The Minneapolis journal. [volume] (Minneapolis, Minn.) 1888-1939, 1902-05-28
BLOOD sREDn


Eugene Debs, in his speech at Denver
on Monday to the workingmen of that
city. showed that he had advanced several
degrees in radical socialism and was in
rather pessimistic state Of mind. He has
no longer any use for the word reform"
He declares himself a revolutionist
marching under the blood-red flag Of
international socialism,
This has a very bad sound. One re-
calls Ferdinand Lasalle's threat in Ger
many some forty years ago to the effect
that, If universal suffrage was not
would lin due time break in upon us amid
violent convulsions, with hair wildly wav-
ing, and with brazen sandals upon Its
feet" Lasalle's objective was universal
suffrage and he predicted that he would
compel Herr Won Bismarck to play the
role of Robert Peel and proclaim, in addi-
tion universal and direct suffrage.
Germany has universal suffrage and the
socialist party has grown to formidable
dimensions and has impressed it's in
fuence upon considerable amount OF
legislation, but it's leaders are not as
radical as Eugene Debs Is to- day.. Mr.,
sDebs, in his revolutionary mood, is ln-
clined to misrepresent the condition Of
labor in this country to-day. 1t GER
rtainly requires tremendous effort of the
imagination to behold vision Of Ameri-
can workingmen reduced to mendicancy
and rags and starvation, reduced as Debs
says "to the very dead line of degrade
ton and such degradation, he says, as
the world has never heretofore seen.
Every man who finds something to do is
Selling himself into bondage" Mr.. Debs
says the workingmen must go into poll
tics and vote their program, as they have
failed to accomplish anything by strikes
and boycotts
p The number of men unemployed tn this
country is comparatively small. There
are workingmen out on strikes in the
anthracite coal region and in few
other localities, but these have of their
own accord quit work The condition of
labor in the United States Is more fav-
cradle as to opportunity, wages and So
cial betterment than it has ever been. 1t
exists under more favorable conditions
than labor exists in any other country on the
globe. It is true it so exists, not through
the adaptation of~the principles Of Karl
Marx, or the program of the Saint Simon
ians, or of the Fourierists, COMMUNISTS
and other Missionaries of the Louis Blanc
order but because there has been pre-
ponderence of common sense in national
and state legislation affecting labor inter-
ests and a. commendable degree of doubt
as to the doctrine of that rosy-hued lea
ria. an imaginary Paradise, where money
is not needed, private capital is no more,
and where labor is tenderly handled In
the arms of the state and the results of
easy toll are deposited in magazines for
equal distribution among the citizens,
while want, WEAKNESS and discord are un-
known. These sanguine conceptions sof
amelioration have never been actualized
They will never be.
In our country tens of thousands OF men
bapei risen from the humblest toll to at
huence and influence and to be the en-
ployers Of workingmen. They. have so
'risen,s not Trough the agency of rainbow
socialistic theories, but through the exer-
else Of patient toll, thrift and keen OBJ
servance of: the opportunities which pre-
sent themselves to every alert, observing
and Industrious worker. There are nat
ural inequalities in health, strength, tai
emit and energy which keep some men
back and will continue to do SO through
all time. "The blood-red: flag of inter-
national socialism" may be menacingly
waved, but it does not possess the power
and never will possess the power to
change the order of nature Social
amelioration comes through the observ-
ance of econmic law and, obviously, Of
divine law also.