Exclusive Friendships

An excellent and gentle man of my acquaintance has said, "When fifty-one
per cent of the voters believe in coöperation as opposed to competition,
the Ideal Commonwealth will cease to be a theory and become a fact."

That men should work together for the good of all is very beautiful, and
I believe the day will come when these things will be, but the simple
process of fifty-one per cent of the voters casting ballots for
socialism will not bring it about.

The matter of voting is simply the expression of a sentiment, and after
the ballots have been counted there still remains the work to be done. A
man might vote right and act like a fool the rest of the year.

The socialist who is full of bitterness, fight, faction and jealousy is
creating an opposition that will hold him and all others like him in
check. And this opposition is well, for even a very imperfect society is
forced to protect itself against dissolution and a condition which is
worse. To take over the monopolies and operate them for the good of
society is not enough, and not desirable either, so long as the idea of
rivalry is rife.

As long as self is uppermost in the minds of men, they will fear and
hate other men, and under socialism there would be precisely the same
scramble for place and power that we see in politics now.

Society can never be reconstructed until its individual members are
reconstructed. Man must be born again. When fifty-one per cent of the
voters rule their own spirit and have put fifty-one per cent of their