Your search within this document for 'mental' resulted in 13 matching pages.
1

“...connected with that Nationalist move- ment and I had gone over to New York to hear him. Of the lecture itself I have today no recollection whatever, but the lecturer, how he spoke and how he looked, all that I can con- jure up before my minds eye as distinctly as though it hap- pened yesterday. A portrait of De Leon, published in the 2Sth anniversary souvenir of the Weekly People, depicting him as he looked at the time of his entrance into the Socialist movement, corresponds precisely with the mental picture I have of him when he delivered the aforesaid lecture; if that portrait be made part of this volume, it will greatly enhance its value and be an aid to the reader. It will be observed that, on this picture, De Leon wears a stiff collar; when I got to...”
2

“...assisted by two men; Hugo Vogt, a for- mer student of jurisprudence, whom the Bismarckian anti- Socialist laws had exiled from Germany; and Lucicn Sanial, in his younger days a French naval officer, who had long been active in the Socialist movement, first in France and, later, for many years in America. Sanial was De Leons senior by about 18 to 20 years, while Vogt was about 7 years younger than De Leon. Of the two, Vogt was perhaps the more able and certainly the more efficient, partly because of mental at- tributes and also because, being himself a German, he was in a position, up to 1899, to wield considerable influence within and upon the many German trade and other labor organiza- tions which, in the very nature of things in those days, had to serve as a fulcrum whenever the S. L. P. lever had to be ap- plied to dislodge some obstruction in the path of the revolu- tionary movement. Sanial, lacking this advantage of position, was, nevertheless, a valuable man. An effective and fluent speaker...”
3

“...is well for posterity to know what sort of vermin such men have had to contend with. So severe was the strain upon the Party imposed by the ever increasing difficulties of maintaining the Daily People, that things began to crack. The first crack showed up in the Board of Trustees. Vogt, entirely misplaced in the position he occupied, began to give way under the strain; he began to drown his troubles in drink. He was surrounded, or sur- rounded himself, with an element which, far below him in mental status, ably assisted him on the downward path. he mechanical department of the paper became demoralized and things came to such a pass that the N. E. C had to inter- fere. The legal obstacles that had, in 1900, led to the forma- tion of the Board of Trustees had disappeared; the Volks- zeitung had been beaten in court and we were in undisputed possession of the paper. Impelled by the situation prevail- ing, the N. E. C, initiated a general vote of the Party to so...”
4

“...6S REMINISCENCES OF DANIEL DE LEON. on top of a volcano and likely to be blown up any minute is not in a'position to evolve fine points in tactics. His atten- tion is apt to be absorbed looking fox help, however vainly, and his mental processes will be of a kind that scorns fine dis- tinctions as to source and possible effectiveness of that help. This simile may not fully cover movements composed of numbers of men, but it comes near enough to explain how such movements, situated as were those of continental Europe at least, will develop a tendency to look for mass instead of class, using the latter term in a purely sportive sense. Nor could we, placed in exactly the same predicament, expect to be any different. De Leon, who attended congress after congress, and who went there with his eyes open for seeing things below as well as above the surface, came back again and again with the same conviction, viz., that so long as conditions in Europe remained as they were, America was the country...”
5

“...like an employee who feels un- der obligation not to offend his employer. When the point is pressed home to him by an S. L. P. man, he advises that we join the larger party. SicI Why doesn't he join the larger party .today? ^ ^ From all of this we may perhaps deduce that these men in spite of better knowledge, could not rise above their en- vironment, and that again leads to the conclusion that mate- rial conditions determine not only the ideas and actions of the mass of men, but also limit the mental vision of their leaders so that they are unable to see and grasp what is so obvious to us. It IS one thing to know and quite another to apply that knowledge to the ever rising issues of the day. Russia to the Fore That the Socialists of Russia occupied a position some- what different from that of the other European Socialist par- ties was, of course, due to special causes. Indeed, it may be said that nearly the entire conscious portion of the Russian people was interested in the defeat of Czarism...”
6

“...Stuttgart, and Copen- hagen. The details of these fourteen years, however, are numerous enough to fill volumes. They comprise, in truth, the history of the Labor Movement of the United States, the history of the tactics of the revolutionary movement of the world; the history of the formative period of the idea of the central industrial structure of the Socialist Republic. With the struggles, the trials, and the triumphs of this part of his work the other contributions to this book deal. The funda- mental purpose of this sketch is to throw a f. w sidelights on the man himself. Sidelights on De Leons Character That there was in his blood the spirit of natural rebellion against vested wrong may be gathered from the following anecdote which dates back to his Mythological Age. To the family circle at breakfast in the aristocratic home of Doctor Solon De Leon in Venezula, the news was brought that a slave had escaped during the night. What ingratitude, said an uncle, I sent that fellow some rum when...”
7

“...Well, welll This is indeed remarkable! ^ Yes! And I am the reincarnation of Adam! What! You dont mean to tell me____? Yes! I am Adam reincarnated! What, the whole of Adam? Yes! The whole of Adam! Iimpossible! Where does my share come in!? Startled by this extraordinary demand, uttered in sten- torian voice, the lunatic grabbed his hat and dashed out of the editorial sanctum. The secret of De Leons unusual working capacity I have always laid a great deal to his remarkable ability of com- plete mental relaxation, a secret which too few possess. De Leon knew the full value of play, and knew how to extract out of play all the good there is in it. He played physically and he played mentally; he was always on the lookout for a good joke. He placed very little store upon the possession of things. Property and chattels he considered burdensome encum- brances and responsibilities, which could only hamper his usefulness to the cause he had chosen as his. I have heard of his hrst visit to the home...”
8

“...WITH DE LEON SINCE 89. 19 ing of labor fakers and the revolutionary attitude did not keep the Socialist Labor Party from growing. The claim made by the publishers of Labor was that it was more suited for new recruits to the movement, that its contents were mental food easy to digestadmittedly some sort of mush-and-milk Socialist teaching that would offend no- body. Experiences with Samuel Gompers and the Craft Union Borers Prove Dc Leon Right Following the defeat of Gompers at the Denver (1894) convention of the A. F. of L., at which John Burns was a fra- ternal delegate from the British trade unions, there was a con- vention held in Albany, N. Y., of all A. F. of L. trade unions in New York state. At this convention I was a delegate, rep- resenting the Trades and Labor Council of Troy, N. Y. Samuel Gompers was there too, having come as a delegate from Lo- cal 144, International Cigar Makers Union. There were seven or eight members of the Socialist Labor Party at that conven- tion. Naturally...”
9

“...his al- leged hatred of Germans, his desire to wreck unions, and stories about the vulgar language in The People, made some people actually believe that De Leon was a monster. Whatever hap- pened upon this planet that was bad they blamed on De Leon. While on the road for the party in New York state some years Ago I encountered an individual in a remote part of Schoharie County, who told me with candor that when the Democrats were in power we did not have half enough rain. Similarly there were mental cripples who blamed De Leon for everything. In the 28th Assembly District, the district where De Leon lived, the party organization was about evenly divided between the loyal S. L. P. men and those who were leaning toward the opposition. At the business meetings of this district there were always warm debates. At times De Leon was even threatened with physical harm by the very fellows who were afraid to fight the labor fakers in the unions. At every meet- ing of that district some new slander...”
10

“...FROM 1908 TO DANIEL DE LEONS DEATH IN 19U Fourth Convention of I.W.W. Packed by Bum- mery Element and De Leon Unseated as Delegate Unity Movement Milwaukee CrazeDe Leons Greatness All the efforts of De Leon to preserve harmony in the I. W. W. were unavailing. St. John, Trautmann, Edwards, and the majority of the five members of the General Execu- tive Board turned over night, so to speak, against the funda- mental principles of industrialism as laid down in the I.W.W. preamble. They no longer recognized political action as nec- essary. It was a repetition of the stupid Sherman attempt to get rid of the Socialist Labor Party element and thus find it easier to break into the Socialist Party and its much larger membership, and fish in troubled waters. Once started on the road of inconsistency the Bummery stage was soon reached. At a special session of the General Executive Board held in January, 1908, in New York city, De Leon appeared and endeavored to enlighten those who gave signs of being...”
11

“...WITH DE LEON SINCE 89. 157 came around where De Leon was sitting, eager to engage De Leon in conversation. With the familiarity of the ward heeler, Berger said; Comrade De Leon, why dont you come over and join our party? When De Leon met Berger personally he abandoned his hopes and sized him up to be a typical poli- tician whose mental vision was limited to the border lines of the county or district where he might be running for office. Karl Liebknecht in the United States In 1910 the Socialist Party engaged the eminent German Socialist, Dr. Karl Liebknecht, for a lecture tour throughout the United Statesa very clever move on the part of that party, a move that was to give the Socialist Labor Party its death blow, for such must have been the real motive of in- viting Karl Liebknecht. There is hardly another prominent lecturer in the Social Democratic Party of Germany who has less in common with the Socialist Party opportunist stand than Liebknecht. Yet Liebknecht, the leader of the rev...”
12

“...terraced city in the skies with diamond studded gates flung open to receive him; leaving behind a man-made hell of brain- emasculating, superstition-fed ignorance and fear, to have his memory and calling held in contemptuous execration by enlightened generations yet to come. Even the gods die,as human lore expandsand one by one the very names they bore become mere threads with which to weave new nursery tales for children, or themes to illus- trate the crude beliefs the race accepted while yet its mental status was infantile. Aye, in countless thousands mortal things and things be- got of mortal wants and fears, are chemically changed, or dis- appear, and all goes with them that they were or stood for before the transformation. * When all the preaching charlatans of old, and all the sor- did traders of the marts, and all the sturdy fighters of the wars are long forgotten, what names will our posterity revere? Those that were borne by great and noble minds who gave to usand, not to us alone,...”
13

“...request and which met with his unqualified approval: While the theoretical contributions of the thinkers of Europe are valuable to the American Movement, capitalist development in this country and the social and political phe- nomena inseparably connected therewith have peculiarly fit- ted the American Socialist militant for the practical consider- ation of questions arising from them. Just now, when Aesops fable of the philosopher who fell into the well is be- ing illustrated by many of the mental giants in theoretical lore who are leading the working class movement in Europe into the pitfalls of petty bourgeois Socialism, or into the mire of official inactivity, American Socialists can repay their debt of gratitude to the European philosophers by pointing out the dangers that lie in the path along which Socialism must labor. Fact, in America, has taken the place of theory. The tragedy of capitalism is no longer produced on the stage, but is enacted in everyday life. Idealism has given...”