Los Angeles herald., 1910-11-16
soc1ALIsM's CAUSES

~ OCIAIISM'S wonderful showing in
the election of last week, when 1t
~ cast about 100000 votes, has set
the country to thinking and talking.
Millions that have heretofore consid-
cred Socialism as the product OF a
few dreamy minds and not deemed it
worthy of serious study are now read
ing up. The ablest of the Socialists,
Victor Berger, has been elected to con-
gress, from where he will have the ear
of the entire country, and its eye,
through the Congressional Record ana
the American press.
Almost at a bound Socialism has be-
come a vital, imminent problem, COM
pelling attention, and very thoughtful
attention; and of none more thought
full attention than men of the class of
William H. Herrin of the Southern Pa
cific, who the other day dismissed 1t
with a lordly wave of the hand. The
only thing to which such an attitude
is comparable is the folly of the ostrich
that buries it's head in the sand when
danger approaches.
In another column Of this page we
publish a letter from a reader in San
Bernardino, a professional man, that
strikes us as containing the essence of
the cause of Socialism. He shows that
it is not propaganda, but an economic
situation that is spreading the doc
trine; stern conditions, growing stead
lily worse, are making multitudes be-
lieve, evidently, that in collectivism lies
more hope of relief than in the indi-
vidualsm that produces institutions
like J. Pierpont Morgan Gor he is more
can by issuing an order raise or lower
prices for the entire country, and could
even throw its business into hopeless
wreck and anarchy.
What the ablest minds and levelest
heads of the world must do, and do at
once, is to dismiss the fancy that So
cialism is a passing ism like Popu-
lism, Greenbacllism and the rest, but
that they were its unconscious forerun-
ners-protests against the increasing
pressure on the poor, intensified hun
dred fold I'm Socialism. The danger now
is that Socialism will run away with
it's idealists and go too fast; will seek
to accomplish impossible reforms in
day, when all history shows that real
and enduring reforms have been the
nroducts of processes both slow and
painful.
The ablest minds of the country have
got to meet Socialism with entire can
dor and reason with it; have got to
apply to it the best wisdom humanity
is capable of showing its adherents
the unwisdom of percipitate haste, sltt-
ing out the practical from the imprac-
tical and adopting whatever of 1t is
wise-not as a concession, not to mol
lify or divert, but to give and take, for
the true reforms lie not in extremes
but in compromises.
We do not mean by compromises
anything like concessions to the carnl-
val of greed and rapine that has been
going on in the money centers under
the popular term of "frenZied finance,
or the other carnival of special privl-
lege that has been exploiting the
masses, corrupting our governments
and endangering the very life of the
republic. There can be no compromise
with them. The country understands
them and is bent on destroying them,
root and branch. They are at the bot
tom of the economic crisis we are now
facing.
But there are great numbers who are
neither seekers of privilege nor militant
Socialists, and upon these will rest the
solution of the social and economic
problem, and especially the duty to
keep reform under whatever name-So-
cialism or any other-within bounds.
AS for intelligent Socialism. it would
be the worst thing that could happen
to it to fall into control of extreme
radicalism, and we believe the most
thoughtful Socialists so conceive.
Meantime, not to be informed on
what the movement aims at and how 1t
proposes to go about it is unwise IN
anybody, ana InOSe WHO nave HluSi CT
stake would be the unwisest of all to
form a priori opinions and close the
mind to investigation. OF one thing
we are convinced: Socialism does not
mean what some absurdly believe, the
torch and the bomb; it does not mean
the equal division Of all property. It's
best leaders claim for it that it means
peace instead of war, if met peaceably'
and that its aim is solely to create a
condition of equal opportunity by es-
tablishing a system that is the anti
thesis Of anarchy and will indeed, as
tl.ey claim, save the world from a con-
dition of anarchy with it's dreadful pos
sibilities.