Page:Alexander Jonas - Reporter and Socialist (1885).djvu/57

 we have almost no conception in these days of misery and irrationality. But, how the development will go on and what countries will organize themselves into communistic republics first, can hardly be determined at present. Yet, it is probable that the present so-called civilized countries of Europe and America will, after almost simultaneous social revolutions, organize upon a communistic basis. And as soon as this is accomplished the different communistic countries will undoubtedly enter into an international compact by which the administration and organization of the whole will be materially improved and any possible difficulties removed. The laboring people of all countries, if no longer oppressed and robbed of the full fruit of their labor by monarchical or capitalistic oppressors, have -but this one common interest and desire to labor and enjoy life in common, and to lighten each others' burdens.

It is hardly necessary for me to ask, whether those who are unable to work from old age or any other infirmity, will be cared for by society at large?

Undoubtedly, and yet there will be a difference. Whenever and wherever the needy and the poor are taken care of, it is done by meting out to him alms, and almost invariably in a scanty, miserable, humiliating manner. The Socialists would never do that. We believe that everyone who became decrepit after having done his duty as a worker, or the unfortunate beings who were born into this world without the necessary strength and ability to work themselves, have a right to existence as well as all the able-bodied and healthy people, and that therefore it is the duty of society to support them and make them participate in the blessings of co-operative labor just as well as if they had done their share in producing the necessaries of life and comfort for society. But, here I would like to mention the probability that, while the children in the future state will be better educated, and while they will not be put to work as early in life as at present, the grown population will not contain as many invalids and disabled individuals as under present circumstances, because the inability to work, diseases and infirmities, are generally caused by the want of the means of life, and by overwork, as prevailing to-day. Even