Montana news. [volume] (Lewistown, Mont.) 1904-191?, 1904-05-11


events. The daily history of the
nation and the world ought to be
the Socialists university. Every
event, from the Philippine war to
the Chicago theater Gre, from the
revision of our public school system
10 the latest historical novel, ought
to be seized upon as platform up
on which the Socialist should stand
and speak his interpretative message.
He should show what each event or
development means in the light of
the economic law of history, and in
the light If the Socialist hope for
world of fellowship.
For instance, there has been much
ignorant and fruitless discussion on
so-called Imperialism" this last
Eve or six years, inf both England
and America. The Socialist has
been the only one who could inter
pret these present day wars Of con-
quest, these mere picnics of loot and
murder, as modes or phases of eco
nomic competition. They are but
the necessity of the growth of capi-
talism. When the people of ma
tion become to poor to buy the
things which they make with their
own hands. the owners of the source
of profit must seek new markets and
cheaper labor. That is why Eng
land is in Africa and Asia; why the
United States is in the Philippine
Islands, and why we are reaching
out grasping hands to the islands,
and peoples of South America. We
are expanding in order that our cap
ital may have the contract labor, or
the disguised slave system, that we
now have in the Sandwich Islands,
that we may unload upon exploited
peoples our surplus products. And
of course, every child employed in
the cotton mills of Egypt or India
tends to lower the wage and intesify
the struggle of every girl in the New
England cotton mills and of every
child in the cotton mills of the south.
And every slave that works in the
contract system of our colonies"
makes the struggle of labor in the
United States SO much the harder,
and the lowering of the wage to the
Asiatic level a certain tendency.
AS Socialists we could have shown
the whole genius and capitalist na-
ture of the passion of the nations
for expansion; could have made
clear that imperialism, or benevo-
lent assimilation, is but mere com
mercial and speculative development.
But it does not seem to me that we
have availed ourselves as Socialists,
Of the opportunity presented to us
by the imperialistic development.
We could have made much more
pedagogic use of it than we have.
Our tendency has been to ignore il
as a matter that concerned only the
capitalist parties. So far as the inn
mediate issue of il was concerned,
that was true; but il is not true that
we should have ignored the discus
sien; for it was our rightful platform
one of our supreme opportunities
for showing the economic nature of
the question, and of showing how
its political aspects were a mere de-
ceit and humbug.
We should also have availed our
selves of the opportunity for show
ing the universal solidarity of labor
conditions; of showing how, in the
capitalist organization of the world.
the whole labor body of the world
must inevitably be dragged down to
labor's lowest condition; of showing
how universal and world-redemptive
must be its solution.
Again, there was a phase Of the
discussion of the coal strike, which
we failed to interpret, and by which
many of the Socialist speakers and
journals were led into false positions
and concessions. The Hearst news
nop.-s opI tho clorrv tool m the