an its inquiry, in January, 1920, into the fitness of five
Socialist Assemblymen to act as law-makers, and since then has only
received the addition of some important facts and testimony. It is
remarkable, therefore, that all the evidence independently sifted in
that investigation overwhelmingly points to the same conclusions arrived
at in this volume.

On January 21, 1920, at the second day's hearing at Albany, as reported
in the "New York Times" of January 22, John B. Stanchfield and Martin W.
Littleton, of counsel for the Judiciary Committee, stated the
fundamental nature of the charges brought against the five suspended
Socialists--charges based, as is well known, on the results of raids and
investigations of radicalism by the New York State Legislative
Committee, Senator Lusk, Chairman. Said Mr. Stanchfield:

"When the Chairman read from the statement yesterday that the
charge against these men was disloyalty, and that they had
affiliated themselves with a party whose platform and program call
for an overthrow of this Government by violence, he added that we
will prove this beyond the shadow of a doubt.

"We are not upon this investigation engaged in a discussion of the
philosophy of Socialism or its economics. We are engaged in an
investigation of its tactics, its methods, its practical program,
and these tactics, these methods, and that program called for the
overturn of the power of this State and its annihilation, its utter
and complete annihilation."

Mr. Littleton said:

"The representation with reference to what these five men did and
what they profess and what they engaged to do stands out as plainly
as any thing can stand out--that they gave their allegiance wholly
and solely to an alien and invisible empire known as the
Internationale. It stands out that they are the citizens, not in
reality of the country which sustains and maintains them, but they
are citizens of this invisible empire which projects itself as a
revolutionary force into every country, menacing its institutions
and threatening its overthrow. Their allegiance before they ever
entered upon the threshold of this chamber was given to this
empire, which masquerades at one time with the softness of
parliamentary reform and which declares itself in favor of
revolution with force, according to the place and time where it ma