I could criticise the Socialist platform in many other respects, especially the tone of violence and hatred that pervades it. There is not a suggestion of Christianity about it. I shall conclude, however, by stating my own experience of local government under the Socialist Party. Being in ill health last winter, I stayed at Bordighera in Italy. The Socialists controlled the town government, and were anxious to continue in office, and therefore not to offend the rank and file of their party. The drunkenness and noise at night were often intolerable, but all protests were useless, as the drinkers and shouters had votes, and the foreign visitors had none. Gambling was carried on as openly as at Monte Carlo, without any regard to the well-being of the community. After this slight experience, I was able to understand better what took place under the Socialist commune of Paris in 1871, which I am old enough to remember well. * * * * * =Wilson, Alonzo Edes.= (Editor and Lecturer.) There are many good things about the theory of Socialism, but I do not believe in the remedy as proposed through the Socialist Party. The battle can never be won that way. I also believe that our hardest fight and the first thing to be done is the killing of our greatest common enemy, the liquor traffic and the business of drunkard making, by the Government. The settlement of this problem will solve many of our ills and then we can take up some of these other questions. * * * * * =Russell, Isaac Franklin, LL., D.C.L.= (Chief Justice of the Court of Special Sessions of the City of New York.) I am opposed to Socialism because of its erroneous attitude to labor. Labor is not a thing to be avoided, but rather to be welcomed and encouraged. The only real happiness we ever experience in this world is the intelligent exercise of our faculties. A perpetual motion machine or some fanciful device for saving us from labor, so far from being a blessing, would paralyze our noblest powers. I charge Socialism with economic error and heresy for its attacks on capital and capitalists. Capital is indispensable to enterprise. It is the source and mainspring of wages. The laborer cannot pay himself his wages out of the finished product of his toil, else he would have no quarrel with his master. Even public credit, on which we are building the Panama Canal and our city schools, rests on visible resources in lands, franchises and personal property. I charge Socialism with economic error in advocating a rate of wages determined by arbitrary authority, irrespective of demand and supply. No producer of merchandise for any appreciable length of time can continue to pay more than the market rate of wages and keep out of bankruptcy.