The Socialist Party, even more than the Socialist Parties in other countries, was placed by the war in a difficult situation. With its roots not yet firmly in the soil, except in a few localities and among diverse national elements, it was faced with the necessity, in accordance with its principles and tradition, of denouncing the entrance of the United States into hostilities. But this decision could command no effective support from the workers organized on the economic field, who under a different leadership adopted a different attitude. Nor was the party strong enough among any other element of the population to make its decision respected. The only immediate result of the gesture was therefore to place this unarmed little force in the most exposed position possible, where it drew the fire of all those who were nervously afraid the people would not sanction the war. Socialism was not judged on the basis of its economic tenets, but was condemned as disloyal and pro-German; and the effect was to render the party even more sectarian and unrepresentative than ever before. It had adopted a position in which it could not expect recruits except from moral heroes, and no nation nourishes a large proportion of these. Such episodes make good legend, but they do not lead to prompt victories. Even those who later have come to believe that the Socialists were right about the war are likely to express their belief in some other form than joining the party. In this weakened condition, the Socialist Party after the war developed internal fissures. Many bitter words have been exchanged as to whether the “Left Wingers” were or were not a majority of the party, whether they were or were not more orthodox than those in control of the party machinery, and whether, if they were more orthodox, their orthodoxy was wise. At any rate, they broke away and formed two new parties of their own, a fact which is the chief point of interest to one who is more concerned with the larger issues of American radicalism than with the minutiæ of Socialist politics. The Communist Party and the Communist Labour Party, whatever may have been the legitimacy of their gestation in the bowels of Socialism, certainly found their reason for being chiefly in logic which originated in Moscow and Berlin rather than in the American situation. At once selected for persecution by government officials, they burrowed underground, doubtless followed by a band of spies at least as numerous as they. From these subterranean regions have come rumours of a fourth party--the United Communist, which swallowed most of the Communist Labourites and some of the Communists. At last accounts the Communists and the United Communists were each attempting to prove the other counter-revolutionary by reference to the latest documents from international revolutionary headquarters.