The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1902-06-05

resentatives is now often gagged by the
amount of plumber from the Federal
Treasury brought back to State or dis
The tendency of the voter today is 70
look to the general government to help
in building up local interests. Especial
" is this the case among those who are
known as business men. They send a
man to Congress, as they say, to do
business"
One of the most remarkable move
ments of recent date in the direction of
seeking government help, was the sud-
den and formidable call of The Farmers
Alliance a few years ago, for the loan Of
money from the government on farm
prcducts-the demand for the sub-treas-
ury system, as it was called. Just here
lies the danger. The farmers reasoned
that those in power claimed, by the tar.
iff to have raised the wages of labor in
factories. Why should not government
do something to help them? AS the far
mers reasoned, so others will ask. If
the extensions of governmental func-
tions already made work well and gen
eral prosperity is cited and often re-
garded as justification of all existing
legislation, then why should not the
business Of government be extended in
other directions? If a city gets cheaper
service by operating street railways,
why should not the people of the whole
country get cheaper fares and freights
by owning all the railways? If cities
can operate successfully water works,
gas works, and electric light plants, why
should not the people Of the whole coun-
try get cheaper necessarieS of life by
breaking up mOnOpolies which now
control prices? Why not turn over all
the business of manufacturing to the
government? These are questions which
evolution is fast bringing UT to face,
and to which we must have an answer.
The reply to all this you and I perhaps
think is easy and conclusive. Conditions
are not analogous A city serving water
and lights and tramWays to its citizens
is operating within a limited sphere.
It's legislation does not tend to cripple
the energies, the enterprise, or the man
hood of it's people. Property in such
municipality is still sacred, and citizen
still freeman. Not so with the social
istic estate. that would own all proper
ly thus taking away all incentive to ex-
cellence, rendering energy useless, kill
ing ambition, subjecting every motion of
man to government supervision, and
substituting for universal liberty uni
versal slavery.
Every extension of the functions of
the Federal Government like geological
surveys, agricultural experiment sta
tons, the construction of public build
ings and the building of ships. carries
with it the same argument. Let us not
satisfy ourselves with an answer like
that have given, because we may think
it conclusive, and then dismiss the SUBJ
jcct from our minds, as if nothing could
be said for socialism In nearly all
ages socialism has eminent men to ad-
vocate it, as Sir Thomas Moore in his
Utopia, Locke in his Origin of Civil
Government, and Rousseau, who was
among the greatest philosophers of the
eighteenth century. In the nineteenth
century were ST. Simon, and Fourier,
and Thomas Carlyle, and Mill, and the
poet Shelly, and Carl Marx, and Fichte.
Socialistic sentiment today is more or
less widespread among American work.
ingmen. Fortunately, by reason of their
Intelligence and prosperity, large ma
jority of them now oppose it, but organ
lied as they are and numerous as they
are, suppose some great writer should
arise like Rousseau, with power to mar
shall in solid phalanx all the arguments
that industrial evolution has furnished,
and with genius to utter words like those
With which Rousseau fired the heart OF
France. Nothing is more specious and
captivating to the mind of the laborer
who, in spite of unremitting industry
sees his children in poverty, than the
doctrine of equality, equality not only of
opportunities, but equality in the enjoy
ment of everything life offers to man.
1t was chiefly the teachings of Rousseau
in MS discourse on inequality" that
sank down into the hearts of the French
people and inspired first the bourgeois
and at last the laborers, with that in
extinguishable class hatred that finally
caused them, with liberty, equality and
fraternity" on the lips, to raise in 1889
the red flag of revolution, the appalling
signal that ushered in the anarchy and
blocdshed that for years desolated
France and convulsed all Europe.
Let us not fail to remember the point
that would be given today to another
great discourse on inequality by con.
temptation of the vast fortunes now be-
ing heaped up, many of them by monopo-
lies.
But the thought that naturally occurs
to US is that in this country even the
first step towards such a revolution is
impossible. The American will never
surrender the right to do as he will with
himself and his own. His rights are
guaranteed by constitutions, State and
Federal, that cannot be oVerthrown.
What if the English parliament, under
stress of supposed necessity, did enact
some years ago in Ireland law, under
which the estates of landlords by the
judgments of a commission, are passing
into the hands of the tenants as owners?
There are half a dozen constitutional
provisions that would forbid the Con-
gress of the United States to pass such
ar act Undoubtedly, but let us not
therefore indulge in any feeling of over
security. True it is that up to this time
the prophecy long since made by Lord
RroUgbam that the American conStitu-