Socialists, as a party, stand for violence only in the same way that Abraham Lincoln stood for it. If the Socialists should carry a national election in this country, and, the capitalists, refusing to yield, should turn the regular army at them, the Socialists would use all the violence they could muster. While they are in a minority, they are obeying the laws that the capitalists make, but when the Socialists become a majority, they will insist, even with bullets, that the capitalists obey the laws that the Socialists make.
CHAPTER III
THE VIRTUOUS GRAFTERS AND THEIR GRAVE OBJECTIONS TO SOCIALISM
It is an old saying that the tree that bears the best apples has the most clubs under it. Enough clubs are under the tree of Socialism to stock a wood-yard. Some of the clubs bear the imprints of honest men. Some do not. The great grafters of the present day are the most persistent foes of Socialism. The great grafters say, not only that Socialism is anti-religious, but that it would destroy the family. The grafters also say that Socialism stands for free love.
It may be amusing to hear a grafter oppose Socialism on the ground that it is against religion. It may be diverting to hear gentlemen with Reno reputations charge that Socialism would establish free love and thus destroy the family. But such charges cannot be dismissed by laughing at those who make them. Honest men and women want to know the truth.
The truth is that there is no truth in the charge that Socialism is against religion. Socialism is purely an economic matter. It has no more to do with religion than it has to do with astronomy. It is no more against religion than it is against astronomy. Men of all religious denominations are Socialists, and men of no religious denomination are Socialists. Nor is there any reason why this should not be so. The very pith and marrow of Socialism is the contention that the people, through the government, should own and operate, for their exclusive benefit, the great machinery of production and distribution that is now owned and operated by the trusts. Either this contention is sound or it is not. Whether it is sound or not, a man’s religious beliefs cannot possibly have anything to do with what he thinks of it.
But while Socialism is in no sense anti-religious, it is in one sense pro-religious. So good an authority as the Encyclopedia Britannica declares that “the ethics of Socialism and the ethics of Christianity are identical.” One of the concerns of Christianity is to establish justice upon earth. The only concern of Socialism is to establish justice upon earth. Socialism seeks to establish justice by giving each human being an equal opportunity to labor, while depriving each human being of the power to appropriate any part of the product of another human being’s labor. If the Socialist program contains a word of comfort for either grafters or loafers, neither the grafters nor the loafers have found it.
Nor does the Socialist program contain a word of comfort for the Reno gentlemen. Socialists beg leave frankly to doubt the sincerity of certain wealthy men who profess to believe that Socialism would destroy the family by bringing about free love. Socialists say the best proof that these men believe nothing of the kind is that they do not make application to join the Socialist party. The wives of some of them certainly make enough applications for divorce.
Addressing themselves to the members of the capitalist class, Socialists therefore speak as follows:
“If the preservation of the family depends upon you, God help the family. If the preservation of womanly women depends upon you, God help the women. You are not all bad, but you are all doing bad. Some of you are doing bad without knowing it; some of you are doing bad though knowing it. But, whether you know it or not, all of you are doing bad because your capitalist system is bad. Your system makes those of you who would do good do bad. It makes you fatten upon the labor of children, because your competitors are fattening upon the labor of children. It makes you fatten upon the labor of women, because your competitors are fattening upon the labor of women. It makes you fatten upon the labor of men because your competitors are fattening upon the labor of men. It makes you keep men, women and children poor, because in no other way could you become rich.
“And you are the ones who are so fearful lest Socialism shall destroy the home. Why do you not worry a little lest the poverty caused by capitalism shall destroy the home? Why are you so slightly stirred by the spectacle of little children torn from their firesides and their schools to work for starvation wages in factories and department stores? Why are you so well able to control your grief when the census reports tell you that more than 5,000,000 women and girls have been compelled to become wage earners because their husbands and fathers receive so little wages that they cannot support their families? Why are you so well able to bear up when the white-slave dealer gets the little girl from the department store?