New Ulm review. (New Ulm, Brown County, Minn.) 1892-1961, 1918-12-25

taking place around him. How does it
fit together as whole? How does it
look from distance? Count Oklma,
one Of the oldest, most experienced, and
ablest Of the statesmen Of Japan, watch
ing the present conflict from the other side
of the globe, declares it to be nothing less
than the death Of European civilization.
Just as in the past the civilizations of
] Babylon, Egypt, Greece, Carthage, and
/ the great Roman empire have been sue
cessively destroyed, SO, in the judgment
of this detached observer, the civilization
of all Europe is even now receiving its
death blow We OF the Labor party
can so far agree in this estimate as to
recognize, in the present world cata-
strophe, if not the death, in Europe, of
civilization itself, at any rate the culmina-
tion and collapse of distinctive in
dustrial civilization, which the workers
will not seek to reconstruct. At such
times of crisis it is easier to slip into
ruin than to progress into higher forms
| of organization That is the problem as
| it presents itself to the Labor party.
What this war is consuming is not
merely the security, the homes, the
livelihood and the lives Of millions of
innocent families, and an enormous
proportion, of all the accumulated wealth
! of the world, but also the very basis Of
the peculiar social order in which it has
arisen. The individualist system Of
capitalist production, based on the pri-
+, vate ownership and competitive adj
ministration Of land and capital, with
it's reckless "profteering' and wage
slavery; with its Qualification Of the I'M
hampered struggle for the means OF
life and it's hypocritical pretense OF the
! survival Of the fttest";; with the mon
strous inequality OF circumstances which
it produces and the degradation and
EQUALIZATION, both moral and spiritual,
resulting therefrom, may, we hope, in
deed have received death blow. With
it must go the political system and ideas
in which it naturally found expression.
We of the Labor party, whether IN OPP
position or in due time called upon to
form an administration, will certainly
lend no hand to it's revival. On the
contrary, we shall do our utmost to see
! that it is buried with the millions whom
it has done to death. II we in Brit lin
are to escape from the decay OF civlllza-
ton itself, which the Japanese statesman
foresees, we must ensure that what is
! presently to be built up is new social
order, based not on fighting but on
| fraternity; not on the competitive
struggle for the means of bare life, but
on deliberately planned cooperation
/ in production and distribution for the
benefit of all who participate by hand
or by brain; not on the utmost possible
inequality Of riches, but on systematic
! approach towards healthy equality OF
material circumstances for every person
born into the world; not on an enforced
| dominion over subject nations, subject
races, subject colonies, subject classes,
or subject sex, but, in industry as well
as in government, on that equal freedom
that general consciousness, OF consent
and that widest possible participation
in power, both economic and political
which is characteristic OF democracy
I, We do not, of course, pretend that It Is
possible, even after the drastic clearing
away that is now going on, to builc
society anew in year or two OF feverlsf
Reconstruction What the Labo
party intends to satisfy itself about il
, that each brick that it helps to lay shall
90 to erect the structure that it intend
and no other.
), The Pillars of the House.
We need not here recapitulate, one b.
| one, the different items in the Labo
g party's programme, which successlv
I party conferences have adopted. Thes
E proposals, some of them in variou
publications worked out in practice
detail, are often carelessly derlded a
! impracticable, even by the politician
who steal them piecemeal from us! Til
4 members of the Labor party, themseNe
S actually working by hand OF by; brair