s general subject.
Thinking that possibly those who hear me this evening may have the same
feeling, I begin by saying that I earnestly favor a just distribution of
comfort. I suppose that if I should analyze the mental processes leading
to that wish, I should find toward the bottom a conviction that if each
had his due I should be better off. The objection to the Socialistic
program is that it would prevent a just distribution of comfort.

Some years ago in a book of which I was guilty, I wrote the following:
"There is implied in all Socialistic writing the doctrine that organized
man can override, and as applied to himself, repeal the fundamental law
of Nature, that no species can endure except by the production of more
individuals than can be supported, of whom the weakest must die, with
the corollary of misery before death. Competitive Society tends to the
death of the weakest, Socialistic Society would tend to the preservation
of the weak. There can be no question of the grandeur of this
conception. To no man is given nobler aspirations than to him who
conceives of a just distribution of comfort in an existence not idle,
but without struggle. It would be a Nirvana glorious only in the absence
of sorrow, but still perhaps a happy ending for our race. It may, after
all, be our destiny. Nor can any right-minded man forbear his tribute to
the good which Socialistic agitation has done. No man can tell how much
misery it has prevented, or how much it will prevent. So, also, while we
may regret the emotionalism which renders even so keen an intellect as
that of Karl Marx an unsafe guide, we must, when we read his description
of conditions for which he sought remedy, confess that he had been
less a man had he been less emotional. The man whom daily contact with
remediable misery will not render incompetent to always write logically,
I would not wish to know. But it is the mission of such men to arouse
action and not to finally determine its scope. The advocate may not be
the judge. My animus is that I heartily desire most if not all the ends
proposed by abstract Socialism, which I understand to be a perfectly
just distribution of comfort. If, therefore, I am a critic of Socialism,
I am a friendly critic, my objections to its progress resting mainly on
a conviction that it would not remove, but would intensify, the evils
which it is intended to mitigate." That is quite sufficient in regard to
the personal equation.

There a