from coast to
coast. Hundreds of thousands will join eagerly and serve loyally in
the fight. We can stop the wheels, cut off the food supply, and
compel the plutocrats in sheer terror to sue for peace.... A few
men may be needed who are not afraid to die. Be ye also ready....
Let us swear that we will fight to the last ditch, that we will
strike blow for blow, that we will use every weapon at our command,
and that we will never surrender! Roll up a united Socialist vote
in California that will shake the Pacific Coast like an earthquake,
and back it up with a general strike that will paralyze the
continent.... Let the sturdy toilers of the Pacific Coast raise the
Red standard of revolt."

It was no other than this same Eugene V. Debs, the advocate of violence
and revolution, who on May 17, 1912, was nominated as the presidential
standard bearer of the Socialist Party. If ever elected, what a fine
president he would make, this "poor," "persecuted," self-styled
"flaming-revolutionist," now in jail! What an honorable party it must be
that nominated such a man for the fourth successive time to fill the
office of the presidency of our country! Indeed it was on the very same
day that the followers of Karl Marx chose Debs as their candidate to
rule the United States that they also declared, in the constitution of
their party, that any member who should advocate crime, sabotage or
other methods of violence, as a weapon of the working class to aid it in
its emancipation, should be expelled from membership in the party!

Never can political Socialists convince the American people of their
sincerity and honesty while they nominate for office men like Debs, send
to Congress representatives like Victor Berger, and choose as members of
their national executive committee persons of the stamp of William D.
Haywood. There was no better way for Socialists to convict themselves of
hypocrisy than by retaining in their constitution the clause against
sabotage, referred to above, while at the same time selling at their
National Office books like "Industrial Socialism" and publishing in
their papers and magazines articles advocating and approving "direct
action." By their deeds we judge them, and not by their hypocritical
words.

"The Call," on April 28, 1919, introduces with the following headlines
the long comment that it makes on the Hart-Nearing debate of April 27th
in New York Cit