Socialist Legacy

"The duty of socialists is as plain as day — support men who represent what you want. We have no interest in other parties or those that represent them. It matters not to us whether McKinley or Bryan is ruler over us. They both believe in private capitalism. Both are opposed to socialism. Their platforms are cunningly phrased sentences to obtain votes and get them into power. "Neither of them can wholly ruin the country. Its land and people will be here when they are forgotten. The working people of all countries have been divided between parties put up by the upholders of the existing system. Each election the voters have been deluded into believing they would be benefitted by the success of this or that party... "The Democratic Party is no more to be trusted than the Republican Party. The mass of Republican voters believe their party will bring good conditions. They are as honest and sincere as the Democrats. But they both are mistaken. Good conditions cannot come so long as trusts and monopolies own the

"The country today is approaching a change. The trusts of today have lessened the number of capitalists, the trust is therefore the friend of labor. What we want is centralization of business, as trusts are, but let it be cooperative centralization." Text available here: http://marxisthistory.org/history/usa/parties/spusa/1900/1027-debs-cantonspeech.pdf On Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vNztZa4UgKw

"A million votes for the Social Democracy will compel the reorganization, and that not by converting either of the old parties, but by compelling their union against the new party, and the speedy overthrow of both. If we can get that number now, victory is near. If we cannot then all the more reason for beginning at once, for it will take a million votes in the new party to compel the reorganization by which imperialism will die, the trusts cease from troubling, the money conspiracy lose its power to enslave, and government come to be administered by direct authority of the people themselves." Text of the article: http://marxisthistory.org/history/usa/parties/spusa/1900/1020-mills-whyishallvotesdp.pdf On Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pK341S_QiC0

An article by Eugene Debs, presidential candidate of the Social Democratic Party of America in 1900. Text of the article available here: http://marxisthistory.org/history/usa/parties/spusa/1900/0324-debs-startlingtruths.pdf On YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o_JmQWR4xL8

The 1900 Platform of the Social Democratic Party of America, which would the following year change its name to the Socialist Party of America. Text available here: http://marxisthistory.org/history/usa/parties/spusa/1900/0915-sdpa-platform.pdf On Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I7LZSNwzd7w