Source: The New York Daily Call, August 20th, 1909. Vol. 2, No. 199.
Transcription and Markup: Bill Wright for marxists.org, July, 2023.
Public Domain: This work is free of any copyright restrictions.
MIA Editor’s Note: This letter was typed out by sight from a very poor quality microfilm scan.
Half of the second column was completely blacked out and illegible, so I had to guess Kelly’s words for substantial portions
of the second half using [editor’s brackets]. As such, this transcription could possibly not be a reliable recreation of Kelly’s ideas, although
I do think it’s good enough to get an idea of what Boudin was replying to.
I venture to suggest that both Humphrey B. Campbell and Comrade [Robert] Hunter are attaching a little too much importance to the words “class struggle.”
Mr. Campbell forgets that the class struggle is a fact, and Mr. Hunter wants to lift class struggle into a principle. Comrade Hunter contends that the difference between Socialists on the one hand and the Fabians, [Aristide] Briand and [John] Burns, on the other, is that the former admit the class struggle while the latter deny it. In this respect, I think Comrade Hunter is making a mistake. No man in his senses, much less such men as [Sidney] Webb, [George Bernard] Shaw, Briand, and Burns, can deny the class struggle.
I was myself long kept out of the party by the notion that it involved the fanning of hatred between class and class; but upon reading the declaration I was called upon to sign, I found no justification for this whatever. On the contrary, I was only called upon to recognize the fact of the class struggle — a fact so obvious that no man can deny it unless he is paid to do so.
The Fabians keep out of the Socialist party, not because they deny class struggle, but because they believe themselves better fitted to do the work of permeation and propaganda than that of political organization. This, however, did not prevent their contributing to the organization of the Socialist Parliamentary party now doing such effective work in England.
Burns and Briand are no longer recognized by the Socialist party, not because they do not believe in the class struggle, but because they believe they can render service to Socialism by taking office, and the Socialist party does not agree with them in this respect. It is not the fact of the class struggle that estranges these men from the Socialist party, but questions of policy and tactics.
The discussion in The New York Call, however, on this subject seems to me of great use as it ought to [re]move an important misconception.
Marx wrote before the age of [Terrible?] Tariffs, and Frenzied Finance, [at] that time the wage earner [seemed] as the typical victim; and [society] seemed to be split up into two [warring] classes — the exploiting [factory] owner and the exploited factory worker. But since then things have [changed]. A Republican Senator in a speech before the Senate demonstrated [this] year that all our industries and all our finances are, thanks to [Modern?] Trusts, practically controlled by [just] one hundred men. To [this, of] course, must be added many thousands who share in the plunder, [so] it is probable that out of our population of say ninety million, eighty-nine millions are exploited by one million. In some cases, this exploitation is more direct than others. That of the factory hand [to the] factory owner is the most [directly] obvious. For that reason it is of the utmost importance that the wage earner should unite and form the backbone of the Socialist party, [but] they are not fighting their own [fight] only; they are fighting the [fight of] eighty-nine millions — the eighty-nine million consumers, for example, [who] see the prices of the necessities of life rise year by year and are powerless to prevent it.
The present tariff is probably the greatest outrage that has been committed by any legislature, [and] the consumer is not going to continue indefinitely to tolerate [it. It] would be our task, therefore, particularly that of Humphrey C. Campbell, to explain to our outraged fellow citizens that the Socialist party offers them the only political opportunity for securing democratic legislation; and that while the wage earners will always stand as the old guard of the movement, there are millions of others equally interested in its success.
Let us be class conscious, if you will, but upon the understanding that the class to which we belong is eighty-nine millions strong.
Edmond Kelly.
Last updated on 29 July 2023