In the course of time this “Utopian” idea was abandoned, and another set of socialist doctrines, claiming to be more “scientific,” appeared instead.  The new school of socialists, adopting the principles of a German writer and agitator, Karl Marx, appealed directly to workingmen.  It urged them to unite against the capitalists, to get possession of the machinery of government, and to introduce collective or public ownership of railways, land, mines, mills, and other means of production.  The Marxian socialists, therefore, became political.  They sought to organize labor and to win elections.  Like the other parties they put forward candidates and platforms.  The Socialist Labor party in 1892, for example, declared in favor of government ownership of utilities, free school books, woman suffrage, heavy income taxes, and the referendum.  The Socialist party, founded in 1900, with Eugene V. Debs, the leader of the Pullman strike, as its candidate, called for public ownership of all trusts, monopolies, mines, railways; and the chief means of production.  In the course of time the vote of the latter organization rose to considerable proportions, reaching almost a million in 1912.  It declined four years later and then rose in 1920 to about the same figure.

In their appeal for votes, the socialists of every type turned first to labor.  At the annual conventions of the American Federation of Labor they besought the delegates to endorse socialism.  The president of the Federation, Samuel Gompers, on each occasion took the floor against them.  He repudiated socialism and the socialists, on both theoretical and practical grounds.  He opposed too much public ownership, declaring that the government was as likely as any private employer to oppress labor.  The approval of socialism, he maintained, would split the Federation on the rock of politics, weaken it in its fight for higher wages and shorter hours, and prejudice the public against it.  At every turn he was able to vanquish the socialists in the Federation, although he could not prevent it from endorsing public ownership of the railways at the convention of 1920.

=The Extreme Radicals.=—­Some of the socialists, defeated in their efforts to capture organized labor and seeing that the gains in elections were very meager, broke away from both trade unionism and politics.  One faction, the Industrial Workers of the World, founded in 1905, declared themselves opposed to all capitalists, the wages system, and craft unions.  They asserted that the “working class and the employing class have nothing in common” and that trade unions only pitted one set of workers against another set.  They repudiated all government ownership and the government itself, boldly proclaiming their intention to unite all employees into one big union and seize the railways, mines, and mills of the country.  This doctrine, so revolutionary in tone, called down upon the extremists the condemnation of the American Federation of Labor as well as of the general public.  At its convention in 1919, the Federation went on record as “opposed to Bolshevism, I.W.W.-ism, and the irresponsible leadership that encourages such a policy.”  It announced its “firm adherence to American ideals.”