sh, had a daily circulation[4] of over 150,000, according to a
report in "The Call" April 6, 1919. Foremost for many years among the
Socialist weeklies in English was the "Appeal to Reason," which was once
extremely bitter and unrelenting in its attacks on the United States
Government. Published at Girard, Kansas, its circulation reached nearly
1,000,000 copies a week during the fall of 1912, but since 1917 it has
fallen into great disfavor among most Socialists because of its pro-war
and moderate tendencies. In addition to the Socialist papers already
referred to, there are in our country hundreds of others in English,
German, Bohemian, Polish, Jewish, Slovac, Slavonic, Danish, Italian,
Finnish, French, Hungarian, Lettish, Norwegian, Croatian, Russian, and
Swedish. In a report to Congress in 1919, the Attorney-General of the
United States stated that there were 416 radical newspapers in America.

A strong impression that serious party strife and bossism prevail in the
Socialist organization is gained by those who read the Marxian papers
and magazines. William English Walling, for example, in the
"International Socialist Review," Chicago, April, 1913, showed his
sympathy with the so-called "reds," who then comprised the radical I. W.
W. wing of the party, and at the same time attacked the "yellows," the
advocates of political action.

"Ever since the Socialist Party was formed," he wrote, "the party
office-holders have been spending the larger part of their energies in
endeavoring to hold their jobs and to fight down every element in the
party that demanded any improvement or advance in any direction....

"A far greater danger is the new one, that has become serious only since
we entered upon the present period of political success two years ago,
namely the corruption of the party by those elected to public office....

"Only last year we had several mayors in the one state of Ohio either
being forced to resign or deserting the party because they could not use
it for their purpose....

"Next year we may elect a few congressmen and half a hundred
legislators--if the reactionaries in the party will cease their
underhand efforts to disrupt the organization and drive out the
revolutionists....

"If then these office-holders continue to show the tendency towards
bossism so common in the past, the Socialist Party will soon become an
office-holders' machine, little different in character from the machine
by which Gompers