Page:Johann Jacoby - The Object of the Labor Movement - tr. Florence Kelley (1887).djvu/5

4 lost sight of, and bills are pending in Congress to provide for the more effective establishment of the militia, a point which we shall touch upon later.

One pre eminently democratic quality our party with this glorious record unmistakably possesses, to do it justice, far beyond all true democracy, namely, a colossal respect for popular majorities. A majority it must have at all costs, and since it would have hard work to convince one, it buys its majority wherever it can. Accordingly, bribes proving unavailing among the masses of workers now awakening to a consciousness of their class interests, we behold the spectacle of these worthy "democrats" and "patriots" buying among the tenement-house populations of our great cities that popular majority which they so greatly respect. For the purchase of a majority no sacrifice of money is too great, and every fair-minded person must admit that this is the heaviest sacrifice which a party can make that represents only the interests of that class whose domination in State and society rests solely upon its possessions. Thus do our "patriots" sacrifice that which in their eyes is most sacred. It is, however, a sacrifice that brings its own reward.

In spite of all this decay and corruption within the old parties, the spirit and traditions of the Jeffersonian Democracy still live in a considerable part of the Laboring Class; and we see here among us in the person of Henry George a man who is following in the path of Jakoby and, as an upright Democrat, has placed himself upon the side of the Laboring Class. If he follows to the end the path he has entered, as we do not doubt he will do, he is, we believe,destined to play an honorable part in the development of the Labor Movement in America. His exclusive demand for the nationalization of the land is totally insufficient for any society which rests upon the capitalist method of production, least of all for the country of the industrial proletariat par excellence. If Henry George extends his demand to cover the demand for the socialization of all the means of production, the demand which, after all, forms the kernel of the Labor Question, that is to say, if he places himself upon the standpoint of modern Scientific Socialism, then only can he become a true representative of the workers; for then he will express the actual interests of the Laboring Class. Otherwise he will be condemned to be a mere leader of a sect, instead of representing a mighty and decisive Labor Movement which, once awakened to class-consciousness, is being driven by the logic of events to modern Socialism, and cannot possibly stop with the land question. We say stop with the land question because the modern Labor Movement embraces the land question as a matter of course.

The noble hearted Johann Jakoby arrived at his Socialist position, thanks to his high intelligence and, one might almost say, to his healthy instinct, when we take into consideration the backward