EDUCATION AND RELIGION 323 



industries in a wise and progressive manner. Abolutisni in 

 industry, like absolutism in government, in the present temper 

 of things is bound to fail; and it can only lay its downfall to 

 its utter disregard of its bounden duties to those below. 



While this is going on in the industrial and political world, 

 there are all sorts of panaceas brought forward. As soon as 

 a portion of mankind is suffering from an ailment any number 

 of quack doctors arise with new cure-alls. The most promi- 

 nent one nowadays in socialism. As a philosophic theory, as a 

 means of affording an ideal of the wth degree, by which to pat- 

 tern improvements in legislation it may do very well. I pur- 

 posely do not touch upon its vagaries in relation to the things 

 hitherto held sacred by the general assent of mankind in rela- 

 tion to the family, the State and personal morality. It is 

 merely the working of the actual government social machine 

 to which I shall allude. The question is: Who shall watch 

 the watchers? Socialistic government must have its heads 

 and officers. If our governments so far — and we have enough 

 of the most ideal laws on the statute books — cannot prevent 

 bribery among legislators, violation of oaths by officials, pecu- 

 lation of high and low degree in state and municipal govern- 

 ment, to say nothing of grosser forms of governmental wick- 

 edness, how can we hope for anything more definite to be 

 accomplished under the form of socialism? We have the 

 same weak humanity to deal with, and if one wants reform 

 in government or industry, humanity must be essentially re- 

 formed ; no mere method will effect it. 



Take one familiar example : You have all heard about the 

 horrors of the Spanish Inquisition, how many thousands were 

 put to death by it in Spain. Well, the highest that any im- 

 aginative historian ever put the figures for the fiercest year 

 was about 900, and we know something about mob law and 

 lynch law ourselves ; yet here in New York State we annually 

 kill from 2,500 to 4,000 persons. The two countries compare 

 about the same in population. The Spanish put their people 

 to death in accordance with the laws of the day for what they 

 believed as a principle, probably devotion to the State and 

 Church ; we slaughter ours by railways, defective machinery, 

 automobiles, elevators, fire-traps, and a dozen preventable 

 methods — all for the purpose of greed, economy and money- 

 making — and mostly in direct violation of the laws on the 



