ay.... They never take the
answer of Bernard Shaw, who, when asked by a capitalist what he
could do, saying that he could not help being a capitalist, was
answered in this manner: You can go and crack rock if you want to;
no one forces you to be a capitalist, but you are a capitalist
because you want to be. No one forces Hillquit to be a lawyer; he
could get a job in a lumber yard. There is no more excuse for a man
being a capitalist or a lawyer than there is for him being a
Pinkerton detective. He is either by his own free will and accord.
The system,--they acclaim in one breath,--the system makes us do
what we do not wish to do. The system does nothing of the kind; the
system gives a man the choice between honest labor and dishonest
labor skinning, and a labor skinner is a labor skinner because he
wishes to be, just the same as some men are pickpockets because
they wish to be."

It can readily be realized that such arguments will always have great
weight with the embittered elements of the working class. Nor do the
most representative Socialists altogether disagree with Sladden. They,
too, feel that if the war is not levied against individuals, neither is
it levied against a mere abstract system, but against a ruling class.
However, they make exceptions for such capitalists as the late Paul
Singer, who definitely abandon their class and throw in their lot with
the Socialist movement, while Sladden would admit neither Singer, nor
those other millions mentioned by Liebknecht (see above), for he demands
that the Socialist Party must declare that "no one not eligible to the
labor unions of the United States is eligible to the Socialist Party."

The high-water mark of this brand of revolutionism was reached in the
State of Washington, when these revolutionary elements in the Socialist
Party withdrew to form a new workingmen's party, the chief novelty of
which was a plank dividing the organization into "an active list and an
assistant list, only wage workers being admitted to the active list."
The wage workers were defined as the class of modern wage laborers who,
having no means of production of their own, are reduced to selling their
labor power in order to live. These are the active list, and they alone
hold office and vote. "The assistant list cannot hold office and cannot
vote," and the Party will "do active organizing work among wage earners
alon