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The Strange World of Elbert Hubbard’s Scrapbook

The Strange World of Elbert Hubbard’s Scrapbook

Last updated on: March 8, 2019 at 8:58 am by John Mark N. Reynolds

The Strange World of Elbert Hubbard’s Scrapbook 2019-03-08T08:58:01-04:00 John Mark N. Reynolds

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Socialism may have never been tried, having been tried often, just not properly, with bad consequences, but this does not decrease the confidence of socialists. They are the coming thing and just what the American young people want. Like Pepsi, socialists are always selling us that they are the choice of the next generation.

If present trends continue … is the intellectual argument of secular socialism.

And they might be right, eventually. Consider this situation.

A dynamic American socialist has created an arts-and-crafts movement that is changing how we look at “product.’ His tousled mane says genius to the one million Americans who have purchased his summary of four thousand years of civilization. As one reviewer says of this leader of our young people: “(he) was never very guarded in act or speech, and here he is in his most unguarded moments, uttering his honest opinions with humorous downrightness.”

The Presidential election of 1924 will be socialism’s break out year.

Except it was not… the winner being Calvin Coolidge.

As for Elbert Hubbard, he said a good bit more than Silent Cal, but to no avail. Hubbard collected a scrap book of knowledge: quips, quotes, questions. You could follow Hubbard’s every move: soap salesman, sort-of-rich guy, author of The Scrapbook, and marketing genius. He could sell, until he died, but the quality did not always match the pitch.

Now some might use the near total present obscurity of Elbert Hubbard as a reason to claim secular socialism is always being sold as the next big thing and just has not been even the next short-term thing.

I shall not. That point is too obvious to be interesting.

Instead, we should examine the characteristics of The Elbert Hubbard of any generation. The socialist intellectual grift has a standardized pattern.

First, the Elbert Hubbard of any age is smarter than you are. He has “brilliant solutions to life’s problems” as his public relations team will tell you. He reads and will distill four thousand of ideas for you into 228 pages.

Second, the Elbert Hubbard is outside the box, unhooked, radical, revolutionary, whatever the cool term is for a rebel with a Rolls Royce. He is one notch too progressive for today’s elites.

Third, whatever his chronological age, the Elbert Hubbard appeals to the Youth. He has seen the future and it works, at least this time, even though last time it killed millions.

Fourth, the Elbert Hubbard is a man/person/ze in a hurry. The crisis is upon us and so we must act now.

Fifth, today’s Elbert Hubbard with be yesterday’s reactionary. The edge moves and so yesterday’s Hubbard become tomorrows Mitt Romney, the party man.

Sixth, Elbert does not persuade you, your job is to persuade Elbert. Are you up to his handsome hardcover appearing in your home. Maybe? Elbert will decided.

Finally, the Elbert Hubbard wants to get to the core problem. He has no time for extended reading. Instead, he wants a YouTube video, one tough intro text, and some blog posts. The Hubbard has a plan and his plan beats your no-plan, even if you have never wished to have a plan in the area where Elbert Hubbard opines.

Elbert Hubbards? They abound and (as the financial infomercials say) past failure does not (sadly) guarantee future failure. Every generation has to reject Hubbardism again.

So it goes.

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