Workmen's advocate., 1890-12-06
HUGH 0. PENTECOST HIS PLATFORM ANAlYZED AT
 CLUB NO. 3.
Economic Mental Lame ness-Ellects of the Pressure of the Social Question upon Un. drilled Intellects.

'h' Sotihi Ruestioh upon th'
 drilled Intellects.
 Daniel DeLeOn delivered last Sunday a lecture at the club, entitled; "The Rev. Mr. Pentecost's Platform" Tbe lecturer began by explaining that the subject was not one of his own choosing.
 He considered it as unimportant what the Rev. PenteCost thought on economies or political science as what the Rev.
 Mr. Jasper thought on astronomy. The committee of the club had, however, suggested the title on the ground that it might serve as black background on which to contrast the ways of light.
 Historic facts, the lecturer said, came by two, and as it had been well shown, the first event appeared as a serious, the second as a farcical reflection of the same idea. Napoleon the Great aroused the enthusiasm of his army in Egypt by saying that from the tops of the pyra midsln view forty centuries looked down upon it. the negro general in Hayti thought likewise, but failed, of course, to inspire his troops by initiating Napo- leon and eXclaiming to his army that from the tops of the surrounding trees thousand monkeys looked down upon the scene, About generation ago William l.. Garrison demanded the un- conditional and immediate emancipation of the negro. Given the subject, the occasion, the times, and the sturdiness of the man, and, moreover, the clear cut nature of the demand, this became a landmark in history, and was the serious, sober reflection of great idea. The farcica reflection of this was found in our own days in the Rev. Mir. Pentecost's 'demand' for the imme diate and unconditional emancipation of vacant land. Aside from the feature of the Rev. Mir. Pentecosts Platform, everything else about it affords an excel. lent opportunity to illustrate the prin- ciples of sociology by contrast
 In the first place the "I', the Ego, is conspicuous figure in the whole per formance. The question in the said platform was not, what did society of which ''l' IS but an infiniteslmal frac. tion need or want, but what "I' wished. The isolation, superimposition and cx- cluslon of the entity was type of that barbarism from which man had evolved. It became bigger and bigger the further back man went in history, smaller and smaller the further he advanced. It's size was exactly in inverse ratio with democracy. The larger it was, the less democracy; the smaller it was, the more democracy. On the reCeding line of the perspective where the Il" Is big. gest and democracy nlllest, there where no law prevailed and the Anarchists paradise grew rankest, man found the bully or autOcrat on top and a herd of slaves voluntarily" cooperating in his sustenance below. The law of human progress was, however, democratic in politics, collective ill economies; it abhorred unipersonal arrangements, it moved away from masses dumb as cattle, with no other alternative but that of seeding or submitting-"se sonmettre on SC demettre" as Gambetta put it to Mac cMahon-and it evoluted into social structures where democracy pre- vails, where the view of all found ex- pression, and where the social instinct approached nearer and nearer to reali- zation of the maxim that the endeavors of man must have social bearing. and that everything not done for the public the entire public-ls only transitory, and because selfish, reactionary.
 The lecturer then took up the several demands in succession.
 Absolute freedom to think, was as as to claim freedom to reach the moon. Man had no such freedom. Absolute laws controlled his thoughts and he had as little freedom" to think tin the sweeping way in which the phrase was used in the platform) as an acorn had freedom to grow into bram- ble bush. In another sense, however, the stress being put upon the word think, freedom to THINK, was intrinsically and extrinsically no less of nonsensical demand, it being freedom that no man had the power, even tho he had the inclination, to abridge, unless he com mitted murder-and Tn that way de stroyed the possibility of thought
 Absolute freedom to vacant land' was economically fahacy, psychologist calIy an oddlty. That vacant. land is not meant literally eas evident from the fact that the Rev. Mr. Pentecost would not contemplate the occupation of such land Tn Africa. The "vacant' land meant was land situated within the