The daily Alaskan., 1908-09-26
TIE MODERN REVIVAL OF AN ANGIENT DOCTRINE OF OESPAIR-AHD THE SMILE THAT FOLLOWS II.

A 'rNew York Socialist" is credited in a story that is going the rounds, with having discovered to bis own sat isiactlou a cure-sll for the "state of un- rest in the industrial world of Ameri- ca" Whatever the state of unrest iu the industrial world Of America may be, and there is DO doubt that 1t is large and active, recent reports from Great Britain indicate that the condition is by no means confined to this side of the water. A million and half of men and women iu England and Scotland are said 10 be crying for bread, rioting in the streets, breaking into stores, smashing doors and assaulting the per sons of well-fed princes, all because they have DO work, and no apparent hope Of securing any. The New York Socialist is credited with offering as a remedy for continuance of this. con- dltion a systematic reduction of popu- la.lon, not by slaughter-a method pro- yided by the princes themselves through war-but by tha, ounce of prevention tha, is better than the pound of cure. The alleged socialist has been doing some observing and reasoning. He finds that in India, where there are no capitalists or land lords, there is more poverty than in America, which indicates clearly to him that neither capitalists or land lords are responsible for undesirable conditions here. Another fact he notes about India is that the people of that land are prolific breeders, as 8 result of which the population is increased every year by millions. This, then, he ar gues, is the cause of all the trouble. If the workingman will only quit adding to bis family iu time all will be well, for the population will ultimately be so reduced ss to make it possible for everyone who Is left to get work at easy wages.
 There are two very interesting things about this story. One Is that the ar gument should be credited to social lst, and the other that it should be travelling about the country from one newspaper to another under the head ing, "Novel but Unconvincing." For 1t is clear, in the first place, that DO socialist is author Of 1t, since it aOuts the fundamental principle Of socialism that in the prodigal wealth of nature there Is provision for all Gods creat- ures, fl the creatures be but permitted to get at it-sRd, in the second place, the argument is less novel than uncon- viucing. It is the revival of the "NIal- thusian theory" a ghastly thing per petrated more than a hundred years ago by 8 minister Of the gospel 10 explain that sin and misery and war and dis ease were designed by merciiuI God to prevent over popuIation-that the number of mouths to be fed might not outrun the bounty Of the earth, there having been iu nature no restriction placed upon the fructiiying human while there had been upon the product of the earIh-,hough both came from the same hand
 The agonizing world had been asking 1 the WHY of the agony for ten thousand years and when the Rev. Mr. Malthus published his doctrine of horror 1t was accepted as such a sure and certain an- swer, that il spread over the world ike the swift blight of a plague, accepted | largely, almost as divine revelation, and for many years went it's undispuJed | way, jus,iiying every form of evil. But nearly all ministers of the gospel of