Waterbury evening Democrat., 1908-09-21
THREE GREAT IFS
SatlaIIsm Mol Thoroughly un-
 Ssfslsod Eveu by Those Who ...PrGless is Eiow.

| hreilreeQ0m OI tuouBHt,l iioeN0'
 speech and freedom of z the press.
 What is freedom of thought? have
 read much in later times about \, 'out I have as yet seen no author who de-
 fines what he means by freedom or l thought. If | take thought In the
 abstract there can't be any freedom ', to 1t. It is necessarily bound by US
 own limitation. When the socialist
 thinks that all instruments Of pro
 duction belong to the workman, ne
 can't at the same tiue think that
 they do not belong to him. He may
 change his thought but whilst that
 rema!ns his thought, he Is or neces-
 sity bound to, that. thought. II !
 take thought in the concrete, have l
 a moral. right to entire freedom or tthought? know not how many tcomposes the socialist committee.
 will assume that they number three, A, B and c. I might think A to pc Ia drunkard and B a thief and c an
 old roue. If A Is not a drunkard, and
 B not thief and c not a roue, am
 morally right in thinking them so!
 Each one of the three has a right to
 my good esteem until by. his own mis-
 deeds he loses that right. If there be a God who has the right to i'm
 pose a moral law upon men-and ne Ihas that right--the unrestricted free-
 dom of opinion. is no more permitted
 than unrestricted action. The mind
 is as accountable to God as IS the
 body and licentiousness in mental ac- ltion is as reprehensible as licentious-
 ness in bodily action. If there be a [moral law to which the mind is ac-
 countable, then liberty of thought has l it's limits, and being limited IS no l longer free. We may deelaim elo-
 quently about the inalienable rights I of the frae-born mind, the mind has no rights, but what Almighty God
 has given 1t, and we have no moral
 fright to think what God ,forbids.
 The same line of reasoning applies l to. freedom of speech, for speech IS l but the extersization of thought in
 words, If were to publicly declare l the members of the committee to be | thieves or immoral men, l feel sure they would soon hale me before the
 courts in an action for libel. And 1 they would act rightly since, not l knowing them to be such, have no right to vilify them. The only lib-
 erty that speech has is the liberty that God gave 1t. There Is a limit Ebeyond which speech may not legt- timately go and to restrain speech
 within that limit is not to abridge
 any freedom which 1t rightfully has
 for, beyond the limit placed by the l Almighty, 1t has no rightful freedom.
 When we claim freedom of thought
 and freedom of speech the terms
 ought to be more definitely defined i than I have ever seen them in any
 socialistic literature Entire unre- |stricted freedom, either of thought or
 speech, is not only forbidden by the flaws of God, but is also repugnant to tie natural mind. And most men, I even socialists, will protest when freedom of speech is used to misrep- resent then. They, would be very l foolish if they did not.
 But the press the palladium of our. liberty" as Dorley calls 1t.
 What about it in the socialist plan? Well, the socialist himself does not seem to have any we'll defined idea l of what v the "eniancipated press" might be. Indeed he Is little more hazy here than on most other sub jects. It. denounces a capitalistic press, 1t tells us that under socialism the press will be free. With Kantsky lit enumerates, in the blessings of so- ] cialism, an emancipated press. With Yandervelde we are told that It twill introduce men to larger free dom in every relation. of life.' A writer whom the committee mention- ed in it's first article, Bernard Shaw, in his Industry Under Socialism, is obliged to confess to difficulties in connection with the industries con-
 cerned in the, production of such con- ditions in books and newspapers. " And this is the way he would solve the difficulty, "the printing commit tee might be left free to publish any communication 1t thought valuable. the arrangement with the author being purchased outright, or royalty on copies sold, in each case
 so much to be put to his credit in the communal bank" The freedom therefore would be left to the com nlittee and If the committee did not deem it valuable, the publication
 would not issue from the press. It
 strikes me that is pretty much the
 same kind of freedom the press has
 now, except that the committee hap
 pen to be the private owner and not
 communal committee. And then
 Shaw goes on to tell that what was
 not acceptable to the printing com
 mittee, they would be compelled to
 publish upon the payment of cost covering publication. And finally,
 newspapers might be issued on sim
 liar terms: and 1t would be always open to individuals groups of indi-
 yiduals to publish anything they
 please on covering the cost of publi- cation" And this is the freedom of the press allowed by socialism First
 a committee would decide what isI valuable and what is not. But by
 what magic power is the criticism of the committee tosbe regulated so that
 it will always select what is valuable and what Is not? What is valuable from one standpoint or. to. large number might not be considered val
 uahle. from another standpoint or to another large number A learned treatise on Christianity might be con- s.ae-ed valuable te a large number