The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1927-01-21
a ~ :.
&ao. Sinclair
Copyright, 1925. BY Upton sinolair.l

To Bunny that seemed pathetic
thing about the Socialists. Take
man like Chain Menzies; he had
the long vision, the patience of the
elderly worker; with ages of toll
behind him, and ages ahead of him,
he did not shrink from the task of
building an organization. But he
was never allowed to finish the
building; the masters would knock
it. down overnight; they sent in
spies, they bribed the officials and
sowed discord, and in time Of
strikes their police and gunner
raided the offices, and jailed the
leaders, and drove the workers back
into slavery SO here was a curious
situation - the masters in their
blindness working as allies of the
Communists. Verne and his oil OPP
orators and the rest Of the open
shop crowd saying to the working
people, "No, don't listen to the So
cialists, they are a bunch of old
fogies. The Communists are the
fellows who can tell YOU"
One thing Bunny had felt certain
+ about-the workers ought to deter
( mine their tactics without bitter
I ness and internal strife. But now
he was beginning to doubt if ever
that vvoro Tpoccibla Tbo d;ep,,+o bn
/ tween the two factions was implicit
in the nature of the problem. If
you believed in a peaceable transit
ton, your course of action would be
one thing, and if you didn't so be-
lieve, it would be another thing.
If you thot you could persuade the
masses OF the voters, you would be
cautious and polite, and would
avoid the extremists, whose violent
ways would repel the voters. So
you would try to keep the Commu-
nists out OF your organization, and
of course that would make them
hate you, and denounce you as a
COMPROMISED and class collabora-
tor, and insist that you were in the
pay of the bosses, who hired you to
keep the workers under their yoke.
And then the Socialists would
counter with the same charge of
bribery. Chain Menzies never fail
ed to declare that some of the Com
munists were secret agents paid by
the bosses to split the movement,
and expose ii to raids by the police.
Bunny, of course, knew, from talk
he heard among his fathers associ-
ates, that these big business men
had elaborate secret agencies for
the disrupting of the labor move
ment. And these agencies would
work either way; they would hire
old line leaders to sell out the work
ers, calling off strikes, or calling
premature strikes that couldn't
win; or they would send in spies to
pose as reds, and split the organ
izations and tempt the leaders into
crime. Incredible as it might seem,
the government secret service, UNI
der that great patriot, Barney
Brockway, was up to the neck in
such work. At the trial of one
group of Communists the federal
judge presiding remarked that ap-
parently the whole direction of the
Communist Party was in the hands
of the United States government.
aatse as TX.
Bunny was always having the
beautiful dream that his friends
were going to be friends with one
another. Now he took Rachel to
call on Paul and Ruth; and he liked
them so, and they must share his
feelings. But alas, they didn't seem
to- Both sides were reserved, and
avoided talking politics as carefully
as if they had been visiting at the
monastery. But Bunny wanted them
to talk politics, because of his own
inner debate, and he felt that they
were members of the working class,
while he was only an outsider. Per
haps one might convert the other;
but which one he wanted to be the
converter, and which the converted,
it would have been hard for him to
say. ~-
Bunny questioned Paul, and learn
ed that he had given up his car
pentry job-the Workers Party was
paying him small salary to give
all his time to organizing. Paul had
met Joe and Ikey Menzies, the
young cleft wingers"; and Bunny
told about how he and Rachel had
helped to put Ben Skutt out Of bust
ness at the trial. How he wished
the Socialists and the Communists
might work together like that, In
stead of making things easier for
the enemy.
ITO no continuedl