Decorah public opinion. (Decorah, Winneshiek County [Iowa]) 1895-1928, 1906-11-21
SOCIALISTS CREED A NATIONAL PERIL.

in favor of common ownership of
public utilities as the twin menacies
of the republic and the liberties Of
the people. In response to the toast
"Our Country" after splendid eu-
logy of America and her free institu-
tions, he said among other things:
"Her profuseness of favors begets
perils for America unless her people
be taught to use them well and wisely.
Through her recognition of manhood
in every man the multitudes become
rulers, and at times the multitudes
bend too readily to momentary ex-
citements, hence the extreme need of
the proper formation of the popular
mind so as to correct thought and
righteous acting.
1t has become almost a public
axiom that the whole people will not
be wrong the whole time. but part
of the people may. be wrong the whole
time, and the whole people may be
wrong part of the time.
That the whole people be wrong a
part of the time we must ever strive
to prevent. Injury, irreparable injury,
may be done duling brief interval
of social or political insanity, and a
frequency of such conditions, however
brief each one may be, too easily de-
generate into abiding habits.
In our material prosperity there is
a danger from which we are not
holding sufficiently free. We worship
material prosperity, material wealth,
and in doing so we are losing the
sense of the spiritual and moral.
Religion does not retain among us
the supremacy it once had. Here is
a national evil which forebodes dis
aster.
I again extol the material pros
perity of America, but as one of its
accidental consequences note the
spirit of social restlessness which
now agitates the country. It is said
too much prosperity comes to some.
too little TO others, hence new me-
thods are called for in the distribu.
tion of wealth.
That all is perfect in present con-
ditions we must not assert, but
nothing should be said or done SUBJ
versive of public order. destructive
of the spirit of the country and of
its institutions.
The wild anarchist and the would
be assassin are the public enemies of
society, whom to tolerate is to toler-
ate open sedition.
An enemy, too, of the public is the
workman who. refusing to labor,
deters by violence brother workman
from his Offering of his labor, as
are even in greater degree the
strong ami the powerful who override
the law of the land in carrying out
the schemes of their ambition.
Private property, the right of every
man to own and dispose of the fruits
of brain and of hand, must ever be
regarded as sacred and inviolable
1t is the corner stone of the social
structure.
That in the holding of private pro-
perty there be inequality is inevita-
BILE. Men are not, and never will be,
equal in the power that builds up pro.
perty, in the economy that preserves
and increases it; hence. they will
never be equal in the amount of
property they do or can possess.
The preaching of Utopias in remedy
of this inequality, the proposal of
schemes which ignore the nature of
men and the vital conditions of hu-
man society are an insult no less than
an injury to the individual whom they
fam would beguile by their will of
the wisp deception.
A chief panacea put before us is
common ownership, through city,
state, or nation, of the chief agencies
of productivity and of the transporta-
tion of the results of this produc-
tivity. Let all be on their guard.
Common ownership in one direction
leads readily to common ownership
in another. the more SO when the
purpose really held in mind by the
many is to grasp wealth without
much personal effort, to despoil others
to make up for ones own deficiencies.
Large personal fortunes acquired
legitimately are in themselves an
honorable testimony to talent and to
toll, and without large aggregations
Of capital great enterprises are not
possible. That large accumulations
of capital be not permitted to ply their
forces to violate the laws of justice,
to oppress and ruin the weak, is un-
deniable; but to strive 20 shatter and
ruin them is to aim at a national
mediocrity through which America
will at once descend in the scale of
nations.
Charitable and kind the rich must
be. They are the trustees rather than
the owners of their wealth, in the use
of which, when all the reasonable re-
quirements of themselves and of their
families are satisfied, their less for
tunate brothers and the common
society to which they belong must be
remembered.
Unreasonable querulousness among
the poor and senseless extravaganza
among the rich are equally to be re-.
pretended.