After reflecting on recent events, comrade Bostrom takes the long view on the class war. On July 18, 1913, the day following several disruptive soldiers being disciplined by participants of a women’s suffrage street speaking event, and incited by the press, soldiers and sailors rioted during a Seattle city festival, trashing the halls of the I.W.W. and Socialist Party, and wrecking Socialist newsstands.

‘On Sober Second Thought: The Seattle Riot’ by Frans Bostrom from The Commonwealth (Everett). No. 138. August 21, 1913.

Now that we have had time to cool a little, let us consider the Seattle riot from the Socialist, the common-sense point of view. And right here is the place to congratulate the Seattle comrades for their splendid exhibition of courage and fortitude under exceedingly trying circumstances. Had they been sentimental fanatics, had they been middle class opportunists, or republican, democratic or bull moose individualists, instead of revolutionary Socialists, they would now be nursing plans of revenge instead of attempting to mend their broken webs. But there is no place in the Socialist philosophy for lamentation or vindictiveness. We believe that a class struggle exists. The class which we intend to dethrone from the mastership of the world is not going to be a passive spectator to the dethronement.

That class holds all the trump cards at present. The sacred courts, the holy church, the learned schools, the wise lawmakers and first and foremost the capitalist press, all these great and powerful institutions are for sale in the open market. Through its economic power the capitalist class is able to utilize these intellectual prostitutes for the mental, moral and physical enslavement of the worker. Their patriotic occupation is to make mutts out of the citizenship of the country in order that the political power may not slip away from “Our Betters.” If it were not for the feeble efforts of the Socialist movement perfect stupidity would prevail in the working class and the disagreeable though far-fetched possibility that the delicate hand that now holds the scepter will some day be calloused in wielding a pick and shovel, would no longer lie like a nightmare on plutocracy’s bosom.

We want freedom. No sane person blames plutocracy for wanting to live at our expense. No sane capitalist blames the worker for wanting to throw him off his back. It is war. Both sides will employ any means to the end, provided they pay. Intelligence is the only virtue existent, stupidity the only crime. Commercialism, the law of the jungle, the right of the strong holds sway. The wolf must kill in order to live, so must the plutocrat. Power alone is arbiter. We must have the power. But we will not get it by chanting battle hymns or passing resolutions, by waving flags and parading our impotence on the battlefield chosen by the wolf. We will get it by making war on the stupidity of our class. And this can and should be done noiselessly. It may soothe your vanity to be known as a great debater among your fellows but he who points out a suitable article to a fellow wage-slave and induces him to read it, accomplishes far more than the one who loses his job for talking too much. Once more, we are making war on working class ignorance and stupidity and not on any person, be he master or slave. Socialists hate no one. The soldiers that destroyed our property in Seattle are not to be blamed for their viciousness. The soldier has either inherited “The Black Sheep” curse or has grown up in surroundings that were bound to make him a beast. A chained dog while on duty, saddened by unnatural restraint, hydrophobia is bound to crop out when he is permitted to loaf. There is no patriotism in the hired soldier. Love of murder and rapine is his sole instinct. He loves to be a hoodlum. He would rather sack the whole city than the Socialist headquarters only, if granted the permission. This holds good with all hirelings. The editor of the Seattle Times as well as the judge who grants him absolution for crimes, committed or to be committed, would in all probability take as great pleasure in assassinating the character of a plutocrat as of a Socialist agitator, if it were as safe. They are all products of capitalism as much to be pitied as they are despised.

After all, is anybody to be blamed for anything? Is the working class to be blamed for its stupid docility and contemptible patience? Is the middle class to be blamed for its petty rascality and the capitalist for his rapacity? Not any more than their counterparts in the animal kingdom, the sheep, the louse and the wolf can be blamed for instincts that the law of self-preservation forces them to cultivate. We are still very low in our social development. Barely out of the cave. Civilization is incompatible with individualism. Future historians will be puzzled over the problem as to whether we should be considered in a high stage of savagery or a low stage of barbarism. As long as individualism prevails we must endure lewd newspapers, savage soldiers and parodies of judges. Collectivism alone can raise us out of the misery and shame of today. The social education of the working class is the star to which we must hitch our hopes if we wish to advance. And this education is not hastened by pointing out its advance to the masters merely in order to satisfy childish vanity. Let us go about our work of enlightenment, patiently, perseveringly and as unobtrusively as possible, so that we may accomplish it with less interruption and speed. The torch of liberty feeds on knowledge and reason, and where those ingredients are lacking, there will be no flame, even though the red flag is used as a fan.

FRANS BOSTROM.

The Washington Socialist was a weekly newspaper of the Socialist Party of Snohomish County published in Everett, Washington and edited by Maynard Shipley. Closely aligned with the Industrial Workers of the World, who were strong in the Pacific Northwest’s lumber industry, the paper ran for only 18 months when it was renamed The Northwest Worker with Henry Watts as editor in June, 1915, and again Co-Operative News with Perter Husby as editor in October, 1917. Like virtually all of the left press, the Co-Operative News was suppressed in June 1918 under the Federal Espionage Act.

PDF of full issue: https://washingtondigitalnewspapers.org/?a=d&d=COMMONW19130821