Lightner, Ezra Wilberforce. (Journalist)
Some of the most profound of thinkers, some of the grandest of men and women, have written in regard to Socialism; some on the one side and some on the other. If in the mind of the majority of the most earnest and thoughtful and reasoning men and women the majority shall one day say that what is called Socialism is a stride in the process of slow evolution which has brought us to the measure of civilization now recognized, then whether or not we are yet living when that time comes, we must accept that condition as one of the processes of evolution and try the experiment.
I don't believe that at this time anybody can say clearly whether he or she is a Socialist except in vague theory. There are too many bases for doubt, as there are in regard to the finality of the political systems in active operation today. One thing that can't be doubted is that from the date of the Republic of Plato, the Utopia of Moore, the writing of Jean Jacques Rousseau, the "Voyage of Icaria" of Etienne Capet, the essays of Proudhon, St. Simon, Fourier, "Das Kapital" of Karl Marx, the tremendous labor of Liebknecht, Bebel, Lassalle, Singer, William Morris, the English artist, poet and philosopher, John Ruskin, and a host of others, the increase in numbers of the supporters of the Socialist ideal has been one of the most remarkable of economical evangels.
Yet with all this I think that a long process of educational work would be necessary to prepare mankind for the experiment, if it be possible to make it a success. William Morris, before he had declared outright for Socialism, wrote his "Earthly Paradise:"
"Dreamer of dreams, born out of my due time.
Why should I strive to set the crooked straight?"
Every thoughtful person recognizes the crooked, even though he may himself be a crook: and even many of the crooks, and certainly all the rest of us, desire with our might to make the crooked straight and to have an "Earthly Paradise," and to hope that "At last, far off, some good will come to all." We are groping, and to grope earnestly and vigorously is to find. We shall find; we must find; or chaos will come again. It must not be the invention of mere dreamers, however. In this age it is the practical business man who builds for permanency.