Concluding Remarks of Emil Vandervelde, Belgian Minister of State,
Chairman International Socialist Bureau, in Harlem Casino, New York,
Sept. 21.
You in the United States represent the International within a nation.
You have undertaken to do what no nation of Europe has ever
accomplished. You have taken the men and women and children of all
nationalities and molded of them one uniform nation of peace.
This meeting here tonight is a demonstration of this. The International,
unfortunately divided by war, has not been seen in Europe in weeks. I
find it again in the United States. These United States, which are to
be, not merely the United States of America, or the United States of
capitalism, but the United States of the Socialism of the world.
At the last meeting of the International Socialist Bureau in Paris I can
see gathered at the same table, Hugo Haase, the Chairman of the
Parliamentary group of the German Social Democracy, drafting resolutions
of peace on behalf of the entire International. And at the same table
sat our unforgettable Jean Léon Jaurès, who fell at the first mad rush
of the war tide. What a frightful succession of events have taken place
since that time!
Jaurès dead; Guesde, the uncompromising, the Marxist, the Socialist, a
member of the French Cabinet; Dr. Ludwig Frank, one of the most
promising of the young German Socialists, shot dead in battle!
Socialists become national! French, Russian, Belgian, German, Austrian
Socialists fighting one another, destroying one another!
Who was right, who wrong? Did the majority of the German Socialists,
under the leadership of David, do right in voting the war credits asked
by the Kaiser? Or did the minority do right, under the direction of Dr.
Liebknecht, in refusing these credits? Who can pass judgment? But this
we do know and can truthfully say--not a single capitalistic Government
of all Europe but shares in the guilt.
* * * * *
"ENVOY OF MY PARTY."
Statement by Jules Guesde, Minister in France's War Cabinet and
Exponent of French Socialism, at Paris, Aug. 29.
I go into the Cabinet as an envoy of my party, not to govern, but to
fight. If I were younger, I would have shouldered a gun. But as my age
does not permit this I will, nevertheless, face the enemy and defend the
cause of humanity.
I am confident of final victory, and without hesitation as to its
subsequent role in France, the party will never deviate from the line of
conduct laid out. As the solidarity of workmen does not shut out the
right to defend themselves against traitor workmen, so international
solidarity does not exclude the right of one nation to defend itself
against a Government traitor to the peace of Europe.
France has been attacked, and she will have no more ardent defenders
than the workmen's party.
* * * * *
[Illustration: JULES GUESDE,
French Cabinet Minister and Exponent of French Socialism.
(_Photo from Trans Atlantic Co._)]