Granite City High School - Warrior Yearbook (Granite City, IL)

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capitalists are the most influential, and wishing to dominate the working people, denounce Socialism. They say it is a pessimistic idea; it is nonsense; it is impossible; and to make it sound Still worse in the ears of the working people they add that the Socialists want to divide everything that they can get hold of. If there be any sane person who lives by the sweat of his brow and believes in these false criticisms he is utterly deceived, because Socialism means just the opposite. It is based upon the following scientific and historical facts: From the relics and traces which we find in different places we conclude that primitive society of man was not much different from that of a herd of monkeys or other animals. One may readily conceive this from reading about the savages in South Africa or Australia. Before these people had any means of production to which they could have applied the labor power of their captives they devoured every human they captured. This is known as Cannibalistic Era. Upon the invention of certain tools of production the owners of tools, instead of eating up their captives, began to put them in positions to produce and then took possession of their products. Soon the primitive herd of savages came to be an organized society, consisting of masters and slaves. We call this the slave era . It reached its climax before the Fall of the Roman Republic. When Christianity appeared and its followers began to preach brotherhood and love and when the owners of the means of production began to realize that free labor is more productive and less expensive than slave labor, certain changes in society took place. Slavery w as restricted to the black race ; other slaves became serfs. This change brought about the Feudal system, consisting of landlords owning everything and their vassals owning merely sheer labor power. These vassals could make their living only by entire submission of their lives to the landlords. Later on when the means of production were further improved it became necessary for the laborers to be free so that they might be able to go wherever their labor power was needed, without any expense to the owners of the tools. Emanicpa- tion of labor took place. This marked the beginning of the Capitalistic Era, in which we are now Living. The capitalist system consists, as stated before, of a handful of men who have control of the means of production and the natural resources as well as of the political power, while on the other hand the working class, which is in the very great majority everywhere, ow n nothing except that which cannot be taken away from a person — hands and brains — by means of which they make their living. At the beginning of this decade these two classes represented the tw r o sides of a balance. At that time the difference between the two sides was not very great, so the living of the working people was quite bearable. By the gain of one class and the loss of ' the other, in the course of the time, the equilibrium was destroyed and now the living of the working people is in the lower balance of the scale. This means that the wheel of evolution is again ready to make a complete revolution. As in the former evolutionary revolutions there wore people who attempted to stop revolutions and became victims of ignorance ; at the present there are such people also, who. at least, ought to be grateful to the Socialists because the latter warn of this danger. Revolution does not necessarily mean bloodshed or tumult. Revolution means to the human society as much as molting to the locust or the cell division of the ameoba. When all the people recognize their own interests, in the full meaning of the word, and begin to follow it, the Social Revolution will prove a Rennaissance to them. The chief characteristic of the capitalist system is this: the people are divided into nations, governed by bodies, called “national” governments. In reality these “national” governments are committees controlled almost entirely by the capitalists, resting upon the ignorance of the working people, to serve the interest of the capitalist class. These “national” governments have organized large armies from the members of the working class that they may better perform their predetermined func- tions. The purpose of these armies is chiefly not to defend some fatherland as w r e are told, but to protect old markets, capture ESTHER SCOTT: — “With a heart that ' s ever kind. '

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Emerson School HOY SCOTT: — “Being good is a lonesome job.”

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Washington School MAE EILER: — “Her air, her manners, all who saw admired.