His confession called forth a hubbub of response, and as they sat there around the table a list was made of the propaganda phrases which, as one of them said, might well "Be put out of the party as 'intellectuals.' At this there was the general laugh called forth very often during the week by the reference to the "Intellectual." The word is used among Socialists as an epithet and means that the one against whom it is used is not one of the "proletariat" (that privileged class of the workers). However, "intellectual" is gasping its last malicious breath, for it was the butt of too many jokes in Chicago. The list of words they wished to be rid of was made out much as those lists of French nobles for beheading, in 1791.

Copyright, 1908, by Wilshire's Magazine.

EUGENE V. DEBS.

"Say, can 't we get along without

"Write it down!" they all cried.

And a young novelist who has just joined the party wrote it on the back of an envelope.

"Revolution!" shouted another.
"Write it down!" they cried.
"Exploitation!" groaned a third.
"Put that on the list."

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Wage-slave!" hammered one.

Then the first dispute arose and lasted until one of them said:

"Either we are or we are n't. If we are, we want to forget it and get to the business of the ballot; if we are n't, then we 're liars to boast of being."

"Write it down!" they cried. All except a lawyer who is making thirty thousand a year in his practice. He was for calling himself a wage-slave to the end.

"Uncompromising" was written without protest.

sheepishly. "It makes me feel as though I were in a Methodist prayer-meeting where it's all Brother This and Sister That."

There was a pause portentous. The man who had made the break went on: "It's so smug and self-satisfied, and it shuts out all the fellows we 're trying to get in. Say, I hate it; it's bourgeoisie!' "Write it down," they whispered, and all looked at the floor.

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"Bourgeois must go, too." They nodded assent.

"Well, there's not much of the party left now. You 've taken its flag and its phrases."

"My young friend," said the ex-professor, "this happens to be the one party that does not need flags or phrases. It 's got the goods."

"Yes," said the "young friend," "but I don't see that any of you want to deliver the goods."

The ex-professor patted him on the shoulder. "Have you met Berger, of Wisconsin?"

I was listening to all of this as an outsider. I was of those who went to the convention out of curiosity, and I had met Victor Berger, of Milwaukee, last year and knew that he represented the practical Socialists-those who are willing to work wherever they find an opportunity and do not consider that since they have decided upon their goalCoöperative Commonwealth-they make any compromise in setting out to reach it. I knew the Convention was going

to be interesting because Berger and the "Constructives" would be there, and so would the "Impossibilists."

"We ought not to deal too harshly with our Impossibilist comrades," says Berger himself. "Almost all old Socialists were Impossibilists once upon a time.”

Just what an Impossibilist is, it is hard to tell. He is the man who uses the "holy words" of any movement; in Socialism such words, for instance, as were put on the list, and he always opposes practical measures. He represents an important phase of the Socialist movement, the historical, almost fanatic insistence upon the "philosophical basis." In 1854 he would have belonged-by reason of his temperament-to that group of Abolitionists who gave no definite plan of procedure to the country when they presented the vital issue of slavery. He exists in every movement, is sincere, usually right in theory and always in evidence. He both retards and hastens-retards the practice of principles while calling attention in his

CARL D. THOMPSON.

intensity to the principles themselves. He would be in evidence, perhaps in control, at the opening of this National Socialist Convention. Where would he be at the end? His place then would determine whether or not the party was to be counted a third political party, dangerous to the interests of the two old parties, or simply as heretofore a party of propaganda not yet significant in the approaching campaign. The pendulum of the movement in this country would during convention week swing violently towards him or as violently

away.

On Sunday, when those of us arrived who were to sit on the stage of the Garrick Theater at the opening reception, we found the only person with any idea of activity as an arrangement committee to be a little white-haired woman. The making of arrangements for a convention is a business in itself which the Socialists

have not yet learned. But in the gayety of this informal arrangement we dubbed

her "Mother," and watched her, busily engaged in pushing camp-chairs back and forth, hither and yon, as though at a game of solitaire. Men of the mountains, men of the prairies, men of the City of New York, pushed their way through the narrow corridor to the stage and were about to sit down upon the geometric design of camp chairs, but 'Mother" would n't have it so, for a singing society, with its hair done in pompadour and its fluff under its chin, had arrived and needed them.

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A few minutes later, when the curtain rose, these young ladies stood up and sang the "Marseillaise"! It was distinctly American. We let our women do everything even let them sing that song first sung by masses of maddened and inspired people the war-song of the working classes.

But whether or not it was in keeping with the spirit of the "Marseillaise" as originally written, it was a very gentle and rather charming beginning to the day. That opening reception was an

J. GRAHAM PHELPS STOKES.

epitome of the convention week. The speeches indicated the change that had gone on during the last four years in the party itself, for the American, the Irish, the English, the Russian and the German speakers all emphasized the need of studying American conditions and meeting the situation in an American manner. There was no exaggeration of phrase, there was no demagoguery, no prophecy of blood; but an insistence upon action and energy. Some things that were said roused laughter, which showed that a sense of humor prevailed. It would be impossible now to caricature the convention, for you cannot laugh at any person or body of persons who have a sense of humor. At the end of the hour there was a sudden intensity when a Yiddish chorus sang songs of South Russia, the strange, weird, minor plaints of the oppressed, and then burst into the "Marseillaise." They knew what it meant! The day, beginning in the commonplaceness of Chicago, and the confusion

incident upon lack of arrangements, had become international in spirit.

The National Socialist Convention opened May tenth in Chicago with 219 delegates and several hundred visitors. vitally interested in its proceedings. Brand's Hall on North Clark street was crowded at the first session. Face to face with the delegates sitting at tables under their respective state placards, I remarked at once that there was much more tan and wholesome color than anæmic pallor or symptoms of sweatshop and factory. These were men and women of more than usual vitality. Here were American farmers, sturdy, thoughtful, eager; here were lawyers with something of that keen and disciplined look of the early American statesman; there were ex-college professors, writers, preachers, coal-miners, cigar-makers and other industrial workers, doctors, dentists and small business men. And I was told by the national secretary, Mahlon Barnes, that the small towns