Socialism and American ideals | Page 7

change
only on account of the impetus the former democratic government had
given. That the policy of individual responsibility and judgment, which
had always been the professed aim of American government in the past,
had produced leadership and popular experience by the process of
natural selection, and that this leadership would last only until the time
that the deadening influence of Socialism had its true effect.
Let us consider for a moment the result of Socialism as a permanent
policy. It means the substitution, as already shown, of government or
official judgment and initiative for that of the individual. The whole
process would be one to deaden and atrophy the powers of the people
in general, with the result that there would follow a leveling down to a
plane of mediocrity rather than a leveling up according to individual
capacities and ambitions, exercised through equality of opportunity.

It should not be forgotten that the varying degrees of success in the
different walks of life finally have caused so-called social differences.
These differences result from the attempt on the part of mankind to
meet "the inequality of men in their capacity for the work with which
they are confronted in this life," said the New York Journal of
Commerce, with great acuteness, in a recent editorial discussion of the
phase of the question.[6] It continued by saying,--
"What we must strive for is intelligent understanding and sound
reasoning on the question of rights, and a just application of principles
for the common benefit. Everything should be done to develop and
train intelligence and increase the capacity of the people for their
various tasks and duties, and they should be stimulated by the rewards
to which they are fairly entitled in the results; but that cannot be made
to mean that they are all equal in contributing to results and entitled to
equality in the returns. Nothing could be more inconsistent with a
sound democracy than the distribution of the material results of
productive activity applied to the resources of nature, regardless of the
merits or just claims of those engaged in the work. To apply that
so-called principle of equality of rights without regard to the part taken
in producing results, would deaden the energies applied in achieving
them, and greatly reduce the product. It would prevent material
prosperity and defeat national progress."
In a Socialistic State, inevitably there would be formed a bureaucracy
of selfish office holders. Although, owing to the impetus of our
previous free Democracy, the first Socialist officials might be men of
ability who had gained their places through successful experience, yet a
close corporation of officials would follow them and retain the exercise
of power. The people gradually would sink to a level of servile
conformity.
We have a perfect illustration of this in the Germany of the past forty
years. There is a good reason for the fact that Germany, in the hands of
a selfish and conscienceless autocracy, made more successful use of
practical Socialism than any other nation in history and even carried
efficiency itself to a point of great success. Her close corporation of

bureaucratic officials, playing upon the remains of feudal and
aristocratic loyalty among the people that have survived the darkness of
past centuries as nowhere else among civilized nations, successfully
carried through Socialism in many practical ways, just as Morris
Hillquit and his un-American followers probably would have
succeeded in doing in New York for a short time. But the inevitable
followed. The German people have been reduced to a very low level of
political ability.
The German is one of the poorest politicians in the world, as every
student of political science knows. His lack of ability to run a
government on constitutional principles has been found in the inane
vaporings and factional maneuvering of the Reichstag, the supposedly
"popular" House of the Parliament, which was merely a machine to
register the will of the aristocratic autocracy. The individual citizen is
the most servile and unthinking person in any civilized country of the
world to-day. He has been trained to political incapacity.
What has the success of German Socialism amounted to? We find that
Germany, from the political standpoint, is nothing but an organized
machine without soul. Professor Ely, in taking the Moral side of the
matter into consideration, well says that "it may be added that truth, an
attribute of the gentleman, is less valued in Germany than in English
speaking countries. As long ago as 1874 Professor James Morgan Hart
in his book German Universities called attention to this weakness in the
German character. A German mother will say to her child, 'O, you little
liar,' and does not imply serious reprobation thereby, and Professor
Hart said that if you called a German student a liar, he might