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Show CAN THE REPUBLIC ENDURE? i Upton Sinclair, the author of "The Jungle," is a clever and versatile Socialistic writer, and has recently concluded a constructive study of the industrial in-dustrial and socialistic history of the United States. Thoughtful men and writers are finding the social conditions of our country among the most interesting inter-esting and perplexing of any in the whole civilized world. Sociology, which is the science of human relationships, offers a fruitful and interesting field for investigation, especially in our American republic repub-lic which contains within its territorial limits a variety of climatic conditions, race divergencies, industrial and commercial, as well as governmental and municipal problems, unequaled in the same area in any other part of Christendom. Each school of sociological and economic thinkers finds it comparatively com-paratively easy to outline the appalling conditions which prevail and to depict in startling terms the results which must assuredly accrue in., the very near future, but no two schools apparently are able to agree on a solution to the questions which are now so insistent in their urgency for an answer. The late Mr. E. D. Forbes, one of the most far seeing and profound thinkers in the Republican party, predicted a few months before his death, the disruption of the Republicans in twenty years unless un-less things change for the better. Strangely enough, the Rt. Rev. Dr. Potter, head of the aristocratic and wealthy Episcopal diocese of Xew York, included in-cluded popular education, as one of the three dominant dom-inant evils responsible for the unsettled conditions of men's minds and the deplorable state of our country in his address delivered at Chautauqua two weeks ago. Upton Sinclair's solution of 'the industrial problems is merely that already given by the school of socialists to which he belongs. He believes that if competition in business be abolished, abol-ished, and all public utilities, the means of production produc-tion and of distribution of wealth, as well as banks, insurance companies and other financial institutions,1 institu-tions,1 the present enigma, social, economic and political, po-litical, would solve itself. Mr. Sinclair seems to forget that the possession of such an enormous responsibility re-sponsibility by a party government would inevitably inevita-bly result in an unendurable tyranny or the formation forma-tion of an opposition by contending elements resulting re-sulting in rebellion. So long as the writer is diagnosing diag-nosing the diseases of the body politic, it is rot difficult to follow him. His. surgical probe, however, how-ever, does not go deep enough to touch the seat of the disease. Each thinking man,, who is studying the signs of the ominous times, is conscious of an approaching hurricane which will shake the republic repub-lic to its very foundations. Prudent men in every state of the union and the deep thinkers of Europe agree in the necessity of a change if the American republic would escape the fate of Rome. Waving the importance of religion and the absolute ab-solute necessity of teaching morality and Christianity Chris-tianity in our schools, it may be asked, what are some of the causes -which have produced the present pres-ent situation? Probably the most important, because be-cause most fundamental, is the character of our constitution which will not allow the people a responsible re-sponsible government. Coupled with this excepting except-ing the supreme court at .Washington is an elected judiciary which has failed to command the respect .......... ... ... ... . - . - t .win n i . ,), .,.. ii in,, jm, a,.... mi-, i, r. of the defenders of law and order. Another cause is the open-door immigration, by which the worst elements of the godless sections of European civilization civ-ilization has entered and is entering. Corrupt themselves, they are corrupting others and leavening leaven-ing the mass of the wage-earners. Without responsible government, political corruption cor-ruption has permeated municipal state and federal legislation and has evolved the octopus the trusts. Without respect on the part of the people for the judiciary and for law and order, crime, dishonesty, graft, public and private swindling have become rampant. The influx of a large and undesirable foreign population and the greed for gold manifested mani-fested by all classes have destroyed the social and civic as well as the national ideals and responsibilities responsi-bilities which were bequeathed us by the founders of our republic. Those facts are not all taken into consideration by Upton Sinclair in his latest book, "The Industrial Republic," and one cannot help doubting the value of the remedy he and his socialistic so-cialistic society propose. |