Marcy on the responsibility of the working class in keeping their representatives honest in an atmosphere of constant capitalist pressures.

‘How to Help Yourself’ by Mary E. Marcy from International Socialist Review. Vol. 14 No. 4 October, `1913.

IF YOU should stand up on a cracker-barrel in front of a factory and offer every man, woman and child working in it $10.00 a week more than they were earning–to work in some other factory–it is a safe proposition that every one of them would quit the old job just as soon as they had drawn their pay envelopes.

A young Socialist from India told me that he had seen dozens of missionaries convert hundreds of the starving natives of his country by feeding them generous measures of rice during a famine. He called these converts “rice Christians.” He said that he had found out that no matter whether the missionary was a Presbyterian, a Baptist, a Methodist, or a Catholic, the hungry natives unfailingly threw in their allegiance with the Christian that produced the grub. In other words, they followed the Meal Ticket into any fold.

This is the same reason Socialism–or Industrial Democracy–is bound to succeed. It assures every worker in the whole world shorter hours of labor, steady work, nice homes, good clothes, and all the good things of life. It represents the actual interests of the working class.

It assures to every man and woman equal opportunity and a safe and comfortable old age. It assures the rich man exactly the same things as it guarantees the wage worker–work, leisure and at comfortable living. He will no longer be able to live off the labor of others.

Now you will have to remember that fundamentally, Baptists and Socialists and Republicans, industrial unionists and members of the A.F. of L. are all alike. Even the grafters are very much like the Socialists and industrial unionists–in ONE WAY. They want more of the good things of life. They want automobiles and fine clothes and vacations. They want short hours and pleasant work. That is why they are grafters. As long as a politician finds out that he can get money by serving the factory owners, the millionaires and trust presidents, just so long will politicians sell out to these rich men, no matter who they are.

No intelligent Socialist party member pretends that Socialists in office never “sell out.” No industrial unionist ever pretends that his officials are born more honest than the A.F. of L. officials. Men and women want comfort and plenty, no matter where we find them.

But the Socialist party members are going to FORCE their officials to serve the working class by making them all sign their resignations before they accept office, so that UNLESS THEY TAKE THEIR ORDERS FROM THE WORKERS the party members can put them out of office.

Industrial unionists are setting a fine example in keeping officers square. They are refusing to pay enormous salaries and they are keeping the treasury empty all the time. As soon as funds come in they spend them in organization work, strike benefits, educational campaigns.

In this way they will be able to keep the GRAFTERS FROM HANGING ABOUT THE MONEY BAGS. As sure as an organization accumulates a large fund in the treasury, just so sure will it accumulate a large group of trouble-making GOLD SEEKERS. Some people have claimed that a large fund in a union treasury is a good thing. It IS NOT, because there can be no large fund without a correspondingly large band of union pirates who scheme and plot to get their hands on a part of that money.

Socialists and industrial unionists are no more honest than other folks. They want more of the good things of life. So do the grafters, but they are willing (when they have the opportunity) to sell out their class so that they can person- ally get these things.

There is only one class of men a workingman or woman can trust and that is the WORKING CLASS–THEIR OWN CLASS. Nobody can buy out the whole working CLASS. They are chained to the factory, mill or mine, and the only way they can save themselves is by UNITING WITH THEIR COMRADES.

You cannot trust ANY leaders, because nearly ALL leaders Follow the Dollar just as you and I follow the Dollar when we are offered more pay at a new job. The workers can only trust themselves and their class. They must make it impossible and unattractive for their officers to cling to their jobs. They must tie them up so that they can never betray the workers. They must place them in a position where failure to SERVE the working CLASS will result in their permanent ruin.

United, educated–running their own organizations the working class can march straight on to victory and the abolition of the profit system.

This is what Socialism proposes to do. This is why every workingman and woman should be a member of the Socialist Party and the I.W.W.

You can make these organizations great, permanent weapons in your war on the Profit System.

The International Socialist Review (ISR) was published monthly in Chicago from 1900 until 1918 by Charles H. Kerr and critically loyal to the Socialist Party of America. It is one of the essential publications in U.S. left history. During the editorship of A.M. Simons it was largely theoretical and moderate. In 1908, Charles H. Kerr took over as editor with strong influence from Mary E Marcy. The magazine became the foremost proponent of the SP’s left wing growing to tens of thousands of subscribers. It remained revolutionary in outlook and anti-militarist during World War One. It liberally used photographs and images, with news, theory, arts and organizing in its pages. It articles, reports and essays are an invaluable record of the U.S. class struggle and the development of Marxism in the decades before the Soviet experience. It was closed down in government repression in 1918.

PDF of full issue: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/isr/v14n03-sep-1913-ISR-gog-ocr.pdf