On July 13, 1919, "The Call" published an editorial on Dr. Abraham Jacobi who had recently died. In the course of the editorial the following statement is made:
"Many honors have been showered upon Dr. Jacobi, but probably none will be more brilliant than the fact that he was one of the first to fearlessly discuss the question of birth control."
On July 15, 1919, there appeared in "The Call" the letter of the director of the birth control league similarly praising the late Dr.
Jacobi:
"...He did not wait till the baby was born, nor did he limit himself to what is ordinarily known as the prenatal care. He again and again proved his sincere belief that the only way to give babies a fair chance in this world is for the parents to know how to regulate the family birth rate."
"The Call" on July 14, 1919, advertised seven birth control meetings to be held during the week in New York City. Two days later, on July 16, it advertised an open air birth control rally.
In "Woman"s Sphere" of the magazine section of "The Call," July 27, 1919, there appears another three-column article favoring race suicide, ent.i.tled, "How Shall We Change the Law?" We shall quote briefly:
"Once it is no longer on the statute books that it is unlawful to impart information on the prevention of conception, then people may freely help each other to attain the precious information so urgently needed. The "limited" bill would give this right only to doctors and possibly to nurses and midwives....
"And while we would not be so unscientific as to deny for a moment that it would be better for every woman to get her advice and instruction concerning the use of contraceptive directly from a doctor, nevertheless it is impossible to overestimate the help men and women could give each other were the free exchange of information on methods of birth control legal instead of illegal....
"We feel quite sure that women will get infinitely more sympathetic help and advice from each other than they will ever get from any free clinic doctors."
"The Call" on July 26, 1919, announced that Anita C. Block, editress of "Woman"s Sphere" of the paper, had accepted nomination as a delegate to the August 30, 1919, convention of the Socialist Party in Chicago.
The September 2, 1919, issue of "The Call" states that it received the congratulations of the National Convention of the party then a.s.sembled at Chicago. There is, however, no record of any Socialist complaint against its continued race suicide propaganda. We can, therefore, draw our conclusions as to whether the Socialists approve of propagating race suicide.
Away down in Mexico there lives a certain Linn A. E. Gale, a young Socialist who fled to that country from the United States to escape conscription. He is a "brave" fellow, for not only did he shirk his duties as a soldier and flee from his native land to escape jail, but he publishes a Socialist magazine in Mexico City in which he seeks to deprive of life those who have as much right to it as he himself has; in other words he is carrying on a campaign for race suicide. We quote from the August, 1919, issue of his Socialist publication, known as "Gale"s Magazine":
"Mr. Felix F. Palavinci,
"Manager of El Universal,
"Mexico City, D. F. Mexico:
"Sir.--It is generally believed that you inspired the recent act of the health department of this city in having confiscated copies of a Spanish translation of ..."s famous book on how to practise birth control, and in sentencing me to the penitentiary when I refused to pay a $500 fine for publishing the said translation, which outrageous and malicious penalty was revoked by order of Mexico"s Secretary of State, Manuel Aguirre Berlanga.
"It is hard to believe that a man of your intelligence and supposed progressive ideas would be guilty of such a contemptible act. Yet facts are facts and the facts leave little room for doubt that you were to a large extent, if not almost entirely, responsible. The persistent series of bitter and abusive articles published by your newspaper, El Universal, against birth control and against me personally, const.i.tute convincing proof of your interest in preventing contraceptive information from being diffused among the Mexican people...."
In the same issue of Gale"s Mexican Socialist magazine there appears an article ent.i.tled, "First Congress of the National Socialist Party of Mexico." Speaking of the party platform to be adopted, Gale says in part:
"Another clause should put the party squarely on record as opposing the recent tyrannical and illegal effort of the Mexico City health department to prevent the dissemination of scientific birth control information among the poorer cla.s.ses."
Hysterical critics of the New York a.s.sembly have accused the Judiciary Committee of that body of accepting as evidence against the five suspended Socialist a.s.semblymen every conceivable reproach against the Socialist Party of America which could be sc.r.a.ped together out of its entire history. An inquiry to ascertain the qualifications of Socialists to make the laws of the land a.s.suredly would be justified in searching every possible source of information. But, as a matter of fact, the Judiciary Committee confined its investigation to evidence bearing directly upon the political and governmental aspects of the case.
Had the Judiciary Committee wished to bring out what would most surely and deeply shock the moral sense of the American people--the organized propagation of immorality with which the five suspended a.s.semblymen were linked--the facts given in this and the preceding chapter show that no difficulty would have been found in digging up overwhelming evidence.
The preceding chapter shows the propagation of free-love doctrines through all the publicity departments of the Socialist Party of America.
The present chapter shows that the "New York Call," the chief political organ of the New York State branch of the Socialist Party of America, with which the five suspended a.s.semblymen were most intimately linked, has for years carried on an unclean and indecent propaganda to teach all within its polluting reach to violate one of the laws of the State of New York.
CHAPTER XXII
SOCIALIST ORGANIZATION AND "BORING IN"
The avowed enemies of our const.i.tutional government have within recent years met with stupendous success in persuading the credulous to rely on their extravagant promises and to look forward to the golden era of Socialism with the same bright hopes that little children do to the candies and toys in kidnappers" homes.
If it be asked why the conspirators against our country, religion, family and everything dear to us are so successful in their efforts to undermine the foundations of a grand and glorious nation like our own, the answer is that their astounding progress is due, first, to an exceptional zeal in the propagation of their doctrines, and, secondly, to the deceptive and specious arguments used for gaining recruits.
The extraordinary activity that has secured for the Socialists of the United States by far the greater part of a million votes in several presidential elections, and the acceptance of their revolutionary doctrines by a much larger number of radicals, who for one reason or another do not vote the Marxian ticket, is manifested under many different aspects.
The Socialist Party of the United States in the early part of 1919 contained a little more than 100,000 dues-paying members, enrolled in approximately 7,000 locals and branches. The members of these locals and branches frequently meet to devise means for spreading the doctrines of Karl Marx and for overthrowing the government of our country. It is almost needless to add that their zeal would do great credit to men engaged in a truly n.o.ble cause. The American people would be astounded at their activity, should they carefully read, from the first to the last page, a single copy of one of the foremost Socialist papers such as the "New York Call." Socialists are working by the tens of thousands every day, from January 1st to December 31st, endeavoring to undermine our government. They have been doing this for years, and only recently have the American people begun to wake up. Waking up, however, will not suffice. We must act, act quickly and vigorously, before it is too late and before the forces of destruction become too numerous to control.
Supplementing the indoor work of the locals and branches, one cannot but notice the so-called soap-box orators, found on the street corners of nearly every city of importance in the country. The specialty of these men is to preach cla.s.s hatred and arouse dissatisfaction in their audiences with the present system of government and industry, and after this to a.s.sert, but never to prove, that Socialism is the sole remedy for the evils of our time.
It will be well to remember that the revolutionary Socialist Party, even as far back as 1913, published in the United States some 200 or more papers and periodicals in English, German, Bohemian, Polish, Jewish, Slovac, Slavonic, Danish, Italian, Finnish, French, Hungarian, Lettish, Norwegian, Croatian, Russian and Swedish. Attorney General Palmer made the number over 400 in 1919. Among the papers are two important dailies in English, "The Call" of New York City and the "Milwaukee Leader," two dailies[22] in German, two in Bohemian, one in Polish, and one in Yiddish, the "Forward," which in the spring of 1919 had a circulation of about 150,000. The "Appeal to Reason" was once the greatest Socialist weekly in the country having had, in the fall of 1912, a circulation of nearly a million copies. About the latter part of 1917 it became lukewarm in upholding Socialist anti-war principles. As a consequence it lost most of its circulation, and in March, 1920, was still looked upon contemptuously by most members of the Socialist Party.
By the vivid pictures which the revolutionary papers and periodicals draw of the abuses, corruptions and wrongs of our age, they succeed in blinding many American citizens to such an extent that the latter do not realize that they have been caught in the snares of a deceitful and dangerous enemy. Like the soap-box orators, these publications, besides criticising real present-day abuses, frequently lie and exaggerate, and either a.s.sert that in the Marxian state man would enjoy the choicest blessings under heaven, or else arrive at this same conclusion by arguing from false and unproven a.s.sertions as premises. The Socialist papers and periodicals, notwithstanding their beautifully painted pictures of the visionary state, should in no way incline us towards enlisting under the red flag. For to say nothing of their lies and exaggerations, neither their criticisms of actual present-day wrongs, their unproven a.s.sertions of the benefits of Socialism, nor their conclusions drawn from false and unfounded premises, show in any wise that the Marxian state would remedy existing evils and be a source of blessings to our people. Indeed, it would be just as foolish for us to trust in these revolutionary publications as it would be to confide in quacks who should ask us to purchase their so-called remedies merely because they had pointed out the harmful effects of a few drugs sold by a certain apothecary, or because they had claimed excellent healing properties for their own potions.
Not only do the Marxians exert great influence through the papers which they publish, but they help their cause to a great extent by articles published in non-Socialist papers and magazines of the United States.
Another way in which they have distinguished themselves for their activity is by the immense number of books, novels and pamphlets they have written, large numbers of which are in circulation throughout our country and are rapidly undermining the very foundations of our National Government. As these works are found in abundance and are available to all cla.s.ses of persons in public libraries, our country"s library system is supplying its enemies with well-stocked a.r.s.enals wherein weapons are kept for the use of those who will one day join the ranks of these national conspirators.
The leaflet campaign of the Socialists has long since reached alarming proportions. To show what progress has been made by the arch enemies of our country, two quotations are hereby presented to the reader. The first is a letter which appeared in "The Call," New York, March 31, 1919, and reads as follows:
"Editor of "The Call":
"We are living in the days of big events. The revolution in Russia has taught us some things that we ought to follow. One of them is the distribution of literature. In the past we have been climbing up four or five flights of stairs, standing on the street corners handing out leaflets, wearing out our strength and patience. I took a leaf out of the way the thing is done in Germany at present. All over the city there are any number of large window sills, at the top or very near the exits of the subway and elevated stations, the window sills of large stores. These window sills will hold a large amount of literature. Comrades going to work in the morning could very easily place the leaflets on them; it would take only a few seconds, the workers coming after them will pick them up. There is also, in the downtown districts, quite a few empty newsstands that are not used in the morning. These newsstands are generally at the very mouth of the subway stations. Then there are a number of benches in and on the stations that can be used. Our overcoat pockets will easily hold 100 or 200 pieces of literature. The time it takes to transfer the literature from our pockets to the window sills, newsstand or bench is about two seconds. I have been on the job for the last three weeks and the results have been astonishing.
What are not picked up by the workers are in a few hours read by a large number of those out of work. We have got to come to it in the very near future. The halls are closed to us; let"s get busy.
"Very cold, windy and rainy mornings are not very good ones. The one big drawback is to get some Comrade to write the leaflets. The leaflet I have used is one taken from "The Call," issued by local Kings, ent.i.tled "h.e.l.l in Russia." The way the workers grab it does your heart good.
"Yours for the education of the workers,
"Andrew B. DeMilt.
"P. S.--The above-named places are also good for that "Call" you have laying around the house."
In the April 24, 1919, edition of "The Call," under the caption, "Official Socialist News," and the subheading, "Queens" (County, New York), we read:
"100 Socialists Wanted
"One hundred are required tonight to aid in distributing Socialist literature throughout the Ridgewood section. Those who are able and willing to help should call this evening at the Queens County Labor Lyceum, Myrtle and Cypress Avenues."
The number of revolutionary books, pamphlets and papers on the market is really astounding, and all out of proportion to the number of Socialists, Communists and I. W. W."s who could possibly support them.
Money for their publication must be forthcoming from other interested parties of considerable means. In fact, Deputy State Attorney General Samuel A. Berger, in a statement published in the "New York Times" on October 18, 1919, declared that rich radicals of the metropolis were the means of support for all but two of the forty or fifty extremely radical publications which reach 3,000,000 readers from New York City as a center. The same public official added that he did not have the authority to make known the names of the well-to-do men and women engaged thus in financing the plot to overthrow our National Government.
Not only are the Reds rapidly undermining our inst.i.tutions by means of literature, but also through the forces of organized labor. Enough has already been said in a previous chapter relative to the I. W. W. itself; but it will not be out of place to comment on the revolutionary influence which the I. W. W. and many Socialist labor leaders as, for example, Maurer of Pennsylvania, are bringing to bear upon the American Federation of Labor.
The members of the I. W. W., as well as the Socialists and Communists throughout the country, have all along made every endeavor to fan the flames of cla.s.s hatred between rich and poor, the employer and employee.
They have, moreover, left nothing undone to promote discontent and strikes on as large a scale as possible with a view to finally ruining our present system of industry and the Government itself. Read any of the radical papers and you will be convinced that the "Red" rebels now place the greatest hopes for their rise to power in the strikes they are fomenting wherever and whenever an opportunity is offered.