The Semi Weekly Messenger

Socialism and Electricity.

Electricians agree that the Germans
of today are ahead of any others, even
Americans, in the matter of applied
electricity, and they well understand
that much of this progress is due to
the liberal, patient, and continuous en-
couragement the German government
has given to electrical developments
and they have taken it for granted that
the prestige in the field thus gained
was sufficient reward for their outlay.
It remained for the German engineers
that visited Indianapolis a few days ago
to reveal the fact that behind it all
was a political purpose, nothing more
nor less than the idea of fighting Ger-
man socialism with electricity.

That sounds very much like the
dream of a visionary at first blush, but
a little examination proves it to be
founded on a bottom of information and
sense. By means of the very complete
German police system the emperor long
ago learned that more than nine-tenths
of the German socialists were men that
lived in leased or rented houses, and
had no real estate of their own.

He had a theory, founded deep in
knowledge of human nature, that if the
average German workingman could be in-
duced to own his home and have some-
thing to hope for, something to leave
for his children, he would no longer
yearn for a redivision of property, and
the growth of socialism, which has
thriven in the empire despite the dras-
tic repressive laws of the Bismarck
regime, might be checked. To make
this possible a way must be provided
for very quick and very cheap trans-
portation, so that the workman might
go far enough into the country to ob-
tain cheap land. Hence the official Ger-
man experiments along the line of high
speed electric roads, and hence the
commission of engineers sent here to
study the trolley systems.

Along this line there are organizing
in one after another of the German
industrial centers, where socialism
most thrives, land companies, encour-
aged by certain government privileges,
for the purpose of buying suburban
land and selling it to workmen on the
installment plan, with houses built
thereon to suit the taste, means, and
convenience of the purchaser. In a
word the German emperor's plan is to
make it possible for every German
workman to own his home, and check
the rise of socialism by appealing to
the enlightened selfishness of individu-
al; and he regards cheap and swift
electric traction as one of the chief
means to this end. Thus stated his
dream of fighting socialism with elec-
tricity becomes no dream at all, but
the sanest kind of common sense,-
Indianapolis Journal.