The National Convention and the Woman's

Movement.

E ARE DRAWING near to a national convention of the Socialist Party when we are to nominate our candidates for president and vice-president, and draw up the national platform. However, this is not all that will be done in this meeting. Resolutions will be introduced pertaining to practically every question of economic interest to the working class. Among these will be resolutions on the attitude of the party toward trade-unions, the negro problem, child labor, and a great many other important subjects.

The problem I wish to discuss in this article is the attitude of the Socialist Party toward the woman's movement. It makes very little difference whether we approve of a separate organization of Socialist women or not. We have one a real, live, revolutionary movement, writing its own literature, managing its own newspapers, planning its own campaign.

It does not have the same name in every state or even in every city. In Philadelphia it is the Socialist Woman's Educational Club, in California, the Woman's Socialist Club; in New York City, Socialist Women of Greater New York. This city is the home also of the Woman's National Progressive League. In Chicago there is the Woman's Socialist League; in St. Louis the Wowan's Socialist Club, while in Kansas City we have the Woman's Progressive League. And so I might go on through all of the states and territories of the nation, naming the cities and towns with their respective clubs.

It is one movement with one mind, one spirit, one thought, one object: "the purpose of stimulating and crystallizing interest among women in economic questions with the view of creating adherents to the principles of Socialism."

How are we men and women of the Socialist Party organization going to act toward this movement? What will our delegates in the National Convention do if they receive a resolution similar to the one presented by the Social Democratic Woman's Society of N. Y., at a meeting at which Mrs. Cobden Sanderson delivered a lecture on "Socialism and Wo

man?" The part of this resolution that is of special interest to us reads as follows:

"Whereas, The Socialist Party is the political expression of the working class in the United States, be it

"Resolved, By this mass meeting of men and women of New York, that we call upon the National Committee of the Socialist Party to start an energetic fight for equal suffrage for men and women 21 years of age; to put women organizers in the field with same end in view, and to distribute leaflets and literature dealing with this subject."

First, we must realize that this movement is a separate organization composed largely of women who are not members of the Socialist Party. This will prevent us from falling into, what I believe to be, the error that the Missouri State Convention did in 1906. To give the reader a clearer idea of what I mean, I will quote from the report of the proceedings of this meeting as printed in the St. Louis "Labor," Saturday, June 9, 1906.

"The report of Committee on Propaganda was received and taken up seriatim...........

"We recommend that special efforts be made to place propaganda literature in all Women's Clubs, Equal Suffrage Socities and conventions in order that these earnest, enthusiastic and intelligent women may know and understand that the eight short words embodied in the Socialist National Platform 'For the equal suffrage of men and women' cover the whole ground, and express in plain language what the old parties have evaded and juggled with ever since women have demanded equal suffrage." On motion it was adopted.

"We recommend that special attention be given to youths and children, as in a few years the duties of citizenship will fall upon their shoulders. The propaganda work can be interesting, instructive and also a source of income by means of entertainments, literary and debating societies; always selecting subjects pertaining directly toward a better education in the principles of Socialism. To this end we favor the formation of Junior Socialist Leagues to take charge of this work in connection with the regular organization.

"The motion to adopt this recommendation was amended that it be received and, together with the Woman Suffrage recommendation previously adopted, be referred to the Women's Socialist Clubs in the state. Motion was adopted as amended." Just how the Socialist Party organization can refer any of its business to other organizations not under its jurisdiction, I have never been quite able to understand.

Second, we must realize that these Woman's Clubs cannot do our work. Their work is to sow the seeds of Socialism. They are the "St. John" "crying in the wilderness." In answer to Mrs. Wilshire's "Appeal to Women" in Wilshire's, January, 1907, I closed my letter which was published in the March number of that magazine with the following: "I am very much opposed to forming a separate organization for women. I would be just as much opposed to forming a separate organization for men. Every Socialist should be in the organization. We must work together. To divide our ranks would mean an opening for the enemy. We should always keep in mind the one object, the building up of the Socialist organization.". However, I see no danger in this woman's movement. The women who are leading it belong to the Socialist Party and well understand the meaning of the words, "Workers of the world unite." They are sowing the seeds and all ready "The harvest truly is great." Will the Socialist Party furnish the "laborers" so "that both he that soweth and he that reapeth may rejoice together?" As a member of both organizations, this question is of the greatest interest I am not asking it of the men or the women but of the party as a whole. We need workers and they should be women with the ability not only of teaching the women what the word Socialism means but also of bringing into the party those who already know its meaning, but who, for one reason or another, stay out. This is a work that the Woman's Movement cannot do.

to me.

In conclusion, I suggest that the National Party in its convention take up this matter, and “establish in connection with the party a National Committee of Women to be charged with this special work," as Comrade Spargo suggested in his article in the February number of this magazine. I believe the Woman's Movement will gladly co-operate with it in furnishing the funds to carry on this movement.

JESSIE M. MOLLE.

The Economic Aspects of the Negro Problem.

CHAPTER II.

SLAVERY IN A REPUBLIC.

(Continued.)

HE NEW SCHOOL of writers, thinkers and statesmen which arose under these conditions, vastly differed from the school of Jefferson and Henry. It did not try to excuse slavery by considerations of economic necessity. It would not even permit the expression of the faint hope, that sometimes in the dim future the institution of

slavery might be abolished.

"Let me not be understood", says the famous Calhoun, "as admitting even by implication that the existing relation between the two races in the slaveholding states is an evil; far otherwise, I hold it to be a good, as it has thus far proved itself to both, and will contiue to prove so if not disturbed by the spirit of abolition. I appeal to facts: Never has the black race of the Central Africa............. attained a condition so civilized and so improved, not only physically, but morally and intellectually. It came among us in a low, degraded and savage condition, and in the course of a few generations it has grown under the fostering care of our institutions." Here the slaveowners are made to appear in the strange role of what the Germans have called "Kulturtraeger", carrying the white man's burden. That slavery could have a harmful effect upon the slaveowner, which was almost universally admitted by the foremost statesmen of the end of the Eighteenth Century, Calhoun violently denied. "I appeal to all sides whether the South is not equal in virtue, in intelligence, patriotism, courage, disinterestedness, and all the high qualities which adorn. our nature. I ask whether we have not contributed our full share of talents and political wisdom in framing and sustaining this political fabric."

No less interesting is Calhoun's opinion in regard to the problem of proximity of the races and its effects, interesting mainly because of the very different opinions which are held in the South at present.

"I hold", says Calhoun, "that in the present state of civilization, where two races of different origin and distinguished by color, and other physical differences, as well as intelectual, are brought together, the relations now existing in the slaveholding south between the two is, instead of an evil, a good, a positive good."

Further on Calhoun becomes quite radical: "I hold then, that there never has yet existed a wealthy and civilized society in which one portion of the community did not in point of fact, live on the labor of the other.......... I may say with truth that in few countries so much is left to the share of the laborer and so little is exacted from him, or where there is more kind attention paid to him in sickness or infirmities of age. Compare his condition with the tenants of the poorhouses in the more civilized portions of Europe,-look at the sick, and the old and infirm slave on one hand, in the midst of his family and friends, under the kind superintending care of his master and mistress, and compare it with the forlorn and wretched condition of the pauper in the poorhouse. The existing relations between the two races in the South form a most solid and durable foundation on which to rear free and stable political institutions. There is and always has been in an advanced stage of wealth and civilization a conflict between capital and labor. The conditions of society in the South exempts us from the disorders and dangers resulting from the conflict; and which explains why it is that the political conditions of the slaveholding states has been so much more stable and quiet than that of the North."

But Calhoun knew that the fathers thought and spoke differently, and therefore he boldly proceeded to destroy the old gods: "Many in the South once believed, that it was a moral and political evil. That folly and delusion are gone." And again pointing at the struggle of capital and labor, he continued: "The southern states are an aggregate in fact of communities, not of individuals. Every plantation is a little community, with the master at his head, who concentrates in himself, the united interests of capital and labor, of which he is the common representative. These small communities aggregated make the South, in all whose actions labor and capital is equally represented and perfectly harmonized. Hence the harmony, the unity, the stability of that section......... the blessings of this state of things extends beyond the limits of the south."

From the preceding pages some conception might have been formed of the southern society on the eve of the emancipation of the slaves. But the first seventy years of the exist