conference," in which "America was represented by Gompers, representing associations which never had anything to do with the Socialists." That the American Socialist Party had been led into the endorsement of the conference by Berger and Hillquit because the conference had recommended a meeting with German workingmen seems evident from the wording of the endorsement, taken from the official publication of the Socialist Party's 1918 Congressional Platform, pages 3-4:
"In all that concerns the settlement of this war, the American Socialist Party is in general accord with the announced aims of the Inter-Allied Conference. We re-affirm the principles announced by the Socialist Party in the United States in 1915; adopted by the Socialist Republic of Russia in 1917; proclaimed by the Inter-Allied Labor Conference in 1918 and endorsed by both the majority and minority Socialists in the Central empires; no forcible annexations, no punitive indemnities and the free determination of all peoples. "The Socialist Party believes that the foundations for international understanding must be laid during the war, before the professional diplomats begin to dictate the world's future as they have in the past. "It therefore supports the demand of the Inter-Allied Conference for a meeting with the German workingmen, convinced that such a meeting will promote the cause of democracy, and will encourage the German people to throw off the military autocracy that now oppresses them. We join our pledge to that of the Inter-Allied Conference that, this done, as far as in our power, we shall not permit the German people to be made the victims of imperialistic designs."