Richmond Palladium (Daily), Volume 38, Number 193, 21 June 1913 — Page 4

PAGE FOUR

THE RICHMOND PALLADIUM AND SUN-TELEGRAM. SATURDAY, JUNE 21, 1913

The Richmond Palladium

AND SUN-TELEGRAM.

Published Every Evening Except Sunday, by Palladium Printing Co. Masonic Building. Ninth and North A Streets. R. G. Leeds, Editor. E. H. Harris, Mgr.

n Richmond, 10 cents a week. By Mail. In advance one rear. 15.00; six months. $2.60; one month. 45 cents. Rural Routes, in advance one year, $2.00; six months, 91.25; one month 25 cents.

entered at ths Poet Office at Richmond, Indiana, as Second Class Mail Matter.

Equal Price Gas In the next column is reprinted an editorial from the Muncie Press, in which the editor of the Press takes issue with the Palladium policy of an equal price to all consumers for gas. Aside from the one misstatement that the Palladium objects to a reduction in the price of gas, belied in the Press editorial by first reprint paragraph from a former Palladium editorial, there is only one point we seriously and sincerely differ on with the Press. That is that "as a matter of fact there is a scientific and equitable basis for such a sliding scale of prices" as the 40, 35 and 30 cent rates proposed by the new natural gas company for its product. The criticism of the Palladium for a sliding scale of circulation rates is absolutely right, though unjust. It may be added that the Palladium has a sliding scale according to the quantity used for advertising. For this the Palladium offers no apologies. As long as the Palladium's competitor in Richmond uses a sliding scale rate system, the Palladium must perforce follow suit. That is one of the beauties of unregulated competition. The Palladium, however, is not inconsistent. Two years ago this paper was the first to call attention to the sliding scale or discount or rebate system as being the basis of all monopoly and consequent inequality of opportunity. At that time we advocated placing all industry on an equal price basis as far as the purchase of all materials, commodities or services were con

cerned ; as well as requiring the finished products

thereof to be sold on the same basis. .Inasmuch as such a law would regulate the Palladium's rates on an equal price basis and protect it against discriminatory rate making on the part

of its competitor, the Palladium naturally feels,

despite its present rate system is simply practi

cal, that its consience is clear and it is free to

continue a propaganda to make everyone's dollar

equal in purchasing power.

In seeking to justify inequality in price mak

ing, the editor of the Press goes on to say: "It Is easier and less expensive to sell a given amount of gas to one consumer than to fifty. Cost of delivery considered, the small consumer of gas is aa much favored in the sliding scale proposed in Richmond as the larger consumer, although the motive of the gas company is undoubtedly to secure an increased individual and aggregate consumption." 'Yes, and it was so much easier and less expensive for the railroads to handle the business of the Standard Oil company that they gave it freight rebates. These rebates or discounts were less than those accorded the Standard's smaller and less fortunate competitors. Consequently, the Standard undersold its competitors to the extent of the rebates and began to wax of monopoly size. The process was slow. Too slow for the sanctimonious captains of that piratical crew. Using their enormous volume of freight as the lever, they forced the railroads to arbitrarily increase freight rates to competing oil refiners. Then they compelled the railroads to turn over that increase in freight rates money to the Standard Oil company. That was the so-called "drawback." Competition disappeared. It could not exist against such criminal special privilege. The oil monopoly flourished. Savings from natural and evolutionary improvements that cut the cost of production or provided new products and wider markets, no longer to be shared between producer and consumer through the workings of the law of competition, swelled dividends and surplus to scandalous size. John D. kept on going to church twice every Sunday and brought up his son to be a Sunday school teacher. He also found the days too short, thanks to a miraculous providence, to invest all his income and profits, so began to found universities, endowments for teachers' pensions and medical research institutes. He scratched his head so when first he pondered over his new invention, the rebate, that he became bald. In his later years of affluence, which he always kidded everyone into believing he devoutly believed flowed from God, but which the muckrakers showed came from the rebate, and drawback, he affected a wig and became addicted to golf. What has this to do with the question of a sliding scale of natural gas rates for Richmond? Just this : 35 cent gas for the big manufacturing consumer forces the smaller domestic consumer to pay 40 cents. It is a rebate filched from the pockets of the poorer and less able to pay class and turned over to the larger consumer by the gas company. In criminal parlance, the gas discount is the "burglar," the gas company is the "fence," the larger consumer is the receiver of "stolen goods" and the domestic consumer the "goat." Just as our government passed a law declaring illegal the granting or receiving of railroad jEreiaht rebates, so ought it to be made impossible

for the large consumers of gas in Richmond to receive a rebate, paid out of the pockets of their less affluent fellow citizens. It is all bosh to justify this policy of inequality in purchasing power between the rich man's dollar and the poor man's dollar, on the grounds of a saving in expense. Rich or poor, they use the same quality of gas. Therefore, rich or poor, when they come to pay for that gas they should be able to pay in money every dollar of which is of the same quality, the same purchasing power.

Two New Advocates Some time ago, Collier's Weekly suggested commission form of .government for states. While Collier's was probably the first to openly advocate this radical governmental change, the idea was not original with that publication as evidenced by the immediate and intelligent indorsement given to the plan by many newspapers in every section of the United States. Since that time this proposed reform has gained such headway that the suggestion has now been officially brought to the attention of the Kansas legislature and by the governor of the state. Another new advocate of the plan is Prof. John R. Commons of Wisconsin university, who conducts the department of that institution devoted to practical government. Among his recent students were the mayors of Philadelphia and Atlantic City and many councilmen of both those cities. In a recent address Prof. Commons stated he would preserve democracy by making it efficient and responsible, and he stated that state governments now were neither efficient or responsible. He advocated centralizing state government in a legislature of one house, each member of this body to be the head of one general department of state. These legislators, or commissioners, would be elective and placed absolutely under the control of the people by the initiative, referendum and recall. They would also have the authority to employ experts to perform the various duties of government. This proposed change in state government, however, will never be accomplished without a hard fight all along the line, for it is unnecessary to state that it would be bitterly opposed by the politicians and by special interests. Still there is reason to believe there is an excellent chance for many of the more progressive states to adopt this new governmental system, judging from the interest their people have shown of late in political reforms.

SOCIALISM "Common Objections to Socialism" By H. L. Haywood

T

CASTING OUT SAWLOGS

The Richmond Palladium oM'ects to the schedule of prices offered by a natural gas company, although it cuts down the gas rate in Richmond more than 50 per cent, because less is charged to the consumer using a large amount of gas than to the consumer using a small amount. The Palladium inquires: "Richmond wants 40 cent gas. Domestic consumers here have eyes keen enough to appreciate the difference between $1.10 and 40 cents. How long will it be, though, until those eyes can see there is no difference between railroad rebates, which have been abolished by law, and all commodity rebates or discounts? How long will it be before the universal brain behind those eyes realizes that rebating in any form is the very root of all Inequality of opportunity, the essence of industrial and economic injustice?" As a matter of fact there is a scientific and equitable basis for such a sliding scale of prices. It is easier and less expensive to sell a given amount of gas to one customer than to fifty. Cost of delivery considered, the small consumer of gas is as much favored in the sliding scale proposed in Richmond as the larger consumer, although the motive of the gas company is undoubtedly to secure an increased individual and aggregate consumption. Immediately above this editorial we find the esteemed Palladium's schedule of circulation prices. It costs 10 cents a week to take the Palladium by the week, .or $5 a year. Is it not apparent to the "universal brain" that

the equitable yearly price would be $5.20 per year? Is there not a rebate or discount for buying a year of the Item instead of a week? The schedule says that the price of the Palladium per month is 45 cents, or $5.40 per year. Isn't this industrial and economic injustice? But worse and more of it, the price of the Palladium on the rural route per year is $2.00, as against $5.00 in the delivery districts of towns' and cities. On the surface a discrimination in favor of the rural dweller of $3 per year, but taking into account the different costs of delivery in city and country, an actual discrimination in favor of the farm

er as against the people of the Palladium's own town, of

not less than $2.00. All on the principal, presumably, of charging what the

traffic will bear.

We advise the progressive organ of Wayne county to

cast the saw log out of its own optic before turning its

moral telescope on the neighbors. Muncie Press.

HE Socialist move

ment is going through the very

necessary and helpful process of being analyzed-and citicized. No person, the Socialist least of all, can object to this test. If it is a fallacy, if it is full of flaws and dangers every fair-mind

ed person wants to know it. Out of the process of criticism have issued a number of objections which have come to be the stock-in-trade of antisocialism. These objections fall into a few general classes. These various families of objections have no terrors to the Socialist he feels that he can answer them all. Let us see what his answers are. One of the commonest of all objections to the movement is that socialism advocates violence. Like every great propaganda which carries human beings along with it by the million, the Socialist movement Is gradually falling into the familiar divisions of radicals and conservatives. The radicals in the movements are headed toward syndicalism, which we discussed in a previous paper. The conservatives are constantly growing, relatively at least, more conservative. At no very future date these two tendencies will divide and we will then have a conservative party and a radical party. The radical party will call itself Syndicalist, the conservative will claim the name Socialist. If the word has any meaning at all, and unless we are to keep the mere shell of the term while permitting the substance within to fall out, we must all admit that the conservatives will have the right to the word. Therefore the Socialist is free to admit that many of the radicals who are headed straight for syndicalism do preach, and also practice, violence. They go in for "sabotage" and "direct action." Socialists Condemn Violence. The Socialist condemns such tactics. He believes in the gradual evolution of society. He hopes that evolution will be accomplished with as little friction as possible. He preaches peace everywhere. In fact, there is probably not a single factor in the entire political world which is so surely making for peace as socialism. The Socialists prevented war between Norway and Sweden; they , have done much to avert it between France and Germany, and they struggled to turn aside the foolish conflict between Italy and Turkey. In their national councils they deprecate blood-shed and in all their national platforms they have declared against violence. If socialism ever comes to mean violence and bloodshed it will be in spite of the Socialist. Another very common objection is that Socialists cannot agree among

present system men are compelled to labor for their daily bread at something which they do not own and in which they can consequently have little interest. Such work is monotonous and deadening. To give him a share of ownership in his own labor would increase his initiative, not lessen it. From another sourse a fourth objection is constantly emanating. It is held that socialism seeks to destroy the home. This argument reveals a sublime ignorance, not only of socialism, but of sociology. Such institutions as the heme are not made and unmade at will; they come to be through gradual growth and they decline by a similar process. The home as an institution will never pass out unless it proves ineffective In the future society. The Socialist, if he is of such a mind, may very well retort on this ob-

j Jection with a tu quoque argument.

Present day Capitalist society is destroying the home as rapidly as it can. It makes it necessary for women and children to work in many cases. That divides the family. It is driving thousands of families to cluster in flats, boarding-houses and tenements where a condition holds that is analogous to communism. It keeps a divorce mill grinding at a furious rate and, in this country alone, supports at least forty thousand paid prostitutes. Worst of all a vicious system of tandem polygamy is almost everywhere tolerated. When the Socialist hears the supporter of such a society declaring that socialism will disrupt the home he feels that something has been contributed to the gaiety of nations. But, after all, the objection narrows itself down to a flagrant inconsistency. Reduced to the terms of the argument it really amounts to this, that when wage-slaves are freed, when they receive an income more nearly commensurate with their production, they will at once begin to beat their wives, to strangle their children, to bur" down the house and to run off with some other man's wife. Merely to restate the objections reveals its inherent absurdity. Not One Man Movement. Yes, some will say, all that Is true enough, but some Socialists have advocated free love. So have some Republicans and some Democrats. If they haven't the courage to proclaim it they have at least practiced it. Whenever a Socialist advocates free love he speaks as an individual and not as a Socialist. If a plank in favor of free love were submitted to a party referendum ninety-nine per cent would vote it down. Above all it needs to be remembered that the Socialist is bound by his own philosophy to deprecate the easy habit of laying out plans for the future development of social institutions. What the church, what the school.

Nothing except hi own private) opinion. There are thirty-nve million Socialists in the world and the majority of them are very much like the common run. Most of them are christians. Perhaps, even, the most of those who condemn the church in its present form as an obsolete institution would still

call themselves by the Name. Those who hold that socialism and Christianity are irreconcilable will have to ex

plain why it is possible for so many millions to hold to both and thus, in their own experience, actually to reconcile them. Socialism ia Applied Christianity. There are some grounds for believing that the consistent and sincere christian who is also Socialist mayhave the better of the argument on this matter. He w411 probably say to his opponent who is a member of a political party that is based on eco-

i nonnc principles that are absolutelv

incompatible with the teachings of Christ "My religion and my politics are easily able to keep house together; yours seem somewhat antagonistic to each other. My politics is an application of my religion. Did not the Kncyclopedja Brittanica define socialism as 'applied Christianity'? Mine is the religion of the Carpenter whose passion was that every man should be free, who looked upon humans as an end In themselves and not as a means to an end. not as tools convenient for profit mongers, who saw in every Individual the capacity for divine sonship and who was guided by a vision of a society In which all would be bound into a great familyhood wherein all would be free and, all have equal opportunities. That religion harmonizes pretty well with socialism but not by any process of twisting, turning and accommodating can I persuade it to harmonize with he present system which rests its very foundations on wage-slavery. A society which closes the doors of opportunity on men even before birth will ultimately smother out every vestige of Christianity. You have yourself

Socialism splitting into two divisions, radicals and conservatives. Radicals, Syndicalists, preach and practice violence. Conservatives, Socialists, absolutely condemn syndicalism and Its program of attainment by destruction. Socialism, divided, like every other movement. Creeds sunder churches, medicine is schismatic, there are differing schools of art. Capitalism, not socialism, destroys initiative. The former corrals opportunity as the property of the few. The latter would make it free to all. And initiative springs from equality of opportunity. Free love, atheism, religion; these have no place in a political party's platform. Individual Socialists may advocate free love or atheism but the party does not. Individual capitalists. Democrats or Republicans, even now practise free love and profess atheism.

LODE-STAR

One little star in heaven's illumination, One tiny taper guides me on my way Though steep my path, or rough, or dark, or winding. My heavenly lamp still leads to perfect day. With lifted eyes I strain to catch its gleaming, With falt'ring feet I blindly follow on. No hand to lead but His who lights my beacon, Night after night till all my journeying's done. Oftimes I find to my poor earthly vision Thick clouds obscure yet. hidden from my sight, I know it burns, for till life's journey's ended, God's loving hand will not put out the light. Universalist Leader.

POINTED PARAGRAPHS

NO MARKED EFFECT AS YET. Kansas City Times. The sugar lobby has spent $100,000 without sweetening Congress in the least.

IN SPITE OF SENATORIAL HELP. Chicago News. That "insidious lobby" seems to prove everything except an alibi.

themselves. From this it is argued that socialism cannot be a very clear

or definite thing since Its own parti-

zans are In the dark about it The Socialist admits at once that this is partly true; he also asserts that it is partly wrong. It is wrong in suggesting that Socialists are divided

on principles. As to what socialism is

they are all agreed. Even the Syndicalist there agrees with the conserva

tive. One and all hold that socialism is the organized effort of the proletarian class to free itself from wage-slavery and that this freeing will most probably have to be done by means of collective ownership. But when it comes to the matter of tactics, as to what must be done to get this result accomplished, there they divide: Some urge one way and some another. Division Rules The Day. In this it does not differ from any other human effort. The church has split, medicine is rent with schisms, art falls asunder Into schools and everywhere one sees the fundamental divergencies of human nature revealing themselves in party alignments. It is all a part of the law of progress. Even the Socialists themselves admit that their very inability to agree as to the methods of attainment Is at this stage of the process a good thing. Socialism is to come not by fiat but by experiment and trial, and the very fact that there are so many experimenters in the field augurs that the wisest methods will the sooner be discovered. The more telescopes turned towards

the sky the swifter moves astronomy. J More serious than this objection is! that other socialism wIU destroy lni-

tiative. If this were to result from collective ownership then indeed socialism would be evil. Initiative is the motive power that propels society. "The world advances by extra achievement of the individual." To crush it out would be ruinous. But the Socialist has no fear that his methods would bear such bitter fruit. He points out that his Is a program which is not to be shouldered upon society in a bunch but it to be

worked out by process of gradual ex- j

pertment. collective ownership will be applied only so far as it works. Beyond that point every Intelligent Socialist will become anti-socialisL Socialism Frees Energies. Then, too, we need to remember that the very essence of socailism is that it is designed to release the pent up energies of the people. Under the

what the home will be In the future will depend on future conditions, on what the base of future society will be no person except a mad-man will dream of trying to fix their forms through legislation or arbitrary force. What new forms these deep-rooted social organisms will assume in the future is a secret which lies with the future to reveal. This same process of reasoning holds good of the matter of socialism and religion. It is freely charged on all hands that Socialists are atheists. The present writer was shocked not long since to hear an otherwise well Informed man, a man very much in the public's eye, speak of the Socialist party as "an avowedly atheistic party." When challenged to show a single word in the records of its national conventions or in its state or national platforms which would countenance such a statement he could not reply. The Socialist holds, as every intelligent man must hold sooner or later, that religion Is a personal matter and that the church must always be a voluntary organization separate from the state. As a political propaganda, therefore, socialism is indifferent to the church. Atheists In All Parties. "But there are prominent Socialists who are atheists!" That is true. But

what has that to do with socialism? Karl Marx was both "atheist" and "materialist" He held to a crude form of the "left wing of Hegelianism" and built his philosophy on doctrines that are now completely exploded. Not a single first class thinker in the world today is materialist Marx's philosophy is an exploded superstition and the sooner the Socialist movement rids itself of that dead albatross the better for it. But what has that to do with Marx's economics or his politics? It is notorious that the very greatest thinkers become children outside their own special departments. Witness Sir Isaac Newton's theology. For which reason it is everywhere held by reasonable men that a man's theology or philosophy must not be charged up against his politics. Thomas Jefferson was an Infidel, it appears from his private correspondence, but what has that to do with the Democrat party? Robert Ingersoll was an agnostic but where is the Republican who feels bound thereby to agnosticism? Wood row Wilson is a Presbyterian but that doesn't trouble Mr. Bryan.' August Bebel is an

atheist but what does that signify? j

now in such a fix that yon cannot even sell a dollar's worth of goods over your counter without lying about it As a matter of fact It is your capitalism which is destroying religion." All the objections to socialism strike their roots into one fallacy, namely, that the Socialist is a social schemer who is willing to wreck society for the sake of his dream. He Is merely a man who holds to a certain philosophy of social development and thai philosopsy is the lamp wherein whose light he shapes his next movement as a citizen ercising the rights of an intelligent citizenship. He is a Socialist beet- -e he believes socialism will work; and bawill remain a Socialist just so long ui it works. tlbrary Sociological Baoks. If you are sufficiently interested la the subject you ill find the following books stimulative and helpful; they are all on the shelves of our public library: "Christianity and the Social Crisis." by Walter Kauschenbusch; "The Call of the Carpenter." by Bouck White. These well written volumes deal with the relations of Socialism and Christianity. "Socialism and Character," by Vida Scudder; "a fine, a remarkably fine book" dealing with socialism's ethical and moral aepects. "ltuainess. the Heart of the Nation." by Chaa. Edw. Russel; in this the popular Journalist iu his own inimitable style reveals how American politics are evolving towards socialism. "Socialism as It Is." by William English Walling; "Applied Socialism." by John Spargo; "Socialism In Theory and Practice." by Morris Hillquit; "The Fabian Essays." by G. B. Shaw and others; these discuss what socialism Is, how it may be accomplished .etc. "The New Democracy." by Walter E. Weyl; "Changing America." by Prof. Rosa; "Tbe Promise of American Ife," by Herbert Croly; "The Autobiography of an Individualist," by Fagan. These are written by non-Soclallsts but throw much light on it and are useful to the student of sociology in many other ways.

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