In Winnipeg, Manitoba, the street railway conductors and motormen are on strike. In the dead of winter with the cold as biting as it gets in that northern city, where the thermometer goes down to sixty below zero, men don't throw up their jobs for fun. Only under the stress of great wrong will they strike back at a heartless corporation, that has the economic power to starve and freeze them, and the political power to send them to jail.

A strike is the most serious problem of a working-man's life. A job is life, it is food, it is warmth. To throw it up means to cut himself off from the source of supply.

Do the rich mens' sons, the college boys, who have taken the strikers places on the street cars of Winnipeg, know they are playing with life? Do they know that their sport, their little adventure, may mean death to numbers of children from exposure to want? Do they know what every job they have taken means to the man who left it?

No, the ill-bred parasitic puppies are as ignorant of the meaning of things as they are as a college can make them, combined with their upbringing.

The most contemptible man in modern times is a scab, and the scurviest of all scabs is a college bred scab.

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I spent the first twenty years of my life 400 miles south and 50 years downstream of Winnipeg from the author. It was as close as Berlin to me. Another country. Out of sight and out of mind.

But hockey teams made for some awareness. Walking home in Minneapolis in the dead of winter at thirty below zero, I figured it must be colder than a witches' tit in Winnipeg. So I get the author's point. Fatal cold without good clothing.

Reflecting on the point, I realized that in the more than fifty years I have been working, I never wanted to go on strike. At times, I have wanted more time off. At times more money. A promotion. To be somewhere else. But I never wanted to put life on hold. The author of this 1911 snippet makes a good point, a point a writer from our times can't appreciate. Busy as they are with a 'fair and balanced' perspective. The error of considering work as a 'lifestyle choice' can be made. The truth is work is life. We all eat. If someone is not working we all die.

The author isn't fond of college boys. Does the author hate education? I don't know. I suspect mixed feelings. Religious types sometimes have this adversion. Whoever wrote this has been dirt for a long time. There is no way to know. College in 1911 was only for the rich, and 'college boys' were all elites. Members of another tribe, and I do not think, the author's tribe.

"A heartless corporation, that has the economic power to starve and freeze them, and the political power to send them to jail."

In the 112 years since this was written, what has changed? Tribes of the rich have power. Their tribes control the livelihood of others then as now. This has not changed. In North America, socialism was defeated. Men were sent to jail and killed.

In 1911 American socialism had membership. The Haymarket executions had been only 25 years before. The 'Agitator' advertised a P. O. Box in WA state. About thirty miles away across Puget Sound from me.

It is ancient history now. The political power to send people to jail carried the century. The embers of a more egalitarian future, actually any future at all, are smothered by the power of the rich tribes.

By the end of the century, ecological conditions require about 12 billion of us to die 'before our time'. This to happen for there to be any future at all. That to happen, or everyone dies.

Tribal eyes always look the same direction, one way. This is why things play out the way they do. Elite eyes imagine a party that never ends, and suffering is not seen by them.

The elite still go to college, and they still only learn about things that concern themselves. The difference is they are not alone. Acquiring institutional tunnel vision became common. The human race became too smart for its own good. A global Dunning–Kruger effect takes hold.

In other tribal news, 7326 Palestinians are murdered and 18,000+ are wounded since the 10/7 attack by Hamas. My tax dollars at work. And I don't like it.

Many, sinners all, think killing and avenging is ok in war. It is what Hamas does now, to the delight of war hawks in Israel. Living on the Gaza Strip is a slow death. Israel created a prison with two and a half million people in it. Their mission was to kill, not heal. Zionists learned from their German teachers well. Zionists now have the opportunity to accelerate the death and achieve their goal. Eradication of the Palestinians.

Subjugated for decades, radical elements of a nation without a future attacked. The entire world may burn from it. Their actions seem suicidal. But if you have no future. And your adversary has been murdering your people for decades. Suicide can make sense.

It is natural for people to assume that the discovery of an important truth carries with it the right of enforcing its acceptance. This was the doctrine of Mahomet, Philip II, and of all who in the past preached with the sword, and is the doctrine of intolerance every-where. It is not at the present time a popular doctrine, and would doubtless be discarded by Socialists generally.

For our part, we regard compulsory Communism as an absurdity. Still, it is not without advocates even among Socialists, and especially in certain French schools. What is Proudhon's doctrine that private property is wrong but a doctrine of compulsory Communism? He would make personal ownership a crime against Society, and so compel a man to hold his property in common with others.

A modified form of this doctrine is held by some extreme Trade-Unionists and Labor Reformers. Go among them, and you will hear denunciations of the well-to-do classes which are based on the assumption that these have no right to their accumulations and ought to share them with those less prudent or less fortunate. But whatever may be our duties in respect to "bearing one another's burdens," they should not be crowded to the extreme of compulsory Communism. That cannot be a true principle. If it were, it would cover every thing; but carry it up into the higher conditions of life, and it becomes an absurdity and an impossibility.

You can not have compulsory Communism of hearts and of life. Communism in these things without spiritual unity and absolute agreement, if it were possible, would be worse than nothing. The principle of compulsion is therefore seen to have no legitimate place in Communism. It had none in that first great example of Communism recorded in the Acts. Those who believed came together voluntarily and "had all things common;" there was no compulsion. This appears from the account of Peter's dealings with Ananias and Sapphira. He acknowledged their right to private ownership, and only upbraided them because they lied in keeping back a part of the price of the land. "While it remained was it not thine own? And after it was sold was it not in thine own power?"

A second discrimination that must be made on this subject is, that true Communism is not a leveling institution. Compulsory Communism would bring all down to the same level -- give all the same privileges and the same rewards. True Communism makes room for the Scriptural doctrine that "every man shall be rewarded according to his works." It furnishes all with the conditions of complete development, but it can not insure equal development in all cases, and does not try to reward all alike without reference to their degrees of development. It would be as reasonable to insist that all parts of the human body should receive the same amount of nourishment, as that every member of a Community should receive the same reward.

Suppose it were possible to convey to one of the toes the same amount of nourishment that goes to the head, it would create disease and produce a useless monstrosity. All that can be wisely desired is, that every part of the human body and every member of a social organization shall receive all it needs for its best development and greatest usefulness. And that will lead to results quite different from the leveling principle. If we go back again for illustration to the Pentecostal Community we see that while there was Community of goods, still "distribution was made unto every man according as he had need." and some had a great deal more to do with the work of distribution and with the general management than others, and deservedly so. These were apostles and deacons.

We must further consider that supposing it were possible to make all fare exactly alike in respect to such things as money, food, and clothing, educational facilities, etc., still there are more important things in respect to which it is not possible that there should be any such uniformity. There can be no leveling law which will give one man the same confidence and love which another inspires. Such matters are controlled by principles which do not come within the scope of any rule of equality. So, too, the great principle of Stirpiculture (which is likely to find its best field of application in Communism) is directly opposed to the leveling principle of treating all alike without reference to their merits; its fundamental idea is that of selection -- "breeding from the best."

Look sharply into the matter, and you will discover that the leveling principle is also a compulsory principle. This becomes most apparent in considering its application to the higher interests of Communism. Thus, if a member of a Community should insist on taking his turn as ruler, it is obvious that in carrying his point he might put the great majority of the members under great compulsion.

Communism is in one view only a higher form of cooperation. The Graphic points out the advantages which would result to the poorest people from clubbing together in their purchases of coal and mutton. Communists have found out there are still greater advantages in combining all the interests of life; but they do it with the expectation that "every man will be rewarded according to his works." It is only a superior application of the joint-stock principle. It will require new machinery for its distribution of awards, but that will be developed in due time.

In Communism which discards all compulsion we see possibilities of the perfect harmony of subordination and individual liberty. There must be subordination to the fullest extent required by the principle of agreement, for that lies at the base of all Communism; but secure perfect agreement, and then the more liberty there is the better. True Communism insures both and in their order; but agreement is primary and its safeguards more important than those of individual liberty.

Many persons apply for admission to Communities in the spirit that would compel their reception as members: But it would be just as reasonable for a man to try to compel a woman to marry him. Compulsory marriage is in the nature of a rape, and compulsory Communism is no better. No community has a right to compel anyone to enter it or remain in it, and, on the other hand, no one has a right to force his way into a Community and so compel others to enter into Communism with him. There must be complete freedom on both sides. Compulsion is contrary to the entire spirit and genius of true Communism.