Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 9.djvu/196

 1 8 2 THE AMERICAN JO URNAL OF SOCIOL OG Y

nihilism, from Italy and Russia. Their followers are largely drawn from the foreign elements of our society, but, with a better knowledge of American institutions, the numbers of these tend constantly to decrease. The socialistic leaders complain bitterly that American workingmen have up to the present time, been slow to conform to their doctrines. Herr Kerchner, a socialistic delegate from this country to the recent socialistic congress in Paris, said in his report: "If the class-spirit is at last aroused among workingmen of America, it is owing to German immi- grants ; the latter are indefatigable in their task of organizing the still blind masses." The great bulk of our socialistic literature is of foreign authorship. Six of our most radical daily news- papers are printed in the German language. America is leading the world in industrial and social progress, and has no more need to go to Germany or Russia for social doctrines, the outgrowth of other times and other conditions, than for worthless machinery. Most of the radical socialistic propaganda of the day, under various names, are reproductions of theories put forward cen- turies ago. The usual accessories of their agitation have been attacks upon religion, patriotism, and the family. 1 Pope Leo XIII., speaking of the inequalities of which socialists complain, in his encyclical letter says :

To remedy these evils the socialists, working on the poor man's envy of the rich, endeavor to destroy private property and maintain that individual possessions should become the common property of all, to be administered by the state or municipal bodies. But their proposals are so clearly futile for all practical purposes that, if they were carried out, the workingman himself would be among the first to suffer. Moreover, they are emphatically unjust, because they would rob the lawful possessor, bring the state into a sphere that is not its own, and cause complete confusion in the country.

If there is any one thing that a study of humanity has demon- strated, it is that countries in which law has been most respected and most efficiently administered, private rights most guarded, individual effort and individual talent most encouraged, have, in

1 Marx, the father of socialism, in his treatise on Secret Society in Switzerland, said : " We shall do well if we stir hatred and contempt against all existing institu- tions ; we make war against all prevailing ideas of religion, of the state, of country, of patriotism. The idea of God is the keystone of perverted civilization ; the true root of liberty, of equality, of culture, is atheism."