The power of music in the movement, leading figure of the Y.P.S.L. and later Young Communists, Kruse on socialism and song.

‘As to Songs and Singing’ by William F. Kruse from Young Socialists Magazine (Y.P.S.L.). Vol. 8 No. 3. March, 1915.

This late Sunday afternoon finds me reading, as is the custom of most city dwelling Americans, the voluminous papers that the day brings to us. As there is a limit to patience, even in paper reading, I find my attention wandering more and more from the subject matter on hand.

In the next room the kiddies are playing, they have just had some sort of a party and are all feeling quite content. Curious to find out what the game might be, I listen, and am rather surprised to find them playing “Sunday School.” Lottie, the eldest and biggest of the crowd, is the “teacher,” and being rather short of lesson material she soon leads them into singing. The kiddies take to it like a duck to water, and they can surely sing. When their voices pipe, “The Sosh’list Flag is Deepest Red,” it does your heart good to listen; and when they wind up: “We’ll keep the red flag flying here,” there is a snap and determination in their voices that augurs well for the stability of our movement in the future.

There is something inspiring in these children’s songs; as I sit and ponder, my memory carries me back to the crowded May Day celebration hall of last year. I see the whole stage packed with the little ones, all dolled out in red sashes and ties and ribbons–red, red everywhere. And as a big scarlet banner is unfurled their little voices ring out: “C-r-imson, crimson” in a way that surely tells you that the color of the Revolution means something very real to them. And when you leave the hall after it is all over, you will find for you too it has taken on a new, more vital meaning.

The next picture that comes to my mind is a scene at the Rand School. On winter evenings, when class work leaves them free, a group of students and teachers love to congregate around the big open fire-place, brightly lit by the blazing logs. Here are comrades from every land.

We have many different mother-tongues, but with music, the one truly international language, we are all on one plane. Here are revived the soft crooning airs and stirring anthems of revolution from every land and clime. And so our group draws its bonds of friendship closer, all artificial barriers of alien tongue and custom are swept away in new realization of our human kinship.

But this serious note does not always prevail here. I well recall a jolly happy go-lucky group of young people around the piano on a Sunday evening; and the Marseillaise, while receiving its due share of attention, does not monopolize the singing program. Popular songs of the day, together with their Socialist adaptation, so well prepared by Comrade Shedd and others, are often used, and the lilting, crooning, waltz tunes and snappy, jolly college airs do much to make the students forsake all thoughts of homesickness and join the happy fraternity. Verily, a good song is the greatest socializer.

The mental journey is not yet complete, however, and the next scene that presents itself to view is the great May Day Parade in New York City. Many thousands of workers are marching here, and to get enough musicians to adequately cater to their needs is financially, if not actually, impossible. But this little handicap does not daunt the spirit of our crowd. If there is no one to furnish march music for us, we make our own. A few brave souls lift their voices to the strains of the Marseillaise and the International and soon thousands of marchers join in the stirring anthem. And as we march along, singing, no heed is given the sultry day, the rough pavements, or the long distance–the spirit of song rises like wine to our heads, it gladdens our souls and fires our hearts with new enthusiasm for the cause.

Picture, if you can, a Socialist Party Convention during its noon recess. Dinner is over, the delegates and visitors congregate in small groups to talk “shop” and while away a half-hour or more until the body convenes again. Time hangs somewhat heavily on our hands, so a song is proposed and immediately everybody joins in. Veteran, grown grey in the movement, and young recruit, still in the first flush of enthusiasm, stand shoulder to shoulder: lawyer and laborer comrade, “red” and “yellow,” all join in together. Forgotten are all questions of tactics, laid aside are all personalities–their voices are lifted in the same song and, for the time, even their hearts beat in unanimity.

When business is again resumed, a new, broader spirit of tolerance and fairness is found to prevail. To bring about harmony in our organization, fifteen minutes of song are worth more than six hours of debate.

Come out into the country with me, where the birds still sing, where the flowers are not afraid to bloom and the men to think. There is a certain atmosphere of freedom about this little Borough of Haledon: to be sure, this is only to be expected where the workers have elected their own Socialist mayor and councilmen. In the heart of the Borough there is a beautiful open grove flanked on all sides by mountains. Here the Young People’s Socialist League of New Jersey held its annual picnic. From all parts of the state the Young Socialists had travelled here, a veritable pilgrimage to their Mecca; they came on foot, by trolley, train and auto-truck. Suddenly, when merrymaking seemed at its height, a few words are passed from man to man: “We’re goin’ to sing.” The effect is electric–the instruments of the two Socialist Drum Corps (Hudson County and Paterson) are piled up in their “headquarters” under the trees. Games, feeding, and sport of all kinds is stopped and everybody hastens toward one end of the grove where a bewhiskered comrade has fastened a collection of song-posters to the side of a tree. It is Comrade Craig with his song chart, and a popular figure he surely is. The youngsters soon lift their voices to make the welkin ring, and the resounding echoes from the surrounding hills seem to indicate that Nature herself has caught the spirit of revolt. Later, games are held and races run, each result is marked with a song of victory on the one side and one of congratulation on the other. Alas, the best of good days must come to a close all too soon! As the sun hides his head behind the western hills, the various groups set out on their long way homeward. But before they go, a farewell song is sung, and the ties of friendship this day established are cemented still more firmly by this parting ceremony.

Again our scene changes, I find myself with the Comrade Club on one of their boat parties. Favored greatly by fair wind and tide, early that morning we had sailed up the stately Hudson until a good camping site on the Palisades was reached. We had made the trip in a dozen little “cat-boats,” each carrying four occupants, together with their food, cooking utensils, etc. A glorious exhibition of seamanship was given in the race to reach the destination before the others, the sails were spread and, in trying to get the fullest advantage of the wind, the little boats heeled over until they were in danger of swamping. Now comes the pleasure of cooking our own food over the dozen camp-fires that are kindled along the shore, and soon the big feed is spread out, the clean white sand serving us alike for chair and table. Following this are various games and rambles up the hillside, and then an impromptu carnival of water-sports.

But nightfall notifies us that it is time to break camp. Wind and tide are no longer in our favor, so we heartily welcome the arrival of the big auxiliary sloop “Comrade,” (the god-mother, as it were of our club), that has come to help us on the homeward journey. As she rides at anchor in mid-stream, her slender clean-cut lines stand out beautifully against the star-lit sky. A bugle-call, signaling that the time to start homeward is here, sounds across the water. The smouldering camp-fires are put out, the skiffs are gotten ship- shape, and the trip to the sloop is soon made. The small boats, lashed together and with their sails furled, are towed behind our craft–the propeller churns the water and we are off for home. The young folks proceed to make themselves comfortable–very comfortable indeed. They sing-and their song is wafted across the quiet waters by fairy breezes. Its soft and sweet tone, as it seems carried on the beams of the moonlight, gives one a weird suggestion of Venice and canals and gondola affairs. Listen for a moment to the words: “Comrades, so dear to me: hearts warm and tender.” This they sing, and mean it, too, though perhaps some do mean it just a wee bit more intensely than do others. During the entire trip, a sweet, restful harmony prevails, the exciting pleasures of the day are recounted every now and then, but in the main, rest is now the order of the day. A fitting climax, indeed, is provided for the day’s exertions, by these comradeship songs…

These are but dreams, memory pictures. Now let us, for a moment, look at the matter seriously. Is it not true that most of our little parties and affairs, to say nothing of the meetings, suffer for lack of sociability, understanding, and harmony? I have found this to be the case in the majority of gatherings of every description that I have ever visited. We are short on the spirit of sociability, we cannot deny it, and it behooves each of us to seek the remedy. If we can get our group to thinking and acting harmoniously upon a common social plane, social plane, the difficulty would take care of itself. People cannot sing the same words to the same tunes in the same way at the same time, without getting to think and feel along the same lines. Comrades, we must learn to take advantage of this means of securing harmonious relations within our organization.

We should remember that as “social” is the biggest part of the word “Socialism,” so the social spirit is the determining factor in holding a group of workers together. Get wise to a collection of songs-Socialist songs preferable–any kind if need be. learn to sing them, no matter how badly at first, but get busy. The capitalists do well to fear a movement that can sing while it works. for this denotes internal harmony and an indomitable spirit of confidence in our final triumph.

Young Socialist’s Magazine was the journal of the original Young People’s Socialist League and grew of of the Socialist Sunday School Movement, with its audience being children rather than the ‘young adults’ of later Socialist youth groups. Beginning in 1908 as The Little Socialist Magazine. In 1911 it changed to The Young Socialists’ Magazine and its audience skewed older. By the time of the entry into World War One, the Y.P.S.L.’s, then led by future Communists like Oliver Carlson and Martin Abern, had a strong Left Wing, creating a fractious internal life and infrequent publication, ceasing entirely in 1920.

PDF of full issue: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/youngsocialist/v08n03-mar-1915_Young%20Socialists.pdf