Social problems -- Fiction; War stories; World War, 1914-1918 -- Fiction
This brought to his feet Comrade Norwood, the young lawyer who had
helped to put through “Section Six” in the National Convention of
the party. If there were people so keen against this Section, why
couldn't they get out of the party and form an organization of their
own?
“Because,” answered Murray, “we prefer sabotage to striking!”
“In other words,” continued Norwood, “you stay in the local, and by
a campaign of sneering and personalities you drive your opponents
out!”
“This is the first meeting for some months that we have had the
pleasure of seeing Comrade Norwood,” said “Wild Bill”, with venomous
placidity. “Perhaps he knew that we were to be asked to raise a
regiment for Kitchener!”
And then again Comrade Stankewitz was on his feet, with distress in
his thin, eager face. “Comrades, all this vill not get us anyvere!
There is but vun question ve have to answer, are ve
internationalists, or are ve not?”
“It seems to me,” continued Norwood, “the question is, are we
anti-nationalists?”
“All right!” shrilled the little Jew. “I vill leave it so--I am an
anti-nationalist! Such must all Socialists be!”
“But I don't understand it so,” declared the young lawyer. “It is
easy for some who belong to a race which has not had a country for
two thousand years--”
“And who's dealing in personalities now?” sneered “Wild Bill”.
III
So matters went in Local Leesville. The upshot of the debate was
that Comrade Dr. Service declared that he washed his hands of the
Socialist Party from that time on. And the Comrade Doctor buttoned
his handsome black coat over his stately chest and stalked out of
the room. The greater part of the remainder of that meeting was
devoted to a discussion of him and his personality and his influence
in the local. He was no Socialist at all, declared Schneider, he was
an English aristocrat, or the next thing to it--his wife had two
brothers in the British Expeditionary Force, and a nephew already
enlisted in the Territorials, and a visiting cousin on the point of
setting out for Canada, as the quickest way of getting into the
mix-up. But in spite of all these damaging circumstances, the local
was not disposed to give up its most generous supporter, and Comrade
Gerrity, the organizer, and Comrade Goldstein of the Ypsels, were
constituted a committee to go and plead with him and try to bring
him back into the fold.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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