Page:The World's Famous Orations Volume 10.djvu/245

 ALTGELD

that most of the great cities of the Empire had not only assumed the functions of supplying their inhabitants with water, gas, electric light and street railway service, but that they were going a great deal farther and were even build- ing and renting houses and doing a host of other things that were not within the province of gov- ernment.

He was reported as saying in answer to this criticism, that it was not a question of socialism at all, but simply a question of business; a question whether a given community can secure certain advantages or in a more satisfactory manner when acting collectively, than by leav- ing everything to individual effort; that a col- lective body has the same right to pursue the best business methods, and do all things neces- sary to its welfare, or the welfare of its mem- bers, that an individual has ; that the best inter- est of the community must be the criterion by which to decide each case; that there was a time when private individuals carried mails and charged what they pleased, there being no gov- ernment postoffice; but as the world advanced, every government took the postal business into its own hands, and no intelligent man would have turned it over to a private corporation.

Let us see what civilized man is doing else- where. Take the cities of Great Britain first, for they have the same power of self-government that American cities have. In all that pertains to the comfort and enterprise of the individual 211

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