Aberdeen herald. [volume] (Aberdeen, Chehalis County, W.T.) 1886-1917, 1908-11-19
THE SOCIALIST SIDE
A LOCAL SOCIALIST TAKES Ex.
CEPTIONS TO STATEMENTS,
he Replies TO an Article From Good.
wins Weekly, Recently Printed in
the Herald. Our Socialist Friend
is Rather Confusing in His Argu-
ment.

Editor Herald:
Permit me to reply to an article
in the Herald of Nov. 9th, entitled,
"A View of Socialism,
This article being both misleading
and detrimental to socialism, if per-
mitted, l will hereby answer and
correct some so-called analyzed soci-
alistic theories.
The first charge reads as follows:
"The fallacy that all that is due to
labor will not bear scrutiny" The
writer states that he wants it en-
phasized all along, and that in his
judgment, the very foundation on
which socialism rests is a false one.
How misleading he is, can be seen
when he goes and builds his own
foundation on statement which is
not true nor Intelligent enough for
the average thinking man Of today.
THAT all that is is due to labor"
is not a socialistic statement, but
the following: THAT all wealth
produced is due to labor" and it is
not false nor theory it is a fact.
Take the words of Abraham Lin
coin in 1855.
and inasmuch as most good
things have been produced by labor,
it follows that all such things be-
long of right to those whose labor
comparison of the oxen having brok-
en- every new country and thereby
having the right to claim special
honor for himself. But he does not
give the men, who built the tools,
laid the plans, and drove the oxen,
any credit for having performed any
he thinks the farmers, who follow
the plow for ten hours a day is do
ing, working or dreaming he is do
ing SO, it looks like a fairy story out
of Thousand and One Nights" and
after this farmers manual labor is
over he still plans and studies, where
his next days work is to begin and
how to plow his next piece Of ground
that is where his mental labor ap-
plies itself. 1t would be advisable
for the writer to get the definition
of labor before he analyses some
more so-called theories.
He states the average man, if
( turned in the world alone, would be
wearing skins and trusting to what
game he could catch for living.
Doubtful, whether he himself, could
catch enough game to be wearing
skins. were he in such a plight, after
having adapted himself to the kind
of work he is doing. He draws at
tention to inheritance by saying.
that If wealth after some ones
death goes to the public, 1t goes
to men who have never done any,
thing for It," But it is not just.
Supposing I was capitalist and had
children who never done anything
useful to humanity or mankind. for
instance, Harry X. Thaw, and on
the other hand I would be employing
men,. women and children, who were
dependent upon their wages receiv-
ed, and without whose labor I never
would have accumulated any wealth,
is 1t not Just that my fortune then
should 60 to the people, who actual
ly created my wealth, and also my
children who never done anything
but still would have as much right
to it as their next fellow men.
He also states, "that where an en-
terprising man goes and finds a
mine and makes fortune, his
wealth at his death, II it went to
the people. would go to men who
never found mines and never done
anything" pretty fair reasoning for
him.
4 But where a man goes out today
and finds a mine, he is not allowed
to dig his fortune from It; his claim
is restaked and he is butted into
court and frozen out of his rights
by men who never found or worked
mines, never done anything, but
scheme how to get hold Of some-
body else's mines. It is to men who
have worked and are working to
whom we socialists aim to give all
they produce.
He would also have people listen
to Debs. the socialist candidate for
president in the recent campaign,
CONTINUED on page four.)