Red Lodge picket. [volume] (Red Lodge, Mont.) 1889-1907, 1902-09-19
LECTURE ON SOCIALISM
8. +. Wilson Of California Addresses
Red Lodge Audience and Tells
Some Truths.
ALSO SOME UNTRUTHS
Existing Economic Conditions Must
Be Changed or the Rich Will
Take the Earth.

-ReN. benjamin II. wilson OIL b0IAG-
ley, Cal, former Illinois Methodist
minister, addressed a large and appre-
ciative audience at the opera house
Wednesday evening upon socialism.
being introduced by Alex Fairgrieve.
and giving an entertaining and in
structive exploitation of his views.
The speaker, iii starting out, took
occasion to decry that maudlin senti-
mentality that sought to belittle the
individual. .sYou remember said he,
'how the old song used to so Of the
Sweet Bye and Bye We We're taught
that the more we suffered here the
greater would be our reward beyond
the moon, the greater would be our
picnic in the promised land. The
world has become tired Of that sort
of rot. There was never any greater
humbug ever taught than that man is
a worm Of the dust. What the world
wants is an application Of the truth
that human beings have right to en-
ioy themselves on earth.'
He contended that people should
feel that they We're creations Of God,
not Jumps Of clay. People keep say
ing, BE good, be good" but do not
make the conditions possible to be
good. What is needed is that the
conditions and the environments
should be such that man can be
good. In the planting of grain the
soil is prepared before the seed is
sown; people know how to make the
proper environment for the growth of
vegetation and animal life, but they
do not know enough to make the con-
ditions right for the growth of the
human soul.
| Man was born with a desire to
struggle for his existence. What are
the essentials to that existence?
Land, machinery and the products oi
toll. What is contended is not that
men are born equal, but that they
should have an equal advantage to
get at the means of equality The
race now is not to the best man, but
to the man who is best equipped to
succeed in the particular environment
in which he is placed. A man should
not be given a greater return because
he has the genius of financiering the
shirt off another mans back. When
such financiering is done it is called
skill and the times are called good
times" and there is "a full dinner
: pail Rockefeller, Jr., expressed the
idea of the monopolist when to his
Sunday school class he illustrated
how the American beauty rose was
grown by shearing off all the roses
along the stem and leaving one rose
at the top to receive the nourishmen
of all, and this, Rockefeller stated
was the way divine providence lai(
aside all the smaller lives that some
great life might bloom forth in glory
The situation in the PennsylVani;
mining districts, the speaker assert
ed, is well illustrated by the attitude
taken by the mine owners who mak'
rigid investigation when a mule i
killed. but none when a man loses hi
life Humanity is the cheapest stuf
on the market In the days of slaN
cry when black was taken i'll a doc
4 tor was summoned and care was giN
en-. Why? Because the black repre-
sented property Under the compel
tive system mans life is of no az
count because his place can be take
by another at the. same wage. Man
mon is the god of the hour and tn
man so much out of which none
can be ground.
1t is justice, not charity said MI
Wilson, that labor wants. When l.
Dor receives justice labor can build 1t
own libraries. Every library that Ca
negie built is sealed with the blood G
workingmen. We are going too muc
on the style of the IrishWoman VIII
was trying to mop up the water as
drant, instead of turning off the tai
J Frances Willard, in her closin
years, said that if she had her iii
to live again it would be given to s.
cialism, for she realized that povert
caused more drunkenness than drum
enness did poverty. Socialism Wi
remove the profit in the liquor bus
ness and the saloonkeeper will natu
'. ally go out of business.
One percent of the people OF tt
United States own more property tha
the remaining SO percent. The tru
is here and it is here to. stay and II
labor saving machinery with it, b
. at the socialist wants is that bo