Life — April 12, 1906 — page 8: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

-LIFE- SOCIALISM AND JACK LONDON HE word socialism, like the word atheist, has been of late very much in disrepute, be- cause, like the latter, it breathes a certain amount of hell-fire, and is popularly supposed to mean something that it doesn’t mean. We can imagine a socialist and an atheist, in the popular sense of the word, entering our house in the dead of night, quietly cutting our throats. from ear to ear, robbing us of all we possess, and then, setting fire to the premises, walking off with a keen sense of having been true to themselves and their instincts. Mr. Jack London is supposed to be a socialist of this type: a raw, mad creature, with a burning brand in one hand and a pen dipped in human blood in the other. As to the kind of fate that ought to be handed out to Mr. London, opinions differ. Some say a plain jail; others boiling oil (Standard); others drawing and quartering, however much this pro- cess may have been improved upon by the Armour process since the time of Ali Baba; others think he might be shot decently, and still others that he should simply be snubbed by the best people. The trouble with Mr. London is that he has tried the best people, and frankly confesses he doesn’t like them. He thinks they are false and hollow-hearted and selfish. Of course, this is one way to get the best people to read your books —that is, it is one way out of two. The fi ay is to call them names, and the second way is to get them to call you names. The probability is, however, that if Mr. Jack London had deliberately started out to accomplish this result he would have failed. It was because he was unconscious about it that he has been so successful. It was because he really didn’t care What he did care was, not so much about the best people as the worst. He knows about the worst people. He has lived among them; he was born among them; he is one of them. Consequently when Mr. London tells us about the worst people, tells us that he wishes them to go to heaven and that he wishes the best people to go to hell, we sit up and take notice. Mr. London has told us what he believes to be the truth and tha is why he is a socialist. Of course, a man may tell us the truth and not be a socialist, but he cannot tell us the truths that Jack London tells us and not be a socialist. He tells us, in effect, that the people who have had the upper hand have had it long enough to have made the world better if they are ever going to do it. He tells us that they haven't: ma the world any better simply because they haven’t cared whether it was any better or not, and because the principal thing they have been interested in is to have a good time. Mr. London tells us that they have had a good fair chance, and that now the Mistress: WHAT MADE. you people who have had the lower hand are going to try to see what they can do to make the world any better; of course, says Mr. London, it would be foolish to expect that the people who have had the upper hand so long will relinquish their hold simply by request; that is why it will have to be taken from them by force and that is the meaning of socialism. Possibly Mr. London feels that be- cause fire and the sword have been used in the past by Christians to show their devotion to God, that these twin relics may still be’ used by socialists to show their devotion to their fellow men. This does not seem unreasonable. ANGRY WITH THE DOCTOR AND TELL HIM NOT TO COME ANY MORE? Bridget: BECAS', UE SAID ME THOUGHT ME WOULD SIND ME TOA WARMER CLIMATE AND I'M ON TER HIM. comicbooks.com