"To my mind the working-class character and the revolutionary integrity of the Socialist Party are of the first importance. _All the votes of the people would do us no good if our party ceased to be a revolutionary party or became only incidentally so, while yielding_ more and more to the pressure to modify the principles and program of the Party for the sake of swelling the vote and hastening the day of its expected triumph.... The truth is that we have not a few members who regard vote getting as of supreme importance, no matter by what method the votes may be secured, and this leads them to hold out inducements and make representations which are not at all compatible with the stern and uncompromising principles of a revolutionary party. They seek to make the Socialist propaganda so attractive--eliminating whatever may give offense to bourgeois sensibilities--that it serves as a bait for votes rather than as a means of education, and _votes thus secured do not properly belong to us and do injustice to our Party as well as those who cast them_.... The election of legislative and administrative officers, here and there where the Party is still in a crude state and the members economically unprepared and politically unfit to assume the responsibilities thrust upon them as the result of popular discontent, will inevitably bring trouble and set the Party back, instead of advancing it, and while this is to be expected and is to an extent unavoidable, we should court no more of that kind of experience than is necessary to avoid a repetition of it. The Socialist Party has already achieved some victories of this kind which proved to be defeats, crushing and humiliating, and from which the party has not even now, after many years, entirely recovered [referring, doubtless, to Haverhill and Brockton.--W. E. W.]. "Voting for Socialism is not Socialism any more than a menu is a meal.... "The votes will come rapidly enough from now on without seeking them, and we should make it clear that the Socialist Party wants the votes only of those who want Socialism, and that, above all, as a revolutionary party of the working class, it discountenances vote seeking for the sake of votes and holds in contempt office seeking for the sake of office. These belong entirely to capitalist parties with their bosses and their boodle and have no place in a party whose shibboleth is emancipation."[146] (My italics.)