The Fargo forum and daily republican. [volume] (Fargo, N.D.) 1894-1957, 1913-11-11
STEFFENS PLANS
REAL UTOPIA
LINCOLN sTEFFENs SET MANY
MEN AT COMMONS CLUB
THINKING LAST NIGHT WITH
HIS BEAUTIFUL PLAN FOR
COMMUNITY INTEREST.

Lincoln Steffens, the New York
at the Commons club dinner last night
voiced his great plan for the ultimate
Utopia, Of the world, the dawning of
the second Golden Age which he hopes
Will not be a mythical one as before.
Mr.. Steffens' splendid talk last night
was a most agreeable surprise to
those who listened to him at the
Grand theatre Sunday evening when
he lectured on the history Of the Nc
Namara dynamite murder trial. The
mastery Of thought expressed in his
address last night was an agreeable
disappointment after what his Sunday
night lecture gave promise Of being.
The journalist declared the realiza-
ton Of his vision would come through
fou avenues, socialism, anarchism,
Industrial Workers Of the World and
Single Tax advocates, the followers Of
which movements he thought had al
ready come into an understanding OF
what the future plan would bring and
had enjoyed a hazy glimpse Of the
promised land.
1t was not so much Mr.. Steffens'
address in itself that won his audience
Of Fargo's most important business
and professional men. 1t was the
mastery manner in which he luciGly
explained his theories later when he
answered numerous questions that
were asked.
In MI. Steffens' plan personal gain
and greed will be forgotten, m~ercenary
ambitions will be cast aside and there
will be no great wealth nor any pow
erty, which, like Lloyd-George, he de-
clares is a ~preventable disease.
TvArxyI~I9r --f11 xr,osJ- 60 - z-.
mon good Men, despising petty
thievery such as the differing of banks
and the padding Of expense accounts,
but who, are committing a great wrong
against the race, says MI. Steffens, by
the speculation in land, food and
clothes SO that it will eventually bring
In an enormous unearned valuation,
will no longer have that thirst for
speculation and the unearned gain it
will bring.
There will be no individual goal to
be attained but everyone will desire
to labor for the interests Of the entire
community. Concluding his address
last night, the Gotham journalist un-
folded a plan by which such a condi-
ton might be made a reality here in
Fargo.
He suggested that a committee Of
three powerful men, men capable of
this great understanding, who should
investigate every condition and ele-
ment here, everybody, good, bad and
indifferent. They should attempt to
see life from the viewpoint of the
vicious just as readily as from the
Virtuous.
The church should unbend and come
down from its affairs and carry it's
religion into the streets where it may
prnNTn1 with 41N 1ouy1y - 49, -..,5 I--%
as Christianity began of old. The
ministers should speak not a lofty
language of devout sanctity but the
language of the people, the plain I'M
p~retentious people and become bone
Of their bone and flesh of their flesh.
That, he prophesied, was the only way
to bring about his Utopia. Revivals
he decried and his sentiment found a
strong echo in his audience.
Experiences were related Of Golden
Rule Jones and Brand Whitlock, the
famous mayors of Toledo, and the late
Tom l.. Johnson Of Cleveland, the
the proper understanding. Toledo and
Cleveland, Ohio's two great port cities
on Lake Erie, he pointed to as the
model American cities where there is
less corruption and where everybody
is more generally in accord with the
right understanding for the condition
which will bring happiness and con-
tentment to all mankind.
There this thought of good had been
carried into the barroom, the tender
loin with it's houses of %ill-repute, and
the gambling dens, just where it
should go. Today in those cities there
are few problems concerning these
vices that the police have to ombat.
None of them should be policed, nor
should they be driven out, but their
better natures should be appealed to
and their own reformation would be-
come a personal desire and follow.
"This is a prohibition state Is it
not?" ne asked Judge C. F. Amidon
of the federal court who was sitting
near. There is your first mistake"
he continued when his question had
been affirmed. You see you drove the
liquor dealer out by force, sheer force.
In other words you used dynamite,
legal dynamite. You can never stamp
out an evil by force. The evil does
must be appealed to by reason and
kindness and then let him do as his
own conscience dictates and when he
sees for himself that his work is a
menace to the community he will de-
sist of his own volition. You should
never have had prohibition. The thing
would have righted itself in a manner
that would have made humanity bet
ter and the community happier