The Red Conspiracy

by Joseph J. Mereto

A further source of tremendous discontent in the Socialist state would be the prevalence^[14] of political corruption to a far greater extent than under the present system. For there would be a far greater throng of state employes than now, and there would be an immense number of people trying to get permissions, privileges and exemptions of every description. With human nature unchanged, but with the opportunities for deals and bribery greatly multiplied, political corruption would greatly increase.

Another important cause would be in operation. Socialism is spreading anti-religious and atheistic doctrines, loosing men and women from their moral restraints. With dishonesty thus increasing, acceptors of bribes would not only be more common in the Marxian state, but the average number of their offences would increase; for since opportunities of collecting large single sums would be rarer than at present, owing to abolition of the capitalist system and the small amount of wealth possessed by individuals, dishonest politicians would naturally endeavor to enrich themselves by granting corrupt favors to a larger number of people. The reader himself can picture the condition of affairs in the Socialist state when large numbers of its citizens were its declared enemies because of a vast and hopeless system of political corruption.

The Socialist state would contain many persons who by soapbox orators and revolutionary authors were led to believe that police, soldiers and courts would disappear. These persons would be greatly discontented when the Socialist government still hedged them in by retaining the old system for the preservation of law and order, or, as in Russia, greatly increased the restraint on their liberty by means of immense numbers of Red Guards, heavily armed and noted for cruelty. Or if these were taken away, the state would feel the enmity of all its better citizens who realized the need for guardians, police, soldiers and courts, to protect them from the crimes of the lawless.

Under the Socialist regime there would be atheists, fighting as in Russia, Mexico, France, Italy and Portugal for the propagation of their doctrines, while in opposition to them would be millions of believers, defending themselves from the attacks of the enemies of God. Any concession granted by the state to one of these parties would arouse the enmity of the other.

So, too, there would be a rapidly growing faction in favor of free-love, as well as one opposed to it, and as each party would be extremely powerful, and use every effort to defeat its opponents, there would be great strife and discontent.

The Socialists in power in Europe, whether "moderate" or extremely radical, have made millions of enemies by imprisonments, executions, suppression of free speech, the gagging of the press, the withholding food, etc. Would these things happen in our country if the Reds gained control?

There is every reason to believe that the Socialist Government would become exceedingly unpopular here as in Russia, owing to a great increase in crime; for to say nothing of the criminal offences occasioned by the prevalent discontent of the citizens, the atheistical and anti-religious doctrines of the Revolutionists, by continuing to undermine the faith of the people in the existence of God and by leading them to disbelieve in the rewards of heaven and the punishments of hell, would very seriously interfere with the beneficent effects of several of the most excellent preventives of crime.

With discontent, jealousy and crime reigning supreme in the state from its very birth, many who had hoped for the success of Socialism would become utterly disgusted with its absolute failure and would long for the re-establishment of the old order. As the leaders of the Marxian movement now make the most extravagant promises concerning perfections of their prospective state, their government, should it come, would suffer the hatred of all who discovered that they had been cruelly deceived.

We must remember, too, that the very persons who would discover that they had been deceived by their Socialist teachers would be the very same people who are now taught by the same teachers to find fault with everything under the sun. It would, therefore, be a terrible day for the new state when the embittered rank and file of the Revolutionary Party fully realized the total failure of Socialism. The Socialist state would then have millions of enemies, recruited from the Socialist Party itself, as well as from the ranks of those who had always opposed Socialism.

Not alone would these enemies be far more numerous than those who oppose our present form of government, but their wrath and anger, wrought to fever heat by the many causes we have enumerated, as well as by the mistakes of the Marxian rulers, would urge them to commit deeds of violence that have never yet been conceived even by the "bomb squad" of the revolutionary I. W. W. Rebellion against the new government would be the order of the day, and the Socialist state would not long endure. It would crumble to pieces, and the poor workingman, in the midst of anarchy and the total destruction of industry, would deeply regret having listened to the crazed imaginations of silver-tongued fanatics.