The Catholic bulletin. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1911-1995, 1911-02-11
Continued from page ~
THE TACTICS OF SOCIALISM.


Now it is not that the Catholic re-
ligion makes a man keep still about
the abuse of riches, far from it; but
every well instructed Catholic is aware
that the right of the individual to own
and to operate wealth in the CONNER
cial world is founded in the nature of
human society. He knows that God,
not blind force, is the author of ma
tions.
Their conventions and their con-
crosses trim their sails to catch the
winds blowing from opposite quarters.
Religion is a private matter of the in
dividual "comrade," of course; it is
good tactics to indulge his fancy for
prayer; but there is no God to hear
and to answer. The evolution of in
dustry from primitive times has
proved God to be a myth, so runs
their story
! Society has passed through three
stages: primitive, mechanical, and our
modern production by machinery.
Slavery belongs to the first period,
that of crude implements; when pro-
duction was mostly pastoral and agri-
cultural. This era lasting up to the
fourth or fifth century.
The relation of owner and slave
slowly gave place to that of feudal-
lord aid serf by the fact of craft di-
vision and subdivision and by renting
out the land to be paid for in military
service by the tenants. Hence by de-
grees, as the tools of production and
the relations of men changed the Sec
ond era, that of mechanical produc-
ton, was established And feudalism
held its own until the time of the
French revolution.
The third, our own era of capital
ism, was introduced by the inventions
of Arkwright and Hargraves. 1t is
being gradually perfected by steam
and electricity, which force on the
'sclass struggle"
| It is the "class struggle that has
already developed the 'class con-
seriousness" of the Socialists, while
some of them like Marx have evolved
to race consciousness.
Hence it is these scientific Social
lists" who write the text books of
the movement who are willing to
prove that religion is a myth; that
the religion suited to the economics
of the feudalistic regime was that of
Rome, while that of present-day CAPT.
talism is best served by the Individual
istic religion of Professionalism Now
that the Protestant religion itself is
breaking down it proves that here
| after the people will evolve out of the
belief in any religion, for men and
women will be economically Free
With wage-slavery abolished there will
be no need of morality, and the last
of the "class struggles" will end CAPT
| talism once for all. So it is that one
day authority will no longer be needed
to hold up private property, and then
the belief in every kind of god will
disappear.
This is the very ground upon which
these worldwide political atheists
base their tactics of inviting the
Christian fly to walk into their So
cialist parlor; once In the movement
the Christian may be absorbed into the
Socialist body. Hence any platform
plank against religion would be against
the method of natural evolution, and
SO the scientific course" is to ap-
pear to mean what is not meant. The
course of science is the course OF
double dealing, of falsehood.
| IL any one wants this information
that it is unscientific to be truthful
from the Socialists themselves let him
read the religious discussion at their
last national convention, as published
in the official report.
Socialists keep no better faith with
history than with truth and their
theory of Industrial epochs will not
square with everyday knowledge. Of
course it is true that the methods o.
production have changed greatly, have
been revolutionized, If you will, dur
! ing the last two thousand years, but
| hammer is still hammer and saw is
still saw; they ought to be changed
| if everything changes.
But it is not true that religion has
changed during the so-called epochs
of slavery-feudalism and capitalism.
| The Ten Commandments have not
changed because Socialists have writ
| ten some of their own to make the
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