The Irish standard., 1905-07-15

can be made prosperous and happy
en- mass. To make men happy 1t de-
clares that every man should have
sufficient to eat and drink; that he
should be comfortably clothed, that
he should have sufficient recreation
to keep his body in good condition.
and sufficient opportunity to improve
his mind; that his breeding and the
raising Of his family should not be
left to chance, but that as much care
should be taken thereof as is taken
in the care and rearing of horses;
that the family system is as antiquat-
ed rs the old way of making shoes or
homcspun garments, and that the pri-
vate property system is the root of
dll modern industrial evil. There
fore they say, let us control all the
means of production, including human
labor that the fruits of it will go into
the common treasury. Thence 1t may
be distributed to the community ac-
cording 10 the needs of each.
1t is evident that Socialism puts all
it's hopes Of success in machinery.
The Socialists are willing to take any
| community any day and to erect
therein their wheels, and levers, and
cranks, and pulleys and start in to
grind out happiness by the wholesale.
or course, the Socialist writer's draw
most flattering picture of what will
happen to human nature once the
wheels begin to go round Just as
| soon as the present destructive sys-
TEN of individual competition is abol-
ished, men will cease to be selfish,
| grasping, greedy, quarrelsome. When
| their bellies are full of bread and
| their days are full Of leisure they will
become temperate, continent and
chaste, and submit willingly to the
rules laid down by the scientists for
the control of the appetites, and the
| proper conservation of the race.
When the individual is merged in the
| state, and every Office is open to ev-
! cry citizen, ambition and pride, and
emulation and corruption and lying,
will all fly this happy earth. No
doubt there can be no thievery where
there is no Sixth Commandment. But
it is difficult to believe that there will
be no ambition in popular state.
The handspring of Socialism is the
| destruction of individuality. The
world is to be changed into a gigan-
| tic worlhouse or soup kitchen. Men
and women shall obediently do she
work set them to do as long as they
| are told to do it, and will as obedient.
ly turn over the fruit of their labor
to the state. But what is this state?
1t is all very we'll to give big names
| and call 1t collective humanity or the
common good, or such like trash, but
| the state to the ordinary man and
! woman in Socialism will be the fac.
| tory boss, the overseer or some other
| officer appointed to supervise their
work. Now, whence shall these over
seers, bosses of officers come? Some
of the advanced thinkers of the sect
believe that the time will arrive when
men can be bred for various occupa.
tions as we breed dogs for hunting
and horses for running, so that we
would have men born master black
smiths or master cobblers or master
tailors-which, by the way, is curl
GUS reversiona to the old world idea that
we could breed families for ruling as
the bees breed queens. But until that
time comes, the overseers, bosses,
ETC., must be elected, and will any one
in his senses look at the world of
reality and say that he would give up
his life, his liberty and his happiness
absolutely into the hands of even the
best of our elected officers.
The fact of the matter is that So
cialism is the iridescent dream of men
who do not condition themselves by
the facts of human nature. It is more
a religion than a political system, but
neither as religion nor as political
system has it any place in labor
unions.