Harrisburg telegraph. [volume] (Harrisburg, Pa.) 1879-1948, 1917-08-09
EDITOR TELLS
WHY HE QUIT
THE SOCIALISTS
Antiwar Attitude of Party q
Menace, Says Chester
M. Wright

Cleveland. Aug. 9.-Chester NJ.
| Wright, former managing editor of
The New York Call, to-day declared
that his resignation from the So
cialist party was brought about by
the attitude of the party toward the
war and toward the trade union
movement.
[ "Since America entered the war l
have not considered myself party
/ Socialist, and ii now is some time
since my actual resignation was ten
dered," he said. But long before
| the war l was in conflict with the
party majority on the question of
the pN<ty's attitude toward the or
ganized labor movement, and it was
after failure to secure modification
of the position on that question that
l resigned as managing editor of
The New York Call.
To-day, of course, the war is the
| paramount issue. l cannot remain
with any movement that is not loyal
to the cause of America in this
crisis. Because of that the Socialist
party means to me to-day an organ
iZation whose purpose and effort are
exactly in opposition to everything
in which l believe.
II believe the Socialist party now
is the greatest block in the path of
progress toward democracy and So
cialism that we have in America. In
every essential influence IL is anti
social.
Party Has Failed
Socialists have prided themselves
on their ability to analyze world
movements and to understand So
cial forces. But. in the supreme test,
they have failed, abjectly and COM
pletely. so far as the party is con-
Cerned.
II believe Socialists will agree it
has been the Socialist contention
that about the best we could do
was to assist evolution. We could
not compel evolution, we could open
peoples eyes to 1t. We could make
the way easier by lessening the op-
position.
To-day all the social forces in the
world are unclaimed in the greatest
evolutionary drive the world has
ever known and the American So
cialist party makes bold to hurl its
weight against evolution, as an un-
sophisticated young bull might hurl
himself at a locomotive.
''As | see it, this war is compress
ing into a massive but monetary
convulsion that which might be the
natural evolution of 100 years. 1t
is driving the world in a cylonic rush
toward the very things for which
Socialists have clamored. l cannot
understand why the true Socialist
wishes to even make the effort TO
stop progress toward that which he
has professed most to desire.
The only reason presenting itself
to me is that like that old victim or
optical illusion. the party Socialists
to-day are in a position where they
cannot see the woods for trees The
wreckage of reaction is crashing
down about us so rapidly that, to
my mind, none who really wishes
progress can fail to be gratified. 1t
is only by a clearing away of old
institutions, old forms, old impedi-
ments, that we make way for new.
The old is going fast just now.
Friend of German Cause
by it's attitude the Socialist party
has placed itself in the position of
F! being a friend of the German cause.
1t doesn't matter what the motives
may have been: it is the fact that
counts. And the fact is that the So
cialist party of America is opposing
the cause of America, and befriend-
ing the cause of Germany. To re-
main with an organization that fos-
ters and further, however unwilling
ly. the most autocratic reactionary,
bloodthirsty and criminal cause on
earth, is impossible. And for So
cialist to proclaim his friendship for
progress while helping such a cause
of reaction as that of Kaiserism
passes understanding.
Let me make this clear: am
heart and soul with the cause of la
Dor and democracy, cause so bound
up in the fortune of this war that
to desert the cause of America would
he to desert everything that the nor
NAL heart holds dear and that the
normal mind clings to. :,
1.-The world to-day is psychol-
ogized for democracy. Democracy is
the household word of the world.
And every shot fired on the allied
front, as ii tears away the defenses
of autocracy, helps erect the founda-
tions for more democracy than earth
has ever known. The Socialist party
ought to know enough about psy-
chology to perceive something of
what this world cry for democracy
portends; 1t ought to know enough
about evolution to see in which di-
rection we are moving. If it does
not know it only proves what some
have suspected-that the movement
never has been real Socialist move
ment; that it never has fitted Amer
lean conditions and the American
people, and that sooner or later it
would have to give way before some
more native effort.
I'm New York some of us tried to
bring the party to the position in
which we believed it belonged. but
it was of no avail I was convinced
then that further relation with the
party was to be impossible, but, hop
ing against hope, awaited the st.
Louis convention. That convention
blasted the future of the Socialist
party in America finally and for
good. 1t is feeding now in it's last
days upon the rotten Teutonic tester
on our body polite. as gruesome a
sight as American political history
has ever afforded, I believe.
"I am out of the Socialist party
because I am an enemy of the cause
that party has espoused; and be-
cause that party has become an
enemy of human freedom in the
hour of freedoms greatest need. 1t
doesn't matter what motives the
party may have had in taking its
anti-American, anti-democratic po-
sition. it is the hideous fact that
counts"