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“...dealings uncompromising
and wholehearted. The movement choose his friends for him,
and friendship, however dear, never outlived disloyalty to the'
Movement. A notable instance of this is the case of Hugo
Vogt. De Leon often said that no man ever was so near and
so dear to him as was Vogt, yet Vogt was unceremoniously
cut off by and from De Leon the moment it was found that
he had betrayed the trust put in him. From that moment
Vogt meant no more to De Leon than would have a Siwash
Indian. Himself noble, high-minded, and free from deceit,
he was quick to trust and believe in the genuineness of hu-
manity. It was this which often caused him to believe toa
well of men and take for genuine coin such evident counter-
feits as Frank Bohn, Vincent St. John, Fred Heslewood and
many others, whom most of us who stood on their own mor-
tal plane spotted at once.
This double nature of De Leon, which I discerned early
m our acquaintance, was so marked and withal so curious
that It took me long really to...”
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“...for German Kultur; or for
the national ideals of Italy. But the quoting of the European
papers settled the question with the readers of the Volks-
zeitung. Even many who up to that time had stood by the
party now swung around; the taxation question and De Leons
position regarding the same was top many for them.
Now that the ice was broken, the whole position of the
Socialist Labor Party was wrong; the party had to be remodel-
ed, and De Leon and De Leonism abolished forevermore.
How was this noble aim to be consummated? Oh, that was
easy. Simply get the majority of delegates to the general com-
mittee, then elect all officers of the Section, suspend the Na-
tional Executive Committee, and the Volkszeitungs new exec-
utive committee would do the rest. In other words, repeat the
coup detat of 1889. This time, however, things went dif-
ferently.
De Leon the Storm-Center
The lines were now drawn between the loyal party mem-
bers, who were in favor of the revolutionary stand the Social-
ist...”
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“...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, but to all the world: to those
who are and those who are to benew knowledge and grand
principles to guide the race upon its upward trend along the
glorious spiral to the heights toward which they saw we all
must needs aspire if we would reach the fitting goal of man.
Immortal Marx and Engels; many more in divers lines
Of effort and of thought; the great discoverers of scientific
facts; profound expounders of learning and of truth; colos.sai
minds who sent...”
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“...sparkling suns, our own De Leon.
*
When most of the contemporary names, those who have
sought for prominence or fame, have passed into oblivions
deepest shade, De Leons will by all the world be spoken as
reverently as that of Marx today.
When Castros clever rule and feats of arms are known
no more, men will remember that the great De Leon was of
the Venezuelan sun-kissed coast. '
Though all forget did Spanish men-at-anns or Dutch
first rule in fair Curacaos isle, that twas the birthplace of
this noble mind will be well known to all the world s elect
De Leon who taught to labors struggling hosts the secret
of true tactics for the strife; who charted all the pitfalls in
the road, warned what to drop, showed what to cultivate, and,
with unerring genius, found the course we must pursue if we
could win the day;
Who, when the clouds seemed blackest in the sky of all
our hopes and aspirations dear, with keen analysis of passing
things soon pointed where the sun would next break through
and shine with...”
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