WHEN Grover Cleveland was President, he said, in discussing the admission into the Union of the Hawaiian Islands, "We have a condition confronting us, and not a theory." And all over this old world of ours we have actual conditions that it is vain to theorize about. The conditions are there; and there is no mistaking them. And to take the view of these conditions that is held by the majority, is worse than folly; it means disaster to every one who allows himself to be thus deceived.
The conditions to which we refer are the world-wide spirit of revolution growing out of the fostered discontent with present social institutions. Almost the whole of this discontentment is circling around the "century-vexing problem of capital and labor." Fortunes and business combines have been created that are without a parallel in history, and a battle is on over this situation. It is useless to close our eyes to the facts. The struggle is actually on, and it is becoming more and more intense and revolutionary as the days pass.
England has just been passing through a labor trouble that has amounted to civil war, and the end is not yet. It is an actual "condition" that Socialism has reached a position of immense power in England. It is not necessary, for our purposes, to pass opinions as to the theories and doctrines of Socialism. It is a fact that the Socialist is intensely aggressive, and that he is opposing all his powers against allowing a comparatively few men to hold the wealth of the country while the great mass are in either limited or distressing circumstances. His doctrines strike a popular chord, as shown by the large numbers that are constantly flocking to his standards. The theory of the Socialist is to bring about the desired reforms and changes in a humane way. But the very facts that he tells, and the arguments that he uses, have a tendency to inflame the popular mind; and when the occasion comes and the strife begins, it is immediately apparent that the very air is full of the revolutionary spirit that has violence in it. This was abundantly demonstrated in the recent strikes in England.
As the Socialist tells of the luxuries of the rich, and that they are controlling everything in business and commercial lines, and that they have more than they can use while the poor are actually suffering from want, it is easy to see that the popular mind will become inflamed to the point where reason no longer controls, and where excited conditions of the mind sway the populace hither and thither in acts of fury and violence. This discussion is on, not merely in England, but in all the great nations of the world. Germany is honey-combed with it; Russia is a stronghold of it; France is filled with it, and so is the United States, and so are the other great nations.
Men will say that it ought to be suppressed, for it is breeding revolution and violence. But such talk is folly. The Socialist is altogether too numerous in all countries of the world to be suppressed by a wave of the hand. Even the iron power of Emperor William, with all his well-trained army, dare not try it. Too large a portion of his country is composed of this class of people to allow him to do such a thing, however much he might like to do it.
We have these facts before us. A few men have secured control of the industries of the world, and have their multi-million dollar trusts, which during very recent years have grown into even multi-billion dollar trusts. These combines of wealth are on the defensive, and are determined. And many of the sons and daughters of the wealthy, as well as an occasional wealthy man of the older set, strike out from time to time to make extravagant and foolish displays of wealth. The Socialist papers pick these things up and publish them broadcast. A man of wealth gives a hundred thousand dollar dinner, or a woman spends thousands of dollars on a special train to get an aged dog across the continent to a noted dog doctor; and immediately all the people know about it. The daily papers furnish this information; but the Socialist takes the fact that is already in the mind of the individual, and enlarges upon the selfishness of the rich, and the extreme injustice of conditions that allow such extravagance for the few while the many have to suffer.
It could not be otherwise than that such arguments will have their weight; and it does not take long to get the man who has to work hard all day for a dollar or so, to fall in line, ready for extreme measures to put down such conditions. Cool, level-headed men will insist that the change must be brought about in a lawful, humane manner; but the large majority, even tho they start out cool and level-headed, will soon lose their balance, and rioting and violence are the result.
Better Organizations
During the last half century, capital has organized as it never could have organized before, for the reason that there were no such facilities for communication in the past centuries as we have to-day. And in like manner Socialism has organized labor as it was never organized in the past. These facilities for world-wide communication have brought11before us new conditions for which the world has no precedent, and it is folly to reason wholly from the experiences of the past.
This organization of capital on the one hand and labor on the other, has given us in these days two belligerent forces that are grappling in a life-and-death struggle. The war spirit between them is becoming more and more intense. A present-day instance of this is the struggle now going on over the coming trial of the McNamara brothers, charged with dynamiting the Los Angeles Times Building last year. The newspapers and magazines are trying these cases beforehand. The charge is made by the business combines, that the explosion was the work of the labor-unions in trying to intimidate capital and bring it to terms; and on the other hand the labor organizations are just as strong in presenting the claim that the deed was done by the capitalists themselves in order to crush the unions.
Around the cases of the McNamaras the Socialists are arousing all their forces. It is the central theme of their literature at the present time. Eugene V. Debs heads a recent article upon the subject, "Wanted — A Few Men Not Afraid to Die." Some characteristic sentences from the article are the following:
Let us arouse the working class and invoke their power to smite the conspirators and set our brothers free!
They can be saved in no other way. The lawyers will plead for them to deaf ears; organized labor will protest against their taking off in vain.
We are confronted by a heartless, soulless plutocracy. Let us buckle on our armor and fight!
If Morgan, Guggenheim and the steel trust, and Otis and the Merchants' and Manufacturers' Association want red hell they can have it, but let them take notice that when it comes the working class alone will not furnish all the victims. The plutocrats who are responsible for the revolt when it comes may hide their cowardly carcasses as they always do, but there will be an avenging force, let loose by themselves, to hunt them out and feed them to the furies.
Let us marshal our forces and develop our power for the revolt! There are no courts to which we can appeal. The Morgan machine seats the judges to pronounce the doom of those who dare oppose it.
THE PEOPLE VERSUS PLUTOCRACY!
That is the issue and the line-up. Let the slogan be sounded until it echoes and re-echoes from Boston Common to San Francisco Bay, from the Canadian line to the Rio Grande, from Casco Bay to Florida Keys!
At this very hour the slaves of the British Empire are demonstrating to the lords of misrule the power of an aroused working class.
Let us develop without delay all the power we have and prepare to strike in every way we know how.
With a general strike we can paralyze the plutocracy from coast to coast. Hundreds of thousands will join eagerly and serve loyally in the fight. We can stop the wheels, cut off the food supply, and compel the plutocrats in sheer terror to sue for peace.
We need only to have the manhood to be true, the nerve to do our duty.
In striking for the lives of our brothers we shall have scant regard for the property of our masters.
Arouse, you working men and working women of America!
Sound the tocsin of revolt that the hosts of labor may rally to their comrades and thwart the satanic conspirators who are thirsting for their blood!
A few men may be needed who are not afraid to die. "Be ye also ready!"
Let us be men and women, not worms of the dust! Let us stand up and defy the plutocrats to murder our brethren!
Let us swear that we will fight to the last ditch, that we will strike blow for blow, that we will use every weapon at our command, and that we will never surrender!
Let us fight loyally together in this crisis! Roll up a united Socialist vote in California that will shake the Pacific Coast like an earthquake, and back it up with a general strike that will paralyze the continent.
Waste no time on Otis, the festering abortion and the small fry that feed on his stenches, but train your guns on Morgan and Wall Street! There is where the black hand of plutocracy holds the key to the prison doors of our condemned comrades.
Strike at the vitals of plutocracy with all your power and the victory will be speedy and complete!
Let us once more hear from Boston and let the Common again resound with the portentous cry of a hundred and fifty thousand revolting workers: "If the McNamaras die, twenty million working men will know the reason why."
It requires only the most casual glance at the foregoing quoted statements to show that they are really a call to a determined fight to the death. At last reports the circulation of the particular issue of the paper in which this article occurred was about two million copies, and orders coming in at such a rate that it was thought it would reach the three million mark. The discussions of the capitalists and the discussions of the Socialists on each side of this question can not fail to influence the court that has the case in hand. And it should be easy for any one to see, from what is said, that the effort to inflame the whole country is not in the least disguised. Business is to be paralyzed, and life and property put in jeopardy and destroyed.
The discussions of these things in this country reach the Socialist of England, Russia, Germany, etc., and the matter becomes more or less world-wide. At least the discussions in each country act upon and encourage similar discussions and sentiments in other countries; and so the thing spreads, and spreads, and spreads.
With an unvarying course, this journal has pointed out for a third of a century that these things were coming and that they would become more and more intense. The prophecies of the Bible make this plain. Nearly two thousand years ago it was said: "But know this, that in the last days grievous times shall come. For men shall be lovers of self, lovers of money." 2 Tim. 3: 1, 2. Note how plainly it is stated. We are to know that in "the last days" "grievous times" will be occasioned by self-love and money-love. And in the fifth chapter of James it is pointed out that men will "heap" treasure together in the last days, and it will result in miseries that will cause men to "howl" even while they "weep." Other scriptures speak of the awful violence that will come in connection with this.
We have reached the days of which the prophets have spoken, and what we see now is only the beginning. Men should be able to see with half an eye that the conditions of the whole world to-day can result in nothing short of world-wide revolution and violence. The Bible has made plain what it all means, and this is no time to be found in either camp of the controversy. We should see that the only wise thing is to spend our remaining days in careful preparation to stand before the Christ at His coming; for He and He alone is able to meet this great situation that is before the world. And His Word makes it clear that He is about to do it by His personal coming.
A scene in Llanelly in connection with the strike in England, from the "Illustrated London News." The firing of freight sheds by the mob caused the explosion of cans of powder on cars, by which five were killed.
