horse in the fable was from the quarter of the lion after his alliance with the man. Gaius, like the horse, had saddled himself with a master. And the hour came when the master rode him to his deaths. That it is a waste of time and energy for the proletariat to knock down the Democratic party, however oppressive that party may be, if the knocking down is to be done by saddling itself with the Bepublican party, a partner of the Democratic oppressor; that, however resentful the prole- tariat may be at a Bepublican President or Governor, who , throws the armed force of the State or Nation into the cap- i italist scales in the conflicts between employer and em- ployee, it were a mere waste of energy to substitute them with their Democratic doubles : all that is elemental. The absurdity is illustrated by the fate of the horse in the fable: There can be no real knocking down of either party until they are both simultaneously knocked down; that knock- down blow is in the power of the proletariat only. All this is elemental. But equally elemental, though the point be more hidden, should the principle be that the Proletarian Eevolution must not only not seek, but must avoid, as it would a pestilence, all alliance with any other class in its struggles, or even its skirmishes, with the Cap- italist Class, the landlord plutocracy of to-day. Here, again, the peculiar weakness of the proletariat, the prone- ness to yield to lures, manifests itself, and needs watchful guarding against by its Movement. There is no social or economic class in modern society below the proletariat. It is the last on the list. If there were other classes below it, the Proletarian Eevolution would not be what it is, the first of all with a world-wide, 80 THE WABKING OF THE GKA00HI humane programme. All other classes, while seeking their own emancipation from the class that happened to be above, were grounded on the subjection of a class below. The Proletarian Eevolution alone means the abolition of Class Rule. It follows from such a lay of the land that any class the proletariat may ally itself with must, though oppressed from above, itself be a fleecers' class ; in other words, must be a class whose class interests rest on the subjugation of workers. Such a class is the modern Middle Class. It, like the man in the fable I have just recited, can ally itself with the proletariat only with the design to ride it. How- ever plausible its slogans, they are only lures. Sq long as a Proletarian Movement seeks for "alliances abroad," it demonstrates that it has not yet got its "sea legs." Any such move or measure can only deprive it of whatever chance it had to develop and acquire them. The Proletarian Revolution is self-reliant. It is sufficient unto itself. 7. The Proletarian Revolution Spurns Sops. Sops are not palliatives.- The two differ essentially. I have explained the palliative. The sop is not a "slice," an "installment" ladled out in advance, of what one is entitled to. It is an "extra," a "bon-bon," a narcotic, thrown out to soothe. Accordingly, the sop adds as little to the char- acter and directness of a Movement as does the palliative. The essential feature of the sop is, however, that it is a broken reed on which to lean, a thing no clearheaded revo- lutionist will ever resort to. It was upon just such a reed Gaius Gracchus sought support when he proposed the estab- lishment of three colonies for the relief of the Roman proletariat. What could these colonies accomplish ? In the first place they were in the nature of a desertion. The colonists were THE WAKNING OF THE OEAOCHI 81 to leave Rome, the soil of Italy, in short, the battle ground, to set up far away in Africa, in Spain, in Sardinia. But, aboTe all, in what way could colonies relieve the distress in Rome, unless undertaken on a gigantic scale ; that is to say, on a scale of wholesale migration from the city ? And that would nullify their very purpose. At any rate to propose only three colonies was the merest sop thrown at his army. The revolutionist must never throw sops at the revolution- ary element. The instant he does, he places himself at the mercy of the foe: he can always be out-sopped. And bo was Gaius Gracchus. The proposition for twelve colonies with which the patriciate answered Gaius's proposition for three, completely neutralized the latter, leaving fixe "honors" on the side of the patriciate. Nursed at the teat of the sop, the Roman proletariat decamped to where they could get the largest quantities of that commodity. And that, more than any other thing, stripped Gaius of his forces. Once he was deserted and downed, the bigger sop of twelve colonies never materialized. It had answered its narcotic purpose, and was dropped.. On this very point, there is an all-round remarkable illus- tration, fresh from the oven. I here read to you a telegram sent from Chicago on April 2d — only two weeks ago — to the Milwaukee Social Democratic Herald, and signed "Jacob Winnen." Referring to the vote polled in Chicago by a capitalist party proposition for "municipal ownership" the day before, the Social Democratic Winnen says : "Two- thirds majority cast for municipal ownership shows that Socialism is in the air." The labor field of Chicago has been convulsed a deal more than that of New York. As a result of that, or possibly due to the lake air, the capitalist politicians of Chicago are, if such a thing be possible, "quicker" than even the New York politicians. I admit that is saying a good deal. We 82 THE WARNING OF THE GRACCHI have seen, even in New York, "municipal ownership" often, of late, used as a stalking-horse by individual politicians. Unterrified Socialist agitation has familiarized the public mind with Socialist aspirations, though still only in a vague way. The politician, being "broad" besides "quick," has no objection to polling "Socialistic" votes. Being "quick" besides "broad," has no objection to the performance if he can indulge in it by giving the shadow for the substance ; all the less if he can thereby run Socialism into the ground. "Municipal ownership" lends itself peculiarly to such pur- poses. It sounds "Socialistic" ; and yet we know the term can conceal the archest anti-labor scheme. His nursery- tale theory concerning his God-given capacity to run indus- tries having suffered shipwreck, the capitalist can find a snug harbor of refuge in "municipal ownership." It is an ideal capitalist sop to catch the sopable. We know all that. It is in view of all that that the Socialist Labor Party "municipal programme" has been drawn up as it is. It renders the Socialist Labor Party man sop-proof from that side. Accordingly, it is not surprising to find the "munic- ipal ownership" sop or dodge in full blast among the Chi- cago politicians. It is there in such full blast that in the municipal campaign, which closed there with the election of April 1st, "municipal ownership" was a capitalist party political cry. The platform so declared it, and the speeches of the politicians of that party resounded with "municipal ownership" of railways, of gas plants, of electric plants — well, of everything in sight. And the Chicago politicians had sharp noses ; how sharp may be judged from the double circumstance that the Socialist Labor Party vote at the election rose considerably, while the Social Democratic party — with a national platform declaration on "municipal ownership" that plays into the hand of the sop — went down so markedly that its statisticians have had to seek shelter THE WAENING OF THE GRACCHI 83' for their diminished heads behind "percentages." Such, then, was the situation in Chicago. The intelligent Social- ist perceives the sop of "municipal ownership" in that campaign ; it cannot escape him. The large vote polled for that capitalist "municipal ownership" proposition, so far from smoothing, can only cause his brow to pucker. That vote discloses vast chunks of Socialist education left unat- tended to; vast masses left so untutored as to be caught by fly-paper. No cause for joy in the phenomenon. And yet this Social Democrat rejoices: "Two thirds majority cast for municipal ownership shows that Socialism is in the air." "In the air!" Very much "in the air" — everywhere, except on Chicago soil. Two-thirds majority cast for a municipal ownership proposition, emanating from a capitalist political party, "shows that Socialism is in the air," and is pointed to with joy! Can you imagine such childish fatuity? For this man, the Gracchi lived and labored, bled and died — in vain ! Let the modern revolutionist try the "municipal owner- ship" sop, and he will find himself out-municipal-owner- shipped. Nothing there is more demagogic than Usurpa- tion. For every one "municipal ownership" he may propose, the Capitalist Class will propose twelve; the same as, for every one colony proposed by Gaius Gracchus, the Senate out-soppwl him with a proposition for four, drew his support away from him, and threw the threatened revo- lution flat on its back. And Gaius Gracchus had himself lent a han''. Every sop thrown by Gaius at the proletariat was a banana peel placed by himself under, their feet. Of course they slipped and fell. Not sops, but the unconditional surrender of capitalism, is the battle-cry of the Proletarian Eevolution. 84 THE WARNING OF THE GRACCHI 8. The Proletarian Revolution Is Impelled and Held Together oy Reason, Not Rhetoric. Speech is powerful. No doubt. But all is not .laid when that is said. The same nature of speech that answers in one instance fails to in another. Whatever the nature may be of the proper speech on other fields, on the field of the Proletarian Bevolution it must be marked by sense, not sotmd; by reason, not rhetoric. The training of the Gracchi, of Gaius in particular, disqualified them in this. They had been tutored from infancy by Greek rhetoricians. Now rhetoric, like a ship, may cleave the waters of the Proletarian Eevolution; but these close after it, and pres- ently remain trackless. Organization is a prerequisite of the Proletarian Eevo- lution. It is requisite by reason of the very numbers in- volved; it is requisite, above all, as a tactical protection against the tactical weakness that I have pointed out in the proletariat as a revolutionary force. Other revolutions could succeed with loose organization and imperfect infor- mation. In the first place, they were otherwise ballasted; in the second, being grounded on the slavery of some class, a dumb driven herd of an army could fit in their social architecture. Otherwise with the proletariat. It needs information for ballast as for sails, and its organization must be marked ( with intelligent co-operation. The proletar- ian army, of emancipation cannot consist of a dumb driven herd. The very idea is a contradiction in terms. Now then, not all the fervid and trained rhetoric at the command of the Gracchi, and lavishly used by them, could take the place of the drill that theRoman proletariat needed on hard, dry information. The Gracchian rhetoric pleaded, enter- tained, swayed, but did not organize; could not. At the first serious shock, their forces melted away — just as we THE WARNING OF THE GRACCHI 85 have seen proletarian forces again and again melt away in our own days. Bhetoric is a weapon of reform ; it may plow the ground, it does not sow. The Proletarian Revolution wields the tempered steel of sterner stuff. 9. The Proletarian Revolution Deals Not in Double Sense. It is at its peril that a revolution conceals its purpose. This is truest with the Proletarian Revolution. Gaius Gracchus had set his cap against the Senate. He conceived that body to be the embodiment of all evil. That he looked only at the surface of things appears from his conduct in clothing the Equestrian Order — men of the senatorial class — with senatorial powers. Nevertheless, it is the Senate he sought to overthrow. In his mind that was the barrier against social well-being. His revolution aimed at the over- throw of the Senate. But he kept the secret locked in his breast, and only allowed it to peep through by indirection. It is narrated of Gaius that, meaning to convey the idea that not the Senate, but the people, should be considered, he, differently from the orators of old, stood with his face toward the Forum and not toward the Senate, in his public addresses. This was a bit of pantomime, unworthy a great Cause that called for plain language in no uncertain tones. By such conduct Gaius Gracchus could only raise dust over his designs. And that could have for its effect only to weaken him. It could not throw the affronted foe off their guard. On the other hand, it could only keep away forces needful to his purpose, whom straightforward language would attract. It is only the path to servitude that needs the gentle; the path to freedom calls for the ruder hand. Pantomimes, double sense and mummery may answer the purpose of a Movement in which the proletariat acts only the role of 86 THE WARNING OF THE GEAOCHI dumb driven beasts of burden. Pantomimes, mummery and double sense are utterly repellent to, and repelled by, the Proletarian Eevolution. I stated introductorily to the Canons of the Proletarian Revolution that they dovetailed in one another, seeing they all' proceeded from a central principle. That central prin- ciple may be now taken up as the tenth of these canons. It sums them all up. You cannot have failed to perceive it peeping through all the others. It is this : 10. The Proletarian Revolution Is a Character-Builder. The proletarian organization that means to be tributary to the large army of proletarian emancipation cannot too strenuously guard against aught that may tend to debauch its membership. -It must be intent upon promoting the character and moral fibre of the mass. Characterfulness is a distinctive mark of the Proletarian Eevolution. Fore- most, accordingly, in the long series of Gracchian blunders stands the measure of Gaius for the free distribution of corn. By that act he reduced the Roman proletarian to oeggars^ Beggars can only desert and compromise; they cannot carry out a revolution. Their energies consumed with the tinkerings on "forms ;" their intellect cracked by illogical postures; their morale ruined by palliatives; the edge of their revolutionary dig- nity blunted by "precedents ;" their mental vigor palsied by Che veneration of the unvenerable ; their self-reliance broken by leaning on hostile elements; their resolution warped by sops ; their minds left vacant with rhetoric ; their senses en- tertained with pantomimes ; finally, their character dragged down to the ditch of the beggar — what wonder that, the moment the Roman proletariat were brought to the scratch, they acquitted themselves ,like beggars, made their peace with the Usurper, and left their leaders in the lurch ? THE WARNING OF THE GRACCHI 87 The task is unthankful of submitting to rigid criticism the conduct of men of such noble aspirations as the Gracchi. Nevertheless, it must be recorded that, of all the distressing acts of the Gracchi, none compares with the conduct of Gaius when, finding himself forsaken by the masses that himself had debauched and thus virtually driven from him. he implored in the Temple of Diana eternal slavery for them in punishment for their "base ingratitude"— exactly as, in modern times, Utopians, turned reactionist, have been seen to do. WARNINGS FROM THE PAST. In the course of the first of these "Two Pages from Eoman History," I pointed out the serious danger that lurked behind the automatic-mechanical system of reason- ing on the domain of the Social Question. The man who would say: "The capitalist lives on the proceeds of labor; the more the capitalist gets, the less there is for the work- ingman; the more the workingman gets, the less there is for the capitalist ; between the two there is an irrepressible conflict; harmony between them is impossible; therefore Mark Hanna's Industrial Peace Commission is bound to Be a failure" — the man who would say that would speak truly. And yet grave was the blunder shown to be that such con- clusion leads to, if it complacently stops there. We saw wherein the danger lay, from a review of the career of the Plebs Leader. Between the patriciate and bourgeois plebeians, on the one hand, and the rest of the Plebeian Order, on the other, there was a conflict as irre- pressible as that between Capitalist Class and Working Class. Concord between the two was out of question. Yet we saw what happened. The impossibility of concord be- tween the exploiters and- the exploited of Rome caused neither Camillus's Temple to the Goddess of Concord to 88 THE WARNING OF THE GRACCHI crumble, nor the conditions which it actually was a land- mark of, to break down. What happened was a continuance of social development. The development moved, we may say, along the resultant of the forces that lay in the "irre- pressible conflict," and in the ignorance on the conflict, together with the m ann er in which it was handled. And we saw how dire the issue. Just so with regard to my present subject. A mechanical, schablone style of reasoning would blind us to the peculiar, the exceptional tactical weakness that the proletariat labors under as a revolutionary force. And the blindness would be fatal. The Gracchian episode in Koman history supplemented the episode, whose close was marked by Camillus's Temple to the Goddess of Concord. Eough-hewn in the quarry of 500 B. C. to 400 B. C, the proletariat of Rome was 300 years later shaped into final shape in the smithy of the Gracchian tactics. And what was that shape? An army of legions, whose motto was a mockery of the Socialist maxim that we know to-day. The Socialist maxim is: "Workingmen, you have nothing to lose but your chains, and a world to gain !" — a world of human happiness, from your own noble efforts. The maxim that arose in the army of revolution that the Gracchi shaped was : "Proletarians, you have nothing to lose but your weapons, your sword and pike, and a world to gain !" From what ? From the favor of your General! How? Through rapine. Would it, in these days of electric rapidity, take 500 years to shape the proletariat of the land into another world-fagot? As in biology the same elements, submitted to different temperature and atmospheric pressure, will produce differ- ent substances, so in sociology. The Socialist Bepublic will not leap into existence out of the existing social loom, like a yard of calico is turned out by a Northrop loom. Nor THE WARNING OF THE GEACCHI 89 will its only possible architect, the Working Class — that is, the wage earner, or wage slave, the modern proletariat — figure in the process as a mechanical force moved mechan- ically. In other words, the world's theatre of Social Evolu- tion is not a Punch and Judy box, nor are the actors on that world's stage manikins, operated with wires. As the first of these "Two Pages from Soman History," by drawing attention to a strategic danger that besets the path of the Socialist Movement, pointed to the urgency of proper methods of aggression, so this second Page, "The Warning of the Gracchi," by drawing attention to a tactical weakness of our own forces under fire, points to the precau- tions that the conditions demand. And we then, to-day, in this country, the country that nearest comes to Eome since Rome went down — well may we look back to the lessons of those days. Well may we take to heart the career of the Plebs Leaders; well may we take to heart the tactical blunders of the Gracchi, and from the one and the other receive a warning for our conduct in this generation. COMPLETE JiSItJimI IN ENGLISH EUGENE SUE'S The Mysteries of the People OR History of a Proletarian Family Across the Ages A fascinatfng work, thrilling as* fiction, yet embracing a comprehensive history of the oppressing and oppressed classes from the commencement of the present era. These stories are nineteen in number, and their chron- ological order is» the following: Eugene Sue wrote a romance which seems to have disap- peared in a curious fashion, called "Lies Mysteres du Feu- ple". It is the story of a Gallic faintly through the ages, told in successive episodes, and, so far as we have been able to read it, is fully as Interesting as "The Wandering Jew" or "The Mysteries of Paris". The French edition is pretty hard to And, and only parts have been translated into English. W© don't know the reason. On t medieval episode, telling of th P struggle of the communes for freedom, is now translated by Mr. iDaniel De Leon, under the title, "The Pilgrim's Shell" (New York Labor News Co.). We trust the success of his ef- forts may be such as to lead him to translate the rest of the romance, it will be the first time the feat has been done in English.— N. T. Sun. THE GOLD SICKLE 50c. THE BRASS BELL 50c. < THE IRON COLLAR 75c. THE SILVER CROSS 76c. \ THE CASQUB'Si LARK $1.00 THE PONIARD'S HILT . . $1.00 THE BRANDING NEEDLE. .50c. THE ABBATIAL CROSIER. .50c. CARLO VINGIAN COINS 60c. THE IRON ARROW HEAD.. 50c. THE INFANT'S SKULL 50c. THE PILGRIMTS SHELL $1.00 THE IRON PINCERS 76c. THE IRON TREVET $1.00 EXECUTIONER'S KNIFE. . .$1.00 POCKET BIBLE, Vol. 1 $1.00 POCKET BIBLE, Vol. 2 $1.00 BLACKSMITH'S HAMMER. .$1.00 SWORD OF HONOR, Vol. 1, .$1.00 SWORD OF HONOR Vol. t. .$1.00 GALLEY SLAVES RING 76c PRICE PER SET S14.T5 ££££. prepai* New York Labor News Company 4,5 ROSE STREET NEW YORK The Preamble OF THE INDUSTRIAL WORKERS OF THE WORLD An Address Delivered at Minneapolis, Minn. By DANIEL DE LEON The organization of the Industrial "Workers of the World, at Chicago (Headquarters now Detroit, Mich.), July 10, 1905, marked an epoch in the history of the Labor Movement in America, because of the adoption of the pre- amble to the constitution, which declares: There can be no peace between the exploited working class and the exploit- ing capitalist class; the I. W. W. organized on that basis —the recognition of the class struggle. A 48-PAGE PAMPHLET, 10 CENTS NEW YORK LABOR NEWS CO. 45 ROSE ST., NEW YORK ^Burning Question _ .y=— ■ Trades Unionism A Lecture Delivered at Newark, N. J. By DANIEL DE LEON Trades Unionism is one of the methods by which the exploited class of to-day — the working class — seeks to resist or minimize the power of the exploiter. The author goes into a searching analysis of trades unionism and shows how the mistakes incurred by tradesunionists lead to the nullification of their efforts at re- dress. Correct tactics are set forth. No student of Socialism but must be familiar with the trade union movement, therefore this book should be read. PAPER, FIVE CENTS Send All Orders to: New YorkL/, bor News Co. NEW YORK VALUE, PRICE, AND PROFIT Prom a Mechanical Standpoint It la 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. X. Daily People. By Kabl Mabx. Edited by his daughter Eleanob Mabx Aveung. With an Introduction and Annotations by LucieU 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." Lucien Sanial says of it: "It is universally considered as the beet epitome we have of the first volume of 'Capital,' and as such. Is invaluable to the beginner in economics. It places him squarely on his feet at the threshold of his inquiry ; that is, in a position where his perceptive faculties cannot be deceived and his reasoning power vitiated by the very use of his eyesight ; whereas, by the very nature of his capitalist surroundings, lie 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 wages, the relation of the wage worker to the employer, the source of profits, and the 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. Cloth, 50 Cents. Paper, 16 Cents. NEW YORK LABOR NEWS COMPANY. FIFTEEN Q UESTIO NS By Daniel De Leon. FIFTEEN QUESTIONS is a series of articles dealing with some of the economic and political prob- lems of the day. It is presented in the form of an ac- ceptance of the challenge by a Roman Catholic paper, "The Visitor," Providence, R. I. This paper pro- pounded fifteen questions intended to silence the advocates of Socialism. To what extent the paper —or those of its followers who would have acted upon its suggestions — succeeded, the reader will be in a po- sition to judge best for himself. The book is written in a clear, lucid style and reveals an authorship of highest rank. The author, the late Daniel De Leon, was a scholar of unusual attainments and well qualified to state the position of the Socialists — The Bookseller, Newsdealer and Stationer. PRICE TWENTY CENTS New York Labor News Co., 45 ROSE STREET, NEW YORK. VULGAR ECONOMY OR A Critical Analyst of Marx Analyzed By DANIEL DE LEON. A work exposing the false reasoning and sycophancy of the official Economists of Capitalism, proving them to be nothing but perverters of the science of Political Economy, in the interest of their employers— the Cap- italist Class. Contains also a few prefatory remarks on the life of the author and the subject, and a fine pic- ture of Daniel De Leon. 64 Pages, Paper Cover. PRICE FIFTEEN CENTS New York Labor News Company 45 Rose St., New YorR Are You a Reader of the Weekly People? YOU ARE DEPENDENT upon the capitalist class for a chance to earn a living as long as you allow that class to retain its autocratic hold on industry. If you would attain THE RIGHT TO -WORK yoq must organize with the rest of the working class on proper lines. What kind of organization is needed, and what tactics should be pursued to end the serf-like conditions in the snops and in- dustrial plants of the United States is pointed out and explained in THE WEEKLY PEOPLE 45 ROSE STREET NEW YORK CITY The Weekly People, being the Party-owned mouthpiece of the Socialist Labor Party of Amer- ica, aims at industrial democracy through the in- tegral industrial union and revolutionary working class political action. It is a complete Socialist weekly paper, and sells at $1.00 a year, 50 cents for six months, 25 cents for three months. A trial subscription of seven weeks may be had for 15 cents. Send for a free sample copy. Woman Under Socialism By August Bebel TRANSLATED FROM THE ORIGINAL GERMAN OF THE THIRTY-THIRD EDITION BY DANIEL DE LEON. The Woman Question is not a question by itself; it is a part of the great social problem. Proceeding along this line, Bebel's work is an exhaustive analysis of the economic position of woman in the past and present. Despite the boasts of Capi- talist Christianity the facts show that under Capitalism wo- man, especially of the working class, is degraded and dwarfed physically and mentally, while the word home is but a mock- ery. From such condition of parenthood the child is stunted before its birth, and the miasmas, bred from woman's economic slavery, rise so high that even the gilded houses of the capi- talist class are polluted. Under Socialism, woman, having economic freedom equal with man, will develop mentally and physically, and the mentally and physically stunted and dwarfed children of the capital : st system will give way to a new race. The. blow that breaks the chains of economic slavery from the workingman will free woman also. Cloth, 400 Pages, Price $1.00 New York Labor News Co., 45 ROSE STREET, NEW YORK. Cornell University Library HX 86.D4 Two pages from Roman history. 3 1924 002 673 725