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THE CHRONICLE Strives To Be A Cleon Newspaper, Complete a. Newsy and Reliable *♦ i >R * « ■.f < ■V 1 1 •r If You Don't Read t THE CHRONICLE You Don't Get the Newt Volume XLVII Clinton, S. C, Thursday, August 21, 1947 Number 34 Where Karl Marx Went W rong Address by the HON* SAMUEL B. PETTENGILL Former Confrn—mm from Indiana (Democrat, 19S0-S8) Now that the whole nation is talk ing about the communist threat to the country—at home and abroad— it seems a good time to ask what is really wrong with Marxism. It was mnety-nine years ago that Marx and Engels wrote the Ccma- munist Manifesto which began witn" the words, “A spectre is haunting Europe, the spectre of Communism. ’ This sounds* like today’s newspaper. That was the year before gold was discovered in California—before the covered wagon began to roll across the plains. Please keep this date in mind. It is significant to what I shall say. „ A little later,' Marx, in London, y/jote Das Kapital, the Bible of the communists and socialists. As a re porter, Marx, was accurate. The conditions of the workers in Eng land a century ago, as he-points out, were very grim. Women pulled ca nal boats along the tow-path with ropes over their shoulders. Women were harnessed, like beasts of bur, den, to cars pulling coal out of Brit ish mines. In the textile mills, child ren began to work when they were nine or ten years old, and worked twelve to fifteen hours k day. It is said that the be£s in which they slept never got cold, as one shift; took the filace of the other. It was said that they were “machines by day and beasts,by night.” Tuber culosis and other occtipational dis eases killed them off like flies. Conditions were terrible. Not only Marx,, but other warm-hearted men, such as Charles Dickens, Ruskin and Carlyle poured out a literature of protest which was read around the world. On his facts, Marx can scarcely be challenged. But his diagnosis was wrong and, therefore, the rem edy he prescribed was wrong also. Preached Gospel of Hate Marx said these terrible conditions were due to greed, exploitation, the theft by the owners of the mines and There must be laws requiring the in-1 plant diseases, and cheap transpor- spection of milk and meat. There j tation. American wheat now feeds must, be laws for honest Weights and pillions today in the Europe that is been re-distributed to the workers, it would have relieved their condi-'xnent tion but slightly, and for but a little time. So, the class struggle, as the rem edy for these conditions, was wrong. What was wrong? What was the real trouble? Low Productivity At Fault It was. the low productivity of the workers. And, as the workers can be paid out of production—whether in England a century ago, or in Rus sia today—wages must be low and i hours of work long when produc tion is low. - Production was low because tools and equipment were poor, because human backs-had to do what slaves of iron and steel do today here in America, because capital had not been accumulated to buy better tools, because freedom had so recently e- merged from centuries of feudalism that the inventors and scientists and businessmen had not had a chance measures. Otherwise, some men would risk death to human beings to make a greater profit. I do not disparage such legisla tion at all. I endorse it as part of the responsibility of modern govern- adopting the philosophy of Karl Marx! Aluminum was so expensive in 1870 that Napoleon the Third, of France, had an aluminum table set for state dinners, more valuable than mei). In union there is strength. In harmony there is hope. Cooperation inventor and investor, and manager and the worker with his “know how.” The answer is to substitute slaves ofjj S Uncle Sam's middle name! iron and steel for the strength ofj human backs. The answer is consti tutional liberty, which sets men free| and says that what any man honest ly makes is his “to have and to hold.” j Wages can be paid only out of thej product, and the larger the produc tion, the higher the wage. The more is put to work, the less children and women and men have to work at killing toil. ^ Let’s not divide mankind today in the struggle of classes. Let’s unite mills of the “aurplus valua” pro- and the Fords. duced by the workers. That was his diagnosis and therefore his remedy wals to preach the gospel of hate, of the class struggle, of the re-dis- bution of wealth, of the confiscation of property, and its ownership and management by the State, which ak ways means the politicians. Now if that diagnosis and remedy to, dream and to plan. They have ha<^ that chance today here in Amer ica. Listen. In 1940, before war in creased our production, it was es- tirtiated that electric power alone in this coi^ntry was performing work equal to the labor of half a billion men — 500,000,000 men — working eight hours a day. This is equal to nearly ten times the total human labor force employed in America and fifty times the number employed in manufacturing. And that leaves out steam power and gasoline' power and wiridmill power with their tremend ous contribution for increasing the productivity of workers and lifting burdens from, human backs. Is it any wonder that America out produced the world in this last war! That wages are higher here than anywhere in the world! gold. Today, aluminum is found in I simply point out that if modern. the American kitchen. ; ... . • , . . ir , >,- rc ._ rtU . Ar America were to go back to the same! N°> my friends, Karl Marx did notj ^ . .. . . tool, and horsepower that we had!h*ve the answer. He lifted no bur. and equ.pment, the more cap,tal that when Benjamin Franklin was trying dens from human backs. The answer to capture lighting from the sky, our; ** * re€ enterprise, kept competi- production of wealth would at once! by anti-trust and other laws. The go down 90 per cent, wages would enswer is not in the class struggle, go down in proportion, hours of la- [ The answer is in the cooperation of bor would increase to the limit of i 1 — human endurance, and nothing that government, or humanitarians, or la- bor unions, or Karl Marx could do “ would prevent it. I mentioned the discovery of gold in California in conpection with the Communist Manifesto of 1848.. Lacked Proper Tools With pick and shovel and the pan* with which men washed gravel from gold, didn’t men work long hours; then for a meager return, or none?, I Didn’t they sleep in filthy cabins,! Tire Recapping. Battery Charging. ^ Firestone Batteries. Radiator Boiling. Car and Truck Repairing. TIMMERMAN MOTOR CO. Phone 119 Gary St. of hate and the class struggle, Amer ica gave the green light to the Edi- sons, the Whitneys,, the Burbanks James Watt, the inventor of the steam engine} which revolutionized the modern world, and those who followed him in the competitive struggle to make a better engine and sell it for less, did more to take wom en o t uofthe coal mines, and off the tow-paths of the Canals boats, more to take children out of the factories, live on jerked meat, and weren’t they often covered with lice? v If you saw that great motion pic ture, T’he Covered Wagon,” you will recall the scenes of terrible toil, of men and women and children pull ing the wagons across rivers, and the trackless desert, and over the Continental Divide. Families, on foot, pushed hand carts from the Mississippi to Salt Lake. Yet were those conditions due to greed and exploitation? No,. they were working for themselves. What was wrong? Poor tools. The plow of the pioneer was a wooden plow constantly breaking, constantly need ling repairs. In a newspaper yester day, I saw a picture of a wooden plow used in Greece today. Up in Vermont where I was raised, on land then worth $2.00 an acre, a mpn back in my great-grandfather’s time, dug some iron ore out of a hill. He put 100 pounds in a bag on his DiximaiD is Better Made From Ripe S. C. PEACHES Enjoy fresh, tree-ripened South CaroHna Peaches at their%est . . . enjoy them blended with the smooth delicious goodness of DiximaiD Ice Cream. Ask your dealer today for DiximaiD Peach Ice Cream! - While Marx preached the gospel back and walked 80 miles through the wilderness tp sell it to an iron foundry in Troy, N. Y., and then walked home. An infinite expendi ture of human energyfer to insigni ficant return. What was wrong? Greed? Exploi tation? The class struggle? No. He was working for himself. There was no relationship of employer and em ployee. No one was stealing the “surplus product” of his labor. He got all of it—and it was little indeed. IXIMAI ICE CREAM .. 1*4 ■ AT ALL DIXIMAID DEALERS A *1 DiximaiD is Better Made . ... i What was wrong? Why did he were, and still are, in the main, cor-; than all the socialists and commu- ; have to work so hard for so little 9 rect, we have no business fighting; nists and politicians of the world | tools. Today the steam engine, in communism—either in Greece or in combined the United States. We should ad-; Capitalist Helped Watt vocate it. It becomes mighty im-1 Yet Watt would be an unknown portant to ask whether they were name today it one of these despised correct. I capitalists, a man named Matthew The diagnosis of Marx was partly; Boulton, had not risked $150,000 on ! have solved his problem correct. “Man’s inhumanity to man” i jjVatf’s invention. Would he, by the {do jt has always been a factor in human j way, have dared to take that risk affairs. Greed can never be defend- i under today’s taxation? ed whether in business or govern ment. Sympathy for the under-dog will always have its work to do. Al ways, certainly, in Communist Rus sia—with its forced labor camps and human slavery. Greed and exploitation are not cured by socialism. Stalin and Mol otov live like oriental potentates with State dinners that would make Nero and Caligula green- with envy. All legislation has its place. There One measure of the progress of civilization is the mechanical horse power and tools which supplement human labor. The steam engine diet more to outlaw slavery, both in England and America, than all the political humanitarians put together. The laboratories do more for man kind than the legislatures. Please understand me. Welfare the form of the modern locomotive, could move his 100 pounds of iron ore .80 miles for 4c—or a ton, one mile, for 1c! Railroads, paved high ways, motor trucks and automobiles and will to laws requiring safety in coal mines—and ap- this, in the name of the flowntrod- must be en proletariat! pliances But greed was not the main rea- should be enforced, whether private son for the conditions which Marx | owners or the government runs them described. If all th«i Nyeplth the, There must be laws requiring fire- owners of the mines ahd ^wUsihad escapes from factories and hotels Go To Church Sunday Morning » " \ -T" ■ ’■ - ' * . COOPER'S TAXIS will take you and your family to church every Sun day (inside of city limits, including State Training School and Lydia Mill.) FREE CALL - 180 - CALL t—- Cooper Cab Co. All Cabs Insured for Your Protection Lewis Cooper, Owner even better in the days come, if we stay American. Let us say that James Watt, and; the man who financed him, were i not humanitarians. Let us say they put their brains and money together in a common enterprise for the prof- j it motive. What of it? Was the re- i suit good or bad? Did they take the! women out of the coal mines, or did] Karl Marx with his gospel of hate: and the class struggle? What did the profit motive do?. It made Watt and his partner, and all who followed them, work to rnakfe* they better' engines and offer them at a lower price to get the market from their competitors. Was the result good or bad? The' profit motive is just as honorable and useful to mankind as the wage! motive. Both can be pushed to ex cess. But, both do infinite good. The wage motive prompfcs men to become skilled and‘ efficient so they can produce more and earn more, and because they do, all of mankind benefits. Tht profit motive prompts men to make belter^ tools, to cut costs, to sell cheaper and again 'all of man kind benefits. The radio, that sold only 25 years ago for $300, now sells for $30, or less, and a better radio. Competitive Effort Needed Has the result of the competitive struggle in the world of radio been good or had? The result has been; good—humanitarian, if you please. | It brings the news of the world, good music, and'discussion of public! affairs to the remotest farmhouse, to people on thejr sick beds. It was not many centuries ago when star vation was a common occurence, ev en where 90 per cent of the people lived on land—even in England. Was the conquest of starvation a humanitarian thing? What con-; quered it? Who conquered it? Karl Marx? No. The time in the' field ( required to raise a bushel of wheatjlh America has gone down from 60 hours of hu- man labor in 1830 to 2 hours or less in 1930. What did it? The steel plow, the tractor, the harvester, better seed, the conquest of insects and Customers In Clinton With... i BUTANE GAS i A' — for — HEATING - COOKING AUTOMATIC HOT WATER AND REFRIGERATION Call or Write Us for Free Estimate ; ' % Palmetto * Butane Gas Co V- U- . J. R. 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