Waterbury evening Democrat., 1908-09-12

cihiist couCeption ot JustlCe icdu to that which Is conhscation, and 1t continues with quotation that l have used before. viz: We do not be-
 lieve in recompensing the present possessors because to do SO would be to deprive the producer of part of the fruits of their labor" Says Hagerty, one of the lights of socialism,: If We are to make compensation for the machinery of production and dis tribution we must acknowledge that they (the present owners) hold just titles thereunto." Compensation" exclaims The Worker. Who are they, the drones of society, to talk to us, the disinherited of compensa- tion. They owe us all that they have. all that they are." I can't see any other conclusion but this: That since land Is generally included by socialists in the means of produc- tion, 1t also must be subject to con- flscation, compensation being ad- vocated by some socialists, not a penny of compensation allowed by others.
 If we are going to take production in its fullest sense and abide by the
 socialist, principle of appropriation one can hardly imagine where ex- propriation is going to stop. Every man who creates utility Is pro ducer. The farmer raises hundred bushels of wheat. What has he done? He has created a utility, the utility contained in the wheat, for that wheat would not have existed as wheat If he had not titled and sowed and ploughed and reaped and threshed, and above all his land was necessary. As a producer he used his land, his reaping and threshing machines, etc, and all these became instruments of production. |, And since the socialists claim that all in- struments of production are to be ex, propriated l don't see very clearly how any of these can be excepted. The same line of reasoning applies to the miller who grinds the wheat into four, and the baker who makes bread of the flour and so on indefi- nitely. If the socialist wishes to particularize as to instruments Of production, then he must change his cherished adage that all the instru- ments of production are to, be ex. propriated and let it be remembered that this Is the principle laid down by Marx and followed by Engel, Bebel and all the brilliant luminaries of socialism.
 But what about savings and pro- fits, are they also to be expropriat- ed? will let John Graham Brooks answer the question. In his ''So- cial Unrest" he says: Whatever form the definition takes, there is to-day no clearly conceived socialism that does not first of all aim at the specializing of the three rents--rent. interest and profit This feature as being injurious to the small prop erty holder, the socialist endeavors to. hide. But it seems sufficiently logical deduction for, the general principle of the appropriation of the instruments of production since these savings. profits, etc, in their turn do. not. lie idle but become in- struments of production. Debs, 6 Saul among socialists, seems of the opinion that these, too, should be done away with. In the Social Democratic Herald (January IA. 1903) he speaking of what will be when socialism reigns supreme tells us: Rent, interest and profit will be no more.,,' And in former ar ticle I have already quoted Hagerty as appealing to his audience to seize the deposits in the banks if they wanted them ,.---.
 Numerous other authors could be quoted. Not having the leisure to dwell more extensively on the sub ject, will simply indicate where further information may be obtained. And every author of them is recog- nized leader. Here they are: Ern- est Untermann, Labor and Capital" April, 1903; Emile Vanderelde, Collectiveism," p! I'll; Marx, "Das Kapital," p. 72S, 4th ed; Bebel in Woman" p. 12s; Hyndman. one of the greatest, if not the greatest of modern socialists, in "The Com Crisis" p IFS; Kerr, in What to Read on Socialism" D. 2. With this array of socialist talen, declaring for confiscation and most of them rejecting compensation I cannot feel that I have mlsrepresent- ed the attitude of socialists on that point. And the committee will have to recognize at least one of them, Bebel, since they have themselves used him as an authority unless they want to hedge and discard him in this particular and then it becomes a question of what use Is he as an for any tenet of socialism.