The Washington socialist. [volume] (Everett, Wash.) 1914-1915, 1914-09-03
HOW CAN YOU RESIST?

This item is written for the benefit
of men and women who delight in do
ing what they believe to be right,
what they regard as their duty, II is
not going to be n sermon. 1t is not
going to be criticism. 1t is merely
going to be a REMINDER. Nearly all
of us MEAN well, but we need to be
reminded. The struggle for existence
is so keen, our lives are so crowded
with necessary tasks and duties, that
we are prone to lose sight of the big
things of life because of the little
things that hedge in our being, keep
ing us constantly occupied with the
petty and inconsequent.
We often hear that the trouble with
the average Russian peasant is his
fatalistic view of life. Thinking of his
poverty and sufferings as things that
are inevitable, as things foreordained,
he makes no effective effort to i'm
prove his condition. Hence Russia,
one of the richest countries in the
world so far as natural resources are
concerned, is. all in all. benighted,
semi-civilized country, and most OF its
inhabitants are among the most pow
erty-stricken and uncultured in Eu-
rope
But is not the average American
almost as fatalistic as the average
Russian? Does he not bow his head
almost as meekly to what he has been
taught is "the inevitable?
Does he not accept widespread pow
erty as inevitable?
Does he not accept war, vice, crime,
prostitution. inebriety and insanity as
inevitable?
Does he not declare that things have
always been so, and they always will
be?
The moujik of Russia has been
taught by the ruling class of that coun-
try that his status in society is or
dained OF God, and that he should be
content to remain meek and lowly
sufferer on earth that his reward may
be great in heaven.
And the humble, docile, subjugated
moujik believes it.
And the average American believes
exactly the same thing, and for the
same reason-the ruling class teach
such stuff, for their own selfish ag
grandisement.
But things are very rapidly chang
ing, both in American and in Russia.
The erstwhile docile workingclass
of the whole world is beginning to
throw off the mental and moral
shackles so long meekly accepted as
truth, as the working out of the will
of God They are discovering, in great
numbers, that the evils accepted (on
mere heresay) as inevitable express
merely the will of their wholly earthly
exploiters-the ruling class. Millions
of the more alert and more intelligent
are now doing little teaching on their
own account in the interest of their
own class, the working class.
They intend soon to constitute them
selves the ruling class, under genu-
inc democracy. Then classes will dis
appear, and "the inevitable" poverty,
crime, wickedness and war of the "al-
ways has been" will cease to be.
Can you, thoughtful reader, resist
the temptation to do your share, your
part in helping to emancipate man.
kind from the pail of superstition that
now encompasses them, hiding from
their vision the noble and kindly pos
sibilities of rightly organized social
and industrial system?
Can you resist shouldering your
share Of organization and administra-
tive work, paying your quota of the
money necessary to the work of teach
ing and organizing in behalf of our
common humanity?
Can you resist giving moral and fl
nancial support to our party press, and
aiding in placing this paper in hands
that sorely need it's constant teach
ings and remindings?
Can you resist sitting down right
now at this moment, when the world
is so full of sorrow and bloodshed,
and send in your subscription, or your
renewal, to the paper that does its
share toward bringing light and glad
ness into the world? Can you, should
you resist?