- A single sentence in this Preamble, which we quote from Trachtenberg's Labor Year Book, 1919-1920, page 410, tells us what the Socialist Party wants and the means by which it hopes to get it. Here is the sentence: "The workers must wrest the control of the government from the hands of the masters and use its powers in this upbuilding of the new social order, the Co-operative Commonwealth."
Naturally "co-operatives" are favored as a step toward the "Co-operative Commonwealth," which is what the Socialist dreamers want. But in order to set up this new state, the Socialists want "the workers" to do a big job for them, namely, to "wrest the control of" the present Government of the United States and get it out of the way. Thus "the workers" are the means, the tool, which the hair-brained Socialists hope to use, while the proposed method of using these "workers" is to make Socialists of them and line them up in one big "industrial union" ready for "industrial action" when the Socialists crack the whip. We do not think America's "workers" intend to burn their fingers in pulling Hillquit's chestnuts out of the fire; but the lazy drones, the Socialist "intellectuals," as the Hillquitites love to style themselves, certainly hope to ride into power on the back of American labor just as the Bolshevist "dictators," Lenine and Trotzky, rode into power and are still riding on the galled back of the labor slaves of Russia.
It appears, then, that the Socialist Party of America is not merely affiliated with Moscow's "programs and methods" by a referendum vote, but has adopted a similar program and method for its own "supreme task." The only difference is that the Bolsheviks have made their
revolution, while the American Socialists are forging the weapon for theirs. Debs' motto is their motto: "I am law abiding under protest--not from scruple--and bide my time."