The Ocala banner. (Ocala, Marion County, Fla.) 1883-194?, 1912-10-18
REAL PROGRESSION

Ocala, Fla, October II, 1912.
To the Editor Ocala Banner:
Will you please reproduce the fol-
lowing as a reply to .-our article
printed in Fridays Daily, under the
caption of Socialism VS.. Riches"
and oblige many socialists, who have
no organ of their own, and are de-
pendent on your tolerance and liber-
atty for an exposition of their side
of the controversy?
A SOCIALIST READER.
Socialists say so much against cap
italism that we are sometimes accused
of not seeing the good that it has ac-
complished. The fact is, the posted
socialists recognize that commercial
ism. which has of late developed into
capitalism, has done a tremendous
work, up to the present time. 1t is
the very fact that it has done a great
work which makes it so hard to over
throw, now that it has outgrown its
usefulness and becoming burden.
1t was commercialism that discOv-
cred the western world, that eXplOr-
ed the continents, that tanned the
wild, and brought the unknown un.
der cultivation 1t was commercial
ism that established commerce, built
the cities, invented machines, and
freed the world from the stagnation
of slavery and feudalism.
Now, however, it is a recognized
fact, a proven thing, an experienced
condition, that capitalism has become
oppressive. If it continues to pro
gress along the same lines it is now
moving for half a century, slavery
worse than that which prevailed un-
der feudalism, together with a stag.
nation as marked as that from which
China and Japan have just awakened,
will be brought upon us.
The one thing that people need to
understand is that society is in a con-
slant state of fiux. 1t is not stag
nant A revolution is in progress all
the time. There has been a revolu-
ton accomplished since 1860 that if
one will examine it in detail will be-
come an establishment.
Another fact that people need to
recognize is that a thing that at one
time may accomplish a good work, at
another time becomes burdensome
The world has had a continued strug-
gle against olden ideas that have be-
come set in their ways, and conse-
quently oppressive. 1t is not that the
ideas were within themselves bad,
but that they did not fit into new con-
ditions. We may talk of standing
pat" with the old, but we will be
forced to progression in spite of our
selves. There is no such thing as re-
immovable in social affairs.
is to be succeeded by
else, just as it succeeded
the feudal system, because it is in the
line of development that it should be
so.
The socialist is not far-sighted who
imagines that even socialism is a
final state of human affairs. 1t is
merely the next step which is neces-
sary to give the people freedom OF ac-
ton If it should, in time to come,
become oppressive, it will be the duty
Of the people to supercede that with
better, and they will do it.
1t is doubtful if there ever will be
final state of society in which things
will become stagnant and always re-
main as they are. Such condition
would not be good for the people. For
this reason, rigid constitutions and
all other things that limit the free eX-
arcise of the peoples desires are OPP
pressive. Holmes presents the idea
Of the growth of society very cleverly
in his poem, The Chambered Nauti-
lus" This is a sea creature that
grows a constantly expanding shell.
1t is a way that humanity must adj
vance.