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

“...REMINISCENCES OF DANIEL DE LEON. 29 now an outside foe. The struggle itself had acted like a tonic upon the organization, stirring our members into in- tense action and vastly increasing their aggressiveness, in- dividually and collectively. The phrase, the fighting S. L. P., often heard in those days, had a real background and, therefore, a real meaning. The organization, the country over, had suffered but little in point of numbers and that lit- tle was more than made up by a closer drawing of the ranks. We had a clean-cut tactical program, thoroughly understood and accepted by the membership and we had, for that reason, a unity of purpose never attained before. As an off-set we had on our hands a daily paper that was sapping our strength, the maintenance of which imposed struggles which, in the long run, seriously affected that unity of purpose. It is an old, age-long experience of the race, that it is far easier to start a quarrel than to end it. Th^ experience...”
2

“...56 REMINISCENCES OF DANIEL DE LEON. technical difficulties in the carrying out of this plan. 1 do not suppose that the publication will start before 1 return. But if it can be started, then the first days report might go in before my return. Any one at the office could correct the stenographic imperfections. Trautmann is to furnish us all the documents that were read. In that way we save much money for transcribing. "6.Under this head Kinneally is mainly interested. Chase incidentally. I have received from the Alliance, through Kinneally and Gillhaus, a total of $110.00 in cash. Of this amount, $10.00 was to be kept in reserve in case a levy was made at the convention. None was made and the amount might go to the stenographers fund. Possibly, how- ever, the Alliance may want it, seeing that a call for funds will soon be issued from the headquarters of the new organ- ization. If these $10.00 are deducted, I would have had $100.- 00. My bill against the Alliance (18...”
3

“...DANIEL DE LEONOUR COMRADE. lOJ "August 21, 1905.You will not take it ill if I start by saying that your esteemed letter of the 24th of last month might still remain unanswered, were it not for certain infor- mation that reaches me from California, and upon which I would like to speak to you without delay. Indeed I am pleased with the work of the Convention! I had gone determined to withdraw if I had to struggle for the right thing. I had enough with my K. of L. experience. There was no sense in having to put men upon their feet, and then struggle to keep them there. I was through with that sort of work. The information I had a year ago when I drafted the Trades Union resolution for the National Convention, the ast clause of which was, to my sorrow, changed; the further m ormation that came in and that caused me to embody the spirit of that resolution in my report to the Amsterdam Con- .gress; the seeming comprobation, of all that I could glean, by the Manifestothat...”
4

“...DANIEL DE LEONOUR COMRADE. 105 tence I uttered drove a nail into the coffin of their party. We are undergoing a period of transition. I pardon the S. P.s for believing that their party will endorse the I. W. W. Within twelve months they will have found out. In the meantime we would be playing into the hands of the A. F. of L. Kangs if we pushed the political talk into the I. W. W. locals, at this time. There IS so much to be said on the subject that, rather than start I shall stop But the above view in no wise prevents the Section from doing its political work thoroughly. At Sec- tion meetings we should scourge the .S. P.. especially with re- fh. T V hostility or indifference to the I. W. W., which means either its love for .the A. F. of L hlfr c a sufficient, or oth. So that, either, I do not understand and miss the point your*atarm ^ understand it but do not share n serious is your second point, the fear that the ab- sence of political talk (in the I. W. W.) opens...”
5

“... Open Letter. Almost everything depends upon that before I can draw any conclusions. I can see no breach of Party discipline in the mere act of a Party member addressing people on his own responsibility, and of his own motion. I, for instance, did so last night when I spoke m that Christian Fellowship Church on the VIth rsalra But It seems to me you have an idea that a letter ad- dressed to the public by you as the, or a, signer will be taken as not coming from the S. L. P. I guess a letter bearing your c'hTnce f notorious member of the N. E. C.-runs small chances of being taken so innocently. Of course, if it does the leM It reaches from the start would be much wider.Try it, an we shall watch and see; but then meseems, THE PEO- that sTouTd beliI3,'alaTyratr'^ y letter that I do recognize some proletarians among it- oth among its members and its votes. But that element is not...”
6

“... district he was a candidate for the As- sembly in that year. At that time the writer of these remin- iscences was a youth of twenty summers and content with tkw distinction of having been elected on the committee to attesrf street meetings and distribute leaflets among the audiences. At times, difficulties of a more or less serious nature were experienced at street meetings, but as a general rule De Leon# dignified appearance commanded respect even from the roug% element on the upper East Side, to whom "Tammany Hall wa* a sacred institution. Policemen at that time were not yet educated and were apt -to take sides with disturbers. Only on one occasion did I see an attempt made to dis- turb the meeting when De Leon was addressing the people. That was when someone hit the horse hitehed to the truck, the rear end of which was the speakers rostrum. The horse start- ed on a gallop down toward the East River, only a couple of hundred yards away. De Leon was not at all disconcerted by...”
7

“...WITH DE LEON SINCE 89. 37 thoie who were leading Socialists in the party, officials of t..e pure and simple unions, and speculators in real estate or other schemes, and petty lawyers whose activities included the dratling of agreements between sweatshop owners of New York's East Side and their slaves, at so many dollars an agieement, could not be expected to sit idly by and let a "dic- tator like De Leon, a tyrant, a pope, etc., etc., start a movement that would deprive such gentry of their jobs and "contract fees which amounted to great sums. Every cock- roach contractor in a tailoring shop had an agreement with his employes, which was not worth the paper it was written on to the employes, but which protected the bosses against strikes, at least for the period of a season. These are not unsubstantiated assertions. We may look today at the men who were the loudest protestors against De Leons "dictatorship: Abraham Cahan of the Jewish Daily Forward, whose income out of...”
8

“...40 WITH DE LEON SINCE 89. Every time such a fragment of Bryans stereotyped phrases reached the place where I stood, those about me would start a murderous din of applause. Though they could not hear a sin- gle coherent sentence the comment was just as sure to follow every such fragment of one of Bryans phrases as the applause: Isnt he the greatest speaker!!Isnt that wonderful!! etc., etc. Way Cleared for Socialist Labor Party The silver lining in this cloud of the Bryan storm was that when it passed it had cleared the atmosphere somewhat, since the Populist movement disintegrated, and thus at least one obstacle was cleared out of the way of the onward march of the Socialist Labor Party. De Leons activity in the campaign of 1896 was not limited to the precincts of the ninth Congressional district of New York. He toured the country, delivering speeches and lectures in many cities, East and West. On a previous page it was related how De Leon severely criticized our...”
9

“...44 WITH DE LEON SINCE 89. meddle in the affairs of unions; that De Leon, not being a Ger- man, did not understand scientific Sbcialism anyhow; that the party was being run high-handedly; the vote was getting smaller in short, the poison of dissension was being injected by unseen hands. Many of the honest alte Genossen (old German comrades) resented the slandersdid they not see and hear Do Leon speak and sometimes in German, too? No, they could not believe that De Leon was not all right. But then came the last card of the fellows who worked in the dark: Dont you see that the Alliance means opposition un- ions? You are a carpenter; tomorrow they may .start a car- penters alliance: what will you do thenlose your job, fight ! with your walking delegate? No, no, not that; I dont want no trooble with the union or the walking delegate. Then the members thus worked upon would come to the meetings of the assembly district organizations and register a kick against the party...”
10

“... there something fundamentally wrong with Debs that he started one, or rather that he allowed his so well sounding name to be used to start a new party? We shall see. Debs, while serving his sentence in Woodstock jail and af- ter that, up to the time that he declared himself to be a Social- ist, was being sought by the elements for whom the Socialist Labor Party was too narrow, dogmatic, sectarian, etc., etc., and also by those who were forced out of the party in 1889 by the New Yorker Volkszeitung. Freak Social Democracy Started While there is no documentary evidence in my possession, I doubt that Eugene V. Debs would deny that he was besieged by men who pictured to him the Socialist Labor Party as an or- ganization of fanatics who were devoid of tolerance in regard to the opinions of others, and men who had no understanding of American conditions. Oh, irony of fate! The very elements in the Socialist Labor Party who were actually guilty of such ac- cusations were those...”
11

“...76 WITH DE LEON SINCE 89. started lacked the necessary compactness and harmony within its own ranks to maintain a successful offensive position. There were two central labor bodies in New York city. It will be remembered that with a few other unions outside of New York, District Assembly 49, formerly of the Knights of Labor, and the Central Labor Federation, constituted the Socialist Trade and Labor Alliance. District Assembly 49 was practi- cally free from the craft union form of organizationat least, no craft union spirit pervaded it, while in the Central Labor Federation the craft union form and spirit were the dominant factors. From the very start there was not the homogeneous organization which was necessary to carry the day against the fierce opposition the Alliance had to meet. Corruption and Ita Denouncers Though the industrial form of organization was not then in vogue in District Assembly 49, there was a tendency toward such a form of organization and...”
12

“...136 WITH DE LEON SINCE 89. He said in France the working class were winning. That is not my information. I know they get it in the neck day after day. It was only the other day when battalions were called out on the streets of Paris, He said in Italy they are so strong that any day they like they could start a general strike. Why, my dear sir, I am afraid you slander them without knowing it. If they were strong enough for a general strike, they would be cowards if they did not strike. And by a general strike I understand not simply getting out, but doing something, and the fact that they are not ready is shown by the fact that they are not do- ing it, and it will not do in cases of this solemnity to fritter time away on such words as that, as they are misleading. He said if we leave the word political there, we open the doors for the politician. Yes, if we say that alone; but if we strike out the word political and leave physical force alone then we open wide the...”
13

“... political action in its right place and the eco- nomic action, the necessary basis which gives its reflex to the political, necessary to start the political and necessary to make the political triumph a success. "Now, perhaps it is not simply for us here in America. I apprehend that the circumstance of my birth, having fallen on this side of the waters, is what made me think we had to do it in America. Marx said it was a revolution in the United States that rung the knell of capitalism, and I came to the conclusion that it was so, and during the last three years in the conventions and congresses I have attended, I have come to the conclusion that it is our duty, and that it would be a crime on our part if we neglected the experiences of the past. Europe needs the education that the I. W. W. is imparting to it. Those young men who are growing up in Europe now are the superiors of anything Europe has ever seen, and they look upon the I. W. W. as the angel of light, and they look...”