- Because its advocates use violent speech
- Because it is "the same as Anarchism"
- Because it aims to destroy the family and the home
- Because it is opposed to religion
- Because it would do away with personal liberty
- Because it would reduce all to one dull level
- Because it would destroy the incentive to progress
- Because it is impossible unless we can change human nature.
These are all your objections, Jonathan, and I am going to try to suggest answers to them.
(1) It is true that Socialists sometimes use very violent language. Like all earnest and enthusiastic men who are possessed by a great and overwhelming sense of wrong and needless suffering, they sometimes use language that is terrible in its vehemence; their speech is sometimes full of bitter scorn and burning indignation. It is also true that their speech is sometimes rough and uncultured, shocking the sensitive ear, but I am sure you will agree with me that the working man or woman who, never having had the advantage of education and refined environment, feels the burden of the days that are or the inspiration of better days to come, is entitled to be heard. So I am not going to apologize for the rough and uncultured speech.
And I am not going to apologize for the violent speech. It would be better, of course, if all the advocates of Socialism could master the difficult art of stating their case strongly and without compromise, but without bitterness and without unnecessary offense to others. But it is not easy to measure speech in the denunciation of immeasurable wrong, and some of the greatest utterances in history have been hard, bitter, vehement words torn from agonized hearts. It is true that Socialists now and then use violent language, but no Socialist—unless he is so overwrought as to be momentarily irresponsible—advocates violence. The great urge and passion of Socialism is for the peaceful transformation of society.
I have heard a few overwrought Socialists, all of them gentle and generous comrades, incapable of doing harm to any living creature, in bursts of tempestuous indignation use language which seemed to incite their hearers to violence, but those who heard them understood that they were borne away by their feelings. I have never heard Socialists advocate violence toward any human beings in cold-blooded deliberation. But I have heard capitalists and the defenders of capitalism advocate violence toward Socialists in cold-blooded deliberation. I have seen in Socialist papers upon a few occasions violent utterances which I deplored, but never such advocacy of violence as I have read in newspapers opposed to Socialism. Here, for example, are some extracts from an editorial which appeared January, 1908, in the columns of the Gossip, of Goldfield, Nevada:
"A cheaper and more satisfactory method of dealing with this labor trouble in Goldfield last spring would have been to have taken half a dozen of the Socialist leaders in the Miners' Union and hanged them all to telegraph poles.
"SPEAKING DISPASSIONATELY, AND WITHOUT ANIMUS, it seems clear to us after many months of reflection, that YOU COULDN'T MAKE A MISTAKE IN HANGING A SOCIALIST.
"HE IS ALWAYS BETTER DEAD.
"He, breathing peace, breathing order, breathing goodwill, fairness to all and moderation, is always the man with the dynamite. He is the trouble-maker, and the trouble-breeder.
"To fully appreciate him you must live where he abounds.