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“... reactionary than Gompers.
I must admit that the ten planks had carried me off my
feet somewhat. I really thought that after all Gompers and
the rest of the labor leaders, so-called, were too harshly dealt
with in The People, until the convention of 94 took place,
when the scales dropped from my eyes, and I saw through
the whole farce.
At that time a paper called Labor was published by a num-
ber of S, L. P. members in St. Louis. The Sections of the So-
cialist Labor Party were appealed to from St. Louis to sub-
scribe for Labor, and as an inducement any Section that would
S^t 120 subscribers could have a local edition of the paper with
whatever name the Section pleased to give it. Many Sections
thought this a good chance to reach the w^orkers, as it was
promised also by the management of Labor that the last page
of the paper could be used for local matters at the rate of six
cents an inch.
Over night there sprang ap everywhere papers called Labor;
there was Buffalo Labor and...”
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“...18 WITH DE LEON SINCE '89.
mailed from St. Louis, though this was not generally known
by the subscribers.
The party adminisitration had no grounds on which to op-
pose the scheme at that time. De Leon and the National Exec-
utive Committee in New York knew that sooner or later the
scheme, like all sohemes, would spring a leak. And it did. The
post office authorities, when they discovered the deception,
compelled the publishers to mail the paper from the town
where it was dated, so the paper had to be sent by express to
the city where it was to appear as a local paper.
We in Troy, too, had our Labor experience. An old Ger-
man comrade was elected editor and I was elected manager.
I managed to get the 120 subscribers, and the local editor
edited the inches on the last page, at six cents an inch. Some-
times we lhad ten inches of local editorial matter, sometimes
more, depending upon the funds. As local manager, I had fre-
quent consultations with the local editor...”
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“...WITH DE LEON SINCE 89. 45
he stood for a quarter of a century. In a movement the van-
guard of the forces of the social revolution, bound as a matter
of course to be not a bed of roses but a path every inch full of
struggle or in the words of the alte Genossen. full of
trooble. there had to be something in De Leons life which
kept him young in spirit at sixty. That something was hu-
mar De Leon had to have his dose of mirth every day a
good hearty laugh, or else he would have succumbed much
earlier than he did, De Leon generally found a humorous side
to serious matters and had his health-giving laugh.
Turbulence Centered in New York
The period between the 1896 convention and the raid of
T ? upon the partys national headquarters in
Ju y. 1899, was a most turbulent one. There was trooble"
plore. New York city was the place where the friction be-
tween the opposing forces made the sparks fly. The National
Executive Committee was still being elected by Section New
York...”
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