is evident, therefore, that unless those who listen to the Marxians are on their guard and demand that the premises be proven the Socialists may deduce from incorrect premises conclusions which will make it appear that their intended state will bestow heaven's choicest blessings upon mankind.
Though examples of deceit have already been given, the attention of the reader will be called to the testimony of no less an authority than Eugene V. Debs, who in the following article, published in the "International Socialist Review," Chicago, January, 1911, will be seen to substantiate our charge:
"The truth is that we have not a few members who regard vote getting as a supreme importance, no matter by what methods the votes may be secured, and this leads them to hold out inducements, and make representations which are not at all compatible with the stern and uncomprising principles of a revolutionary party. They seek to make the Socialist propaganda so attractive--eliminating whatever may give offence--to bourgeois sensibilities--that it serves as a bait for votes, rather than as a means for education, and votes thus secured do not properly belong to us."
It is not unfrequently that we hear Socialists appealing to this or that plank of their party platform as proof sufficient that their organization favors or opposes a certain policy. An argument of this sort should have very little weight with careful thinking men, once their attention has been called to the fact that the Socialists have been proven guilty of a base lie by stating in their 1908 platform that the party is not concerned with matters of religious belief. But even if the revolutionists had never inserted in their platform a statement that was untrue, nevertheless the following facts show that their platform planks are very far from being reliable.