Even as a matter of political policy Socialism is not convincing; it could not cure the ills of society which are due to inequalities of talent, strength, wisdom and industry rather than to political policies. I am not willing to close this brief statement without adding that capitalists should take care so to deal with labor as to deprive agitators of all excuse and valid argument for Socialism, while to the working man I say: "Be wise, thrifty, virtuous and industrious so that you may improve your condition." I say with equal earnestness to the capitalist: "Stop making Socialists. Treat your laboring people like equals rather than inferiors, and as brothers, not as aliens." * * * * * =Barr, Granville Walter.= (Writer.) The accomplishment of ethics by the enactment of laws always fails, and always will fail, except in those cases where there is a strong trend of public opinion to the same end. There are places where murder is not punished, and other places where only certain forms of murder are punished; as there are places where the sale of alcoholic liquors and gambling are utterly prevented by the punishment of all who commit these acts contrary to law. Socialism is a program of law far ahead of the public opinion of today in this country. Therefore it cannot effect itself here and now. There may be in the future a time and place where it will be effective, and then its laws will be beneficent. But only under the conditions stated, will it be harmless. The greatest evil in America today is the non-enforcement of laws. Any law not enforced, because contrary to public opinion in the governmental unit involved, becomes malevolent in its effects. In one city whose people believe liquors should be sold, saloons flourish in spite of a State statute prohibiting them, because conviction of saloon keepers is impossible in that bailiwick; thirty years of this state of affairs has produced a generation of young men who firmly believe that laws are made to be enforced or disregarded at will--who are germinating the seeds of anarchy. To enact a mass of law which cannot be enforced until the millennium is nearer its dawn, is to weaken all law. Hence, Socialism as a political factor is malevolent--as a propaganda, it is of course beneficent and to be encouraged academically, exactly as one should encourage the growth of Methodism or Presbyterianism while keeping them both out of political matters. Socialism seems determined to intrude into politics--is essentially political, indeed--and its most active writers sneer at the American constitution and institutions while they have nothing practicable to substitute except the Golden Rule--which excellent rule of action never has been enforced upon any nation, nor any large group of people, and which cannot be enforced soon. When it can be enforced, Socialism will have arrived. In the meantime, human nature must be made over--God speed the day!