Industrial freedom. [volume] (Edison, Wash.) 1898-1???, 1898-07-30
Canitalistis Enshusiasms.

NutD mat UlilL ICNbiLSs - INV OtiVh
nous. for it is dressed in the guise Of
democracy. 1t is difficult to imagine
how one Of the democracy today, a
mere Jesus or a mere Mohammed.
could lead Il new era. These had 4
common faith to work upon. we have
none. Tell had recognized oppres-
sion whose agents and instruments
were known and hated. But we,
taught to kiss the rod by which we
may at some future time strike some
others, endure the present pain in
hope Of the future iunicdon. The
competitive system is peculiar in this
that the money lash with which it
smites acts also as bait for the
smitteu. who notwithstanding he lives
in an age Of comparative statistics,
never counts the impossibilities for
bidding us to hope for worse times to
those about him by means of which
there may be better times for him
self.
The ability of the individual to do
much diminishes appallingly in
money seeking democracies. The
rights of the masses are swept away
and the press, owned by the encroach-
ing power. is imbecile and silent. The
tongue of the race is pulled out by
the suppression of free speech in
every city of capitalism where it is
needful for the purposes of capital to
have silence. The pen laborsin vain;
its tale of wrong, its angry protest,
goes into the basket. The individuals
power of doing is paralyzed; then
comes the reaction. 1t is with the
individual stripped and disarmed that
tyranny has its final accounting.
1t is said that a member of one out
ragged family led Dewey's fleet
through the torpedo beds of Manila
bay, The organization, the courage,
the cunning power of hoary Spain
handed over to disastrous defeat by
one outraged man. The individuals
power to undo is the Nemesis of Rus
sia's autocrats. In time of war the
spy and the traitor are their most
dangerous enemies. In times of peace
the Independent, persistent thinker
should prove an anxiety to evil doors.
Let us therefore cultivate independ-
ent think Nc. for even those of us
who are com nftted to the definite
truths Of socialism win discover that
the better we preserve what little in
dividuality the capitalistic world has
left us, the better service can we rem
der outside and within socialism.
The problem of the time, as it has
come to US. is to cherish individual
identity and to establish a decent,
manly social organism.
Our only reason for existence as So
cialist agitators is found in the tact
that new mode of living, with new
masters and new aggravatiOns of the
workers condition, is the achieve
ment of the nineteenth century capt.
talism. This new king has no soul,
no inspirations, no chronicles. no her
aldry Of his own. We praise our flag
by the same adjective as do the Span
iards theirs, "old" glory. We do not
eXult in our wheat pits. nor the num-
Der of idlers we allow to support
themselves in idleness by government
bonds and private traffic. Nothing
properly our own, finds entrance
during our glery fits. Like the man
of eighty in his wine, who sings the
love songs Of twenty, we sing of arms,
of resounding guns, of shattered
ships and war; ors dripping in blood
things as foreign from the genius OF
ca )ltalism as ustice itself.
How long can a civilization endure
which has no enthusiasm of its own:
How long can a government or church
endure without It? There is an en-
thusiasm that drinks from the past
and there is an enthusiasm whose in
SEPARATION is in the present-in the de
sire to do today, in the deed done yes
.rday, AMI in the hope for doing TO
morrow. If there be no enthusinl
material in our intentions for, or oul
,eds Of, to Jay and if besides thi,
moral privation we also have no past
what re mains but TO do something
that re sembles the past of some otnel
mt on that h had its enthusiasms
and to bon row its language in prais.
ing ourselves ter being so much like
somebody else? Such is the language
of society" in blue democracy.
1t was the church established BY
Henry VIII and his protestant sue.
cessors that held the helm of public
conscience in England when capital.
ism was born, a church which had no
enthus. asms of its own. In every pay
able. popular and possible respect she
prayed and sang ard credosd like
Rome and formed Joint stock com
pany among the saints. A church of
he court 2 .!d not of the peOnle il IL