Page:Alexander Jonas - Reporter and Socialist (1885).djvu/62

 the disappearance of which seems to give you such great hopes for the future?

Are you a Christian?

I hope so.

And what is the fundamental principle underlying your religion? Is it not to strive for the rooting out of that brutal egoism from the nature of man, to love "thy neighbor as thyself?" And if you now, all of a sudden, designate this principle to be practically impossible—what a humbug your "great religion" must be! But, you are right. The mere preaching won’t do. And, the socialists knowing this to be so, are aiming, as I told you before, at establishing institutions by which the effusions of that brutal egoism will be made impossible. They know that the time will come when brutality, like all other instincts, or germs, the development of whose growth is being prevented by the application of scientific and rational means, will in the end be crippled and finally die out entirely. And thus socialism will, in this respect, by the application of its eminently practical measures, really accomplish what christianity has been attempting to accomplish all in vain for the last two thousand years.

I might ask a great many more questions, but I see that by an interview like this the details of such a great plan could not all be exhausted; and therefore, admitting that my objections are only of minor importance, I should like to see only a few more important points to be considered. For, while understanding that all productive labor is to be organized and paid according to a well-defined system, I do not quite see how teachers, artists, literary men, poets, and other representatives of art and science could be organized into co-operative trade unions. You are probably aware of the fact that the Socialists are suspected that they little appreciate all these things?

I know it: yet, this is but another proof of the fact that those who oppose the plans of the Socialists, know as little about their views in this respect as they know of their economic propositions. To those who thus judge the Socialists I would recommend to attend socialistic meetings, to read their papers, their books and the literature they are scattering