assures waste and instills into the souls
of the unfortunate and the weak hopes impossible of fruition whose
inevitable blasting will add to the bitterness of their lot.

Some years ago I was invited to dine with and address a charming group
of Socialists comprising the Ruskin Club of Oakland. We had a joyful
evening and I read to them "A Critique of Socialism" which forms the
second part of this volume. It was published in 1905 by Paul Elder and
Company, but almost the entire edition was burned in our great fire
of 1906. As there are still inquiries for it, it is thought best to
republish it. Obviously it was primarily intended to amuse my hosts, but
there is some sense in it.

A few months ago I was asked to present "The Case Against Socialism" to
the League of the Republic, an organization within the student body of
the University of California, it being the last of a series in which
a member of the Faculty of Stanford University and a much respected
Socialist of the State took part, neither of whom, much to my regret,
was I able to hear. What I said seemed to please some of the more
vigorous non-Socialists present who thought it should be printed.
Those who prefer pleasant reading should skip the "Case" and read the
"Critique."

Edward F. Adams

San Francisco, June Nineteen hundred and thirteen

THE CASE AGAINST SOCIALISM

The postponement of this address, which was to have been delivered two
weeks ago, was a real disappointment to me for I did not then know that
another opportunity would be arranged. As one approaches maturity, it
becomes a joy to talk to a group of young people in the light of whose
pleasant faces one seems to renew his own youth. Youth is the most
precious thing there is--it knows so little it never worries.

It is difficult for me to be here at this hour of the day and it has
been impossible for me to hear those who have preceded me in this
course. What I have to say may therefore have too little relation to
what has been presented from other points of view to be satisfactory
in what seems to have been designed as a debate. Nor have I, in recent
years, read much Socialistic or anti-Socialistic literature of which the
world is full. From my point of view, as will presently be seen, perusal
of this literature would be a waste of time for none of it that I have
seen or heard of discusses what seems to me essential, but in saying
this I must not be understood as disparaging either th