40 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY
individualism. They manifest not the least fear that by some hocus-pocus they will be inveigled into the doing of something by means of their governmental agencies which will interfere with their individual interests. This seems the more remarkable to an American when we remember that the Swiss have no consti- tutional checks, in the American sense. They have no courts which stand ready at every turn to act as a special providence to prevent the people from embarking in dangerous enterprises. The Swiss know that if they wanted to adopt a communistic form of government they could do so at any moment. There are, however, convinced socialists in Switzerland, and while their doctrines are neither feared nor approved, yet the socialists themselves are treated with the respect due to ordinary patriotic citizens. They are elected to office and admitted to a share in the government.
There is nothing which seems so completely to take the spirit out of a socialist as to treat him as a gentleman and a Christian. What with the socialistic legislation which bankers and manufacturers have inaugurated, and with the kindly treat- ment on the part of the voters and the general lack of interest in their peculiar teachings, the case of the socialist is indeed pitiable. To avoid extinction some of the Swiss socialists have proposed radical changes in the socialistic doctrine and the methods of action. I have before me an account of a meeting of socialists held in Berne as reported in the Geneva Journal of January 3, the article is entitled " Un nouveau socialisme" It contains the resolutions adopted on the occasion and an extract from a speech made by M. Gschwind. The resolutions definitely repudiate a part of the socialistic programme of 1888. Speci- fically they attack the proposition to monopolize the land on the part of the state. This they say would take away from the farmers their indispensable independence and deliver them into the hands of an expensive bureaucracy. In place of the former doctrine they would substitute the appropriation of ground rents. They also object in general terms to the centralizing tendency of the older socialism, and they would be less definite in the asser-
