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Brisbane, Arthur, 1864-1936

"Editorials from the Hearst Newspapers"


The saddest period in a child's life is undoubtedly the period of
teething. If you saw a baby for the first time and didn't
understand that period, you would denounce the cruelty which
inflamed its gums, upset its digestion, kept it awake, condemned
it to incessant torture. But we all know that a full set of
teeth under the control of the child is to reward the suffering
of teething, and this reconciles us to the teething age.
We tell you--and we don't want you to forget this--that all the
trust impositions and suffering and thievery now agitating us
constitute a teething process through which we must pass. The
result will be a full set of industrial teeth owned and
controlled by the nation, which now suffers the torments of the
teething baby. ----
You will realize that individuals must at first do that which
nations do later.
The despotic, irresponsible rule of the savage chief, of the
able individual fighter, was a forerunner of the present system
of government.
We have now taken the governing power from the individual,
bestowing it on the whole people, but at first we had to have our
Attilas, our Napoleons and Alexanders. ----
As individual control of the government has been superseded by
collective control, so individual control of industries will be
followed by collective control.


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