A CALL TO SOCIALISTS.

Ohinemuri Gazette, Volume XXIX, Issue 3956, 12 August 1918, Page 1

A CALL TO SOCIALISTS.

Definite assurance that the Socialists of the United States • "will do nothing which might retard" the victory of the Allies is made by Max Eastman, editor of the Socialist Monthly, " Liberator," whose .trial on the charge of hindering the draft ended, in a disagreement recently. Writing in the July issue of, the "Liberator" on the changed altitude of United States Socialists towards the war and the Administration's war problem, Mr Eastman says in part :—

"To-day the Allied armies are fighting to prevent a German victory, and the Socialists, whatever they may think of Allied diplomacy in the past, will do nothing which, might retard, that fight. The growing menace of Prussian victory, the increasing power of Labour and internationalist elements among the Allies, the President's peace terms, the German invasion of Socialist Russia,, the refraining of the Allies from such invasion, and the Lichnowsky's revelation of Germany's original war purpose, have served to confuse or to remove altogether any such outstanding motive among the majority of Socialists. And thus, by a combination of natural instinct with the logic of,events, a certain degree of sacred union has come I«|*existence in America, as it did The platfprm at St Louis adopted for these elections. was not adopted in these circumstances. Itr bears no relation to a world in which

there exists a Soviet Republic iis danger of annihilation from four quarters and calling to us for four kinds of help. It bears no relation to\a war in which the international peac^ terms proposed by that Republic.have been embodied in the organised war programme of our country. For my part I advocate a generous recognition of the statement of war aims that President Wilson has dictated to the Allied countries. I believe that the Socialist Party of America should join the British Labour Party and the Socialists of France and Italy and Belgium, in endorsing President Wilson's war aims^ and developing their implications."