The news=record. [volume] (Enterprise, Wallowa County, Oregon) 1907-1910, 1908-05-21

L.
- The Socialist Party, in convention
assembled, makes it's appeal to the
American people as the defender and
preserver of the idea of liberty and
self government in which the nation
was born; as the only political move
ment standing for the program and
principles by which the liberty of the
individual may become fact; as the
only political organization that is
democratic, and that has for its pur-
pose the democratizing of the whole
of society.
To this idea of liberty the republi-
can and Democratic parties are equal
ly false. They alike struggle for
power to maintain and profit by an
industrial system which can be pre-
served only by the complete over
throw of such liberties as we already
have, and by the still further en-
slavement and degradation OF labor
Our American institutions came in
to the world in the name of freedom.
They have been seized upon by the
capitalist class as the means of root
ing out the idea of freedom from
among the people. Our state and ma
tional legislatures have become the
mere agencies of great propertied in
terests. These interests control the
appointments and decisions of the
judges of our courts. They have
come into what Is practically pri-
yate ownership of all the functions
and forces of government. They are
using these to betray and conquer
| foreign and weaker peoples, in order
| to establish new markets for the sur
| plus goods which the people make,
but are too poor to buy. They are
gradually so invading and restrict
ing the right of suffrage as to take
away unawares the right of the
worker to vote or voice in public
affairs. BY enacting new and misin-
terpreting old laws, they are prepar-
/ ing to attack the liberty of the in.
dividual even to speak or think fol
himself, or for the common good
BY controlling all the sources Of
social revenue, the possessing class Is
able to silence what might be the
voice of protest against the passing
| of liberty and the coming of tyranny
1t completely controls the uniyersit!
and public school, the pulpit and tht
press, and the arts and literatures
BY making these economically de
pendent upon itself, it has brough
all the forms of public teaching int
servile submission to its own inter
ests. r.t
i Our political institutions are als'
being used as the destroyers of tina
individual property upon which al
liberty and opportunity depend. TIL
promise of economic Independence t,
each man was one of the faiths upol
which our institutions were founded
But, under the guise of defendin
private property, capitalism is usin
our political institutions to make
impossible for the vast majority 0
human beings ever to become posses
sors of private property in the mean
, of life.
Capitalism Is the enemy and dc
stroyer OF essential private property
Its development is through the lega
| ized confiscation of all that the labo
i OF the working class produces. aboy
rs subsistence wage. The privat
1 ownership OF the means of employ
ment grounds society in an economi
= 'layery which renders intellectus
/ md political tyranny inevitable.
= Socialism comes so to organize II
fustry and society that every inGiyi(
ual shall be secure In that priyai
property In the means of life upo
which his liberty OF being. though