The Bemidji pioneer., 1903-01-15
official County and City Paper
REAL SOCIALISM.


il, more of the possibilities of CO.
operation and possible equality
in the distribution Of wealth,
than any other instrumentality
except government itself, which
has yet been devised by man.
In it's inception it is based upon
integrity and capacity for affairs.
For honesty and capacity are the
two elements which command
homage and contribution from
one human being to another. In
it's minor stages it was indicative
of a disappointment in the laws
of competition and also of a re-
cognition that the age of corpor-
alton wrecking had gone by.
And when it reached the altitude
of an appeal to the ordinary
small investor for subscriptions
to capital stock upon a scale
which invited comparison with
the financial operations of gov
ernment itself, 1T became a full
and complete vindication of hon
esty and capacity in the admins
tration of industrial concerns,
and put into the political life of
the republic a piece of legal me-
chanism capable of the most COM
plete socialism.
1t is common experience in
all joint stock concerns, whether
of farmers, artisans or business
men, that the loudest howler for
theoretical socialism is the
irresponsible member of the
trade union who halls alike from
San Francisco, st. Louis, Chica-
go and New Orleans, and whose
roof-tree is his hat and whose
habitation the boarding house.
The agitator is seldom or never a
business man. He is seldom or
never steadfast and constant
working man. He heels-and-toes
it from community to community
and from state to state in search
of some idealistic state Of affairs
which shall breed him ease and
opportunity like old cheese does
maggots. This dreamer among
men may now invest his brief
earnings in the stocks of the
giant trust corporations at the
market prices, sometimes $40,
sometimes $50, sometimes 800
per share, and share in the mis-
cradle, tyrannical and unjust
profits which the captains Of in.
dustry arewringing from the toll
ers at the bench and in the fur
nace-room. He may give up his
Improbable heel-and-toe pere-
CARNATIONS, and become at once a
sharer in the profits of the trust
and member Of a socialistic
propaganda whose public appel
lation is amere political mis-nom-
er. meant to confuse, mislead and
horn-swaggle the innocent and
gullible farmer and ,trade-union-
ist This will be real socialism
a distribution of the profits of in
dustry to those who have invest
ed their earnings in the enter
prise.
For the modern Trust is moth
Ing more nor less than a sub
Scrlptlon upon the part or the
money owners all over the coun-
try to a concern in which the
highest efficiency of management
and the utmost integrity, of wis
dom and skill have been amply
and notoriously demonstrated.
And it would no doubt surprise
the trade union agitator, if he
were to begin the job of ferreting
out the ownership of some of
these trust stocks, to discover
how many holdings there are in
little country towns all through
eastern and middle states, - hold
ings by people whose occupation
or lack of occupation leads them
to invest their little monies who'll
ly upon the public reputation of
the captains of industry and
THAR financial naOaoers