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Kuhn: Report of the SLP National Executive Committee, June 1900. 1 Report of the National Executive Committee to the 10th National Convention of the SLP: Delivered June 2-3, 1900, by National Secretary Henry Kuhn. First published in Proceedings of theTenth National Convention of the Socialist Labor Party, held in New York City, June 2 to June 8, 1900. (New York: New York Labor News Co., 1901), pp. 9-69. Introductory. were naturally swayed by the traditions of the movements they had been engaged in on the other side of the Atlantic, Never before has a National Convention of the So- the work was uphill and progress slow. The Party had just cialist Labor Party met under circumstances so auspicious come fresh from an internal struggle, which, by retrospec- as those that attend this national gathering of the Party’s tion and in the light of subsequent events, appears like a representatives. Of the three National Conventions that have little family affair, both in its scope and in regard to the taken place within the last eight years, each marks a distinct questions involved. Political action was but sporadic. It was epoch in the Party’s development. a time when we had just gotten out of the habit of deciding The one of 1893 truly reflected its then composi- each year whether to go into the election or not. Men of tion. With a membership chiefly centered in a few large English speech were as scarce in the Party as hen’s teeth; cities, and principally composed of men of foreign birth and of the few there were, many were not much good, if and habits of thought, who, in trying to shape its course this paradox be permitted. The ’93 convention marked the close of that epoch, for during the next three years, up to the convention of 1896, there was considerable of a transformation. The Party waxed stronger, the work of agitation was more intense, and organization went on at a more lively gait, as has been amply set forth in the report rendered to the convention. Action at the polls became a matter of course, whenever there was enough organization to conduct a campaign. The composition of the organization changed; sections were formed of English-speaking workingmen; and when, in 1896, the convention met in New York City, that gathering of delegates marked and reflected a state of affairs utterly different from that of 1893. Such was the change in the makeup of the Party’s membership that it had become pos- sible to proclaim and to sustain the aggressive policy inau- gurated by the ’96 convention, which policy found its most marked expression in the endorsement of the Socialist Trade & Labor Alliance, an endorsement equivalent to a declara- tion of war to the knife to the labor fakir, this product pe- culiar to American political conditions, where the capitalist class — dependent upon the votes of the workers for its political supremacy, wherewith to buttress its economic cita- del — is compelled to watch every movement of the work- ing class and to try and control them all through its agents, the labor fakirs. It stands to reason that such a complete breaking away from the traditions of the past was necessarily attended with 1 2 Kuhn: Report of the SLP National Executive Committee, June 1900. considerable friction, the more so when in the practical and torn up by the roots was a sort of legacy left over from application of that aggressive policy, the militants stacked the ’96 convention. That convention had to deal with a St. up against the material interests that clustered around the Louis publication, Labor, a vicious sheet, an aspirant for fakir-led pure and simple trade unions. Such was the power the position of national official organ, which aspirations brought to bear by the logic of the situation, and the posi- were rudely squelched by the ’96 convention. Around this tion taken was to such an extent in accord with a correct sheet had gathered a few men who were in the SLP for the interpretation of the theory of the class struggle as applied sake of the injury they could do it, and who, with the aid of by the light of American conditions, that what opposition this publication, had succeeded in thoroughly poisoning there could be found among the delegates to the conven- the St. Louis Section. But the logic of their very position tion was completely overwhelmed, for when after an ex- sooner or later drives such men into an attitude that en- haustive debate, lasting several days, the vote was taken on ables the Party to take hold of and expel them. In January, the resolution embodying the new policy, 71 out of 78 del- 1897, the St. Louis Section readmitted to membership a egates voted aye, only 6 votes being cast against, while one man named Priesterbach who in 1896 had left the Party of abstained from voting. The six, it may be said en passant, “work” for Bryan and for silver, possibly also for some green- were equally divided between two categories of members backs. Objection was raised by the loyal members and the that played their little role later on, there being just three vote stood 28 to 24, a majority of only four in favor of pure and simplers and three members of the small middle admittance, much less than the two-third majority de- class, not one of whom is in the Party today. But from that manded by the constitution when objections are raised. The time on and as soon as these hostile elements got home, section, for all that, insisted that Priesterbach was regularly back under the sway of middle class and pure and simple admitted and refused to abide by the constitution. Upon interests, they at once began to “bore from within,” and set receipt of a petition signed by a number of loyal members, themselves the task of rendering nugatory and, if possible, vhe NEC suspended and reorganized that section. The men overthrow the action of the convention which was, more- who had thus continually opposed and finally openly defied over, overwhelmingly sustained by the general vote of the the SLP, naturally and speedily gravitated towards the Debs Party. Overt and covert resistance, mostly the latter, was Democracy. Fortunately, they are there yet. offered to retard, obstruct, and prevent the practical appli- cation of the Party policy, until finally, after a chain of re- The Jewish Press Conflict. markable events which we shall, in brief outline, sketch in this report, a carefully laid, but clumsily executed conspiracy This difficulty also existed in embryo at the time of culminated in the midnight attempt of July 10, 1899, to the last convention. A set of international rolling stones, seize the Socialist Labor Party, its archives, and its press and naturally of anarchistic proclivities, to whom the Party was force it back into its old, wisely abandoned rut — but an object to practice their diverse notions on, had for Kangarooism, the latest and withal the most grotesque freak- some time kept up a constant turmoil. A board of arbitra- phenomenon of the freakish side of American politics, had tion, the members of which were selected by the contend- been born. ing factions themselves, had been appointed by the NEC It may be put down as an axiom that the history of to settle the dispute, which consisted of nothing but a con- the Party during the past four years, the period covered by test for control. Both sides solemnly promised to abide by this report, is in the main the history of the contests, both the decision, which promise was promptly broken by the local and national, that revolved around the Party policy as side against which the decision went. The ’96 convention laid down by the ’96 convention and faithfully carried out, sought to keep this trouble out of the party organization by as far as lay in their power, by the successive National Ex- severing all connection with the Jewish press, but subse- ecutive Committees and by the Party organs. It was but quent experience showed that this theory did not work at natural that these should be most bitterly assailed and de- all. The opposition at once organized so-called “Press nounced; and the “abusive language” heaped upon both by Clubs,” which organizations speedily developed into cau- freak and fakir in and outside the Party, was a sure indica- cuses to control and determine beforehand every action of tion that we were moving along correct lines, the correct the SLP Assembly District organizations in the Jewish quar- lines laid down by the convention of ’96. ter. Naturally, these men finally drifted into an attitude of open rebellion against the Party, and the trouble reached Successive Housecleanings. an acute stage after a general vote, called for by the NEC, had again placed the press under Party control. The difficulty The first nest of treason that had to be dealt with was soon past mending and it was then ended with a firm Kuhn: Report of the SLP National Executive Committee, June 1900. 3 hand. Section New York proceeded to suspend ad to at once they complacently thought that Providence had reserved reorganize the Fourth, Eighth, and Twelfth Assembly Dis- for them, and for them only. tricts, keeping a strict watch on those who were admitted And let no one believe that this picture is overdrawn. and carefully sifting the material. The disturbing element, It has been taken from life. A correct understanding of this suddenly finding itself on the outside, also naturally gravi- peculiar feature is indispensable to correctly size up much tated toward the Debs Democracy and the Debs Democ- of what there is of and in Kangarooism.

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