In the "Social Democratic Herald," August 14, 1909, Victor Berger drops a few more words on the same subject in an article entitled: "IF THIS BE TREASON, MAKE THE BEST OF IT." "There are two ways," says he, "of effecting great social changes in a republic--the ballot and the bullet. If our people are not wise--if they are otherwise--then we may have use for both of them."
Now, if Berger is a specimen of the extreme "political actionist," a conservative, the enemy of "direct action," who can imagine the treasonable intentions and bloody thoughts of the immense number of "direct actionists" who throng the ranks of these national conspirators?
It is not flattering to the State of Wisconsin to realize that Berger has several times been chosen to represent one of its Congressional districts in the United States House of Representatives. Yet Berger has apt pupils. On January 12, 1919, Mayor Hoan of Milwaukee presided at a Milwaukee meeting of 8,000 "Reds" to protest against the conviction, under the Espionage Law, of Victor L. Berger and four co-conspirators, and prolonged cheering and waving of "Red" insignia answered the following words spoken by William Bross Lloyd (Testimony, Socialist Trial, Albany, page 1623):
"What we want is revolutionary preparedness. We want to organize.... We want a mobilization plan and an organization for the revolution. We want to get rifles, machine guns, field artillery, and the ammunition for it. You want to get dynamite. You want to tell off the men for the revolution when it starts here. You want to tell off the men who are to take the dynamite to the armory doors and blow them in and capture the guns and ammunition there so that the capitalists won't have any. You want to tell off the men to dynamite the doors of the banks to get the money to finance the revolution."