Workmen's advocate., 1888-06-02
THE PLACE OF INDIVIDUAL ISM IN THE SOCIALIST
 SYSTEM.
Lecture Delivered Before the New
 York Labor Lyceum.
BN J, EDW ARD HALL.
.ttINt IL ~I,IN

tqulllbfllln, not by the total dlslnteEra- ton of structure, nor by the suppression of functions, but by arousing each to perform it's duty and each to exact its rights That it will require surgery rather than physic, have no doubt, but that is a question for consideration by itself.
 How then can Socialism bring about this result? l answer: Through the organization of the social energy This is something that has never been done as yet, except in warfare. Perhaps the best example of it has been the Southern Contederacy during the late civil war. Therein the entire social force, physical. intellectual and moral, was centralize, and concentrated with the utmost in- tenslty of purpose upon one immediate object war. War for what: For a mistaken sense, we reply, of individ- uality, so-Called States Rights. For strange as it may seem, this people-and no people have ever made greater sacri- fees for principle-subordin their indlNiduallties to a higher individuality, that of States Rights, and waged bloody and destructive war against the principle of collective rights, called unity. Yet upon the maintenance and perfection of this unity all their rights, either as States or individuals, depended. l can not but quote a portion of an address delivered by Andrew Johnson while governor of Tennessee:
 Rather than see this Union divided into thirty-three petty governments, with little prince in one, a potentate in another, a little oligarchy in a third, little democracy in fourth, and re- | public somewhere else-a citizen not being permitted to pass from one State to another without passport or com mission from his government-with quarreling and warning among the petty | powers which would result in anarchy, would rather see this government to-day T proclaim it-converted into con- solidated government"
 Unfortunately Johnson only saw the evils of extreme indivdualism, and in remedying them he would then have in voked the other extreme of collective despotsm. l have said that the solution was in the organization of the social energy. But the critics will say; "Hou contemplate huge machine, with all forces centralized. You want the State, the Government, to control everything. You desire authority in order to suppress individual aspiration. What ure want is Liberty. To which zee answer, that if science and equity applied to industrial activity IS a machine, then re want the machine. In fact, 1ce would rather have It than to leave it in the hands of Messrs. Vanderbilt, Gould or Corbin. We also know and do most heartily desire cen tralization; provided that it's counterpart -decentralization-accompanies it.
 To be more explicit, Socialists desire autonomous centralization, in which each and every group is self-regulative, i'll so far as its functions are group func- tions. As a crude example, under the socialistic system the post office system would be on an international basis; it would be, economically speaking, many times more centralized than it is at pres ent. It would own and control its en- tire plant in so far as that would not dustrirs. There would not be any fat contractors under such q system. Every post-village would be brought into the most expeditions and economical contact through the standardization of effort, vet each post-village or town would have that amount of autonomy which would enable the citizens of that locality to elect their own postmaster, after he had qualified by an impartial and direct ex- animation. We Socialists also believe in authority. the same as the critics believe in gravity. When men want shoes made they go to shoemaker, because he is the authority on the subject; but as soon a- the shoe is finished and paid for the wcarer becomes the authority; if the shoe pinchtS, the shoemaker, with all his knowledge of shoe-making, has not the knowledge of the wearer as to where il Pinches. Authority, properly under stood, l. but the assertion of necessary