New-York tribune., 1919-05-19
Time for Revolution Near,
Young Radicals Are Told
M, Nj. Lourens Urges ''Ypsel'' Circle Not to Put
Off Action; Says Scott Nearing and ''The Calf
Are Out of Date; Condemns Patriotism

"Uncompromising, MARKHAM, revolu-
tionary."
Slowly and emphatically this phrase
was enunciated over and over again
before sCircle No. 1 Of the Young
Peoples Socialist League at a meeting
at 1870 Henry Street on Saturday night.
The speaker, M. M. Lourens. former di-
rector of the Manhattan Young Peo-
pies Socialist League, was impressing
upon his youthful audience the kind of
Socialism to which they should devote
themselves. 1t seemed he wanted to
burn the words upon their minds
The teachings of Scott Nearing and
Algernon Lee, and of "The Revolution
ary Age" "The New Republic" "The
Communist" and, in lesser degree, "The
Call" and "The Nation" were out of
date. They were doing more harm
to the Socialist cause, said Mr.. Lour-
ems, than the preaching of The Trib-
une, "The Times" or "The Sun"
The meeting was held behind locked
doors. 1t was an enthusiastic gather
ing of young people, much nosier and
less disciplined than the juniors in the
Socialist Sunday Schools One of their
number conducted while they sang
songs about the "soldier who had lost
Ills leg for liberty and now was selling
shoe laces in the street, and that's
what he got for going to fight" A new
song entitled "Well Stick by Great
Debs to the End" was introduced for
the first time. The jingling rhymes
for the most part were adapted to
Moody and Sankey tunes. Lets have
Deutschland iiber Alles,'" shouted one
of the "Yipsels" when the Russian ma
tional hymn was proposed.
/ Speedy Action Urged
1t was a sugarcoatcd pill that Mr..
Lourens held out to a receptive audi
ence. Speedy revolutionary action,
with due regard to the care Of ones
own skin, was the undcrcurrent Of his
teaching. When one of the "Yipsels"
vcntured to demonstrate with him for
| his statements about Samuel Gompers
and the American Federation of Labor,
and spoke of the wisdom of "going
Slow" he was told that he was talking
a dead language. "Going slow" had
been the guiding principle of the party
for too long. 1t was procedure fatal
to it's interests.
Mr.. Lourens is Dutch. He has drunk
deep at the fountain of German phi
losophy and German economies. But
he has not confined his study to Ger
man sources. He shows an amazing
knowledge of the history of class strug-
gle in all lands. He is out for plain,
dynamic action. Karl Marx is his
text book and his leader. He looks to
the "Yipsels" as the heralds of the new
age in socialism. The period between
1874 and 1914 he terms the "period of
legality" Now the period of revolu-
ton has dawncd. The. old forces are
too slow to act; too heavily numbered
with their own machinery; too close
to the "ruling classes" in the monopoly
OF power, which they themselves exert.
Germany Ahead of America
The teachings of Mr.. Lourens to the
"Yipscls" were in effect as follows
"You are the young, the strong, the
mighty. The race is yours. You must
not delay, nor must you make mistakes
1t takes the worker fifty years to pay
for his mistakes. Remember this.
Germany gives its labor agitators
several months in prison; France and
Britain d year or two; but democ ratio
American gives them FIVE, ten, twenty
thirty years.
"The young peoples Socialist
leagues, like the senior Socialist or
CARNATIONS, are too much bound up
in red tape and machinery. At your
meetings you pass so many motions
that you have no time for real motion
DO away with your cumbersome ma
chinery. At present in the Socialist
party one man is singled out and set
up as Il second Jesus Christ. Let every
man be leader. Gather the momen.
tum Of the crowd and act. There is
not Socialist school in the country
to-day that is tecahing uncompromis-
ing, MARKHAM, revolutionary socialism
You must study it, but not so hard
that you do not have time for action. u
1--WE are now reaching the final stage
In class struggle, and as 'Yipse!s' you
should count yourselves lucky to BIZ
living in such times and to have {
share in the victory which some o,
you will live to see. Concentrate al
Aunvtrtoo ha r.~t,