The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1924-05-23
Strategy or Stratagem?

OtrGtegy or OtrGtGgem!
The reply of the executive secretary of the So
cialist Party to the request addressed it by the
Workers Party for its severing all relations with
the Cleveland Conference for Progressive Political
Action and joining hands with the Farmer-Labor
Minnesota Convention of June 17th purports to
inform the reader that 'whiIe the National Office
of the Socialist Party has had indirect information
of the st. Paul convention, it has had no official
communication whatever respecting it."
'"Then the answer goes on to ask whether the
Workers Party has "the authority to invite our
participation and, if so, is the letter which you
have submitted to be considered as formal invita-
tion?'
The above points indicate the use of the poorest
sort of strategy or the resort to unvarnshed stra
tagem by the Socialist Party in negotiations over
a question which involves the cardinal interests
of millions of workers and farmers The call of
the committee charged with organizing the June
18th farmer-labor convention, call addressed to
every labor and farmer organization in the coun-
try, given the widest possible publicity in the
general press. In attempting to misrepresent the
St Paul convention and its detectives, the enemies
of the working and farming masses gave it some
of the publicity it needs.
The Socialist Party cannot seriously ask us to
believe that the call which was sent to many hun
dreds of labor and farmers organizations thruout
the country did not reach it. Certainly the Social
list Party has had ample opportunity to get the
FarmerLabor Minnesota convention call Surely
the Socialist Party does not expect the workers
and farmers of the country to accept that as the
reason for its having failed to act up to this mo-
ment on this momentOus question put to the work
ing and farming classes by the conditions at hand.
The fact of the matter is that the Socialist
Party has kept watchful eye on and has been in
strict touch with all the developments eliminating
in the issuance of the St Paul call.
But from here we go to an even worse attempt
on the part of the Socialist Party. The question
to the Workers Party having right to issue in
vitations to the farmer labor convention is either
wretched strategy that type of stratagem so oft
employed by the high-priced corporation lawyers
in expensive court litigation.
The Socialist Party has always known that the
Workers Party never had and does not have the
power to issue such invitations The Socialist Party
has always known that a special committee con-
sistng of the delegated representatives of various
laborfarmer groups having mass following con,
siderably in excess of the its own was the only
body authorized to extend such invitations. This
inference on the part of the Socialist Party APP
pears to carry with it rebuke to the St Paul con.
vention because Of the fact that the Workers (Com
munist) Party will be represented there 1t is
precisely such arguments that the open-shoppers,
the sworn enemies of the working class are making
today against the Minnesota Farmer Labor Move
ment and against the discontinued agrarian masses
of the Northwest.
Indeed the task of commissioning, red bait
ing is not the best task that an organization an
nouncing its working class character, can assume
for itself, particularly at this hour when every
ounce Of energy and effort should be invested in
uniting the workingmen and poor farmers into a
virile national class farmer-labor party.