The Seattle post-intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.]) 1888-1914, 1892-01-30
WHY SOCIALISM DOESN'T GROW IN
AMERICA.

The eccentric and exceptional license of
aspiration and action that, impatient of
the existing order of things, seeks to re-
place them with socialism and commun-
ism does not flourish as luxuriantly in
England as on the continent and has no
significant, appreciable life in America.
In England and the United States we find
the smallest amount of socialism and COM
munism. There is little or no indigenous
socialism in these countries. Despotisms
breed them; democracies do not. They
hold no high carnival in America, where
the Protestant idea is pursued to its
radical extremity in religion and politics;
where there Is complete divorce of
church and state; where suffrage is
almost universal. Socialism, commun-
ism and nihilism, that have no appre-
ciable life in America, stand for the
groans and antics of sick and wounded
despotisms, not for the benefcent rule of
free popular government.
In Spain. Belgium, Italy, Austria, Ger
many, Russia, Bohemia, Poland, Hun
gary, where despotic government contin-
ues to plant its iron heel you will find more
or less nihilism, socialism and commun-
ism of indigenous growth, but in America,
where both church and state are free.
their doctrines flourish briefly only as i'm
ported creeds that refuse to multiply in
our political soil and climate. The death
of their doctrines is the spectacle of the
triumph OF individualism in America,
where natures nobility have full, free
chance to come to the front.
Under such institutions as ours the
bright Irish boy, Phil Sheridan, passed
from driving water-cart in the streets of
a small Ohio town into West Point, and
after he leaves West Point he is able, with
out social or political influence, to win his
way with his sword to the head of the
army, despite the fact that his religious
faith is that of but 1000. 900 of our so, OOO,-
600 of people. Nobody, after Sheridan
had proved his title to rank as one of
natures nobility. ever asked his pedigree
or wondered whether he was of "good
enough family" to ask to dinner.
Every man in the ranks of peace or war
in America knows there is q marshals
baton awaiting him if he has the courage
to seek it and the capacity to grasp and
WELD it. Sometimes it is Lincoln, who
puts rail splitting behind him, and adopts
the law; sometimes it is Douglass who
rises from cabinetmaker's apprentice to
the United States Senate: sometimes it is
printers boy, and his name is Greeley,
Simon Cameron, Thomas Bailey Aldrich,
or Thurlow Weed. Sometimes it is a
boatman, and his name is Vanderbilt,
or factory hand, and his name
is N. p. Banks; sometimes it Is
tailor and his name is Johnson; sometimes
it is a bricklayer who lives to become
governor of Illinois sometimes it is Judge
Gresham or Ex-Governor Alger rising from
poverty and obscurity to reputation or
wealth by struggle scarcely less bitter or
desperate than that of Lincoln.
In politics, law or trade. there is ALWAYS
a chance in America for natures nobility
to win the prizes of life. "The tools to
those who can use them" is the legend of
American life in all its forms. And vet in
face Of this superiority of American insti-
tutions, which he saw and confessed, the
great English critic Matthew Arnold re-
turned home from his visit to our country
declaring there was nothing interesting
in America" that even Abraha m Lincoln
'has not distinction" A country under
whose institutions Lincoln could rise to
the top of civic distinction; and Sheridan.
poor Irish boy, could enter West Point
and reach the pinnacle of military fame,
is country that ought not to be de-
void of a high and singular charm
and interest fer an able, intel
lectual English tourist and critic.
This spectacle of poor boys, born in com
mon and ignoble" conditions of life, hew
ing their way rapidly to distinction is not
only an interesting but an inspiring and
beautiful sight, and it is this spectacle
that is the death of socialism in America.
for socialism and all its kindred machine
methods of human regeneration and re-
adjustment cannot live in the same at
mosphere with such victorious, triumph