Montana news. [volume] (Lewistown, Mont.) 1904-191?, 1905-05-24
Editor Heath to
COmrade Lynch

reau SOmTaue BynCn letter IN your
issue of May 3 with some interest.
He says he did not wish to intimate
that the Social Democratic alderman
of Milwaukee had introduced bill
to provide cheap gas for manufact-
urers, and l thank him for the ex-
PLANTATION. | have before me the
article by Socialist Aid. Welch to
which he refers and it simply, in
commenting on the work of the Mil
waukee gaslight company to prevent
legislation against its exclusive fran
chise in order to head off municipal
gas, shows that the company cannot
even expect the very active sympathy
of its own class, because manufac-
turers also willbeneht from cheaper
gas. Comrade Welch has been too
long a fighter in the class fight to let
up one iota in that fight to curry
favor with the enemy. He simply
stated a self-evident fact. IN
doubtedly, in getting cheaper gas
for the working class the manafact-
urers would come in for their share
in the benefits. That we cannot
help. We want the workers to have
their homes decently lighted, we
want them to throw out the sinking
kerosene lamps. We want to get
to them the most modern light so
as to help them in their task of per
fecting themselves and enlarging
their knowledge, for we know that
an informed man will not submit to
slavery as docilely as an ignorant,
impoverished man. We are working
toward that day when the worker
will burst asunder his fetters-one
after another-and stand forth the
master of society. Before that
emancipation, that appropriation
of the expropriators" can be reason
ably possible, the army of debili-
tated, ambitionless, worked out, de-
spairing wage slaves must be made
over into sinewy, resourceful,
lear-visioned and fearless host,
that will pursue the obstruction of
capitalism clear to the last possible
ditch.
Comrade Lynch seems to take
some things for granted. As to
"opportunism''-all tactics are of
necessity opportunistic. But lest
this seem like quibble, let me say
as strongly as | can, on behalf of
the Milwaukee comrades, that we
are NOT opportunists any more
than we are impossibilists. We re-
sent the imputation of opportunism,
as the word is used in Socialistic
discussion. 1t smacks of deals with
the enemy, of loose propaganda, of
a dull comprehension of the class
character of our fight. But this
much we will concede; if by oppor-
tunists you mean the kind of opport-
unism advocated by Marx-then we
are, indeed, opportunists-and so is
every other international Social
Democrat.
Comrade Lynch misstates the So
called Berger case. He says 'Ber-
gers explanation y in substance
is, towit: We Socialists in Wiscon-
sin understand that we are free to
vote for a Democrat or Republi-
can, in case we have no Socialist
running for office" Comrade Ber-
ger has said no such thing. Nor do
the Socialists of Wisconsin for a
moment harbor any such idea of
their political rights" or purpose.
Comrade Berger's advice to the
readers of his Wahrheit was,
not to help a republican judge, but
to support him negatively in order
to defeat the reelection of Catho-
lie Judge who was enlisted in the
forefront of the Catholic fight on
Socialism in this country, a fight
which has selected Milwaukee for its
first battle-ground. 1t was, at best,
merely a question of tactics from
the proletarian standpoint. 1t may
not haua haan ,,,;aa tarti.p aud vat