Part 15 (1/2)

My early life was blighted as the result of the premature death of my father by the Civil War and the consequent breaking up of his family and my bondage to a German who made a slave of me, broke my health by overwork and exposure, and, worst of all, kept me in ignorance, so that when, at the age of twenty-one, I began my education, I was a.s.signed to the fourth grade of a public school.

The prime of my life has been wasted in preaching as truths the dogmas of the Christian theology, the representations of which I now believe, with the overwhelming majority of educated people, to be at best so many symbols and at worst superst.i.tions.

But though I do not now and probably never shall again believe in the existence of a conscious, personal G.o.d, a knowledge of and obedience to whose will is necessary to salvation, yet an injustice is done me by those who say I have abandoned G.o.d and religion.

Every one who desires and endeavors to fulfill the requirements of a law which is independent of his will and beyond his control has a G.o.d and a religion. I desire and endeavor this in the case of two such laws and so have two G.o.ds and two religions. Both of my divinities are trinities.

One is in the physical realm and the other in the moral one.

In the physical realm my triune G.o.d is: matter, the father; force, the son, and motion, the spirit.

In the moral realm, my triune G.o.d is: fact, the father; truth, the son, and life, the spirit.

For me the triune divinity of Christianity is a symbol of these trinities and it is my desire and effort to discover and fulfill what they require of me, in order that I may make my own physical, psychical and moral life as long, happy and complete as possible and help others in doing this for themselves. This desire and effort is at once my morality and religion, my politics and patriotism, and they are spiritual realities.

On account of the first of these sets of spiritual virtues (morality and religion) I claim to be a Christian of the highest type, and that any accusation which is raised against me because of alleged disloyalty to any essential of Christianism is an injustice.

On account of the second of these sets of spiritual virtues (politics and patriotism) I claim to be an American of the highest type, and that any accusation which is raised against me because of alleged disloyalty to an essential of Americanism is an injustice.

From the viewpoint of the self-styled one hundred per cent Christians, I am a betrayer of Brother Jesus because I do not believe that he ever had any existence as a G.o.d and that, if he was at any time a man, the world does not now and never can know of one thing that he did or of one word that he said.

From the viewpoint of the self-styled one hundred per cent Americans, I am a traitor to Uncle Sam, because I did oppose his going into the English-German war, and because I do object to the partiality which he shows to his rich nephews and nieces.

Still Jesus and Uncle Sam are as dear to me as ever and indeed dearer, yet not as objective, conscious personalities, but as symbols, ideals or patterns.

However, though I love my Brother Jesus and Uncle Sam all the time, as a child does Santa Claus at Christmas time, I am no longer childish enough at any time to look to either of them to do anything for me, because I know that what is done for me must be done either by myself or by men, women and children, and that as objective, conscious personalities, my Brother Jesus and Uncle Sam have had no more to do with my life than the man-in-the-moon.

Your observation concerning the American government as being the standard to which all governments will ultimately conform challenges an earnest word of friendly dissent.

Our government is what all the governments of the world are (with the single exception of the Russian) a government in the interest of a small cla.s.s, the representatives of which own the means and machines of production and distribution and who produce and distribute things for profit, each for himself.

The representatives of one cla.s.s produce things socially, and those of another cla.s.s appropriate them individually. This is capitalistic anarchy, the worst of possible anarchism, and it must have an end soon or the world will be lost.

Robbery is the essence of anarchy and Marx showed that every cent of profit made under the existing system of economics (and in the United States it amounts to several billions of dollars every year) is so much robbery of the many who make and operate the machines, because they are paid less in wages than the value of the products made and distributed by them.

We are hearing much in these days about the anarchy of those who are dissatisfied with the capitalistic governments, but the governments themselves and those in whose interests they exist are the real anarchists. The flesh and blood of anarchism are robbery and lying, and these are the meat and drink of capitalism.

The English-German war was the most flagrant act of anarchy in the whole history of mankind. The peace of Versailles and the blockade of Russia were outrageous acts of anarchy, and so also are the terrorism and tyranny of which every capitalistic country is so full, our own with the rest.

Morality is the very heart of civilization and of all that really makes for it; but morality is impossible on a capitalistic basis, for it is founded on the most immoral things in the world, robbery, lying, murder, ignorance, poverty and slavery.

If I am right in the conviction that the United States is more wholly given over to capitalism than any other nation, not excepting even England, it is the greatest robber, liar and murderer on earth. How then, can the United States become the standard for the governments of the nations?

If the government of Russia holds its own, it, rather than that of the United States, will become the standard to which all governments must measure up or else go down.

Yes, not the government of the United States but that of Russia is destined to become the standard of all peoples, for the aim of our government is money, more money, and then some, for the few, while the infinitely higher aim of theirs is life, more life, fuller life for every man, woman and child.