Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1908-06-18
SOCIALISM FROM A
CHRISTIAN STANDPOINT

In his address at the opera house
Wednesday evening, Harvey D. Brown,
said in part:
This is the tragedy of today's life.
That The economic and industrial
order does not permit the highest
manifestation of the human spirit.
Society denies man the right to do
right, The economic system deprives
the vast majority of men of both time
and capacity for the highest things.
And the selfish and cunning ways of
commercial life SO train him as to
create a mental personality hostile to
every breath of the highest spirit and
to every word of human faith.
In order that the ideals of all re-
ligions may be realized upon earth, it
is necessary that a just economic
foundation be laid Socialism is try
ing to lay this material foundation.
1t does not discriminate between
Mems religious opinions. 1t calls to
all communions to come and labor in
establishing this material basis so
that their highest ideals may be made
real in the world. And every faith
and religious organization which is
not hopelessly lost in bhe clouds, will
ultimately cooperate in this work.
Unless the Christian religion pours
its spiritual energies and sympathies
into the Socialist movement, it will
show that its prayers ''thy kingdom
come" has been piece of moral bluff.
Socialism proposes to lay an econo-
mic foundation for the kingdom of
God. 1t will do this by establishing
economic justice. This must be done
in order to remove the social crime of
our day. $4,000 infants die of starva-
tion annually in America. There are
two million under-fed school children;
there are million and three-quarters
OF child-workers in America. The
number of women employed in all
lines of industry is constantly incrsas-
ing, and as Robert Hunter says:
Literally millions of women, many of
them with children, 60 from their
homes in the early dawn and return
only at nightfall leaving their chill
dren to the care.of older children or to
the street.
Ifhnrn NJ mi nf
employed men in America in normal
times and in times of industrial de-
preston as at present the number
mounts up to over three million,
while the number killed upon our
railroads and in our factories and
mines is constantly increasing. There
are ten million people in poverty in
our country and Rose Pastor Stokes
declares that one person in ten in
New York City fills pauper's grave.
Socialism points out the cause of
these awful social facts, 1t shows
how the nineteenth century was
characterized by marvellous develop
ment of machinery, and that while
this machinery has added vastly to
the efficiency of labor, the wealth
which it has produced has not gone to
those who toll. 1t has been taken by
the owners of the machines from those
who labor with them. The result is
that one per cent of the people had
fifty-ive per cent of the wealth of
America in 1895. Eleven per cent
had thirty-two per cent of the wealth
and eighty-eight per cent representing
those who labor, had only thirteen per
cent of the wealth. Since then the
matter has grown steadily worse.
The private ownership of the tools,
which man must use in order to live
is the cause of this revolutionary fact.
The man who owns the tools, owns
the life of the laborer. He owns his
soul. Socialism proposes, by arousing
the working class, and organizing them
politically, to win the powers OF
government and to change this private
ownership into collective ownership
by all the people.
The great industrial plant OF
modern life will then be the property
of the collective people. 1t will be
owned and administered by them
under democratic forms. The govern.
ment ownership which we advocate is
not the kind of government owner.
ship which prevails in Russia. where
the government exploits the working
people but a government ownership
and administration in the interest ol
all the people, and especially of those
who toll.
Socialism is the only solution oi
this great economic problem. 1t Il
the only solution for the constantly
deepening class struggle in American
life. 1t is growing rapidly In all ad
vanced nations, and the Wisconsin
movement grows steadily in power.
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