While it is doubtless true that no one can live in the world without in
some degree modifying his environment, it is also true that the
influence of a single person is seldom appreciable or his opinion upon
Social questions of sufficient importance to excite curiosity, but I
confess that when I listen to an address intended to be thoughtful, I
enjoy it more or at any rate endure it better, if I have some knowledge
of the mental attitude of the speaker toward his general subject.
Thinking that possibly those who hear me this evening may have the same
feeling, I begin by saying that I earnestly favor a just distribution of
comfort. I suppose that if I should analyze the mental processes leading
to that wish, I should find toward the bottom a conviction that if each
had his due I should be better off. The objection to the Socialistic
program is that it would prevent a just distribution of comfort.

Some years ago in a book of which I was guilty, I wrote the following:
"There is implied in all Socialistic writing the doctrine that organized
man can override, and as applied to himself, repeal the fundamental law
of Nature, that no species can endure except by the production of more
individuals than can be supported, of whom the weakest must die, with
the corollary of misery before death. Competitive Society tends to the
death of the weakest, Socialistic Society would tend to the preservation
of the weak. There can be no question of the grandeur of this
conception. To no man is given nobler aspirations than to him who
conceives of a just distribution of comfort in an existence not idle,
but without struggle. It would be a Nirvana glorious only in the absence
of sorrow, but still perhaps a happy ending for our race. It may, after
all, be our destiny. Nor can any right-minded man forbear his tribute to
the good which Socialistic agitation has done. No man can tell how much