The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1925-04-23
SOCIALISM VERSUS AMERI.
CANISM.

cialism represents the European con-
ception of the nature and purpose of
government. Americanism began in
a revolt against the spirit and prac-
tice of the European governmental
system.
Socialism is based upon the tradi-
tional European idea that the citizen
is the creature of the state. Ameri-
canism is based upon the newer and
better doctrine that the state is the
creature of the citizen. Socialists be-
lieve the government should own and
control the citizen. Americanism
hold that the citizen should own and
control the government.
Socialism exhalts the state. Amer
icanism enthrones the individual.
Socialism would make of the state
the universal employer and provider.
Americanism holds that the state
should do nothing the citizen will not,
cannot or should not do for himself.
Socialism teaches that the develop
ment of an all powerful government
is the aim of civilization. American
ism is jealous of the surrender of any
right that may safely be reserved to
the citizen.
Americanism holds that the highest
service a state can perform, beyond
that of protecting the lives and inter
ests of citizens, is to keep the door
of opportunity open to the individual
that he may work out his own destiny.
Socialism would determine the des-
tiny of the citizen. 1t would refuse
superior reward to superior service,
and hinge advancement upon political
influence. 1t would reduce all men to
the dead level of a common medic
Gritty, and lift individuals from that
level only by political processes.
The ideal state, in the view Of the
socialist, is a huge eleemosynary in
stitution in which the individual
trades his liberty and his opportuni
ties for advancement, for an assured
meal ticket. Americanism believes
that not all the issues of life are
bound up in what man shall eat and
wear and wherewithal he shall be
clothed. Americanism takes for gran
ted that any citizen can with reason
able industry take care of his mater
ial wants, and that the advancement
of civilization depends upon the in
centives given the individual to give
to his fellows, under the stimulus of
special rewards, the best that is in
him.
Americanism stands for the rule of
the majority, without regard to caste,
class or occupation, with the funda-
mental rights of the citizen, essential
to his enjoyment of freedom, reserved
to him. Socialism stands for class
rule, without limitation upon its
power to tyrannize over the individ
ual.
Socialism originated with Karl
Marx. He. is the yelled prophet not
only of the Russian bolshevik, but of
the more modern socialists of other
lands Marx and his contemporaries
knew nothing of government except
as blind, unreasoning force, unrespon-
sive to the public will. They under
stood nothing of the American con-
ception that tyranny is hateful,
whether exercised by the monarch or
by the mob. They were stepped in
European conceptions of caste and
class, against which Americans re-
belled. Their ambition was to seize
the machinery of government and use
it for the purpose of trading one set
of tyrants for another. That philos-
ophy has lowered in Russia, where
an insignificant minority of radical
socialists, backed by bayonets, has
suppressed freedom of speech and ac-
ton, and erected a government upon
which, it is frankly admitted, popular
opinion exercises no infence.
Scratch a socialist and you will dis
cover beneath an incipient autocrat
who emissions himself and his COM
rades in control of the machinery of
government, and employing it for the
suppression of the unusual man, with
the natural gift for leadership, who
is responsible for the greater part of
all human advancement. Socialism
represents the aspiration of medic
Gritty to curb ability; of laziness to
penalize industry; of boundless per-
sonal ambition to make the state it's
instrument at whatever sacrifice of
the welfare of others.
Socialism pirates of altruism, but it
more often is the expression of hat
red and envy, 1t breaches peace, but