It seems to me that the cry against capital is not well taken. Turn
ten thousand anti-capitalists into a new undeveloped country and let
them develop it! The first thing they will require is capital. And
after a while if a few of the more energetic ones begin to do things
it will be because they have accumulated a little capital. However, I
can understand that this capital might be held co-operatively by the
laborers as it is in some institutions, rather than by a few. But the
present conditions which get a monopoly of franchise on public
utilities or a monopoly of natural wealth of the country, whether of
mines or forests or water power, is all wrong. We need more of public
ownership, less of larger corporations fattening their stockholders by
squeezing the prices to the highest limit and wages to the lowest
limit.
* * * * *
=Kelly, Robert Lincoln.= (President, Earlham College.)
I feel that the tendency in our country is toward a more Socialistic
form of government and with this movement I am in entire sympathy.
This means, however, that these tendencies will be incorporated in our
government by the process of evolution and not by that of revolution.
In other words, that we will hammer these questions out one at a time
and adopt them only as they are proven to be practicable in every-day
experience. Since Socialism presumably stands for an extensive program
which is to be adopted in toto and without due deliberation and
tentative experience I cannot become a member of that party. Let those
who wish to advocate the cause in this wholesale way, have every
possible opportunity of doing so, but recognize that as a matter of
fact, forms of government and even public opinion are changed very
slowly with the process of the sun.
* * * * *
=Ladd, George Trumbull.= (University Professor.)
I believe in the spiritual unity of the race, and in the duty of
nations and individuals to treat each other like brothers, and sons of
a common father. I detest all class hatred and all arrangements,
political and social, for securing and promoting class interests at
the expense of the public welfare. I am the enemy of all systems of
"bossism," or monopoly, or control by other than natural laws and
moral principles, of the opportunities of the individual to labor, to
enjoy the fruits of labor, and to develop himself and help others.
Thus far I am a Socialist.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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