There is as much difference between social legislation and Socialism as there is between the common-sense advancement of the ideas of peace and the selfish or cowardly brand of treason that is known as pacifism.  In both Socialism and pacifism the essential idea is that the individual should mentally “lie down” and “let George do it.”  In contrast with this, the common sense way to gain peace is actively to restrain wrong in order that right may triumph.  The United States recently has been engaged in just this kind of an undertaking.  Also, man is a social animal as well as an individual being, so social consciousness or social responsibility consists in the common responsibility of society to see that each individual gets a “square deal” in the form of equal opportunity for advancement by self effort.

In fact, the American ideal is to restrain human initiative only to the extent that is necessary to give equality of opportunity to all, and that the government should act only on the principle of the greatest good of the greatest number.  Hence Americans believe that Rousseau was right when he said that the individual gives up a small part of his personal liberty, or license, in order to receive back full civil liberty, which is much greater because it has a wider outlook and possibilities and is guaranteed through the support of society.  Furthermore, they believe that real liberty is freedom of individual action within the law as the expressed will of the people.

But everything depends upon the fact that the impulse to use this liberty must come from within, and not be commanded by a government from without.  In the words of the Declaration of Independence, Americans believe “that all men are ... endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit [not the gift] of happiness.”  On this basis alone was this nation founded and has it prospered.

FOOTNOTES: 

[Footnote 2:  The Rebuilding of Europe, p. 63.]

[Footnote 3:  The World War and Leadership in a Democracy, p. 111.]

[Footnote 4:  Law and Politics in the Middle Ages, p. 306.]

II

WHY IT APPEALS TO OUR FOREIGN-BORN POPULATION

It is often remarked that a reading of the names of the members of the present Socialist party, or of those who advocate Socialism in the United States to-day, will disclose the fact that most of these names denote foreign or Continental European, as contrasted with American or British, origin.  This can readily be understood when it is remembered that the governments of Continental Europe are theoretically on a different basis and of different origin from those of the United States and Great Britain or of those countries where the English Common Law prevails.