Reds in America - Richard M. Whitney




Schools and Colleges

"Give us one generation of small children to train to manhood and womanhood and we will set up the Bolshevist form of the Soviet Government."

This statement, made in 1919 by Mrs. Marion E. Sproul, a Boston school teacher, has become the guiding light of the Communist party of America, has been adopted officially as a slogan of the party, and is being used throughout the United States by the secret, illegal organization for the purpose of alienating the American youth from the precepts of this country and the teachings of a century and a half of democratic government. Public and private schools, colleges and universities are the feeding ground of the "intellectual Communists" and the agents of the party have been deliberately "planted" in the educational institutions of the United States for the purpose of making converts of the young. Even in grammar schools of the larger cities of the country the children have "nuclei" of Communism frequently encouraged by radical-thinking teachers.

Dr. William B. Bizzeil, president of the Texas Agricultural and Mechanical College told the Dallas County Teachers' Institute in 1922 that "Red radicalism is stalking over the prairies of Texas," little knowing that at that instant the Communists were supporting students in his own and other colleges of that State. The Soviet Government of Moscow paid the expenses of sixty-five Russian students in a single college in the United States—and their first duty is to the Communist International which specifically provides that they shall make use of every opportunity to make converts of as many of their associates as possible. One of the chief features of the Communist party's program in the United States is to send promising young men and women to the institutions of higher education to fit them for future work in the Red movement aimed at the destruction by violence of the Government of the United States and the substitution for it of a dictatorship of the proletariat, subordinate to the Moscow regime.

Radicalism in colleges is nothing new. It has existed since such institutions have been known. It has always taken one form or another, usually on religious lines, for adolescence likes to believe that its mind is untrammeled by conventions. For generations educators have been familiar with that period of mental revolt in the college youth which made him proclaim himself an atheist, or an agnostic—some kind of a "free-thinker." It is a stage that has been so common as not to be alarming. For when college days passed and the youth emerged into a sane, practical world which is not particularly interested in religious technique as long as right living governs the people of the earth, this period passed and the college-bred youth took his proper place. But today, when the Communism-fed student leaves college he does not step out into a sane world, but into the ranks of the Communist movement which is watching him and waiting for his arrival to assign him to definite work for the propagation of the work of the party.

Aside from the recognized schools and colleges every city now has Communist classes, attendance upon which is compulsory on the part even of little children, who are forced by law to attend public school a certain numbers of hours each day. These classes usually meet at night and all that is taught is Communism. Attendance is usually all the "home work" the children have to do. Active Communists, frequently college graduates, conduct them. There is a bit of fun mixed with these studies, so that, for the youngsters, the work will not become irksome. Ridicule is heaped upon religion, home ties, and especially upon the Government, in the form of Communist songs which are taught the children. A sample of such songs will show the nature of all of them. A typical verse reads:

A patriotic churchman in his den, in his den,

A-fishing after gold and men—Red flag comes along,

His holiness he cocks his eye, lets out a snort, and then, Oh my!

Golly, golly, what a roar! Blood and gore! How he tore!

Golly, golly, how he swore, at the Crimson Rag!

Another song taught the children concludes with the verses:

I've got rebellion in my heart,

It's bred in flesh and bone.

A rebel I will be

As long as men shall men exploit

On either side the sea.

While right upon the scaffold lies,

And wrong upon the throne,

I'll be a blooming rebel, sir,

A rebel to the bone.

The drift from liberalism to radicalism and finally to Communism is gradual and easy. Many college professors, who were liberal in their views and teachings became radicals almost without it being known, and some of them, doubtless, without knowing it themselves. Others, however, and of this group must be listed some of the leading "liberal" lights of the greatest universities in the country, knowingly preach and teach radicalism which is seized upon by the Communists for ammunition with which to further their ends. Men like Felix Frankfurter and Zacharia Chaffee, of Harvard; Frederick Wells Williams and Max Solomon Mandell, of Yale; and many others in different schools and colleges throughout the country—these men are too wise not to know that their words, publicly uttered and even used in class-rooms, are, to put it conservatively, decidedly encouraging to the Communists. It is of men like these that James H. Collins wrote in the Saturday Evening Post:

"The spread of radicalism in our colleges is perhaps most marked of all. The cartoon type of radical, with his whiskers and bomb, has a very limited field of activity—any policeman would arrest him on sight. The college radical, on the contrary, can move in every circle. It is not easy to explain him. Sometimes he is a self-seeker and loves notoriety. Again, his hostility to society is based on envy. Ambitious but lacking energy, he hates people who succeed through energy and sours on life. Some of this intellectual radicalism is attributed to the materialism of the age. Socialism and similar philosophies being based on the material concept of history. Other observers charge it up to slipshod teaching of history and economics, students lacking the solid grounding that would put superficial radical theories in proper perspective. . . .

"The teachings of a radical college professor may have great influence. In one college recently some of the students made a demonstration when a radical professor was dropped from the faculty. . . . Never having worked with his hands, nor mingled with wage earners, nor been creative or constructive in any way himself, the intellectual radical sees nothing difficult in the revolutionary program of first tearing everything down and then building from the ground up, entirely new."

In a Los Angeles High School one of the teachers constantly taught hatred of capital and took the side of labor in a definite attempt to instill in the minds of her pupils the propriety of such hatred. Finally, when she openly declared that the United States was behind Russia, Germany and Italy as progressive countries, one of the pupils publicly protested, because, as he pointed out, "there is revolution or civil war in each of these countries." But that teacher continued for some time after this incident expounding her theories to the youth under her charge.

The spreading of propaganda in rural districts has been a subject of study by the Communists since the organization of the party. In certain parts of the country where there are colonies of foreigners gathered under Communistic influence radical plays are put on 'in school houses by amateur, home-talent performers. Occasionally trouble arises when a patriotic school teacher discovers that meetings of what had been thought to be clubs, or societies for social intercourse, were in reality Communist meetings under the direction of the Third International through the Communist party of America. One such incident may be cited, as an example.

A colony of Finns, thirty-three families in all, of whom only three families were American citizens, is located about twelve miles north of Deer River, Minn. The company which located this colony confined its efforts entirely to Finns and made particularly attractive offers to the colonists. Fifty dollars secured a farm for each family and subsequent payments were to be nominal. The thirty non-American families are Communists and they undertook to give a play at the rural schoolhouse for the benefit of the Friends of Soviet Russia. The teacher, Mrs. G. M. Smith, learned of the nature of the organization, called the Suoma Raatagen Club, under the auspices of which the play was to be given. She discovered that the play was simply Red radical propaganda and refused to assent to the use of the schoolhouse for that purpose; but the Finns over-rode her by getting permission from the county school superintendent. Mrs. Smith attended the entertainment and forcibly prevented the giving of the Red play or taking up a collection for the Friends of Soviet Russia. Single-handed she drove them from the schoolhouse when they began to shout, "We are Reds! We are Bolsheviks!"

The Communists are constantly grooming some of their shining stars for positions in the faculties of our colleges. The pay of the teachers in all parts of the country, both in public and private institutions, is so small that many able men are unable to accept positions as teachers. But the small salary is no deterrent to the Communist, or the radical of any stripe, who joyfully accepts places where he may elaborate his views and teach real radicalism to the impressionable youth in his classes. His salary is frequently supplemented by funds from the Communist treasury, sometimes camouflaged under the cloak of "contributions" as a testimonial to his clear thinking as expressed in his lectures.

The dissemination of radical, or as they term it, liberal propaganda in institutions of learning, particularly in universities and women's colleges, has been a pet scheme of the radicals and their friends for years. There is hardly any university of size in the country today which does not have at least a branch of the National Student Forum, or its predecessor, the Intercollegiate Liberal League, or the League for Industrial Democracy. These are direct descendants of the Intercollegiate Socialist League which went out of existence when "Socialism" became too mild a term to satisfy the radical tendencies of many members. The frequent changes in name are characteristic of all organizations affiliated with the Communists, who alter their names and addresses in an effort to hoodwink the authorities, and fool the public, a proceeding in strict accord with the orders of Nicolai Lenin. The Intercollegiate Liberal League was born at Harvard, April 2, 1921, and it was a result of the activities of the Socialist and later the Liberal League that developed the "modern intellectuals," or as they are better known, the "parlor Bolsheviki," There is so much in the teaching of radicalism that appeals to the mental processes which invariably accompany certain periods in the life of every student, that it is not surprising that the Communist party, as a business proposition, and the many inconspicuous individuals who are satisfied that they should be leaders and have no better means of attaining notoriety, have grasped the opportunities offered, as the Socialists did before them. Many are really capitalists, while others are plain parasites.

It is safe to say that no institution of learning in the country has been so thoroughly saturated with the "liberal" activity as Harvard University. This institution has stimulated such a spirit of democracy among the students of the past generation that the radicals have had a more fertile field in which to work at Harvard than in a less liberal establishment. The professors themselves have not been inactive in the encouragement of the movement, and the names of several of them appear prominently in the roster roll of American liberals and are known in the "illegal" circles of the Communist party of America. These professors, as well as the professors of many other colleges, number known Communists among their personal friends, and are frequently found speaking from the same platform even with members of the Central Executive Committee of the Communist party of America. It is impossible that men of their intelligence should not know that they are advocating what the Communist party desires but cannot use in public propaganda because their own words would be discounted. Prominent radical speakers have been brought to speak at meetings of the Harvard liberals from all sorts of organizations, among them men who are actually paid agents of the Communist party.

Prominent in the organization of the Intercollegiate Liberal League were men notorious as radicals, as well as men whose patriotism, and Americanism cannot be questioned. The latter of course, did not realize to what they were lending their aid. It is inconceivable that Dean Briggs would in any way permit himself to be identified with a movement the chief object of which is to overthrow the Government of the United States by force of arms. And yet Dean Briggs was one of the speakers at the meeting to organize the Intercollegiate Liberal League, in which the Communists were interested. Roger N. Baldwin, head of the American Civil Liberties Bureau, "conscientious objector" who served a prison term as a "draft dodger" during the war, and intimate friend of the most radical of Communists, wa9 one of the organizers. Another was the Rev. John Haynes Holmes, whose anti-American activities during the European War were so pronounced that his New York church had to be watched by officers of the Government, and whose writings were used by the Germans as propaganda with which they sought to break down the morale of the Allied soldiers.

Harry W. L. Dana, known in Communist circles as one of the most effective radical agitators, was also active in the organization of the Intercollegiate Liberal League. Professor Dana, who was dismissed from Columbia University because of his radicalism, said as far back as 1918 that he would be glad to aid however he could in furthering the cause of Soviet Russia in America, and from that time on has been issuing pronouncements on the "class war," Yet he is considered a leader in the radical collegiate group. Among the others participating in the organization of this league were Augustus Dill, of The Crisis; Francis Neilson and Walter Fuller, of The Freeman; Donald Winston, of Young Democracy, and representatives from a number of other colleges. Dean Briggs and President H. N. MacCracken of Vassar College were among the speakers, and by their presence lent aid to the movement. The Rev. John Haynes Holmes, in his speech on that occasion, urged the students to "identify themselves with the labor world and there to martyr themselves by preaching the gospel of free souls and love as the rule of life." He predicted a revolution, and said: "If you want to be on the side of fundamental right you have got to line up on the side of labor."

According to the Literary Digest there were, in 1921, organizations of the Intercollegiate Liberal League in 250 colleges and universities in this country. At about the time when the Harvard Liberal Club's application for membership in the Associated Harvard Clubs was rejected because of its radicalism, a thorough investigation of the club and the league was made. In the report it was shown that some outside agency was financing the establishment of the league and the various clubs and their activities. From the report of this investigation it is possible to quote one paragraph, which reads as follows:

"It would appear that the Harvard Liberal Club, Harvard Students' Liberal Club and the Intercollegiate Liberal League may be the means devised and about to be used as propaganda agencies by radical movements not yet disclosed. The Russian theory of instilling sympathetic ideas in the younger generation while they are still in school is well known, and after a brief examination . . . it appears more than likely that the system is being put into execution among college students in this country. Such a plan of radical activity is most patently dangerous, as the students at that age, while mentally keen, active and alert, have not yet formed their permanent characters and are at a formative period in their mental development, during which they are particularly susceptible to the influence of older minds, especially those of their masters whom they are accustomed to look up to as fountains of authority, wisdom and guidance. Under those circumstances, with men like Felix Frankfurter, Roger Baldwin and others behind such a movement, its potentialities for evil at once appear to be tremendous."

Theodore Roosevelt's Letter to Frankfurter

The retention of Professor Frankfurter at Harvard has called forth a great deal of criticism from men in public affairs. Harvard graduates and others. When he was counsel for President Wilson's Mediation Commission in the Mooney case, in California, he had the temerity to try to influence Theodore Roosevelt in the work he was doing in the endeavor to aid Mooney. This drew from the ex-president, whose Americanism has never been questioned by friend or foe, the following letter, the existence of which few people know:

"I thank you for your frank letter. I answer it at length because you have taken and are taking . . . an attitude which seems to me to be fundamentally that of Trotsky and the other Bolsheviki leaders in Russia; an attitude which may be fraught with mischief to this country.

"As for the conduct of the trial, it seems to me that Judge Dunne's statement which I quoted in my published letter covers it. I have not been able to find anyone who seriously questions Mr. Dunne's character, judicial fitness and ability, or standing. Moreover, it seems to me that your own letter makes it perfectly plain that the movement for the recall of Fickert was due primarily, not in the least to any real or general feeling as to the alleged short-comings on his part, but to what I can only call the Bolsheviki sentiment. The other accusations against him were mere camouflage. The assault was made upon him because he had attacked the murderous element, the dynamite and anarchy group of labor agitators. The movement against him was essentially similar to movements on behalf of the McNamaras, and on behalf of Moyer and Haywood. Some of the correspondents who attacked me frankly stated that they were for Mooney and Billings just as they had been for the McNamaras and for Moyer and Haywood. In view of Judge Dunne's statement it is perfectly clear that even if Judge Dunne is in error in his belief as to the trial being straight and proper, it was an error into which entirely honest men could fall.

"But the question of granting a re-trial is one thing. The question of the recall is entirely distinct. Even if a re-trial were proper this would not in the least justify a recall—any more than a single grave error on your part would justify your impeachment, or the impeachment of President Wilson for appointing you. Fremont Older and the I. W. W. and the direct action anarchists and apologists for anarchy are never concerned for justice. They are concerned solely in seeing one kind of criminal escape justice, precisely as certain big business men have in the past been concerned in seeing another kind of criminal escape justice. The guiding spirits in the movement for the recall of Fickert cared not a rap whether or not Mooney and Billings were guilty; probably they believed them guilty; all they were concerned with was seeing a rebuke administered to, and an evil lesson taught all public officials who might take action against crimes of violence committed by anarchists in the name of some foul and violent protest against social conditions.

"Murder is murder, and it is rather more evil when committed in the name of a professed social movement. It was no mere accident, it was the natural sequence of cause and effect that the agitation for the recall of Fickert, because he fearlessly prosecuted the dynamiters (and of course no human being doubts that Billings and Mooney were in some shape or other privy to the outrage) should have been accompanied by the dynamite outrage at the governor's mansion. The reactionaries have in the past been a great menace to this Republic, but at this moment it is the I. W. W. the Germanized Socialists, the anarchists, the foolish creatures who always protest against the suppression of crime, the pacifists and the like, under the lead of the Hearsts and La Follettes, and Bergers, and Hiliquits, the Fremont Olders and Amos Pinchots and Rudolph Spreckels who are the really grave danger. These are the Bolsheviki of America, and the Bolsheviki are just as bad as the Romanoffs, and are at the moment a greater menace to orderly freedom. Robespierre and Danton and Marat and Herbert were just as evil as the worst tyrants of the old regime, and from 1791 to 1794 they were the most dangerous enemies to liberty that the world contained. When you as representing President Wilson, find yourself obliged to champion men of this stamp you ought, by unequivocal affirmative action, to make it evident that you are sternly against their general and habitual line of conduct.

"I have just received your report on the Bisbee deportation. One of the prominent leaders in that deportation was my old friend Jack Greenway, who has just been commissioned a major in the Army by President Wilson. Your report is as thoroughly misleading a document as could be written on the subject. No official writing on behalf of the President is to be excused for failure to know, and clearly to set forth that the I. W. W. is a criminal organization. To ignore the fact that a movement such as its members made into Bisbee is made with criminal intent is precisely as foolish as for a New York policeman to ignore the fact that when the Whyo gang assembles with guns and knives it is with criminal intent. The President is not to be excused if he ignores this fact, for of course he knows all about it. No human being in his senses doubts that the men deported from Bisbee were bent on destruction and murder.

"If the President through you or anyone else had any right to look into the matter, this very fact shows that he had been remiss in his clear duty to provide against the very grave danger in advance. When no efficient means are employed to guard honest, upright and well behaved citizens from the most brutal kind of lawlessness it is inevitable that these citizens shall try to protect themselves. That is as true when the President fails to do his duty about the I. W. W. as when the police fail to do their duty about gangs like the Whyo gang; and when either the President or the police, personally or by representative, rebuke the men who defend themselves from criminal assault, it is necessary sharply to point out that far heavier blame attaches to the authorities who fail to give the needed protection, and to the investigators who fail to point out the criminal character of the anarchistic organization against which the decent citizens have taken action.

"Here again you are engaged in excusing men precisely like the Bolsheviki in Russia, who are murderers and encouragers of murder, who are traitors to their allies, to democracy and to civilization, as well as to the United States, and whose acts are nevertheless apologized for on grounds, my dear Mr. Frankfurter, substantially like those which you allege. In times of danger nothing is more common and nothing more dangerous to the Republic than for men to avoid condemning the criminals who are really public enemies by making their entire assault on the short-comings of the good citizens who have been the victims or opponents of the criminals. This was done not only by Danton and Robespierre, but by many of their ordinarily honest associates in connection with, for instance, the 'September massacres.' It is not the kind of thing I care to see well meaning men do in this country.

"Sincerely yours,
"Theodore Roosevelt."

The writings of Lenin, Trotsky or other high priests of Communism, as well as those of Marx and Engel, have been and undoubtedly still are used as text-books, or as prescribed reading, in classes or clubs in Wellesley, Vassar, Smith, Yale and many other colleges, and trouble is constantly occurring in various State universities in the West where radicalism is being taught, or studied. In all these colleges, also, Communist propaganda prepared with a view to being placed in the hands of students, is secretly circulated among the students. From time to time this secret work of the Communists becomes known publicly through the indignation of some thoroughly American student into whose hands the propaganda falls by mistake. However, this does not often happen, for the Communists are very careful to place such literature only in "safe" hands.

Upton Sinclair made, in 1922, a tour of the United States, lecturing wherever he could on radicalism, ostensibly gathering material for a new book on education. Before his departure from his home in Pasadena, Calif., he was entertained as guest of honor at a dinner given by Mrs. Kate Crane Gartz and Prince Hopkins, known as radicals, although standing high in Pasadena society. Representatives were present of all classes of radicalism from Communism to theoretical Socialism, society men and women, and motion picture stars and producers. It was entirely radical in its personnel and intended to be. In telling of his then projected trip, Sinclair said that there were "capitalist spies" in practically every school and college in the country reporting any teacher expressing liberal thought. "This perfect network of spies," he said, "has created such a fear among school and university teachers" that nearly all his letters of inquiry remained unanswered, thus forcing him to visit the institutions in person in order to get information for his book in which he proposed to tell all about the sinister influence and domination of the reactionaries and of Wall Street finance and capital over the educational system of this country. The radicals present appeared to believe all that Sinclair told them and there was much indignation expressed because objection was being made to the teaching of radicalism in the schools of the United States. And yet this radical teaching is backed by the illegal Communist party of America and by the Russian Soviet Government of Moscow.

Judge J. H. Ryckman was another speaker. He dwelt upon the "terrible persecution" of the I. W. W. radicals in California and said that but for the assistance given by some wealthy radicals, mentioning Miss Fanny Bixby Spencer and Miss Esther Yamell, well known in California society, who have given bail for many of the radicals arrested in the West, the syndicalist movement, sponsored by the Communists, would have been wiped out in that State. Gaylord Wilshire, a prominent Los Angeles radical who boasts of his connections with the Communist movement, delivered an ultra-radical speech, full of sarcastic and scathing vindictiveness against American democracy, saying that a mixture of syndicalistic principles and Communist tactics was the only salvation for this country. These speakers are mentioned for the reason that this was the ammunition to be used by Upton Sinclair on his tour of American colleges in making addresses to students.

After Sinclair had started his tour he wrote friends from San Francisco saying that Hearst's Magazine had accepted his latest novel "Mobland," and ascribing this good fortune to the fact that Norman Hapgood, known for his radical tendencies, and connected with the American Civil Liberties Union had shortly before been made editor of that magazine. On May 21, 1922, a small private meeting of a number of radical and "progressive" public school teachers of Pasadena was held, at which letters from Sinclair were discussed. He had written from Chicago that at Madison, Wis., he was received in a very friendly spirit and had held several successful meetings. At the University of Chicago, he wrote, he had been given a small auditorium in which to lecture, and so many students could not get in to hear him that the meeting wa3 adjourned to out-of-doors, so that all could hear. "Generally speaking," he wrote, "I am very much pleased to find so many Socialists and adherents of other anti-capitalistic systems among the college professors, and I am quite sure that if we could only make these men feel reasonably sure of economic independence there would be a great wave of radical thought sweeping through all our schools."

On this tour Sinclair was entertained by and addressed several local clubs associated with the Intercollegiate Liberal League, and at other places his meetings were held under the auspices of the "Cosmopolitan Club" of the college. The Cosmopolitan Club movement is one which has been investigated and found to be engaged in spreading radical propaganda in practically all institutions in which it has been introduced. There are branches in Harvard, Yale, the Universities of California, Chicago, Illinois, Michigan, Missouri, Nebraska, Kansas, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Indiana, Columbia and Cornell, Drake College, Iowa State College, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Oberlin, Ohio State College, Ohio Wesleyan College, Purdue, Syracuse, Union College, Vanderbilt University, William Jewell College, Worcester University, Coe University and Radcliffe College.

These clubs include active Communists as well as radicals of other types and are unquestionably supported, at least in part, by the Communist party. In their membership are many foreigners, the ostensible object of the clubs being to foster international friendship. In some cases radical professors are the active leaders in these clubs, although usually active Communists who are undergraduates are the leaders. They frequently have as speakers members of the Communist party of America who never miss an opportunity to make converts.

As Upton Sinclair made his tour of the country and worked either directly or indirectly for Communism, so Lillian Reiseroff, of Cambridge, Mass., made her way from East to West, working directly for the Communists, and organizing in schools and colleges, among her other activities, branches of the Young Workers' League of America, a part of the Communist organization supported as one of the "legal" portions of the radical party. Miss Reiseroff made her way to the Pacific Coast and at Seattle found Sidney E. Borgeson, who while attending the summer school at the University of Washington, was very active as a member of a number of local radical organizations. These two worked together in college circles and left together for Minneapolis, where Borgeson said he was to be employed as an instructor at the University of Minnesota, and where Miss Reiseroff was to engage actively in organization work for the Young Workers' League.

The Communists have not been slow to seize upon the fact that practically no efforts are made, outside of the public school system, with its more or less lax laws relating to attendance at certain ages, to furnish children of foreign birth and children of the working class with educational facilities. This lack of attention on the part of the American public has given the Communist an excellent opportunity to organize night schools for the teaching of Communism. Among the documents found at Bridgman, Mich., were many referring to the work on the education and early training of the youth on Communistic lines. Much of this work is done by the Young Workers' League, which has been organized all over the country in a remarkably short time.

A single example of how the Communists work in the schools and colleges will suffice to explain many recent activities in such institutions. In 1922 sixty-five Russian men and women applied for admission to the United States from Mexico as students. They said they wished to matriculate at the University of California for study. The United States Government permitted them to enter, believing them anxious to attend the University of California for educational purposes only. As a matter of fact the sixty-five were sent by the Russian Soviet Government to Mexico to facilitate their entrance to this country. They were financed by the Communists in Moscow and carried on a well-organized Communist propaganda on the Pacific Coast under direction of the Third International of Moscow. They made a number of converts among the students of the University, according to a well-informed visitor to the Coast. They also acted as advisers to the organizers of the Young Workers' League in Pacific Coast States.

The Young Workers' League is an outgrowth of the Young People's Communist League and the Young People's Socialist League, and was organized for "legal" propaganda purposes. The re-organization was effected by the Executive Committee of the Workers' party and the installation of the various circles was in charge of the National Secretary, Oliver Carlson, alias E. Connelly, alias Edwards. He is a member of the Communist party of America, of which the Workers' party is the open or "legal" political branch. The purpose of the Young Workers' League is "to educate the members, the young workers, to understand their position in capitalist society, to show them the stupidity of seeking to climb higher, and to map a course of action for their emancipation." Among the organizers of the League were such persons as Walter Bronstrup, Mrs. Margaret Prevy, Mrs. Sadie Amter, Max Kaminsky and D. E. Early, all well known in Communist circles.

The headquarters of this League is, at the time of this writing, at No. 208 East Twelfth Street, New York, and the country is divided into districts with an organizer in each district. Classes are held in many cities for the instruction of the young people and their elders along Communistic lines. The following is quoted, as an example, from a report of the organization in Roxbury, Mass.:

"Meetings are held every Sunday evening. Classes have been opened in economics and psychology and are attended. Harry W. L. Dana and Mrs. Antoinette F. Konikow, of No. 52 Chambers Street, Boston, are lecturers at these classes. Leo Golosov, of Dorchester, was formerly in charge of the organization and he has since been in Russia. Louis Marks, of Dorchester, is now at the head. Recently copies of Youth, a Communist paper, were distributed at one of the meetings."

This is only a sample of the work done in many localities in addition to the work among the children. the Communists are using the schools regularly as places of meeting for older students of Communism, as well as for children of tender years. In the classes such studies as the "A. B. C. of Communism," "Fundamental Principles of Communism," "Theses and Resolutions of the Communist International" are read and studied. Youth, the publication just mentioned, was the official organ of the League until March, 1922, when the Young Worker became the official organ.

From a convention call issued by the national secretary of the Young Workers' League, the aim of the organization is given in the following words: "Our aim is to be the abolition of capitalism by means of the Workers' Republic, a government functioning through the power of the proletariat to the exclusion of all other classes, as the first step toward the establishment of an international classless society, free from all political and economic slavery." International Liebknecht Day was first celebrated by the Young Workers' League of America in January, 1922, when international meetings were held in almost every important city of the United States. A joint convention was held in New York in April. It was announced that all organizations subscribing to the convention call and sending delegates, must agree to merge into the Young Workers' League. Conventions were also held in Brooklyn in May, and in Chicago in July of the same year.

Bearing in mind that this organization is chiefly interested in educating first the young and then their elders in Communistic lines of thought, and that an effort has been made to lead the public to believe that the Young Workers' League is not connected with the Communist movement, it is interesting to read the following communication, dated Moscow, June 27, 1922, and addressed "to the National Executive Committees of the Communist parties," which was found with other documents at Bridgman, Mich., when the Communist party convention was raided:

"Dear Comrades: In agreement with the Executive Committee of the Comintern, the Executive Committee of the Young Communist International decided to launch an energetic campaign of the youth for the united front of the proletariat. For this purpose it decided to convene a World Congress of Juvenile Labor.

"In order to prepare the proletarian youth for our campaign, it is of utmost importance that the Communist parties with their press support us in the most extensive manner. This is especially necessary because the whole action is closely connected with the united front policy of the Comintern in the next (near?) future.

"We have already informed the National Executives of our League in order that the editors of the party organs may support us. With consideration to the immense significance of this forthcoming action and its effect on the Social Democrats and Centrists, we ask you, the National Executive Committees, to instruct the editors of your organs to grant sufficient space to the publications of the National Leagues as well as to the international publications. With Communist greetings of the Executive Committee of the Young Communist International."

In a circular marked "strictly confidential," sent from Moscow June 24, 1922, the National Executive Committees of the Communist parties in the various countries of the world were told that "recent events in the international labor movement render necessary a revision of our tactics in the problem of 'the proletarian united front and juvenile labor.' " It is then stated that the youth must not be made to carry on their fight for the united front alone but that all branches of the Communist party in each country must work together for the united front under the direction of the National Executive Committee of the Communist Party. 'The slogan of the united front will for a long time," the circular says, "be the underlined principle of all activities."

The "recent events in the international labor movement" refers to the refusal of the Socialist Internationals to surrender to the Communists in the matter of calling a world labor congress, to insist upon all labor working with the united front movement for the establishment of the proletarian government of the world. Because of this opposition the matter was dropped for the time and the Executive Committee of the Young Communists League, in Moscow, upon direction from their superiors in the Soviet Government, shifted the movement to the various national organizations instead of trying to make it a solid world movement.

It is interesting to note the care with which this work in America, as is the case in all other countries, is mapped out in Moscow. One of the documents found at Bridgman contains the proceedings of the Young Communist International at Moscow, when, under the leadership of Zinovieff, programs for the future were arranged and the work specified for the branches all over the world. In each country the youngsters must be instructed as to the form of government in that country and given points for argument against its maintenance. Care must be taken that the study and work shall be interesting to the youth. A few paragraphs of these proceedings will be illuminating.

"In view of the fact that almost all of the practical arrangements of the Leagues have an educational character (evenings of groups, lectures, discussions and entertainment evenings, excursions, etc.) and that in all other departments of work an increase of the educational endeavors is necessary (training of officials), the systematic improvement of this sphere of activities must be paid great attention to. The organization of this work (elaboration of plans, discussion of the active workers providing of new forces and material) must in any case be transferred to a special department of the Executive Committee and the branch committees.

"The performance of the task imposed by the Second Congress—that of basing educational work on the problems of the day—is only possible if the active members of the leagues know the elementary principles of the Marxian theory. In order to enable the members to acquire this knowledge, political elementary instruction must be given. All young workers entering the Leagues must as far as possible during the first year of their membership be provided with elementary political knowledge."

Then the work is mapped out in detail, taking them through grades, much as is done in our public school system, until they are developed full Communists when they are admitted to active membership in the party and assigned to work. A part of this future work is given as "agitation and propaganda" among youth not of Communist families.

"The patient, persistent and systematic enlightenment of the broad masses of juvenile labor on the character of our opponents, along the practical lines of their daily activities, must become the basis of this agitation and propaganda work," reads a portion of the proceedings. "So far as the bourgeois youth organizations are concerned, it is the task of the Young Communist Leagues to expose their class character, to fight the Church, to carry on a strong, elastic anti-religious propaganda, to lead a ruthless fight against militarism and to unveil not less ruthlessly pacifism and political neutrality. They must, furthermore, be able to sharpen the class antagonism in these organizations where proletarian and semi-proletarian elements are organized."

In the resolutions adopted by the first national convention of the Young Workers' League of America, organized by the Young Communist League pursuant to instructions from Moscow, and which was held in May, 1922, it is distinctly stated that "in the struggle of the working class against the capitalist class the laboring youth does not hold any special position; the class struggle is a conflict between but two classes—the working class and the capitalist class." The resolutions at this convention endorsed Soviet Russia and "demanded" its recognition by the United States, approved the stand of the World War Veterans against "the avowed foe of the working class, the American Legion," and endorsed the friends of Soviet Russia and all other Communist branches and efforts.

The call for this convention was officially endorsed by four branches of the Young Women's League, Chicago, Detroit, Boston and New York. A single paragraph from the resolution on education, adopted by the Young Communist International and approved by the convention in America, tells the extent of the work of this organization:

"With the change in the character and intensity of the class struggle must come about a change in our method of agitation. This field must be subdivided under these two headings: first, education within the organization; second, propaganda and education among the masses."

It has been seen that the machinery of the Communists for gaining converts and trained workers embraces all stages and degrees of education from the poor youngster who has to work selling papers, running errands, or in any way, through the night Communist schools, the public schools, colleges and universities, even to professorial chairs in the higher institutions. In addition to this, the names of all radicals who, by word or deed, laid encouragement or endorsement to the Communist movement, are used in the propaganda work of gaining recruits to the Communist army. Whenever a college professor, a Government official, a big business man, or any individual whose name carries distinction in any line of endeavor, carelessly or with intent expresses an opinion which can be construed as favoring, even in a limited sense, the aims of the Communists, such words are seized upon and used for propaganda purposes, especially in endeavoring to win over young men and women, in college or out, to the Communist party. Thus it is that correspondence between the late Charles P. Steinmetz, the electrical genius, and Lenin was broadcasted throughout the English speaking world and was translated into many languages for propaganda purposes. It was given out by Lenin.

Steinmetz, who had for many years been known as an enthusiastic intellectual socialist, expressed to Lenin his admiration of the Russian Soviet government in "the building up of socialism and economic reconstruction" and offering his services "to assist Russia in the technical sphere and particularly in the matter of electrification in a practical way and with advice." Lenin's reply was a studied attempt to furnish material for propaganda, writing of "the necessity and the inevitability of supplanting capitalism by a new social order" and using other hackneyed phrases familiar to those who study revolutionary literature. Lenin also took occasion to refer to the lack of recognition of the Soviet government by the United States as a prime difficulty in the path of accepting the Steinmetz offer of assistance.


INFORMATIONAL INSERT: THE YOUNG COMRADE


A communist paper for little folks. The Young Comrade, official organ of the Junior Section. Young Workers' League of America. This is an excerpt from Vol. 1. No. 3. JANUARY, 1924


Why We Fight Against the Public Schools

The capitalists have created two kinds of schools. One for their own children, private schools, where they are taught to rule over the workers, and the other, public schools, where they try to teach the children to be willing workers and silent slaves for those who are taught to be the rulers.

In the public schools, you, the children of the workers, are taught that this is the best government in the world. But you are never told that this government allows little children of 3 years of age to work under terrible conditions in mine9, factories and fields In order to get a bite to eat. You are told that the organizations of the workers, like the unions and the Communist parties, are wicked organizations that are unjust and unreasonable and bad all around. The child of the worker is taught to hate the working class and to support the capitalists. They tell you that they are giving you an education, but it is not true.

They only teach you enough writing, reading and 'rithmetic to make you able to carry on work for the boss when you are old enough to be dragged into a factory or a mine.

In your religious training you are told that even if things are bad on this earth, everything will be wonderful when you die and go to Heaven, for there you will be in Paradise.

But we do not want to wait until we are all dead to go to a Paradise. That is all a lie. When you die, you are dead and that is all there is to it. We want our Paradise right here and now. We work hard and make all the beautiful things of life and we want to enjoy them now. And if we put up a good, strong fightfor it, we can have our heaven on earth, where we shall live like human beings and not like beasts in a hole.

That is what the Junior Section is organized for We want to get all the children of the workers united into a strong organization. We want to fight, all of us together! The older men and women workers in the Workers Party; the young . . . .