Ebook Poisoning Democracy

Every intelligent modern man, I suppose, has at some time or other felt the pull of the arguments for Socialism in its economic and social aspects. We are confronted with the formidable list of various forms of injustice still existing all around us, even in the most enlightened lands; and our blood boils with all the zeal of the crusader, and we feel like going forth to hew the dragon in pieces and to vindicate the wrongs of the weak and oppressed. Then we see thrown on the screen an ideal picture of a better order of society, in which all these evils will be eliminated, when equal and exact justice will be dealt out to every one, and when the doors of equal opportunity will open up for all alike. And we feel like saying with the prophet of old, "Let me go over, I pray Thee, and see the good land that is beyond the Jordan."

Some forms, too, of its moral appeal are very strong. Its picture of the close connection between poverty and disease, or even between poverty and crime, seems almost as clear as two plus two equals four.