The truth about socialism

by Allan L. Benson

The same facts apply to all other necessities of life. The nation needs bread. Some are starving for it all the while. Yet what is simpler than the furnishing of bread? We know how to grow wheat. With the scientific knowledge that the government could devote to wheat growing, combined with the improved machinery that a rich government could bring to bear upon the problem, the wheat-production of the country could easily be multiplied by four. Little Holland and little Belgium, with no better soil than our own, raise almost four times as much wheat to the acre as we do. And, with wheat once grown, nothing is more simple than to make it into flour. Probably we already have enough milling machinery to make all the flour we need. If not, we could easily build four times as many mills. We should never be unable to build more mills until we had no unemployed men to set to work. And, if we had no unemployed men to set to work, we should have, for the first time in the history of the world, a completely happy nation.

Do you doubt any of these statements? How can you doubt them? We have the men. We have the materials. The only trouble is that they are kept apart. They are kept apart because a few men control things and will not allow men and material to come together unless that means a profit for the few men. We Socialists purpose to put them together. If they were put together, how much longer do you believe the people would have to shiver in winter for lack of woolen clothing? There is no secret about raising sheep. We have vast areas upon which we could raise more than we shall ever need. Even a concern like the Woolen Trust—the head of which was indicted for conspiring to “plant” dynamite at Lawrence to besmirch the strikers—even such a concern enables some of us to wear wool in the winter time. How many more do you believe would wear wool if the United States government were to take the place of this concern as a manufacturer of woolen goods? Do you believe anybody would be compelled to suffer from cold for lack of woolen clothing? How can you so believe? The government, if necessary, could build four woolen mills for every one that exists. The government could not fail to supply the people’s needs. And, with all goods sold at cost, prices would be so low that the people could buy.

These, and many other possibilities, are entirely within your reach. You can realize them now. Will you kindly tell when you expect to realize them by voting for the candidates of any other party except the Socialist party? No other party except the Socialist party proposes to put men and materials together. Every other party except the Socialist party proposes that a small class of men shall continue to own all of the great industrial machinery, while the rest shall continue to be robbed as the price of its use. Every other party except the Socialist party proposes that a small body of men shall continue to graft off the rest by wringing profits from them. No party except the Socialist party puts the people above profits.

Even Mr. Roosevelt and his party do not. Mr. Roosevelt stands as firmly for the principle of profits as does Mr. Morgan. Mr. Roosevelt differs from the most besotted reactionary only in his hallucination that he could appoint “strong” commissions that would successfully regulate other people’s property. Mr. Roosevelt does not seem to recognize that, so long as profits are in the capitalist system, the workers must not only be robbed of part of what they produce, but that they must be periodically denied even the right to work at any wage. Nor does he seem to realize that, if he were to reduce the profits to the point where there was not much robbery, the capitalists would no longer have any incentive for remaining in business.

With profits eliminated, or cut to the vanishing point, the capitalist system cannot stand.

With profits not eliminated or cut near the vanishing point, the people cannot stand.

Therefore, Mr. Roosevelt is trying to bring about the impossible. He is trying to prevent the people from being robbed without destroying the power of the capitalist to live by robbery. Mr. Roosevelt probably would like to decrease, somewhat, the extent to which capitalists practice robbery. But he is not willing to take away from them the power to rob.

If Mr. Roosevelt were chasing burglars instead of the Presidency, we should first laugh at him and then put a new man on the force in his place. Imagine a policeman trying to prevent burglary by “regulating” the burglars, saying to them in a hissing voice: “Now, gentlemen, this burglary must stop. We really can have no more of it. None of you must carry a ‘jimmy’ more than four feet long. Any burglar caught with more than twenty skeleton keys will be sent to prison.”

Yet that is practically what Mr. Roosevelt says to the capitalists. The “jimmy” of the capitalist is his ownership of the tools with which his employees work, but Mr. Roosevelt makes no move to take this instrument from the men who are despoiling the workers. All that Mr. Roosevelt purposes to do is to place a limit upon the amount that the capitalist can legally abstract. And he depends upon “strong” commissions to keep the ferocious capitalist in order.

We Socialists have no faith in such measures. We frankly predict their failure, precisely as twenty years ago we predicted the failure of the Sherman Anti-Trust Law. We were then known to so few of our own people that not many persons had the pleasure of calling us fools. Now, nobody wants to call us fools for that. We are now fools because we do not believe in Wilson or in Roosevelt.