SOCIALISM 



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SOCIALISM 



SOCIALISM,, so'shaliz'm, a political world 

 movement which seeks to adjust the relation 

 of the individual to the community by means 

 of collective ownership and management of the 

 principal means of production and distribution. 



The term socialism seems to have appeared 

 first in England in 1833, in a paper called The 

 Poor Man's Guardian, during discussions which 

 arose in regard to an organization called the 

 Association oj All Classes of All Nations. As 

 this society was for the purpose of social re- 

 construction, the name was considered well ap- 

 plied. French and German writers recognized 

 the term and it soon came into general use, but 

 it was in Germany that it first acquired po- 

 litical significance. The word has been much 

 abused, having been used to describe com- 

 munism, anarchism and almost everything of 

 a revolutionary nature in the political world. 

 The only proper use of the word to-day is in 

 its application to one of the most remarkable 

 movements of the nineteenth century, that of 

 the so-called Socialist party, which is the only 

 political party with an international alliance. 



In the United States. The development of 

 the theory of social evolution and the spread 

 of socialism as a party movement have been 

 rapid in America. In 1888 the Socialist vote 

 in the United States was 2,068, in 1904 it had 

 grown to 442,402; in 1912 it was but little be- 

 low 1,000,000, but in 1916 it fell to 594,095. In 

 the national headquarters of the Socialist party 

 of the United States in Chicago are maps dot- 

 ted with colored pinheads showing the location 

 of the local organizations. These pins are as 

 numerous in some of the agricultural states as 

 in the industrial states, showing that the mem- 

 bership is not confined to factory employees. 



The best means of determining what are the 

 principles of socialism as held by adherents of 

 the party in the United States -is to study the 

 " working program" or platform of the party, 

 which is regarded as a definite pledge to the 

 members. 



The working program of 1916 stated that its 

 measures are calculated to strengthen the work- 

 ing people in their efforts to effect a coopera- 

 tive commonwealth, which is the ultimate aim 

 of the party, and to increase the power of re- 

 sistance against what is termed capitalistic op- 

 pression. The platform is stated under three 

 heads, Collective Ownership, Industrial De- 

 mands and Political Demands; with the lat- 

 ter is included Unemployment Demands, seek- 

 ing to secure government employment for all 

 men out of work. 

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Collective Ownership includes the ownership 

 and management by all its holders of railroads, 

 telegraphs and telephones, express service, 

 steamboat lines, "and all other social means of 

 transportation and communication and of all 

 large-scale industries." It includes the immedi- 

 ate acquirement by the government of such 

 agencies as can be made to reduce the cost of 

 living, as grain elevators, stockyards and store- 

 houses. It asks for government ownership of 

 mines, quarries, oil wells, forests, water power, 

 and the conservation and development of all 

 natural resources for the benefit of the people. 

 The collective ownership and democratic man- 

 agement of the banking and currency system 

 is required; the collective ownership of land 

 wherever practicable, and where not practica- 

 ble, an appropriation by taxation of the rental 

 value of such land as is held for speculation or 

 for exploitation of any kind. 



The Industrial Demands are for the better 

 protection of workers and their families. They 

 include the shortening of the work day, in 

 proportion to the increasing productiveness of 

 machinery; the securing to every worker a rest 

 period of at least a day and a half each week; 

 the securing of better inspectin for workshops, 

 factories, mines, etc.; refusal to employ chil- 

 dren under eighteen; a plan for giving convicts 

 and their families the benefit of convict labor; 

 the forbidding of interstate transportation of 

 the products of convict labor, child labor, and 

 that of uninspected factories and mines; the 

 abolishing of the profit system in government 

 work and substituting either the direct hire of 

 labor or the awarding of contracts to coopera- 

 tive groups of workers; the establishing of a 

 minimum wage scale; the abolishing of public 

 charity and substituting a system of old age 

 pensions and social insurance which -shall pro- 

 tect every worker against unemployment, sick- 

 ness and accident. Mothers' pensions are also 

 demanded. 



The Political Demands are absolute freedom 

 of press, speech and assemblage ; increase in the 

 rates of the income tax law; increase of rates 

 of corporation tax; the extension of inherit- 

 ance taxes, graduated according to the value of 

 the estate and the nearness of the kin, and the 

 use of the proceeds from all such taxation to 

 be for the socialization of industry; the aboli- 

 tion of personal or corporate ownership of pat- 

 ents, and the substitution of collective owner- 

 ship, with a system of direct payment ^of the 

 inventors by the government, by means of 

 premiums or royalties; unrestricted and equal 



