Carolina watchman. [volume] (Salisbury, N.C.) 1871-1937, 1934-06-22
.1ODAYand
SSSs ss;S5s XE
FRANK PARKER


%so&ee!@eozA:A
HISTORY amd LAWS
The key to the future lies in the
study of the past. If you want to
know wAaher this, that or the
other scheme for saving mankind
from the consequences Of its own
folly will work, read history.
From time immemorial people
have had a belief in the magic of
laws. Laws can make people good,
or SO they believe. The prohibi-
tion laws were going to make
Everybody temperate.
Two thousand and more years
|ago the Greek philosopher Plato
wrote: How charming people
ARE! Are they not as good as a
play? Trying their hands at leg
islation and imagining that by re-
forms they will mafe an end to the
dishonesties and rascalities of man.
|kind!"
Solomon the Wise said much the
same thing; SO did Saint Paul. To-
|day, as in the past, it is impossible
Ito lagislate avarice, selfishness and
|greed out of the human race.
IPLANS Always selfish
Men of imagination have tried
their hands from the earliekt days
at working out plans for the Per-
feet State, in which everybody
would be happy and conented.
Plato, Francis Bacon, Sir Thomas
More, Edward Bellamy and many
|others have written fascinating
books telling how a planned ecoz
Monty would operate. ~
None of worked, be-
causs>% Of these sch1mes have
i5een based on the idea that the
mass of humanity is imbued with
elemental justice and wants every
body to have a square deal. The
fact is that few of us care whether
the other fellow gets a square deal
or not. If we get what we want,
whether squarely or otherwise, the
other fellow can have what's left,
provided someone else doesn't get
it first.
MATURE steps in
The trouble with all human
planning is that there are always
incalculabe factors which may up
set all the plans. Nobody can ever
be sure that ha has taken all of
them into account.
For example, the plans of the
|AAA for a reduction of wheat and
corn acreage were all very we'll
if anyone could have taken the
weather into account. But nature
stepped in and did in one grand
wholesale effort what the Govern
ment was trying to do with the
cooperation of millions of farmers.
The drouth in the Northwest cut
down production and sent prices
up more speedily and more effec-
lively than any human plan could
possibly have done it.
The main trouble in getting
plans for the Benefit of humanity
to work, however, is that you
never can get everybody to agree
to travel in the same direction at
the same speed. That can only be
done by force. In private business
the force is the threat of loss of
employment if one doesn't do team
work. Government can compel
general compliance with any plan
only by fines, imprisonment and,
If those fail, machine guns.
The sort of enforced cooperation
is only possible under a Dictator
ship.
RUSSIA 49,. tim and now
T knew the Grand Duke Alex
ander of Russia, cousin of the last
Gear, pretty we'll. That is, I met
him a number of times at tho homes
f New York friends, and had nu-
merous conversations with him. l
have just finished re-reading his
book, "Once a Grand Duke }" and
I am again convinced that the
common people Of Russia enjoyed a
great deal more liberty under the
Romanoffs than they have had
since the revolution under the So
lviets.
The only things the Czarist gov
eminent demanded of them was
that they keep order among them
selves and pay their taxes.
Now the poor Russian people are