The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1897-09-24
WHEN WE HAVE SOCIALISM
NE VIM PENSION THE CAPITALIST,
SAYS SOCIALIST HANFORD.

Magnnnimous Treatm eut to be Shown the
Capitalists, the Robbers and Murderers
of Present System-Large Socialist Meet
ing in Aurora HaII-Soms Pet Ideas of
Socialists Expounded.
Capitalists Vanderbilt, Rockefeller,
Morgan and others will have to apply
for pensions soon after the socialist S
get control of Uncle Sans government,
according to Socialist Benjamin Han
ford's opinion, expressed at the social
ist-labor party's meeting at Aurora hall
last evening.
Ii will look a little strange perhaps
to see millionaires and multi-million-
aires hustling around for government
pensions. but that's what they'll have
to do when socialism gets along. Mr..
Hanford stated that the socialists,
when their cause triumphed, proposed
to set the non-productive class--the
capitalists'--at work making shoes, ci-
Gars and doing other odd jobs. AS
they couldn't get their living working,
the new regime will pension them.
AS Mr., Hanford had spent most of
the evening denouncing the entire cap
italist class as robbers and murderers,
it looked to an observer little as
though paying them pensions would be
putting a premium on being robber
and murderer. Mr.. Hanford, who is
from New York, had a good audience
to talk to last evening, the hall being
nearly full. He was introduced by
Meyer Stodel, one of the most enthusi-
astic of the local socialist leaders. He
announced that Mr. Gessner of Pitts
burg, Pa, who had been announced to
speak at the meeting, was unavoidably
detained and that Mr. Hanford had
been secured in his place.
Mr.. Hanford is a workingman, a
printer by trade. He spoke readily on
the subject of socialism and showed
that he had given the subject much
attention, though few would agree
with the conclusions he had reached.
He declared that the condition of the
wage e-earners was one of slavery; that
the capitalists are determined to keep
the wage-earners in such slavery at
any cost, as witness the murder of un-
armed men at HaZelton by sheriffs
who were the relatives and friends of
the capitalists.
'"The kind of peace the capitalists
want said the speaker, "is similar to
that which Jesse and Frank James
called for when they held up a train of
cars Frank would stand in the door
way covering the passengers with his
weapons and say, I want order in this
car While the capitalists say peace
and order with their lips, they want
murder The socialist party is the only
party of peace, and it proposes to Sc
cure peace by abolishing slavery"
system Cike the present capitalist
SYSTEM resting on robbery can only
the speaker urged, be perptuated by
murder. The speaker laughed to scorn
the idea that wage-earners were any
more prosperous because of the new
tariff
I'VE see prosperity going around in
high silk hat" said he. "The bust
ness mans prosperity is our poverty.
He also professed his desire that the
revolution should be a peaceable one,
but was willing to die in abolishing
slavery if it became necessary. The
greatest honor the capitalists could do
me would be to hang or shoot me- he
said.
At the close of his address the speak
er answered several questions which
We're put to him. .