Montana news. [volume] (Lewistown, Mont.) 1904-191?, 1904-05-11
The Social a
Opportunity
BY GEO. ID. HERON.

pciioi W tnC IiSHtS Oi cltncI party
in the struggle. This proposition
was announced with great pomp and
soiemnty by politicians and doctors
of divinity, who imagined them
selves to be putting a bold moral
front. Many Socialist speakers and
journals fell into something very
near the same proposition. The
whole discussion was made to pivot
upon the rights of the public, or So
ciety, as superior to the rights of
the contending classes of society. 1t
was held that the right of THE pub
lie" to coal was greater than the
right of the capitalist to his profits,
OF the right of the miner to better
hours and conditions of labor. But
the whole proposition was a funda-
mental lie, based upon an obsolete
and fallacious philosophy. As a
matter of fact, the public" had abb
solutely no rights at all in the nat
ter, because the public" had failed
to do right. The so-called rights
of the public" do not, and cannot,
extend beyond the measure to which
the public" does right to the hum
blest member of society. A society
that consents that those who dig its
fuel and climate from the earth shall
labor under conditions of danger
and exhaustion; a society that con-
sents that those of its members up
on whom it depends for light and
heat shall be beaten into submission
to long labor hours and low wages;
a society that does not accept the
responsibility for seeing that every
one of its members shall have the
full equivalent of the whole product
of his labors a society, such
a public, deserves to freeze and
starve, and to suffer all the conse-
quences of its own ignorance, cow
ardice and responsibility. Such a
public has no rights which any
righteous man is bound to respect.
A society or public has a right to
demand from each of its members
only that measure of Justice and
service which it gives. If a public
evades responsibility for economic
and social Justice for each of its
members, then the members of such
a society are absolyed from respon-
sibility for its comfort. The righ,
of the miners to win their struggle
was infinitely superior to any So
called public rights, and it was only
the fundamental immortality in which
our society is grounded that tolerat-
ed any other proposition. Public
rights cannot outrun social right
eousness. Individual responsibility
for society can 40 no further than
society's responsibility for the whole
well-being of the individual. The
process of reasoning that pivots IL
self upon the so-called theory of
public rights is utterly misleading
and reasonable. If we have a pub
lie mind OF conscience that will not
awaken to its responsibility for max
ing wealth and opportunity common
to each of its members, then such a
society ought to be frozen and
starved into enlightenment and re-
sponsibility. II is time we had a
thorough clearing up of this matter
of so-called public rights as against
the rights of the organized worker
in the struggle for the betterment OF
his condition. II Mr.. Mitchell had
but had the discernment and moral
nerve to have held out a little long
er, if Mr.. Mitchell had not allowed
Mr. Morgan and his associates to
enable Mr.. Roosevelt and other
quacks to make political capital for
themselves out of the suffering OF
the miners, the so-called public
might have been taught some such
lesson as this before the strike was
settled. Sooner or later, this dear
public" will have to learn its lesson
the lesson that il has no rights
beyond the righteousness and iull-
ness of life which il extends to its
every member. And the Socialist
is the man to teach 1.-THE Inter
J national Soris'st peVirv.