Weekly expositor. (Brockway Centre, Mich.) 1882-1894, 1883-05-10
Wincheii's Words ON Communism.
DIN. Timcs-Star.

Wincheii's Words ON Communism.
DIN. Timcs-Star.
Professor Alexander Winchell is OF
opinion that the spirit of communism
in the United States forebodes calamity
to our institutions. The North Ameri-
can Review for May contains some
what remarkable article from mis- pen,
in which he attempts to show that the
communistic idea is gaining a firm
foothold in America, and that it
threatens to introduce chaos into the
Republic. He traces the growth and
sketches the ramifications Gas they APP
pear to him) of this dangerous form of
social madness. Even "fiatism" and
''grangerism" are classed by Prof.
Winchell among the numerous COM
munistic tendencies which are "out
growths from the deep roots of the
social fabric" He thinks that these
tendencies toward the equality of in
dividuals and equal distribution of
property (half dozen are enumerated)
will not disappear or grow less; that
they can not be remedied by simple
repressive action at the surface; that
"no legislation can reach the source o
these evils" Then comes the funda-
mental concept of the Professors politi-
cal creed. There must be constitu-
tional reconstruction. He declares
that the spread of communism will con-
nj
are made in the basis of political
power. In short the suffrage should
be restricted. Why? Because the ba-
sal axiom of our system of government
is 'comunistic;" because "the distribu
ton of political power" in this country
sis communistic;" because America is
governed by the average sentiment of
the mass, and net the best sentiment"
because communism theoretically is
only the voluntary equalization of all,
and becomes practically the enforced
of all" This un-Ameri-
can and vicious doctrine is by no means
new; it is as old as the Republic; and
the older it gets the worse il appears.
We are of those who hold that the wis
dom of impartial suffrage has been fully
and that any proposition
to set up class rule logically leads to
such limitations of the republican prin-
ciplc as would end in 3 centralized
And though "the aver
age sentiment of the mass" in this
country may not always be ''the best
there is convincing evidence
that popular verdicts here are quite as
just as in England, where the suffrage
is restricted, or in any other part Of the
world. But this attack on the equ2
rights principle by philosopher who
scars in the heavens in search of per-
lection, and will be satisfied with moth
ing else, will not seriously disturb our
Institutions or brighten what he sheer
ingly calls "the herd
Returning to the subject of communism,
it is interesting to follow Prof. Winchell
II little further He is bold writer
and does not mince matters. Replying
to the suppositional statement that the
germs of communism have been nursed
among the monarchies of Europe, and
were imported TO America, the Professor
says:
Before the Declaration of American
unknown in Europe, save in the ideal
states of Plato, Sir Thomas Moore Cam
PAMELA and q few other imitators of
Plato. 1t was the enuncianation in the
American Declaration" of the new
and paradoxical principle of equal rights
in government, which kindled the fires
of discomfort across the Atlantic. The
anarchy of the French Revolution of
1890, and the contemporary disturb
ances now felt all over Europein French
German socialism, Irish
agrarianism and Russian, nihilism,
as well as the more peaceful phenomena
of Saiut-Simonism. Fourierism, Robert
Owenism, and the like-these all must
be regarded as the reaction of the New
World upon the Old.
This is certainly novel and original
idea-that the Declaration of Indepen-
dence, announcing the doctrine of equal
tights, was the live brand that set the
social fabric of the Old World on fire.
The Professor comes TO look at history
and its current events from a point OF
view peculiarly his own. The common
theory is that the tyranny of monarch
cal rule and the denial of political rights
have produced the existing condition of
disorder in Europe, and would have
had the same effect if Republic had
never been founded in America. If to
the principles of equal political rights
and individual liberty in this country is
to be attributed the spread of the
spirit of communism all over the world,
as Prof Winchell claims, why is it that
here in America, where, according to
his view, the really dangerous form of
communism has the best possible chance
TO assert itself, the vicious spirit of mad
ness which the Professor talks about is
to-day far less conspicuous than in any
other quarter of the globep If our free
system fosters communism (this term,
as he employs it, implies force of one
kind or another is it not remarkable
that after century Of careful nursing
the evil, which in two or three European
lands has become u giant, is here COM
paratively an infantP
OF 1Dv ~