"I see no hope of functioning 100 percent in the interest of the common people except through the Socialist Party, and hereby apply for readmission to membership. I left the party because I considered dangerous the party’s attitude toward America’s participation in the war; but the crisis created by the St. Louis resolution is past, and the present immediate danger is an imperialistic peace which, I believe, only a unified and strengthened international Socialist movement can prevent. I thrill to think how rapidly the world would move forward if, for instance, the German Social Democracy were to unite — if the party of the right were to unite with the party of the left — and sweep the Hohenzollerns out of power, or if the several parties of the Social Revolution in Russia were to sink their differences and go to the heart of their common purpose; or if in Italy, France, and England there were but one unified expression of the Socialist movement; and because my heart cries out to them, “Comrades, unite!” I am brought to a keen realization of my own remissness. If I see and deplore the results of disruption and desire unity for my Comrades abroad, I must surely strive for unity here, where 90 percent of the American people, whose hearts beat warm as any in the world for humanity, need to stand as unitedly against their own and the world’s anti-humanitarian 10 percent, as the 90 percent of any other country. President Wilson’s last message; the British and French government’s failure to meet fully and in a spirit of frankness the democratic implications of it; the imprisonment in Germany of 300 of her left wing Socialists; the counterrevolutionary attempts in Russia, where an unseen hand not Russia’s seems to be playing fast and loose — these four significant events are among the foremost impelling me to rejoin the Socialist Party. I beg, dear Comrades, that you admit me again to your ranks."
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Activists from the United StatesJews from the United StatesSocial activistsSocialists from the United StatesFeminists
Original Language: English
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Sources
Letter The Eye Opener (Chicago), v. 9, no. 26 (Jan. 19, 1918), pg. 4.
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Rose_Pastor_Stokes
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Rose Pastor Stokes
Rose Harriet Pastor Stokes (née Wieslander; July 18, 1879 – June 20, 1933) was an American socialist activist, writer, birth control advocate, and feminist. She was a figure of some public notoriety after her 1905 marriage to Episcopalian millionaire J. G. Phelps Stokes, a member of elite New York society, who supported the settlements in New York. Together they joined the Socialist Party. Pastor Stokes continued to be active in labor politics and women's issues, including promoting access to bi
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