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SOME THOUGHTS ON SOCIALISM
It may be stated as a fact very generally known that
during the later years of Mark Hanna's life his fear of So
cialism had grown till it almost reached the formidableness
of a nightmare. There was no man of hi? day more capable1
of reasoning out all the details of a subject, when it had ;
once aroused hi? interest, than Hanna. It was known by
Socialists, and others who took the trouble to give the mat-j
ter thoughtful consideration, that Hanna had come by his:
fears through a process of reasoning no wise different from
that exercised by Socialists themselves: and it never was.
and never can be, proven that he had not become convinced
that Socialism will finally prevail. He wmit no further
than to say the final struggle for supremacy will be between
the Republican and Socialist parties. With all the strength
of his really great mind, however, he cast about for means
to defend his party and his class: and it was through his
initiative that great capitalists came to recognize in trade
unions—which he had formerly set out to destroy—the
means of their own safety, or at least of an indefinite pro-;
longation of their power. None knew better than he that
the policy of his class to centralize the forces of production,
of politics, and of all the greater and lesser details that
make up the sum of national life, is but the insensible man
ifestations of what we will dignify by the name of Social
istic philosophy.
In Hanna’s (lav, and more especially so now, the more
thoughtful persons who hope for a final triumph of Social
ism rejoiced in the general trend of events. It is the So
cialistic vote that has long kept the Republican party in
power, and will keep it in power till its natural growth
builds it into a mass nearer Socialistic ideals.
How far President Taft- -who may not possess the
mental strength that Hanna did—realizes the truth is hard
to tell. That he is not oblivious to it entirely, however, is
manifest from the following, which is quoted from a speech
delivered by him in Chicago September 16:
There is one thing to be said in respect to American trades
unionism that its critics are not generally alive to. In Prance the
trades unions are intensely Socialistic. Indeed, in some of the late
difficulties it was plain that there was a strong anarchistic feeling
among them, and that they opposed all authority of any kind. It
is also plain that the tendency toward Socialism in England and
England’s trade unionism is growing stronger and stronger. I
need not point out the deplorable results in this country if trades
unionism becomes synonymous for Socialism. Those who are now
in active control, the Federation of Labor and all the great railroad
organizations, have set their faces like flint against the propaganda
of Socialistic principles. They are in favor of the rights of prop
erty and of our present institutions, modified by .such remedial
legislation as to put workingmen on equality with their opponents
in trade controversies and trade contracts, and to stamp out the
monopoly and the corporate abuses which are an outgrowth of our
present system, unaccompanied by proper limitation; and I think
all of us who are in favor of the maintenance of our present institu
tions, should recognize this battle which has been carried on by
the conservative and influential members of trades unions, and will
ingly give credit to these men as the champions of a cause which
should command our sympathy, respect and support.
It need scarcely be said that trades unionism is in its
nature monopolistic, and had no other cause for coming
into being than as a means of forcing its stronger copart
ners iu monopoly to a more liberal division of profits. It
follows, therefore, that modern industry, organized trades
unionism and organized Socialism are all traveling toward
a given point, where they must converge sooner or later un
less a miracle happens—and the name of the meeting place
will be Socialism, whether we like it or not. The only dif
ference that can possibly be made by the so-called conserva
tism of leading labor unionists is a difference in time: their
interests, as they conceive them, run counter to the inter
ests that make the laws; and, as their position in the fight
ing line becomes untenable, they must join the Socialist
ranks and there ultimately dispute with their olden ene
mies not for ownership, but for simple leadership in a new
order of national affairs.
TAFT JUDGE AND TAFT PRESIDENT
In one of President Taft’s very numerous ante-trans
continental speeches he characterized the law’s delays in
American courts, particularly in criminal cases, as an out
rage, and, in suggesting a remedy, said:
One of the methods by which it could be remedied in some
degree is to give judges more power in the trial of criminal cases
and enable them to aid the jury in its consideration of facts and to
« xercise more control over the arguments that counsel see fit to
advance. Judges, and especially judges vrjjo are elected, ought
not to be mistrusted by the people. A judgeship is a great office,
::nd the man who holds it should exercise great power, and he
ought to be allowed to exercise that in a trial by jury. I conceive
that the situation is now ripe for the appointment of a commis
sion by congress to take up the question of the law’s delays in the
federal courts and to report a system which shall not only secure
quick and cheap justice to the litigants in the federal courts, but
shall offer a model to the legislatures and courts of the states, by j
the use of which they can themselves institute reforms.
Several years before, previous to his departure for the
Philippines. Judge Taft delivered an address before the |
law students of an Eastern university in which he touched!
gently upon the matter in which he is quoted above. In i
that instance, as in this, newspaper accounts were the only
channels through which the public were enabled to know
what lie said, and even they can not be quoted here now.
From memory, however, it can be stated that the judge
told his young hearers that the spirit of reverence in which;
Americans hold the right, of trial by jury is a mistake and
sometimes is a serious handicap to the administration of
justice; that, in some instances at least, the determination
of the facts as well as the law would be better left to a wise
and upright judge.
The distinguished jurist's later remarks in calling for
greater power for the judge over counsel and jury is even
more surprising to a lay mind; for the judge's power over
the former appears, now, to be limited only by his own In
terpretation of common usage, and over the latter extends
so far that he may. if lie sees fit, dictate what a verdict
shall be or set it aside if it fails to meet his approval. Any
aid that a judge might give a jury in arriving at the facts,
further than seeing that the evidence is fully and impar
tially laid before it, would necessarily partake of the nature
of argument—for instance, be like a third lawyer in the
case representing nothing but his own opinion—and would
be subversive of the very principles that are supposed to
make a jury necessary or advisable in a trial at all.
Not being learned in the law, The Leader can only say
it regrets that President Taft has seen fit to amend Judge
Taft's opinion of the jury system; for by so doing he has
replaced what was a certainty by a shady and not well
defined doubt.
THE PRESIDENT ON CONFIDENCE
The President of the United States, in numerous speeches
delivered previous to and during his recent trip to the Pacific
coast, devoted much attention to what he termed the restoration
of confidence. Broadly speaking, he assumed that the passage of
a tariff bill which makes it certain that the producing sections and
producing classes of his country must continue to pay heavy trib
ute to the nonproducing sections and nonproducing classes will
cause a feeling of confidential faith in the beneficence of an all
wise Providence and that everybody will become happy and indus
triously set to work to make the money necessary to insure cor
porate profits and national prosperity.
No issue can. be taken with the President regarding the benefit
of confidence. It is an essential in little and big undertakings;
but misplaced, it biteth like an cast wind and covereth like a snow
storm. To localize, where is now the money that resulted from
the splendid confidence in the richness of the placers of Nome and
of Fairbanks? It is mingled with the expense of warming poodle
dogs around Eastern firesides or placing ropes of pearls around
the necks of African warthegsat some Old Country watering place
With splendid confidence some thousands of men have lately gone
to the Iditarod to dig gold. A year hence where will be ail the
money they paid for the unnecessary freighting of their supplies
up and down the Tanana? It will be gone, at government ex
pense, to be added to the sum of what is misnamed Outside busi
ness. What will become of the gold they dig? It will not go to
the development of the splendid agricultural resources of the
Innoko valley, or to the making of permanent homes in Alaska, or
to the lasting welfare of the men who dig it. It will become meat
for others.
The things that beget confidence in the President and his
friends are not the things that will keep it alive in u . and ours.
It was a speech delivered by President Taft in Shanghai that
caused Mr. Crane to vote the Republican ticket in the first place.
It was one delivered by himself in Chicago that caused him to
wonder where he was at in the last place.
A Bit of Biography
WHY A FAMOUS AUTHOR WAS NOT A BRIGADIER
There are a good many people who don’t know liow close the writer
of this little sketch once came to being a great military leader. The i
wild and fearless contempt for death, which constitutes the most pronii
treat feature of .the true soldier’s character, is still mine. I can stand
more carnage and death scattered around than most anybody. I love
the clash of arms and the tocsin of war. It stirs up my nature, and I
“rare” and plunge around in a manner that convinces people of my
wonderful courage atul love of slaughter.
Some years ago there was a vacancy at West Point from our con
gressional district, the original appointee having been clubbed to death
by tlte cadets, I believe, for refusing to join in some festive game pecu
liar to that hot-bed of intellect.
Anyhow, there was a vacancy, and I applied to the examining
board for an opportunity tc fPl it. The examining board consisted of a
select gang of venerable frauds, who pumped us dry intellectually and
then turned us over to a surgeon for physical examination. The latter
examination is still a pleasant memory, fraught with little specks ol
sunshine, as it were. The surgeon required the applicant to disrobe, so
rhat he could make a thorough diagnosis. I can remember now how
timid I was as I pulled off my shoes, keeping in the background all the
while a large and attractive hole in my sock.
Then I piled my raiment up in a corner and stood before the bald
headed surgeon in all my dazzling beauty. I was only a lad then, and
a little slab-sided and eccentric, perhaps, but lrom what the surgeon
said, I knew’ he was struck.
He said: “My son, you are as fine a specimen of Gothic architec
ture, I think, as I 'ever saw. You have the most intense and pro
nounced backbone I ever saw. You have also a wide, bold waste of
shoulder-blade that looks like the subdued yet plastic sweep of the dor
sal fin of a codfish.
“Apollo did not have the economical physical make up you pc*s
i
sess, because as a hat-rack he was a failure. Yon would be a great ad
dition to the military department of our country, because you could
stand up in the arsenal anti let the boys lean their guns against your
frame. Your proud bearing, too, is very noticeable. You have the
stately martial tread of an absent minded hen on the trail of an eccen
tric and evasive bug. It is full of quaint originality at.d peculiar
beauty. There is a wild, wobbly freedom about it that few have been
able to attain.
“Then, too, you are dignified. There is a cold, repeilant expres
sion to your feet, and a self possessed reserve about your elbows that
would indicate that you were born to command.
“ A. uniform that could be made to fit the right-of way to a railroad
track, would set you out in good shape.
"There is a noble poise to yonr knee joints, and a stately reserve
about the calves of your legs that imp:ess me almost painfully.”
Then lie asked me to jump about twenty feet, and to do other
mirth provoking tricks, in order to see if I had befell fonndeied. After
that he wrote silently in a little hook, while I pensively put my clothes
on again.
There were eighUen Napoleons among ns who applied fora chance
to fight our country's battles, and lead her through the dark night of
disaster and carnage up to the glorious sunlight of peace and prosper -
ity; but seventeen of us went borne and hoed corn, or cletked in drug
stores, while the eighteenth went to West Point. He, it seemed, stood
a better examination than we did, and was a belter waltzer, too. His
father, also, assisted in electing the congressman for our district. I do
not say this had any bearing, but I throw out the remark casually.
One of the committee who took an interest in me, and who spoke
to me afterward, s.dd that some of my answers to the written questions
were a little eccentric He said that in stating that Timbuctoo was in
Michigan, I had furnished to science a matter of information which
would be useful mainly as a curiosity.
He also said that in charging Kosciusko with the murder of Julius
Caesar, I differed materially from many of our most respected histo
rians. I told him that as those historians were dead, and as it would
be cowardly to controvert the statements of men who had gone down
to their graves believing all this sort of slush, I would not discuss the
matter any further.
There were also other little matters of difference between myself
and. the leading scientists of'those days, and just because I dared to
stand up in the face of these antiquated snoozers and sav something
original about Koskiusko and Timbuctoo, the military history of the
country has been deprived ot a ferocious and blood thristy warrior.
Still, the old martial feeling is strong in my breast. The mellow
whoop of a hostile Indian to this day arouses me to deeds ot heroic
valor, and I hurry away to some quiet glen where I can control my
devilish hunger for warm, fresh ‘Mood.— Bill Nye.
HOT SPRINGS' NEWEST HOTEL
Firs;-Class Etstjurant Frank . Stair*, Prep
[|AKP GSEEOH NO. 25. Arctic Brother
hood. meets every Monday nij'ht
9 in A. R. Hall, corner Second st.
and Campbell ave. at 8:30 o'clock.
Visiiir.tr Arctics cordially invited to at
tend the ir.eetintts of the Camp.
Phil Gai.lahkh, Arctic Chief.
J. Pcssttt.t. Walle, Arctic Rec.
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