CHAPTER VIII WHY SOCIALISTS OPPOSE “RADICAL” POLITICIANS A “radical” politician, when he is not an utter fraud, is a well-meaning man who lacks either the courage or the insight to do well. He can see wrongs, but he cannot see rights. Or, if he can see rights, he dare not do right. Always, there is some reason why he should not do right. The people are not ready. The time is not propitious. Thus does he appease his conscience, betray his followers and destroy himself. Abraham Lincoln, during all except the last two years of his life, was such a man. I sometimes feel that this is why so many modern “radicals” believe they are second Lincolns. They seem to remember Lincoln only as he was when he was too small for his task. Mr. Roosevelt, in particular, is suspected of harboring the belief that he is a second Lincoln. In a way and to a degree, Mr. Roosevelt is right. The ground upon which Mr. Roosevelt now stands is broadly comparable to the ground upon which Mr. Lincoln stood before he signed the Emancipation Proclamation. Mr. Lincoln hated chattel slavery, but was willing to end the war with slavery intact. Mr. Roosevelt hates the robbery of man by man, but he shrinks from trying to seize the club with which the robbery is committed. He is willing to pick at the splinters upon the club, precisely as Mr. Lincoln was long willing to content himself with efforts to restrict the evil of slavery. And, Mr. Roosevelt, picking at splinters, is no more useful in destroying poverty than was Mr. Lincoln, when he picked at the splinters of chattel slavery. The Civil War came on, in spite of all that Lincoln did, because he did no more than to temporize with the evil that was destined to cause the war. Mr. Roosevelt, even as the leader of a new political party, is doing no more than to temporize with the monstrous evil of unnecessary poverty in America. Let us look, even more closely, into the life of Lincoln. The career of no other man of modern times is so well suited to our purpose. We want to know whether a “radical” like Roosevelt or Wilson should be more highly regarded by the people than a revolutionist like Debs or Berger. Lincoln, at different times in his life, was both a “radical” and a revolutionist. His “radical” beliefs put him into the White House. One colossal revolutionary act put him into the hearts of men. We Socialists feel that he nestles a little more closely to our hearts than he does to some others. When Lincoln ceased to temporize with chattel slavery and struck it down, he became one of us. He actually did to chattel slavery what we are trying to do to wage slavery.