OCR Text |
Show The Fallacy of Socialism. SOCIALISTS claim that they will cast 1,500,000 votes in November, so rapidly is their system sys-tem gaining the enJorsement of men. Of course, we cannot foresee much that is to be, but so absurd seems the claim that vast numbers of men are being converted to socialism that we cannot believe it. For the real aim of socialism is, first, to level mankind, which cannot be. This is the dream of honest socialists. They will tell you that all they desire is an equal opportunity among an men. When we tell them that all men in this country have equal opportunities, they reply that It is not true; that A has a large capital capi-tal to begin with which he did not earn; that with it he can oppress and handicap B from the start. That brings out the fact that In the thought of the socialist the accumulated wealth of the world belongs to all the people alike; their reasoning being1 that, as labor has produced everything, everything is due the laborer. But labor by itself has never accomplished anything. It has been the directing minds behind the labor that has produced the results. The mind that invented in-vented the shovel and the hoe doubled and quadrupled quad-rupled the effectiveness of labor in a day. The old-fashioned loom wove fabrics for 3,000 years. Arkwright, by his invention, increased the capacity of the spinner a thousand-fold. The Creator said: "Let there be light!" and the universe was flooded in splendor in a moment. Must Arkwright or his heirs divide with the world? Had that been the nle, would Arkwright havo wasted years of toil to perfect his invention? When Lord Erskina made his first wonderful speech in court, and all were entranced by it, a friend asked him what the impelling motive behind be-hind him was. He eplied that as he arose to address ad-dress the court, he felt the hands of his little children clinging to his robes. "But," says the socialist, "we would give an Erskine all that he could make." But for how long? Suppose he had made half a million and bequeathed It to his children, in gold. It would be part of the wealth of the world today, and would not the socialist claim it as a part of the inheritance of labor? A socialist said to the writer recently: "If the Socialist party were to obtain power, we would parallel the overland railroads, pay for the work and material in paper money, and then run the SUl' M" road, charging only enough for fares and freight i 89 to meet current expenses and repairs." And he IKP ffli asked what would be wrong about that? Well, IflL 9 there are 800,000 stockholders in that road, many 1 W Hfl of them decrepit men and women, that would be 1 MA jH penniless were the road to be made of no value. 1 W ' H There are two kinds of socialism, one seeks ill: H to confiscate t gathered wealth of the world, j ij;j fl for that is the real aim, no matter what denials f i 1 H are made. Then there is a Christian socialism, V?jj,j jfl and a clergyman who is an evangel in the I'M" flB cause, after admitting that no two men are alike I ' jj i H in their attributes and acquirements, explains VM I H that Christian socialism "does not aim at mak- fjf H ing men equal in respect of their ability, for to lj . H do that would be quite impossible; but it aims at fi ' H producing an equality of a practical kind by in- 1, jfl ducing the men whose abilities are the most effl- Sit B cient to forego all personal claims which are '.(' i j founded on their own exceptional powers; so I 1 1 that the wealth which is at present secured by 1'f H those powers for themselves, may in the future '' '. bo divided among the mass of their less able l'1'll 1 brethren." jiffl'j fl Is it not clear enough that such doctrines, If ( 1 mm espoused by a majority in any country, would !i flji lead straight to chaos? General Lew Wallace vli't H made a fortune out of his book "Ben Hur." Ac- j I $ - fl cording to this clergyman, it was his duty when I ! ;', the returns came in to divide, or rather give up, jSpF' Hj the proceeds of his brain and his patient labor j $; BH for years in preparing the book, or never to " , S9 have written it in the first place. Fads come and j " jn9 go. A good many men who are honest believe ' Wm in the Utopia of socialism, that something can i- Mm be got for nothing; that there is a divinity about lj& WjM labor which makes it the rightful heir to the ir.f ( Bm Avorld's gathered wealth; the genius and am- VtL flM bition which finally enables a man to employ 100 $j2i HM or 1,000 men loses all its distinctive rights 'the lj; HI )A In moment the enterprise begins to pay. That, for example, should a man wear out his life in finding find-ing a gold mine; should he then oniploy 100 men to run a tunnel to strike the vein, ho should pay full miners' wages to these men? But should their work strike the vein and it should yield, say, $1,000 per day, then the proceeds would belong to the 100 men, for was it not their work that produced it? This was precisely the claim that a big band of loughs made in Goldfleld a year ago last winter. The old sentence was: "By the sweat of your face shall you earn your bread." The modern socialist says: "If you earn more ' bread than you can swallow, then the rest is ' ours." It says to the industrious and the gifted: 1 "If you, by brain and hand, can amass a fortune, all right, but it must not be for your children. I What you leave is but labor perpetuated, and it 1 will belong to us all." Socialism is a blow aimed directly at honest ambition and faithful and r gifted industry, at home, and all the high things j that man aspires to accomplish. Is it not a fact ' that could it succeed, it would in three generations disintegrate society and make wild beasts of men? |