The Hartford republican. (Hartford, Ky.) 18??-1926, 1921-10-21
7 WHAT'S WRONG WITH SOCIALISM

What's wrong Win sOclaHsmf Inc
question is not ours; It is put by the
Appeal to Reason, the leading socia-
sist paper Of the country. In a des-
perate cry for help II asks: why Is
the socialist movement falling behind
so much when conditions are most
favorable for It's messenger" II goes
on TO say: There is no use fooling
ourselves; socialism Is practically
bankrupt. Our newspapers have no
readers. In congress we have just
as much representation as IL years
ago-one lone member In the state
legislative halls we have the fewest
members in a decade. We have few
or mayors in office. Soapboxers are
practically extinct. We have gone
backward instead of forward. The So
cialist vote the organizations mem
bership. the newspapers circulation
all prove our bankruptcy. But.
worse than figures is the discourage
ing fact of the spiritual failure Of the
movement
The Appeal is desperate for 1t sees
its field vanishing. The rats are de-
sorting the sinking socialist ship; and
It. never was much of ship at that.
II would take big volume 10 tell
: what's wrong with socialism; in
short there is so little about the old
hulk that has any value that II is
hardly worth salvaglng. Most third
party" and other movements have
something in them which will contri-
butte to the progress of the world; the
world seizes upon what is good and
rejects the rest. But with socialism
IL Is different; socialism was wrong
from the beginning, and It never
could have got right; It was headed
the wrong way.
The socialist leaders have proved
to be unreliable Missionaries and
schemers, and the people have simply
found them out and refuse to believe
them any longer. When you are
asked TO follow a leader, you want to
"be shown; you want to be assur-
ed that that leader knows more than
you do or you will refuse to follow
him; as soon as you catch him telling
wrong stories you are going TO cut
loose from him, for even If he may
deceive himself you can't afford to
let him deceive you or betray the
world.
The multitude OF claims and pre-
dictions which the socialists have
made have never proved true; and
their theories would not work in
practice. Their whole system is bas-
ed ON fallacies and vicious principles.
they assert that all wealth is created
by Labor" and that any surplus that
anyone saves should be divided up
wth the spenders.
Such a plan as that would soon
wreck the world. We see what 1t
has done to Russia in four short
years. The bolshevists have had abb
soIute power there, and yet, with all
those pet socialist theories In force.
the Russians are stricken with fam
inc and plague, SO that we capitals
tic" Americans have to go into our
own savings and surplus foodstuffs
and send them over there to keep
millions from starving.
You see at once the fallacy of this
socialistic idea Human beings will
not work when all that they produce
is taken from them and put into a
common store. to be distributed
alike TO the worthy and the shiftless.
Capital and wealth instead OF being
evils, are great blessings. and we
now find the bolshevlsts pleading for
help from these sources. after squan-
dering all they could lay hands on.
II each worker spent all he made
there would never be any accumula-
ton of wealth in any form; we could
have no roads. railroads, autos, fac
tories, schools. or anything else that
has made civilization what it is. Take
away this accumulated wealth and
we would lapse back into sayagery by
the toboggan route.
Every worker is entitled to en-
JOY the fruits OF his own industry
and the only way to enable him to
do that is to make it certain that
, those fruits will not be taken away
from him. In other words his capt.
tai and property must be protected
by the law-and this is just what we
have under the ~capitailstic" system
which the socialists want to destroy.
In socialistic Russia there is no
liberty. no prosperity, no happiness
for anyone; the government is SUI
preme and the individual has no
rights whatever Thousands of in
nocent people have been executed in
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