The World War brought this division sharply to a head. It split the Socialist party and drove out of it most of the American-born moderates; it led to the attempt by these moderates and many of the former Progressives to organize the “National party” and the “Farmer-Labor party,” which attracted a small following in the presidential election of 1920. The excesses committed against foreign-born citizens of nearly all racial groups in the zeal of the war spirit undoubtedly drove into the extreme radical ranks a large number of foreign-born citizens who in normal times would have been content with political methods and would have diminished in their radicalism as their economic status improved. Doubtless, also, the period of unemployment and industrial depression following the war, ensuing as it has upon a period of unprecedentedly high wages, has tended to encourage radical thought. But it must always be remembered that the extreme radical movements have directly relatively little _political_ influence. This for two very good reasons: In the first place, experience has not justified the theory of the “Reds” that terrorism in this country will frighten government into concessions. It has, in America, anyway, quite the opposite effect. It alienates public sympathy and impels the average man, normally sympathetic toward the “under dog,” to approve of repressive measures. Furthermore, the members of these ultraradical organizations, although they may be technically citizens, _are not voters_ in any practical sense. THE “I. W. W.” AND THE HOMELESS WORKER This latter consideration is more important than is commonly realized. The rank and file of the Industrial Workers of the World--better known as the “I. W. W.”--for example, is made up of men without fixed abode; itinerant workingmen, largely, though by no means wholly, of foreign birth. They have left their homes and families, if they ever had either. The I. W. W. is the only organization which at least pretends to look after the interests of the homeless, jobless worker. The homeless, jobless worker cannot become naturalized, because the naturalization process presupposes a fixed residence, and witnesses who can testify to that residence over long periods of time. And even if the man be native born or long since naturalized, he cannot vote or otherwise function as a political unit because he has no fixed home from which to register and vote.