Baldwin, E.F. (Editor, Star, Peoria, Ill.)
Socialism is a beautiful dream, but when we wake up, we still have to scratch for a living. Under Socialism, one man is as good as another, and generally a good deal better. Poverty is a crime. Therefore, every poor man ought to be in jail. Socialism is a panacea for all the present ills. The trouble is, nobody wants to apply it. Under the present system, it is every man for himself, and the devil take the hindmost. Under Socialism every man is hindmost. Every honest man now is a Socialist. The trouble is, there are no honest men. I never knew but one honest Socialist editor, and he has just committed suicide.
Baxter, James Phinney. (Author and Ex-Mayor, Portland, Me.)
Socialism is subject to several definitions. There is a Christian Socialism which embodies the spirit of the second precept: "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself." It is patient and long-suffering; wise in its efforts of helping men to advance by righteous ways to the stature of true manhood.
Towne, Elizabeth. (Editor and Author.)
I am in favor of the Socialist ideal, because it aims to take care of all the people, affording equal opportunity for everybody to develop, laying no extra burdens on any one person or class of persons. I believe the Socialist ideal to be the ripened fruit which the world is to bring forth.
But I do not believe in the Socialist practice of forcing the ripening of that fruit. In other words, I do not believe the world is ready to do away with capitalism. And I do not believe in the inopportunism of Socialists. I do not believe in tearing off the husks of capitalism before human intelligence is ripe for expression on the higher plane. As long as Socialists hold aloof, and will not co-operate with capitalism they show themselves unfit to co-operate with all the people in the world in the making of an ideal government without capitalism. The Socialists missed the chance of a life-time, yes, of a hundred years, when they did not lead and nominate Theodore Roosevelt and Hiram Johnson on their own ticket, instead of putting up two men whom they know it is impossible to elect this year, thus weakening the strength of Roosevelt, who is trying to put into practice a whole lot of the Socialist program, which the Socialists accused him of stealing from them. As if the Socialists themselves did not steal every one of those ideas from somebody else! Why, Confucius ran a Socialist government five hundred years before Christ. I am opposed to the Socialist practice of hypnotising itself with the working class consciousness, in opposition to all other classes. Because of Socialist inopportunism others will have to do the practical work of putting into practice the Socialist ideal. Theodore Roosevelt has done and is doing more to bring Socialism into practice than any other one man in the world today.