The truth about socialism

by Allan L. Benson

The times again call loudly for such a man. Chattel slavery is dead, but a greater slavery has grown up in its place. Wage slavery is as much greater than chattel slavery as the white people in this country are more numerous than the black people. Poverty is widespread and the fear of poverty is all but universal. No one knows how much longer he will have employment. No one can know how much longer he will have employment. A few own all of the machinery without which we cannot be employed. These few have it in their power to say whether we shall be permitted to earn the means of life. We may want to work as much as we please, but we cannot work unless they please. They do not please to let us work unless they believe they can see a profit in so doing. That we need work means nothing to those who own the great industries of the country. Nor does the fact that the people need the things we could make. They consider only the question: “Is there profit in it?” By their answer, we eat or hunger, live or die.

Such times could not help but call for great men, even in little places. The times call for great men to take charge of municipal affairs, lest the poor shall be tortured with bad tenements and robbed of their last nickels by little grafters while greater grafters are taking their dollars. The times call for great men in state offices, in judicial positions, in Congress and in the White House. But, in response to the White House call, who answered in 1912? Mr. Roosevelt answered. Mr. Wilson answered.

Socialists do not regard either Mr. Roosevelt or Mr. Wilson as a fraudulent “radical,” in the sense that they believe either of them to be intent upon wantonly fooling the people. We regard Mr. Roosevelt as being something of a self-seeker. We regard him as the embodiment of inconsistency. We know that when he was President he never tried to do some of the things that he later promised to do if we would again make him President. We know he does not now promise to try to take away the club with which robbery is committed. He is still picking at the splinters, taking care to lay no hand upon the club itself. And, so far as concerns Mr. Wilson, we regard him as an amiable, cultured gentleman, who, meaning well, as he doubtless does, lacks the understanding without which he can not do well. We also call attention to the fact that immediately following Mr. Wilson’s nomination he began to placate the great grafters. He invited them to his home to hold counsel with him. And, in his speech of acceptance, he all but laid himself at their feet. He said nothing worth saying. He confined himself to platitudes. He swore allegiance to the “rule of right” as applied to government, without giving the slightest indication of his definition of right. Wall Street applauded him. Stocks went up. But would stocks have gone up if Wall Street had believed that, under Wilson, grafters would not be permitted to continue to rob you?

We Socialists may be extremely absurd persons, but, as we look about us, we see two or three things that should be done at once.

We believe every man should have the continuous right to work. We believe this right should be guaranteed by law. The law prohibits stealing and vagrancy. Why should not the law, therefore, guarantee the right to avoid the necessity for becoming either a thief or a vagrant?

We also believe that after a man has worked he should not be robbed. We believe if nobody were robbed, there would be in this country neither millionaires nor paupers. From the fact that there are in this country so many millionaires and so many paupers or near-paupers, we deduce that the extent of the robbery of the many by the few is appalling.

We want this stopped. We don’t demand that it be stopped a hundred years hence—we demand that it be stopped now. We are interested in our posterity, but we are also interested in ourselves. We want to enjoy life a little. This world looks good to us. We know it could be good to us. We demand that it shall be good to us. Nor are we appeased by the promise of some “radical” like Mr. Roosevelt or Mr. Wilson that if we will elect him President, he will try to make the world a little less bad for us. The promise of a 1 per cent. or a 5 per cent. reduction in robbery constitutes no blandishment. We demand a 100 per cent. reduction in robbery. We are tired of robbery. We mean to end it. We shall end it. We cannot fail, because we have a weapon with which the robbed class never before fought. We have the gigantic printing press. Our ancestors had a puny press, or none at all. We shall carry our word far. Wherever our word goes it will wake. Sooner or later, the robbed will understand. Then robbery will cease. Millions of people who understand how to stop robbery will never consent to let a few continue to rob them.

Such is our demand—a 100 per cent. reduction in robbery and the right of the individual to continuous work. Yet, so far as we know, we want no more than is wanted by every other man who is not robbing anybody. We know of no man who is willing to be denied the right to work. We know of no man who is willing to be robbed. We differ from you Republicans and Democrats only in this: You seem to be willing to take an eternity to end robbery and secure a guarantee to the right to labor. We tell you that if you take an eternity to get these rights you will never get them. We also tell you that with either Mr. Wilson, Mr. Roosevelt or any other so-called “radical” in the White House the working class will remain poverty-stricken.

These gentlemen want to make you an omelette, but they do not want to break any eggs. They are afraid to break eggs. Breaking eggs means destroying the great fundamental laws that capitalists use to rob you. Yet, how are you ever to have an omelette unless eggs are broken? How can you be helped without hurting those who are now hurting you?

Make no mistake—anything that will make it much easier for you to live by working will make it much harder for capitalists to live without working. Picking at the splinters of this poverty-problem will not do. The wrong is great; the remedy must be equally great.