of low degree." May it not once more be the task of Christianity to turn the world upside down, that the blood-red banner may again stream forth at the head of a martyr host as the Son of God goes forth to war? (Issue of October, 1919). JESSIE WALLACE HUGHAN. THE WRECK Of course, I do not overlook the fact that some brave souls, notably in the Unitarian Church, have fought the good fight, notably our brave John Haynes Holmes. I know of a Catholic priest who has been most outspoken against the war from the day we got into it and has preached against it Sunday after Sunday, defying the authorities to come and take him and, of course, they have not dared. But these are the exceptions that prove the rule. Others like them have made untold sacrifices rather than surrender to Mars and Mammon. Their devotion alone makes it worth considering whether there is much to be saved from the wreck of the Church. At best we must have more independent churches of the type of John Haynes Holmes's. And the question really before us is whether the time has not come for the development of congregations fortified by the ethical culture idea. Alas, the Ethical Culture Society in the face of the greatest problem of ethics that has ever confronted the world could say nothing. None the less in sound ethical teaching lies the one hope of a wiser and better world. (Issue of October, 1919). OSWALD GARRISON VILLARD THE CHURCH AND CONSCIENTIOUS OBJECTORS I am writing this statement on the second day of September. almost ten months after the signing of the Armistice which ended the war. There are still over 200 conscientious objectors in prison in the United States. Until recently all conscientious objectors were confined at Fort Leavenworth, but during the summer, a large number of them were transferred to Fort Douglas, Utah, and a smaller number to the military prison at Fort Alcatraz, in San Francisco Bay. Incidentally it is worthy of note that the government thought it necessary to transfer these prisoners of conscience handcuffed throughout the long journey although the War Department well knew they would scorn to try to escape. This is not the worst of the story. Possibly today, certainly until very recently, six conscientious objectors are confined in the dungeons at Ft. Alcatraz in solitary cells. These human beings are kept for two consecutive weeks on a diet of bread and water. They sleep on stone floors. Virtually there are no toilet facilities. The walls of the dungeons are so damp Ea a man's clothing are wet through if he leans against them and the darkness is so dense that a man can scarcely see his hand a few inches from his face. Of course such cells are infested with vermin. In Fort Douglas where the men were until rently kept under very mild confinement, save for absurd restrictions of mail privileges, a very rigorous policy has been instituted. Most of the men are on a diet of bread and water; e of them are in solitary cells. One of them, Howard Moore, winner of a Carnegie medal, has been severely beaten up by a guard. Conditions at Fort Leavenworth have been accurately and impartially described in Mr. Lane's articles in "The Survey." In these prisons, clean and unclean, moral degenerates and fine apstanding young Americans, prisoners of conscience, men guilty f slight infraction of military discipline and dangerous minals, are confined indescriminately under a policy of iron ipline which has lead to at least two general strikes within the No other policy is tenable, especially in a Church which traces its apostolic succession back to the man declared, "We ought to obey God rather than man." True, Le individual conscience may not be infallible; it cannot be red by the political state nor can Christians tolerate the rison. ne that mistakes of conscience can be cured by chains and prisonment. The Church which has steadily supported the ate in its policy of coercing war's heretics, is a Church which as denied its own right to speak with the voice of God to the ars of men. The conscientious objectors have not asked for ympathy. One who knows the best of them would not desire fer to their triumphant courage the insult of sympathy; her it is the Church that needs our concern - the Church which is committing suicide by her neglect of the things which ertain to her salvation. NORMAN THOMAS. Issue of October, 1919). 34. THE MESSENGER A RADICAL NEGRO PUBLICATION Place of publication: 2305 7th Avenue, New York City. Published by Messenger Publishing Company Inc. Editors: A. Philip Randolph, Chandler Owen; Business Manager: Victor Circulation: 33.000 copies per month. This is according to the statement of Victor R. Daly. This publication is circulated in New York City, Chicago. Philadelphia, Washington, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle. Boston, Atlanta, Charleston and Columbia, S. C., and Texas. In another section of this report reference has been made to A. Philip Randolph and Chandler Owen as instructors in the Rand School of Social Science. This periodical is published by colored men for circulation among colored people. A large part of the stockholders are white people. In another portion of this report dealing with negro propaganda, reference has been made to this periodical, and the influences that it is seeking to exert upon the colored men in this country looking toward their conversion to revolutionary radicalism. ONE BIG UNION The monistic interpretation of human actions and human institutions have ever increasing confirmation in the march of historical events. The League of Nations is the highest manifestation of capitalism, politically expressed. It is the final consummation of a process of integration in world-politics-proceeding from petty balances of power, such as triple alliances and ententes. This is but the reflex of a similar trend of integrating Finance Capital. This imposing, colossal and gigantic aggrega tion of capital must and will provoke a counter irritant — a One Big Union. The organization of labor upon the basis of industry can no more be checked than could the rise of capitalism upon the ruins of feudalism have been checked. Trade Unionism has played its part. It has had its period of usefulness. It is not only now no longer useless, but, like the vermiform appendix it Barks to cause disease. It hinders the "march of the iron battalion of the proletariat " to industrial democracy. The One Big Union Can only express the One Big Aim against the One Big Enemy for the One Big Cause the cause of capturing the world for The workers in a period when capitalism has reached its final *ge of development. THE GREAT 'GENE Noble 'Gene, thou that seest and singest of the end of the old and of the beginning of a new world; of capitalism's temples d in fire, falling, and of Socialism rising. We salute thee, ne! With a heart as big as the world and as broad as manity, you have extended your hand of comradeship and greet2. across mountains of corpses and rivers of blood and tears, your brothers of Russia and Hungary struggling in the birth gs of a proletarian revolution. You have dared to state to money lords of pelf and power, of sword and blood that the d world of slaves is perishing and a new world of freemen will ise its place. It is for this and only this, that thou are languishenchained, gagged and strangled by the red and reeking hand f freedom's greatest foes. It is you, 'Gene, yes, our 'Gene, to a labor owes more than to any other soul in America, the debt gving you freedom. Yet giant labor, unmindful of its power, othfully sleeps, while the heart of our 'Gene is torn and ling. Though thou art suffering, thou art still majestic in sadness at the piteous cries of mankind. Though thy forum no longer, thy spirit, like the evening star, yet gildest the L'om shores of Time. Liberty in America is dead, while thou prostrate under the iron heel of capitalism in the dark, dank cavernous dungeons of dirt, disease and death; and labor's atheon of honor is sullied and disgraced. Great Gene, we te thee! We hallow thy name, thy works and days, we, the eru-hed of peoples, loved thee since first thy struggles for one justice began. Yes, our 'Gene, harbinger and prophet of the noblest philosophy ever conceived in the mind of man. 42 DRAMA OF THE BOMBS BY GEORGE FRAZIER MILLER. As a befitting introduction to our May Day Celebration, the news of "Radical atrocities" was flashed through the land, and as the wire bore desired, if not wholesome, fruit in stirring up nation-wide resentment against all radical elements of the community, and set the police into vigorous prosecution or persecution of the perpetrators of these "dastardly offenses," it was thought that the cause of "justice and safety" might be handsomely promoted through the repetition of these depredations on the first of the following June. The more vicious and reprehensible the performances of our enemies, the less difficulties we encounter in stirring popular feeling against them and the more facile our undertaking in breaking their power and destroying their forces utterly. Such being the case, and the course of correct reasoning, we make the deduction that we promote our cause in doing, in the name of our adversaries, the things which, done by them, would naturally and inevitably work to their own undoing. So simultaneously the bombs exploded in different cities of the country. The damage was slight in the physical results but was highly satisfactory in its psychological effects it aroused the sensibilities of the populace resolutely to drive out all anarchic forces from the land: and the general conception of anarchy assumed a very comprehensive range. All schools of thought, especially along economic and sociological lines not in clear and undisputed coincidence with that of American plutocracy and oligarchy are classed under the head of anarchistic. That classification fixed, the Socialists, because of the inroads they have made upon the general thought, and the strength they have acquired in consequence, became most naturally the objects of the deadly attacks of the moneybund, the profiteers, the stock manipulators, all who prey upon the vitals of the people, the hirelings of them and their dupes. The Socialists (the Reds they are called) were to be run to earth and eradicated from the land. So the police were put to work ferreting out the perpetrators of these unspeakable atrocities; the newspapers reported that the police had many valuable clues and would shortly make arrests. But arrests have not been made, and the inquiry is natural and timely, why have they not been made? When questioned on this |