The Rebel (Hallettsville, Tex.), Vol. [2], No. 85, Ed. 1 Saturday, February 22, 1913 Page: 4 of 4
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and he 011)7 is a co^ctt
who recognizes its ric*
We may asy, like onto a
built house, it faces the
fottr directions: First, It
taUectual movement; second, it is
sn indnstrisl movement; third, it
is « political mobement; fourth, it
.ia.a- spiritual movement And mat
of these is perfect without the oth-
• era Let one of the walls of a home
be minting, the other three sides are
rickety.
An Intellectual Movement.
First, ss an intellectual move-
ment, socialism is a scientific rein
terprelation of the universe. We
are the light-bringers. We sweep
away old errors that have*dark*tt' *
ed the minds of men for so many
• yeam. To the perplexed and baffled
intellect of humanity we come with
healing. Most aptly has our emblem
been chosen — s flaming torch of
l%h^, illumining the dark places.
Yjf*, socialism Ls an intellectual
movement — it is a scientific re-
interpretation of history, a scient-
ific reinterpretation of nature, a
1 scientific reinterpretation of hum-
an society. .
TT—. "..'"IfiV. " "y.H -
A "Cklortfermine * Rtligion
Well, frankly, as to that kind of
ro&gwtt, I don't want it either. I
bate ajl that sort of staff as much
as jmNL There is no siighteet doubt
*" V the prie«t and th* exploiter
in partnership. The church in
1 form is in large part a
agency, to keep the
I I. while the social
are ransacking the house
its
An Industrial Movement,
Second, it is an industrial move-
ment. The coming of machin-
ery during the last century and a
half has revolutionized the world's
work. So that in order to conform
to the new posture which the
world's work has taken a revolu-
tion in the order of human society
is imperative. It is the faskion with
some 90cialistsjQ.jgpoh-poob such
things as syndicalism in Europe
and the Industrial Workers of the
World here in America. I do not
pooh-pooh them. We need action;
we need direct acijpii. And the
more direct it is sometimes, the
better I like it. When I read of the
fiery zeal of our syndicalist com
rades in France and Italy, I lift
up a prayer to the lord of socialism,
that he will send down a baptism
of that fire upon us also, inspiring
us even to the degree of martyr-
dom, should the call come for us
pay the last full measure of devo-
tion. It was a little thing, but me
of the happiest ingatherings of my
memory, the recollection of a rainy
afternoon, when I paraded the
streets of Manhattan in sad mermo-
riam of the victims of the Triangle
massacre. Yea, socialism is a world
wide class alignment of us who
work for our living, either with our
hand, or with our brain, — a de-
termination that, by God Almighty
we are going to throw off from
our backs the crew of professional
idlers; this world belongs to the
workers, and we are going to have
it
I , K '
A Political Movement.
Besides being an intellectual
movement and an industrial move-
ment, socialism is a political move
ment Were we to negleet that pro-
digious lever which political mach-
inery puts into our4umds, it were
a-tactical blunder of the first mag-
nitude. Those party socialists who
ridicule the direct-action and syn-
dicalist crowd, are as we saw, lop-
sided. But just as lop-sided are the
syndicalists who look askant at the
party workers. Each needs the
other.
:*r
. 1— _.tLt
srli
has eiher
Mf
were industrial slat
■ tAaulM Jg - ■ ■
yards 01 Uoenesm.
leader, we the Gen.
day. Not only did he
first successful labor
Z'\T Hebrew woo^and It haf%n
J th« there ever since. Why is it WSE
of our! Jews today are
beyond me in anal
pile on a few more pieces of veriml written by Jews, gives the answer
brimstone. . Hy universal consent, the two men
In fact it is exactly because the ^hp founded mode:n socialism
parson and priest hold the people wer^ Ferdinand Lasalle and ftari
enchained as they do, that we must Marx and both of them were
ourselves adopt religion in order ;^ewrg> Marx himself being the de-
to break that hold and capture J^endant ora long line of rabbk
those people for our cause of a 'Hie bible is the, magna eharta of
democratic work-state, a world re- human freedom. U does ndt know
public of free and high-hearted l!1®* {° spare a despoMJompromifv
toilers. The human heart is incur- tyranny! the bible in all its
ably religious. The'Scientific psy- j vocabulary knows no suclNyord as
ehologists today are very emphatic I rompromise. The burst of
on that point. People can't get fion rumbles through it Uke uk
A Spiritual Movement.
But now, and fourthly, social-
ism is a spiritual movement. And
here we come to the heart of our
subject. I am emulous to get you
to be complete socialist. Which
means, you must tee it in this its
four-sided nature. Neglect any one
of these four aspects, you are to
that extent a lop-aided socialist;
you come short of being the full-
orbed, the balanced, the complete
comrade in the ranks which you
ought to be. and which you can be.
But right away I think I hear
some one objecting. He says, we go
with you on thssg first three points"
-you made. We see clearly that soc-
ialism is as you very well put it,
an intellectual movement, so
indeed we have use for the brain-
workers, the intellectual proletar-
iat. in out ranks; it is also an in-
dustrial movement, and we must
solidarity the worfang-elasu in a
world-wide class struggle; it is also.
•- . nua we must
get our clutches on the law-mak-
ing, law-enforcing and law inter-
preting bodies. But this fourth
point you are now getting to, soc-
ialism as a religious movement, we
■hake our heads there, Religiorf
stands lor submiasivenesB. pietism,
other-worldlineas, superstition, ec-
clesiastieism,— that sort of thing.
We don't want it
along on bread alone. Here and
there are exceptions — human be
ings who are interiorly so dry and
dead and juice less that tliey have
no imaginative nature, and there-
fore are satisfied with the husks of
cold and eolorless logie. But the
natural unspoiled child of earth
needs the inspiration of a great
dream. The imagination is the high-
est quality that a human being
can be endowed withal. The cause
which captures the imagination of
the world will succeed. Any cause
which fails to capture the imagin-
ation, though its logic be indisput-
able, will miserably Tsjl.
Capitalists Understand It.
Capitalism is wise in its
day and generation. It has
learned the enormous lever
which any - cause obtains
when it has got itself coupled up
with religion — that is, with,
dream side of life. Therefore, it
makes alliance with the parson and
the priest — pays their salaries in
order that they may continue their
chloroforming and i&rcotizing
work. The people don't want to be
chloroformed, the people don't
want to be exploited. Why then
do they submit to the parson and
the priestt It's because the parson
and the priest bring to them that
which satisfies their deepest long-
ing, namely, their longing for a
dream that shall pour a golden
glow of imagination over their dull
existences, and give them some-
thing to Ijve for. And I tell you
that that spell which they have
laid upon the people will never be
lifted, except we bring to them a
new dream, to supersede the one
into which they have been drug-
ged, and which is at present hold-
ing them in a nightmare locking of
limb and jaw. Religion is the dyn-
amic of highest ampereage of all
the currents which move th« hum-
an organism. At present, that dyn-
amic is being used against us, and
with telling effect. An enginery as
powerful as that is worth captur-
ing.
Religion as Revolution.
Capitalism has manufactured
a religion which it is using as a
flail to beat the people down into
submissive and quietude. We
must be equally wise, equally psy-
chological. To religion as slavisb-
ness We must present religion os
revolution.
interior fires of a volcano. From
beginning to ending, its narrative
heaves and tosses under every afcrv-
itude.preferring to die rather than
live in shivery. Those old prophet
tribunes of the people, Samuel,
Isaiah, Jeremiah, Hosea, AmOs!
Zachariah, were social agitators
Fhey cried aloud against the Ine-
qualities of human f01 tune. They
were the champions of the work-
ing-class against the oppressors.
The Greatest Rebel
And who is the personage in
whom the bible culminates? A
carpenter. Jesus of Nazareth —■
mark every syltable. I utter—was
the greatest revolutionist. that
ever trod and shook this planet.
He was a workingman. Hia father
•Joseph was a workingman before
him. He came from an ancestry of
immemorial toil. The Jewish spirit
of democracy — industrial self-
respect — was in his veinjbone of
his bone, flesh of his flesh, frothing
could wash from his blood that in
domitable independence, that rag<
for freedom. He was born in an
ox-stall. He lived in a mud-plaster
ed hut. For eighteen years he earn-
ed his living as day laborer. He ate
the bread of toil, he drank the cttp
of affliction. When at last the in-
dustrial tyranny became unendur
able — for this, you remember,
was in the days when the Roman
'Empire was forming, that apo-
theosis of property rights — this
carpenter stepped forth from his
workhouse to arouse the people
against their oppressors.
Naturally, with an insurrection-
ary force of this magnitude let
loose, capitalism got its priests and
theologians busy at once, and they
overlaid his life and teachings with
commentary and explanations, to
smother the dynamite and steriliite
this terrific teacher of freedom.
But the trick, thankB to the higher
criticism of our day, is at last
coming to light. We are now brush-
ing aside these pietistic interpret-
ations, and we behold Jesus of Nas-
areth as the incarnation of the
working-class, the lord and leader
of industrial democracy.
Jesus Radical.
^^ „ JFFICES.
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outfit" consistino of 10 rebel sub cards and S •
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V
•ND ALL SUBS TO
Rebel Conte^tJDept, Hallettsville Texas.
#
An Artificial Religion. -
You notice, in si>eaking of the
religion of submissiveness origin-
ated by capitalism, I used the
word "manufactured". And with
design, that religion is an artific-
al produet. It did not arise spon-
taneously, but was cleverly devis-
by pnwi, ttliu iiieoiogians "who
were on the payroll of capitalism.
And, with the scientific study of
history wbjfih, we are mw pnrsu-
ing, this fact is coming to light.
The bible, so far as the religion
drift of its mesaage is concerned,
is. as James Russell Lowell right-
ly says, the most revolutionary
book ever written. TJtw *mnhl« im
na sortai dynamite has been smc
ered up by the overlayings of
priestly interpretation. But now
that, thanks to the higher criticism,
these priestly overlayings are be-
ing detected and stripped away,
the splendid explosives underneath
are coming into view, and present
us with enough dynamite to blow
theapresent unjust order of society
into smithereens. «f
, X . i
It is not too much to say that the
speeches of Jesus, as recorded 1b
the first three books of the Njrtr
Testament, contain more social
dynamite than is contained in equal
compass in the words of any other
working-class agitator of which
history has preserved the rememb-
rance. The interests rebuke us to-
day for what they call our intem-
perate utterances. Jesus was no
more intemperate than we. This
Carpenter hated an endowed idli
class — said there was no more
hope for them than for a camel to
go through the eye of a needle.
Jesus knew not .how to be moder-
ate. Prue, he said, "Blessed are the
meek." But if you read the connec-
tion in which that saying is aei,
you will note that he meant there-
by an increase of working-class
aggressiveness, and by no means a
self-effacing attitude. In every
age that propaganda is
anny which goes quietly, wisely,
unselfishly. Tempestuous, jstum#-
und-drang methods don't carry
far. The agitator who does not
shout or ery aloud, sr lift hia wor<k
ragingly, but who makes his stQl
small voice heard in the corridor*
of the soul — that fellow gets hia
message under the skin of tfti list-
ener, and brings things to psa*
Ferrer over in Spain, was -
\
the sense in which Jesus used the
term; that is, he made no unneces-
sary noise, was no braggart, did
not go Mustering and storming
around like a house afire. And it
was quite because of this persist-
ent dogged efficiency that Ferrer
became a nightmare to the inter-
ests in Spain, and they sought his
death above all others.
Jetug Militant.
Jesus' was the most rebellious war-
rior spirit that ever lived. He
sought to breed a type of man that
would look oppression in the face
and wring its neck. In his day the
temple in Jerusalem, which was al-
so the capitol building of the state,
had become the nest of a gang of
priest politicians and millionaire
rulers, who were systematically
robbing the people Jesus endured
it as long ss he could. At last, the
seene caused within him one of
those high flashes of indignation
for which he was so splendidly cap-
able. Catching up aome pieces of
rope which strewed the courtyard,
he weaved them into a whip and
lashed the whole crew of them out
of the temple and into the street
The populace huxzahed. But the in-
terests "took counsel together how
they might kill him." A.day or
two later, Jesus followed this up
with that speech of arraignment,
against the ferreted aristocracy
of the day. As an example of con-
centrated verbal damnation,' it
stand without a peer. The epi-
thets race upon the heela of, each
other, surging from out the volca-
no that has broke loose within him.
Hereafter, eveiy time the party of
peace and acquiescence accuse any
of Vou of immoderation in your at-
tacks against the intrenched wrong
of our civilization, read to them a
passage or jwo from that twenty- ]
fifth chapter of Matthew's life of.
Jesus; and ask them how they'd
like it to* be up against that kind
of stuff. r
Jesus "Too Dangerous."
Well, this Carpenter from Naza-
reth was quite too dangerous an
agitator to be loose in a society bsa-
«d on industrial slavery. About
really three years later, therefore, they
suktt£ii\ liim ax unuuigtu, Wtten xin
people were asleep and therefore
could not rescue him — a kidnap-
ping, 'Ton perceive ; capitalism
hasn't changed its methods one io-
ta, in all these eighteeh centuries,
they killed him the next morn-
ing bright and early. The .charge
they brought against him was this,
"He stirreth up the
Woman's Emancipation
By Eugene V. Debs.
(Written in honor of Woman's Day, Feb. 23,1913.)
Had I at my command the faWed horn of Gabriel, whose blast is to
summon earth's dead on resurrection morn, I would be tempted to
mount high Olympus, crown this hour and proclaim to all the world the
emancipation of womankind. \~
Until that hour strikes, in which the womanhood of the world ia
freed from economic and political slavery, this earth can never know
the meaning of liberty. -
™ ^ eVery burden- eveT wrong, every injustice of
onr spoiled cmhaton rests et lest its crashing weight upon the
womanhood of the world. |
For many centuries this condition has obtained Man has been
born of woman enslaved, and he has, in turn, suffered enslavement
. J. ,"08t ^noua feature of the present world-wide revolution
and it* most potent feature for the weal of mankind is the millions up-
on millions of women who have bravely and boldly shattered the social
and eonomic shackles of the ages and who are inviting their sisters of
every state and clime to join with them in demanding their freedom
and enfranchisement. * , ,,
WiJh toe power and responsibility of the ballot will come a men-
*r* ,,mng roch M th€. womanhood of the world has never known.
Intelligent consideration and discussion of the*mighty problems of
this age will become a part of the mental life of every man and woman
to the great and permanent profit of the race
^etteB',U?t ,OT h w cramped and
arped and starved the soul of woman and you have opened the verv
doors of heaven. ■
mAn3^! P°Jiti(?_e!nf?nChil,en^t *** the economic freedom of wo-
men means the birth of a race of freemen. '
PWPN"3 ™;he uPwwd' Onward course of the race was
ever fraught with such portentious meaning as is the emancipation of
the womanhood of the world. ^
And the Socialists of the world welcome their sisters in revolt. WSth
souls aflame and hearts afire we face the rosy dawn of a new eiviliza-
tion and we welcome woman's emancipation as the harbinger of the
glad new day. —
tare for the Rebel. I had the plea-
wire of hearing Stanley J. Clark.
Ben Wilson, Comrade Debs. Wal-
ter Thomas Mills and maijy other*;
am an Oklahoman, have lived in
Muskogee 12 years where we have
many lyceum courses; but I fee1
free to say that Comrade Currie
is among th«l| best.
He lw some of the atrongest
ways of illustrating and making
plain his message, I ever saw. I *
nope it may be convenient to have
him make Oklahoma as your paper
is being greatly talksd of j* that
country. v
Fraternally,
« C. E. Pardin.
*
>7
m-Z " « r*erB, no one can break9S
|J your chains but yoraadvea. I s
CURRIE A "TOPNOTCBER." flot^ad you out^if Ik^
, pger, to.** 6. IMS.|*wSd,™<%'if J
Dear Rebel: —We have, just *! would come along and lead
had the pleasure of securing Com>|® again. Liberty is not
ride Currie for two 'dates and £
heard him leCKm both Uighta. He12
did a wdridof gobdW^'? ^
I und«ratand he is going to le<N | S K W !R m 9 5 s s
wjm.7.
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Hickey, T. A. The Rebel (Hallettsville, Tex.), Vol. [2], No. 85, Ed. 1 Saturday, February 22, 1913, newspaper, February 22, 1913; (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth394395/m1/4/?q=%22%22~1: accessed August 15, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu.; crediting UT San Antonio Libraries Special Collections.