Albuquerque daily citizen. [volume] (Albuquerque, N.M.) 1895-1903, 1902-03-28
FINE AUDIENCE.
Address By Mr.. Wilson Last Night
a Success.
A BRIEF OUTLINE.

Rev. j. Stitt Wilson delivered the
opening address of series at Colombo
hall last night. His theme was "The
Sublime Task of the Twentieth Gen.
tury."
In opening his address, he referred
to the difficulty with which any great
idea was ever received by the world.
Great IDEAS" he said. pass through
at least four stages. First, they are
ridiculed, then misrepresented, then
discussed, and finally accepted, as the
only rational Interpretation of the sub
ject matter with which they are con-
cerned. Thus 1t was with the idea of
religious liberty. and political liberty,
and the doctrine of evolution, and other
great ideas that have made for the pro-
gress of the uplifting of humanity.
$50 it is with the idea of socialism.
The first exponents of socialism were
the stages of ridicule and persecution
of pulpit and the press and the scholar.
then socialism passed through period
of the grossest misrepresentation,
partly through ignorance and partly
through political antagonism. These
two periods in the development of the
socialist principle are now practically
third period-the period of discussion
and now the pulpit and the press
and the teacher and even the politician
are everywhere vying with each other.
more or less, in the discussion of this
theme. to prove that whether they ac-
cept 1t or reject 1t, they are at least
not ignorant of it, 1t is safe to proph-
esy that the next great social issue of
the world will be Capitalism VS.. So
cialism.
The speaker proceeded then to in
quire into the evolutionary goal and
the evolutionary process of human his
tory and embodiment. "The goal of hu-
man development" he said, was to
produce the conditions under which
the largest number of the most per-
| feet and complete human beings would
realize the most perfect human happi-
ness, and the process OF this great
achievement was the discovery on the
part of man by virtue of his intellect
that nature, in all her facts and forces,
was pliable to his mastery.
"All the hell that is on earth is our
own doing, and what we have done, we
can undo. There is a sense in which
man is omnipotent, while environment.
if not remedied, determines character,
yet the other inspiring truth follows,
namely, that man can master his en-
vironment. Hence, whatever social
| conditions are menace TO human en-
| foldment and social freedom and JUS
tice can be remedied by the power that
is in our hands"
THE Nineteenth Century" the
/ speaker said, was a century OF vast
preparations for some tremendous task
some gigantic human advance in the
| Twentieth Century" He outlined
/ briefly six of these great preparatory
/ efforts of the Nineteenth Century in
the following order: The triumphs of
machinery, the advance of evangelical
religion, the progress of universal edu-
cation, the development of the trust,
the solidarity of labor in the trade un-
/ ion movement, and the might of the
/ ballot-the government OF the people
! by the people for the people.
These great movements" said the
speaker, ARE but preparatory for the
next great movement in human his
/ tory, and we socialists declare that
/ that next great movement is the move
ment for economic liberty, the over
| throw of the trust system now in the
/ hands of the few, and the establish
ment of the cooperative common
wealth. and this will be the basis for
perfecting the culture, the education,
the freedom, and other social and po-
! litical aspirations of the people,
] His subject tonight will be The
/ Competitive System Analysed and I'M
peached."
] x.f-