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“...22 REMINISCENCES OF DANIEL DE LEON.
open, it could be dealt with and was promptly ejected. Hence-
forth, these men had to carry on their fight against the Party
outside of the breastworks and that fight then took shape in
a variety of forms. To begin with, the Volkszeitung at first
succeeded in obtaining a temporary injunction against the
members of the N. E. C., the purpose of which was to prevent
them from publishing The People. Next came attempts to
lay hands on Party funds through various litigations. They
sought to confuse the working class of the land by setting up
a counterfeit S. L. P., with a counterfeit The People. In its
application for an injunction, the legal exigencies of the case
were such that the Volkszeitung was estopped from including
in its petition the real editor of the real The People, De Leon,
who was thus left free to hammer the foe to his hearts con-
tent. And, oh, how he did hammer that foe I Reading The
People of those days is an education...”
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“... themselves, regarded
the party that ordered it as a hostile force and its members
in their union as instruments of that hostile force. Thus it
meant that our members had to vacate the field and leave the
labor faker in undisputed control. It was he and the S. P.
that would profit.
In the course of time, events proved that we had drawn
the bow too tight and when, some years later, the Party
abandoned that position, the damage had been done and
could not easily be repaired. In all the years De Leon and I
had been working side by side, we had never differed on any
matter of importance until this measure was being agitated
and, much as I respected his foresight and reasoning powers,
I could not be convinced. However, opposition to the meas-
ure amounted to little, the lay of the land being such that it
carried overwhelmingly in the convention and in the subse-
quent general vote of the Party.
The
Troubles and Tribulations
1900 convention having become pa.st history, the
Party...”
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“... such of our members who are born
strategists and who think that these unity conferences pan
be used to maneuver the S. P. into an untenable position.
These fail to understand the peculiar jelly-fish character of
the S. P. organization. They reason from an S. L. P. organ-
ization viewpointtoo much so. It is true that the S. L. P.,
caught in a position that violates accepted tenets of the move-
ment, would suffer in standing and in morale, but the S. P.
never.
And if there be such of our members as really yearn for
unity with the S. P. on sentimental grounds, who have not
gotten over deploring the split and all that sort of thing,
let these by all means unite and leave us alone to fight our
own battles. At best they do not understand and live entire-
ly in the past. Political parties and movements are not im-
mutable; they are organic structures changing with changing
conditions of which conditions they are the products. The
lay of the land in the United States is today...”
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“..., for the lay of the land today is such that we can
not attract and hold the mass of the working class without
sharing, or pretending to share its errors and, thereby, be-
traying it. Our time will come, is bound to come, when so-
cial evolution has advanced sufficiently to make our position
understood by that mass. That does not mean that we must...”
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“... Gor-
dons, Careys, Cassons, etc. In conclusion let me say The
People is laying a solid foundation for Socialism and when I
now hear people kicking against The People I know that they
do not understand Socialism. The work of The People will be
appreciated and honored when such things as Gordon, Casson
and Carey lay rotting in the ground, forgotten.
Yours fraternally,
M. Ruther.
An anecdote from the Association days illustrates how
hard these Kangaroos were put to it in order to furnish the
goods to their dupes, and how angry it made them that De
Leon kept himself free from alliances, adhering strictly to the
goal he had set, and that no allurements of place, pay, or pre-
ferment could dissuade him from his course. An old German
member of the Volkszeitung Association, commenting on this,
exclaimed: Der De Leon hat Recht, und das schlimmste an
der ganzen Sache ist, man kann ihm nichts anhaben!!!" (De
Leon is right, but the worst about the whole thing is, we caa
not get...”
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“... wants to report a labor meeting, they pick out
the biggest jackass they can lay hands on, and just as soon as
they have ascertained the biggest jackass possible, they give
him the appointment, and that jackass must win his spurs or
his long ears, whatever the case may be.
The worst worry of his life, I should s ay, was the
Editor the natural born Socialist Editor.^* The terrific birth-
rate of this genus during De Leons life-time was simply amaz-
ing. The charged atmosphere these species could create when
their genius was rudely prevented from blossoming forth, was
such, at times, that it all but converted us to the idea of pri-
vate ownership of the party press. This certainly is a safety-
valve, as the natural born can then rush right into the enter-
prise of editing his own paper, and by the time he has squan-
dered all the savings of his admirers and been thoroughly
misunderstood by the masses he will generally go way back
and sit down.
But in the S. L. P. there is no...”
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“... vengeance against the tyrant Dee Leawn. The so-
cial question remained unsolved 1
The man or woman who called on De Leon with a real
purpose concerning the great cause, for which alone De Leon
labored, always received merited attention, it mattered not who
the individual happened to be. No matter how great was the
volume of work that De Leon had to attend to in those days,
eight oclock in the evening found him at the open-air meetings,
where large crowds were waiting to hear the Old Man, as De
Leon came to be known in the 16th Assembly District.
In the same year (1897) Lucien Sanial was the mayoralty
candidate of the Socialist Labor Party in Greater New York.
The vote of the party in the first election under the charter of
the Greater City was 16,000. There was quite a scramble among
the old party politicians for the spoils that lay in waiting for
the victors. Besides the regular nominations by Tammany
Hall and the Republican Party, there was Seth Low, president
of Columbia...”
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“...WITH DE LEON SINCE 89.
Political Action Repudiated
When by seating duly elected delegates St.
wnen, uy e Brigaders, the preamble
came supreme commander of the K convea-
fave the St. John clique tne oyi' ^ conven-
B.nm Oct. M8, .8..c
John relative to the argument "^e Leon s credent a
eltl'S'e b,
*DUrD. Leon, <> "Tb. Wtbet TD.nWDf
Extracts from St. Johns Arguments against Daniel De Leo .
A reader of these extracts, however, who would not
have known who De Leon and St
likely have concluded ^rwhat De Leon had to
lay 'Si's''thVbasei kind of misrepresentation that ly ^
Trautmann could have the audacity to put on paper. ,
After these happenings in Chicago the district counei s
of New York and Paterson, together with a number of loca
of tiew fpTpnre of I W W. organizations which
Tas^lS in Paterson. N. J., on Nov. 1. 1908. The delegates
to that conference declared that the doings of
If the former general officers had placed them outside of the
? W W The conference decided...”
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“... the
ship, though many of the crew sought safety and in fear fell
overboard or jumped to oblivion.
The Pilot diligently watched the compass and steered his
wheel. And his crew received inspiration from him, and cries
were heard from a few that had left the ship that its course
was insane; from a few that the Pilot was a poor navigator,
that the promised land lay in the opposite direction and that
he should steer backward.
The sea became calmer, the horizon clearer. Some of the
people who inhabited islands nearer to the great land thought
him a master pilot, for he had dared go so far and they shout-
ed encouragement to him. And in some of the islands crept
reptiles that hissed defeat. But the Pilot stood at the wheel
by night and by day, imparting great knowledge to the crew,
solaced by the presence of his life-companion and of his chil-
dren, making charts for the safety of future navigators. And
he partook of little food that he might not lose sight of the
compass. But...”
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