The Washington socialist. [volume] (Everett, Wash.) 1914-1915, 1915-03-18
SOCIALIST PARTY TACTICS
AND THE DEPARTMENT
OF PUBLIC WORKS
Commissioner Salter Is True to
Platform.
ORGANIZATION WOULD NO 7
COUNTENACE HAGGllNG OF
WEALTHY CITIZENS

The Spectator finds II hard to un.
derstand why one of Everetts large
property owners should find So
cialist commissioner of public works,
more reasonable to deal with than
any one who had been in that official
position in recent years"
To the Socialist, this testimony to
comrade Salter's reasonableness does
not come as surprise, It's because
he has the capacity for reasoning, and
acting upon reasonable lines, that Sal.
ter is Socialist. Elected to office
under capitalist-made, or capitalist-in'
spired laws and ordinances, Commits.
sioner Salter, as Socialist, can but
desire to perform his official duties
with absolute impartiality and even
handed justice as between one capital
list and another, He can have no SYM
patty with the petty capitalist class,
or small traders, as against the more
successful "big fellows" and corpora
lions. All capitalists and profit-mon-
gers look alike to the Socialist official.
He does not desire to shake down"
the very wealthy. nor need he truckle
to the whining complaints of the small
fry. He asks no favors from his poll
tical opponents, whether 'robber cor
porations" or would-be-robber 2x4 as
pirants to the seats of the mighty.
Honest merchants and property own
ers, whether they be big or little, ask
only that they be given square deal
according to the capitalist rules of the
game Salter gives them just this:
nothing more, nothing less. And they
call this reasonable"
It's a strange experience for the
bourgeois to do business with city
official who wants neither graft, nor
votes, nor implied obligations. in
transacting the business of his office.
Rich and would-like-to-be-rich, all
treated on the same impartial basis,
without bribery, promise, threats, or
exchange of courtesies-a la "you
scratch me and I'll scratch you"
So they find Socialist Salter more
reasonable to deal with than any one
who had been in that position in re-
cent years"
THAT QUESTION
The Spectator asks: Gan Mr.. Salter
be a perfectly good socialist and a
good public-works commissioner for
socialisms opponents at the same
time?" We answer, Yes, as long as
"socialism's opponents" do not at
tempt to put something over that is
detrimental to the interests of the
working-cIass.
The Socialist organization (which
holds his written pledge to wiggle
when it pulls the string" does not in
terrier with Commissioner Salter's ad-
ministration as if he were the mere
automaton that the Spectator would
have the public believe. The Socialist
organization nominated and elected to
office ]. M. Salter because it believed
him to be possessed of the necessary
public works, while being at the same
time sufficiently well-grounded in So
cialist philosophy and tactics to act
in the interests of the working-class
at all times on all important matters.
Commissioner Salter is in control of
his own dynamo. engine, ETC.; the So
cialist organization is merely the
safety-brake, in case of emergency.
Besides Socialist commissioners don't
"wiggle." Only officials whose strings
are pulled by the capitalist organiza-
ton that meets in secret session in
the rear of the chief banking estab
lishment "wiggles." Socialists do all
their work in open meeting. Their
officials act consistently on an open
and-above-board platform, democratic
cally drafted and accepted by the ma
jority in open meeting.
ONES TO BE WATCHED
The officials that need watching, Il
any do, are those who are free anc
independent" OF any open organiza
ton; but who are secretly controlle,
by a counting-house autocracy. Sucl
"wiggle," and no man knows for sur
just who is pulling the strings. Al
we know is that the wigglers wiggl
right,--for the, countins-house.