"I cannot help thinking that all this has or ought to have a lesson for the Socialist movement in America. If it be desired to kill that movement, the most effective way would be to get it entangled in some form of practical politics. Then the real and true aim of the movement can at once be lost sight of and this party can go the way of every other proletarian party down to the pit. I should not think that was a very good way to go. "When we come to reason of it calmly, what can be gained by electing any human being to any office beneath the skies? To get in and keep in does not seem any sort of an object to any one that will contemplate the possibilities of the Cooeperative Commonwealth. How shall it profit the working class to have Mr. Smith made sheriff or Mr. Jones become the coroner? Something else surely is the goal of this magnificent inspiration. In England the radicals have all gone mad on the subject of a successful parliamentary party, the winning of the government, the filling of offices, and the like. I am told that the leaders of the coalition movement have already picked out their prime minister against the day when they shall carry the country and be in. In the meantime they, too, must play this game carefully, being constantly on their guard against doing anything that would alarm or antagonize the bourgeoisie and sacred businesses and telling the workers to wait until we get in. I do not see that all this relieves the situation in Whitechapel or that any fewer men and women live in misery because we have a prospect of getting in. "Furthermore, to speak quite frankly, I do not see where there is a particle of inspiration for Americans in any of these English-speaking countries. So far as I can make out the whole of mankind that dwells under the British flag is more or less mad about political success, Parliament and getting in. They say in New Zealand that the government can make a conservative of any radical, if he threatens to become dangerous, by giving him some tin-horn honor or a place in the upper chamber. In England we have seen too often that the same kind of influences can silence a radical by inviting him to the king's garden party or allowing him to shake hands with a lord. I do not believe we have anything to learn from these countries except what to avoid." FOOTNOTES: [108] Quoted by John Graham Brooks, in article above cited. [109] J. R. MacDonald, "Socialism and Society," p. 60. [110] Philip Snowden, "A Socialist Budget." [111] Speech in Carnegie Hall, New York, Jan. 13, 1909. [112] J. R. MacDonald, "Socialism and Society," p. 36. [113] J. R. MacDonald, "Socialism and Government," Vol. I, p. 1. [114] J. R. MacDonald, "Socialism and Society," p. 114. [115] J. R. MacDonald, "Socialism and Society," p. 116.