The Catholic bulletin. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1911-1995, 1913-04-05

Il OfCIUuIuGu0u. "A large uuIuD0T VI 90
cialists, it is true, are atheists and
materialists. The first deny place
to the providence of God in human af-
fairs. The second vainly think to sat
isfy the mind by physical comforts.
Nevertheless, their earnest effort to
may be done to the people, whereby
poverty and misery and their resulting
vice and crime may be wiped from the
face of the earth, is in intimate har-
mony with the gentle and loving spirit
of Him Who passed no sorrow by.
Enlightened minds readily concede
the superiority of our civilization to
that of all preceding centuries. If
Christianity and widespread and popu-
lar education have not brought all the
good they promised, and satisfied
every craving of the human heart, it
is because the goal is not yet reached
Our gains enable us to see more clear
ly what we yet lack.
The Wage-Earners.
"In the United States, and in the
United Kingdom of Great Britain and
Ireland, with whose condition, next
to our own country, l am best &C
quainted, there is no wide and I'M
bridgable gulf between the very rich
and the very poor; but a graduation of
widely distributed wealth. With us,
more than eight million families are
land owners. Of the thirteen million
families, among whom the wealth of
the country is divided, eleven million
belong to the wage-earning class.
According to the statistics COM
piled by Prof. Levi, of England, a
recognized authority, the condition of
laborers in England has shown grad
ual improvement for the last five hun
dred years. From 1858 to 1900 there
was an increase of less than fifty per
cent in the number of laborers, and an
increase of six hundred per cent in
their total earnings. From 1900 to
1883 workers increased little over
four hundred per cent and their in
come, about six hundred per cent.
''The root principle of the new So
cialism, as set forth by Marx, and
before him by Ricardo, that labor is
the sole source of value, and that,
therefore, capital is robbery, is, &C
cording to the best informed and most
liberal-minded political economists of
the day, an untenable principle.
Capital is as essential for labor as
labor is for production. No man can
work without material on which to
work, and capital is required to pro-
cure material 1t may be said that
capital is the result of labor; but it
is still more true that it is the result
of abstinence from consumption. The
honest laborer who consumes not
the equivalent of his entire work,
has the same right to profitably in
vest it that he had to save it, How
ever painfully the unequal distribution
of wealth affects us, it is not our priv
ilege to disregard the rights of others
in the hope that greater distributive
justice may obtain.
Socialism Intellectual.
eff the Capitalization of power, and
the massing of great wealth is the sole
and efficient cause of inflicting upon
the multitude who toll the wrongs
they complain of, why does Socialism
advocate a still more radical step in
that direction as remedy? The best
fruit of civilization is the personal re-
sponsibility with which it inspires
every individual who goes to make up
the nation by comforting on him the
liberty of independent action. In the
Socialistic state, paint it bright-hued
as you may, when the wealth of the
nation is wrested from the capitalists
who today skilfully employ it in profit
able enterprise, and cast into the com
mon fund, Independent action will be
vanished dream and liberty a thing
of memory.
emo one is foolish enough to think
that Socialism could long endure with.
out laws, and laws imply power hav.
ing authority to enforce obedience
The whole people would be marshaled
like an army, unquestioning obedience
would be demanded and enforced. The
right of the people to elect their off.
GERS would be no assurance that their
favorites were worthy or capable
Since Socialism necessarily excludes
the idea of parties those who once
got control of the vast and complete
machinery of Socialism would remain
in power. We have always been con.
WINGED that the governing power is
best employed, not in providing for all
men, but in teaching and training all
men to take care of themselves.
''The aim of good government is to
make government less necessary. So.
cialists cannot say, you condemn us
without trial, because they propose
no remedy for the evil they complain
of that has not been tried and found
wanting. While the influence which
the Church exercises over the minds
of men, even in temporal affairs, be.
cause of her devotion to the duty
Christ imposed upon her, has frequent
ly been employed to mitigate the con
fiict between the rich and poor, the
Socialists, however, earnest, however
anxious and honest they may be in
their effort to bring relief from poverty
to the vast army of toilers, will have
to adopt means more conformable to
the immutable laws of eternal justice