The Montgomery advertiser., 1909-07-18
Letters to The Editor
secsa1lsts shsws How They Will Basish
All Human Ills.

e.
secsallsts shsws How They Will Basish
All Human MS.
Editor The Advertiser;
IN your editorial OF July 8. captioned
"A Dangerous Tendency" You say. In
one Of the most forcible objections
70 Socialism 10 that 1t limits human
endesvor. and would put mankind on
believe there was any malice prepense
IN your mind when you wrote that.
Rather. this charge against Socialism
was kind of oblter dictum. introduc-
ing your very able structures ON the
absurd law lately passed by the New
Nevertheless, the charge was grossly
unjust TO Socialism. Vial you permit
few words by way of corrective?
Socialism Is not to be judged by any
ex.catiedra statements of any one.
only the authorized delegates OF the
Sociaiist Party In convention assembled
may Dramatically say what Socialism
r. That party adopted the current
n ra.,orm N Chicago. May ~. lsvs;
I Therefore refer you to 1t. and give an
abrtdgement here.
Its general demands are. In part:
The immediate government relief 1or
houses and canals; the reforestfny OF
cut over and waste lands, reclaimtng
arid tracts and extending all other use
ship (and democratic operAtionl Of
railroads. telesraphs and all industries
organized on national scale"
Can you detect any dangerous ten
dency" in that, towards limiting hu.
man man endeavor" or toward dead lev
Socialism. stands for the cooperative
competition in earning ones living.
1t proposes to systematize ali business
as we have systematized part. b
systematizing 8. business mean turii-
N
ing governmental or public function
instead OF private one. All govern-
mental functions such as the post Of
noe, the public school. highways. the
judiciary. the army and navy, taxation,
etc., were once private businesses and
evolution has systematized them. So
cfalism teaches that this evolutionary
process win continue until all the
means of production shall be also sys-
tematized and become governmental
functions. What the people use In
IN common but what they use privately
they shall own privately. the great
trusts are q result of this evolution.
forced them to cali g. truce in their
bloody and costly war of competition:
forced them to combine. Forced them
| say, and therefore they should not be
able law will in time compel the gov
eminent to take the trusts over and
own and operate them. That will be
I
what Mr.. Herbert Spencer calls con-
dltion of unstable equilibrium and can.
not SO continue indefinitely.
Socialism further teaches that the
duced. the whole. undiminished pro-
duct. that labor land we, of course. in
ciude always mental as well as man
contrary Notwithstanding, produces
all wealth; that profit taking or making
things to sell instead of to use, Is the
greet exploiting cyl Of the age;
elements In all this that limit human
OF course. take it that you mean
cIalism viii be exceedingly severe on
the other kinds, such as adulterattcn
OF foods. making of shoddy.. goods.
counterfeitingY all kinds Of graft. brib-
Of o thousand crimes; gambling In
stocks. bonds and industrials, prosti-
tuition. white slave trade, the saloon
the tariff-godfather to the Republicans
Party and Its generation OF vipers; all
crimes born of hatred based on rivalry
in business. 1t will also limit the great
waste in advertising. litigation based
on property rights. and II will abolish
the United States Senate, and when II
becomes world wide 1t will abolish war
and Introduce Tennyson's eFderationlof
No sir. the charge of limiting human
endeavor or incentive lies not against
Socialism. But 1t does lie against Cap
italism. Witness the above mentioned
act Of the New II oru lie gis stature. Wit
ness the anti.trust Sherman act. tThe
capitalists had limited human endeavor
until Congress could not tolerate them
any longer.) Witness the census re-
port of the year 1890, showing the cap
italists process of limiting human en-
deavor by forcibly keeping idle S,523,730
workers out of a possible 23.31S,lS3, or
fifteen per cent. Witness how this in
creased In the prosperous year of 1900
when out of a possible 29.07S,233 work.
ers there was the ominous total of g.
4S6,964 or twenty-five per cent, idle.
ed by each worker, annually, would
charge the capitalist. in this one item
of the unemployed alone, with limiting
human endeavor" to the awful extent
of $6,46S 100000 every year. Witness
again, the limiting OF the output in all
our great factories In order to keep
the supply we'll within the demand and
maintain high prices. Witness the tens
of thousands of vacant lots in our CT
ties, and the millions of acres OF
untitled lands in the nation. held out
Witness the infinite number and meas
ureless variety Of the good things that
might be made from. natures grear
store-house by this army of the unem-
ployed were 1t not for the fact that
Capitalism limits human endeavor by
keeping labor away from these nat
ural sources of wealth through private
ownership. Witness the ungodly waste
of millions upon Dreadnought mons
tiers of murder, putting mankind on
the dead level with CHASTITY certainty.
OUa1hNy