Socialism, to my mind, means the overthrow of all the advancements of
the past one hundred years or more. The man of brains and energy would
stand but little show or encouragement under a government controlled
by Socialism or Socialistic ideas. I believe that, the man who is
capable of making his way in this world, is smart and energetic enough
to build up a business and with it a fortune, is entitled to all he
can possess through honest efforts. I do not believe in government
ownership of public utilities, but I do believe in a controlling power
of the government to in some way supervise these corporations so they
will be obliged to keep in the path of honesty in all their
transactions with the public. Individual freedom is the watchword of
our great country. When we lose that, we lose ourselves.
* * * * *
=Scheffauer, Herman.= (Author.)
I am opposed to theoretical Socialism wherever it threatens to
interfere with the full and unhampered development of the individual
or to lower his worth. Being a mass philosophy, Socialism must
logically strive to sacrifice the individual to that mass. I hold that
it is only through the channels of a free, noble, self-restrained
individualism that man may naturally attain to his supreme development
in happiness, culture and power.
Theoretical Socialism is a splendid fallacy that shines like a truth
when contemplated beneath the skies of the future already reddened by
the sanguine color of the creed. But it is a fallacy based upon
another fallacy, that of the virtue in the sovereign mass or
democracy, which in turn is based upon certain fallacies of
Christianity.
These systems of the multitude amount to mob rule, and will never
evolve the highest type of men--the intellectual and moral samurai of
whom H.C. Wells has written, the rulers by nature, training and
fitness, the men who, in Nietzsche's phrase, are to surpass men.
In practical matters Socialism may be said to be already operative,
and largely operative for good. It is correcting many ancient evils
and bringing a certain degree of order and balance into the world.
That is its chief value--an industrial and economic one. It is a means
and not an end. For in the last analysis of human things it will be
undone by that iron fiat which decrees that every man must be an end
in himself and unto himself.
* * * * *
=Gaines, Clement Carrington.= (President Eastman College.)
I am opposed to Socialism because I believe that Socialism is an
impracticable form of governmental administration, and therefore must,
if it should ever come to power, fail as a system of government. In
support of this view I suggest the following considerations:
First: A free democratic government, a government by the people in any
form, must necessarily be controlled by parties.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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