Dr. Abbott can do that. There is no law to prevent and no custom to estop. If a voluntary, Co-operative Democracy can manufacture goods and put them on the market cheaper and better than Competition, it is at liberty to do so. 9. That, State-Socialism would fail because Materialism cannot satisfy human nature: My Good Sir, is it not true that the human mind is something more than "a mechanism of meat?" Is it not true that the sentiment of patriotism is something more than “the refuge of a scoundrel?” Is it not true that the institution of marriage is something more than a "civil contract?" Is it not true that there is something more to education than instruction,-"the pouring-in process?" Consider gravely: Would it be well to put the training of children, the printing of books, the publishing of newspapers, solely in the hands of a Socialist-State? In olden time, it was enough to train-up a child in the way he should go. But in these times, there is sore need to strengthen the boy's will that he may restrain his feet from the path in which he should not go. Is it not true that the law of inheritance is something more than “a property right?" Does it not promote and protect the integrity of the family? In this book, it is held that property-rights are axiomatic; that the right to buy land, build a house, raise a crop, rear a family, defend established order, and advance by formative methods, is self-evident and selfexecuting. This right can no more be proven than 2+3 = 5: attempted proof confuses only. 10. That, State-Socialism would fail because Society cannot be regenerated except as the man is regenerated. Socialism ignores the man and regards the mass. It ignores causes and regards effects. It condemns and criticizes the whole but excuses the parts. It reverses.Socialism substitutes "Class Consciousness" for class conscience. It substitutes the tyranny of Capital for the tyranny of Truth. It lays blame on Capital and the Mass for crime, misery, weakness, poverty, and stupidity. It releases the individual of responsibility. It blames all, acquits each: indicts everybody, convicts nobody. It would fail for: It is better to be true than false; Better to be brave than a coward. Hath it not been said by that noblest Master of the Human Mind, "Prove all things, hold fast to that which is good?" Yea, verily, "the Lord made this world, not the Devil." There is such a thing as moral force. Note 1. There is misapprehension in the public mind as to just what Political Socialism stands for. Many otherwise well-read men think of it as unfriendly to Capital and that it demands an equal division of property-neither of which is true: Something worse. Note 2. It has not escaped attention that but few socialist votes are required in the Congress to control the balance of power and thus to force complications, concessions, and compromises. In the 5th Wisconsin district, Victor L. Berger, a Socialist, has already been elected. In a number of legislative districts, notably in Wisconsin, Minnesota, Massachusetts, Oregon, and New Jersey, Socialists have been elected. Berks County is one of the strongest agricultural communities in the United States, yet in the Reading district of that county, Mr. Maurer, a Socialist, was elected to a legislative seat, in the conservative old Commonwealth of Pennsylvania; -the reason for this is that self-constituted reformers and so-called Independent Press, with magazine writers and editors, ever alert for the evil and peculiar, have succeeded in un-settling the public mind. These men whose fathers, (perhaps yet living), may have worked thirteen hours a day for thirteen dollars a month, have partially disintegrated the old political parties. These agitators lack composure. They lack faith in self-acting and self-executing principles. They have no patience with formative progress. It must be revolutionary and reformatory. After a time, probably after some mischief will have been done, some blood shed, this spirit of disintegration and disquietude will run its course. Note 3. As to whether Socialists, in effect, apologize for crime, the reader is referred to Jno. W. Slayton's recent booklet: Criminology, Crime and Criminals. Mr. Slayton was the recent socialist candidate for governor of Pennsylvania. A discerning man must discriminate between Law without love and Love without law, maudlin sentiment, it is called. The latter, in opulent extravagance, carries roses and poetry to the jail-cell of the most willful, degenerated, and hardened of criminals. It would be diffcult for Mr. Slayton to add another to his armful of bouquets. The "All and Singular" of old law-writers is cast aside. Perversion of the "All" and not propensity of the “Singular” accounts for crime. Outward conditions not inward produce the thief-this, I call, a dangerous doctrine. Note 4. "But, behold, the post office!" cry our socialist devotees. Yes: Run at a loss; whereas, by contract it could be run at a profit. And, mark you an example:-No sooner do French letter-carriers go in from one strike, than French railway clerks go out on another. Besides, who more indolent, indifferent, incompetent, and inconsequential, than civil-service office-holders living on their uppers, money squandered for caramels and limerick, pleading to Congress always for a pension and more pay?-Who struck poor Casey out? is past finding out. Vain quest of the Socialist. But happily, at the very next chance, Casey made a hit; he scored, and a Capitalist forthwith put him into a higher league. Poor Casey never bothered his head about how long a visionary man may live on "pigeon's milk." With these Fingers pointing, shall we not, from Casey's standpoint, proceed "to launch out into the deep," sounding Socialism to the very bottom? J. S. CRAWFORD. Cherokee, Iowa, 1911. REMARKS INSPIRED BY THE SOCIALIST VICTORY IN MILWAUKEE PRESIDENT TAFT on the Attack on Private Property: "Of the future I shall say nothing, ecause you would say I was making a political speech. All that I can say is that the issue that is being framed, as it seems to me, is the issue with respect to the institution of private property. There are those who charge to that institution the corporate abuses, the unequal distribution of property, the poverty of some, and the undue wealth of others, and, therefore, say: 'We shall have none of it; we must have a new rule of distribution.' This, for the want of a better name, we shall call SOCIALISM.” Speech at Ada, Ohio, June 2, 1910, and iterated, next day, at Jackson, Michigan. When he uttered these prophetic words, no doubt, the President had in mind the results of the recent municipal election in Milwaukee. Hon. WILLIAM SULZER, Democratic Congressman from New York, in a recent speech said: "I am not a Socialist but I am an individualist. I would preserve the identity of the individual at all hazards. I would not have all men on a dead level for that is what Socialism would have. I would have each man stand distinct, forging ahead, one in competion with the other, and all trying to press forward, in the righteous way to the goal of human aspiration." A. M. SIMONS, Socialist-Leader, at the SocialistCongress, in Chicago, May 14, 1910, said: "You might as well try to change the orbit of the comet as to win without the farmers." |