Why I am opposed to socialism Part 3

The differences in man's condition, make the interest and the incitements of life. Collectivism is an absurd theory of distribution of the good of life, because it cannot preserve equal conditions, even in one generation. The weak, the lame and the lazy must fall behind the strong, the able, the ambitious. The apples on a tree are of different sizes, and soundness, because of the vigor of the buds, leaves, branches and location which have contributed to their growth.

So it is in all Nature, and in man.

The prizes of life belong to those who win them by merit of their powers, their diligence and their effort.

A common opportunity is the highest condition Nature and society can offer to the individual.

Life is rich in and through its varieties. Religion and common sense stand for these principles of individualism in the development and conduct of human life and government.

=Levermore, Charles Herbert.= (Educator and Author.)

I am opposed to Socialism because I believe that any plan thus far proposed for the reorganization of society upon a Socialist basis would result in a tyranny of a majority, or of a bureaucratic clique or "ring," representing that majority, which would be meaner and more unendurable than any corporation-ridden party-machine or any Tammany Hall that we have ever known. (See also "Why I Am in Favor of Socialism.")

=Bell, Mackenzie.= (Poet, Critic and Lecturer.)

Though a collectivist I am not a Socialist in the Marxian sense, because I think the private owners.h.i.+p of capital has never until now, had a fair chance in the work of civilization. Throughout the world the people are dimly awaking to insist that property has its duties as well as its rights, and to insist likewise that property pays its due toll to the commonwealth.

=Binney, Charles Chauncey.= (Lawyer and Author.)

I cannot pretend to much familiarity with Socialist writings, but I have read with some care the platform of the Socialist Party for the recent election. Some few of the planks have nothing to do with Socialism in itself, and some (that in regard to child labor, for instance) express the views of men of all parties; but the distinctively Socialist part of the platform impressed me as co-operation run mad. People seemed to be regarded as ma.s.ses only, not as individuals, although the individualist feeling is one of the strongest in human nature, and is of the utmost importance in the progress of civilization.

If a Socialist administration of government be possible as a permanent inst.i.tution (which I doubt) it would be impossible under the conditions demanded by this platform, because no man's life or property (if any individual property be permitted) would be safe under it. For instance, the legislative power is to be vested in a Congress and legislatures composed of one chamber only, subject to no veto and controlled by no const.i.tution, for the courts are to be forbidden to question the const.i.tutionality of laws. This would make the legislature all-powerful, but the fact that no one branch of the government is all-powerful is an important guarantee of our present liberties. Worse than this, although the experience of ages has shown that the greatest safeguard of liberty is the administration of law by an independent and fearless judiciary--that is, by judges who cannot be dismissed except for official wrongdoing, and who therefore are not merely free to do right in every case, but have the strongest incentives to do so--yet the platform proposes to destroy judicial tenure during good behavior wherever it exists, and to cause all judges to be elected for short terms. If you ask any man of intelligence, who wants only justice, whether he would feel more sure of a just decision in a United States Court before a judge holding office during good behavior, or in a State Court, before a judge elected by the voters of a political party for a short term only, I am confident that he would express much greater confidence in the former.

The Socialist platform a.s.serts that the "capitalist cla.s.s" controls the judiciary. This broad a.s.sertion is ridiculously false. What is true is that the judiciary is not composed of Socialists, that the judges are as yet unwilling to disregard the law, and to decide in accordance with the wishes of Socialists. If, however, the "capitalist cla.s.s" sought to control the judiciary, it could do so much more easily in the case of judges elected for short terms than in that of judges holding office during good behavior. Evidently the Socialists want a chance to "control" the judiciary themselves, whereas what the country needs is a judiciary uncontrolled by any cla.s.s, capitalist or Socialist.

The platform declares for collective owners.h.i.+p of all railroads, telegraph and telephone lines, etc. The word "confiscation" is avoided, but confiscation must be intended, for surely the Socialists do not wish to enrich the "capitalist cla.s.s" by buying out their interests in public service corporations at a fair valuation.

I could criticise the Socialist platform in many other respects, especially the tone of violence and hatred that pervades it. There is not a suggestion of Christianity about it. I shall conclude, however, by stating my own experience of local government under the Socialist Party. Being in ill health last winter, I stayed at Bordighera in Italy. The Socialists controlled the town government, and were anxious to continue in office, and therefore not to offend the rank and file of their party. The drunkenness and noise at night were often intolerable, but all protests were useless, as the drinkers and shouters had votes, and the foreign visitors had none. Gambling was carried on as openly as at Monte Carlo, without any regard to the well-being of the community. After this slight experience, I was able to understand better what took place under the Socialist commune of Paris in 1871, which I am old enough to remember well.

=Wilson, Alonzo Edes.= (Editor and Lecturer.)

There are many good things about the theory of Socialism, but I do not believe in the remedy as proposed through the Socialist Party. The battle can never be won that way. I also believe that our hardest fight and the first thing to be done is the killing of our greatest common enemy, the liquor traffic and the business of drunkard making, by the Government. The settlement of this problem will solve many of our ills and then we can take up some of these other questions.

=Russell, Isaac Franklin, LL., D.C.L.= (Chief Justice of the Court of Special Sessions of the City of New York.)

I am opposed to Socialism because of its erroneous att.i.tude to labor.

Labor is not a thing to be avoided, but rather to be welcomed and encouraged. The only real happiness we ever experience in this world is the intelligent exercise of our faculties. A perpetual motion machine or some fanciful device for saving us from labor, so far from being a blessing, would paralyze our n.o.blest powers.

I charge Socialism with economic error and heresy for its attacks on capital and capitalists. Capital is indispensable to enterprise. It is the source and mainspring of wages. The laborer cannot pay himself his wages out of the finished product of his toil, else he would have no quarrel with his master. Even public credit, on which we are building the Panama Ca.n.a.l and our city schools, rests on visible resources in lands, franchises and personal property.

I charge Socialism with economic error in advocating a rate of wages determined by arbitrary authority, irrespective of demand and supply.

No producer of merchandise for any appreciable length of time can continue to pay more than the market rate of wages and keep out of bankruptcy.

The manhood wage--a plan by which we accord to each laborer enough money to support himself, his wife and as many children as G.o.d sends to his home--is a delusion and a snare. It directly encourages improvidence and stimulates the growth of population by diverting nature's stern but benignant discipline from the unworthy to the worthy. It paralyzes thrift and temperance, and puts a premium on recklessness and vicious self-indulgence.

I charge Socialism with fundamental error in preaching the doctrine of human equality. Nature abhors equality. Men vary infinitely, from the meanest degenerates to the tallest of the sons of G.o.d. They can be equal only before the law, or in the eye of the law, or as suppliants for justice. Intellectually we need patricians and n.o.blemen to encourage us by precept and example and point out the path of progress to better things. A dollar a day, or one thousand dollars a day, never will remunerate men like Edison and Harriman for their services to a world of workers.

Socialism trifles with the principles that underlie the inst.i.tution of property. Even animal and sub-human ethics regard the right of the individual to his acc.u.mulated store and the home he has builded.

The att.i.tude of Socialists toward the courts of law is undemocratic.

In America we must reverence the law. It is our only hope. To teach the mult.i.tude that justice is bought and sold in this country and that the judgments of our judicial tribunals are knocked down to the highest bidder is to accuse a whole nation of crime.

Socialism represses individual development. It subst.i.tutes for self-direction the authority of the many.

But it is in constructive Socialism that we find the greatest peril and the most monumental folly. Utopias innumerable have been conceived by the heated imagination of dreamers of all ages. The monotony of Utopia would be maddening. No moral crisis can arise in a perfect society. Charity and philanthropy, sympathy, courage and all the human virtues can have no play in such a spot.

Compet.i.tion is not to be decried as vicious. It is really a benignant principle. It is the supreme divine law. To compet.i.tion among employers the workman looks for high wages; on compet.i.tion among sellers he relies to buy what he needs at the lowest figure.

=Andrews, Martin Register.= (College Professor and Editor.)

The machinery of government which the Socialists propose seems to me likely to aggravate the very evils of which they justly complain. The proposal to confiscate the homes of the farmers and work the former owners under some boss chosen by the State, as I heard advocated a few days ago, may be a blessing to the brewers, but not to the great body of workingmen. (See also "Why I Am in Favor of Socialism.")

=Allen, Alfred.= (Playwright and Author.)

I am opposed to Socialism because of their inhumanity towards the poor millionaire. In spite of it all, they are our brothers.

=Owen, Douglas.= (Author, Barrister and Lecturer.)

Until Socialists themselves shall have come to some sort of an agreement as to the aims and objects of the Socialism to be adopted as their creed, how can one formulate one's objections to Socialism? The more moderate and reasonable of its advocates profess, indeed, indignation and abhorrence at the views of the extremists, and to reply to the extremists is to call forth charges of gross misrepresentation on the part of the more moderate. But broadly stated, what Socialism even in its more moderate form appears to aim at, is the negation and suppression of the greatest and most beneficent law of nature--law of humanity--which we know as the law of the survival of the fittest. On this supreme law depends, and always has depended, and must depend, the uplifting, enlightenment and, in the end, the highest welfare of mankind. And just as that which is good for the hive cannot be bad for the bee, so must the welfare of the hive depend on the independent effort of each individual bee.

The mainspring of the world's upward and forward progress is the ambition and emulation of the individual worker: the slothful, the ill-qualified and the weakling being left behind; one and the same law, beneficent if hard, for all life upon this world, whether animate or inanimate. The Socialists' aim is to deprive the individual of stimulus to put forth his best efforts for his own advancement and therefore for the benefit of the human hive.

When I received your invitation to state my views on this subject, I chanced to be reading David Hannay's work. "The Sea Trader." At the conclusion he deals with the subject of convoy, under which all s.h.i.+ps, fast and slow, good and bad, were compelled to voyage under armed escort. His remarks on the consequences of the system are so apposite that I quote them here:

"The necessity for keeping together imposed a restriction often of a highly injurious kind, on the best appointed vessels. Since the whole must be kept together, it followed that the convoy was condemned to sail at the rate of speed of the slowest among them. A quick sailing s.h.i.+p lost the whole advantage of her superiority. She could neither obtain the advantage of being early in the market, nor make prompt arrangements to unload or reload. She was brought down to the level of the most lumbering tub. Of what use was it to build for speed, to be alert, to seek for better ways, when the law stood over you, fine and imprisonment in hand, to make you go slow, to force you to follow the known road!"