This report on Karl Liebknecht’s speech to thousands at Newark’s Weaver’s Colosseum just days after his U.S. arrival contains extensive quotes from his talk.

‘Karl Liebknecht Speaks to Big Audience in Newark’ from the New York Call. Vol. 3 No. 286. October 14, 1910.

Warns Workers to Be on Guard Against Politicians Offering Cure-alls for Their Special Wrongs.

NEWARK, N.J., Oct. 13. That all sorts of underhanded methods are resorted to by the rulers of every land to split the working people of that country by disrupting their trade organizations was the statement made here last night by Dr. Karl Liebknecht, the eminent German Socialist, who spoke here to several thousand working men and women at Weaver’s Colosseum.

The meeting was held under the auspices of the Brewery Workers’ Union. It was a fitting occasion, therefore, Dr. Liebknecht said, to review the strength and activities of organized labor the world over.

In Germany, he said, the labor movement is standing solidly behind the Social-Democratic party. Their economic struggle, the struggle for higher wages, shorter hours and better conditions generally, the workers of Germany carry on not only by strikes and other war methods in the economic field, but also join the ranks of the Social-Democrats.

Kaiser Angered.

But this class consciousness of the German trade unionists, Dr. Liebknecht pointed out, makes the German labor organizations the target of the government and of all the old parties.

All sorts of means are put forth to organized labor. Here the disrupter comes in the shape of a slick old party politician, who poses as a reformer and promises the working people any legislation they want, provided they elect him to office. There the government uses the church to disrupt organized labor. It starts Catholic unions, Protestant unions, “yellow” unions and all kinds of unions with the object of muddling the minds of the workers, and in this way perhaps succeed in preventing them from joining the Socialist ranks.

Fighting Awakening Workers.

Germany is not alone in this effort to disrupt labor organizations by offering them a reform sop here, or by stirring up race hatred or religious intolerance there, Liebknecht pointed out. The Russian government, when trade unionism became an inevitability in that country, had one of its trusted servants, a man named Zubatoff, enter the labor movement, organize unions and by his presence and misdirection keep them away from Socialism, keep them from becoming class conscious.

Even In America, Liebknecht warned his audience, this same thing is being done. Here he said the highest executive of the nation becomes a party to this deceiving of organized tabor by being a member of a labor union, an honorary member, by being a friend of the workingmen and then ordering the militia to club strikers as was done in numerous instances in labor troubles in America in the last few years.

Warns Workers.

Liebknecht warned organized labor to be on their guard against any politician or statesman, so-called, of the old parties who will come to them with panaceas and cure-alls for the evils which infest modern society. Not they, these self-seeking politicians of the parties, can solve the problem of our age, but the workers themselves through their own party, which is the Socialist party which can and will solve the problem of the day.

Dr. Liebknecht then went into a minute examination of American society and the United States government from the standpoint of the working class.

“There is not much difference between the United States and Germany after all,” Liebknecht said. “There is not much difference between a monarchical form of government and a republic when both the monarchy and the republic are ruled by the same god of gold, by Mammon.

“The difference between the German government and the government of the United States is that the German throne is made of gold and shrouded by a sort of medieval mysticism, while the American throne stands on sacks of gold. There we have a Junker class ruling over the people. Here you have a band of pirates, financial pirates ruling over you The German autocracy rules by the grace of God, while the American plutocracy rules by the grace of Mammon. Not much difference as far as the working class is concerned.

Capitalist Republics a Farce.

“If further proof were needed to show that Democracy and Republican- ism is nothing more than a farce under the present capitalist regime, the situation in France supplies us with it. The newspapers are today full of accounts of how the strike of railroad men is being suppressed by the republican government of France, by France, which was the first in on every revolution, the first to proclaim liberty, equality and fraternity.

“The exploiting, the ruling class controls our governments in its own interests and against the interests of the working class no matter whether these governments be republican or monarchical.”

While speaking about France, Liebknecht laid emphasis upon the ultraconservative tactics of Prime Minister Briand, who was once a Socialist, or at least paraded as a Socialist. The Socialist movement, he said, must beware of having politicians of the type of Briand get into its ranks, grow strong at its expense and then turn their strength against it.

Again and again Liebknecht warned organized labor not to permit religious differences to permeate labor organizations.

Warns Against Divisions.

“We have in Germany,” he said, “so-called Christian unions. All sorts of people go among the workers and try to organize them into unions whose members belong to one church. I was here in Boston yesterday and I saw the same thing happening. There are signs everywhere that here is a young people’s church society and there a young men’s league. The church stretches out its hand after the youth of the working class in an effort to keep them from becoming class conscious, from becoming radical and joining the Socialist movement. Beware of these unions. Let no religious or national differences enter the field of your economic struggle.

“I have never yet seen a Catholic exploiter who made an exception of the Catholics in his employ and exploited them less. Nor have I seen a Protestant or a Jew make any distinction with a coreligionist of his. They exploit them all alike. Capital knows no nation. no religion. It is international in its exploitation. The labor movement must be the same. The bones of the Jew are ground just as much and into the same kind of dollars as the bones of the Catholic or Protestant.”

Liebknecht again waded into the plutocratic hues of American society. “I was in Boston yesterday,” he said. “It was Columbus Day. People were celebrating the day of the discovery of America. Why were they celebrating it? Why do they put military uniforms upon their children. The entire celebration was of a kind which had nothing in common with freedom, with liberty. A martial spirit pervaded the atmosphere. This was only a symptom of the great transformation which the New World is undergoing. Indeed, your New World is no longer new. I see here the same oppression and slavery, yes, maddening slavery, which you find in Germany. Indeed your slavery is even worse here than we have it. You wear out your nerves quicker. You become played out quicker than our workers. You are thrown upon the scrap heap quicker than the workers in Germany are, for you are right in the heart of capitalism,

America Enslaved.

“No, America of today is no longer America. It is no longer the land of Columbus or of Washington, the land of freedom. America must be discovered once more. It must be liberated once more. The Goddess of Freedom must be freed once more. And the liberator must be no other than the working people, not Roosevelt, nor Taft, but the exploited and oppressed and plundered workers, they must be the discoverers of and liberators of America.

“The proletariat in this land must tear itself lose from the old parties, it must organize and with united. solid ranks it must usher in the only liberator of humanity-international Socialism.”

Liebknecht also alluded to the anniversary of the execution of Ferrer. Ferrer, he said, was not a Socialist, but he was a champion for freedom, a light-bearer for the German people, the kind of a champion whose work will never die.

Sieg Bach, of the Polish Socialist Alliance, headed a committee of Polish Socialists, who came to greet Liebknecht.

The chairman of the evening was John Frackenpohl. The Liberty Singing Society gave several musical selections.

The New York Call was the first English-language Socialist daily paper in New York City and the second in the US after the Chicago Daily Socialist. The paper was the center of the Socialist Party and under the influence of Morris Hillquit, Charles Ervin, Julius Gerber, and William Butscher. The paper was opposed to World War One, and, unsurprising given the era’s fluidity, ambivalent on the Russian Revolution even after the expulsion of the SP’s Left Wing. The paper is an invaluable resource for information on the city’s workers movement and history and one of the most important papers in the history of US socialism. The paper ran from 1908 until 1923.

PDF of full issue: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/the-new-york-call/1910/101014-newyorkcall-v03n286.pdf