system would be abolished; no satisfactory plan could be devised for assigning so many millions of workingmen to the different positions, while at the same time satisfying them with remuneration for their daily toil; religions of all kinds would be the object of persecution; free-love would be legalized; and political corruption would be much more widespread than today. These are but several of the factors that would make a successful Socialist state an impossibility.
It may interest the reader to know that Socialists of the highest authority inform us that in the new state women would be called upon to work. The late August Bebel, one of the foremost of German Socialists, says that as soon as society is in possession of all the means of production, "the duty to work, on the part of all able to work, without distinction of sex, becomes the organic law of socialized society." ["Woman Under Socialism," by Bebel, page 275 of the 1904 edition in English.] Frederick Engels, in his book, "Origin of the Family," teaches that the emancipation of women is primarily dependent on the reintroduction of the whole female sex into the public industries. ["Origin of the Family," by Engels, page 90 of Untermann's 1907 translation into English.] In "The Call," New York, February 27, 1910, it is stated that "the man who professes himself to be a Socialist, and then says that under Socialism men will provide for women, is wide of the mark."
Keeping clearly before their minds the fundamental principle of Socialism, the people of America must be careful to distinguish between Socialists ruling under our present form of government, and Socialists ruling in a Socialist state. Possible success in the first case would by no means indicate success in the latter. If our citizens are cautious in this respect, the enemies of our country will not dare to boast of the so-called success of Socialism in those places in which the members of their party, elected to public office, may have given a good administration under our constitutional system of government.