BourgeoisieCapitalismCivil WarCommunismDemocracyMarxSocialismSocialist PartyWorking Class

The New York Communist Why Political Democracy Must Go Righe Thing isan. based largely on the the By John Rood country is in the hands of the great aggregations Trade. and many other measures of relief, which TODERATE Socialism. Menahevism of capital.
were expressed with all their significance and all This process of concentration of wealth into the their short sightedness in the various Anti Trust ory that the class struggle will be won by captur. hands of the few began during the Civil War, Acts, Interstate Commerce Commissions, etc.
when the manufacturers of munitions of war, the ing the political power through the ballot boxLa Follette was the strongest and most uncomthat through a process of gradual, orderly prog purveyors of provisions, and the speculators piled promising leader of the Progressive Movement; he ress, the election of candidates to office and the pas up colossal fortunes. This was the period when awakened, first, the small property holders of his sage of social reform legislation, capitalism will Morgan laid the foundations of his riches State, and then of the entire country. The great grow weaker and weaker, and the Constitution will by selling defective rifles to the Government, and capitalists who at first fought Progressivism, be amended into a charter of the Cooperative Com. John Wanamaker by providing shoddy uniforms finally realized the futility of open battle, and to monwealth, or be peaceably abolished.
for the Union troops. The floating of Government sorted to their timo honored tactics of capturing The modern capitalist state, in the words of Marz, War Loans, also, brought into the hands of a few the movement. Men like George Perkins, of the is nothing less than a machine for the oppression after the War, the looting of the South, the expan powerful of the trusts financed the Progressivo bankers an immense financial power. Immediately United States Steel Corporation one of the most of one class by another, and that not less so in a sion of industry, the girdling of the continent with Party and became one of its leaders. To speak democratic republic than under a monarchy.
railroads, the spoliation of natural resources, and plainly, he bought it. Roosevelt, when in the This proposition was the rock upon which the the speculation in land, assumed vast proportions, White House, at first fought the Progressives. Bo socond International split at the beginning of the and became glaringly apparent to the petit bouring a shrewd politician, however, he soon saw European war. The dominant Moderate Socialists of all countries sooner or later embraced the gooisic the small property holders.
This class then consisted largely of farmers. The that Progressivism was going to win, and took ovat most of the weapons in the Progressive armory, formula that political democracy is better than autocracy. In Germany the Majority Social always leave the cities and go out on thc measurerest of the population, when hard pressed, could flourishing them aloft in the sight of all men, and Democratic leaders told their followers, Russia threatens free Germany. We must mobilize of the small property holders was against land.
less free lands of the Hest So the first revolt emitting loud cries. The fight of Progressivism against the trusts assumed such proportions that against Tsarism. In France England and Italy, looting, and culminated with partial success in the consolidating the steel industry of the country in it blocked the Morgan interests in their plans for they said Dejend Democracy against autocraHomestead Law.
cy. German militarism threatens us. This is the one huge, profitable and invincible trust. WhereBut the farmer was at the mercy of all the great upon, the Morgan interests unleashed the panic of spar that will end war.
interests. They controlled the railroads, the mar.
The class conscious proletariat of all lands was 1907, and the Government gave in.
kes, the banks, the price of tools. In spite of the ripe for mass opposition to the War. The workers high prices paid for produce during the War, the This was not the end, however. The Movement under La Follette assumed great proportions. More knew instinctively that this War had nothing what farmer was badly in debt. He had not been able and more openly, with an ever greater and greater ever to do with democracy or autocracy. to purchase Government securities, but he had been following, La Follette attacked Big Business. The but was merely an intense form of competition be forced to pay ruinous taxes, whose imposition was tween two groups of world grasping imperialistic supported by the manufacturers in the towns, be plutocracy was frightened. It agents, Perkins and Powers, struggling for control of markets which cause they actually stimulated business.
others, attempted in vain to check the growth of had been made necessary through the gigantic depetit bourgeois revolt. Roosevelt, returning from The new money kings were manipulating the velopment of Finance Imperialism.
currency so that the Government would redeem the Africa, was making a triumphal tour of Europe, Especially in America was this fact clear. Not depreciated securities held by them, and throw the among other things reviewing the Prussian Guard at the side of the Kaiser. Emissaries of Parkins by the remotest stretch of the Rooseveltian imag burden on the backs of the workers and the small went to meet him, and secret plans were laid by ination could the people be convinced that we were property holders. This led to the beginnings of which La Follette was to be displaced.
threatened by any autocracy. cscept indus revolt against the great interests, in which the The opportunity arrived. La Follette, Progrestrial autocracy, which had already captured the foundation was Cheap Money Greenbackism, Popsivism Presidential candidate, was invited to the country. The United States declared war after three ulism, and later, Bryan Free Silver campaigns Publishers Dinner in Philadelphia. There, with years of European conflict had brought home to the of twenty five years ago.
characteristic frankness, he told the editors and understanding of the class conscious workers of This is the real American ancestry of American neutral countries, with sickening clearness, the fal. Socialism, upon which were grafted the theories publishers of America that the press was controlled sity of the Wilsonian formula, To make the world of Marxian and predominantly Lasallean Social. by Big Business which used it to exterminate the safe for democracy.
ism brought from Europe by the Germans who petit bourgeoisie.
In entering the War, the ruling class of the emigrated after 1848; and the Fourierism intro This was the signal for Big Business to attack.
United States played the part of a banker who has duced by Albert Brisbane and Horace Greeley.
The artillery of the great press, which had heavily financed one of the two huge competing The next revolt of the petit bour gooisie in been conciliating its subscribers the majority of trusts, and who, to defend his investment, must America was the Progressive Movement. This al.
whom were small property holdersby commentthrow in all his resources to get rid of the com. so occurred after a war in this case, a frankly ing favorably upon Progressivism, now turned up.
on La Follette and blasted him with contempt and petitor.
Imperialistic war which marked the formal en Hence the St. Louis Resolution of the American trance of American capitalism into the period of ridicule. And at the same time Perkins and the Socialist Party the mandate of the rank and file Capitalist Imperialism. The whole period was other leaders came out for Roosevelt as Program of the Party to the Party ers, which was disro summed up in the emergence of the great trusts sive candidate garded by them again and again as they surrend during the administration of McKinley and Mark The Republican Party, willing to love rather cred, little by little, their opposition to the war. Hanna, the open advocacy of high tariffs, no longer rank and file of the petit bourgeoisie was infected, than to adopt tho La Follettism with which the The formation of the Left Wing, and its starp 10 protect infant industries, or to increase wages, insolently suppressed the small property holders in call to the Socialist movement to abolish the socialbut as a basis for the great monopolies of the means reform planks in Party platforms, has posed with of production and distribution in the United States, the Chicago Convention in 1912. The Progressives cutting distinctness the question of whether or not we shall try to win Socialism by means of political Imperialism Dollar Diplomacy.
and a weapon in the international war of Capitalist made a fight, but it was a losing fight, and they knew it, and so did the small property holders all democracy, making use of the capitalist State maThe Progressive Movement properly so called, over the country, who, despairing of the Republichinery.
was a reform movement to reshape the Republican can Party, threw most of their support to the II.
Democrats Party so that it would not be smashed by the Big Business know that the small property hold.
Let us for the moment examine the character of growing hostility of the small property holders, American political democracy.
made desperate by the ruthlessness of Big Busions would probably elect the President and for In this country, as in all modern democratic ness. It advocated all sorts of chocks upon the groue, but they also realized that the great trusts (Continued on 7)
countries, there are two sides to government politi power of Big Business reform of the electoral cal and economic. The policies of modern demo laws, so u to give the small property holders Although the prospecially the monthly mapagina had for years carried on the battle of Progressive the cratic countries are dictated by the capitalist voice in the government (initiative and refereperiod of mucking raking by this time (1912. it had interests. As Woodrow Wilson has pointed dum, recall, direct election of Senators, Woman been pretty generally takon ove by the preat financial in out in his New Freedom, the government of this Suffrage. low tariff. sort of modified Free to and bad conged its attackerwted Inter shall treat this question in laual