My early life was blighted as the result of the premature death of my father by the Civil War and the consequent breaking up of his family and my bondage to a German who made a slave of me, broke my health by overwork and exposure, and, worst of all, kept me in ignorance, so that when, at the age of twenty-one, I began my education, I was a.s.signed to the fourth grade of a public school.

The prime of my life has been wasted in preaching as truths the dogmas of the Christian theology, the representations of which I now believe, with the overwhelming majority of educated people, to be at best so many symbols and at worst superst.i.tions.

But though I do not now and probably never shall again believe in the existence of a conscious, personal G.o.d, a knowledge of and obedience to whose will is necessary to salvation, yet an injustice is done me by those who say I have abandoned G.o.d and religion.

Every one who desires and endeavors to fulfill the requirements of a law which is independent of his will and beyond his control has a G.o.d and a religion. I desire and endeavor this in the case of two such laws and so have two G.o.ds and two religions. Both of my divinities are trinities.

One is in the physical realm and the other in the moral one.

In the physical realm my triune G.o.d is: matter, the father; force, the son, and motion, the spirit.

In the moral realm, my triune G.o.d is: fact, the father; truth, the son, and life, the spirit.

For me the triune divinity of Christianity is a symbol of these trinities and it is my desire and effort to discover and fulfill what they require of me, in order that I may make my own physical, psychical and moral life as long, happy and complete as possible and help others in doing this for themselves. This desire and effort is at once my morality and religion, my politics and patriotism, and they are spiritual realities.

On account of the first of these sets of spiritual virtues (morality and religion) I claim to be a Christian of the highest type, and that any accusation which is raised against me because of alleged disloyalty to any essential of Christianism is an injustice.

On account of the second of these sets of spiritual virtues (politics and patriotism) I claim to be an American of the highest type, and that any accusation which is raised against me because of alleged disloyalty to an essential of Americanism is an injustice.

From the viewpoint of the self-styled one hundred per cent Christians, I am a betrayer of Brother Jesus because I do not believe that he ever had any existence as a G.o.d and that, if he was at any time a man, the world does not now and never can know of one thing that he did or of one word that he said.

From the viewpoint of the self-styled one hundred per cent Americans, I am a traitor to Uncle Sam, because I did oppose his going into the English-German war, and because I do object to the partiality which he shows to his rich nephews and nieces.

Still Jesus and Uncle Sam are as dear to me as ever and indeed dearer, yet not as objective, conscious personalities, but as symbols, ideals or patterns.

However, though I love my Brother Jesus and Uncle Sam all the time, as a child does Santa Claus at Christmas time, I am no longer childish enough at any time to look to either of them to do anything for me, because I know that what is done for me must be done either by myself or by men, women and children, and that as objective, conscious personalities, my Brother Jesus and Uncle Sam have had no more to do with my life than the man-in-the-moon.

Your observation concerning the American government as being the standard to which all governments will ultimately conform challenges an earnest word of friendly dissent.

Our government is what all the governments of the world are (with the single exception of the Russian) a government in the interest of a small cla.s.s, the representatives of which own the means and machines of production and distribution and who produce and distribute things for profit, each for himself.

The representatives of one cla.s.s produce things socially, and those of another cla.s.s appropriate them individually. This is capitalistic anarchy, the worst of possible anarchism, and it must have an end soon or the world will be lost.

Robbery is the essence of anarchy and Marx showed that every cent of profit made under the existing system of economics (and in the United States it amounts to several billions of dollars every year) is so much robbery of the many who make and operate the machines, because they are paid less in wages than the value of the products made and distributed by them.

We are hearing much in these days about the anarchy of those who are dissatisfied with the capitalistic governments, but the governments themselves and those in whose interests they exist are the real anarchists. The flesh and blood of anarchism are robbery and lying, and these are the meat and drink of capitalism.

The English-German war was the most flagrant act of anarchy in the whole history of mankind. The peace of Versailles and the blockade of Russia were outrageous acts of anarchy, and so also are the terrorism and tyranny of which every capitalistic country is so full, our own with the rest.

Morality is the very heart of civilization and of all that really makes for it; but morality is impossible on a capitalistic basis, for it is founded on the most immoral things in the world, robbery, lying, murder, ignorance, poverty and slavery.

If I am right in the conviction that the United States is more wholly given over to capitalism than any other nation, not excepting even England, it is the greatest robber, liar and murderer on earth. How then, can the United States become the standard for the governments of the nations?

If the government of Russia holds its own, it, rather than that of the United States, will become the standard to which all governments must measure up or else go down.

Yes, not the government of the United States but that of Russia is destined to become the standard of all peoples, for the aim of our government is money, more money, and then some, for the few, while the infinitely higher aim of theirs is life, more life, fuller life for every man, woman and child.

Within my generation the vanguard of humanity has pa.s.sed from the age of traditionalism to that of scientism and this transition is the greatest and most salutary event in the whole history of humanity. It is impossible to exaggerate its importance. It marks the time when man began consciously to realize that he must look to himself rather than to any G.o.d for salvation.

From time immemorial man has realized that ignorance is his ruin and knowledge his salvation, but during the too many and too long ages of traditionalism he made the fatal mistake of supposing that he was dependent upon a supernatural revelation by an unconscious, personal G.o.d for the necessary knowledge. But now the leading people of the world, the shepherds of the sheep, are seeing with increasing clearness that man has naturally inherited his knowledge and must naturally acquire by his own experience, reason and investigation every addition to it.

The world is indeed pa.s.sing through a long, dark night, but neither the longest nor the darkest, and since at last a great and rapidly increasing mult.i.tude happily realize that humanity must work out its own salvation through the living of its own knowledge by its own inherited and increased strength, not by a supernatural grace, we of this generation may rationally hope, as those of no other did or could, for the dawning of the longest and brightest of all days.

As an old year dies into a new one, and as flourishing generations die into rising ones, so the old traditional ages, when nations and sects looked to their rival G.o.ds in the skies for help, are happily dying into the new scientific age, when all sensible and good men, relying upon the strength of a common divinity which is within themselves, will unite in an all-inclusive brotherhood for the promotion of the ideal civilization, a universal reign of righteousness.

It is night,--midnight. The clock is striking twelve. But this is the very hour and the very minute, when all the saviours of mankind have always been and ever will be born. Then it is that the Virgin, Nature, comes to this dark world with her new born Son, Truth, whom to know and follow is morality, religion, politics and life. It is then that those who give expression to the highest ideals and deepest longings of mankind, hear the angels, Reason and Hope, sing: On earth peace and good will towards men.

Very cordially and gratefully yours, WM. M. BROWN.

Brownella Cottage, Galion, Ohio.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FREDERICK ENGELS]

[Ill.u.s.tration: NIKOLAI LENIN]

FOOTNOTES:

[H] The difference between a political republic, such as America has developed, and an industrial republic, such as Russia is developing, is that the administrators of the former are elected from the geographical divisions and those of the latter from the productive divisions into which the population is divided.

If we liken states to fruit trees, the American tree may be said to have been evolutionized for the purpose of producing the fruit of commodities for the profit of the owning cla.s.s, and the Russian, the fruit of commodities for the use of the working cla.s.s.

[I] See appendix.

[J] Nevertheless I consider church-going to be a bad habit, and if I could live my life over, I would not allow myself to become addicted to it.

COMMUNISM AND CHRISTIANISM

a.n.a.lYZED AND CONTRASTED FROM THE MARXIAN AND DARWINIAN POINTS OF VIEW

Appendix.

I Scientific Socialism.

II G.o.d and Immortality.

III Mythical Character of Old and New Testament Personages.

IV Would Socialism Change Human Nature?

V What Will be the Form of the Workers' State?

VI Withdrawal of Prize Offer.