the Third International. There has been a noticeable drift away from the support of the Communist International here. Just as this report was going to the press the National Executive Committee issued a statement on the position of the Socialist Party of the United States towards the Communist International, which is appended at the close of this note as Document VIII. The reader is urged to read this document carefully in order to appreciate the turn of events. APPENDIX TO NOTE Document 1.-" Declaration of Principles 2.-"Minority Declaration 5.- Glassberg letter in N. Y. Call of July 26, 1920. 7.- Position of the Socialist Party of the United States DOCUMENT 1-"DECLARATION OF PRINCIPLES" 1793 1797 1799 1804 1806 1812 1815 Adopted Socialist National Convention, held in New York City, May 9, 1920. Section 1. The Socialist Party of the United States demands that the country and its wealth be redeemed from the control of private interests and turned over to the people to be administered for the equal benefit of all. Section 2. America is not owned by the American people. Our so-called national wealth is not the wealth of the nation but of the privileged few. These are the ruling class of America. They are small in numbers, but they dominate the lives and shape the destinies of their fellow men. They own the people's jobs and determine their wages; they control the markets of the world and fix the prices of the farmers' product; they own their homes and fix their rents; they own their food and set its cost; they own their press and formulate their convictions; they own the government and make their laws; they own their schools and mould their minds. Section 3. Around and about the capitalist class cluster the numerous and varied groups of the population, generally designated as the "middle classes." They consist of farm owners, small merchants and manufacturers, professionals and better paid employees. Their economic status is often precarious. They live in hopes of being lifted into the charmed spheres of the ruling classes. Their social psychology is that of retainers of the wealthy. As a rule they sell their gifts, knowledge and efforts to the capitalist interests. They are staunch upholders of the existing order of social inequalities. Section 4. The bulk of the American people is composed of workers. Workers on the farm and in the factory, in mines and mills, on ships and railroads, in offices and counting houses, in [1793] schools and in personal service, workers of hand and brain, all men and women who render useful service to the community in the countless ramified ways of modern civilization. They have made America what it is. They sustain America from day to day. They bear most of the burdens of life and enjoy but few of its pleasures. They create the enormous wealth of the country but live in constant dread of poverty. They feed and clothe the rich, and yet bow to their alleged superiority. They keep alive the industries but have no say in their management. They constitute the majority of the people but have no control of the government. Despite the forms of political equality, the workers of the United States are virtually a subject class. Section 5. The Socialist Party is the party of the workers. It espouses their cause because in the workers lies the hope of the political, economic and social redemption of the country. The ruling class and their retainers cannot be expected to change the iniquitous system of which they are the beneficiaries. Individual members of these classes often join in the struggle against the capitalist order from motives of personal idealism, but whole classes have never been known to abdicate their rule and surrender their privileges for the mere sake of social justice. The workers alone have a direct and compelling interest in abolishing the present profit system. The Socialist Party desires the workers of America to take the economic and political power from the capitalist class, not that they may establish themselves as a ruling class, but in order that all class divisions be abolished forever. Section 6. To perform this supreme social task the workers must be organized as a political party of their own. They must realize that both the Republican and Democratic parties are the political instruments of the master classes, and equally pledged to uphold and perpetuate capitalism. They must be trained to use the ballot box to vote out the tools of the capitalist and middle classes and to vote in representatives of the workers. A true political party of labor must be founded upon the uncompromising demand for the complete socialization of the industries. That means doing away with the private ownership of the sources and instruments of wealth, production, and distribution, abolishing workless incomes in the form of profits, interest, or rents, transforming the whole able-bodied population of the country into useful workers, and securing to all workers the full social value of their work. Section 7. The Socialist Party is such a political party. It strives by means of political methods, including the action of its representatives in the legislatures and other public offices to force the enactment of such measures as will immediately benefit the workers, raise their standard of life, increase their power, and stiffen their resistance to capitalist aggression. Its purpose is to secure a majority in Congress and in every State Legislature, to win the principal executive and judicial offices, to become the dominant and controlling party, and, when in power, to transfer the industries to ownership by the people, beginning with those of a public character, such as banking, insurance, mining, transportation and communication, as well as the trustified industries, and extending the process to all other industries susceptible of collective ownership, as rapidly as their technical conditions will permit. It also proposes to socialize the system of public education and health and all activities and institutions vitally affecting the public needs and welfare, including dwelling houses. The Socialist program advocates the socialization of all large farming estates and land used for industrial and public purposes, as well as all instrumentalities for storing, preserving, and marketing farm products. It does not contemplate interference with the private possession of land actually used and cultivated by occupants. The Socialist Party, when in political control, proposes to reorganize the government in form and substance so as to change it from a tool of repression into an instrument of social and industrial service. Section 8. The Socialist transformation cannot be successfully accomplished by political victories alone. The reorganization of the industries upon the basis of social operation and co-operative effort will require an intelligent and disciplined working class, skilled not only in the processes of physical work, but also in the technical problems of management. This indispensable training the workers can best gain as a result of their constant efforts to secure a greater share in the management of industries through their labor unions and co-operatives. These economic organizations of labor have also an immediate practical and vital function. Their daily struggles for betterment in the sphere of their respective industries supplement and reinforce the political efforts of the Socialist Party in the same general direction, and their great economic power may prove a formidable weapon for safeguarding the political rights of labor. The Socialist Party does not intend to interfere in the internal affairs of labor unions, but will always support the workers in all their economic struggles. In order, however, that such struggles may attain the maximum of efficiency and success, the Socialists favor the organization of workers along the lines of industrial unionism in the closest co-operation as one organized working class army. Section 9. The Socialist Party does not seek to interfere with the institution of the family as such, but promises to make family life fuller, nobler and happier by removing the sordid factor of economic dependence of woman on man, and by assuring to all members of the family greater material security and more leisure to cultivate the joys of the home. The Socialist Party adheres strictly to the principle of complete separation of state and church. It recognizes the right of voluntary communities of citizens to maintain religious institutions and to worship freely according to the dictates of their conscience. The Socialist Party seeks to attain its end by orderly and constitutional methods, so long as the ballot box, the right of representation and civil liberties are maintained. Violence is not the weapon of the Socialist Party but of the shortsighted representatives of the ruling classes, who stupidly believe that social movements and ideals can be destroyed by brutal physical repression. The Socialists depend upon education and organization of the masses. Section 10. The domination of the privileged classes has been so strong that they have succeeded in persuading their credulous fellow-citizens that they, the despoilers of America, are the only true Americans; that their selfish class interests are the sacred interests of the nation; that only those that submit supinely to their oppressive rule are loyal and patriotic citizens, and that all those who oppose their exactions and pretensions are traitors to their country. The Socialists emphatically reject this fraudulent notion of patriotism. The Socialist Party gives its service and allegiance to the masses of American people, the working classes, but this interest is not limited to America alone. In modern civilization the destinies of all nations are inextricably interwoven. No nation |