This day in 1918 in The Record

Tuesday, Feb. 12, 1918. “I understand these ten traitors are in Troy to-night,” a Manhattan assemblyman tells a Rensselaer Hotel audience tonight, as nine of his Socialist colleagues speak at Federation Hall. At the hall, The Record reports that an “audience comprised largely of foreign elements” hears the Socialists predict that “within a few years their power would be greatly enlarged, that ultimately they would control the political forces of the country. “When this has come about, capital will be abolished and John D. Rockefeller will be living after the manner in which the czar [of Russia] is to- day.” The speakers criticize working conditions in Troy, claiming that “Certain industries are weakening the constitution of girls who are to become mothers of the race; paying them low wages and keeping them confined for long hours, and using forces to prevent male-employing industries from entering the city for fear that the men would marry and make independent the girls now employed in factories.” The Socialists deny obstructing legislation in the assembly, since “the body has accomplished very little to be obstructed.” The assembly is “unheedful of the wants of the poor people,” they claim, while “masking a large part of its action under the guise of patriotism.” At the Rensselaer, Martin G. McCue addresses a gath- ering of district managers for an unnamed retail chain. Our reporter calls the Democrat a “champion of Americanism and arch-enemy of Socialism in the state Assembly.”

McCue assumes that the Socialists are “probably indulging in abuse of their fellow legislators [and] probably squirming under the defense that they are attacked and persecuted because they have been dubbed foreigners.”

In fact, one Socialist argues that “One should not be over-proud of being born in America. Once I had a common yellow cur. She gave birth to seven pups. Would any of us be inclined to think them better pups because they were born in America?”

“They certainly are not Americans,” McCue says of the Socialists, “They do not seem to know what America means. They do not appreciate Americanism.”

While McCue complains that “To hear these men talk in the Legislature you would think you and I had robbed them of everything they possessed,” his main beef with the Socialists is over their opposition to the U.S. war against Germany.

“I have not taken it upon myself to learn all the doctrines of Socialism,” McCue admits, “There may be times when some of the teachings are right but the type of men I have heard preaching Socialism are all wrong – and they could not be so far wrong if their cause was not wrong.”