cks and wreckers
of civilization, deluded ignoramuses, thus find ample opportunity for
selecting an organization of rebellion in which there is "no political
corruption." The members of these parties find fault with everything
under the Stars and Stripes, and yet hesitate to pass over to Russia and
live under the bloody standard of Lenine and Trotzky. If these four
rebel parties do not suffice for some of the rebels, there still remains
the I. W. W. All are pretty much the same, their principal differences
being the varying degrees of hypocrisy, boldness and lust for power of
their leaders.

The open and pronounced revolutionary character of the I. W. W.,
Communist Party and Communist Labor Party, evidenced in their
inflammatory utterances and tactics, had established their criminal
status with our National and State police and legal departments, while
startling wholesale arrests, deportations and indictments of these three
classes of law-breakers soon impressed a recognition of their criminal
status upon the public mind. It is important to establish the further
fact, if it be one, that the only difference between the rank and file
of these organizations and the rank and file of the remnant still
attached to the Socialist Party of America is the difference between
tweedledee and tweedledum.

The late inquiry into the qualifications of five suspended Socialists to
sit as law-makers in the New York Assembly created an astonishing
furore, disclosing amazing ignorance concerning American Socialism among
our most intelligent citizens. The confusion of the public mind was
still further increased by the Attorney-General of the United States,
whose convincing characterization of the two Communist parties, given
out on January 23, 1920, contained the following sentence:

"Certainly such an organization as the Communist Party of America
and also the Communist Labor Party cannot be construed to fall
within the same category as the Socialist Party of America, which
latter organization is pledged to the accomplishment of changes of
the Government by lawful and rightful means."

But can the facts so far brought out in this book "be construed" as
indicating any substantial difference between the 39,000 or 40,000
Socialists who have kept their old party name and the 70,000 or 72,000
who separated from them in September, 1919? Up to the moment of
separation were not all alike under the same "pledge" to use "