Were there no Socialism there would be just as
much of this discontent, just the same insurgent force and desire for
violence, taking some other title and far more destructive methods. This
discontent is a part of the same planless confusion that gives on the
other side the wanton irresponsible extravagances of the smart people of
New York. But Socialism alone, of all the forms of expression adopted by
the losers in the economic struggle, contains constructive possibilities
and leads its adherents towards that ideal of an organised State,
planned and developed, from which these terrible social stresses may be
eliminated, which is also the ideal to which sociology and the thoughts
of every constructive-minded and foreseeing man in any position of life
tend to-day. In the Socialist hypothesis of collective ownership and
administration as the social basis, there is the germ of a "sense of the
State" that may ultimately develop into comprehensive conceptions of
social order, conceptions upon which enlightened millionaires and
unenlightened workers may meet at last in generous and patriotic
co-operation.
The chances of the American future, then, seem to range between two
possibilities just as a more or less constructive Socialism does or does
not get hold of and inspire the working mass of the population.
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