“Down with the radical press” was one of the first slogans of the patrioteers when they precipitated this nation into the international slaughter. They realized the menace of such a press to their nefarious plots and machinations and lost no time nor had any scruples about crushing the papers and magazines of the working class beneath the iron heel of their despotic system.

And so at the most crucial hour in all its history the voice of the working class was strangled while the workers themselves were swept into the red hell which disgraced and damned civilization and all but destroyed the world.

The war is now over. The hysteria has subsided. Sanity again has sway and after coming to realize just what the war has meant to the American people, how they were lied into it, betrayed by it, and mist now reap the bitter harvest of their folly, there has been tremendous change of sentiment toward those who were made to appear traitors by those who actually were traitors. Consequently, there is a widespread and rapidly increasing demand that the American workers be heard in the councils of the nations where plans and proposals are being made for the restoration of peace and the rebuilding of the world.

In this situation nothing is more important than that the radical press should be revived, that the public voice of the workers may again be heard in their own behalf in the tremendous struggle that is shaking the earth, and that is destined to overthrow every despotism and being freedom to the people and peace to the world.

Without a press the workers are practically beaten in every battle before it begins. They fall an easy pray to the falsehoods and calumnies charged against them by the foul press of their exploiting masters; they have no means of pleasing their cause or of placing the issue at stake before the people. As a result they are almost certainly foredoomed to defeat.

Now is the time to revive and rebuild the press of the working class and to make it stronger and more efficient than ever, for it certainly will be put to the severest test as the struggle grows more intense with the passing days.

“Up with the radical press!” should now be the battle-cry of the workers all over the land. Industrial and other organizations along the lines of the class struggle is now more than ever the demand, and along with this work and as a necessary part of it, we are bound, as we value our loyalty to the cause, to rebuild our press, restore our papers and magazines, and spread over the entire nation the revolutionary literature to awaken the people, stir them to life and vision, and set their feet in the path to Freedom.

Transcribed by Juan Conatz