Gaines, Clement Carrington. (President Eastman College.)
I am opposed to Socialism because I believe that Socialism is an impracticable form of governmental administration, and therefore must, if it should ever come to power, fail as a system of government. In support of this view I suggest the following considerations:
First: A free democratic government, a government by the people in any form, must necessarily be controlled by parties.
Second: Parties are held together by the interests of the organization. These interests in the end are opposed to the interests of the people in that any party must support itself by what its organizers and promoters can get out of the people, which is another way of saying that every party is held together by the cohesion of public plunder, the private interests of its organizers. That policy is always most popular with the party in power which promises most profit to its leaders. The leaders are controlled by the policy which seems to serve their interests best, and not by the principles of righteousness or altruism.
Third: Hence in the administration of Government by a party the success and policy of the party must dominate its action rather than the interests of the people whom the party would govern, because this success is the thing most necessary to the continuance of the party in power. The effort to succeed leads to corruption notwithstanding the apparent purity of its principles or promises of its platform.
Conclusion: Since the three principles enunciated seem to be the fundamental law of party government, and since the principles of Socialism are in contravention of this fundamental law, it is believed that Socialism cannot permanently succeed as a method of party government. It is further believed that the principles of Socialism are in contravention of the natural law that no creature may advance in any direction except by the law of competition of all its vital forces, principles, and powers. Mr. Darwin calls this "the law of natural selection and survival of the fittest," and says conclusively that this natural law governs and directs the development and progress of the material world, and that it applies with equal force to man's nature, and to his progress as a member of the moral, social, industrial, and political world.
Leckie, A.S. (Editor, The Joliet Herald, Joliet, Ill.)
We may oppose or improve human legislative enactments, but not natural laws. Socialism, in its logical perfection, would attempt this.