The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1927-05-17
BY II. NJ. WICKs

and former ornament of the Socialist
party, John Spargo, slimily creeps
over the pages of the reptile press,
leaving behind trial of venom
against the working class, the class
that for years enabled him to exist
and satisfy his exaggerated ego by
strutting as a leader.
This time Spargo appears as the
defender of that other apostate, 5lus-
solini. In laudatory article appear
ing in the Sunday book review section
of the New York Times, this mounte-
bank, under pretext Of reviewing a
book titled, "Italy and Facismo," by
Luigo Sturzo, formerly a supporter
but now an exile from the wrath of
fascism, INDUCES in the most debasing
praise of the blood-streaked monster,
Mussolini, that has yet appeared in
print in any language.
| N praising Mussolini, Spargo en-
4 deavors to traduce Lenin. He says:
what Lenin represented in the lead
ership of the destructive forces that
we're unleashed in Europe, Mussolini
became in the leadership of the con-
serving and constructive forces"
Thus the bloody despot who turned
Italy into shambles, with the sew
ers Overlooking with the blood of the
flower of the working class and who
maintains his power by means of
whole provocation and organized as
sassination against every element in
society except the powerful capital
lists whom he serves and the black
guard mercenaries who make up his
armed forces, is eulogized by Spargo
as a constructive force. This butcher
who boasts that he has trampled I'M
derfoot what few liberties the Italian
people once enjoyed, this despot
whose system of organized terror
rests like pail upon all Italy and
who INDUCES in ludicrous bombast
about the glory of the Caesars is said
by Spargo to have attained such emil
nence that none can be said to rival
him."
As opposed to his picture of Mus
solini, Spargo, places Lenin, who, as
the leader of the Bolshevist Party,
rescued the workers and peasants Of
Russia from their age-long thralldom
and brought hundreds of thousands,
nay millions, of them into active audi
bic political life and inaugurated
system of government that is a
thousand times more democratic than
the most democratic capitalist gov
eminent on the face of the earth. This
man, the greatest insurrectionist who
ever wrote his name on history's
pages. the most far-seeing and daring
Iiheratnr of oil time, the man whose
sf f ~ name am, T. the symbol of the epoch
tenn humanity will ever know, and
who, with infinite pains and profound
of the problem con-
him began to build socialism
cut of the ruin left in Russia by the
war and the counter-revolution, is
traduced by the miserable scribbler,
Spargo.
But to be reviled by defender of
and apologist for Mussolini is there
by to be honored. Lenin's name is
written so large in the history of man
kind that no Spargo can ever detract
from it or add to it. Regardless of
the oceans Of ink that may be spilled
in publishing the diatribes of Spargo
and his ilk history will record the fact
that Lenin was the leader OF the
forces that first broke through
the rotten and decaying capt.
talist structure and unleashed the
forces that will enable society to rise
to new and unreasonable heights,
while Mussolini will be recalled only
as a lackey of capitalism, of reaction,
who tried to stem the tide of history
and make slavery for humanity eter-
nal.
IRON socialism to fascism, is the
L road travelled by Spargo. A road
that has no retreat, the logical, in
evitable goal of those who, like Spar
go, started on the inclined plane of
apostacy by first defaming the revo-
lutionary elements of the working
class and rapidly sank to the lowest
depths Of which human depravity can
descend. Of all the renegades pro-
duced by the Socialist party only one
other has plumbed the depths with
Spargo-that worthy is Frank Bohn,
one-time leading figure in the revolu-
tionary movement who is also con-
tributor to the columns of the New
York Times.
But many other assailants Of the
militant working class are rapidly
travelling that road Sigman, Oneal,
Hillquit, former associates Of Spargo,
TO mention only few, will soon join
him. Still denouncing fascism in
Italy, they practice it in action
against the workers Of the United
States. Their theory will soon con-
form to their action.
ITO the Marxists Of the United