The Richmond palladium and sun-telegram. [volume] (Richmond, Ind.) 1907-1939, 1913-06-27

busy Tor d few centuries.
| Trouble first arose among the men
of earth when the art of definition
was invented. When Adam called
| something or other an 'incipient Zoo
phyte" no doubt some citizen of Eden
thought it might be personal and at
once demanded to know what it meant.
This of course called for a definition,
an explanation and arbitration.
| Every religious war, perhaps nearly
every war, arose from differences on
CefritiCns. Every burned hereto was
condemned because his definitions did
not stack up right Men fought duels
over definitions; not over the meaning
| OF real things but unreal and intangi-
bic nothings. And to this day political
and social economists, logicians and
metaohysians, are fussing over the
| true definitions of wealth and capital,
| production and ovcr-production, rent
and interest value and profit, usufruct
and unearned Increment. AT last we
are trying to settle the definite defini-
ton of definition.
| Take the word luxury" What is it?
From the days of the ark man has new
er been able to properly define it,
| What a luxury an umbrella would
have been in the days of the flood
| Lastly the ark itself was luxury par
excellence. The word luxury" is too
| slippery, too elusive, too eel-like. But
in the language of the spell-binders
how many empires it has caused to
rise and fall off," as Silas Wegg call
| cd l.
J starched shirt? When man left his
! cave and built a house for his babes
under the sun and stars and went to
sleep amid fragrant boughs and whis-
pering leaves, was he wickedly intro
ducing a luxury that would finally
bring downfall?
How Define Socialism,?
But what about socialism? What is
it? If a man speaks of socialism what
kind does he mean? That preached by
Saint Simon, Fourier, CADET, Leroux,
Louis Blanc, Proudhon, Lassalle,
Schweitzer, Marx, Eugene V. Debs or
the appeal to Reason?" There are as
many kinds of socialism as colors in
Joseph's coat and the variety is great
er than the kinds of pickles made at
the Heinz factory. There are many
brands and these different brands, like
the chameleon, take on the color of
surrounding objects or change their
complexion according to the distur-
! bance of their tempers.
The writings of Kropotkin, the Rus
sian Anarchist-Socialist, cannot be
! thrust aside as you blow fly from the
page you are reading. His book, The
Conquest of Bread" has great fascina-
ton and much truth, but his general
premise that, notwithstanding the en-
ormous growth of wealth, the masses
are poorer than ever and more misera-
BILE, must be taken with more than a
pinch of salt In every civilized coun-
try today, more especially in America,
men and women are better clothed,
better fed and better housed than in
any of the so-called Golden Ages of
the past. Even under so barbarous a
government as Russia the people are
better off physically than they were
fifty years ago. But in a country like
Russia where there is no security of
person or property for the poorer
classes, socialism takes on a different
color from the American brand, for
our ideal is that the meanest and hum
blest citizen must have protection and
shall have the right of free speech and
the freedom to move about. He is new
er bound to the soil
Everybody's Business, Nobody's!
1t used to be held that socialism and
anarchism were antagonistic. Literally
they are. One means all government,
without individual liberty, the other