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The election of the President and the Vice-President by direct vote of the people.

The abolition of the power usurped by the Supreme Court of the United States to pass upon the constitutionality of the legislation enacted by Congress. National laws to be repealed only by act of Congress or by the voters in a majority of the States.

The granting of the right of suffrage in the District of Columbia with representation in Congress and a democratic form of municipal government for purely local affairs.

The extension of democratic government to all United States territory.

The enactment of further measures for general education and particularly for vocational education in useful pursuits. The Bureau of Education to be made a department.

The enactment of further measures for the conservation of health. The creation of an independent Bureau of Health with such restrictions as will secure full liberty for all schools of practice.

The separation of the present Bureau of Labor from the Department of Commerce and Labor and its elevation to the rank of a department.

Abolition of the Federal District Courts and the United States Circuit Courts of Appeals. State courts to have jurisdiction in all cases arising between citizens of the several States and foreign. corporations. The election of all judges for short terms.

The immediate curbing of the power of the courts to issue injunctions.

The free administration of justice.

The calling of a convention for the revision of the Constitution of the United States.

Such measures of relief as we may be able to force from capitalism are but a preparation of the workers to seize the whole powers of government in order that they may thereby lay hold of the whole system of socialized industry and thus come to their rightful inheritance.

371. Municipal and State Program 28

I. LABOR MEASURES

1. Eight-hour day, trade-union wages and conditions in all public employment and on all contract work done for the city.

2. Old-age pension, accident insurance, and sick benefits to be provided for all public employees.

28 Drawn up by a committee appointed by the National Convention of the Socialist Party, May, 1912. See Socialist Campaign Book, 310–311 (1912).

3. Special laws for the protection of both men, women, and children in mercantile, domestic, and industrial pursuits.

4. Abolition of child labor.

5. Police not to be used to break strikes.

6. Rigid inspection of factories by local authorities for the improvement of sanitary conditions, lighting, heating, ventilating, and the like. Safety appliances required in all cases to protect the worker against dangerous machinery.

7. Free employment bureaus to be established in the cities to work in co-operation with the state bureaus. Abolition of contract system and direct employment by the city on all public work. 8. Free legal advice.

9. The provision of work for the unemployed by the erection of model dwellings for workingmen; the paving and improvement of streets and alleys, and the extension and improvement of parks and playgrounds.

II. HOME RULE

Home rule for cities; including the right of the city to own and operate any and all public utilities; to engage in commercial enterprises of any and all kinds; the right of excess condemnation, both within and outside the city, and the right of two or more cities to co-operate in the ownership and management of public utilities; the city to have the right of issuing bonds for these purposes up to 50 per cent of the assessed valuation, or the right to issue mortgage certificates against the property acquired, said certificates not to count against the bonded indebtedness of the city.

III. MUNICIPAL OWNERSHIP

The city to acquire as rapidly as possible, own and operate its public utilities, especially street-car systems, light, heat, and power plants, docks, wharves, etc.

Among the things which may be owned and operated by the city to advantage are slaughter houses, bakeries, milk depots, coal and woods yards, ice plants, undertaking establishments, and crematories.

On all public works, eight-hour day, trade-union wages, and progressive improvements in the condition of labor to be established and maintained.

IV. CITY PLATTING, PLANNING AND HOUSING

I. The introduction of scientific city planning to provide for the development of cities along the most sanitary, economic, and attractive lines.

2. The city to secure the ownership of land, to plat the same so as to provide for plenty of open space, and to erect model dwellings thereon to be rented by the municipality at cost.

3. Transportation facilities to be maintained with special reference to the prevention of overcrowding in unsanitary tenements and the creation of slum districts.

V. PUBLIC HEALTH

I. Inspection of food.

2. Sanitary inspection.

3. Extension of free hospital and medical treatment.

4. Child-welfare department, to combat death rate prevailing, especially in working-class sections.

5. Special attention to eradication of tuberculosis and other contagious diseases.

6. System of street toilets and public-comfort stations.

7. Adequate system of public baths, parks, playgrounds, and gymnasiums.

VI. PUBLIC EDUCATION

I. Adequate number of teachers, so that classes may not be too large.

2. Retirement fund for teachers.

3. Adequate school buildings to be provided and maintained. Ample playgrounds with instructors in charge.

4.

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6. Penny lunches, and, where necessary, free meals and clothing.

7. Medical inspection, including free service in the care of eyes, ears, throat, teeth, and general health where necessary to insure mental efficiency in the educational work, and special inspection to protect the schools from contagion.

Baths and gymnasiums in each school.

9. Establishment of vacation schools and adequate night schools for adults.

IO. All school buildings to be open or available for the citizens. of their respective communities, at any and all times, and for any purpose desired by the citizens, so long as such use does not interfere with the regular school work. All schools to serve as centers for social, civic, and recreational purposes.

VII. THE LIQUOR TRAFFIC AND VICE

1. Socialization of the liquor traffic; the city to offer as substitute for the social features of the saloon, opportunities for recreation and amusement, under wholesome conditions.

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Municipal markets to be established where it is found that by this means a reduction may be secured in the cost of the necessities of life.

G. THE CASE AGAINST SOCIALISM

372. The Transition to the Socialist State 29

BY O. D. SKELTON

The first problem that faces the socialist-how catch the hareis primarily a question of tactics, but its solution largely determines the character and extent of the difficulties facing the collectivist commonwealth at the outset. Is the capitalist to be expropriated without indemnity, or to be offered compensation? The earlier hotblooded demand for the expropriation of the robber rich without one jot of payment is now heard more rarely in the socialist camp. This attitude was consistent with the catastrophic view of social evolution, the view that the revolution would be "an affair of twenty-four lively hours, with Individualism in full swing on Monday morning, a tidal wave of the insurgent proletariat on Monday afternoon, and Socialism in complete working order on Tuesday." But in these post-Darwinian days this naive expectation is untenable. With the growing admission that the new order must be established by degrees, it is seen that it would be impossible to expropriate certain capitalists and leave the rest in undisturbed possession. Further, forcible expropriation without indemnity would be impossible; even were the great majority of the manufacturing proletariat won over to the policy, they could scarcely hope to overcome the determined resistance of the millions of farmers and the urban middle class.

If the other horn of the dilemma is then unanimously chosen, and the capitalists bought out at one hundred cents on the dollar, how is the condition of the poorer classes one jot improved? There will be heaped up an immense debt, a perpetual mortgage on the collective industry; rent and interest will still remain a first charge, still extract "surplus labor" from the workers. Even if collectivist management were to prove every whit as efficient as capitalistic, the surplus for division among the workers would not be increased beyond that available to-day. Indeed, it would be diminished. Today a great part of the revenue drawn in the shape of rent and interest is at once recapitalized, and makes possible the maintenance

"Adapted from Socialism: A Critical Analysis, 182-184. Copyright by Hart, Schaffner & Marx (1911).

and extension of industry. A socialist régime could not permit the paid-off capitalists to utilize their dividends in this manner, increasing their grip on industry; they would be compelled to spend it in an orgy of consumption. All provision for capital extension would therefore have to come out of what was left of the national dividend. The last state would be worse than the first.

Recognizing this, various socialists have proposed, once the capital has been appropriated, to put on the screws by imposing income, property, and inheritance taxes which will eventually wipe out all obligations against the state. In other words, they would imitate the humanitarian youngster who thoughtfully cuts off the cat's tail an inch at a time, to save it pain. Doubtless there are, within the existing order, great possibilities of extension of such taxes for the furtherance of social reform. Possibly our withers would be unwrung if the socialistic state confiscated the multimillionaire's top hundred million by a progressive tax. But the fortunes of the multimillionaires, spectacular as they are and politically dangerous as they are, form but a small proportion of the total wealth. So soon as the tax came to threaten the confiscation of the small income as well as the great, the matter would again become one of relative physical force.

373. Socialism and Inequality

BY N. G. PIERSON

Under State socialism, pure and simple, the Government of the country would assume the ownership of the instruments of production. We take it that this end might be achieved in the following manner. Just as at the present it already owns the postal system, just as in certain countries it already owns and works the railways, manufactures cigars and matches, so it might successively assume the ownership, and undertake the working of all factories and workshops, all means of transport, farms, fisheries, warehouses, and shops. In order to be able to form by degrees a staff of properly qualified officials, the State would have to be careful not to proceed with undue haste. Beginning with those branches of industry, in which no great experience or intelligence was required, it would have to proceed step by step in extending the sphere of its operations, and would have to be content if, at the end of sixty or a hundred years, it had succeeded in bringing the whole of production within that sphere. From this, however, it follows that the

30 Adapted from Principles of Economics, II, 88-91. Copyright by Macmillan & Co. (1902).

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