Out on the Plains of New Mexico Socialism is an Issue
Cousens, Leon A
Out on the Plains of New Mexico Socialism is an Issue An American State Where Half the People Speaks Only Spanish, and Where Three Brands of Spanish-Speaks People Glowers at Each Other By Leon A...
...English and Spanish Indeed, it wan not until a few decades ago that English was spoken at all in New Mexico...
...This, in brief, appears to be a tabloid history of the impact of material conditions upon the Socialist Party...
...And with unity of purpose and concert of action we will...
...NO AND NO AGAIN...
...and New Mexico speaks Spanish...
...Marx said that the lines of the class struggle draw closer in direct ratio as the process of industrialization progresses...
...The locals increased from three to fifteen, while interest in the party has increased immeasurably throughout the state...
...The Social Democratic Party was the outcome, the Social Democracy lingering for a few months and then dying...
...We cannot hope to succeed without their support...
...The Student Phase A NOTHER phase of the post-w~ war period was its influence upon young men and women studying the colleges to enter the professions or business...
...In the face of these obstacles the Socialist Party early in 1933 decided to launch an organization drive...
...Academic followers of Hoover or Smith or Roosevelt, subscribing to liberal pontics in its various forms, provided a literary output regarding the "experiment" which found a market ha our own ranks...
...the Harding-Coolidge era of real estate and stock gambling "prosperity...
...The difference between them and the admitted Mexicans, whom they regard as inferior, is social rather than racial...
...Yet, paradoxically, they are proud of their American citizenship...
...A babel of voices disputed and the disputes merely empha- . sized the decline instead of staying it The fact is that in that period the regime of American \ capitalism was not favorable to working class advance for | any type of organization or any aort of policy...
...Our own ( philosophy of the materialistic conception of history had its ¦ verification in what was happening...
...The Socialist Party in 1928 polled its lowest vote in a quarter of a century despite a large campaign fund and having presidential electors on the ballot in every state excey three or four...
...And so the State Executive Committe issued an invitation to other states in the Southwest to join with New Mexico in an "Encampment...
...The total population is 400,000, more than half of whom speak no English, scattered over 122,000 square miles, mostly unfit for cultivation...
...A population less than that of Newark scattered over an area more than 15 times that of New Jersey, more than half of them unversed in the English language, firm in the grip of the Catholic church...
...The movement grew rapidly throughout the Southwest, making great gains particularly in Texas and Oklahoma...
...National conventions and the N.E.C...
...Saturday, November 11, 3 p. m.: Meeting at I the cemetery near the grave of Victor Adler (opposite the obelisk of the victims who fell |ta March...
...So in New Mexico...
...Socialism had beaten the lies of capitalism to the draw...
...From the extreme right in the unions, through all the gradations to Utopian "left" Communism, decline was evident...
...The Governm desirous as it is of posing as strong, feared effects of an account of its helplessness to deal i the situation, a situation in which proof was gi of the grim fighting spirit of the Austrian e rades, who with their self-imposed discipline 1 so far been able to keep control of themselves...
...1 We- may not organize antl-F«*rist deiasM strstions...
...These fifteen locals are not concentrated in one part of the state but are widely separated...
...Thjs attracted the attention of Socialists, but it also lured the professors of the bourgeois universities, the liberals and liberal Journals, all of whom regarded It in terms of an "experiment...
...One wonders what the dissenters would have said of the cable to Lenin by Eugene V. Debs in 1923, protesting against the Moscow trial of the Social Revolutionaries...
...We may not even visit the grave of our revered Victor Adler...
...What state offers greater obstacles to the progress of the So cialist movement...
...Many government agencies such as the Forest service, various irrigation projects, and the Indian Service operate in the state...
...They held that the student had his place in the party the same as the worker, but diet neither should insist that he should immediately enter' posts of responsibility without the usual period of apprenticeship In organisation work, study, speaking, and so on...
...began its career with one of the clearest platforms ever adopted by a Socialist organization...
...These people have thus far always preferred trading their votes for an immediate dollar to casting them for vague future ideals...
...The small group that knew the writings of Marx, Engels, Lassalle, Guesde and the elder Liebknecht was outnumbered...
...These hardy people, children of frontiersmen, settled and organized the eastern part of the state...
...In after years Eugene V. Debs enjoyed telling the experience, that he, Victor L. Berger, James F. Carey, Charles R. Martin and others had in contending with the motley humans housed in the Social Democracy...
...Indeed, the most favorite epithet the Communists themselves hurled at us in 1918-19 was "Kolchaks...
...Its success was better than could have been expected for an innovation...
...To these people individualism, as a heritage of the frontier, played no part...
...The significant aspect of the situation is the concrete proof it offers that the Socialist Party will progress in precise ratio as its members strive to make it progress...
...With the exception of mining and the railroad shops there are n| tries...
...News of our meetings is carried, and even sent over their press wires...
...The Spanish-speaking people fall into three categories—Mexicans, Indians and Spanish-Americans...
...with another rebel S.L.P...
...Out on the Plains of New Mexico Socialism is an Issue An American State Where Half the People Speaks Only Spanish, and Where Three Brands of Spanish-Speaks People Glowers at Each Other By Leon A Cousens Organizer, Soeialiet Partg of New Mexico IN the early centuries of Amer-* ican history, while the French explored the Northland in search of furs, the South and the West shook under the tramp of Spanish boots in a tireless search for gold...
...A Socialist movement . cannot advance with a large section of the underlying population satisfied and chasing the money gods of capitalism...
...Living on the reservation, wards of the government and without a vote, civilization has done little more than to elevate them from the hunting and fishing stage of savagery to the pastoral stage of barbarism...
...Nor is this desire completely satisfied by speaking with a non-Socialist in an effort to win him over...
...Large numbers of them are devoted idealists and party workers, but here and there some have a wrong conception of the party, thinking that the revolution can come over night, forgetting that a successful social revolution can only be achieved by the working class...
...W, All must be present...
...They claim descent from those who settled the land under grants from the Spanish crown hundreds of years ago...
...This advantage serves to balance the disadvantage of persecution from boss-owned officials...
...If one turned to the organizations mentioned above he would find j every policy imaginable and yet each failed to insure advance...
...For the Austrian comrades the demonstration their power will give a strengthening of their i confidence...
...A census of the party membership was taken a number of times and each one showed that its composition was overwhelmingly working class and a large percentage were members of unions...
...Out of this came friction and too often antagonism between those who had served s long apprenticeship in the party and the students...
...They were the frontier...
...Their long association with the Indians has resulted in much intermarriage and but few of them can successfully claim pure Spanish blood...
...We did not set the pace for them...
...its politics buried in a quagmire as bad as Tammany...
...And of greater importance, it was decided to make the project an annual affair, under the auspices of the Rocky Mountain Regional Division of the Continental Congress...
...Most of them are dis couraged and believe the movement missed its opportunity in the days before the war...
...If the Communists would not discriminate, some of our own members could not at a later period...
...The committee adopted a resolution protesting against renewed terror in Russia...
...Our problem is, in short, to obtain the support of the peon and yet make no compromise with his hopelessly corrupt leader...
...Some Early Party History DUT as party membership and votes revealed an enormous *"* decline in the period of post-war illusions, it was obvious that a renewed party would be a new party with all the evidence of immaturity in ideas and experience...
...The convention of 1928 had adopted one like it by a unanimous vote, but this re-affirmation brought ringing protests mainly from new members in a number of states...
...The simple circumstance that a local is a great distance away from its nearest neighbor is often the reason why both locals succumb...
...Every effort is being made to secure gains of the solid sort, and to avoid a skyrocket career...
...And here is presented another problem that the Socialist Party not only in New Mexico but all over the West must face...
...FREEDOM...
...1 3. j Sunday, November 12: Take a walk in the ¦kerning between 10 and noon in the main road ml your district, wearing the Party badge, the Bbre* arrow* or a red button...
...An organizer was imported from the East and the task begun...
...The Bulletin, however, could not satisfy the need for actual personal contact...
...The Socialist Party in New Mexico has bent its energies in this direction...
...In M tions a highl freedom exitjj ganizer wflLj cellent facfli ganda, such public buildii ment in the accorded the ing hall of tl ber of Comi hand, a lets e the Socialist the mining to stacle—and 1 legal— is thi Recently ti luted indus-iBitrial eec-| democratic fecial is t or-|tjt with ex-his propa-free use of fair treat-nyself was of the meet-pTtjue Cham-pi the other psjeome awaitH organizer in rary legal ob Sit are not lib P«th...
...itself again and again had adopted similar resolutions...
...While they are difficult to organize, it is not impossible...
...The miners struck in demand for recognition, and immediately the governor declared martial law and troops were sent into the field...
...they set it for us I So confusion on this matter | became rife in the party, and following a meeting of the National Executive Committee in October, 1931, the storm broke...
...Whether or not the Spaniards found their golden Eldorado or the French their furs, they did leave behind them their languages...
...It would be unfair to say that thia was true of all students, but this attitude was sufficiently widespread to be noticed by comrades in many states and they reacted against it...
...Senator Cutting has created a machine that reaches into every tiny village...
...Isolation No mass movement can firmly establish itself in the West unless its solves the problem of isolation...
...No other Socialist movement was affected by this spearhead of liberalism...
...As a result the "Southwest Socialist Encampment" was held over the Labor Day weekend and near Colorado Springs, Colorado...
...Our task is to reach the working class and make it a huge proletarian layer in the party...
...We reached these people before prejudice had closed their minds against us...
...for the international movement knowledge of the Austrian attitude will, If wipe out, at least greatly make up for the hum tion of the German capitulation...
...They presented their demands to the operators, who refused, despite the NRA, even to negotiate...
...We Con Win Nor is it to be thought that the task of firmly establishing the party is completed...
...Yet they are Spanish in every significant aspect...
...A small leaflet measuring no more than 12 by centimeters was the signal for the magnificent sistance cf tho Austrian workers to the threat martial law...
...On the other hand, we cannot and will not play the political game according to their accepted rules...
...When this S.D.P...
...It was followed by long discussions in The New Leader...
...The Socialist wants to associate with Socialists...
...Editors Corner Review of and Comment on Events Here and Abroad, Critical and Otherwise Ry James Oneal The Post-War Socialist Party THK Socialist Party within the past seven or eight years is practically a new movement Our fight against Utopians trying to commit the party to "armed insurrection...
...Here the lines of the class struggle were tightly drawn and the people are more apt to be class-conscious...
...Some j disappeared...
...New Elements The century just past brought an increasingly heavy stream of immigration from Texas and Oklahoma...
...The S.D.P...
...It was not easy...
...Their language, customs, traditions manners and culture are purely Castilian...
...They are an agrarian people, consistently devout Catholics, and their standard of living is but little better than it was hundreds of years ago...
...The Mexicans number 60,000 and are immigrants from Mexico and their children...
...In 1898 the two groups parted, the Socialists having won quite a number of the other side, however, before the parting...
...They mind their flocks of sheep in solitude and live a life apart...
...I ARE WB TO ALLOW OURSELVES TO BE TREATED LIKE THIS...
...This idea of "experiment" found lodgment in the Socialist Party, its parentage being either Ignored or its significance being not appreciated...
...A considerable number of these people gladly embraced this new philosophy...
...This was also true of the three years before the Unity Convention that founded the party in 1901...
...Later the strike leaders were jailed on makeshift charges of vagrancy...
...Thinking of the Five-Year Plan and Communism in general in terms of the materialistic conception of history, Marxian economics and Socialist philosophy bad to some extent been replaced by the liberal mandarins of American capitalism and politics...
...Thtse Socialists, however, were brought into contact with anarchists, cooperators and colonizers, Christian pacifists, labor exchangers, Populists and Altgeld Democrats who joined the Social Democracy...
...The Spanish-American vote is a commodity whose price is determined by the law of supply and demand...
...Here was a compound of ideas and human beings that made for chaos...
...The Socialist movement was being renewed...
...The Spanish-Americans The Spanish-Americans are an interesting people...
...Was it wrong policy...
...Friday evening, November 10: Meeting of all Raar comrades, men and women, at 8 o'clock, in the branch headquarters...
...y We give below the full text of this hisW leaflet: 41 The Government would forbid us everytmnji We may not, on this November 12th, celebrsl| the Republic...
...At least half of New Mexico's 400,000 people are Spanish-speaking...
...With fine consistency, the Socialist Party of New Mexico goes forward...
...the shift of the trade unions to ultra-conservative policies, and the chase for dollars that affected even many workers and farmers, all had a marked impact on every working class organization in this country...
...Freed of the inharmonious elements of the old Social Democracy, the party from its beginning attracted workingmen and women and within twelve years had become influential in a dozen or more national and international trade unions and hundreds of central labor bodies...
...These all mean jobs to hungry politicians...
...Yet, when the first rays of Marxism penetrated from the East, the Southwesterner looked upon it . . . and called it good...
...The average > --*active party member has an insatiable desire to talk...
...The capitalist press is watching us...
...This continued to the entrance of the United States into the World War, which was the beginning of the decline...
...Their shattered prospects became a personal tragedy and many of them turned against the social order that provided no place for them...
...All too often the isolation of alocal robs its spirit, dampens its enthusiasm and saps its vitality...
...A monthly bulletin has been established which is sent to all members of the party...
...Commemoration of the fifteenth anniversary •f the death of Victor Adler...
...Here gathered a small group of rebels from the S.L.P., who had a long apprenticeship in experience, activity and knowledge of Socialist philosophy...
...Many of these people are now to be found in the eastern counties of New Mexico...
...The Russian Complex U/E have already mentioned the material factors of the post-" war period and their disintegrating impact on working class organizations and policies of all typee, but there was another factor...
...We CAN organize locals...
...lainers of Me Kinley County organized into a union...
...This leaflet was secretly distribo as though it was the most natural thing hi< world...
...The Indians, who number 40,000, stubbornly resist the white man's civilization...
...As post-war illusions in this country collapsed, the Russian Communists ventured upon the Five-Year Plan...
...We CAN win tho nation and the world for Socialism...
...It was after the Wall Street crash and a marked change in material conditions that revolutionary ideas began to get a hearing...
...WE SHALL ¦ . DEMONSTRATE...
...A regular feature of their methodical lives is going to the polls on election day...
...The Social Democracy, organized in 1897, presented all the aspects of newness...
...The get-rich mania through many forma of ( gambling was nation-wide and did not end till the collapse . in October, 1929...
...Various j explanations were offered...
...The university, college and theological seminary were corridors through which young men and women passed into the Socialist Party...
...Today Quebec in English-speaking Canada speaks French...
...joined...
...an inter-racial distrust and even hatred, with Spanish-American pitted against Mexican and the "Anglo" against them both, while here and there a group of Negroes huddles together to keep warm in a state that has borrowed from the old South its anti-Negro prejudices...
...The membership increased far beyond the number required by the party for recognition as an organized state...
...Workers and farmers, receiving satisfactory incomes and j investing in stocks are not likely to be interested in a revo- , lutionary movement that would abolish this chance-method . of getting rich...
...How the Austrian Workers Defied Ban on Meetings November 12th TTHK daily press without much comment report * the demonstrations which took place in Viejg on Saturday and Sunday, November 11 and 12.7 Austria the press was silenced...
...We were fighting Communist views in our own ranks and at the same time fighting intervention and demanding recognition of and trade relations with the Soviet Union...
...Even today the proceedings of the state legislature are conducted in that language, interpreters being supplied for the benefit of those few members who do not understand it...
...To what fine measure of power it would have attained had not the war intervened can only be guessed...
...Naturally, we inquired why this should happen...
...I If the police disturb the meetings, everybody to proceed to the main road of thje district...
...These elements present a problem to the Socialist Party...
...Isolation...
...This makes it easy to understand why the state reeks with corruption...
...The collapse of capitalism in 1929 destroyed their expectations of a career in these fields...
...We CAN win converts...
...Socialism, Communism, the Progressives and the Liberals competed for student allegiance...
...It is estimated that they number no less than 100,000...
...an illiteracy percentage exceeded only by South Carolina and Louisiana...
...By virtue of his great personal wealth he controls the radio and the press...
...The implication was drawn that any critical view of Bolshevism and the Five-Year Plan ranged one with the interventionists, including Kolchak, Denikin and Wrangel...
...Fine Result* But six months' intensive work produced its reward...
...Farmer-Labor parties, the Socialist Labor Party, the A. F. of L., the I.W.W., the Communist organizations and the j Socialist Party declined in membership and influence...
...It was written by Eugen Dietzgen, son of Joseph Dietzgen, whom Marx welcomed as the philosopher of Socialism...
...Our state office is equipped with necessary material, and a devoted state secretary is hard at work on her task of reaching out for fertile fields of activity...
...group in supporting the joint ticket of Debs and Harriman in 1900, they made the road easy for the organization of the Socialist Party in 1901...
Vol. 16 • December 1933 • No. 24
