Elmore County Republican. [volume] (Mountain Home, Idaho) 1910-1915, 1912-03-30
PRIEST PLAYS SOCIALISM


eynepsls, sf Address Recently oeIiv.
cred ~ Rev. NJ n. Clifford Of
Oshkosh at FonduLae.
The following article appeared in
the Oshkosh Northwestern few
days ago, and was written by cor
respondent from Fon du Lac:
That socialism is destructive of So
ciety, destructive of the chief aim of
human life and subyerts the univers-
al order OF civilized nations with the
inevitable results OF pushing the
world back to state of barbarism,
was the declaration of Rev. M. H.
Clifford, pastor of ST. Peters church,
Oshkosh, Wisconsin, in stirring
address on the subject, Socialism
VS.. Christianity" at St. Louis church
Sunday evening. st. Louis church
was filled with people when Father
Clifford gave his address, majority
of those present being men. Faith
err Clifford said in part:
Socialism teaches the most IRA
tional and dangerous doctrines touch.
ing upon God and the nature of man,
the motives of civil government and
the right of man. Among these err
rors are: 1t confounds God and
nature by making them identical in
substance, hence all things in nature
slice nature Is divine, are also di-
vine, even the lowest instincts of
man, and therefore should be SUBJ
uect to no control.
by the materialistic evolution of
all things which socialism claims,
they deny the spirituality of the
soul consequently its immortality.
One of their writer's, Fourier, states
that the human will is nothing but
attraction and man should do what
he likes. The soul, they claim, is
nothing but material energy, which
dies out with the body. With this
established, it teaches that the only
destiny of man is to forage for food,
avoid suffering and grasp for materi-
al pleasures.
"On the false assumption of the
equality of men in all things, they
build extravagant doctrines of equal
rights, which ultimately means no
rights. In regard to property and
labor, they reject every fundamental
and safe principle held sacred by all
civilized people from the foundation
of the world. BY their doctrines of
revolution, as the means to obtain
public ownership and public produc-
ton, they destroy patriotism, thereby
teaching contempt for all lawfully
authority.
Another error. widely proclaimed,
is that labor is the only source Of
value. Private production will be
crime because the state is absorbing
all means of production, centralizing
all power of production, becomes
destructive of all legitimate competi-
ton, takes away the individuals will
and becomes a real juggernaut, with
powers to crush all private and in
alienable rights of individuals and
which will do away with all
private vocations, rights, ambitions,
etc.
Socialism claims that all institu-
tons, civil, religious and moral, are
but results of the economic structure
and hence must change with industri
al developments. The law of change,
which thereby does away with all the
liked laws of God, ali re laws of
right and justice, thereby excluding
Ill moral laws. The means which
hey advocate to attain their ends,
namely, the seizure of universal po-
itical power by force, which means
means the overthrow of
LII existing governments.
"The final outcome of such meas
Tres would be to establish new re-
,ime to be founded on economic de-
which is the last degree
If materialism, tatalism and atheism. ,
Public production by the socialistic