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venerable names to his abominable doctrines. He plays up to the common feeling of envy and class jealousy.

Allusions are made to the salaries of the great clergy, and the suggested lie, ridiculous as it is, that a bishop's income is spent in idle luxury, finds credit with a good many ignorant people. Nothing evokes more easy applause than a reference to "bishops and parsons who want to keep their soft jobs." Scriptural knowledge is not a strong point with the British working man, and the plausible infidel finds little difficulty in bewildering his hearers with arguments that could be met at once by the rawest theological student. The poison, administered ceaselessly Sunday by Sunday, does its work, and year by year large numbers of people are won to the belief that religion is a mere device to divert mankind from its own wrongs; that churches are simply "built to please the priest," and that all those things which elevate human life are mere moonshine.

Much Mischief Done

It is not easy to exaggerate the mischief that is being done. Not only is definite religion the object of incessant attack, but all that is in secular life holy and of good report is made the target of coarse ridicule. Marriage and the family life are treated as subjects for contempt. and coarse jest. The close connection which has long existed in France between unbelief and looseness of morals is evident here. All the more sacred associations of marriage are derided. The common spouter has only too literally taken his cue from the literary Socialists who, in plays and novels, have delighted in making the matrimonial tie the butt of their wit. When a prominent writer says, "To meet certain cases we

shall have to make some provision whereby women may become mothers without having to live domestically with the fathers," it may be that he is not quite serious. But his words are taken in deep earnest by the park "orator," who delights to reproduce such phrases as "the irrational names of husband and wife, parent and child," and is not slow to associate himself with Bernard Shaw's pronouncement that "the institution of Kulu polygamy does not seem to me to be an unreasonable one."

Crusading Against Social Order

It is easy to prove that among an imperfect race marriage fails to solve all the problems of life. The critic who is not called on to institute an alternative system may easily wax brilliant on divorce-court statistics and on the tragedies that disfigure, our streets. But decent men, with due regard for the welfare of their race, will hesitate long before they lend themselves, by word or deed, to loosen the bonds which are a guarantee of even so imperfect a measure of social virtue and happiness as we enjoy at present. The Socialist leaders seem to entertain no such hesitation. We dislike

to think that the views expressed by many of them are entertained in real earnest. But the opinions airily put forward in clever paradoxes are accepted as counsels of wisdom by the less nimble wits, and side by side with the campaign against religion is proceeding a crusade against the very foundations of social life. It is difficult to convey a just idea of the nauseous propaganda; the very nature of the subject defies analysis in a public print. Suffice it to say that in Socialist pamphlets and on the Socialist platform doctrines are inculcated which

reduce the relations of the sexes to a level which would be thought degrading in the Solomon Islands.

And, as if it were not bad enough to lay these deleterious doctrines before people of mature age, the Socialist net

is spread for mere children. In the Socialist Sunday schools, tender youth is instructed, not in the old-fashioned creed of love of God and duty to neighbor, but in the red evangel of social envy and irreligion.

Was Hearn a True Prophet?

"Would-be reformers are toiling for Socialism and Socialism will come. It will come quietly and gently and tighten about nations as lightly as a spider's web; and then there will be revolutions. Not sympathy, fraternity, and justice, but Terror in which no man will dare to lift up his voice. The rule of the many will be about as merciful as a calculating machine and as moral as a lawn-mower. What Socialism really means no one seems to know or care. It will mean the most insufferable oppression that ever weighted upon mankind. The State itself will become a monstrous trust."-Letters of Lafcadio Hearn from Japan.

What the Soap-Boxer Meant

The Soap-Boxer.-"Why don't you vote the Socialist ticket? . . . Because deep down in your heart there is the lingering hope that some day you will have some of these wage-slaves working for you! . . . But, when the time comes and all hope is gone of having wage-slaves under your domination, then you will become Socialists!"

The Statement Analyzed.-In other words, when man acknowledges to himself that he is a failure, when hope is dead, when despair sets in, then Socialism holds out its hands and cries, "Accept our creed, THE CREED OF DESPAIR."-George B. Hugo, in Debate with James F. Carey, Boston, Mass., March 22, 1909.

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THE PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATES

By William George Jordan

The figures at the left of the page are the numbers of the declarations of the platforms to which references are made. The number following the party designation at the right of the page* is the number of the paragraph from which the item was taken in the platform furnished by the National headquarters of the party.

PRELIMINARY DECLARATIONS

1 We, the representatives of the Democratic party of the United States, in National Convention assembled, reaffirm our devotion to the principles of Democratic government formulated by Thomas Jefferson

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and enforced by a long and illustrious line of Democratic Presidents. Dem. 1

We call attention to the fact that the Democratic party demand for

a return to the rule of the people, expressed in the National Platform
four years ago, has now become the accepted doctrine of a large
majority of the electors.

We again remind the country that only by a larger exercise of the reserved power of the people can they protect themselves from the misuse of delegated power and the usurpation of governmental instrumentalities by special interests.

For this reason, the National Convention insisted on the overthrow of Cannonism and the inauguration of a system by which United States Senators could be elected by direct vote.

Dem. 79

Dem. 79

Dem. 79

The Democratic party offers itself to the country as an agency through which the complete overthrow and extirpation of corruption, fraud and machine rule in American politics can be effected.

Dem. 80

6

Our platform is one of principles which we believe to be essential to our national welfare.

Dem. 81

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8

Our pledges are made to be kept when in office as well as relied upon during the campaign, and we invite the co-operation of all citizens, regardless of party, who believe in maintaining unimpaired the institutions and traditions of our country.

The conscience of the people, in a time of grave national problems, has called into being a new party, born in the Nation's awakened sense of justice.

Dem. 81

Prog. 1

9

We of the Progressive Party here dedicate ourselves to the fulfillment of the duty laid upon us by our fathers to maintain that government of the people, by the people and for the people whose foundations they laid.

Prog. 2

Democrat, "Dem."; Progressive, "Prog."; Prohibition, "Proh."; Republican, "Rep."; Socialist, "Soe."

Copyright, 1912, by William George Jordan

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121

We hold with Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln that the people are the masters of their constitution, to fulfill its purposes and to safeguard it from those who, by perversion of its intent, would convert it into an instrument of injustice.

In accordance with the needs of each generation the people must use their sovereign powers to establish and maintain equal opportunity and industrial justice, to secure which this government was founded and without which no Republic can endure.

This country belongs to the people who inhabit it. Its resources, its business, its institutions and its laws should be utilized, maintained or altered in whatever manner will best promote the general interest.

Prog. 3

Prog. 3

Prog. 3

13

It is time to set the public welfare in the first place.

Prog. 3

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Political parties exist to secure responsible government and to execute the will of the people.

Prog. 4

15

From these great tasks both of the old parties have turned aside.

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Instead of instruments to promote the general welfare, they have become the tools of corrupt interests which use them impartially to serve their selfish purposes.

Prog. 4

Prog. 4

Behind the ostensible government sits enthroned an invisible government, owing no allegiance and acknowledging no responsibility to the people.

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To destroy this invisible government, to dissolve the unholy alliance between corrupt business and corrupt politics is the first task of the statesmanship of the day.

The deliberate betrayal of its trust by the Republican Party, the fatal incapacity of the Democratic Party to deal with the new issues of the new time, have compelled the people to forge a new instrument of government through which to give effect to their will in laws and institutions.

Unhampered by tradition, uncorrupted by power, undismayed by the magnitude of the task, the new party offers itself as the instrument of the people to sweep away old abuses, to build a new and nobler commonwealth.

This declaration is our covenant with the people, and we hereby bind the Party and its candidates in State and Nation to the pledges made herein.

The Progressive Party, committed to the principle of government by a self-controlled democracy expressing its will through representatives of the people, pledges itself to secure such alterations in the fundamental law of the several States and of the United States as shall insure the representative character of the government.

On these principles and on the recognized desirability of uniting the Progressive forces of the Nation into an organization which shall unequivocably represent the Progressive spirit and policy we appeal for the support of all American citizens, without regard to previous political affiliations.

Prog. 4

Prog. 4

Prog. 5

Prog. 5

Prog. 6

Prog. 7

Prog. 80

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