Our readers will already be aware from our American corre- 
spondence that a split has occurred amongst the members of the 
International in the United States. What has happened in New 
York in the last few months is, in fact, so unique in the history of 
the International] that it is worth presenting it in context. For that 
purpose, we shall base what we have to say on an article from the 
Emancipacion, published in Madrid (June 22),’ and will supplement 
it with the original documents at our disposal. 

It is a well-established fact that, in Europe, the bourgeoisie and 
the governments made the International into a fearful bogey that 
has subsequently properly fulfilled its task and so alarmed all good 
citizens that no one need fear that the International will ever be 
diverted from its original aims by a mass influx of bourgeois 
elements. Things take a different course in America. That which 
sends European bourgeois and governments into convulsions 
appears, by contrast, interesting there. A society that has grown up 
on a purely bourgeois foundation, without a landowning nobility 
or a monarchy, laughs at the childish mortal terror of the 
European bourgeoisie which—even in France, intellectually at 
least—has still not outgrown the scourge of the monarchy and the 
nobility. The more fearful, therefore, the International appeared 
in Europe and the more monstrously it was presented by the 
correspondents of the American press—and no one 1s more adept 
at painting a lurid picture than these gentlemen—the more 

Emancipacion, No. 54, June 22, 1872.— Ed. 

widespread the view became in America that the time was now 
right for making both financial and political capital out of it. 

The extent to which American society is ahead of European is 
strikingly exemplified by the fact that it was two American ladies 
who first discovered this and attempted to set up a business on the 
basis of it. Whilst the men of the European bourgeoisie trembled 
in fear of the International, two female members of the American 
bourgeoisie, Mrs. Victoria Woodhull and her sister Miss Tenni 
Claflin (who publish Woodhull & Claflin’s Weekly) conceived the 
plan of exploiting this society of horrors—and they almost got 
away with it. 

Both these sisters, millionairesses, advocates of women’s emanci- 
pation and especially “free love’, resolutely joined the Interna- 
tional. Section No. 9 was set up under the leadership of Miss 
Claflin, Section No. 12 under that of Mrs. Woodhull; new sections 
soon followed in the most diverse parts of America, all set up by 
adherents of the two sisters. According to the currently valid 
arrangements, every section had the right to send a delegate to the 
Central Committee, which met in New York. The consequence was 
that, very soon, this federal council, which had originally been 
made up of German, Irish and French workers, was swamped by a 
whole host of bourgeois American adventurers of all sorts and of 
both sexes. The workers were pushed into the background; victory 
for the two speculating sisters seemed assured. Then Section 
No. 12 took centre stage and explained to the founders of the 
American International what it was really all about. 

On August 30, 1871, Section 12 issued its own manifesto over 
the signature of W. West, secretary. It reads: 

“The object of the International is simply to emancipate the labourer, male and 
female, by the conquest of political power. It involves, first, the Political Equality 
and Social Freedom of men and women alike. Political Equality means the personal 
participation of each in the preparation, administration and execution of the laws 
by which all are governed. Social Freedom means absolute immunity from 
impertinent intrusion in all affairs of exclusively personal concernment, such as 
religious belief, the sexual relation, habits of dress, etc. The proposition involves, 
secondly, the establishment of an Universal Government” for the whole world. “Of 
course, the abolition of [...] even differences of language are embraced in the 
programme.” 2 

So there might be no misunderstanding as to the aim involved, a 
form of organisation is called for, according to which 

“if practicable, for the convenience of political action, there should be a section 

formed in every ... election district. There must ... be instituted in every town a 
municipal Committee or Council, corresponding with the Common Councils; in 
every State a State Committee or Council, corresponding with the State legislature, 
and in the Nation a National Committee or Council, corresponding with the United 
States National Congress... The work of the International, includes nothing less than 
the institution, within existing forms, of another form of Government, which shall 
supersede them all.” 

It is not, then, for the overthrow, but for the exploitation of the 
principles of the existing state, that, according to this, the 
International has come into existence. Mr. West was, in fact, right 
in proclaiming (Woodhull & Cl. Weekly, March 2, 1872): 

“The issue of the ‘Appeal’ of Section 12 was a new departure in the history of the 
International!” 

In order to accomplish this “new departure” it was, above all, 
necessary to shake off the fetters of the previous General Rules 
and Congress decisions, the validity of which had remained 
uncontested. Accordingly, Section No. 12 proclaimed (W. & 
C. Weekly, October 21, 1871) 

“the independent right of each section” freely to interpret the congress decisions 
and the Rules and Regulations of the General Council (it should read the General 
Rules and Administrative Regulations of the Association) “each section being alone 
responsible for its own action”’.4 

The nonsense now went too far. Instead of sections of workers, 
sections consisting of all kinds of bourgeois swindlers, free-lovers, 
spirit-rappers, spirit-rapping shakers,'*? etc., were set up, and so 
Section No. 1, the first section of the International to be formed 
in America (Germans), finally issued an appeal in which, in 
contrast to this swindle, emphasis was laid on the essentially 
proletarian character of the Association. The American parent 
section, No. 12, replied immediately. In W. & C. W. of November 
18, 1871, it declares, through its secretary West: 

“The extension of equal citizenship to women, the world over, must precede any 
general change in the [...] relations of capital and labour... Section 12 would also 
remonstrate against the vain assumption, running all through the Protest” (of 
Section 1) “under review, that the International Working Men’s Association is an 
organisation of the working classes.” 

On November 25, there followed another protest from Section 
12, which says: 

“The statement” (contained in the General Rules) that the working classes can 

only be emancipated by their own efforts, “cannot be denied, yet it is true so far as 
it describes the fact that the working classes cannot be emancipated against their will.” 4 

War finally broke out between the exploiters of the state, 
place-seekers, free-lovers, spirit-rappers and other bourgeois 
swindlers, on the one hand, and, on the other, the workers who, 
in their naiveté, actually imagined that the International Working 
Men’s Association was an organisation not of the bourgeois, but of 
the working class in America too. The German Section No. 1 
demanded that the Central Committee exclude Section 12 and the 
delegates of all sections that did not consist, at least two-thirds, of 
wage labourers. This demand caused a split in the Central 
Committee; some of the Germans and the Irish together with 
some Frenchmen supported Section 1, whilst the Americans, 
together with the majority of the French and two German 
(Schweitzer) sections formed a new central committee. 

On December 4, the old committee (which we shall call No. I) 
issued a circular describing the circumstances as follows: 

“In the Central Committee, which is supposed to be a defence against all 
reformist swindles, the majority finally consisted of reformists and benefactors of 
the nation who had already almost sunk into oblivion, and thus it came about that 
the people who preached the gospel of free love sat most fraternally beside those 
who want to bless the whole world with a common language; supporters of land 
co-operatives, spiritualists, atheists, and deists, each trying to ride his own particular 
hobby-horse. Particularly Section 12 (Woodhull)... The first step that has to be 
taken here, in order to advance the movement, is to organise and, at the same 
time, to stimulate the revolutionary element, which lies in the conflict of interests of 
worker and capitalist... The delegates of sections 1, 4, 5, 7, 8, 11, 16, 21, 23, 24, 25 
and other sections, having seen that all efforts to direct this nonsense were in vain, 
therefore decided, after the old Central Committee had been indefinitely 
adjourned (December 3, 1871) to found a new one, which consists of actual workers.” » 

In the meantime, central committee No. IT (Woodhull) con- 
tinued to meet and filled its places with a host of delegates from 
allegedly new sections that had been established mainly by virtue 
of the efforts of sections 9 and 12, but were, in the main, so weak 
that they scarcely had enough members to fill the barest minimum 
of officers’ positions (secretary, treasurer, etc.). 

Both committees appealed to the General Council in London. In 
the meantime, various sections (e.g., French No. 10 and all the 
Irish sections) withdrew from both committees pending the 
decision of the General Council. 

b New-Yorker Demokrat, December 9, 1871.— Ed. 

On March 5 and 12, the General Council passed the resolutions 
that have already been published in the Volksstaat (No. 37).* They 
suspended Section 12, advised that both committees combine until 
an American Congress was held to decide the matter, and 
recommended for the future that all sections not consisting, at 
least two-thirds, of wage labourers should not be admitted. 
Although, for good reasons, these resolutions almost exclusively 
took the form of recommendations, they determined the future of 
the International in America. By supporting as they did committee 
No. I, they made it impossible for the bourgeois of committee 
No. II to continue exploiting the name of the International for 
their own particular purposes. 

Since the beginning of the split and in direct contravention of 
Resolution No. 17 of the London Conference, which laid down 
that all internal affairs of the Association should be dealt with only 
within the sections and federations and not in public,” committee 
No. II had been inviting reporters from the New York press to all 
its proceedings, and had seen to it that the whole matter was 
discussed in the most disreputable bourgeois papers. The same 
thing happened at this point, when this committee set about the 
General Council, which it had imagined it had duped. The 
activities of committee No. II made it possible for the worst of the 
New York newspapers, such as the Herald, etc., to declare the 
whole thing a squabble between Germans and Frenchmen, 
between communism and socialism, etc., and the opponents of the 
workers in New York were jubilant at the alleged destruction of 
the International in America. | 

However, in all that, committee No. II was constantly at pains to 
inform the world that the International was not a workers’ 
organisation, but a bourgeois one. As early as December 16, 1871, 
its organ Woodhull & Claflin’s Weekly declared: 

“Where our committee is concerned, there is no need to prove that two-thirds 
or any part of a section shall be wages-slaves, as if it were a crime to be free’; 

and on May 4, 1872, it declared again: 

“In this decree of the General Council its authors presume to recommend that 
in future no American section be admitted, of which two-thirds at least are not 
wages-slaves. Must they be politically slaves also? As well one thing or the other. [...] 

The intrusion of ‘bogus reformers, benefactors of the nation, middle-class quacks 
and trading politicians’ is mostly to be feared from that class of citizens who have 
nothing better to depend upon than the proceeds of wages-slavery.” 

This was committee No. II’s last word on one count. Not only 
was it absurd to believe that the International Working Men’s 
Association was an association of workers—in addition to that, it 
could only fulfil its purpose really properly if it excluded all 
workers and wages-slaves, or at least declared them suspect. 

What, precisely, is the purpose of the International Working 
Men’s Association (without working men) in America? This, too, is 
now explained to us. The elections for a new President of the 
United States were approaching. 

On March 2, 1872, those two ladies’ paper W. & C. W., forever 
with us, carried an article entitled “The Coming Combination 
Convention” in which it may be read that: 

“There is a proposition under consideration by the representatives of the 
various reformatory elements of the country looking to a grand consolidated 
convention to be held in this city in May... Indeed, if this convention acts wisely, 
who can say that the fragments of the defunct Democratic” (i.e., sympathetic 
towards slavery) “Party may not make themselves known and take part in it... 
Everybody of Radicals should be represented at it”, etc. 

Week after week the same paper carries appeals to all kinds of 
world reformers: 

“Labour, Land, Peace and Temperance reformers, and Internationals and 
Women Suffragists, [...] as well as all others, who believe that the time has come” to 
carry out the principles of true morality and religion (sic!),@ 

signed first of all by Victoria Woodhull, then by Th. H. Banks, 
R. W. Hume, G. R. Allen, W. West, G. W. Maddox, T. Millot, in 
short by the main people of committee No. II. All these appeals 
expressly state that the delegate convention would nominate 
candidates for the presidency and vice-presidency of the United 
States. 

On May 9, 10, and 11, at the Apollo Hall in New York, this 
monstrous delegate convention finally got underway. All the male 
and female cranks of America assembled there. Committee No. II 
was present in a body. It was decided that Mrs. Victoria Woodhull 
should be nominated as candidate for the presidency of the United 
States, and, in fact, in the name of the International! 

The whole of America responded with resounding laughter. Of 

Weekly, Nos. 21-25 (99-103), April 6, 13, 20, 27 and May 4, 1872.— Ed. 

course, those Americans who had a vested interest and were 
indulging in speculation, did not allow this to divert them. It was a 
different story with the Germans and Frenchmen who had allowed 
themselves to be talked into it. Section 2 (French) withdrew its de- 
legate from committee No. II and declared its support for the 
resolutions of the General Council. Section 6 (German) likewise 
withdrew its delegate, Dr. Grosse, former private secretary to the 
Berliner Schweitzer, from committee No. II, and refused to have 
anything to do with committee No. II until it declared its support 
for the resolutions of the General Council. On May 20, a further 
eight sections—French and German—withdrew from committee 
No. II, which now represents only the well-known, ambiguous 
American elements, which, in fact, had belonged together even 
before they had joined the International—Madame Victoria 
Woodhull, together with assorted accomplices. They now declare 
that they intend to establish a separate, exclusively American 
International, which, of course, they are free to do. 

In the meantime, in response to an inquiry from the German 
section in St. Louis and the French section in New Orleans, the 
General Council has declared that it only recognises committee 
No. I (now the provisional Federal Council of the United 
States).'*1 Thus, Madame Victoria Woodhull’s campaign to con- 
quer the International has achieved its ultimate goal. 

The Emancipacion adds: 

“Having heard these facts, all impartial observers must wonder: when and how 
might this scandal have ended, if there had been no General Council with authority 
to uphold the basic principles of the International and to suspend sections and 
federations who sought to change the character of the Association for their own 
political or personal ends.” 

July 17, 1872