The weekly times-record. (Valley City, N.D.) 1912-1922, 1919-05-22

childish to suppose that lot Of
blooming idealists, mostly unedpcated,
mostly unaware Of the fact that gov
eminent is based upon inherent nat
ural laws, mostly unaware of the
thinking that has been done before
them in the long and slow evolution Of
government, mostly unaware that the
very problems that they regard as new
were thought out and settled by Plato
and his like nearly three thousand
years ago-it is foolish to imagine
that such men can take UP these mat
tiers, that they can set aside the long
spiral of evolution, and suddenly will
to have new natural laws and new
forms of government. This is a mid
summer madness, and should be sup
pressed. So it should, and so it can
be. Those who want established law
| and order are numerous enough and
ness. But Bolshevism is not the dis
ease. It is only symptom. When
you suppress it, you only put back the
fever sore to poison the whole body.
Economic injustice is the organic dis
ease. Economic justice is the only
cure; and economic justice can be
brought about only through large
numbers of leaders, such as it is hoped
some of you are to be, thinking men
and women, having ample informa
ton, ample wisdom to deal with the
problem, and a courage greater than
| that required to win battle. In bat
tie everybody who touches elbows with
you is fighting beside you, and there is
the glory of war-the tumult and the
shouting. In the fight for economic
justice there is no pageantry, and
most of those by your side and around
you will be either your silent or &C
tive opponents. r :
Our economic life today is based on
the law Of acquisition, of getting all
you can seize, of grabbing while the
grabbing is good. The capitalist ex-
acts as large profits as he can force
others to pay. The manufacturer
gets all he can for his finished pro
duct without regard to the costs of
the material and the labor of produc-
| ing. The merchant adopts the slo-
gan call the profit the traffic will
bear;" and the Bolshevist, the I. w.
w., asks not only all the wages the
traffic will bear, but more. He starts
out like Samson with the deliberate
intention Of pulling the business down
to ruin on his own head, to wreck the
system, and to begin anew with an
utopian, hopelessly idealistic system
in which every man, without regard
to deserts or native ability, shall get
as much and have as much as every
other man-if not more.
There is another class, neither cap
italist nor laborer, which always loses
In the fight sometimes capital wins
for the moment, sometimes labor. But
the middle class man, the salaried man
the brain worker, the thinker, the man
who wishes both capital and labor to
get their just dues, always gets the
worst Of it. He is the innocent by
stander stricken by the random shot
or the flying brick. He is the grist
between the millstones Of capital and
labor. Seeking to help both and coun-
| Gil both, he is set upon by both. He is
wounded in the house of his friend
Labor wins it's fight for a moment
and wages go up. Capital raises the
price of it's product, and the consumer
; pays the extra cost of labor. Capital
wins the next fight and is free to ad-
vance costs without regard to labor
Again the consumer pays. In 1919 a
teachers dollar buys only what a
half dollar bought in 1914. While her
dollar has decreased so per cent in
buying power, munifcent school
board has raised her salary 10 per
cent or 20 per cent and is now COM
planning everywhere about the high
cost Of teaching. The same applies
to all other salaried workers only I
must in justice say that some have
had little on no advance in wages to
compensate for the decreased buying
powers of their dollars.
l could call spades spades and take
a dozen examples of fragrant viola
lions of economic injustice out of your
own community and show that the
selling price of products to the con-
sumner in many cases has little or
nothing to do with the cost of pro-
duction and marketing. But such pro-
cedure would serve no purpose but to
still further embitter a bitter fight.
/ wish to avoid such a course. 1 wish
merely to say that economic injustice
breeds Bolshevism. We must seek to
do justly, to love mercy, to meet on
level of Christian brotherhood, if we
are finally to avoid that pit of destruc-
ton.
This is the job Of the educated man
of the day just ahead of US. The edu-
Gated woman must be ready to assume
her part of the burden. Justice to the
worker, justice to the farmer, justice
to the capitalist (but only justice) and
justice to the nker-Econonic JUS
tice to all IS the only safe way. Any
other road is so thoroughly dangerous
to the national safety that I would adj
vocate having shot as traitor any
man or woman, capitalist or laborer,
who grabs more than d just recon-
pense for his labor or for the use of
his capital.
It seems to me that the leadership
in securing economic justice must be
with the educated men and women of
the countries which have already COM
PEELED political and international
justice, mainly with France and Eng