The herald. [microfilm reel] (Los Angeles [Calif.]) 1893-1900, 1895-02-03

making power OF the Whol9 IS WI mere
natural resources are abundant morally
responsible.
Hence. when the householder came
to pay of his hands, he gave TO each
fair, living davis wages without
regard to the number OF hours the Ia
borer had toled Why? Simply be
cause the principle involved and en-
joined by Jeaus is this: Society, or the
municipality, state or nation, necessa-
rily owes TO every willing member OF the
| community e chance to earn an honest
living.
This ia what the parable means ii 1T
means anything, and thi0 and nothing
else ia the principle to which the COM
ing order OF society must adjust itself II
| Christianity is to be praCtioalized and
! civilization saved.
Mr.. Thomson's Interpretation is not
worthy of the Christian pulpit. though
1t might be quite appropriate in n
stamp speach, or bankers magazine, or
even in New York Tribune editorial.
When one preacher says: 1--WE SEQ by
the account of Ananias and Sapphire tn at
Communism under the best men was O
failure" he perpetustes joke worthy
of Bill Nys. He seems 20 think it was
the deCeptions OF that unworthy couple
that broke up the first Christian com.
mulity. The general impression has
always been that the thrifty" pair
who perjured themselves-att the
manner OF certain capitals ts-were the
only ones that were really "broken up"
on that occasion. To claim that the
! failure of two persona i'll an organizas
ton of some 5000 people carried with it
the failure" of the remaining 499S
hn ka hn fosk !, IN naf vt
binary assumption.
We do not regard the little bunch OF
diaciples failure because one OF the
number WAS Judas, nor that Washing
ton and his generals proved q failure be-
cause of Arnold's treason, nor that the
dscalogue is a failure because ali of the
ten commandments are daily broken.
Judged by Mr.. Thomson's logic,
Jesus himself was the most deplorsble
failure in oil history.
His trial and crucixion through Her
cd and the chief priests who temper
arily survived" him were, no doubt,
shining illustrations and object lessons,
in the estimation OF the popular rabbia
OF the period. in favor OF the doetsine OF
the Survival OF the fittest"-a doctrine
whose real virtue and meaning have
been so proatituted and perverted
through loose. reckless and sefsh in
terpretstions that it has come to signify
the ''survival' of ''the meaneat of man
kind"--the Survival of low, rascally
acqusitiveness ard OF pocketbook and
stomReh-ths survival OF the financial
vulture that grows fat on the calamities
and mistakes OF men that are superior
to the epoiler in every endearing and
desirable quality.
In conc usion, the Socialism now at
work in the brain and inspiring the
heart of mankind, and eapping the
foundations OF old social orders and
despotsms which, founded in force and
fraud, can only be maintained by like
agencies-is the concerted and irrepres-
eible determination of civilization to
preserve and regenerste itself through
frstsrnsl and industrial spirit and pur-
pose III direct line with the simple ethics
OF the Nazsrene.
IRRESISTIBLE PRINCIPLES.
Intelligent and honest thinkers, as n
rule, have ceased to oppose the underly-
ing principles of Socialism with the silly
subterfuge that they are in conflict with
the flaws of human nature" except so
far as the same objection has met
every upward step in human progress.
Modern Socialism is an ever widening
and deepening tendency toward equity,
and as such will carve out it's own chan
nels and define its own programme OF
details and its own boundary lines. Its
ethics and incidentals will necessarily
be in accord with what ia for the great
eat good of all, and for the revival not of
the human vultures and swine, but OF
the nOblest types.
It ia useless to think OF either revers-
ing or even checking the trend of science
and of lsbor-saving machinery, which
more and more are superseGing human
muscle and effort.
1t in equally useless to attempt
to turn the current back from the COM
bine and the department atore into the
hands of email dealers who will CON
tent themselves with moderate profits"
This would simply be warning against
the evolution of human inventive
genius-in other words, against natural
law" Of which certain teachers talk 80
wisely when they are really endeGvoring
to obatruct IL.
Rivers do not flow backward and up
ward from inland seas and lakes to their
mountain sources, but forward and
downward, with widening sweep to the
sea. The competitive order and age for
which Ricardo was mouthpiece expired
with the old fashioned loom, sickle and
fail and with the birth and application
of improved and scientific industrial
methods, whose employment necessa-
rily throws out of employ and all
chance Tor earning an honest living, o
constantly increasing multitude of
human beings. These methods have,
very naturally, been monopolized
by private capital, and the result. nec-
essarily, is over-supply of manual labor,
involving wage slavery on the part OF
those who are compelled to com pete
with the rapidly growing army of the
unemployed. Mercy" alone cannot
cure this condition. Justice ia the only
radical remedy.
To go backward into the forsaken
forms of competitive trade is impossible.
Science and intelligence, through which
improved machinery and combinations
have been conceived and born, is as
merciless as the law OF gravity .selt.
1t is forever pushing us forward, and
will not long pause before the modern
guns of the modern trust and combine.
which, as THE HERALD truly says, are
more closely related to Socialism than to
competition.
No power can prevent the next and
final stride into general corporation.
JAMES Ct. CLARK.
Pasadana Cal