long continued before the public begins
to ask questions concerning the exact meaning of such expressions as
applied to everyday life. The Socialist paper, _Justice_, of London,
urged that "the very suggestion that any of the Liberal members of
Parliament were connected with the Socialist movement created a more
profound impression than all they ever said or did." This is doubtless
true, but when the novelty has once worn off of this situation it is
what so-called Socialists do that alone will count.

For example, the leading reformist Socialist of Great Britain, Mr. J. R.
MacDonald, wishes to persuade the Socialists of America to carry on "a
propaganda of immediately practicable changes, justified and enriched by
the fact that they are the realization of great ideals."[98] Such a
reduction of the ideal to what is actually going on, or may be
immediately brought about, makes it quite meaningless. Evidently the
immediately practicable changes that Mr. MacDonald suggests are
themselves his ideal, and what he calls the ideal consists rather of
phrases and enthusiasms that are useful, chiefly, for the purpose of
advertising his Party and creating enthusiasm for it.

The underlying motive of the "reformists" when they claim non-Socialist
reforms as their own, and relegate practically all distinctively
Socialist principles and methods to the vague and distant future, is
undoubtedly their belief that reforms rather than Socialism appeal to
the working class.

"The mass of workingmen will support the Socialist Party," a Socialist
reformer wrote recently, "not because they are being robbed under
capitalism, but because they are made to understand that this party can
be relied upon to advance certain measures which they know will benefit
them and their families here and now.

"The constructive Socialist believes that the cooeperative commonwealth
will be realized, not by holding it up in contrast to capitalism,--but
only by the working class fighting first for this thing, then for that
thing, until private enterprise is undermined by its rewards being eaten
up by taxes and its incentive removed by the inroads made upon profits."

The working people, that is, are not intelligent enough to realize that
they are "robbed under capitalism," and are not getting their
proportionate share of the increase of wealth, nor courageous enough to
take up the fight to overthrow capitalism; they appreciate only small
advances from day to day