The Catholic bulletin. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1911-1995, 1913-08-16
BIRD S. coLER TELLS US WHAT
CIVILIZATION MEANS TO THE
ORDINARY INDIVIDUAL AND
HOW INJURIOUS SOCIALISM Is
TO HIS BEST INTERESTS.


Socialism is quite untrue, and, it
seems to me, quite impossible as
scheme of government. 1t does not
'olloW, however, that the political tri-
lmph of the Socialists is impossible.
rhe very falsehoods of the philosophy
give strength to the political move
nent, for there is in human nature an
Inclination to accept the easy and the
untrue rather than the difficult and
he true remedy for whatever difficult
les men encounter This is truth
lenied by the superficial, but grimly
lriven home by racial history and our
,wn everyday experience. Many who
never heard of the doctrine of original
'in know how much easier it is to do
wrong than to do right.
1t is shallow optimism that relies
IN the absurdities of Socialism to de-
eat the Socialists. A do-nothing pol
cy on the part of those who recognize
,hese absurdities will result in the
triumph of horde of political mad
nen, who cannot make their own sys-
,em work, because the stubborn facts
If life of which it takes no account,
will jam themselves into it's cogs and
wheels. What will follow? A wreck
age awful to consider. A breakdown
IF law, wild, Internal outburst of
disorder, a vast social chaos of blood
and agony. The men who now man.
age the delicate but tremendous ma
chinery of civilization may be selfish,
but they are competent They may
1ot do all with it for the alienation of
human woe that might be done, but
hey keep it going, and the spirit of
and justice that is the only
lubricant, grows stronger and more
plentiful among them. They are rep
resentative of the average of us all.
When we get better, they will get bet
ter. When we are gentler with the
weak and more merciful to those who
need mercy, so shall they be. When
we let the truth make us instead of
trying to make the truth in our own
image and likeness, they will conduct
their mighty business according to the
three-dimensioned justice of the Per-
sonified Truth But what, when that
machinery gets into the hands of the
shallow and the iRsane-what when
we turn the machinery of human gov
ernment over to those who believe
that the world may be re-made by a
piece of legislation which shall read:
eve, the people, do enact that pow
erty be abolished?"
Socialism and Faith.
You cannot stop this catastrophe by
not bothering about it. Neither can
you block it by anything that is fabri-
Gated and false. 1t is bigger lie than
anything you can invent, and your lit
tie lies will go down before it like dry
grass before gust of fire. You can
not kill this thing with lie; you must
kill it with truth. You cannot make
the hungry and the overstressed man
see that this thing is false by showing
him another falsehood; its falseness
will show only alongside the truth.
And you must talk to the hungry and
overstressed man. He has behind his
demand for the truth the eternal JUS
tice of God. You must talk to him.
How are you talking to him? Has
fortune placed you in such circum-
stance that you have the leisure to
study, which the necessities have de-
MED to him? Then how are you tell
ing him what is true? BY supporting
with the advertisements that your
business demands the newspapers and
the magazines that are poisoning his
mind, that are full of the cheap
pseudo-science of Haeckel, that tell
him the educated know that there is
no God, that exploit the Socialist the
ories and make light of the Socialist
immoralities, that defend school sys-
tenn from which God has been ex-
cluded and out of which his children
are sent with distaste for labor, an
inability to spell and to calculate the
simplest mathematical problems, and
a vicious and utterly erroneous idea
of science and the meaning of life?
He can read-what are you giving him
to read? 1t is a bad business you
should look to it, for the wreckage of
civilization will carry your children
and his down to the depths of COM
mon ruin.
Eternal Things Interchangeable.
For he has much to lose by civiliza-
tion's destruction-civiliz means
more to him even than it does to you;
you should teach him that. Give him
the truth to read, tell it to him your
self, go to him and know him, get to
him-he is your brother. Get out of
bis head-and your own-this mad de-
l1sion that popular vote can change
eternal things; show him that it can
benefit him only when it accords with
what is right. What does civilization
mean to him? In concrete things it
means transportation which lessons
the burden of getting living out of
his environment and wfdens that en-
yironment; it means light after the
set of sun that lengthens his hours
Sf leisure; it means a home that is
healthy; It means the protection OF his
life, his property and his health by
the State; and an inquisitive concern
On the part of the State with the con-
fitions OF his employment to the end
that those Conditions may not so nresa