THE SOCIALIST SPLIT
"Left Wingers" and “Old Guard” being popular j
terms of the day. the Socialist Party, which was
until recently headed by Norman Thomas, twice its
Presidential candidate, has adopted the modern
version and split into two factions. Thomas, accord
ing to reports, now heads the "left wingers” of the
party, while the "Old Guard" are the ones remain
ing. Latest figures on dues-paying membership lists
the total at 17.000 as against 23.000 three years ago
when Thomas amassed nearly a 1.000.000 votes in
the Presidential race, so the matter of how many
are left wing and how' many Old Guard does not
particularly matter.
The split has come over the "violence issue.” The
Old Guard claims the Thomas faction has Com- j
munistic leanings and isn't adverse to using force I
to gain control, whereby It still believes in thei
practice of power at the ballot box. Thomas replies'
the change is all bosh,” and the only reason his
group has withdrawn and is running a Socialist
Party of its own is because the Old Guard is getting
more and more in the doldrums and becoming sub
servient to reactionary practices, especially on labor
matters.
But while the battle goes on Algernon Lee, one
of the Old Guard leaders, probably explained as
well as any one just why the Socialist Party has
but 17,000 members and probably always will remain
a minority group in this country when he said, “The
general public and particularly the American work
ing people still think of Socialists and Communists
as being pretty nearly the same.''
That is exactly the point. The rank and file
of the people in this country do not go in for isms.
We are a two-party country of broad principles.
