Baxter Springs news. [volume] (Baxter Springs, Kan.) 1882-1919, 1903-07-25
SATURDAY, JULY IS.
SOCIALISM.

Doctor Thomas E. Will, formerly
president of the Kansas State Agri.
cultural College, and now president
of the American Socialist College
Wichita, Kas., spoke last Friday
evening on the subject of Socialism,
Socialism, he said, stands az a
protest against capitalism.
Capitalism is the industrial sys.
tenn that followed Feudalism.
Capitalism was a. necessary pro-
duct of the times, it has rendered
untold services to mankind, but ii
has practically run it's course and
is now productive of more harm
than good. 1t now opposes almost
every principal for which the faith:
ers of our nation fought. The "more
perfect union" has become the divi.
sion of society into two hostile
camps of laborers and capitalists;
Justice" in law must be bought
and then can rarely be delivered.
Industrially, justice is as rare as
snow in summer. Domestic tram
guilty" is represented by "pluto-
cracy's bastilles" and the new mil
itary law; the common defense" is
no defense against discharge and
starvation; the general welfare" lie
lost sight of in the scramble for
wealth by the wealthy; and the
BLESSINGS of liberty" are forgotten
in the curse of wage slavery and
degrading poverty in the midst of
boundless wealth.
The present system is one of an
omalies and contradictions. A part
of the people are shamefully over
worked while othets can find no
work. Over production of wealth
leads to glut, panic and wholesale
poverty.
The present system, like the
system of one hundred
years ago, has outlived it's useful
ness. It will be followed by an
other, that, namely, of Socialism.
What is Socialism? It is not the
of some closet philoso-
pher. It is not the "secial edifice"
which some dreamer has conjured
up in imagination and now asks
sensible men to vote for. It is the
social order which, for a century or
more, has been growing up inside
the capitalistic system, exactly as
the capitalistic system grew up in
side the feudal system. The new lie
developing under the form of the
old, exactly az the shell of lobster
under the old shell and
finally takes it's place.
Socialism is the fulfillment of
Democracy. It is to come by the
act of the American people. When
they want it they will have but
to vote for il. It will establish
direct Legislation that the people
may have such laws as they want,
and the right to recall law makers,
that the people may promptly Dust
such Legislators az betray them.
Socialism means the taking over
of the great, permanent trusts to be
owned and run in the interests of
the people rather than of the trust
1t means leaving small,
business in private
hands 30 long az the people may
prefer to leave them there, taking
over if they ripen into trusts, or
permitting them to die if the peo-
pie abandon them.
Socialism is the coming of age of
the laboring class; the entrance of
this class into its inheritance;
the land, freely given by
nature to all, and the capital pro-
duced by the labor to all.
Socialism means not only equal
rights before the law, but equal
rights to life and the means of liv-
ing.
Instead of being an artificial and
arbitrary contrivance, Socialism is
he state to which the tremendous
development of modern industry is
rresistibly bringing us. It IL the
,nly alternative to the despotism
# the Rockefellers and Morgansb
he only hope of the working man.
he small business manc and far;
ner. 1t is the only salvation of the