Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1889-09-26
LOOKING BACKWARD
Has Set Some People Looking For
ward, Hence the Eationalists.
THE LEAVEN AT WORK HEREABOU
An Effort Being Made to Organize Party
Based on This Greed.
PRACTICAL INTERFERENCE BEGUN

There is movement on foot in this city
that is operating so quietly that few people
have noticed it and yet it is doing vast
amount of leavening. 1t is no less than the
preliminary work to the formation of q
Nationalist Club on the idea laid down in
Edward Bellamy's book Looking Back
ward" Propagandists are working up the
scheme all over the country, and some
people may be astonished to wake up some
morning and find socialism pernfeating
nearly the whole nation.
There are about IA people on Mt. Wash
ington who are quietly paving the way to
organization, and prominent among them is
q business man, Mr.. G. H. Beach. The
movement is more radical than socialism,
though it has nothing of the red flag about
it. The movers call themselves National
lists, because they appeal to all, and the
movement is not one of class like socialism,
as commonly understood in this country.
AS Sylvester Baxter says in his reply to
another of its adherents, DR.. Edward
Everett Hale, who finds fault with the name:
SIT was not until an arrangement OF the
industrial and social system on higher
ethical basis, and tor the more efficient pro-
duction of wealth, was recognized as the in
terest, not of one class, but equally OF all
classes, of rich and poor, cultured and
ignorant, old and young. weak and strong,
men and women, that there was any pros
pect that it would be achieved.
REASON FOR THE NAME.
The National party arose to carry it out
by political methods 1t probably took that
name because its aim was to nationalize the
functions of production and distribution.
Indeed, it could not we'll have had any
other name, for its purpose was to realize
the idea of the nation with grandeur and
completeness never before conceived, not
as an association of men for GER
tain political functions affecting their
happiness only remotely and super
fcially, but as family, vital
union, common life, mighty heaven
touching tree, whose leaves are its people,
fed from its veins and feeding it in return.
The most patriotic OF all possible parties, it
sought to justify patriotism and raise 1t
from an instinct to rational devotion, by
making the native land truly Fatherland-
father who kept the people alive and was
not merely an idol for whom they were e1-
pected to die"
Nationalists hold that the designations of
the two prominent existing parties are
neither of them distinctly characteristic and
might be borne with equal appropriateness
by one or the other. Collectiveness is too
obstinate, and socialism, whether justly or
unjustly, is too suggestive in its associa-
tions, etc. While it is not at all probable
that the Nationalists will put ticket in the
field in 1892, they expect to help mold public
opinion. Mr.. Beach states that it may be
some generations hence ere the party at
tempt radical rearrangement, yet that work
has been prosecuted for some time. The idea
is to work by
GIVING UPWARD IMPULSE
to not only politics, but to all social, politi-
cal and religious relations. This is to be
done by organization and discussion. Its
teachings being part of those of Christ,
church organizations are precluded from
opposing, say the propogandists. The idea
is that if the social power of money can be
by reorganization of human
economy, the temptation to hug lucre Will
be gone. II everyone had all the money he
1eeded. and couldn't use any more if he had
it. he wouldn't have any surplus lying
around him to tempt him. He wouldn't be |
bothered with it, and would reject it just as |
the ordinary palate would reject whisky |
were 1t not for its stimulating effect. Any |
one can make a more palatable and /
cheaper drink for the quenching of thirst, |
and if there were no drunk in alcoholic COM
pounds they would not be used.
Nationalist organizations have been !
formed in Cambridge, Boston, Lynn, AL
bany, New York City, Philadelphia, Ports
mouth, N. H.; Hartford, Conn; Washing
ton, D. c.; Chicago. Baltimore, Muskegon,
Mich; Minneapolis, Kansas City, Chetopa,
Tacoma, Oakland, Cal. ; Independence, Mo-.
and in many other places, and in some they
have begun practical work in the field Of
politics. In Washington, for
instance, Nationalist club will petition
Congress to place the lighting of the city
in the hands of the District Commissioners,
with view to have the city furnish gas at
30 cents per thousand feet, instead OF pay
ing the Washington Gas Light Company, a
private corporation, 81 25 per thousand.