st party. They multiply themselves, know of no effort nor
sacrifice too great to make for the Cause; and "Cause," with them, is
spelled out in capitals. They work for it with a religious zeal, and
would die for it with a willingness similar to that of the Christian
martyrs.

These men are preaching an uncompromising and deadly class struggle. In
fact, they are organized upon the basis of a class struggle. "The
history of society," they say, "is a history of class struggles.
Patrician struggled with plebeian in early Rome; the king and the
burghers, with the nobles in the Middle Ages; later on, the king and the
nobles with the bourgeoisie; and today the struggle is on between the
triumphant bourgeoisie and the rising proletariat. By 'proletariat' is
meant the class of people without capital which sells its labor for a
living.

"That the proletariat shall conquer," (mark the note of fatalism), "is as
certain as the rising sun. Just as the bourgeoisie of the eighteenth
century wanted democracy applied to politics, so the proletariat of the
twentieth century wants democracy applied to industry. As the
bourgeoisie complained against the government being run by and for the
nobles, so the proletariat complains against the government and industry
being run by and for the bourgeoisie; and so, following in the footsteps
of its predecessor, the proletariat will possess itself of the
government, apply democracy to industry, abolish wages, which are merely
legalized robbery, and run the business of the country in its own
interest."

"Their aim," they say, "is to organize the working class, and those in
sympathy with it, into a political party, with the object of conquering
the powers of government and of using them for the purpose of
transforming the present system of private ownership of the means of
production and distribution into collective ownership by the entire
people."

Briefly stated, this is the battle plan of these 450,000 men who call
themselves "socialists." And, in the face of the existence of such an
aggressive group of men, a class struggle cannot very well be denied by
the optimistic Americans who say: "A class struggle is monstrous. Sir,
there is no class struggle." The class struggle is here, and the
optimistic American had better gird himself for the fray and put a stop
to it, rather than sit idly declaiming that what ought not to be is not,
and never will be.

But the socialists, fanatics and dr