Socialism and American ideals | Page 3

judgment,
and for individual emulation and competition in all forms of human

endeavor. Dr. David Jayne Hill recently has remarked that "if the
tendency to monopolize and direct for its own purposes all human
energies in channels of its own [i.e., the government's] devising were
unrestrained, we should eventually have an official art, an official
science and an official literature that would be like iron shackles to the
human mind."[2] The Socialist probably would object that this
statement is extreme, but at least it is logical, and if Socialism be
reasonable it must be logical, and it must be both reasonable and
logical if it is to be popularly accepted.
The above might be stated in another way by saying that Socialism
means the substitution of governmental judgment for that of the
individual and for individual ambition as well. This is one of the
strongest arguments against Socialism. Individual ambition is not only
justifiable but also an absolute necessity for the integrity and growth of
the human mind. Like everything else, ambition may be wrongly used
or directed. It only goes to prove that the greater the value of anything
the greater is the wrong when it is abused and not rightly used. In fact,
proper ambition is the desire for greater opportunity for service
according to the dictates of individual conscience and it lies at the basis
of all religion and morality. Without ambition the individual mind goes
to seed, so to speak,--there is no further growth or progress. This desire
for greater service is the thing that produces patriotism, that causes men
and women to work at the expense of personal interest for Liberty
Loans, the Red Cross, Y.M.C.A., etc.
Professor Richard T. Ely well expresses the same thought by
saying--"When we all come to make real genuine sacrifices for our
country, sacrifices of which we are conscious, then we shall first begin
to have the right kind of loyal love for our country. We shall never get
that kind of love merely by pouring untold benefits upon the
citizens."[3] Also, Edward Jenks, the brilliant British historian, says
that--"A society which discourages individual competition, which only
acts indirectly upon the bulk of its members, which refuses to recruit its
ranks with new blood, contains within itself the seeds of decay."[4]
The attempt by Socialism to substitute a governmental standard of

happiness for individual desire and ambition is merely another attempt
to legislate human mind and character. A government cannot make a
man happy by law any more than it can make him moral or religious by
the same means. All that law can do is to endeavor to place a man in
such an environment that his moral or religious nature may be aroused
and that his desire or ambition be encouraged. It was the inability to
understand and realize this fact that caused the religious persecutions of
past centuries when Catholics persecuted Protestants and Protestants
persecuted Catholics, and both persecuted the Jews, and everybody
thought that it was possible to legislate a man's belief and enforce it by
the sanction of the law. Happiness, like religion, must have its impulse
from within.
Furthermore, it is along this identical line of reasoning that Socialism is
essentially un-American. The primary object of the government of the
United States, the whole theory upon which our nation was formed, is
not to give happiness to the individual. The Fathers of our country were
too wise to attempt any such ridiculous undertaking. The ideal or object
of the United States is to give equality of opportunity for each
individual to work out his or her own salvation in a political, a moral or
an economic sense. In other words, to give equality of opportunity for
each individual to work out or achieve his or her own happiness. That
is the only possible way in which happiness can be gained. For this
reason the American people believe in public schools and child labor
laws and other forms of social, not Socialistic, legislation, in order to
help less fortunate individuals to help themselves, and not to help them
in spite of themselves. The former plan is in accordance with the needs
of human nature and with American ideas and ideals; the latter is the
essential basis of Socialism and inevitably pauperizes and atrophies
human character.
There is as much difference between social legislation and Socialism as
there is between the common-sense advancement of the ideas of peace
and the selfish or cowardly brand of treason that is known as pacifism.
In both Socialism and pacifism the essential idea is that the individual
should mentally "lie down" and "let George do it." In contrast with this,
the common sense way to gain peace is actively to restrain wrong in

order that right may triumph. The United States recently