The Stormfront Socialist Collective
Executive Charter
ARTICLE I
Organizational Title
The Stormfront Socialist Collective Executive Committee
ARTICLE II
Purpose
The Committee has been assembled for the following purposes:
1.) To act as the representative body of the Stormfront Socialist Collective (SFSC).
2.) To provide members of the SFSC with ideological guidance.
3.) To collectively participate in the ideological development of revolutionary socialist nationalism.
ARTICLE III
General Powers
The Committee has the vested authority to function as the official representative body of the Stormfront Socialist Collective throughout the whole of the Stormfront online forum, as well as any other venue. All articles, essays, treatises, books, and media approved by the Committee shall reflect upon the disposition of Collective.
ARTICLE IV
Organizational Composition
The Committee (as of 2/22/11) is composed of four officers and one chairperson.
Section 1. Nominations for all officials must be formally submitted through the appropriate channels, so determined by the Committee.
Section 2. Only active members of the SFSC qualify to be nominated to the Committee.
Section 3. Officership shall only be accorded to a nominee following a majority-vote decision by sitting Committee officers and an official dispensation granted by the current chairperson.
Section 4. Elections for officers shall take place on a quarterly basis.
Section 5. No more than three nominations for prospective officers shall be submitted during a quarter.
Section 6. Official qualification for the position of Committee officer requires an initial nomination by two currently serving officers. Said nomination must be[embodied in an official motion, co-signed by both officers.]
Section 7. Before an officer nomination may be voted on, a period of no less than one week must lapse and at least two arguments[for or against] the nomination must be presented in the committee assembly.
Section 8. If ever the number of Committee officers falls below that of four, all pending motions shall be suspended until an adequate number of officers are formally nominated and elected by the remaining officials.
Section 9. Elections for the office of the Committee Chairperson shall take place on an annual basis.
Section 10. Only currently serving Committee officers qualify to be nominated for the position of chairperson.
Section 11. Chairpersonship shall only be accorded to a nominee following a majority-vote decision by sitting Committee officers.
Section 12. No more than three currently serving officers may be nominated for the position of chairperson during a single election cycle.
Section 13. Official qualification for the position of chairperson requires an initial nomination of no less than twenty-five percent of currently serving officers. [Embodied in an official motion, co-signed by the relevant officers.]
Section 14. Following the dutiful completion of a term, the chairperson shall be eligible for immediate re-nomination.
ARTICLE V
Parameters of Participation
Section 1. All motions must be formally submitted through the appropriate channels, so determined by the Committee.
Section 2. Motions, barring the exceptions herein specified, may only be valid following a majority-vote decision by sitting Committee officers and an official dispensation granted by the current chairperson.
Section 3. Each motion must be formally titled (employing the prefix “EC-Motion“), drafted, and signed by a Committee official in order to be eligible for a vote in the committee assembly.
Section 4. Before a motion may be voted upon, a period of no less than one week must lapse and at least one argument [for or against] the motion must be presented in the committee assembly.
Section 5. Voting rights on all motions will be open to committee officers for a period of one week. All votes are final.
ARTICLE VI
Defining and Regulating Powers
Section 1. The chairperson shall serve a term of no more than one year.
Section 2. The chairperson is granted the authority to submit official motions and nominate no more than two individuals per term in office.
Section 3. The chairperson is granted the authority to veto any motion passed in the committee assembly, as well as the election of any officer.
Section 4. The chairperson is excluded from democratic participation (via voting) in any motion or in any election.
Section 5. The chairperson may defer his or her authority to a currently serving officer for a period of no more than half of his/her term.
Section 6. The chairperson may unilaterally call the Executive Committee to recess for a period of no more than four weeks.
Section 7. If the chairperson is found to be acting in violation of the terms of his or her office, or is found to be acting in a manner that undermines the interests of the SFSC and/or the Executive Committee, currently serving officers may recall his/her appointment, following the passage of a motion calling for a recall election. The passage of a recall requires a supermajority (three-fifths majority) vote by currently serving Committee officers.
Section 8. Officers shall serve indefinite terms.
Section 9. Officers can overturn a veto following a supermajority (three-fifths majority) vote.
Section 10. Officers are granted the authority to submit official motions and nominate SFSC members to the Executive Committee, as well as Executive Committee officers to the office of Chairperson. Officers constitute the sole body vested with the authority to vote on said motions and nominations.
Section 11. Officers may collectively call the Executive Committee to recess for an indefinite amount of time, following a supermajority (three-fifths majority) vote and an official dispensation granted by the current chairperson.
Section 12. If an officer is found to be acting in violation of the terms of his or her office, or is found to be acting in a manner that undermines the interests of the SFSC and/or the Executive Committee, fellow officers nay recall his or her appointment, following the passage of a motion calling for a recall election. The passage of a recall requires a supermajority (three-fifths majority) vote by currently serving Committee officers.
ARTICLE VII
Amendment
The SFSC Executive Charter is subject to amendment, following the introduction of a motion and subsequent attainment of a supermajority (three-fifths majority) vote.
ARTICLE VIII
Ratification
Section 1. The SFSC Executive Charter is subject to immediate ratification following the introduction of an official motion (henceforth referred to as EC-Motion 1), a majority-vote decision by sitting Committee officers, and an official dispensation granted by the current chairperson.
Section 2. For purposes of immediate effect, EC-Motion 1 is hereby exempted from Section 4 of Article V.
AMENDMENTS
Chairman :
Michael A. (first term)
Officers :
Andrew P. Erik M.
Ricardo R. Marko L.
(3/18/11) A number of contributions have been made over the past month, including the Committee's official mission statement and additions to the 'Articles and Media' section. Among the latter are the Committee's inaugural audiocast and articles written by prominent socialists. Thanks to all of the officers who have contributed to the development of the site.
(2/19/11) All newly appointed officers are encouraged to browse the site and contribute to its content. Please consult the proper protocols as soon as they are provided.
From The Ragged Trousered Philantropists (1914)
'Money is the cause of poverty because it is the device by which those who are too lazy to work are enabled to rob the workers of the fruits of their labours.'
'Prove it,' said Crass.
Owen slowly folded up the piece of newspaper he had been reading and put it into his pocket.
'All right,' he replied. 'I'll show you how the Great Money Trick is worked.'
Owen opened his dinner basket and took from it two slices of bread but as these were not sufficient, he requested that anyone who had some bread left would give it to him. They gave him several pieces, which he placed in a heap on a clean piece of paper, and, having borrowed the pocket knives they used to cut and eat their dinners with from Easton, Harlow and Philpot, he addressed them as follows:
'These pieces of bread represent the raw materials which exist naturally in and on the earth for the use of mankind; they were not made by any human being, but were created by the Great Spirit for the benefit and sustenance of all, the same as were the air and the light of the sun.'
'You're about as fair-speakin' a man as I've met for some time,' said Harlow, winking at the others.
'Yes, mate,' said Philpot. 'Anyone would agree to that much! It's as clear as mud.'
'Now,' continued Owen, 'I am a capitalist; or, rather, I represent the landlord and capitalist class. That is to say, all these raw materials belong to me. It does not matter for our present argument how I obtained possession of them, or whether I have any real right to them; the only thing that matters now is the admitted fact that all the raw materials which are necessary for the production of the necessaries of life are now the property of the Landlord and Capitalist class. I am that class: all these raw materials belong to me.'
'Good enough!' agreed Philpot.
'Now you three represent the Working class: you have nothing--and for
my part, although I have all these raw materials, they are of no use to me--what need is--the things that can be made out of these raw materials by Work: but as I am too lazy to work myself, I have invented the Money Trick to make you work FOR me. But first I must explain that I possess something else beside the raw materials. These three knives represent--all the machinery of production; the factories, tools, railways, and so forth, without which the necessaries of life cannot be produced in abundance. And these three coins'--taking three halfpennies from his pocket--'represent my Money Capital.'
'But before we go any further,' said Owen, interrupting himself, 'it is most important that you remember that I am not supposed to be merely "a" capitalist. I represent the whole Capitalist Class. You are not supposed to be just three workers--you represent the whole Working Class.'
'All right, all right,' said Crass, impatiently, 'we all understand that. Git on with it.'
Owen proceeded to cut up one of the slices of bread into a number of little square blocks.
'These represent the things which are produced by labour, aided by machinery, from the raw materials. We will suppose that three of these blocks represent--a week's work. We will suppose that a week's work is worth--one pound: and we will suppose that each of these ha'pennies is a sovereign. We'd be able to do the trick better if we had real sovereigns, but I forgot to bring any with me.'
'I'd lend you some,' said Philpot, regretfully, 'but I left me purse on our grand pianner.' As by a strange coincidence nobody happened to have any gold with them, it was decided to make shift with the halfpence.
'Now this is the way the trick works--'
'Before you goes on with it,' interrupted Philpot, apprehensively, 'don't you think we'd better 'ave someone to keep watch at the gate in case a Slop comes along? We don't want to get runned in, you know.'
'I don' think there's any need for that,' replied Owen, 'there's only one slop who'd interfere with us for playing this game, and that's Police Constable Socialism.'
'Never mind about Socialism,' said Crass, irritably. 'Get along with the bloody trick.'
Owen now addressed himself to the working classes as represented by Philpot, Harlow and Easton.
'You say that you are all in need of employment, and as I am the kind-hearted capitalist class I am going to invest all my money in various industries, so as to give you Plenty of Work. I shall pay each of you one pound per week, and a week's work is--you must each produce three of these square blocks. For doing this work you will each receive your wages; the money will be your own, to do as you like with, and the things you produce will of course be mine, to do as I like with. You will each take one of these machines and as soon as you have done a week's work, you shall have your money.'
The Working Classes accordingly set to work, and the Capitalist class sat down and watched them. As soon as they had finished, they passed the nine little blocks to Owen, who placed them on a piece of paper by his side and paid the workers their wages.
'These blocks represent the necessaries of life. You can't live without some of these things, but as they belong to me, you will have to buy them from me: my price for these blocks is--one pound each.'
As the working classes were in need of the necessaries of life and as they could not eat, drink or wear the useless money, they were compelled to agree to the kind Capitalist's terms. They each bought back and at once consumed one-third of the produce of their labour. The capitalist class also devoured two of the square blocks, and so the net result of the week's work was that the kind capitalist had consumed two pounds worth of the things produced by the labour of the others, and reckoning the squares at their market value of one pound each, he had more than doubled his capital, for he still possessed the three pounds in money and in addition four pounds worth of goods. As for the working classes, Philpot, Harlow and Easton, having each consumed the pound's worth of necessaries they had bought with their wages, they were again in precisely the same condition as when they started work--they had nothing.
This process was repeated several times: for each week's work the producers were paid their wages. They kept on working and spending all their earnings. The kind-hearted capitalist consumed twice as much as any one of them and his pile of wealth continually increased. In a little while--reckoning the little squares at their market value of one pound each--he was worth about one hundred pounds, and the working classes were still in the same condition as when they began, and were still tearing into their work as if their lives depended upon it.
After a while the rest of the crowd began to laugh, and their merriment increased when the kind-hearted capitalist, just after having sold a pound's worth of necessaries to each of his workers, suddenly took their tools--the Machinery of Production--the knives away from them, and informed them that as owing to Over Production all his store-houses were glutted with the necessaries of life, he had decided to close down the works.
'Well, and wot the bloody 'ell are we to do now?' demanded Philpot.
'That's not my business,' replied the kind-hearted capitalist. 'I've paid you your wages, and provided you with Plenty of Work for a long time past. I have no more work for you to do at present. Come round again in a few months' time and I'll see what I can do for you.'
'But what about the necessaries of life?' demanded Harlow. 'We must have something to eat.'
'Of course you must,' replied the capitalist, affably; 'and I shall be very pleased to sell you some.'
'But we ain't got no bloody money!'
'Well, you can't expect me to give you my goods for nothing! You didn't work for me for nothing, you know. I paid you for your work and you should have saved something: you should have been thrifty like me.Look how I have got on by being thrifty!'
The unemployed looked blankly at each other, but the rest of the crowd only laughed; and then the three unemployed began to abuse the kind-hearted Capitalist, demanding that he should give them some of the necessaries of life that he had piled up in his warehouses, or to be allowed to work and produce some more for their own needs; and even threatened to take some of the things by force if he did not comply with their demands. But the kind-hearted Capitalist told them not to be insolent, and spoke to them about honesty, and said if they were not careful he would have their faces battered in for them by the police, or if necessary he would call out the military and have them shot down like dogs, the same as he had done before at Featherstone and Belfast.
'Of course,' continued the kind-hearted capitalist, 'if it were not for foreign competition I should be able to sell these things that you have made, and then I should be able to give you Plenty of Work again: but until I have sold them to somebody or other, or until I have used them myself, you will have to remain idle.'
'Well, this takes the bloody biskit, don't it?' said Harlow.
'The only thing as I can see for it,' said Philpot mournfully, 'is to 'ave a unemployed procession.'
'That's the idear,' said Harlow, and the three began to march about the room in Indian file, singing:
'We've got no work to do-oo-oo'
We've got no work to do-oo-oo!
Just because we've been workin' a dam sight too hard,
Now we've got no work to do.'
As they marched round, the crowd jeered at them and made offensive remarks. Crass said that anyone could see that they were a lot of lazy, drunken loafers who had never done a fair day's work in their lives and never intended to.
'We shan't never get nothing like this, you know,' said Philpot. 'Let's try the religious dodge.'
'All right,' agreed Harlow. 'What shall we give 'em?'
'I know!' cried Philpot after a moment's deliberation. '"Let my lower lights be burning." That always makes 'em part up.'
The three unemployed accordingly resumed their march round the room, singing mournfully and imitating the usual whine of street-singers:
'Trim your fee-bil lamp me brither-in,
Some poor sail-er tempest torst,
Strugglin' 'ard to save the 'arb-er,
Hin the dark-niss may be lorst,
So let try lower lights be burning,
Send 'er gleam acrost the wave,
Some poor shipwrecked, struggling seaman,
You may rescue, you may save.'
'Kind frens,' said Philpot, removing his cap and addressing the crowd, 'we're hall honest British workin' men, but we've been hout of work for the last twenty years on account of foreign competition and over-production. We don't come hout 'ere because we're too lazy to work; it's because we can't get a job. If it wasn't for foreign competition, the kind'earted Hinglish capitalists would be able to sell their goods and give us Plenty of Work, and if they could, I assure you that we should hall be perfectly willing and contented to go on workin' our bloody guts out for the benefit of our masters for the rest of our lives. We're quite willin' to work: that's hall we arst for--Plenty of Work--but as we can't get it we're forced to come out 'ere and arst you to spare a few coppers towards a crust of bread and a night's lodgin'.'
As Philpot held out his cap for subscriptions, some of them attempted to expectorate into it, but the more charitable put in pieces of cinder or dirt from the floor, and the kind-hearted capitalist was so affected by the sight of their misery that he gave them one of the sovereigns he had in his pocket: but as this was of no use to them they immediately returned it to him in exchange for one of the small squares of the necessaries of life, which they divided and greedily devoured. And when they had finished eating they gathered round the philanthropist and sang, 'For he's a jolly good fellow,' and afterwards Harlow suggested that they should ask him if he would allow them to elect him to Parliament.
I have given this question much thought recently. Why use the term 'syndicalism'? Why not just use 'socialism'? After all, socialism is term that has seen continued use since it first appeared, and one that has undergone many divergences (usually due to either the addition of ideas or a disagreement of ideas). As a result, we have had Revolutionary Socialists; Democratic Socialists; Christian Socialists; Libertarian Socialists; National Socialists and so forth. Each pursuing a different agenda and following the ideas of a different theoretician -- Fourier, Marx, Bakunin, Hitler et al. Unified by one thing, the mutual adoption of the term of socialism, but having a different meaning in each case. In fact, it's because socialism as a name has been so misused, abused and confused that I felt it was time to consider another.
However, we are still most certainly socialists (Socialist-Nationalists, to be precise). But rather than adding further to the mists of confusion that surround the term socialism -- entailing a continual explanation of how we differ from other socialist groups -- I feel it simpler to adopt a different name. A term as old as socialism and one often used in conjunction, yet one that lacks the 'baggage' often attached to socialist ideas.
For too many years now socialist activity has been dominated by starry-eyed dreamers who wait upon the arrival of the mythical 'stateless communist' society that their theorists have led them to believe is about to arrive -- ushering in an age of social harmony, justice and equality much akin to that long expected by Christian dogmatists. This endless pursuit of the stateless communist society has led to the adoption of an internationalism that transcends the limits of the original communist thinkers (Marx and Engels), to encompass the entire globe (irrespective of a given locale's level of development) and all its peoples in the embrace of a universal communist dream. For when they (Marx and Engels) cried "workers of the world unite" to which world were they referring? The totality of the world, or just the 19th century industrialized regions (which they saw as being the necessary basis for their communist Utopian dream)? A dream that ridicules ethnicity or any sense of ethnic identity under the idea that class supersedes any notions of race. In fact, they go as far as refusing to credit the existence of racial differences, pointing out the scientific dismissal of the existence of said racial differences. "We are human", they cry, "beneath the skin we are all the same". Yet they then proceed to set-up different divisions within their organizations to cater to different ethnic groups -- even for those who profess a different sexual preference. Yet if we are all the same then surely there is no need for separate groups, the issues that affect one equally affect all. Even the Anarchists, the heirs of Bakunin and Kropotkin, who proudly boast their "neither gods nor masters" slogan, adopt an internationalist stance in which they espouse causes that fly in the face of everything they claim to stand for.
So we have to apply ourselves, not to a political idea which has had over a century to prove itself without success (yet much pollution), but rather to the original idea of socialism, which had long predated the superfluous additions of communism or internationalism.
The original basis of socialism was the idea that the worker should control the means of production. This, if you like, is the first commandment, from which all the other tenants sprout. It expresses the essence of socialism, which is also the basis of Syndicalism. Socialism and syndicalism are two sides of the same coin. We are both socialist and syndicalist at the same time, hence Socialist-Syndicalist.
Yet, if the workers cannot own the means of production, how can the basic foundation of socialism be attained? For as Eugene V. Debs said in December1905, "The capitalists own the tools they do not use, and the workers use the tools they do not own." Even in the so-called Socialist Republics established at various stages during the twentieth century, the tools were never owned by the workers, but rather by an authoritarian state that attempted to impose socialism in a top-down manner, rather than the bottom-up that is a prerequisite for the establishment of a true workers' (socialist) state.
Mikhail Bakunin argued that: "the future social organisation must be made solely from the bottom up, by the free association or federation of workers, firstly in their unions, then in the communes, regions, nations and finally in a great federation, international and universal." And for this reason the revolution has to be made by the workers themselves. In other words, it has to spread upwards from the factory floor, not imposed by an elite from above (as has been argued was the outcome of the Russian Revolution). Lenin, doyen of the Marxists, has been described as a right-wing deviation of Marxism by Professor Noam Chomsky. He suggests that Lenin drifted away from a pure Marxist stance to a more populist/pragmatist position, willing to harness the forces of a peoples rebellion to impose a socialist state. In this way, far from being a bottom to top socialist revolution, the coup of 1917 allowed Lenin and his Bolshevik cadre -- which included Trotsky -- to create a 'socialist' state that, by means of institutions as draconian as any that had existed in Tsarist Russia, came to target other socialist revolutionaries and revolutionary institutions.
A socialist revolution in which socialist revolutionaries shoot other socialist revolutionaries, just what kind of socialist revolution is that?
These 'Socialist Republics' purportedly strove for the betterment of their fellow man, not through the offices of democratic workers' councils, but rather through the authority of a state created in the name of the workers by those who believed their vision of socialism was far superior to that which had arisen from the masses; even though those 'masses' were the very working-classes that gave birth to socialism in the first place. Oh yes, the 'vanguard' of these 'Socialist Republics' claimed they were acting in the name of the workers, just as the leadership of the, so-called, socialist groups do today. But in reality they suckled at the tit of the working-class, ensuring that they grew fat on the efforts of the workers.
Throughout various debates, the idea of adopting a 'third positionist' stance, between the left and the right, has time and time again raised its head. Conforming to a 'Strasserite' position in which, "[w]e must take from the right nationalism without capitalism and from the left socialism without internationalism", as Gregor had stated. Yet to do so, we would first have to acknowledge right and left as separate entities in which we would have to stand the middle ground, taking the best from both and the worst from neither. But they are not, they are simply names; labels constructed to describe viewpoints and to act as refuges for those with ulterior motives. After all, a 'left-wing' authoritarian despot bears little difference from his 'right-wing' counterpart.
No, what we have to do is break away from the boxes into which our enemies would happily thrust us, tear up the labels and descriptions which those same enemies would hang upon us, pull down the false walls of political constructs, and offer a new vision of what might be if socialism could be freed from the cage of internationalism and returned to the workers from whence it came.
The influx of Communism with its internationalist perspective has had the effect of putting the indigenous workers of a nation into a situation akin to their being caught between a rock and a hard place. Encouraged to advance the cause of the working-class, yet made to place their own needs in subservience to others, whom they are told are their comrades in the struggle for the 'stateless society' so beloved of their masters. Struggle for world equality, for such is the ambition of all socialists, they cry. Yet the only 'equality' their ideas can produce is an equality of poverty, wherein the workers of the Western world are replaced by the workers of the other world (reverse imperialism perhaps). In their efforts to replace nations with a stateless society they serve only to aid the capitalist in the perpetuation of labour exploitation. Capitalism and communism are but the same creature just wearing a different coat. Socialism existed before the communists and their ilk took control, and it will exist long after they have been forgotten, a mere footnote in the pages of a history book.
So in order to address the formation of the Revolutionary Syndicalist Front it becomes necessary to throw out the socialistic misrepresentations that have afflicted the working-classes since Marx and Engels launched their pamphlet of half-ideas and unfinished dreamings on the socialist movement of the mid 19th century. Remove the stain of internationalism in which a crusade for 'stateless' society began a replacement of Europe and America's indigenous workers with their third world doppelgangers. A stain that has best served the needs of the capitalist by the destruction of worker autonomy through fear of poverty and loss of livelihood. One that ushers in the necessity of the bourgeois stage so indispensable to the pursuit of communism, according to Marx and Engels. This has led to a situation in which the capitalist and Marxist have been portrayed as mortal enemies, with each seeking the death of the other, in pursuit of a future wherein only one can exist - laissez-faire capitalism or stateless communism. Yet the truth is that both have a symbiotic relationship, with the working-class as the host. Capitalists need the communists and the communists need the capitalists, one alone cannot exist. They are the left and right hands of the magician, while the working-class is left preoccupied by the performance.
My thinking (as well as that of others) has been accused by some as being 'too revolutionary' -- as if we could bring about a socialist reconfiguration of society by discussion and compromise with the bourgeoisie. Certainly a strange accusation for those involved in a movement that often describes itself as 'revolutionary'. Yet what we have set out to do is revolutionise socialism, and in so doing, we must wrest the torch of socialism from the internationalists and the forces of the pseudo-Marxist left. Therefore, we Revolutionary Syndicalists must face the twin enemies of true socialism: the reactionaries of right and left -- the conservatives of capitalism and the conservatives of socialism. Both must be totally rooted out, as no trace of either group must be allowed to poison this new socialism (to provide a new breeding ground for the continuity for the exploitation of labour). Revolution is a bloody business, and revolutionaries we are. And in pursuit of a new socialism, we must be prepared to be as bloody as any revolutionaries in history. For as Arthur Moeller van den Bruck states in his Germany's Third Empire, "A revolution occurs once only. It is not a matter which a nation negotiates with other nations. It is the most private, intimate concern of a people, which that people must handle for itself and by itself. According to the direction in which the people voluntarily guides a revolution, its outcome determines that peoples future fate."
As I have some doubt about the readers of “The Comrade’ having any curiosity as to “how I became a Socialist’ it may be in order to say that the subject is the editor’'s, not my own; and that what is here offered is at his bidding—my only concern being that he shall not have cause to wish that I had remained what I was instead of becoming a Socialist.
On the evening of Febrary 27, 1875, the local lodge of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen was organized at Terre Haute, Ind., by Joshua A. Leach, then grand master, and I was admitted as a charter member and at once chosen secretary. “'Old Josh Leach,'’ as he was affectionately called, a typical locomotive fireman of his day, was the founder of the brotherhood, and I was instantly attracted by his rugged honesty, simple manner and homely speech. How well I remember felling his large, rough hand on my shoulder, the kindly eye of an elder brother searching my own as he gently said, “"My boy, you’re a little young, but I believe you’re in earnest and will make your mark in the brotherhood.’" Of course, I assured him that I would do my best. What he really thought at the time flattered my boyish vanity not a little when I heard of it. He was attending a meeting at St. Louis some months later, and in the course of his remarks said: “"I put a tow-headed boy in the brotherhood at Terre Haute not long ago, and some day he will be at the head of it.’"
Twenty-seven years, to a day, have played their pranks with “'Old Josh’' and the rest of us. When last we met, not long ago, and I pressed his good, right hand, I observed that he was crowned with the front that never melts; and as I think of him now:
Remembrance wakes, with all her busy train,
Swells at my breast and turns the past to pain.
My first step was thus taken in organized labor and a new influence fired my ambition and changed the whole current of my career. I was filled with enthusiasm and my blood fairly leaped in my veins. Day and night I worked for the brotherhood. To see its watchfires glow and observe the increase of its sturdy members were the sunshine and shower of my life. To attend the meeting was my supreme joy, and for ten years I was not once absent when the faithful assembled.
At the convention held in Buffalo in 1878 I was chosen associate editor of the magazine, and in 1880 I became grand secretary and treasurer. With all the fire of youth I entered upon the crusade which seemed to fairly glitter with possibilities. For eighteen hours at a stretch I was glued to my desk reeling off the answers to my many correspondents. Day and night were one. Sleep was time wasted and often, when all oblivious of her presence in the still small hours my mother's hand turned off the light, I went to bed under protest. Oh, what days! And what quenchless zeal and consuming vanity! All the firemen everywhereand they were all the worldwere straining:
“To catch the beat
On my tramping feet.’
My grip was always packed; and I was darting in all directions. To tramp thorugh a railroad yard in the rain, snow or sleet half the night, or till daybreak, to be ordered out of the roundhouse for being an “agitator,’ or put off a train, sometimes passenger, more often freight, while attempting to deadhead over the division, were all in the program, and served to whet the appetite to conquer. One night in midwinter at Elmira, N. Y., a conductor on the Erie kindly dropped me off in a snowbank, and as I clambered to the top I ran into the arms of a policeman, who heard my story and on the spot became my friend.
I rode on the engines over mountain and plain, slept in the cabooses and bunks, and was fed from their pails by the swarthy stokers who still nestle close to my heart, and will until it is cold and still.
Through all these years I was nourished at Fountain Proletaire. I drank deeply of its waters and every particle of my tissue became saturated with the spirit of the working class. I had fired an engine and been stung by the exposure and harship of the rail. I was with the boys in their weary watches, at the broken engine’'s side and often helped to bear their bruised and bleeding bodies back to wife and child again. How could I but feel the burden of their wrongs? How the seed of agitation fail to take deep root in my heart?
And so I was spurred on in the work of organizing, not the fireman merely, but the brakemen, switchmen, telegraphers, shopmen, track-hands, all of them in fact, and as I had now become known as an organizer, the calls came from all sides and there are but few trades I have not helped to organize and less still in whose strikes I have not at some time had a hand.
In 1894 the American Railway Union was organized and a braver body of men never fought the battle of the working class.
Up to this time I had heard but little of Socialism, knew practically nothing about the movement, and what little I did know was not calculated to impress me in its favor. I was bent on thorough and complete organization of the railroad men and ultimately the whole working class, and all my time and energy were given to that end. My supreme conviction was that if they were only organized in every branch of the service and all acted together in concert they could redress their wrongs and regulate the conditions of their employment. The stockholders of the corporation acted as one, why not the men? It was such a plain propositionsimply to follow the example set before their eyes by their masterssurely they could not fail to see it, act as one, and solve the problem.
It is useless to say that I had yet to learn the workings of the capitalist system, the resources of its masters and the weakness of its slaves. Indeed, no shadow of a 'system' fell athwart my pathway; no thought of ending wage-misery marred my plans. I was too deeply absorbed in perfecting wage-servitude and making it a 'thing of beauty and a joy forever.'
It all seems very strange to me now, taking a backward look, that my vision was so focalized on a single objective point that I utterly failed to see what now appears as clear as the noonday sunso clear that I marvel that any workingman, however dull, uncomprehending, can resist it.
But perhaps it was better so. I was to be baptized in Socialism in the roar of conflict and I thank the gods for reserving to this fitful occasion the fiat, "Let there be light!" the light that streams in steady radiance upon the broadway to the Socialist republic.
The skirmish lines of the A. R. U. were well advanced. A series of small battles were fought and won without the loss of a man. A number of concessions were made by the corporations rather than risk an encounter. Then came the fight on the Great Northern, short sharp, and decisive. The victory was completethe only railroad strike of magnitude ever won by an organization in America.
Next followed the final shockthe Pullman strikeand the American Railway Union again won, clear and complete. The combined corporations were paralized and helpless. At this juncture there were delivered, from wholly unexpected quarters, a swift succession of blows that blinded me for an instant and then opened wide my eyesand in the gleam of every bayonet and the flash of every rifle the class struggle was revealed. This was my first practical lesson in Socialism, though wholly unaware that it was called by that name.
An army of detectives, thugs and murderers were equipped with badge and beer and bludgeon and turned loos; old hulks of cars were fired; the alarm bells tolled; the people were terrified; the most startling rumors were set afloat; the press volleyed and thundered, and over all the wires sped the news that Chicagos white throat was in the clutch of a red mod; injunctions flew thick and fast, arrests followed, and our office and headquarters, the heart of the strike, was sacked, torn out and nailed up by the 'lawful' authorities of the federal government; and when in company with my loyal comrades I found myself in Cook county jail at Chicago with the whole press screaming conspiracy, treason and murder, and by some fateful coincidence I was given the cell occupied just previous to his execution by the assassin of Mayor Carter Harrison, Sr., overlooking the spot, a few feet distant, where anarchists were hanged a few years before, I had another exceedingly practical and impressive lesson in Socialism.
Acting upon the advice of friends we sought to employ John Harlan, son of the Supreme Justice, to assist in our defensea defense memorable to me chiefly because of the skill and fidelity of our lawyers, among whom were the brilliant Clarence Darrow and the venerable Judge Lyman Trubmull, author of the thirteenth amendment to the constitution, abolishing slavery in the United States.
Mr. Harlan wanted to think of the matter over night; and the next morning gravely informed ust hat he could not afford to be identified with the case, "for," said he, "you will be tried upon the same theory as were the anarchists, with probably the same result." That day, I remember, the jailer, by way of consolation, I suppose, showed us the blood-stained rope used at the last execution and explained in minutest detail, as he exhibited the gruesome relic, just how the monstrous crime of lawful murder is committed.
But the tempest gradually subsided and with it the bloodthirstiness of the press and public sentiment. We were not sentenced to the gallows, nor ever to the penitentiarythough put on trial for conspiracyfor reasons that will make another story.
The Chicago jail sentences were followed by six months at Woodstock and it was here that Socialism gradually laid hold of me in its own irresistible fashion. Books and pamphlets and letters from socialists came by every mail and I began to read and think and dissect the anatomy of the system in which workingmen, however organized, could be shattered and battered and splintered at a single stroke. The writings of Bellamy and Blanchford early appealed to me. The "Cooperative Commonwealth" of Gronlund also impressed me, but the writings of Kautsky were so clear and conclusive that I readily grasped, not merely his argument, but also caught the spirit of his socialist utteranceand I thank him and all who helped me out of darkness into light.
It was at this time, when the first glimmerings of Socialism were beginning to penetrate, that Victor L. Bergerand I have loved him ever sincecame to Woodstock, as if a providential instrument, and delivered the first impassioned message of Socialism I had ever heardthe very first to set the 'wires humming in my system'. As a souvenir of that visit there is in my library a volume of Capital, by Karl Marx, inscribed with the compliments of Victor L. Berger, which I cherish as a token of priceless value.
The American Railway Union was defeated but not conqueredoverwhelmed but not destroyed. It lives and pulsates in the Socialist movement, and its defeat but blazed the way to economic freedom and hastened the dawn of human brotherhood.
Wealth is born of intelligence and labor. But these two forces can only act with the aid of a passive element the land, which they put to work by their combined efforts. It thus seems that this indispensable instrument should belong to all men. Such is not the case.
Individuals have taken over common land by ruse or violence, declaring themselves its owners; they have established by law that it will always be theirs, and that the right to property will become the foundation of the social constitution; which is to say that it will come before and, if need be, absorb all human rights, even that to life, if it has the ill fortune to find itself in conflict with the privilege of a small number.
The right to property has extended itself by logical deduction from the land to other instruments: the accumulated products of labor, designated by the generic name of capital. Since capital, sterile in and of itself can only fructify through labor, and , on the other hand, since it is the primary matter worked on by social forces, the majority, excluded from its possession, finds itself condemned to forced labor, to the profit of the possessing minority. Neither the instruments nor the fruits of labor belong to the workers, but to the idlers. The gluttonous branches absorb the trees sap, to the detriment of the fertile boughs. The hornets devour the honey created by the bees.
Such is our social order, founded on conquest, which has divided populations into victors and vanquished. The logical consequence of such an organization is slavery. And we didnt have to wait long for its arrival. In fact, with land acquiring value only from cultivation, the privileged have drawn the conclusion that, thanks to the right to own land, they also have that to own the human livestock that makes it fertile. In the first place they have considered it as a complement to their domain but, in the final analysis, they see it as personal property, independent of the land.
Nevertheless, the principle of equality, engraved in the depths of the heart, and which conspires, with the centuries, to destroy the exploitation of man by man in all its forms, delivered the first blow to the sacrilegious right to property by smashing slavery. Privilege was forced to reduce itself to the possession of men not as furniture, but as real estate auxiliary to, and inseparable from, real estate in the form of land.
In the 16th century a deadly rebirth of oppression brought about the enslavement of blacks; and even today the inhabitants of a land reputed to be French own men in the same way as clothing and horses. There is, in fact, less of a difference than meets the eye between our state and that of the colonies. After eighteen centuries of war between privilege and equality the homeland, theatre and principal champion of this struggle, could not put up with slavery in its naked brutality. But the fact exists in name, and the right to property, while more hypocritical in Paris than in Martinique, is neither less inflexible nor less oppressive.
In fact, servitude does not consist solely in being a mans thing, or a lords serf. He is not free who, deprived of the instruments of labor, remains at the mercy of the privileged who are their owners. This is the state that feeds revolt. In order to exorcise this peril they try to reconcile Cain with Abel. From the necessity of capital as an instrument of labor they go on to conclude in the community of interests, and then to that of solidarity between the capitalist and the worker. How many artistically embroidered phrases there are on this canvas! The lamb is shorn for his own health. It owes thanks. Our Aesculapiuses know how to sugar-coat the pill.
There are still some who are fooled by these homilies, but they are few. Each day the light shines brighter on this so-called association of the parasite and its victim. But the facts are eloquent; they prove the duel, the duel to the death, between revenue and salary. Its a question of justice and good sense. Lets examine the situation.
There is no society without labor! Whats more, there exist no idlers who do not have need of workers. But what need do workers have of idlers? Is capital only productive in the workers hands on condition that it not belong to them? I imagine the proletariat, deserting en masse, taking its tools and its labor to some distant land. Would it by chance die due to the absence of its masters? Can the new society only come about by creating lords of the land and of capital, in handing over to a caste of idlers the ownership of all the instruments of labor? Is there no other social mechanism possible but this division of owners and the salaried?
