It is but proper to begin this chapter by conceding that there are many church-going members among those who vote the Marxian ticket--not as an indorsement of the teachings of international Socialism, but merely as a protest against political corruption and the abuses of capitalism. Justice, moreover, demands that we acknowledge the existence of a small minority of dues-paying members of the Socialist Party who neither attack religion nor tacitly approve of the atheistic propaganda carried on in the official Marxian press, as well as in the books, pamphlets and magazines on sale not only in the leading Socialist book-stores of America, but even at the National Office of the party in Chicago.

In most countries of Europe, where the war against religion is much more open and widespread than in America, the Socialists are frank in confessing that their movement is atheistic and anti-religious.

In our own country some of the more violent Socialistic enemies of the church admit both in their speeches and in their writings that they would be extremely happy to see the very idea of God become a matter of ancient history. Christian Socialists of the old Carr faction, who constitute a minority of far less than one per cent of the Socialist Party of the United States, have not only conceded the existence of an atheistic propaganda within the ranks, but have attacked it and utterly failed to suppress it.

Apart from these two classes of American Socialists, who admit the existence of a campaign in favor of atheism, most Socialists in our country, because they fear that votes will be lost if our people are convinced of the anti-religious character of the party, steadfastly deny that they are conspiring against religion. Indeed they are quite cunning and crafty in their effort to beguile the unwary. If the person hesitates joining the party, owing to his conviction that nearly all the Socialist leaders have been the enemies of religion, he is informed that it would be just as foolish for him not to be a Revolutionist for this reason, as it would be for one not to become a Republican because Robert Ingersoll did not believe in God and even propagated atheism.

As the conspirators against religion have, by this plausible argument, involving the name of Ingersoll, removed the prejudices that many persons formerly had against Socialism on account of the atheistic teachings of its leaders, it seems but fitting to give a short refutation of the deceptive argument and to point out the absurdity of the comparison just mentioned.

In the first place, although Robert Ingersoll was an atheist, he never stated that Republicanism was anti-religious. On the other hand, very many of the highest authorities in the Marxian Party, whose extensive knowledge of Socialism justifies our belief that they know but too well the policy of the revolutionary movement, admit that Socialism postulates atheism and war against religious beliefs. Ingersoll, moreover, never attacked religion nor taught atheism with a view to furthering the cause of Republicanism. But a very large number of the Socialists, whether Europeans or Americans, in their endeavor to promote what they consider to be the best interests of their party, have in their books, magazines, pamphlets and papers been waging a relentless war against religion. The atheistical works of Robert Ingersoll were not purchased by the rank and file of the Republican Party for purposes of party propaganda, but the rank and file of the Revolutionary Party spend large sums of money on publications in which their avowed leaders teach atheism as part of the Socialist program. Not content even with this, the members do their utmost to increase the circulation of anti-religious Socialist books, magazines, pamphlets and papers.

Before producing the evidence that will convict the Socialist leaders and the rank and file of the party of openly advocating atheism and hostility to religion, or at least of tacitly approving of such a propaganda, a few words must be said relative to the materialistic conception of history, or of economic determinism, as it is often called. According to this doctrine, which is one of the fundamental teachings of the Socialists, the whole history of mankind, including its political, intellectual and religious development, is nothing more than a process of evolution, the guiding principle of which is the prevailing economic conditions and their resultant class struggles. Consequently, the Socialists who believe this doctrine deny the intervention of God in the development and spread of the Christian religion; for economic determinism teaches that the development of the church is not the work of Divine Providence, but of the economic conditions and class struggles of society.

W. D. P. Bliss, the Socialist editor of the "New Encyclopedia of Social Reform," in an article on page 1135 of his work, admits that it is perfectly true that the large majority of avowed Socialists are divorced from recognized religion and the church, and that this leads many of them to extreme radicalism on all questions of ethics, money and the family.

Frederick Engels, one of the renowned founders of modern Socialism, taught that "nowadays in our evolutionary conception of the universe, there is absolutely no room for either a Creator or a ruler." ("Socialism, Utopian and Scientific," by Frederick Engels, page 17 of the Introduction to the 1901 edition in English--New York Labor News Co.)

Wilhelm Liebknecht, who until shortly before his death in 1900 was one of the foremost leaders of the Socialist Party in Germany, addressing the Halle Convention, said: "As regards my own self, I had done with religion at an early age.... I am an atheist, I do not believe in God.... We may peacefully take our stand upon the ground of Socialism, and thus conquer the stupidity of the masses in so far as stupidity reveals itself in religious forms and dogmas." The same German Socialist and atheist taught in his book, "Materialist Basis of History":

"It is our duty as Socialists to root out the faith in God with all our zeal, nor is anyone worthy the name, who does not consecrate himself to the spread of atheism."

August Bebel, who before his death in August, 1913, was the leader of the Socialists of Germany, gave many proofs of the intimate relation existing between Socialism and atheism. On September 16, 1878, he declared in the Reichstag:

"Gentlemen, you attack our views on religion because they are atheistic and materialistic. I acknowledge the correctness of the impeachment. I am firmly convinced that Socialism finally leads to atheism."

In the Reichstag, on December 31, 1881, he made the following profession of faith:

"In politics we profess Republicanism, in economics Socialism, in religion atheism."

According to the 1903 platform of the German Socialists, adopted at Dresden, "No religious instructions of any kind shall be given to children under the age of sixteen; after that they can select their own religious tenets and teachings, as they please. Superstitious religious notions that are current among the less educated classes are to be eradicated through proper instructions."

"The Comrade," September, 1904, confesses that the satirical weekly "L'Asino," published by the Socialists of Italy, and known throughout the world for its attacks on religion, carries on a bitter fight against the Catholic Church. In the early part of 1913, "L'Asino," speaking of the coming Italian election, boasted that the Socialists would proclaim their anti-clericalism and atheism in the public meetings.

The Austrian Socialists in convention at Linz, May 30, 1898, passed a resolution proposed by Pernerstorfer to the effect that "Socialism is directly contradictory to Roman clericalism, which is enslaved to unyielding authority, immutable dogmas, and absolute intellectual thralldom. We doubt all authority, we know of no immutable dogma, we are the champions of right, liberty and conscience." [Reported in "VorwÄrts," 1898, no. 126, suppl.]

The bitter persecution that has for years been waged against the church in France is too well known to require much comment. The representatives of the French Socialist Party at Tours in March, 1903, voted upon a program from which several clauses will be cited:

"The Socialist Party needs to organize a new world, free minds emancipated from superstition and prejudices. It asks for and guarantees every human being, every individual, absolute freedom of thinking, and writing and affirming their beliefs. Over against all religious dogmas and churches as well as over against the class conceptions of the bourgeoisie, it sets the unlimited right of free thought, the scientific conception of the universe, and a system of public education based exclusively on science and reason. Thus accustomed to free thought and reflection, citizens will be protected against the sophistries of the capitalistic and clerical reaction." The program also declares for the "abolition of the congregations, nationalization of property in mortmain of every kind belonging to them, and appropriation of it for works of social insurance and solidarity."

In the Tours program, therefore, we have the open confession of the Socialist Party of France that it is anti-religious and that it favors the disgraceful robbery of the church that has for many years been going on in that country.

The Belgian Socialists are quite as violent as the French in their hatred of the church, for in addition to the large number of vile anti-religious pamphlets distributed during the campaign that preceded the elections of 1912, we have the testimony of no less an authority than the Socialist leader, Emile Vandervelde, in the "Social Democrat," England, January, 1903:

"In the end the question to be solved is: what is the essential aim of Socialism? There is not a Socialist who would hesitate to say that it is the emancipation of the workers, the freedom of the proletariat--and by this freedom we mean its complete freedom, the abolition of all slavery in the spiritual sphere as well as in the material sphere.... Can a sincere believer follow the church's teachings and yet be a Socialist? We are bound to admit that both in philosophy and in politics there must be war between Socialism and the Church."

In England, too, the Socialists are the avowed enemies of religion. Blatchford, who is well known to his comrades for his extreme work in propagating Socialism by the pen, wrote in the "Clarion," October 4, 1907:

"Believing that the Christian religion was untrue, and believing that all supernatural religions were inimical to human progress, and foreseeing that a conflict between Socialism and religion was inevitable, I attacked the Christian religion. I am working for Socialism when I attack religion which is hindering it."

Again in his book, "God and My Neighbor," Blatchford utters the following blasphemies:

"I am an easiful old pagan, and I am not angry with you at all--you funny little champion of the Most High....

"This is the God of Heaven? This is the Father of Christ? This is the Creator of the Milky Way? No! He will not do. He is not big enough. He is not good enough. He is not clean enough. He is a spiritual nightmare, a bad dream born in the savage minds of terror and ignorance and a tigerish lust for blood....

"Is this unspeakable monster the Father of Christ? Is he the God who inspireth Buddha and Shakespeare and Beethoven and Darwin and Plato? No, not he. But in warfare and massacre, in rapine and rape, in black revenge and in deadly malice, in slavery and polygamy, and the debasement of women, and in the pomps, vanities and greeds of royalty, of clericalism, and of usury and barter--we may easily discern the influence of his ferocious and abominable personality."

This book, which teaches atheism from cover to cover, could be bought for a dollar a copy in 1912 at the National Office of the Socialist Party in Chicago, Ill. In the May, 1917, issue of the "International Socialist Review," "God and My Neighbor," by Blatchford, is thus advertised:

"Is the Bible true? This is the chief subject of debate today between Christians and Scientists the world over. Robert Blatchford says: 'Is the Bible a holy and inspired book and the Word of God to man, or is it an incongruous and contradictory collection of tribal tradition and ancient fables, written by men of genius and imaginations? Mr. Blatchford believes religions are not revealed, they are evolved.

"'We cannot accept as the God of Creation,' he writes, 'this savage idol, Jehovah, of an obscure tribe, and we have renounced him and are ashamed of him, not because of any later divine revelation, but because mankind have become too enlightened to tolerate Jehovah.'"

Ernest Bax, an Englishman, one of the greatest authorities in the world on Socialism, an author who, even in America, has been styled "the most accomplished writer on behalf of Socialism in this and perhaps in any country," in his book, "Religion of Socialism," thus testifies to the relation existing between Socialism and religion:

"In what sense Socialism is not religious will now be clear. It utterly despises the other world with all its stage properties--that is, the present objects of religion." ["Religion of Socialism," by Ernest Belfort Bax, page 52 of 1891 edition.]

Who could imagine any more convincing testimony of the atheistic and anti-religious nature of the Socialist movement than the following words of the English Socialist, James Leathan, in "Socialism and Character":

"At the present moment I cannot remember a single instance of a person who is at one and the same time a really earnest and intelligent Socialist and an orthodox Christian. Those who do not openly attack the church and the fabric of Christianity, show but scant respect to either the one or the other in private.... And while all of us are thus indifferent to the church, many of us are frankly hostile to her. Marx, Lassalle and Engels among earlier Socialists; Morris, Bax, Hyndman, Guesde and Bebel among present-day Socialists--are all more or less avowed atheists; and what is true of the more notable men of the party is almost equally true of the rank and file the world over."

In 1910 a pamphlet entitled "Socialism and Religion" was issued by the Revolutionists of Great Britain. One quotation from it will amply suffice to show the utter contempt of the English¹⁵ Socialist for religion:

"If a man supports the church, or in any respect allows religious ideas to stand in the way of principles of Socialism, or activity of the party, he proves thereby that he does not accept Socialism as fundamentally true and of the first importance, and his place is outside. No man can be consistently both a Socialist and a Christian. It must either be the Socialist or the religious principle that is supreme, for the attempt to couple them equally together betrays charlatanism or lack of thought. There is, therefore, no need for a specifically anti-religious test. So surely does the acceptance of Socialism lead to the exclusion of the supernatural, that the Socialist has little need for such terms as atheist, freethinker or even materialist, for the word Socialist, rightly understood, implies one who (on all such questions) takes his stand on positive science, explaining all things by purely natural causation--Socialism being not merely a politico-economic creed, but an integral part of a consistent world philosophy."

"The Western Clarion," a publication of the Canadian Socialists, declared in its issue of May 23, 1914, that the Socialist Party of Canada would have "no compromise with advocates of Christianity."

Alvarado, the governor of Yucatan, and his criminal sustainers several years ago drove the clergy from the country, turned the churches into I. W. W. meeting houses, and turned some, as in the case of the Cathedral of Merida, even into warehouses. Religion was outlawed and an atheist tyranny established. Alvarado is an ardent I. W. W. Socialist of the most violent sort. His advent into Yucatan from the lawless northern part of Mexico was marked by wholesale confiscation of property, by robbery and outrage. His vile subordinates, of like origin with himself, committed loathsome crimes, unspeakable and without number, and no opportunity was overlooked to persecute the unhappy people whose accumulations by thrift and industry and whose steadfast adherence to their religion marked them as certain victims of robbery, murder and outrage.

"The Call," New York, April 9, 1919, informs us that the workers in Yucatan have elected a succession of Socialist governors, and in its issue of April 14, 1919, under the caption, "Up to the Minute Official Socialist News," we read the following:

"Felipe Carrillo, president of the Socialist Party of Yucatan, Mexico, spoke on conditions in Yucatan. Among other things he said: 'The Socialist Party of America should do everything possible against intervention in Mexico.... All the public officials, from the highest to the lowest, are members of the Socialist party.... There is no middle class in Yucatan.... The Socialist Party of Yucatan has been in power three years.'

"A rising vote was taken, expressing our fraternal greetings to Felipe Carrillo and the Comrades of Yucatan."

The April 9, 1919, issue of "The Call" informs us that Alvardo in 1915 organized the Socialist Party of Yucatan, 62,700 members of which belong to the League of Resistance, an organization which, we are told, is purely economic in its activities.

What a strange name for an economic league, especially in Mexico, where economics have for some years been taught by the torch, bomb, dagger!

The March, 1919, edition of "The Eye Opener," the official organ of the Socialist Party of the United States, throws a little light on this economic league of "the knights of the red flag." On page 4 of that issue we are told that among the principles of the League of Resistance are the following:

/P "The Land is Mother, and Labor is the Father of Humanity. Attack no one without motive, but never present the other cheek to any who has struck one. Fly from the religions, principally the Catholic religion, as from the plagues." P/

The article on the economic League of Resistance ends with the call of Yucatan to the rest of the continent: "Workers of the world, unite." Carillo is then quoted as saying:

"Never will labor conquer until it understands solidarity. Political action, economic action, perhaps military action--todos metodos necesitamos. En todas las epocas del mundo, rifley dynamita sean necesarios; pero siempre y sobre todo, solidaridad." The words, "rifley dynamita" mean nothing and are evidently a misprint for "rifle y dynamita." There was good reason for letting the words remain in the Spanish in the official organ of the Socialist Party of the United States, for if "rifle y dynamita" were the Spanish words meant, their translation would be:

"We need all means. In all periods of the world's history, the rifle and dynamite may be necessary, but always and above all solidarity."

So much for the economic League of Resistance of the Socialists of Yucatan, which has been destroying both religion and civilization alike! Carrillo, its president, has been greeted throughout our country by the Socialists, who have been extending their fraternal greetings also to the rest of their "Comrades in Yucatan."