ll authority, we know of no immutable dogma, we are
the champions of right, liberty and conscience." [Reported in
"Vorwaerts," 1898, no. 126, suppl.]

The bitter persecution that has for years been waged against the church
in France is too well known to require much comment. The representatives
of the French Socialist Party at Tours in March, 1903, voted upon a
program from which several clauses will be cited:

"The Socialist Party needs to organize a new world, free minds
emancipated from superstition and prejudices. It asks for and
guarantees every human being, every individual, absolute freedom of
thinking, and writing and affirming their beliefs. Over against all
religious dogmas and churches as well as over against the class
conceptions of the bourgeoisie, it sets the unlimited right of free
thought, the scientific conception of the universe, and a system of
public education based exclusively on science and reason. Thus
accustomed to free thought and reflection, citizens will be
protected against the sophistries of the capitalistic and clerical
reaction." The program also declares for the "abolition of the
congregations, nationalization of property in mortmain of every
kind belonging to them, and appropriation of it for works of social
insurance and solidarity."

In the Tours program, therefore, we have the open confession of the
Socialist Party of France that it is anti-religious and that it favors
the disgraceful robbery of the church that has for many years been going
on in that country.

The Belgian Socialists are quite as violent as the French in their
hatred of the church, for in addition to the large number of vile
anti-religious pamphlets distributed during the campaign that preceded
the elections of 1912, we have the testimony of no less an authority
than the Socialist leader, Emile Vandervelde, in the "Social Democrat,"
England, January, 1903:

"In the end the question to be solved is: what is the essential aim
of Socialism? There is not a Socialist who would hesitate to say
that it is the emancipation of the workers, the freedom of the
proletariat--and by this freedom we mean its complete freedom, the
abolition of all slavery in the spiritual sphere as well as in the
material sphere.... Can a sincere believer follow the church's
teachings and yet be a Socialist? We are bound to admit that both