World War, 1914-1918 -- Atrocities; World War, 1914-1918 -- Hospitals; World War, 1914-1918 -- Personal narratives
No apter illustration of how little we have tackled our job can be
found than in American Socialism. There is no American Socialism.
Orthodox socialism in America is dead doctrine, brought across by
German and Russian revolutionaries, reacting on their peculiar
environment, and then exhumed in a new country. Meanwhile a great
vital movement toward democratic control goes on in Europe, in Trades
Unionism, Coöperation and municipal and State ownership. Our socialist
locals repeat formulæ which Shaw, the Webbs, Rowntree, Wallas, Kautsky,
Vandervelde and Hervé outgrew a generation ago. It is here I hold
that the old American stock can do a service in interpreting American
conditions to our recent arrivals.
But if we continue to leave the door open we shall continue to be
swamped, and we shall employ our little hasty ready-made devices for
turning peasants with a thousand years of inherited characteristics
into citizens. We shatter them against our environment, and then are
astonished that their thwarted instincts, trained to another world,
revenge themselves in political corruption, abnormal vices, and
murderous "gunman" activities. Psychologists like Ross warn us in vain.
These overlapping hordes of "aliens" destroy the economic basis on
which alone free institutions can be reared. People, to whom we cannot
afford to pay a living wage, or for whom we do not care to arrange a
living wage, will not help us in creating free institutions. Instead,
they are manipulated by the industrial oligarchy into a force for
breaking down the standard of living of all workers. A resolute
restriction of immigration is not a discrimination against any race. It
is the first step toward unlocking the capacities of the races already
among us. The reason for stopping immigration, then, is economic.
It rests in the fact that our wage-scale and standard of living are
being shot to pieces by the newcomers. As the result our existent
institutions are not developing in liberal directions, and we are
failing to create new free institutions. It requires a somewhat stable
population, and a fairly uniform economic basis to create a Coöperative
movement, like that in Ireland, or a Trade Union movement, like that in
Australia.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account