The American Anti-Socialist

Before The American Anti-Socialist (In 1911)

The Anti-Socialist

A Monthly Magazine Published at Washington, D. C., U.S.A.

NOW ABIDETH LIBERTY, EQUALITY, FRATERNITY: AND THE GREATEST OF THESE IS LIBERTY

Our Indictment of Socialism

SOCIALISM: AN ACT TO AMEND THE ACT OF CREATION

 Hon. V. L. Berger, the Socialist Congressman, condemns competition. It appears to be an irreparable calamity that Mr. Berger was not able to be present at the creation. In that case he would probably have saved the Creator from the mistake of building the world on a competitive plan. Compelled to create the world without the aid of the Bergerian wisdom, the Almighty employed the competitive plan, the Socialist plan not being known to the Omniscient Mind till the recent Milwaukee victory. “Competition is dead;” something contradicts thee, Dr. Berger; I am afraid it is Nature.

Monopoly the Death, Competition, the Life, of Civilization

 Socialists very eloquently tell us that private monopoly spells stagnation and social death. But, Dr. Socialist, you do not change your indictment by changing your adjective. All experience declares that you can prove an even stronger case against public monopoly.

Maxims of the “State,” Showing Why It Fails in Commerce

 What is everybody’s business is nobody’s business; therefore public business is notoriously neglected.

What is everybody’s profit is nobody’s profit; therefore we need not look to the question of profit.

What is everybody’s loss is nobody’s loss; therefore if we lose a few millions, no matter; no one has lost anything.

Liberty the Very Breath of Progress

 The voice of the public may be the voice of God when it is strictly attending to public business, but when the public intermeddles in my private affairs its voice becomes the voice of the devil himself.

 We agree with the great teacher who said, “Progress in the political, religious and intellectual evolution of humanity is effected by the substitution of personal decisions for authoritative measures.” In other words, individual initiative and private enterprise are the indispensable bases of an advancing civilization.

 Civilization will perish unless able men are allowed a free hand.

The True Formula of Political Freedom

 All the great soldiers of Liberty have said that in order to protect the people against the excesses of constituted authority there must be a power higher than government—the organized force of public opinion. When Socialists say, “Don’t fear the State, but be the State,” they betray a portentous simplicity; in assuming that there need be no interest higher than the State they contradict all the wisdom and all the experience of those who have fought and died for Liberty. Erskine truly says, “Other liberties are held under government, but the liberty of opinion keeps governments themselves in due subjection to their duties.”

 This is the true formula of freedom: Where the people fear the government you have tyranny; where the government fears the people you have liberty.

Socialism the Sirocco of Civilization

 Arthur Young was well inspired when he said: “Give a man the secure possession of a rock and he will turn it into a garden.” (This is one of the rocks on which Socialism would inevitably be shattered.) But Young did not tell the whole truth. The whole truth is that the surest way to turn a garden into a desert is to make possession insecure, to substitute public interest for private interest, public property for private property, collective motive for individual motive. Socialism has over and over again taken some of the finest garden spots of the world and turned them into deserts. Individualism makes the desert blossom as the rose. Socialism turns every oasis into a desert. Socialism would prove the sirocco of civilization.

Socialism and Its Reign of Regimentation

UNEQUIVOCALLY CONDEMNED BY THE GREATEST POLITICAL THINKERS

Jefferson’s Indictment of Socialism

 The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground. —Jefferson.

 Were we directed from Washington when to sow and when to reap we should soon want bread. —Ib.

 What has destroyed the liberty and the rights of man in every government which has existed under the sun? The generalizing and concentrating all cares and powers into one body, no matter whether of the autocrats of Russia or France, or of the aristocrats of a Venetian Senate. —Lb.

 If the employees of all these different enterprises (roads, railways, banks, great joint stock companies, public charities, municipal corporations, and local boards) were appointed and paid by the government and looked to the government for every rise in life, not all the freedom of the press and popular constitution of the legislature would make this or any other country free otherwise than in name. —J. S. Mill.

Spencer and Mill Condemn Socialism

 Where everything is done through the bureaucracy, nothing to which the bureaucracy is really adverse can be done at all. —John Stuart Mill.

 Socialistic legislation restricts the liberty of the citizen in two ways: First, by lessening that portion of his earnings which he can spend as he pleases, and, secondly, by augmenting that portion taken from him to be spent as public agents please. —Spencer.

 Francois Quesnay affirmed three principles which are at the base of all modern economic and social science: (1) Personal property and freedom in the use of that property. (2) The necessity of the most thorough competition. (3) The necessity of establishing legislation in accord with natural laws, public authority having for its object not the limitation but the guarantee of the freedom of the individuals. According to Quesnay, the security of property is the foundation of the economic order, indispensable as an incitement to work and the employment of wealth of agriculture, and industry.

 The inevitable effect of Socialism would be to sacrifice liberty on the altar of a procrustean conception of equality.

 In the interest, therefore, a political freedom which it violates and derides; in the interest of commercial freedom which it openly seeks to destroy; in the interest of Art and Genius which it would sterilize; in the interest of the Democratic principles which it contravenes; in the interest of the home which it threatens, Socialism must be destroyed.

 The first number of THE ANTI-SOCIALIST will appear Oct. 1^st. 1911. Price, $1.00 a year; 50 cts. For 6 months, 30 cts. For 3 months. Foreign subscribers may send dollar bills.

 Clubs of three or more, 70 cts. A year. GET BUSY AND SEND IN YOUR NAMES AT ONCE. IT IS INDISPENSABLE TO THE SUCCESS OF A NEW PAPER THAT IT SHOULD HAVE A LARGE LIST OF CASH SUBSCRIBERS. This is necessary to secure for it Second-class Rates. He who SUBSCRIBES QUCKLY SUBSCRIBES TWICE. We appeal to our patrons to act promptly and as generously as they can. ADRESS,

JOHN BASIL BARNHILL,

Editor and Publisher of THE ANTI-SOCIALIST.

Box O, Sta. B, Washington, D. C., U. S. A.