The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1930-10-20
By ALEXANDER TRACHTENBERG.


By ALEXANDER TRACHTENBERG.
Communist Candidate in the 18th Congressional
District, Ne10 York.
On many occasions Debs was in open con-
flict with the S. P. leadership. Although con-
sidered as such, Debs really was never the
political leader of the party, He represented
perhaps the greatest popularity in the Amer
lean socialist mavement. Considered by the
rank and file as the personification of the
fighting spirit of socialism and looked upon
by the outside world as the outstanding per-
sonaity in the American socialist movement,
Debs never sat on the executive committee of
the party, except for the last two or three
years of his life, when he was brought in chief
ly for window dressing, never was sent as
delegate to a national convention or an inter
national congress, never participated in the
councils of the party to formulate policies and
work out tactics. The leadership of the S.
P. studiousy avoided bringing Debs into the
organization. He was kept on the platform
where his eloquence was capitalized, or he
was allowed to write mainly in fugitive and
privately owned socialist journals rather than
in the official organs of the party.
The S. P. leadership feared Debs' revolu-
tionary attitude on the burning questions
which agitated the membership of the party.
They knew his uncompromising stand on many
questions and they preferred not to have any
quarrels with him. He spoke his mind from
time to time, but being organizationally re-
moved from the membership he could not ex-
ercse the influence over them which otherwise
would have been his.
Debs should have never permitted himself
to be placed in such position by the S. P.
leaders. His place was among the proletarian
H.
formist leaders and guiding the membership
in his own spirit of militancy. He should have
been the political leader of the party instead
of letting that leadership fall into the hands
of lawyers and preachers.
During the years 1902 the S. P. grew in
membership, reaching the highest number in
its history lover 100000. Debs saw the en-
trance of elements into the party who were
joining it not as a revolutionary socialist party
but as a third bourgeois party. While in other
countries there were liberal parties which pet
ty-bourgeois elements disillusioned with con-
sentative parties could join, America had two
equally reactionary parties from which these
elements sought to escape. The S. P. was the
only available political home for all those who
favored reforms which the two main parties
opposed Advocates of womans suffrage, d.
rect election of senators, abolition of child la
ownership and agrarian reforms, Joined the
socialist party through which they hoped to
promote these reforms, without bothering
about the ultimate aims which were written
into the program of the party. In this man.
ner the proletarian and revolutionary sections
in the party were permeated by altogether
alien elements.
With his revolutionary instinct Debs felt
the danger to the socialist party lurking in the
admission of such elements. These were the
years of "trust busting" campaigns, of muck
raking and the offering of all sorts of panaceas
against the encroachment of corporate wealth.
The petty bourgeoisie was beginning to feel
the qualification of American capital and it
was looking to reforms to help it out Of the
difficulty. These elements were finding their
way into the socialist party, and the we'll
known among them, particularly the writers
and journalists, were Immediately acclaimed as
leaders. Charles Edward Russell, Allen Ben
son, and their like became overnight, spokes-
men of the party. These were the forerun-
ners Of the Haywood Brouns of today. They
were elected to executive committees and des-
ignated as standard bearers in elections.
Writing in 1911 under the title Danger
Ahead" Debs warned the party against the
degeneration which was sure to set in as
result of the admixture of elements entirely
foreign to its program and its aims. He wrote:
ut (the S. P.) may become permeated and
corrupted Nth the spirit of bourgeois reform
to an estent that will practically destroy its
piriIity and efficiency as q revolutionary or
gunization The a0orking class character
and the revolutionary character of the S. P.
are of first Importance. All the Ootes of the
people Mould do us no good If aoe cease to be
revolutionary party" Qtalics mine-A.To
Lincoln Steffins, the eminent journalist,
once interviewed Debs during his presidential
campaign in 1908 in the presence of Vivtor
Berger, one of the real bosses of the S. P. He
was asking many questions and Debs was
replying to them much to the discomfort of
Berger who claimed to have been the ideologi-
cal father of Debs Steffins wanted to know
how Debs proposed to deal with the trusts.
"Would you pay for or just take Them" asked
Steffens. "Take them," came the quick and
sure reply of the revolutionist Debs. "No,
you wouldn't" cried the reformist Berger, mot
if / was there, and l answer that we would
offer to pay" Debs would confiscdte the cap
italist trusts he would fight his aoay to So
cialsm. Berger would negotiate he would
pay his sody. What chasm between the two
attitudes! One is that of militant fighter,
the other, that of petty bourgeois reformer!
To many in the socialist party the essence
of socialist was public ownership of public
utilities Today it is one of the central re-
forms advocated by the S. P. To these advo-
Gates Debs addressed himself in his charac-
teristic manner Government ownership of
public utilities means nothing Tread; is of no
honaf;t-A II \ for labor 1lnder CAN'T a1ist own