66 THE CLASS STRUGGLE THE LABOR PARTY 67 further. For even non Socialist workers must live, must make new and more far reaching demands in order to keep step with the constantly increasing cost of living, to offset the increasing intensity and the ravages of modern industry.
The organized capitalist appreciates this conflict even more keenly than his opponent of the laboring class. He realizes that time will hurt rather than improve his chances, and so takes the bull by the horns in the Board of Aldermen even at the risk of losing labor votes and provoking the founding of a labor party.
It is still too early to philosophize as to the future of the new party and to prophecy as to its fate. Let us rather look at the present, in order that we may determine upon our position as Socialists toward this new political expression of organized labor and its demands.
More than one of us has lost his bearings with the appearance of this new labor party.
It must be understood, at the outset, that we still regard the Socialist Party as the only party whose program and aims are in accord with the interests of the working class. The fact that prejudice, ignorance and persecution has to the present time prevented a large portion of the working class from realizing the truth of this statement, is no reason why we ourselves should doubt its actuality.
On the contrary, it should spur us on to more intensive agitation among ever widening circles of the working class.
Nevertheless, it must not be overlooked that a labor party, even though it is in no sense socialistic, may be successful in catching the votes and the active support of a large part of the working class, and still be organically very different from the Democratic or Republican Parties.
The Labor Party that wishes to win the support of a considerable portion of labor must put up specific working class demands. In so doing it will be forced into a class position against Capitalism, even though it may vigorously deny its own class character.
As a matter of fact, the demands adopted at the Convention of the new party, though some of them are utopian under a capitalist system, are, to a great extent, taken from the program of the Socialist Party. It is interesting, too, that the eight hour day, minimum wage and old age pension demands, that have been so consistently opposed by Gompers and the official American Federation of Labor, have found a prominent plan in the program of this new political party, while several of the other, more general demands are directly in line with the ultimate aims of the Socialist movement.
That does not signify, by any means, that the leaders of the are Socialists. It need not even mean that they are all honest radicals, although in general it is advisable to be somewhat sparing in the use of the term dishonest.
In short, an honest, consistent and determined political program of action in accordance with the fourteen points recently adopted would inevitably lead to the ultimate adoption of the Socialist political program.
Our position, therefore, must be one of watchful waiting.
The new party is not our creation. We could not prevent its coming, nor have we encouraged its formation.
But in the end we will profit by its coming, be the future of the party what it may.
Either it will eventually come to us as a whole, or we will win for our movement the more intelligent and far seeing of its members who will shortly see the ineffectiveness of a spineless, half socialistic and yet anti socialistic labor policy.
It is to be expected that the formation of the new party will encourage the discussion of political and social questions in labor circles. Probably the division between fundamentally sound, radical Socialists and revisionistic opportunists in our own ranks will become more marked, both eventualities much to be desired in the interests of the political education of American labor.
There will be differences between us and the Labor Party.
For we are already Socialists, while they, for the first, will still be our active opponents. But we need not create these differences, we must use them, when they come, to teach from the example of a class conscious, international Socialism, of a world labor moveinent, the charalatanism of a Jack of all trades labor party.