Socialism? Not Without a Fight by George B Hugo 1909

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Socialism? Not Without a Fight by George B Hugo 1909

I have always been told that when you put up a practical proposition to a Socialist, you can't find him! I knew he would not answer those questions because they were unanswerable. He says to us: "Oh, come along. Let's jump overboard, and, when we strike the water, we will discuss the question of swimming."

Well, I don't want to lose sight of our subject, "The Creed of Despair." I made the assertion that Socialism was the creed of despair, and I will give you its history, how and why I came to that conclusion. While in New York some time ago, I walked down Broadway in the evening. When I reached 39th Street, I was attracted by a Socialist speaking on the street corner. I stopped, became interested, and listened for two hours, profoundly impressed with the fervor, intensity, and sincerity of this speaker, and two others who followed him. My mind was open. I wanted to know and analyze their statements; in other words, to get at the root of their theory, if it had any root.

The first two speakers pointed out the many inequalities of modern life, dwelt upon the unequal distribution of wealth, showed the misery, poverty, and crime in the world, holding the capitalistic system which recognized individual ownership of property responsible for it all. In a word, civilization was a failure! Closing their harangues with appeals to the surrounding crowd to vote for the Socialist candidate for office. They saw effects, and diagnosed the cause to be the capitalistic system. It remained for the third speaker to tell just how they were going to rid themselves of capitalism and bring about the era of the Brotherhood of Man. I quote from memory, but I was so astounded by the remarks that they remained indelibly impressed upon my mind. He said: "You men walking down Broadway believe that you are free men, a clever lot of men, but you are not. You are nothing but a lot of wage slaves!" "Look about you. See the automobiles whizzing by while YOU walk!" "See the magnificent buildings with which we are surrounded, while most of You live in Hovels!" "Who created all this wealth? You! You created it, and all you need to do is to take it."

I had waited two hours to learn the method of procedure, and now felt rewarded for the time I had spent. "The way to do it," he continued, "is not to start a riot or to attempt to take it by force, for, if you do, the police will pounce upon you and club you into submission, or the troops will be called out, you will be shot down like so many rats, and they will probably hang me. Now that's not the way. The way to do it is to elect the Socialist candidates to office, and take by law the property which belongs by right to you! He went on, and said, "This sounds revolutionary," just as our friend Carey did. "But did Abraham Lincoln hesitate to sign the Emancipation Proclamation? Did he not take property by the stroke of the pen? Will any one deny that this was not a legitimate confiscation of property? Now, all you need to do to get your property is to vote the Socialist ticket, and we will do the same thing!" 

Here was a plausible plan, a definite statement of just how Socialism was to be put into operation; in other words, lawful confiscation of private property, robbery by the ballot! After showing how easily this could be done without violence, without disorder, he answered his own next question, "Why don't you vote the Socialist ticket?" by saying, "I will tell you why, because down deep in your hearts there is the lingering hope that some day you will have some of these wage slaves working for YOU!" "But, when the time comes that all hope is gone of having wage slaves under your domination, then you will become Socialists!" In other words, when man acknowledges to himself that he is a failure, when hope is dead, when despair sets in, then socialism holds out its hands and cries, "Accept our creed, the creed of despair!" 

But this speaker failed to point out that the emancipation of the black slave, just as it was, involved our nation in Civil War, at a cost of blood and treasure unequalled in modern times.

Do you, as Socialists, for one moment believe that the unjust taking or confiscating of property, by the simple act of a stroke of the pen, will be accepted peaceably by the individuals who now own property? If you do, undeceive yourselves. You may build your air castles, go into emotional ecstasies over visionary ideals, dream Utopian dreams to your heart's content, but remember that when you attempt to actually take property by the process of collective robbery, individualism will rise in self-defence, and, if need be, crush you! Individual freedom and the private ownership of property will not be superseded by slavery and the collective ownership of property without a struggle. Civilization may tremble in the balance, the struggle may be intense, but the oak of individualism is too deeply rooted in the soil of freedom to be destroyed by all the collective underbrush in the forest of humanity.

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