The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1897-06-19
AIfruria Ont West.


! It appears from the dispatches that Eu-
! gene Debs' great communicate scheme has
/ been launched. He has torn down his
| American Railway Union. which could not
| defy the authority of the United States
and institute a code of regulations of its
! own, and upon the ruins mas erected what
! he hopes will in time be an ideal co-opera-
/ tive commonwealth. He thinks he will be
able TO start out with some thousands of
| followers. carried over from the American
Railway Union. and that recruits to the
scheme will tread upon each others heels
in their eagerness to join. in the plan for
securing unlimited happiness and ease with
minimum of effort.
Debs' plan coutemplates the colonization
in Washington state of working people
under a sociaiisuc agreement Each is
to labor for the good of the others and of
the whole community. By degrees the coll
onsts are to reach out and capture the
state government. Meantime they are to
work upon a similar plan in ctah and
Idaho. with the end in view Of capturing
those states also. by the peaceful means
of the ballot Every industry in the new
commonwealth of love and peace is to be
cooperative. There is to be no greed,
or selhshness, or avarice; no lending of
money at high interest; no seeking to OBJ
tain advantages in trade or otherwise In
short the community, or commonwealth,
is to be guided by heavenly purity, sweet
simplicity and tender, brotherly love. In
cidentaEy, it is to be presumed Debs and
~. -
the head of the movement, and upon GO
ing to congress or the Senate as the first
representatives of the new settlement of
saints.
Mr.. Debs ideas are not original They
have been the dream of many Missionaries
Edward Bellamy, Ignatius Donnelly,
Harrington, and to some extent w D.
Howells, and a number of others. SINH
lar ideas were the basis of the monumen-
tai failure at Topolobampo. Debs and
his friends, however. are not cast down
by failures of others, or the immense bar
riers in the way of their success. They
are going to make a spoon or spoil a
horn" 1t would take millions of dollars
even to start the scheme upon anything
like promising basis, and they haven't
the tenth part of one million; but they are
going ahead anyhow.
The idea Of founding a commonwealth
based upon brotherly love and harmony is
beautiful. But it is an economic rainbow.
which no well-balanced man would chase
So long as there are irreconcilable differ
ences in human nature, so long will it be
impossible to bring together a considerable,
colony of persons who would sink seIf-in-
terest and work for the good of the whole
1t is manifestly impossible to get even a
few people to think alike, on simple mat
ters governing the every day affairs of
life. A famous prisoner in a European
prison spent years of his life in a vain at
tempt to make two watches, of Identical
mechanism, keep time precisely together.
For thousands of years the religions of
the world have labored to bring humanity
together in brothery affiliation They
have failed. Debs proposes to accomplish
at one stroke what all of the religions of
the world have not been able to do He
proposes to change nature itself; to direct
thought into one solitary channel, and that
of his choosing; TO upset the civilization of
ages, and in its stead to impiant an ideal
ism which it is extremely difficult to work
out even in novel. The scheme is fore
doomed to failure. Debs, however, will
probably be abe to secure a number of
followers. In the territory where his in
fiuence is strongest there is a number of
persons out of employment, from choice
or otherwise, and many of them will prob
ably be willing to follow him, in the hope
that something may turn up. They have
very little or nothing to risk