Heald, G.H. (Editor, Life and Health)
I am both in favor of, and opposed to Socialism, because Socialism means very many different things. As one man said: Christian Socialism means "all mine is yours," and the other kind means, "all yours is mine."
Our present government is partially Socialistic; our public schools, our public roads, our postoffice department, and more and more of our public work is becoming socialized.
Another form of Socialism, although not political, is the co-operative bodies seen in the garden suburbs of the cities of England, and the co-operative stores, etc.
It seems to me that the cry against capital is not well taken. Turn ten thousand anti-capitalists into a new undeveloped country and let them develop it! The first thing they will require is capital. And after a while if a few of the more energetic ones begin to do things it will be because they have accumulated a little capital. However, I can understand that this capital might be held co-operatively by the laborers as it is in some institutions, rather than by a few. But the present conditions which get a monopoly of franchise on public utilities or a monopoly of natural wealth of the country, whether of mines or forests or water power, is all wrong. We need more of public ownership, less of larger corporations fattening their stockholders by squeezing the prices to the highest limit and wages to the lowest limit.
Kelly, Robert Lincoln. (President, Earlham College.)
I feel that the tendency in our country is toward a more Socialistic form of government and with this movement I am in entire sympathy. This means, however, that these tendencies will be incorporated in our government by the process of evolution and not by that of revolution. In other words, that we will hammer these questions out one at a time and adopt them only as they are proven to be practicable in every-day experience. Since Socialism presumably stands for an extensive program which is to be adopted in toto and without due deliberation and tentative experience I cannot become a member of that party. Let those who wish to advocate the cause in this wholesale way, have every possible opportunity of doing so, but recognize that as a matter of fact, forms of government and even public opinion are changed very slowly with the process of the sun.