Page:The International Socialist Review (1900-1918), Vol. 1, Issue 1.pdf/1

 

Vol. I



There are many reasons for believing that the supreme political struggle of the coming century will be between plutocracy and democracy. The question which will, I believe, transcend all others is the question which is involved in those two terms: Shall we have a plutocracy? or shall we have a democracy? Between these two we must choose, so far as choice has anything to do with the matter. And upon the issue of that struggle and that choice depend, as upon nothing else, the moral interests of mankind.

It seems to me to be a good thing to keep that fact and that issue clearly before our minds. Indeed, I can hardly conceive it possible that we shall not see it more clearly and feel its compulsion more deeply and vividly with every passing year from this time forward. We have had many political issues claiming the attention of the people within my own memory—issues growing out of the Civil War, issues relating to the tariff and the currency—issues which, if sifted to the bottom, have all had direct or indirect relation to our industrial system. I do not care to get into any controversy over any of these past or present political issues, for such a controversy does not appear to be worth while. But I venture the opinion that many of these political issues of the past and the present were and are entirely fictitious. They have been and are evasions of the one broad question which is slowly arising before men's minds for solution. That one broad and inclusive question seems to me to be the one which I propose for our discussion Let me put it this way: Is human government likely to continue plutocratic? or is it to become democratic?

Let me explain myself a little more clearly. In the first place, I am not sure we have it in our power to say, off hand, what sort of government we are to have. It will be clear to all who hear me, I think, that some forms of government are no longer possible, however much we might desire to reproduce them. I