The Detroit times. [volume] (Detroit, Mich.) 1903-1920, 1913-03-10
"ON BOARD THE GOOD SHIP EARTH
u

BY HERBERT QUICK.

labor is lessened. division ( of labor is In
creased production Is systematized, but no pos
stbte perfection of cooperation hope to do
much in the line of cheapening the things needed by
people has been done by the progress and in
vention of the past two hundred years science the
arts, in transportation, In finance in the opening up
Of lands. in labor-savng machinery. In the alb
sence Just system of land tenure these wonderful
advances have failed to help the masses to free
unfearing hfe--but rents have gone up enormously
and the purchase price of lands has scared So with
the cooperative commonwealth, ii will be an i'm
proyement in production, but We have had hundred
Improvements in that which have done workers
good will simplify distribution but no more than
the railway and the steamship and the dynamo.
Of which have lghtened the burdens OF poverty; II
Will prevent duplication OF effort but do the
With just system OF land tenure the progress of
science and the arts would have abolished poverty
and, with such just=basis OF fe. the cooperative
commonwealth will carry us to heights We cannot
otherwise attain.
With monopoly abolished and with science organ
lied the basis of fraternal democracy. will
erty be AT an end!
Unless IT is at an end. our social travail
opened the natural opportunities which the earth
offers freely all. We shall have organized
change and distribution to eliminate all possible
wastes We shall have ended the system by which
one make profit on the labor OF another. We
shall have secured to every worker the full product
OF his labor And shall have made labor universal.
Poverty could not persist under such conditions.
except as result OF the multiplication Of popua
ton the point beyond which the earth Is unable to
support the people Universal comfort universal edu-
cation universal enlightenment the completely Of
life which so highly developed society would neces-
state would tend to cut down the birth rate--just
as II Is now down In the most comfortably fixed
portions OF society.
But the extirpation OF monopoly must go along
with general enlightenment. not only In the nation.
but in the whole world there will always remain
those world In which the unfit breed and spawn
in poverty ignorance. do not believe that there
Is much danger that OF the United States OF Great
Britain and Ireland Of France. Germany, Italy, Aus
tria--of all the most advanced nations OF this age
will fail to redeem themselves from monopoly and Its
L. atn ha nj
and deaths long before we have out-multpned our
means OF sustenance; but do think that In Asia, In
Africa and in parts Of Europe there are great
peoples who already the limits OF subsistence
or even against It low In development az
apparently require to reach the point OF de-
creasng fecundity Some Of these have beliefs con-
corning the desrabity Of large families OF children
which are recognized by such statesmen as Yuan Shi
Kat as barriers Improvements in circumstances
II seems to me that. along with our problems we
more fortunate passengers on the good ship Earth
must assume the burden OF lifting these nations up
Otherwise our very millennium will be their oppor-
tunty to overrun the world In sheer weight OF num-
bers and plunge II lower than In hopeless pow
erty Or we may be presented with the awful alter
native OF racial submergence or the segregation OF
these from the rest OF the earth
peoples forever by force OF arms. t