The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1897-09-12

OeIHS placed upon the STetu lisdl
has already invaded politics and
almost subverted our institutions. what
| escape would there be from the deluge
were the great private interests men
| toned to be added to the spoils of Of
| flee? The remedy, on the face of it. is
worse than the disease. Nor is that
all. The complaint today is far less
against railroad or telegraph corpora
tons than against the trusts. 1t is the
great combinations that deal with the
necessaries of life that are the objects
| of distrust and denunciation. If the
| government, for the protection of the
people, were to take charge of the rail-
roads and the telegraphs. how can their
condition be bettered unless it take
charge also of the fields of industry
now occupied by the trust? It would
have to assume control, as well, of the
manufacture and sale of steel, lead,
| glass, kerosene and the thousand and
one articles whose supply is now in the
hands of syndicates or other combina-
| tions.
If there is anything at all in the ar
guments advanced by Altgeld and the
rest, it logically necessitates the substi
tuition of government for individual en-
terprise in the entire field of human
activity. When a man makes up his
mind to enter this field of speculation.
he should consult, not Altgeld and the
| socialists, but Mr.. Edward Bellamy.
Bellamy may be more wildly visionary,
but he is strictly logical If any COM
munity ever makes up its mind to try
the experiment of state control, it will
not, because it cannot, stop halfway.
1t will not rest with the proposition put
forward by,th special pleaders against
few combinations, but it will push
forward to it's inevitable goal of COM
plete state socialism.
To understand what this means, one
needs only to consult Mr.. Bellamy's re-
/ cent book Equality" He has there
| set down, with great circumstantiality
of detail and with remarkable clearness
of thought, the argument of the thor
! oughgoing state socialist. He sees,
what the others fail or refuse to see,
that, if any modern society begins to
usurp the province of the individual, it
must take it over wholly and not piece
meal. Mr.. Ballamys state, however
millennial and chimerical it may be, is
in logical accord with his principles. In
that state there is no such thing as pri-
vate property. Everything, including
not merely land and the facilities for
transportation and the transmission of
intelligence. but buildings, implements
and every possible accessory of produce
ton, together with the entire annual
product, is the belonging of the whole
community, and every individual in it
! has an equal right in the common in
heritance
| Another indispensable condition
which Mr.. Bellamy accepts is the
abolition of money and of debt or
credit between individuals. Given tie
J existence Of money as a representative
! OF property which a man may. acquire,
/ or given the right Of private property,
/ so that one man can accumulate while
another becomes destitute, and the
whole theory of socialism topples over
into the abyss. In Mr.. Bellamy's scheme
! the state is the great overload of the
| land and its inhabitants. 1t owns ev-
erything. Every unit OF it's people has an
indefeasible title to that portion OF the
nations wealth which would be repre-
sented by its total accumulated capital
! divided by its total population. Every
| individual owes to the state certain
! number Of hours of labor per day dur
| ing all the years of his active lifs, in
an occupation to be assigned by the
state itself. Every individual receives
! at birth a right to fixed annual in
come from the state, which is the same
| fer all. This income is not paid in
money, but in kind. Each man, woman
! and child receives at the beginning of
the year a card after the fashion
of a restaurant meal ticket, emitting
| him to SO many dollars worth of GEM
modities or services. Whenever he
wants dry goods or groceries OR a rail
| road ticket or a tlleater ticket, or any
thing that man can desire, he goes to
the public warehouse or the public
agent and orders it and has it punched
out of his yearly income card. He can
| obtain ne more than that calls for dur
/ i'm +J,a IL
card to anybody else. There being no
| such thing as money for which these
commodities and services might be ex-
| changed and nc man having a right
to hold property outside of his personal
effects ard the furnishings of his home,
accumulation Of great wealth is impos-
sible
We do not need to enter here upon a
discussion of the possibility of putting
| such a scheme into operation, OR OF its
/ probable effect upon human character,
| upon human incentive and upon the
/ evolution Of the race We are not con-
! it's as either the description of a para
! disc or the filmy fragment of dream.
i We are locking at it merely as the de-
, velopment OF the socialistic idea, and
! from that point OF view we say that it
is the only plan that can possibly com
| mend itself to man given over to So
cialistic theories, but retaining at the
/ same time some reverence for Logic The
state of Altgeld would be not merely