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320 THE COMMUNIST

hired bloodhounds of the capitalist state by setting up a metaphysical distinction between "good" policemen and "bad" policemen, between policemen who are "hostile" to the workers and policemen "who have not lost their sympathy (sic!) with the workers." Is it a far cry from the Zorgiebel who shoots down workers demonstrating in the streets of Berlin to the budding Zorgeibels who are itching to do the same thing in the streets of New York?

In the municipal election campaign the Socialist Party showed itself thoroughly consistent in its solitude for the police. Its criticism of the Tammany police department was based largely on a desire to improve the "efficiency" of the police, and its chief quarrel with Police Commissioner Whalen was that he was responsible "for the low morale in the rank and file of the city's police officers" (New Leader, October 26.) The S.P.'s attitude toward the police was vividly summed up in a cartoon carried by the New Leader of October 26, entitled "Free the Police--Let Them Do Their Duty." This was a touching drawing of a policeman, bowed and forlorn, one arm tied behind him by ropes labelled Republican and the other by ropes labelled Democratic. In an enclosure entitled Protection stand the Strikebreaking Gunman, the Poison Liquor Runner, Dope Peddler and Apartment House Burner, laughing gleefully and thumbing their noses at the unfortunate cop. He of course is aching to make short shrift of these "enemies of society." Especially would he like to get after Strikebreaking Gunman who thumbs his nose with particular insolence. But--his hands are tied, he is reduced to impotence, to this pathetic ciricature of "law and order" by the naughty Democratic and Republican parties. The moral of this "socialist" fable is: vote for Norman Thomas; he is the Moses who will lead the oppressed police our of bondage.

This drawing is not merely an epitome of the Socialist attitude toward the police. It symbolizes the new social-facist orientation of the S.P. No longer is it labor in chains. The symbol of the Socialist Party has become the police in chains. Those workers who have felt the clubs of the police descend on their heads on the picket-line, or the hooves of their horses dig into their shins during demonstrations have been cheated out of their rightful heritage by the villians of Tammany Hall. Place and Socialist Party in power and the clubs of the free and untrammeled police will descend on workers' heads with even more savage ferocity, and the horses of the liberated mounted police will plunge through workers' demonstrations with exemplary fury!

(to be continued)