theless, the contrasts he draws between the results of the one and the other kind of education show clearly enough that he would be willing to substitute entirely industrial for general and liberal education. For it could scarcely be said that liberal education has been over-done in the case of the negro. The negro is not yet top heavy in his educated classes, and there is not yet any superfluity in the knowledge of French and literature among the colored citizens of the south.

But Mr. Washington's point of view is evidently a practical one. He is convinced that the money which goes for the support of those colleges and universities would have gone to better advantage if given to Tuskegee or similar institutions.

At this institute Washington closely follows his ideas; and whatever we think of his plans for the solution of the negro problem, the enormous importance of the work he is doing cannot be denied by any one who took the trouble to visit his model industrial school, as the writer of these lines has done. Tuskegee has been described so frequently by its friends in American literature, that it seems unnecessary to go over the familiar field. One might say that no description does the school justice; that it is only necessary to spend a few days within the walls and the atmosphere of the school to lose all one's prejudices against the negro, unless one has actually been born with them. The school contains more than ninety buildings, and nearly 2,000 students and a better behaved body of students I have never seen in any American University. In the line of general education the program of the school is rather limited, and falls far behind that of the average American college. It is probably lower than that of a good northern high school, and only better than that of a good public school in New England. But in addition to the academic department, about thirty-five different trades, both for the boys and the girls, are taught. The labor principle is strictly carried through the organization of the school. The majority of the students earn their living while in school by doing some kind of work for the school. The girls are taught housekeeping in addition to the other trades.

(To be Continued.)

EDITOR'S
CHAIR

Socialism Becoming Respectable. Comrade Kohler's communication in this month's "News and Views" department shows how the signs of this process strike a proletarian. But some of our socialist readers may think that he is misinformed or has misinterpreted the recent acts of some of our party members. We therefore give a somewhat lengthy quotation from one of the most respectable periodicals in the United States, the Congregationalist and Christian World of Boston. In its issue of May 15, Prof. John B. Clark of Columbia University, a man who stands in the very front rank of Capitalist economists, writes:

Not at once by a single stroke is it proposed to confiscate private property. The effort will be made to reach the goal by a series of approaches, although the goal is kept constantly in view and the intermediate steps are to be taken in order that they may bring us nearer to it. What should we do about the movement while it is pursuing this conservative line of action? If we could stop it all by a touch of a button, ought we to do it? For one, I think not. On the general ground that it represents the aspirations of a vast number of working men, it has the right to exist; but what is specifically in point is that its immediate purposes are good. It has changed the uncompromising policy of opposing all half-way measures; it welcomes reforms and tries to enroll in its membership as many as possible of the reformers. It tries to secure a genuine democracy by means of the initiative and the referendum-something that would accomplish very much of that purification of politics of which the Socialist and others as well have so much to say.

Factory laws, the abolition of child labor, the protection of working women and the proper inspection of factories are measures that we all have at heart; and most of us desire the gradual shortening of the working day and general lightening of the burden of labor. When it comes to a public ownership of mines, forests, oil wells and the like, there are few of us who are not open to conviction and many of us are ready to assent to that policy by which the government holds on very carefully to such properties of this kind as it possesses and even acquires others. Inheritance taxes and income taxes, which the Socialists desire, have been widely adopted. In short, the Socialist and the reformer may walk side by side for a very considerable distance without troubling themselves about the unlike goals which they hope in the end to reach.

Will it be safe to join the party and work with it, as it were, ad interim? The

platform is always there telling very distinctly whither the movement is tending. and it is no modest platform which even the immediate demands now constitute, if we take account of all of them; for it includes the national ownership of railroads and of all consolidated industries which have reached a national scale and have practically killed competition. It demands the public ownership of land itself, a measure so sweeping that our kindly farmer would feel restive in the ranks if he really thought there was any probability of its adoption. What the reformers will have to do is to take the socialistic name, to walk behind a somewhat red banner and be ready to break ranks and leave the army when it reaches the dividing of the ways.

Will it be safe for the capitalistic reformers to join the Socialist Party for the sake of bringing about reforms which tend to delay the collapse of capitalism? Professor Clark thinks it will, and he is a man of no mean ability. But if he is right, will it be safe for the Socialist Party to shape its policy with a view to catching the votes and even the membership applications of these reformers, who will be, in Professor Clark's words, "ready to break ranks and leave the army when it reaches the dividing of the ways"? That is the issue that must be met within the Socialist Party in the near future. There will be no lack of arguments on the reform side. There are hundreds of efficient party workers who have put in many hours of unpaid labor, and who feel that the fat salary of a public official would be a suitable reward. And the salary is a possibility if we can only attract enough reformers to come in and help with their votes. There are party editors working for uncertain salaries whose pay would no doubt be sure and liberal if the reformers' money could be poured into socialist channels. And behind these few, who perhaps after all are influenced rather unconsciously than consciously by their material interests, there are many thousand converts who have come to us through sentimental sympathy rather than class consciousness, who will accept Professor Clark's overtures with joy, and with not a thought for the collapse of the allied army "when it reaches the dividing of the ways." Opposed to these will be found an increasing number of wage-workers in the great industries, whose personal experiences have taught them the vital reality of the class struggle, and by their side will be those whose study of socialist literature has convinced them that their own ultimate interests are bound up with those of the wage-workers. We who take this position hold that it is better to let the reformers do their reforming outside the Socialist Party rather than inside. We hold that the function of our party is to prepare for the revolution, by educating and organizing, and that the quickest way to get reforms, if any one cares for reforms, is to make the revolutionary movement more and more of a menace to capitalism. Two things are certain.

One is that the opportunists, so highly commended by Professor Clark, now hold most of the official positions in our party and control most of our periodicals. The other is that the great mass of the city wageworkers remain utterly unmoved by the eloquent propaganda of opportunism. The outcome? That will turn on forces stronger than arguments. Captains of industry are making revolutionists faster than professors and editors can make reformers. And when revolutionists shape the policy of the Socialist Party, reformers will find little in it to attract them.

The Rights and Powers of a Czar. To our valued exchange, The Exponent, published by the Citizens' Industrial Association of St. Louis, we are indebted for the following news item and clear-headed remarks:

When Charles Moyer was president of the Western Federation of Miners he was arrested by order of the Governor of Colorado, and as a precautionary measure was held in jail for two months and a half. Afterwards Moyer brought suit against ex-Governor Peabody, the officers of the militia and the state of Colorado asking heavy damages claiming that as no complaint was ever filed against him his imprisonment was unlawful.

The Supreme Court of the United States has recently decided the case in favor of ex-Governor Peabody and the state of Colorado.

The court holds that when public danger menaces, the executive warrant may be substituted for the judicial process, and that so long as such arrests are made in good faith and in the honest belief that they are necessary to impede insurrection, the governor is the final judge and cannot be subjected to an action on the ground that he had not reasonable ground for his belief. The effect of this is to make the governor supreme whenever rebellion against civil authority is imminent in his state, and to give him the rights and powers of a czar, without being subject to an action in damages by any man who thinks his rights were trampled upon.

At first blush this seems rather queer doctrine for a Republic but a little reflection will convince one how necessary it is to have that power, to quell insurrection. Like the much objurgated injunction, its usefulness is in the emergency.

We like the consistent way in which The Exponent here avoids such irrelevant questions as "justice" and "natural rights." The important point is that it is essential to the welfare of the capitalists who own the government that their officers be empowered to take summary measures against any workingman who menaces their interests. This is self-evident to the average capitalist, and any workingman who does not yet see it clearly had better use one of his enforced vacations these days to do a little studying and thinking. As long as capitalists control the industries of the country they must control the government. And they are going to use that government in accordance with their own interests. When workingmen come to realize this clearly, they will be ready to act both in the shops and at the polls, as intelligently as the capitalists, and the weight of numbers.

will not leave the issue long in doubt. Meanwhile the one allimportant task of socialists is to point out to other working people the things that we see, and start them using their brains. Once started, they will keep on.

Fred Warren's Conviction. A jury in a United States District Court has convicted Fred D. Warren, editor of the Appeal to Reason, on a charge of misuse of the mails. The penalty under the statute is one to five years in the penitentiary. An appeal will be taken, and Warren will doubtless remain out on bail until the higher courts have passed on the case. When Haywood had been kidnaped and was being held in defiance of law, the Appeal to Reason, as an object lesson, sent out bulletins offering a reward for the kidnaping of Taylor, who was under indictment in Kentucky, and whom the governor of Indiana, for political reasons, refused to deliver to the Kentucky authorities. The object, of course, was to discredit the whole practice of official kidnapping, and Warren's arrest and trial on a tech'nicality is an obvious trick to "get" the Appeal on a technicality. Fortunately J. A. Wayland, the owner of the Appeal, has ample funds with which to fight the case, and ample means for securing the utmost publicity, so that this attempt to crush the Appeal is likely to fail like previous attempts. Fred Warren is one of the most valuable men in the socialist movement today, and he deserves and will receive the united support of the Socialist Party.

A Step Backward: Shall We Take It? The weekly bulletin of May 8, issued by the National Secretary of the Socialist Party, announces that Local Milwaukee has proposed a national referendum, to amend Article VI, Section 1, of the National Constitution by substituting the following:

The National Executive Committee shall be composed of seven members from the membership of the party, and they shall hold office for two years. The members of the Executive Committee shall be elected by referendum vote. The call for nominations shall be issued on the first day of October in years with uneven numbers. Each local shall be entitled to nominate seven candidates. Thirty days shall be allowed for nominations, ten for acceptances and declinations, and fifty for the referendum. Nominations from five locals shall entitle a candidate to be placed on the ballot. The seven candidates receiving the highest vote shall be elected. Vacancies shall be filled in a similar manner. Members of the Executive Committee may be recalled by a referendum vote, in the manner provided for referendums in Article XI hereof, except that in such cases the initiative shall not be held open for thirty days but shall be sent out immediately.

The present section of the constitution, which this motion would repeal, provides for preferential voting. No election has yet been held under it, since it was adopted too late to be put into operation for