Aberdeen herald. [volume] (Aberdeen, Chehalis County, W.T.) 1886-1917, 1908-09-21
DEMOCRACY and
THE SOCIALISTS
why SOCIALISTS ANTAGONIzE The
DEMOCRATIC PARTY.
They Depend Upon 1.-The Continuation
of the Policies of the Republican
Party for the Ultimate Success of
Their Theory of Cole CtivjSm, and
so Oppose Democracy.

1t is not hostility to Mr.. Samuel
Gompers so much as to the democratic
party that manifests itself among the
socialists who have crept into the
labor unions and are endeavoring to
control them. Whether within or
without the unions by whatever name
they give themselves-so socialists, col
lectivists or communists-the are in-
Stinctively the enemies of the demo-
cratic party. What they dread in the
democracy is its defense of individual
liberty and of that voluntary associa-
ton of individuals, which is society.
For this they propose to substitute a
vast system of communism that would
crush the right of voluntary co-Opera-
ton of individuals having the same
opinions and aims, including the
American Federation of Labor. With
this would be an end of all liberty to
replace it with despotism more OPP
pressive than the autocracy of Russia.
This is the reason why the socialists
or communists hate the democracy
which stands for individual freedom
of citizens, the equal rights of all be-
fore the law, freedom of contracts
and the free exercise of the forces
that make for progress and higher
civilization. The socialists, on the
other hand, would make serf of the
commune out of every man Cor wom-
am who works with hand or brain.
In their friendship for the republican
party they have not hesitated to avow
their favor for the great trusts and
combinations that have grown up in
a violation of statute law as well as of
the economic laws of supply and de-
mand. They say that when capital
and industries are thus concentrated
in monopolies it will be much more
easy to inaugurate their program of
annulling the rights of private prop
erty than if the means of industrial
production We're widely distributed.
In their estimation they will meet
with less resistance both from the
trusts and the people when monopo-
listic control of American industries
becomes more extensive.
In this is explained not merely the
Indifference, but the hostility of the
socialists wherever found, to the great
democratic movement for a tariff re-
form that will relieve the people of
the spoilations of the predatory trusts.
They find in the party of protection
and in the trusts that the system has
bred their involuntary and uncon-
scious allies who are helping them to
hasten the reign of collectivism under
which private property and personal
liberty would fall together to make
way for a bureaucratic despotism.
Under the regime of socialism there
would, of course, be no tariff either
for revenue or protection, as in it's
high-sounding phrases of humanity
and equality all have the equal rights
of existence, whether in the United
States or in Timbuctoo, or whether
degenerates or too lazy to earn liv-
ing. But fortunately, as long as the
principles of Jefferson, Jackson, Tliden
and Cleveland as proclaimed in the
last democratic platform shall prevail
in this land, socialism in all it's phases
Will remain little else than a vain
dream.