SOCIALISM. 



543 



Every individual is entitled to an equal proportional 

 share of all the natural advantages of earth. The 

 whole people should hold the land, light, air, and 

 water, together with other of nature's resources, as 

 the natural heritage in common of all mankind. 

 Every individual is entitled to an equal proportion- 

 ate share of all accumulated wealth created by past 

 generations, and that wealth should be held by 

 society as the natural heritage in common of all 

 mankind. Debt, profit, interest, rent, and the com- 

 petitive system of industry are declared instruments 

 of degradation and tyranny, and cancers upon the 

 social body. So, also, are the present methods of 

 punishing crime, the present monetary system, the 

 present methods of suffrage, education, jurispru- 

 dence, church and military. The right of property 

 is substantially limited by the rights acquired by 

 production. So long as members of society fulfil 

 their portion of the social contract they have a right 

 to demand of society the means necessary to provide 

 for their subsistence. Society is bound also to in- 

 sure the means of existence to those who are inca- 

 pable of labor. Every act against the imprescriptible 

 rights of man, by whomsoever exercised, even in the 

 name of the law itself, and within the forms it pre- 

 scribes, is arbitrary and void. The very respect due 

 to law forbids submission to it, and if the attempt 

 be made to execute such act by violence or by 

 artifice, it is not only permitted, but enjoined upon 

 every individual to repel such assaults even by force. 

 Government should l>e as nearly as possible pure 

 democracy. Governments, as at present constitut- 

 ed, are simply means of enslavement. Appended to 

 this Declaration is an explanation of the method of 

 organization of the I. W. A., in which the individ- 

 ual workman is invited to gather a group of seven 

 others, and, after a series of educational conferences, 

 the members of this group are to become individually 

 the leaders of other groups of eight, and so on 

 the object of these gatherings is stated to be educa- 

 tion in rights and in chemistry ! 



2. Next should be named that class of Socialists 

 seeking immediate social renovation by sweeping 

 and revolutionary changes, but by methods which 

 are conservative. The Socialist Labor Party most 

 distinctly represents this class ; it proposes to ac- 

 complish its ends gradually, but seeks as present 

 possibilities : 1. The establishment of a Bureau of 

 Labor in connection with the U. S. government. 2. 

 Reduction in the hours of labor. 3. Abolition of 

 convict labor. 4. The enactment of an employers' 

 liability law. 5. Tlie prohibition of child labor. 6. 

 Compulsory education. 7. Factory, mine, and work- 

 shop inspection. 8. Inspection of food and dwell- 

 ings. 9. Payment of all wages in cash. 



3. A still more modified form of socialism has 

 arisen in connection with the adoption of the theories 

 of Henry George as expressed in his work />rr>t/rnxs 

 <iml 1'itrert'i. This has given rise to the formation 

 of the Anti-Poverty Society, whose work for the 

 present is mainly educational, but which aims at a 

 final enforcement of its views by political action. It 

 declares: "That all men are created by Almighty God 

 with certain inalienable rights; that thee inalien- 

 able rights are rights to life, liberty, and the pur- 

 suit of happiness; that life cannot be had without 

 proper access to the materials of which this earth is 

 made, and that therefore God has given an equal 

 and indefeasible right to each and everyone of his 

 children of access to these materials; that no pre- 

 scription, no vested right, no law can deprive the 

 child of a beggar of the same right as the child that 

 is born of an im]>erial throne possesses to equal com- 

 mon ownership of the bounties of nature." Proceed- 

 ing upon this assumption, it is claimed that the pain- 

 ful inequalities of existence are due to the infraction 

 of a natural law. Land being the common property 



of all, the wealthy landholder is enriched by an in- 

 crease of value in his land which is an "unearned 

 increment;" and the population which caused the 

 increase ought to be rewarded with what itself has 

 created. All private ownership in land should be 

 abolished, and the community should take in taxa- 

 tion its rental value. 



4. Christian socialism. Eecognizing the manifest 

 wrongs and burdens concomitant to our present 

 economic conditions, a large number of Christian 

 writers have addressed themselves to this subject. 

 Their labors have been confined to seeking ameliora- 

 tions rather than radical changes at the present, and 

 to emphasizing the idea of human brotherhood, in 

 response to which, it is claimed, men should seek 

 more nearly to equalize the conditions of human life 

 by justice that is kind rather than to repair the 

 ravages of injustice by charity. This form of to- 

 cialism, which is claimed to grow out of the life of 

 Jesus and from the very spirit of the gospels, is a 

 powerful factor in the life of America to-day, and 

 cannot fail of a favorable reaction on the violent 

 spirit of discontent excited by philosophic socialism. 



American Socialists, with the possible exception 

 of many iu the last-named class, are geneially agreed, 

 according to Prof. B. T. Ely, on four points : the 

 first of these is that it is desirable to abolish private 

 property in instruments of production, not in in- 

 come, so far as this consists simply in articles of use 

 and enjoyment and which cannot serve as a further 

 basis of production. 2. Not to abolish capital, but 

 the distinct class of capitalists. 3. They believe in 

 the use of the best machinery and in improved 

 methods of production, and in the organization of 

 production on a vast international basis. 4. They 

 believe in co-operation as a substitute for the wage- 

 system. 



1 he growth of socialism in this country has been 

 rapid and will probably keep pace with the just 

 causes of discontent. The centralization of wealth, 

 the rise of monopolies, the control of many of the 

 necessaries of life by gigantic " trusts," accompanied 

 as they often are by combinations on the part of 

 employers to restrict the wages and restrain the lib- 

 erty of the employed by means of "ironclad oaths " 

 and " black lists " these are denounced as artificial 

 forms of oppression which are f-uperadded to the 

 ratural disadvantages arising for the laboring classes 

 by reason of the use of improved means of produc- 

 tion and the rapid increase of laborers by unre- 

 stricted immigration. The Republic of Plato and 

 the Ct'ipin of Sir Thomas More were early expres- 

 sions of human yearning to which Christian prophecy 

 responds in the promise of a millennium. It is not 

 improbable that a gradual advance in liberal legisla- 

 tion, whereby the powers of avarice shall be limited 

 and the rights of the toiling masses shall be restored, 

 may avert the use of violence, and that in the orderly 

 advance of a Christian civilization there shall come 

 at last to the people of this country an equitable and 

 universal distribution of those advantages which our 

 possession of nature's gifts and our inheritance of 

 centuries of advance in intelligence and power shall 

 afford. 



The socialism that is linked to materialism is 

 threatening and violent ; its only hope of ameliorat- 

 ing the condition of the oppressed is iri the use of 

 force. Those forms of socialism which are affected 

 by Christian thought are hopeful of a solution of 

 existing difficulties by methods that are educational 

 and peaceful. That 'the wrongs complained of are 

 real, that they are becoming more burdensome with 

 the advance o"f time, and that they will become un- 

 endurable if left to go on unchecked, is apparent to 

 every thoughtful mind. The cure by violence is full 

 of suggestions of horror. It may be avoided if, in- 

 stead of ignoring these wrongs, men will address 



