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1、War of the Classes 1 War of the Classes Jack London War of the Classes 2 PREFACE When I was a youngster I was looked upon as a weird sort of creature because forsooth I was a socialist Reporters from local papers interviewed me and the interviews when published were pathological studies of a strange
2、 and abnormal specimen of man At that time nine or ten years ago because I made a stand in my native town for municipal ownership of public utilities I was branded a red shirt a dynamiter and an anarchist and really decent fellows who liked me very well drew the line at my appearing in public with t
3、heir sisters But the times changed There came a day when I heard in my native town a Republican mayor publicly proclaim that municipal ownership was a fixed American policy And in that day I found myself picking up in the world No longer did the pathologist study me while the really decent fellows d
4、id not mind in the least the propinquity of myself and their sisters in the public eye My political and sociological ideas were ascribed to the vagaries of youth and good natured elderly men patronized me and told me that I would grow up some day and become an unusually intelligent member of the com
5、munity Also they told me that my views were biassed by my empty pockets and that some day when I had gathered to me a few dollars my views would be wholly different in short that my views would be their views And then came the day when my socialism grew respectable still a vagary of youth it was hel
6、d but romantically respectable Romance to the bourgeois mind was respectable because it was not dangerous As a red shirt with bombs in all his pockets I was dangerous As a youth with nothing more menacing than a few philosophical ideas Germanic in their origin I was an interesting and pleasing perso
7、nality Through all this experience I noted one thing It was not I that changed but the community In fact my socialistic views grew solider and more pronounced I repeat it was the community that changed and to my chagrin I discovered that the community changed to such purpose that it was not above st
8、ealing my thunder The community branded me a red War of the Classes 3 shirt because I stood for municipal ownership a little later it applauded its mayor when he proclaimed municipal ownership to be a fixed American policy He stole my thunder and the community applauded the theft And today the commu
9、nity is able to come around and give me points on municipal ownership What happened to me has been in no wise different from what has happened to the socialist movement as a whole in the United States In the bourgeois mind socialism has changed from a terrible disease to a youthful vagary and later
10、on had its thunder stolen by the two old parties socialism like a meek and thrifty workingman being exploited became respectable Only dangerous things are abhorrent The thing that is not dangerous is always respectable And so with socialism in the United States For several years it has been very res
11、pectable a sweet and beautiful Utopian dream in the bourgeois mind yet a dream only a dream During this period which has just ended socialism was tolerated because it was impossible and non menacing Much of its thunder had been stolen and the workingmen had been made happy with full dinner pails The
12、re was nothing to fear The kind old world spun on coupons were clipped and larger profits than ever were extracted from the toilers Coupon clipping and profit extracting would continue to the end of time These were functions divine in origin and held by divine right The newspapers the preachers and
13、the college presidents said so and what they say of course is so to the bourgeois mind Then came the presidential election of 1904 Like a bolt out of a clear sky was the socialist vote of 435 000 an increase of nearly 400 per cent in four years the largest third party vote with one exception since t
14、he Civil War Socialism had shown that it was a very live and growing revolutionary force and all its old menace revived I am afraid that neither it nor I are any longer respectable The capitalist press of the country confirms me in my opinion and herewith I give a few post election utterances of the
15、 capitalist press The Democratic party of the constitution is dead The Social Democratic party of continental Europe preaching discontent and class War of the Classes 4 hatred assailing law property and personal rights and insinuating confiscation and plunder is here Chicago Chronicle That over fort
16、y thousand votes should have been cast in this city to make such a person as Eugene V Debs the President of the United States is about the worst kind of advertising that Chicago could receive Chicago Inter Ocean We cannot blink the fact that socialism is making rapid growth in this country where of all others there would seem to be less inspiration for it Brooklyn Daily Eagle Upon the hands of the Republican party an awful responsibility was placed last Tuesday It knows that reforms great far sw
