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Show Marxian Club Socialists I . . J EDITORIAL COMMITEE: Questions concerning Socialism Kato S. Milliard, 'answered. Address all communlca- o Eugene A. Battell, tions to Howard Hall, 2733 Pacific J J Howard Hall. avenue. e s bet ine tell you. I've got bold of i your uew book,' but I haven't had a. moment to read it, as yet. You may spare yourself tho trouble. AVhy so? Because there's very little In It. But It's very m,uch praised, I hear. That was what I wanted; so I put nothing into the book but what everyone every-one would agreo with, IBSEN (Hedda Gaibler). THE UNEMPLOYED. They Are the Cornerotone of the Capitalist System. Labor in the capitalist system is like a coat: when needed the coat Is put on; when not needed It Is put off, and laid aside until wanted again. Thus does the capitalist use Labor. "When ho needs It he takes it; when he does not need it ho lays it off, and it is nooessary, that like the coat, it be ready there when he wants it again. In order to have Labor ready at hand when he wants It, there must be a lafge army of half-starving urn employed ready waiting for a job. If this condition did not exist, the capitalist capi-talist could not proceed to put on and put off Iabor as he saw fit. The out-of-work, divorced from all chance to live except upon the behest of the employer, thus becomes the very cornerstone of capitalism. With the possibilities of plenty and comfort that are today available for all, any eoclal system that stands In the way of such a consummation of happiness for the human race is worse than barbarous, it Is beastly. Overthrow it! PLACE .NO ..FAITH IN .THE .REFORMER. .RE-FORMER. The emancipation of the workers from wage slavery must be accomplished accom-plished upon an uncompromising working class platform; that is, the emancipation of the workers must be .accomplished by themselves. The "reformers" promise to do all sorts of things for the workers except ex-cept abolish the capitalist system which enslaves them. Promises from reformers are idle The working class should have learned iby this time that no reliance Is to be placed on any of these; it will find itself cheated every time it does put faith in the reformer. "Where he la honest and means well, the reformer la a sentimentalist who looks kindly upon the worker as he would upon a horse. He would relieve re-lieve the worker bit, just as he would an overburdened horse, but to nbolish the slavery of the worker that would be treason to capitalism. THE MEANING OF LABOR. , It Is the Manual and Intellectual Effort Ef-fort of Man 'in Production. Labor alono produces aJl wealth. This is the cornerstone of the Socialist Social-ist movement. Upon it the rest Is built. From this fact, that labor" produces pro-duces all wealth flows the further fact that idleness can be the producer of nothing. Tlcnco, the capitalist class, being an Idle class, and being found in the possession of the bulk of the wealth In existence, must be a parasite sponging class. The capitalist class tries to justify its existence by claiming to furnish the barons of the world; hut the fact is the brains necessary to production are not furnlshod 'by the capitalist, they aro hired the same as a horse Is hired. When the Socialist says that labor alone produces all wealth, ho does not mean thereby manual labor alono Socialism does not exqlude but deliberately delib-erately includes mental or Intellectual Intellec-tual labor. Labor is the manual and intellectual intellec-tual offort of map set forth in producing pro-ducing the material comforts that civilized man needs, and without which civilization Is impossible. The capitalist "works"' only in tho senso that the robber or free 'hooter "works' with this difference, tho froe fbooter risks his life while "working," "work-ing," whereas the capitalist doesn't oven risk soiling his fingers. WORK UNDER SOCIALISM. Labor a Plcaaure Where Carried on for Reasonable purponeo and Just Remuneration. As to the work under Socialism! First of all It will bo useful, and therefore honorablo and "honorod, because be-cause there will be no temptation to make mere useless toys, since thoro "will be no rich men cudgeling their brains for means for spending super. I fluous money, and, consequently, no "organizers of labor" pandering to degrading follies for the sake of profit, prof-it, waistlng their intelligence an.j energy en-ergy in contriving snares for cash In the shape of trumpery, which they themselves heartily despise. Nor will the workers turn out trash; there will be no millions ot poor to make a market for wares which no one would choose to uso If he were not driven to do so; everyone will be able to afford af-ford things good of their kind, and, as will ho shown hereafter will have knowledge of goods enough to reject what Is not excellent; coarse and rough wares may be made for rough or temporary purposes, but they will openly proclaim themselves for" what they are, adulterations- will be unknown. un-known. 6 Furthermore, machines of the most ingenious and "best-approved kinds will be used when necessary, but will be used simply to save human labor: nor indeed could, they be used for anything else Jn such well-ordered work as we are thinking about, since, profit 'being dead, there would le no temptation to pile up wares whose apparent ap-parent value as articles of use, their conventional value .as such does not i rost on the necessities or reasonable desires of men for such things, but on artificial habits 'forced on the public pub-lic by the craving of tho capitalists for fresh and over fresh profit. These things have no real value as' things to be used, and their conventional (let us say sham) utilltx value has been bred of their value, as articles of exchange ex-change for profit In a society founded on profit mongerlng . Well, the manufacturer of useless goods whether harmful luxuries for the rich or disgraceful makeshifts for me poor naving uume 10 an enu, anu we still being in possession of the machines once used for mere profit grinding, but now used only for sav-ng sav-ng human labor, it follows that much less labor will be necessary for each workman; all the more, as we aro going to get rid of all non-workers, and busy-idle people; so that the working time of each member of our factory will be very short Bay, to be much within the mark, four hours a day. Now, next it may be allowable for an artist that Is, one whose ordinary ordin-ary work is' pleasant and not slavish to hope that in no factory will all the work, even that necessary four hours' work, be mere machine tending; and it follows from what was said above about machines being used to save labor, that there would be no work which would turn men Into mere machines; ma-chines; therefore, at least some portion por-tion of thq work the necessary, and In fnctAapompulBory work, I mean woqld;t$V pleasant to do. The machine' ma-chine' tending ought not to require a very long apprenticeship, therefore In no case shoujd any person be set to run up and down after a machine through all his working hours every day, even so shortened as wo have soon Now, the attractive work of our factory that which was ploasant in Itself to do would be of the nature of art, therefore, all slavery work ceases under such a system, for whatever what-ever Is burdensome aixmt the factory would be taken turn and turn about, and, so distributed, would cease to be a burden would be, In fact, a kind of rest from the more exciting or artistic ar-tistic work. Thus, then, would the sting toe taken tak-en out of tho factory system In which as things now are the 80cia,lism of labor, which ought to have been a blessing to tho community, baa been turped Into a curse by the appropriation appropri-ation of the products of Its labor by Individuals, for the purpose of gaining gain-ing for them tho very doubtful advantages advan-tages of a life of special luxury and often of mero Idleness, the result of which to the masB of the workers has been a dire slavery, of which long hours of labor, ever increasing strain of labor during thoBo hours and complete repulF,lveness In the work itself have been tho greatest evils. It remains for me in another article ar-ticle to set forth my hopes of tho way in which the gathering together of people in such social bodies as properly prop-erly ordered factories might lie, may bo utilized for Increasing the general pleasure of life and raising Its standard, stand-ard, material and intellectural; for creating, In short, thnt llfo rich In ipcidont and variety, but freo from the strain of mere Bordld trouble the life which the Individualist vainly (babbles of, but which tho Socialist aims at directly and will one day attain at-tain to. William MorrlB. THE CORONATION. ' It Is Impossible to read any of the numerous coronation reports in our hourgeols metropolitan press written writ-ten by special correspondents, some nien and some women, some fantastic and sone sober, some poetic and some prosaic some shallow and -some painstaking without arriving at the conclusion that the pageant was less of a ceremony than a demonstration, in fact mainly a demonstration, with the cereiuony' mainly as a pretext. A demonstration of what? A demonstration of conservatism, Which tneans reaction, by the Ruling Elements, not of Great Britain only, but of all the nations that are feeling the ferment of reolutlon. The fact transpires from the flings at Socialism Social-ism that one and all these leading reports contain amid labored encomiums encom-iums of the "regal bearing' of the King and Queen. If the theory is correct how else explain the repeated siezing of Socialism Soc-ialism bv the forelock 9-Lhen the coronation cor-onation pageant Is a historic incident to which near-at-hand events will have oqcaslou to hearken back. And the incident is a welcome svmptom. " Demonstrations, of nature that, in all probability, the coronation pageant was one, are not few in history. As a rule they are up-flares of a lamp about to be extinguished for lack of oil. The downfall of feudal rule in France was, one may say, Inaugurated Inaugur-ated by festal demonstrations at the Trianon In Versailles. The final downfall of the scepter held by tho last scion of tho French Bourbons was likewise heralded by pageants with ceremonies as their pretext And Just such monkey-shines preluded pre-luded tho downfall of Napoleon III and the rise, evidently for good until overthrown by Socialism, of the bourgeois republic. It was not otherwise in England. The flight of James II; before him the tragedy of Charles I followed, in each instance, closely upon the heels of festive displays of loyalty. When tho troops of Victor Emanuel Eman-uel occupied Rome, nnd thereby proclaimed pro-claimed the fact that the temporal power of the Vatican was a thing of the past; their path Into Rome may be said to have been lighted by the torches borne by the celebrants of a papal "ceremony" which was utilized as pretext for a demonstration of lovalty. To whatqver European country one mav turn whether Spain, or Austria", Aus-tria", or Scandinavia, or Russia ceremonies, cere-monies, otherwise of a routine nature, but Inflated to suit the purposo of a demonstration, ever have been signals of distress given by ruling powers. The trick allows a peep into the mind of a ruling set. It writes thorn fetich worshipers. The trick is of j (.ho kith and kin of the one adopted by the By&antlue holders of Constantinople Constant-inople whon, in 14 53, the city was closely pressed by tho Turks All else having proved ineffective against the Turkish beleaguers, the effigies of Saints wero placed upon the walls Tbey were expected to overawe the foe As the demonstration of saintly effigies effi-gies in no wise palsied the arms of the soldiers of Muhamniod II, and Constan tlnople fell, neither have the "demonstrations" "dem-onstrations" of loyalty in any ln-Htanco ln-Htanco succeeded In damming the tide of Rovolution. These be but Mrs. Partington's brooms Not all tho display of "regal bearings' and interested hurrahs, and hurrahs to order, however many-tongued. can run run into the ground the electric cur-rout cur-rout of Socialism. Weekly People. |
