The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1928-10-05
By H. NJ. WICKS.

Following the leadership OF Cne
European servants of imperialism
at the head of the second interna-
tional, Morris Hillquit, leader of the
socialist party of the United States,
discourses on the subject: "Marxism
Essentially Evolutionary" as his
contribution to the Current History
symposium on "Marxism Today"
Everything we have accused the
socialist party of during the past ten
years is openly admitted or implied
in the Hillquit article. His first
confession is that himself and his
comrades of the second international
have abandoned "the belief in the
ultimate necessity of a violent over
throw of the existing social order"
which he admits was can accepted
tenet of the early Marxism creed"
Constitutional Methods.
He anticipates what he calls the
victory of socialism as a triumph at
the polls under an election arranged
according to the constitutions of the
capitalist countries. Certainly no
MARKHAM ever held such absurd
views of the revolution. The in
evitable conclusion to be drawn from
Hillquit's position is that if, few
months after a presidential election
in which the bourgeois through the
manipulation of it's fraudulent
democratic machine had "won," a
revolutionary situation developed, it
would be impossible for the masses
to take action until after four years
had passed and the capitalist class
permitted the party of the working
class to go on the ballot and vote
them out of office. Hillquit seems
to be confirmed in the conviction
that an election under such condi-
tions would be held and that
the votes would be counted. How
ever, he is not certain what the
ruling class might do 'in the hour
of final victory" Upon this ques-
ton, says Hillquit, "the modern So
cialist movement refuses to spec
ulate."
1T carries on it's activities along
constitutional lines on the tacit as
sumption that it will be accorded
the full rights to which its polit-
ical strength will entitle it,"
Constitutionalism In Practice.
The high regard in which Hillquit
holds democratic forms and the
rights to which it's political
strength entitle," a political OPP
position was revealed at the Chicago
convention of the socialist party in
1919, when the left wing had a
majority of the delegates, elected by
constitutional methods as prescribed
in the rules and regulations of the
socialist party. On that occasion
Hillquit, Berger, Oneal g. Co. had
previously been overwhelmingly de.
feated by their membership and the
candidates of the left-wing elected to
take their places. Instead Of count
ing the ballots the national exec
utive committee of the socialist
party kept the result secret and at
the national convention called the
Chicago police force and the notori-
Gus "bomb squad" to violently evict
from the hall the duly elected dele.
gates so Hillquit & Co. could retain
control of the party that haC
repudiated them. 1t was this series
of acts, eliminating in the coopera.
ton with the police that resulted ir
the split in that party at that time
Does Mr.. Hillquit think that the
ruling class in control Of the i'm.
perialist government of the United
States will have any more regard
for their own laws and their owr
constitution than the socialist party
bureaucracy has for theirs?
The "early MARKHAM creed" hav.
ing, in the course of development