Page:Proletarian and Petit-Bourgeois (1912?).pdf/36

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34
PROLETARIAN AND PETIT-BOURGEOIS

of a successful parliamentary party, the winning of the government, the filling of offices and the like. I am told that the leaders of the coalition movement have already picked out their prime minister against the day when they shall carry the country and be in. In the meantime they too must play this game carefully, being constantly on their guard against doing anything that would alarm or antagonize the bourgeoisie and sacred businesses and telling the workers to wait until we get in. I do not see that all this relieves the situation in Whitechapel or that any fewer men and women live in misery because we have a prospect of getting in.

Furthermore, to speak quite frankly, I do not see where there is a particle of inspiration for Americans in any of these English speaking countries. So far as I can make out the whole of mankind that dwells under the British flag is more or less mad about political success, parliament and getting in. They say in New Zealand that the government can make a conservative of any radical, if he threatens to become dangerous, by giving him some tin-horn honor or a place in the upper chamber. In England we have seen too often that the same kind of influences can silence a radical by inviting him to the king's garden party or allowing him to shake hands with a lord. I do not believe we have anything to learn from these countries except what to avoid. And I do not know why we should not look for an American ideal in Socialism that will listen to no compromise, play no games in politics, care nothing for temporary success at the polls, seek to elect no particular individual to any office, never lower the standard, look beyond the skirmishes of the day, and following unhesitatingly and confidently the one ideal of the emancipation of the working class as the only object to which it will pay any attention.

Socialism or nothing. If this cause of Socialism is worth believing in it is worth following to the end without compromise. Either it is the greatest boon, incom-