Algernon Lee's Notable Speech at Cooper Union
Lee, Algernon
Algernon Lee's Notable Speech at Cooper Union Democratic and Working Glass Socialism The Only Way to Our Common Goal By Algernon Lee Speech delivered last Sunday at the Socialist Party...
...Among them are individuals who are able to command attention from the general public, not »o mueh by any marked abilities or achievements of their own, as because we have too freely conferred upon them the party's highest honors and put its most important offices in their hands...
...And if we do not know where we mean to go, we cannot know which steps to take...
...Our campaign must in the main be not one of .denial and defence, but a positive, aggressive, fundamental exposition arid advocacy of Socialism as we understand it—the Socialism of the Old Guard, if you like, which was Vthe Socialism of our party here in America in its moat glorious d*Vs, the Socialism which survived tjhe split of 1912 and the split of 1019|aod which is going to sur[ vive this pitiful little split of 1935 —the Socialism of Berger and Debs and Hanford, of Hillquit and London and Will Mailly—the Socialism of Bebel and Hardie and Guesde— the only Socialism which corresponds to the interests and aspiration* of the working class and' to the laws of economic evolution...
...It is hampered by no responsibilities...
...bloc from New York City, Westchester, Nassau and Buffalo aggregating at least 60 delegates was augmented by delegations from the small left-wing locals in Auburn, Ithaca, Oneida, Schenectady, Saranac and Saratoga, To complete the picture of the gathering (too bad no arrangements were made for a photographer—probably for good reasons) I testify from my intimate acquaintance with most of those present that not more than 20 "innocents" were present and they were surrounded by at least 70 wall known "militants" and R.C.P.-ers., Eight of these innocents survived the two-day barrage of slander, lie* and fiction and had the strength, courage and decency to refuse to vote when a binding resolution was adopted...
...Only twice in the history of American Socialism has it for a time fallen into this self-abasing vice...
...It is swift and ruthless...
...It h a pernicious art, which works only for destructive purposes...
...two from Nassau County, also "militants," and four from Buffalo, former members of the Socialist Party who were expelled by Local Buffalo for advocating armed insurrection...
...It was the Lost Leader who raised the cry of "Socialism in our j time...
...He warned the .delegates that they were hearing only one side of the controversy and a badly colored one at that...
...It is the dream of sects and cliques, not of a self-reliant workingclass...
...But there' is also willful misrepresentation.- We do not wonder when this comes from the capitalists and their lackeys...
...We expose their falsehood*, but our resentment is tempered by the fact that they are open enemies...
...When we would not shout that Socialist victory was just around the comer, he accused us of not wishing for speedy victory and of tsying to bolster up the capitalist regime...
...When h* earn* to figures, Jack Altman, an extremely artful jug-g*sr, threw around percentage* and hundreds and thousands "with us" with the greatest of ease...
...But, disgusting as the task is, it must not be shirked...
...Binghamp-ton...
...Lying, he said, was the sixth Great Power...
...That is false, and..he...
...bat it is one of the arts of demagogy to hypnotize excitable crowds into acting as if they believed what .reason tells them is untrue...
...It is for us, in this emergency, to make that long run as short as we can...
...Rochester and Rome were sent only as observers and that the major section of the party in New York State was not represented at this conference...
...Without as much as a smile he'uncovered the Jewish Daily Forward conspiracy against the party by the startling announcement that there were 1,100 members of the party who are employees'of the Forward or their dependants and these were the bulwarks of the Old <Juard...
...For us, the way may yet prove shorter than we dare to hope...
...Some went back to the flesh-pots, and some ran after false prophets and bowed to strange gods...
...For my part, I tell you that whenever any man in our party becomes obsessed with the idea that be is its leader, the very best thing the party can do is to lose him...
...Sitting on the platform during this tense situation of the conference and his eyes upon those of every delegate on the floor in front of him, Norman Thomas mastered the situation, while Clarence Senior, our National Secretary, and Paul Porter sat on the side in silence while this rape of democracy was being carried on...
...We," Thomas speaking for the conference, "are going to the N. E. C. for recognition...
...One implies the other...
...That none can know...
...In the discussion on this brazen manuever a few feeble protests were made that this was a highly irregular procedure, an extremely undemocratic action . It was pointed out that the delegates present had no-such authority or instructions from their locals or branches...
...And just because that is the iogical goal of the working class, we also strive for every immediately practicable reform which will improve the material and cultural conditions of the working people and increase their capacity for organized action on both the economic and the political field...
...We openly proclaim it...
...Knowing this, democratic Socialists cannot tolerate, and Organised Labor cannot tolerate, either public advocacy of insurrection and dictatorship pr that secret advocacy which the Lost Leader insisted we must permit...
...We must extend this fight throughout the nation...
...It may often stray a littk from its path...
...He reviewed th* last two year's history of Local New York...
...And in this we stand solidly with Organized Labor and with the working class...
...V To Start Canafwsigii for HershkowitA, ..t...
...Their campaign against the party will eventually fall, as every campaign must fail which has falsehood as its chief weapon...
...Following him a comrade from the Rome delegation read a long and reasonable resolution calling for a cessation of intra-party warfare and this was also wasted...
...It is we...
...We know our way...
...If the bolt of the six hundred may, like a cloudburst or a lightning stroke, be spoken of as an "act of God," then I woajd say: Thank G'ocf that these people are now attacking our parry from the outside, instead of sabotaging its activities by internal factions...
...As the old men died, the youth grew older, and fresh youth joined the ranks...
...There was but one rivalry among them—who should excel in loyalty to the good old cause, in courage, in discipline, in joyous comradeship...
...According to the report of the credentials committee there were 86 delegates present, 41 from New York City and 45 from up-State The New York City delegation was made up entirely of delegates from branches that recently bolted from the party...
...speech contained little that was hew to both factions but the few innocents present certainly got a highly colored picture of devils," intps and ogres on the one side of the party controversy and spotless, holy angels on th* other side...
...They have in mind a way that is short but not easy— some thrilling ly hard short way...
...A resolution was then presented with several whereases of complaint against the New York State Committee and resolving that this conference assumes the responsibility for the Socialist Party organization of the State of W— Bolters in the Utica Confer en ce (Continued from Page Two) York...
...Immediate" and "Ultimate" Our goal is a society of joint owners and comrade workers, in place of the present society of exploiting owners and exploited workers...
...Comrades, loyal members of Local New York, young or old in years—and I am happy to, see so many youthful faces in this great meeting—they call us the Oii Guard, and we proudly accept the name...
...We are not only for the working class, we are of it—most of us by birth and training, the rest by conscious choice...
...but we have to do more...
...meeting in Philadelphia next week and negotiate for recognition...
...He said there was much to criticize on both sides and that the issues could be met without a split...
...Yet, though the truth is alow, it is the only force that can conquer and destroy the lie...
...in fact many upstate delegates, notably those from Olean, Geneva, Niagara, Utica, Elmira...
...We got rid of one sacrosanct leader thirty-six years ago, and our party at once began to grow as it had never grown before...
...Friedman pleaded eloquently but in vain...
...Thomas repeated his frequently used speech about labor racketeers and Old Guard alliance and then hi* falminations against Waidman, The New Leader, the Rand School and Algernon Lee and the Old Guard sabotage against the National Office...
...Nor are we like college boys on the football field, who need a frantic cheerleader to whip up their enthusiasm...
...Their inglorious failure to take with them more than 20% of the memhership in New York City appears to have been duplicated in the maneuver to capture the New York State membership...
...We must do more than that...
...And we have faith in our class...
...Whenever a Socialist Party ceases to think of itself as .part and parcel of the working class, flesh of its flesh and bone of its bone, that party commits moral suicide...
...Again, it is not enough that we answer the disrupters' falsehoods as they appear—falsehoods which deal mostly with minor incidents and superficial issues...
...Thomas, the "observer," practically organized the conference and a personal letter by him was sent all over the state urging election of delegates to the conference...
...Following Thomas came speeches from the galaxy of secessionist orators Frank Crosswaith, Hiam Kantorowich, Zekor Antonsen, Brickner of Buffalo, Max Delson, Herman J. Hahn, Murray Baron, David P. Berenberg, and others...
...And, without involving the trade unions in our internal strife, we must see to it that our message is carried to the officials and to the rank and file of Organized Labor...
...This argument was quickly answered by Thomas...
...That historic OH Guard of whom its spokesman said, "We die, but we never surrender," included ?rey-haired veterans and beardless youths...
...The times are too critical for us merely to await its failure...
...With Yipsem'Sahand to do daj singing (fpr s^majpp, ji1 e ihiri I" i sal son their voieea?|*sv> peeked ftp weak this night and they sang badly) the night session adjourned...
...When oar time comes we shall die with our faces to the foe and ear heads erect—We shall not surrender r Bolters in Utica Conference Present TragUComedy By August Cloessens POLLOWING the recent at-tempt to split and disrupt the Socialist Party in New York City, the "militant" caucus, aided and abetted by Norman Thomas and the majoriy of the N.E.C., have commenced operations in New York State...
...They stood true even after Dave Berenberg assured them that they need not be afraid or wait for instructions from their locals, for, said Dave, *you needn't worry as to where the party membership of the whole country will stand when the old guard throws Thomas out of the party...
...The Sunday session was occupied with the election of various com-mittees to revitalise the party in New-York State...
...But he used it also as a shibboleth, to isolate and penalize those who did not believe in a Messiah and who refused to pretend that that anyone could make the way short and easy by chanting a magic formal...
...Let me beg your indulgence for a few more minutes, that I may state the main features that distinguish the Socialism we stand for from Communism, from Anar-cho-Syndicalism, and from all kinds of Utopian schemes, as well as from mere bourgeois "radicalism...
...Ferdinand Lassalle once said that besides the five Great Powers of Europe—England, France, Prussia, Austria, and Russia, as that term was then understood—there was yet one more...
...At this point let me pause to mention one feature of the situation which is strongly in our favor, among those who are active in this effort to disrupt the Socialist Party and carry over some of the fragments either to the Communists or to the middleclass Utopians, there are very few—I may safely say there are none of any prominence—who belong to the working class or have had their training in the labor movement...
...These taunted the rest because of the length and hardness of the way...
...He urged them not to be afraid...
...Thomas was the main spokesman...
...And it is a dangerous art for those who practice it...
...About a dozen Communists hovered around the conference, a couple of them at the press table...
...C'-^] Frank made practically the same speech last November at a New Leader conference where he,psi3iLtl tribute to Hillquit, Lee, Oneaf* ui other old guardists whose Socialism he praised to the skies...
...The New Leader is my paper," he'jy clared...
...Jack Altman opened the conference with a "keynote" speech...
...About 125 people were present...
...This is suicidal—but we must have an inclusive party...
...They may have more college graduates and preachers...
...We must wipe out the reformers...
...He warned against the consequences of a split and read a telegram from Daniel Hoan to that effect...
...I do not know whether any of you are mourning over a Lost Leader...
...Frank delivered substantially the same speech, with the same musical cadences;, -with the same crevasses of his heart opening under his same old body—the same speech that he uses for all occasions and ceremonies fair and foul...
...plainly evident at the splitters' state conference in Hotel Martin, Utica, on December 28 and 29...
...Our desire is to move on toward Socialism as fast as we can...
...We are ready for peace if every Socialist paper will belong to the party...
...We ask no guaranty that we who fight for Socialism today shall live to see its final triumph.Ohly cowards can ask that...
...The workingclass can emancipate itself only by a "self-conscious movement of the immense majority" of the people—a movement thai is honestly and bravely and unreservedly democratic...
...We have faith in its general tightness, in its sure ultimate Tightness...
...We cannot reach any distant goal without taking the steps that lead to it...
...We shall b-wt combat the betrayers and traducers of our party by once more taking up the age-long fight against capitalism and waging it with the old-time theoretical clearness ana also wfth the old-time vigor, the old-time enthusiasm, the old-time .confidence in ekpselves and in our cause...
...The candidate will be present, and the party members wttl^dhV cuss plans for carrying otJi^t|» election campaign by , pndsjK distribution, meetings and canvassing...
...We welcome them, and Organized Labor welcomes them, as fast as they become ready to move with us toward a classless future...
...Following Altman, a number of well-known "militants" j reported conditions in their locals and their invariable complaint was that the smallness of their membership and their ineffectiveness was the fault of the State Committee...
...We Must Do Mer* Than Reply It is not enough that when the bolters and disruptiomsts malign us in the non-Socialist press, we answer them in such papers as are fair enough to state both sides...
...Forward, Old and Youaa...
...So let it be with us...
...THE principles and policies of the Socialist Party are as yet too little understood, and are often positively misunderstood, by the great mass of the people...
...We will judge Socialists not on the basis of their ideas but their service...
...We must advance revolutionary Socialism...
...We must provide means to print and muster forces to distribute vast quantities of leaflet and pamphlet literature...
...They conjure up wild forces which they cannot control...
...The Hellish Old •¦are...
...Speeches by the leading splitters were frequent with humility and innocence...
...The composition of the conference must be understood to appreciate what it did or tried to do...
...Innocent as this may have sounded to some, the militants knowing the full import of Ronnie's blast were in consternation and hastily put on Garfinkel to allay suspicions...
...Though one by one they died upon the way, it is glory enough for them that their children entered in and possessed the land...
...It spreads like an epidemic, and the curative power of truth moves but slowly after it...
...He used it partly as a [ slogan, to keep up the spirits of j those who, lacking sound Socialist knowledge, lacked the steady cour- j age to follow a long hard road...
...And when I speak of the working class, I mean specifically the class of wage workers—not only because it is the largest class, the most rapidly growing class, the one indispensable class of modern society, but also because it is the only class whose ideals lie in the future and not in the past, the only class whose conditions of life and whose immediate interests slowly but irresistibly lead it to think and act in the direction of Socialism...
...The conference) consisting of at least 70 determined splitters, with about 20 imioeents present, came prepared for action...
...After the blessing +s pronounced by Reas, Thomas and Hah*, Frank Crosswaith was again brought to the platform to wind up the affair in emotional and poetic fashion...
...They toiled through the wilderness...
...What Our Socialism Is First of all, our Socialism is workingclass Socialism...
...but its path is the right path, and it always gets back on that right path...
...Then came some of the familiar paradoxes for which Thomas is famous...
...A special meeting of the members of the 1st, 3rd, 4th and 5th A. D.'s of the Bronx has, been called for Monday, January 6th, at the Workmen's Circle- School, 1581 Washington Ave., near Clare-mowt Ave., to plan for the campaign for Abram Hersbkcrwrts, candidate in the January 21«t spe> cial assembly election...
...Added to this dominant delegation which called and engineered the conference were seven delegates from Wstchester County, who have been identified with the New York "militants" for some time...
...Not because the Lost Leader in his heart wishes or believes it, but because he has to cater to adolescent romanticism and has to keep on good terms with his Communist allies inside and outside our party, he is conniving at an underhand propaganda of the doctrine that democracy is bound to fail, that the masses cannot be trusted to emancipate themselves, that at some near moment of social chaos a "resolute minority," obeying a personal leader, will be able to play upon the desperate discontent of unthinking masses and use them as insurrectionary shock troops in setting up a dictatorship...
...Lang live every comrade in its risks...
...We must, in the coming weeks and months, enormously increase the circulation of our own press...
...There are other exploited classes —the working farmers, the little busines men, a large part of the professionals...
...knows.ft, An earnestly democratic working class will know how to defend democracy whenever and wherever it is attacked, and by whatever methods the occasion demands...
...In so far as this is a matter of honest misunderstanding, it is our task to correct it by patient educational propaganda...
...I assure you, the piece which was put on at the Seventeenth Street Theater on December 4, and which yesterday took its New York audience along for a special performance at Utica, is a poor burlesque of the drama of 1899, and its star actor does not in any way measure up to Daniel De Leon, who then played the tile role^ Freed from personal leadership and factional obstruction, with Socialist thought and Socialist idealism to guide and strengthen us, we shall march prospering toward a victory which, whether near or far, we know is sure...
...It is a cheap trick of the seces-ionist leaders to sneer at what they call the petty demands and petty victories of the trade unions and of old-fashioned workingclass Socialism...
...Aim and Moans Harmonize We stand wholeheartedly for democracy as an aim and for democracy as the means of achieving that aim...
...The more brazenly impudent, the more easily does it get itself believed...
...It can make mistakes...
...They did not quarrel about their years...
...and also, if such an attack does come, the more aid will the working class receive from other classes...
...They had a job to do and they proceeded to do it...
...In brief, like their friends the Communists in many such similar "conferences," oar "militants" packed the convention with their own actors and then captured themselves and sent oat releases claiming a great victory...
...He suggested that they hear one prominent old guard then present in the hall...
...Capturing Themselves This "militant"-R.P.C...
...That is a time-worn and futile dream...
...For this we stand...
...It is a false dream for which rivers of workingclass blood have been needlessly shed...
...It must be actively met and repelled...
...These, along with visitors (Yipsels, R.C.P.-ers and friends) from New York City constituted the majority in attendance...
...In the long run truth wins...
...Most of these comrades never were active except in factional strife and probably never will do anything else so efficiently as they have been doing in their attempt* to wreck our party...
...Several others were not so ttooest...
...Fred . J. Smith charged that the State Committee had squandered its funds instead of hiring organizers for upstate work and that Louie Waidman ordered the payment of $1,000 to August Clae&aens for research werk...
...A Socialist Party should know how to love and honor comrades who serve it faithfully and well...
...He spoke at length about the disgrace of Charles Solomon being appointed as Magistrate by Mayor La-Guardia on the same day that the Mayor appeared at an Italian fascist rally...
...You will yet see the Lost Leader broken and cast aside by the elements that now applaud him—you will see it, unless he deserts them iii time, as he has deserted us...
...Among the 41 delegates from New York City were most of the persons who were active in the "militant" caucaus and in the dual organization'within Local New York City for several years...
...In this sense I say: "Long live the Old Guard...
...Such an attack we are enduring today, at the hands of secessionists in this city and state, abetted by intriguers who remain inside the party in other states...
...Algernon Lee's Notable Speech at Cooper Union Democratic and Working Glass Socialism The Only Way to Our Common Goal By Algernon Lee Speech delivered last Sunday at the Socialist Party rally...
...only this time he scolded not only the capitalist system but the terrible ORi Guard whose conduct at' Detroit and whose abuse of his leader, Norman Thomas, had touched every fiber of his emotional being...
...They had no patience for peace or unity proposals...
...Of the generation that went out of Egypt, not one was destined to set foot in the Promised Land...
...The more completely it puts its trust in democratic methods now, the less is the likelihood of its having to use violence to repel violence in the future...
...But it is meanwhile doing harm to the Socialist movement and to the working class...
...who have always warned new recruits that there is no short cut to the Cooperative Commonwealth, that those who take up the march with us most be prepared to travel a hard road, perhaps a very long road, with nothing to uphold them bat the consciousness that it is the right road to what may be a distant bat is certainly a splendid goal, and the consciousness that we are traveling it together—to-gether — together — as comrades confident and unafraid...
...that the conference proceed to elect a State Committee to replace the existing State Committee and to have it appear before the N.E.C...
...We have to reply to these, of course...
...We know what they mean and what they have not the manhood to say publicly in plain words...
...For some good reason this Smith of Jamestown seemed too ashamed to look yours truly straight in the face...
...We are not ready for a united front, which means organic unity with Communists but we can unite on specific issues or in cases like the Hern don case...
...We keep that goal always in view...
...What I have against the leaders of this secession more than anything else—not against the inexperienced youngsters, but against their older misleaders—is that they never, literally never, have one wholehearted good word for the organized movement of the wage workers...
...The case of these four was reviewed by the State Committee and Local Buffalo's action was upheld...
...But it survives its mistakes, and it corrects them...
...TJm campaign will be carried on untfl the polls open two weeks.fps5 Tuesday._ , '» --.y...
...It is this class which has created the Socialist movement...
...Knowing these committee men as wen as t do, I could not help smiling...
...We wish it to be sooner rather than later...
...The Road Is Long and Hand It is another cheap trick of these gentlemen to say that we old-fashioned workingclass Socialists are "seeking an easy way...
...That has a meaning for us today...
...Lot Cowards Winch" We, whom they call the Old Guard, are not holy rollers nor Indian medicine men...
...It is silly as well as insincere for these slippery-tongued gentlemen to pretend, as the Lost Leader has pretended, that we are trying "to impose an agreement that never under any circumstances at any time will Socialists countenance the use of violence in resistance to fascist tyranny...
...Nevertheless, and in spite of the pressure, eight strongminded and decent comrades refused to vote against the instructions of then-locals...
...There should be no advocacy of armed insurrection...
...H* told of the sufferings of the membership of Local New York, of the upstate locals and the National Office due to the misrule, autocracy and outrageous conduct of the State Committee, Local New York and particularly of such men as Waidman, Lee, G*rb*r, Solomon and Cahan...
...We are with Organized Labor, because it is the working class in daily action...
...Now We Are Pre* to Work •We are in a position to do this now...
...We grudge the spending of time and energy in dealing with this treacherous attack, when there is so much constructive work crying to be done...
...No one really believed him...
...Upon getting the floor at the evening session, Sam delivered a speech so full of sense, emotion and devotion to party unity that*it was a marked contrast to everything else said at this conference...
...And that after Chairman U. Solomon of the City Central Committee sustained "a synthetic majority WE had nothing left to do but to walk out...
...We, in common with Organized Labor, know that the gentlemen who are trying to convince the American people that the choice before it is a choke between twa kinds ef saeWfhip are, osssm Jajd foolishly, seme with treaehereu* intent, doing their utmost to ail such sinister ililasOfs aa woeht like to have a reactionary dictator-shin...
...We, the twenty-four hundred loyal members of the party in this city, are now free to do the work that a Socialist Party ought to do...
...Committees will be elected and promptly pet to work...
...Sooner or later they will see that their only salvation is in union with the working class...
...They know better...
...If ever they have to praise or congratulate Organized Labor, they always add an "if" or a "but" You cannot be with the working class and distrust Organized Labor...
...Such a society must be based on social ownership of all that productive wealth which, when privately owned, yields a property income to its owners, at the expense of those who work...
...What Bolt Leaders Moan I suspect that the secessionist leaders who are trying to coquette with the Communists and at the same time to coquette with bourgeois reformers—I more than suspect that when they reproach us for not believing in short cuts and also accuse us of choosing the easy way, their words have a double meaning...
...The lie is a formidable thing...
...We do not classify ourselves by the length of our past lives...
...But the rest kept on...
...To them, another dollar of weekly income or another hour' of weekly leisure may seem small...
...That distinguishes us from those who have turned against us...
...Our Class Heeds No Messiah We do not think that the working class needs tutors or guardians...
...We have the myriad plain wage workers who, know what it is to toil in the shop, to build the union, to educate and organize for struggle on the economic field...
...He said that "this was a historic occasion and a fight for democracy by those of us who mean it and not a fight between factions...
...These eight comrades came from Locals Rome, Utica, Elmira, and Bingham ton...
...Said Duval: "The time has come for action...
...I am not afraid to say what Ben Hanford so often said: "The working class—may it ever be right...
...Its history goes back, not to Marx and Engels, but to Bak-unin and Blanqui and Baboeuf...
...If it prove so, surely none will have more reason to rejoice than those who followed it when it seemed long and hard...
...This was...
...We are glad that it is so...
...The evening session was full of oratory...
...We are for democratic Socialism but you can not get Socialism piece meal...
...To the men and women in the shop every dollar and every hour means that much more life, that much more liberty, that much more strength and hope...
...But right or wrong, the working class"* It is human...
...But whenever it allows any individual to be set up as "Our Leader," and begins to think of party loyalty in terms of subservience to him, it sins against the very law of its being...
...History repeats itself, says Karl Marx —"first as tragedy, afterwards as farce...
...What rouses our indignation and contempt, what we have a right to brand as infamous, is the misrepresentation of our ideas and our actions by men who profess to have the same final purpose in view—by Communists and, even worse, by factionalists from within our ranks who seek by such crooked means to disrupt and destroy the party they have tried in vain to rule and to mislead...
...A Marked Contrast Samuel H. Friedman asked for the floor in behalf of a Unity Committee of a goodly number of comrades who are trying to prevent the split...
...There is no inconsistency between ultimate and immediate...
...Duval Spills leans The afternoon session nearly came to a shocking end when Ronnie Duval, the Morningside Height* terrorist, blared out the real keynote...
Vol. 19 • January 1936 • No. 1
