Socialism and American ideals | Page 9

clean, dry, healthy and
amused, and are carefully looked after in every way. But they are still
dogs. They have no soul or any right or power of self-determination. So

recent events show beyond cavil that the German workingman, from
the standpoint of the State and Government, was in reality a political
dog. He existed only for the good of the divinely constituted State and
its God-given princely proprietors, and as such was used and sacrificed
for the imperial and national glory. The German laboring man was the
most exploited, the most servile, the most unfairly treated worker on
earth. He was given enough material comforts or even amusements
(religious, theatrical, musical or otherwise) to keep him seemingly
content, but politically he was not permitted to think--or economically
either, when taken in the broad sense of the term. Therefore those who
expect from the revolution or uprising against the Kaiser and his
military henchmen the immediate establishment of a well-ordered and
democratic republic, are reckoning without their host. People must be
experienced in self-government before they can make a success of
democracy as that term is understood in America, and experienced the
German people are not.
While the Socialists of the United States, "parlor" and otherwise,
include in their number many sincere and thoughtful, as well as
idealistic people, it is well to remember that a large part of them is
composed of individuals who have nothing, and want to divide it all
with everybody else. It is the old jealousy of the "have nots" for those
who have, which usually means the "will nots" for those who have the
ambition and will. Or if they are not of this kind, the best that can be
said of them is that they are foreigners, who are in reality not
Americans, who don't believe in democracy, but in autocracy, and
probably don't even know what democracy means. Autocracy is the
government of the many by and for the benefit of the selfish few. Real
democracy is the government by and for the many, who express their
will through their duly chosen representatives.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 6: Issue for November 12, 1918.]
[Footnote 7: _Op. cit._ p. 172.]
[Footnote 8: The War and Democracy, p. 58.]

IV
SOME INSTANCES OF ITS PRACTICAL FAILURE
I have stated my conviction, and the reasons for it, that Socialism is
essentially undemocratic and unChristian, as well as unAmerican. Yet
after all it is in the practical realm of experience that it has proved to be
most lacking and inefficient. To prove this, it is hardly necessary to
point to the classic illustrations of the utter failure of Socialism when
actually tried in France under the leadership of Louis Blanc and Albert
during the days of the Second Republic in the year 1848, or again when
tried under the form of the Commune in 1871. The horrors of the
extreme form of Socialism known as Bolshevism, as seen in the Russia
of 1918, are destined to implant a useful lesson, not soon to be
forgotten, in the minds of intelligent people throughout the entire
world.
One of the best illustrations of the failure of a practical Socialistic State
is that of the "Mayflower" settlement at Plymouth in 1620. In order to
raise the money needed for the venture the Pilgrims borrowed seven
thousand pounds from seventy London merchants. In order also to
provide a species of sinking fund it was decided to accept the
suggestion of the creditor merchants that the net earnings of the
colonists should go into a common fund for the space of seven years
and then should be divided among the shareholders. It should
especially be remembered that the Pilgrims were a set of people small
in number and as a consequence easy to govern; of a high type of
industry and integrity; and that they were united by the strongest of all
common and social interests,--that of deep religious conviction.
Furthermore, the relative positions in life of the personnel of the entire
Plymouth Colony showed a remarkable equality. Their method of
living was primitive and most simple in form, without the usual
complications of the life of even three hundred years ago, much less of
that of today. And yet this communal or Socialistic system in Plymouth
resulted in such a marked lack of interest among the inhabitants, the
whole arrangement worked so badly, that the settlement verged on

failure and destruction. The system virtually was abolished after only
three years trial in the year 1623 and good results showed themselves
immediately. "Individual effort returned with the prospect of individual
gain." The cause of the failure is evident,--the system was opposed to
the fundamental facts of human nature.
But what is "human nature"? Let us take a definition from the Socialists
themselves. "If the phrase means