Socialist Party of America

“ In America, it is this same issue of Democracy which has long been the dividing line between the Socialist Party and the I. W. W. Like the Bolshevists of Russia, the I. W. W. have championed Democracy but we have refused to allow the capitalist thinkers to define it for us. We have practiced Democracy in our organization and we have sublimated it into the most perfect of Democratic organizations. But always, it has been a Democracy only of proletarians. We have built the framework of a new society which says that those shall not vote who do not work. And this, indeed, is Socialism. ”

“ In the latter the revolutionary miners from the West joined hands with radical socialists from the East and Middle West of both socialist parties, the Socialist party of America and DeLeon's Socialist Labor party. ”

“ The Socialist party is the only party which honestly represents the working class in this campaign and the only party that has a moral right to appeal to the allegiance and support of the workers and producers of the nation. ”

“ Here again: 'The Socialist Party desires the workers of America to take the economic and political power from the capitalistic class.' Going to pull themselves off the ground by their boot straps, yes? Have a law to make the weak strong and the strong weak. ”

“ These articles should be published in permanent form and circulated as a tract among all decent Americans who still believe that the Germanized Socialist party in America to-day is anything except the foe of America, the foe of democratic liberty throughout the world, and the tool and ally of the autocrats, the capitalists, and the brutal and unscrupulous military chiefs of the Prussianized Germany of the Hohenzollerns. ”

“ The political beginning of the Socialist party in this country is now distinctly recognized by its most implacable enemies. A single Socialist congressman has been sufficient to arouse the whole nation to the vital issue of Socialism which confronts it. ”

“ The march of the sun and planets will probably not be seriously disturbed, even if some gentlemen do reject them. Possibly the Mississippi River may flow on. Certainly, the Socialist party in America will not disband. ”

“ The name adopted by the B.S.I.S.L.P. (British Section International Socialist Labour Party) is dishonest as the parent body, the socialist Labour Party in America, repudiates it. Why two Socialist labour Party’s anyway? Both organisations cannot be right, and it is quite plain to all that both are wrong. ”

“ We hail with unqualified joy [it declared] the formation of the Socialist Trade and Labor Alliance as a great stride toward throwing off the yoke of wage slavery.... We call upon the socialists of the land to carry the revolutionary spirit of the S. T. and L. A. into all the organizations of the workers and thus consolidate ... the proletariat of America in an irresistible class conscious army, equipped both with the shield of the economic organization and the sword of the Socialist Labor party ballot. ”

“ It is far different today.
The Socialist party is organized in almost every state and territory in the American Union. Its members are filled with enthusiasm and working with an energy born of the throb and thrill of revolution. The party has a press supporting it that extends from sea to sea, and is as vigilant and tireless in its labors as it is steadfast and true to the party principles. ”

“ The Socialist party knows neither color, creed, sex, nor race. It knows no aliens among the oppressed and down-trodden. It is first and last the party of the workers, regardless of their nationality, proclaiming their interests, voicing their as pirations, and fighting their battles. ”

“ The Socialist party stands today where the republican party stood fifty years ago. It is in alliance with the forces of evolution, the one party that has a clear-cut, overmastering, overshadowing issue; the party that stands for the people, and the only party that stands for all the people. In this system we have one set who are called capitalists, and another set who are called workers ”

“ No political party in the United States, no church organization nor mission effort, has as indefatigable workers as has the socialist party. They multiply themselves, know of no effort nor sacrifice too great to make for the Cause ”

“ However one may question the party socialists’ claim that an economic and social millennium is exclusively dependent upon their dominance, few acquainted with those active in the movement will deny the sincerity of purpose, the almost religious exaltation that animate great numbers of the party. The first socialist member from the East, and the second in the [266] United States, has been elected to Congress from our district; a man universally esteemed for his probity, with a record of many years’ unselfish devotion to the workingmen’s cause. ”

“ In contrast with the Republican and Democratic conventions, where politicians were the puppets of plutocrats, the convention of the Socialist party consisted of workingmen and women fresh from their labors, strong, clean, wholesome, self-reliant, ready to do and dare for the cause of labor, the cause of humanity. ”

“ They are voting into power the enemies of labor and are morally responsible for the crimes thus perpetrated upon their fellow-workers and sooner or later they will have to suffer the consequences of their miserable acts.
The Socialist party is not, and does not pretend to be, a capitalist party. ”

“ Now that the capitalist system is so palpably breaking down, and in consequence its political parties breaking up, the disintegrating elements with vague reform ideas and radical bourgeois tendencies will head in increasing numbers toward the Socialist party, especially since the greatly enlarged vote of this year has been announced and the party is looming up as a possible dispenser of the spoils of office. ”

“ Socialism, as an organized movement in the United States, runs back to the foundation of the Social-Democratic Workingmen's party in New York City, in 1874, which was changed into the Socialist Labor party three years later,—a party that still survives. This group did not enter into national politics until 1892, although its branches occasionally made nominations for local offices or fused with other labor groups, as in the New [Pg 297] York mayoralty campaign of 1886. ”

“ In the late national election, for the first time, the hand of the working class was clearly seen.
The Socialist party is distinctively the party, and its vote is distinctively the vote, of the working class. ”

“ The Socialist party has already achieved some victories of this kind which proved to be defeats, crushing and humiliating, and from which the party has not even now, after many years, entirely recovered. ”