56 THE CLASS STRUGGLE 57 greatest economic change made by the Russian revolution. Other economic changes, the entire abolition of private property, the establishment of the co operative commonwealth will come with the next revolution. Labor and Democracy By LOUIS FRAINA The deeds of the government have made an unanswerable answer to the words of the convention of the American Alliance for Labor and Democracy. The Alliance appealed to the government to allow the People Council to hold their convention, but the government refused. While the loyal laborites and socialists were patriotically resoluting about democracy, the government instituted a series of dastardly raids against the and upon the national office of the Socialist Party.
These reactionary acts were emphasized by President Wilson reply to the Pope message on peace a reply that is magnificent in its rhetoric and subterfuges, but which directly promotes a brutal imperialistic war to the finish.
These incidents indicate the yawning gulf that lies between words and deeds. There is, moreover, a grim humor in the statement of John Spargo, in the New York Evening Post of September 10, in which Spargo, after pointing out the absurdity of certain charges made against the concluded. The stupidity of the policy of repression and suppression is making it increasingly difficult for radicals to support the government in its conduct of the war.
Loyalty was dominant and hysteria rampant at this convention of the American Alliance for Labor and Democracy. The Red, White and Blue special was symbolic of the delegates, who in one breath prated of internationalism, while in the next they slobbered over the flag in approved jingoistic style.
Rose Pastor Stokes, in a fit of maudlin sentimentalism, concluded an address by saying that formerly she would not salute the stars and stripes, and read an ode to America, excellent as to its patriotism, perhaps, but perfectly atrocious as a poem.
Once a sentimental poseur, always one. newspaper correspondent aptly, if unwittingly, characterized the convention in saying that it was trying to produce a star spangled banner brand