Workmen's advocate., 1890-07-05
COMMUNICATIONS.
Unfair Play.

ters in the first issue of his paper "The Free Life" London). K. C.Walker copies his burning throbbing words in Fur Play, Valley Falls, Kansas. When l received the latter thought there was a mouse in it, trying to escape; but it was only the following words, which keep us awake nights with their thrash ing around:
 "State. Socialism is our real enemy, the real perfected outcome of all govern ing force. For years and for years the kings and their governments and the classes have played with force; until at last, today, the grim image of perfect force syotem, perfect from its main lines down to THE SMALLEST DETAIL, has been born in the minds of men and is greeted with enthusiasm by millions of those who find in it their new hope. We can see-who can not see?-the power that this new idea is exercising upon men. Swiftly and steadily over the whole world the shadow of the evil thing grows and deepens; and men rap turously pray to it to come speedily and fall upon them, just as in the old days tribes smitten by their neighbors prayed to some great conquerOr to come and take them for his own. Yet knowing | all this, knowing that the advance of State Socialism may sweep With the | VIOLENCE OF A HURRICANE through this country, and through other countries, knowing that for time 1t may even | overpower the resistance of sane men, | we neither fear it nor shrink from it, but only welcome it. Why? Because State- Socialism is the last great effort, the last great bribe of the worshipers of force; the last great stake which they have to place upon the worlds table. Because the race has to live through this great final temptation, this great master delusion, as it has lived through many other temptations and many other delu
 sions. Because it is only after force has | offered all that it can offer to those who live the hardest lives, and that offer has been contemptuously rejected, that force itself will sink down to those lower depths of impotence and slaves estate which wait for it. Because love of liber- ty, reason, belief in mans moral nature and in the great moral laws which sur round him, and deliberate preference of the future over the present and of the ideal over the material, have to be passed again and again through the fire, before they are fit to become our supreme directing influences. The hour of our temptation is before us, and we must neither shrink from it nor fear it. We have broken the force of churches; we have yet to break the force that pretends to be of the people and to speak in their name. To all men and to all nations it is reserved at some moment of their lives to climb the high mountain, and see the fair things of the world spread out before them, and to know that such fair things may be their own, if they will only fall down and worship the false guide who stands at their side
 On the peak of that mountain the peoples of the world now stand. Never
 was seemingly richer show of fair
 things offered to those who would fain
 be at rest after toll and in safety after
 danger. Lands and cities, the workshop
 throbbing with energy, the palace acith
 its dainty pleasures, sheltering all that
 the mind of man has planned and his l IdHu eAtCutGus all LlItSt SlIdli bC tICil D.
 on the one condition that they shall fall
 down and sanctify power, sanctJy tht
 right of some to take from others, sanctJa
 tue right of some to regulate aceording tt
 their passing acill euery facolty aud euera
 act Of others; on the condition that they
 shall deny and tread under foot tha
 right which is inextinguishable anc
 inalienable from manhood. the right oI each to act and think for himself, the
 right to use his faculties for his owI
 benefit and according to his liking, tht right to buy, to sell, to exchange th'
 product of those faculties without let ol
 hindrance, the right to live in fre' world where each constructs happiness or unhappiness for himself, and in whicl
 none is the mere atom in the ordered and regulated crowd"
 know times are hard, but for mysel , would rather be bunko man, or rul a lottery, than to thus construct scare crow, persuade people it is a roaring
 lion, and extort subscription money a wages for warning them against it l What warrant can be found, in an, f socialstic platform, for the idea tha ''every faculty and every act is to b regulated! Don't try to find it, Mir. Wal 5 ker No anarchist ever tried to prov
 such charges against socialists; wh.
 should you begin?
 l The people offering themselves land and cities, shops, palaces and dainties tall in q violent hurricane tool as t bribe to induce themselves to fore themselves to do something foolish am unnecessary would be novel spectacle RNCTuM.