The Anaconda standard. [volume] (Anaconda, Mont.) 1889-1970, 1899-12-17

Our boosted civilization is nine-tenths
sham and hypocrisy. Judged by the
only possible standard, perfection of
organization, its crudity tags it as but
a trif1e better than barbarism. Under
meath thin veneer of culture. the saw
age animal instincts thrive in pristine
| vigor in that fierce, relentless, newt
BILE struggle for existence, the double
object of which is the preservation of
the individual and OF the race and its
method is the survival of the tittest-in
other words the strong. In the economy
Of nature there is no place for the
weak; the under dog is natures out
cast. A machine or an organ is Judged
by relative perfection of product or
function. And if the function of the
social organism Is the wellbeing or
happiness of Its members what
clumsy, crude and rickety old machine
it must be, apparently as ill-adapted as
possible to secure the desired ends.
AS an illustration take the first fun
damental law of existence, that of nu-
triton. the food supply--the basic con-
dition Of survival and happiness Of the
individual. The mass Of the people, ex-
| cept idlers and parasites, are forced by
| inexorable necessity to spend their en-
tire lives in a struggle for sustenance
for themselves and those dependent
| upon them. and 1t is hard, bitter,
heartless fight for the most Of them,
| the greater part of life's tragedies be-
| ing made up Of innumerable, miserable
| failures.
And vet hunger should be an anomo-
ly. paradox. With scientific cultiva
ton upon an area mere fraction the
size of the United States. in a single
| season, enough Of food stuffs could be
! raised to feed in surfeit the entire pop
| plation OF the world for several years.
From an area not much larger the
whole world could be clothed. And
again, the utilization of less than a
| tenth of the available waterpower of
this country would in few months
| supply the whole world for year and
half with the manufactured prod
| ucts it demands
Nature has been as generous as a
| spendthrift, as liberal as prodigal 1t
| is man who is stupid, blind and ignor-
| ant; who inf1icts upon himself the bite
| of hunger and the misery Of poverty.
The exploitation of natures riches,
| the art Of industrial production, has
| under political freedom during the pres
emit century, made enormous, unpre-
cedented strides, until it has reached
| almost relative perfection in organiza-
| ton. Its evolution has had for it's
| proximate end the elimination of
| waste and friction, the harmonizaton
| of opposed forces and the creation of a
perfectly unified productive machine. 1t
| has been successful. Attracting the
| master minds of the century, the solu-
| ton of the problem of industrial pro-
| duction has unclaimed the greatest So
cial force the world has ever known
Under the spur of scientific organiza
| ton production has outstripped de-
mand and consumption as it exists at
| present.
The great dominant problem for
the twentieth century will be the
evolution and organization of con-
sumers; of the demand for goods which
| production is now prepared to supply
to a. surfeit. Demand and supply; pro-
| duction and consumption are correla-
tives, the two sides of the same eco
nomic fact. Demand must be increased
by increased ability to buy, to secure
| for the great masses a larger individual
share in the distribution Of the worlds
wealth.
! All ready the times are pregnant with
discomfort, that Promethean leven of
progress. The pulpit breaches the dawn
of a new era. Science is pointing the
way to better days. Literature and art
| by faithful analysis of the criminal
crudity and heartless injustice of pres
| ent social conditions, are tear
| ing the mask from a monstrous sham.
Organized labor slowly and tentatively,
| is beginning to awake to the immense
possibilities of combined action, of the
sure results of unity of purpose and
end, and of the great potential power
to make or mar, for good or evil which
is theirs by force of numbers. And
hunger and want are spurs which never
| rest.
The messiah of the twentieth century
will find the times ripe for his message
A. w. GREELEY.
| Anaconda. Dec. 16.
|