THE immorality and absurdity of the doctrines of Socialism as propounded by these advanced advocates are quite as great as those of the advocates, if such there be, of an unlimited individualism. * * * * The doctrinaire Socialists, the extremists, the men who represent the doctrine in its most advanced form, are and must necessarily be, not only convinced opponents of private property, but also bitterly hostile to religion and morality; in short, they must be opposed to all those principles through which, and through which alone, even an imperfect civilization can be built up by slow advances through the ages. Indeed these thorough—going Socialists occupy, in relation to all morality, and especially to domestic morality, a position so revolting—and I choose my words carefully—that it is difficult even to discuss it in a reputable paper. In America the leaders even of this type have usually been cautious about stating frankly that they proposed to substitute free love for married and family life as we have it, although many of them do in a round about way uphold this position. In places on the continent of Europe, however they are more straight-forward, their attitude being that of the one extreme French Socialist writer's, M. Gabriel Deville, who announces that the Socialists intend to do away with both prostitution and marriage, which he regards as equally wicked— his method of doing away with prostitution being to make unchastity universal. * * * * Much that we are fighting against in modern civilization is privilege. * * * * But there can be no greater abuse, no greater example of corrupt and destructive privilege, than that advocated by those who say that each man should put into a common store what he can and take out what he needs. This is merely another way of saying that the thriftless and the vicious who could or would put in but little, should be entitled to take out the earnings of the intelligent, the foresighted and the industrious, * * * * In short, it is simply common sense to recognize that there is the widest inequality of service and that, therefore, there must be equally wide inequality of reward, if our society is to rest upon the basis of justice and wisdom. Service is the true test by which a man's worth should be judged. We are against privilege in any form: privilege to the capitalist who exploits the poor man, and privilege to the shiftless and vicious poor man who would rob his thrifty brother of what he has earned. Certain exceedingly valuable forms of service are renderd wholly without capital. On the other hand, there are exceedingly valuable forms of service which can be rendered only by means of great accumulation of capital, and not to recognize this fact would be to deprive our whole people of one of the great agecnies for their betterment. The test of a man's worth to the community is the service he renders to it, and we cannot afford to make this test by the material considerations alone. One of the main vices of the Socialism which was propounded by Prondhon, Lassalle, and Marx, and which is preached by their disciples and imitators is, that it is blind to everything except the merely material side of life. It is not only indifferent, but at the bottom hostile, to the intellectual, the religious, the domestic and moral life; it is a form of communism with no moral foundation, but essentially based on the immediate annihilation of personal ownership of capital,and, in the near future, the annihilation of the family, and ultimately the annihilation of civilization."—The Outlook, March 20, 1909.
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