Vilas County news. [volume] (Eagle River, Vilas County, Wis.) 1896-1927, 1923-04-25

AAC oupSIIdL1fS value VI luulNluudl-
ism through it's impulse to production,
its stimulation to invention, has, so
far as 1 know, never been denied.
Criticism of it has lain in it's wastes
but more Importantly in it's failures Of
equitable sharing of the product. In
our country these contentious are main
~ over the division to each of his
share of the comforts and luXuries, for
none of US is either hungry or cold
or without place to lay his head-and
we have much besides. In less than
four decades we have added electric
lights, plumbing, telephones, gramo-
phones, automobiles, and what not in
wide diffusion to our standards of liv-
Ing. Each in turn began as luxury,
each in turn has become so common
place that seventy or eighty per cent
of our people participate in them.
To all practical souls there is little
use in quarreling over the share of
each of us until we have something to
divide. SO long as we maintain our
individualiSm we will have increasing
quantities. to share and we shall have
time and leisure and taxes with which
to fight out proper sharing Of the "sur-
plus" The income tax returns show
that this surplus is minor part Of our
total production after taxes are paid.
Some Of this surplus" must be set
aside for rewards to saving, or stimula-
ton of proper effort to skill, to leader
ship and Observation-Disclosures the dis
pute is in reality over much less than
the total of such surplus" While there
should be no minimizing of a certain
fringe Of injustices in sharing the re-
suits Of production or in the wasteful
use made by some of their share, yet
there is vastly wider field for gains to
all of us through cheapening the costs
of production and distribution through
the eliminating Of their wastes, from
increasing the volume of product by
each and every one doing his utmost,
than will ever come to us even if we
can think out a method of abstract
Justice in sharing which did not stifle
production of the total product.
It is q certainty we are confronted
with a population in such numbers as
can only exist by production attuned
to pitch in which the slightest reduc-
ton of the impulse to produce will at
once create misery and want. If we
throttle the fundamental impulses of
man our production will decay. The
world in this hour is witnessing the
most Overshadowing tragedy of ten
centuries In the heart-breaking life
and-death struggle with starvation by
nation with hundred and fifty mil
lions of people. In Russia under the
new tyranny group, in pursuit of So
cial theories, have destroyed the pri-
mary self-interest impulse of the indi-
vidual to production.
Although socialism in a nationwide
application has now proved itself with
rivers Of blood and inconceivable mis-
cry to be an economic and spiritual fall
lacy and has wrecked itself finally up
on the rocks of destroyed production
and moral degeneracy, believe it to
have been necessary for the world to
have had this demonstration. Great
theoretic and emotional ideas have
arisen before in the worlds history and
have in more than mere material bank
ruptcy deluged the world with fearful
losses of life. A purely philosophical
view might be that in the long run hui
mainly has to try every way, even
precipices, in finding the road to bet
terment.
But those are utterly wrong who say
that individualism has as it's only end
the acquisition and preservation of pri-
yate property-the selfish snatching
and boarding of the common product.
Our American individualism, indeed,
is only in part an economic creed. 1t
aims to provide opportunity for self
expression, not merely economically,
but spiritually as well. Private prop
erty is not a fetch in America. The
crushing OF the liquor trade without a
cent of compensation, with scarcely
even a discussion of it, does not bear
out the notion that we give property
rights any Roadway over human rights.
Our development of individualism
shows an increasing tendency to regard
right of property not as an object In
itself, but in the light of useful and
necessary instrument In stimulation of
initiative to the individual; not only
stimulation to him that he may gain
personal comfort, security in life, pro-
lection to his family, but also because
Individual accumulation and ownership
is a basis of selection to leadership in
administration Of the tools of indus
try and commerce. 1t is where domi-
nant private property is assembled in
the hands of the groups who control
the state that the individual begins to
feel capital as an oppressor. Our
American demand for equality OF OPP
portunity is constant militant check
upon capital becoming thing to be
feared. Out of fear we sometimes even