Communistic Socialism

The following begins the next chapter of Roswell Hitchcock's Socialism. It deals with Communism. This I find really interesting.

COMMUNISTIC SOCIALISM.

This leads me to consider the Commun- 

istic Socialism. 

To-day there is not in our language, nor in 

any language, a more hateful word than Com- 

munism. In Paris seven years ago, in Pitts- 

burg last year, in Berlin this year, it meant, 

and still it means, wages without work, arson, 

assassination, anarchy. In this shape of it, 

the instant duty of society, without taking a 

second breath, is to smite it with the swiftness 

and fury of lightning. Incorrigible tramps, 

packing and prowling round together, de- 

manding the best from door to door, camping 

in farmers' barns, smashing farmers' machines, 

insulting decent men, and terrifying women 

and children, on public roads, should not 

expect to be reasoned with. Mad wretches, 

whose hands smoke with blood, can not be 
 
 

put out of the way too soon, nor too far. The 

preachers of this satanic crusade against capi- 

tal are not, of course, to be silenced where 

free speech has a genealogy running so much 

farther back than our separate existence as a 

nation ; a freedom which is not of Moses, but 

of the fathers. This planting of dragons' 

teeth is not, I suppose, to be stopped. But 

wild mobs, wrecking railway trains, and sack- 

ing our cities, are a kind of crop which can 

not be mowed down too close. 

Even such barbarities must not provoke us 

to be despisers of history. Communism, in 

its essential genius, is not new, is not con- 

temptible, is not abominable. It is a tradition, 

a philosophy, a gospel. As related to the 

tenure of landed property, it is one of the old- 

est traditions of the race. As a philosophy, 

it deals with those social and civil problems, 

in regard to which mankind have been always 

the most divided, and the most at fault. Its 

gospel, to be sure, has no God in it, only 

humanity, the fraternity of the fatherless ; 

but it preaches social regeneration, and 

promises a millennium. 
 
 

It IS a point of very considerable interest 

historically, that Practical Communism should 

have preceded Speculative Communism by so 

long an interval. The origin of property is 

confessedly obscure, like most other origins. 

Hypothesis therefore takes the place of his- 

toric certainty. And opinions have widely 

differed ; for example, as to whether property 

in land came first, or property in the products 

of land; and in regard to landed property, 

which kind of ownership came first, separate 

or joint, individual or communal. With 

respect to this latter point, the generally 

accepted theory used to be, that individual 

property was the earlier, and communal 

property the later form. The more advanced 

historico-political science of our day has chal- 

lenged this theory, and reversed the order. 

The literature of the subject is very learned 

and able, as well as abundant This particu- 

lar question of the relative antiquity of in- 

dividual and communal property in land be- 

longs especially to three writers of great 

breadth and penetration, Sir Henry Maine in 

England, Maurer in Germany, and Laveleye 

in France.* Of different tendencies, predis-

posing them to different applications and uses 

of the principle involved, these three eminent 

writers are agreed in the conclusion, after in- 

dependent and great research, that common 

property in land was, in many parts of the 

world, perhaps everywhere, undoubtedly the 

original form of ownership.

Whew! That was dense reading. Dang. Please note he has made no mention of
Karl Marx. Very curious indeed, Marx was known, he was a contemporary. Why not bring him up?

I mean the guy wrote the Communist Manifesto. Very curious, I believe that Communism then as today

has great stigma attached to it. It leads to dictatorial regimes. I think this is whay Hitchcock it attempting

to reason through his brand of socialism. We shall see,