The Republic of the Future; or, Socialism a RealityDodd, Anna Bowman
Science
The Republic of the Future; or, Socialism a Reality
Dodd, Anna Bowman
Utopias
since it was the enormous accumulation of fortunes in a few hands and
the supposed tyranny of capital which wrought to a frenzy the envy
and anger of the foreign poorer classes, then under the sway of the
anarchist revolutionists.
After the American statesmen had made peace between the conquering
but quarrelsome anarchists, these latter set about organizing the new
society. Anarchy itself, although the principles for which it had
fought and conquered now prevailed, it was found, must subordinate
itself to some form or order before it could hope to enforce order upon
others.
The Anarchist’s war-cry had been, as you remember--Away with private
property! away with all authority! away with the State! away with all
political machinery! But now the leaders discovered that a belief
in the reign of anarchy was one thing, and its practice was quite
another. For a time, as you know, there was a terrible period of
disorder, during which the grossest excesses were practiced under
the name of “Perfect Individualism,” “a common property, common
freedom, common distribution for all.” After a few years of the wildest
indulgence, rapacity, crime, and cruelty--for, of course, there being
no government, there could be neither restraints imposed nor crimes
punished--the people themselves at last began to cry aloud for some
form of government which should include at least order and decency.
The Socialists’ doctrines were then decided upon as being more in
conformity with the demands of the people and with the necessities of
organizing a state than were the formless theories of the anarchists.
The leaders among the people, as has been done so many times before
in the history of the world, began again the making of new laws, for
the establishment of an ideal government and the forming of a new
constitution which was to insure perfect and complete happiness to the
individual and the race.
For over a hundred and fifty years, now, this ideal socialistic society
had existed, and what are the results? No people ever assuredly had
a more wonderful chance at constructing a society on an ideal basis
than had these socialists. Think of it! An entire continent at their
disposal, their enemies or opponents all killed or in exile and they
themselves united in desire and in political interest. Well, if some
of the ineradicable, indestructible principles in human nature could
be changed as easily as laws are made and unmade, the chances for an
ideal realization of the happiness of mankind would be the more easily
attained. But the Socialists committed the grave error of omitting
to count some of these determining human laws into the sum of their
calculations.
Time and paper are, however, finite, and also, presumably, your
patience. I will postpone until my next the few remaining conclusions
to which a brief study of this people and their government have led
Your faithful
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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