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“...76 reminiscences OF DANIEL DE LEON.
engaged in the struggle, for they were powerless to prevent
that. What I do mean is that these parties as such, by their
acts and their utterances and by the position they took, be-
came participes criminis, lining up with or even becoming
part of their respective capitalist governments.
The leaders of the European Socialist movement are fam-
iliar with Socialist economic theory; they must have under-
Uood full well the true nature of the catastrophe, how it came
about and why it came about and what it meant to the work-
ing class. But they have always *been singularly deficient
when it came to the practical side of things, the matter of
methods and of tactics, the matter of organizing the working
class so as to make of it the power it could and should be. It
may be argued that politically backward conditions would
have made it impossible for most of the European countries
ta adopt and pursue policies which, barring the present ab-
normal and hysteric...”
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“...that moment perfectly at home. You see, said De
Leon, when he laughingly related the story, B. is a fine fel-
low. It only took one pail of water to take the starch out of
him and he has never become stiff again since.
As soon as De Leon arrived home in the country, he
hastened into what he called his farmer uniform, white
jacket and overalls. Then he lighted his clay pipe and was
happy in his little circle. About one of his clay pipes evolves
another anecdote. During the many summers when the fam-
ily lived at Milford, De Leon usually took the same boat on
Saturday up Long Island Sound to Bridgeport. Thus he be-
came recognized on board. One day a talkative old sailor
came up to him.
Excuse me, sir, said the tar very politely, I have seen
you very often on this boat, and you never smoke anything
but a clay pipe, I am very curious to know why you smoke a...”
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“...the 1890 campaign the publication of a paper was de-
cided upon, and The People was started as a Sunday paper,
containing a whole lot of pages made up mostly of plate mat-
ter, and printed on the Volkszeitung press. The paper was a
yard square and did not look like other papers. It was called
a mammoth paper by the publishers, and they must have
known. Lucien Sanial was the editor.
It seems that the intention was to make of it a paper that
would reach and be attractive to all the members of he fam-
ily. The Workmens Advocate was consolidated with the new
venture. To be sure, it was some improvement upon the
Workmens Advocate.
In 1891 Daniel De Leon was appointed national lecturer
of the party and toured all states where the party had organiza-
tions, including the Pacific Coast. The result of this tour was
the cementing of the affiliated Sections into a homogeneous
national organization, the real beginning of the Socialist La-
bor Party as a factor in the labor movement. In the fall of
the...”
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