ts and never will be.

It must not be inferred from this that Socialists are indifferent to
reform. They are necessarily far more anxious about it than its
capitalist promoters. For while many "State Socialist" reforms are
profitable to capitalism and even strengthen temporarily its hold on
society, they are in the long run indispensable to Socialism. But this
does not mean that Socialism is compelled to turn aside any of its
energies from its great task of organizing and educating the workers, in
order to hasten these reforms. On the contrary, the larger and the more
revolutionary the Socialist army, the easier it will be for the
progressive capitalists to overcome the conservatives and reactionaries.
Long before this army has become large enough or aggressive enough to
menace capitalism and so to throw all capitalists together in a single
organization wholly devoted to defensive measures, there will be a long
period--already begun in Great Britain, France, and other
countries--when the growth of Socialism will make the progressive
capitalists supreme by giving them _the balance of power_. In order,
then, to hasten and aid the capitalistic form of progress, Socialists
need only see that their own growth is sufficiently rapid. As the
Socialists are always ready to support every measure of capitalist
reform, the capitalist progressives need only then secure enough
strength in Parliaments so that their votes added to those of the
Socialists would form a majority. As soon as progressive capitalism is
at all developed, reforms are thus automatically aided by the Socialist
vote, without the necessity of active Socialist participation--thus
leaving the Socialists free to attend to matters that depend wholly on
their own efforts; namely, the organization and education of the
non-capitalist masses for aggressive measures leading towards the
overthrow of capitalism.

Opposition to the policy of absorption in ordinary reform movements is
general in the international movement outside of Great Britain. Eugene
V. Debs, three times presidential candidate of the American Socialist
Party, is as totally opposed to "reformism" as are any of the Europeans.
"_The revolutionary character of our party and of our movement_," he
said in a personal letter to the present writer, which was published in
the Socialist press, "_must be preserved in all its integrity at all
cost, for if that be compromised we had better cease to exist_.... If
the t