=Mencken, Henry Louis.= (Author of "The Philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche," editor of The Players' Ibsen, part-author with Robert Rives LaMonte of "Men vs. the Man." Member of the editorial staff of the Baltimore Evening Sun.) I am opposed to Socialism because, in general, it means a vain and costly attack upon the immutable natural law that the strong shall have advantage over the weak. I do not defend that law as perfect, nor do I even maintain that it is just. If I had the world to make over I should probably try to find something to take its place, something measurably less wasteful and cruel. But the world is as it is and the law is as it is. Say what you will against it, you must at least admit that it works, that it tends to destroy the botched and useless, that it places a premium upon enterprise and courage, that it makes for health and strength, that it is the most powerful of all agents of human progress. Would brotherhood, supposing it to be achieved, do as well? I doubt it. Brotherhood would help the soft man, the clinging man, the stupid man. But would it help the alert and resourceful man? Answer for yourself. Isn't it a fact that difficulties make daring, that effort makes efficiency? Do not functions develop by use? Does the cell act or react? Meanwhile, I grant all schemes of brotherhood one indubitable merit. Socialism shares it with Christianity. It is this: that they are eternally impossible of carrying out, that men cannot actually live them. The Beatitudes, after 2,000 years, are still mere poetry. No human fiat will ever repeal the law of natural selection. No rebellion of slaves will ever break down that great barrier which separates slaves from masters. * * * * * =Brown, Mrs. M. McClellan.= (Lecturer and Reformer.) I am opposed to Socialism-- First: Because it is unnatural. Men are born free, but far from being equal in competency mentally, morally, or spiritually to use with advantage to self or others, the proceeds of earth, or the elements, or labor; even under the same civil, social, and educational opportunities (often in the same family) some are incompetent to make ends meet. Second: Because it is impracticable, unjust, and detrimental to development and ennoblement of the human race, which is the manifest object of human creation. Third: Because it destroys the ultimate power of individuality, which is the unit of State organization and social protection. The individual is the axis of reality in all the objective changes for human uplift. Fourth: Because the Spirit of God is the humanizing power in the world, given to individual spirits as a complete fact, large or small, but personal in dynamic currents of bodily gifts as varied as the offices of the human organs.