New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1917-04-22

/ j his readers an answer 10 tniS
4 pStiOn; ..,. ,,,o,. 10
W" 49, permanent advancement of So
,.ssn in the United States?
,.t. kind sir, depends upon what
' -,ssn BY Socialism. If you mean
y ,be garden variety of Anarchism
=. lately. under the assumed name of
.S.T,m has been ramming around
narts of this country making
ga like a copperhead, the war will do
thing whatever to advance that.
n.re isn't any advance in it. You
~ advance a madman's dream nor
.r.rent whose conception of prog
=, is to run diligently about circle.
prt what, then, shall we mean by So
a.Ssm? What do mean by it?
1rean democracy-advanced democ-
~ I mean additions to the degree
= 5smocracy we have arrived at now.
-ssn marching forward instead of
i+irv down forever in the road that
.Asr generations have broken for u.s.
Ian democracy in politics and govern
usut, and democracy in industry.
Democracy in politics would mean for
8 now woman suffrage, the franchise
~ all adults on absolutely equal terms,
vomen made eligible to all Offices now
mon 10 men. 1t would mean the ending
4 half democracy, with half of the
sanitation governed but having no
nice in the government that governs
hem.
Next il would mean no more obsta-
Js between the will of the people and
q execution; direct power and direct
sDOnsibility placed squarely upon the
shOe population. No more vestlglal
ndslism sticking around like those
rvscles with which in the jungle days
N ancestors used to flap their ears;
more of the idea, inherited from the
uue period, that government is a gift
rom the skies handed out to select
1 nd superior few. 1t would mean the
initiative. the referendum and the re-
1 all; it would mean popular government
gfected and operative.
This is the political phase Of it, which,
/! d course, everywhere arrives first, and
must. But as to industry, it is the same
thing Industry can be democratlzed
Is surely as government, and most in
2 Eitsbly will be. Industrial autocracy
s no more stable in the long run than
vas political autocracy. The throne is
not more feudal and insane than the in
d1strial organization under which few
/, nther the fruits of industry and many
men secure but rinds and pits-and bad
5 1t that.
So then, coming back to your original
sestiOn, if this is the kind of Socialism
mmean, the real thing and no Anarch-
81, the war will do everything for its
4 krmanent advancement. The war will
aske it the definite policy of civiliza-
Ton and has already gone far to achieve
nat result.
J And this kind is the only kind that
vi ever make hit in the United
Yates, and even this will probably
ever go far with the tag on it. The
'ud Socialism" has been so thorough
discredited by the recent achieve
tents in disloyalty of some of its pro-
ssed advocates that for many years 1t
y be enough to hoodoo anything II
say be glued to. But the idea, and not
4 z label, the better condition, the sub
Aaace Of the thing we hope for, that
u never be defeated nor delayed. De-
~aacy-nothing can stop it now; it
aready upon us. The whole wide
wa is undergoing tremendous
1Ages, the most momentous we have
va heard or dreamed of, and all of
80 make for democracy-political
y industrial.
wserve, now. The two great, over
Jung high lights in the story of de-
sscy are the invention of printing,
va began to democratize learning.
Nihe fall of the Bastile. which began