The Coconino sun., 1917-06-29
SOCIALISM ON TRIAL

doomed. From the early days or the war it has been committed to a pro- gram essentially unneutral, un-Amer- ican and pro-German. The very word Socialism has acquired a hateful sig nificance for many thousands Of Americans. It has been so thorough ly discredited by the recent achieve ments in disloyalty of some of its professed advocates that TOT many years it will be enough to 'hoodoo" any proposal to which it is attached.
 We are aware that these are grave and controversial assertions, yet we print them here with the utmost con fidence that they are justified. For they are quoted direct from public statements made by Americans who have been active and eminent in So- cialist party leadership for years men who are still ardent believers in the doctrines and principles of the philosophy, and have left the organ ization only because it has been pros tituted to false cause.
 It is undeniable that Socialism has fallen under general suspicion and condemnation. It is coming to be re- garded as sort of international nuis- ance. Representing only minority of the peoples concerned in the war, it arrogates to itself the right to dic- tate the terms of peace in a conflict which it consistently misrepresents and condemns. More than that, in each of the countries battling for the life of democracy it obstructs national defense and incites seditious opposi- tion to measures indorsed by the po- pular will.
 The Socialist party in the United States is anti-American, anti-demo- cratic, ro-German. It is not even genuinely Socialistic. "It has ceased to be an efficient instrument for the advancement of Socialism," declares John Spargo, who for more than twenty-five years was leader in the cause and was long a member of the national executive committee. In re- pudiating the party he writes:
 "What is it but betrayal of the accepted principles of international Socialism to declare that the issue in this war lis no concern of the work CTS 2" What is it but denial of ma without which there can be no internationalism--to say that the only struggle which would justify the workers in taking up arms is the so- cial war; that, therefore, all struggles for national independence are unjust ifiable? What is it but a fundanment- al departure from the Socialism of Marx and Engels, of Liebknecht and Jaures, to urge equally upon Belgian and German workers to withdraw all support from their governments The Belgian government in defending it's territory merited the support of all Belgian Socialists, while the German government, engaged in a dastardly violation, merited the opposition of the German Socialists to Nthe end of their power. To contend otherwise is to set Socialism against the moral sense of mankind"
 Those Americans who have left tbs party--such able champions as Rus sell and Benson and Walling and Spargo-are called patriot Socialists by the anti-American majority. Those who enjoy the term mean it as 3 sheer; could there be more striking evidence that in this republic the So. cialist party, as now constituted, is an abnormal and offensive institution? Socialism is on trial before the world and especially before the judgment of the American people. It has been and may be again, beneficent forca in many ways, but. the test of the war for civilization has revealed that the system is corrupted by a false and malign doctrine. In the face of the dearest issue ever raised between democracy and autocracy, between justice and brute force, between right and wrong, Socialism is found serving the power that threatens the very ex- istence of civilization.
 If this is humanitarian, then Amer jeans want none of it; if this is thi basis of the program of Socialized world, then they will repudiate and everlastingly war upon it's monstrous fallacies.
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