THE TRUTH ABOUT SOCIALISM
BY
ALLAN L. BENSON
Author of “The Usurped Power of the Courts,” “The Growing Grocery Bill,”
“Socialism Made Plain,” etc.
[Illustration]
NEW YORK
B. W. HUEBSCH
1913
Copyright, 1912
BY THE PEARSON PUBLISHING CO.
Copyright, 1913
BY ALLAN L. BENSON
[Illustration]
First printing, February, 1913
Second printing, March, 1913
Third printing, May, 1913
CONTENTS
PAGE
I TO THE DISINHERITED 1
II WHAT SOCIALISM IS AND WHY IT IS 4
III THE VIRTUOUS GRAFTERS AND THEIR GRAVE OBJECTIONS TO SOCIALISM 24
IV WHY SOCIALISTS PREACH DISCONTENT 43
V HOW THE PEOPLE MAY ACQUIRE THE TRUSTS 63
VI THE “PRIVATE PROPERTY” BOGEY-MAN 81
VII SOCIALISM THE LONE FOE OF WAR 99
VIII WHY SOCIALISTS OPPOSE “RADICAL POLITICIANS” 120
IX THE TRUTH ABOUT THE COAL QUESTION 139
X DEATHBEDS AND DIVIDENDS 153
XI IF NOT SOCIALISM—WHAT? 166
APPENDIX 183
The Truth About Socialism
CHAPTER I
TO THE DISINHERITED
I am going to put a new heart into you. I am going to put your shoulders
back and your head up. Behind your tongue I shall put words, and behind
your words I shall put power. Your dead hopes I shall drag back from the
grave and make them live. Your live fears I shall put into the grave and
make them die. I shall do all of these things and more by becoming your
voice. I shall say what you have always thought, but did not say. And,
when your own unspoken words come back to you, they will come back like
rolling thunder.
This country belongs to the people who live in it.
The power that made the Rocky Mountains did not so make them that,
viewed from aloft, they spell “Rockefeller.”
The monogram of Morgan is nowhere worked out in the course of the Hudson
River.
Nothing above ground or below ground indicates that this country was
made for anybody in particular.
Everything above ground and below ground indicates that it was made for
everybody.
Yet, this country, as it stands to-day, is not for everybody. Everybody
has not an equal opportunity in it. A few do nothing and have
everything. The rest do everything and have nothing.
A great many gentlemen are engaged in the occupation of trying to make
these wrongs seem right. They write political platforms to make them
seem right. They make political speeches to make them seem right. They
go to Congress to make them seem right. Some go even to the White House
to make them seem right. But no mere words, however fine, can make these
wrongs right.
The conditions that exist in this country to-day are indefensible and
intolerable. This should be a happy country. It should be a happy
country because it contains an abundance of every element that is
required to make happiness. The pangs of hunger should never come to a
single human being, because we already produce as much food as we need,
and with more intelligent effort could easily produce enough to supply a
population ten times as great.
Yet, instead of this happy land, we have a land in which the task of
making a living is constantly becoming greater and more uncertain.
Everything seems to be tied up in a knot that is becoming tighter.
You do not know what is the matter.
Your neighbor does not know what is the matter.
Why should you know what is the matter?
You never listen to anybody who wants you to find out. You listen only
to men who want to squeeze you out. Their word is good with you every
time. You may not think it is good, but it is good. You may not take
advice from Mr. Morgan, but you take advice from Mr. Morgan’s
Presidents, Congressmen, writers, and speakers. You may not take advice
from Mr. Ryan, but you take advice from the men whom Mr. Ryan controls.
If you should go straight to Mr. Ryan you would get the same advice.
What these men say to you, Mr. Morgan and Mr. Ryan say to them. You
listen as they speak. You vote as they vote. They get what they want.
You don’t get what you want. But you stick together. You seem never to
grow tired. You were with them at the last election. Many of you will be
with them at the next election. But you will not be with them for a
while after the next election. They will go to their fine homes, while
you go to your poor ones. They will take no fear with them, save the
fear that some day you will wake up; that some day you will listen to
men who talk to you as I am talking to you. But you will take the fear
of poverty with you, and it will hang like a pall over your happiness.
If you have lost your hope of happiness, get it back. This can be a
happy nation in your time. This country is for you. It is big. It is
rich. It is all you need. But you will have to take it, and the easiest
way to take it is with ballots.