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SOCIALISM 
 
 FROM 
 
 GENESIS TO REVELATION 
 
 BY 
 
 REV. F. -M. SPRAGUE 
 
 BOSTON 
 LEE AND SHEPARD PUBLISHERS 
 
 10 MILK STREET 
 1893 
 
CORN ELL 
 
 1 UNIVEKSirV 
 
 LiSRARY 
 
 Cui-YKHihT, i\^\d'z\ V.Y llEV. i\ M. STRAOU 
 
 All Bights Reserved, 
 
 Socialism from Genests to PtEVELATiox. 
 
 J. PAH«HILL 4 CO., PRINTERS 
 
 BOSTON 
 
 h 
 
THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED 
 
 yakrinjg Classes 
 
 THE GREAT PRINCIPLES OF INDUSTRIAL 
 
 DEMOCRACY AND SOCIAL 
 
 JUSTICE. 
 

 ORNEllN 
 l. LIBRARY 
 
PEEFACE 
 
 This work was begun as an investigation, continued as 
 a study, and completed as a conviction. That conviction is 
 that some form of Christian Socialism affords the only 
 basis of peace between the hostile forces of society. 
 
 For years we have watched the conflict between labor 
 "- and capital, regarding it only as a temporary derangement 
 of industrialism, involving no moral issue, and sure to adjust 
 itself in due time. As the conflict continued, widening in 
 extent, and deepening in intensity, it touched every interest 
 of society including that of religion. The author, as a 
 Christian minister, naturally asked himself, what relation, 
 if any, the social question sustained to the phenomenal 
 irreligion of the multitudes ? 
 
 Fortunately at this time (1885) The Connecticut Valley 
 Economic Association was organized in Springfield, Mass., 
 of which -e became a member. It was a remarkable 
 circumstance that this association included in its member- 
 ship such political economists and sociologists as Professor 
 J. B. Clark of Smith College, Professor F. H. Giddings of 
 Bryn Mawr College, Professor Edward W. Bemis of Van- 
 derbilt University, Professor C. S. Walker of the Massa- 
 chusetts Agricultural College, and Dr. G. M. Steele of 
 Wesleyan Academy. To these gentlemen the author, how- 
 ever diverse his views, is deeply indebted for a fresh and 
 sustained interest in a now supremely important subject. 
 
 We soon became satisfied that the question that vexed 
 political economy, set labor and capital at war, and threat- 
 
IV PKEFACE 
 
 ened all social institutions was primarily a moral one. In 
 other words, the social question is one within the jurisdic- 
 tion of Christian ethics. Throughout these pages this 
 question is viewed from an ethical standpoint. 
 
 Socialism is a new science of political economy. Its 
 object is to realize the ethics of the religion of Jesus Christ 
 in the possession of economic goods. The capitalistic sys- 
 tem, by its gross inequality in the distribution of wealth, 
 has come to be the arch enemy of this ethical principle. 
 Socialism is an evolution. It is related to capitalism as 
 the butterfly to the chrysalis, as Christianity to Judaism, 
 or as democracy to monarchy. Both Judaism and monarchy 
 have done good service, but they have had their day. The 
 same is true of capitalism as an economy. Society will no 
 longer tolerate its old dogmas respecting private property, 
 freedom of contract, and free competition ; its conception 
 of the State as a mere political institution, of labor as a 
 mere commodity, its necessary conclusion that money is of 
 more consequence than men, that might makes right, that 
 men being unequal should take the consequences of their 
 inequality, that some may justly live in idleness and luxury 
 while others toil and starve, that the social grist of vice, 
 crime, want, and misery, ground out by the operation of 
 the economic laws of capitalism, is necessary and natural, 
 and that the only way for the individual to save himself is 
 to thicken his competitive armor and secure a new advan- 
 tage over his weaker brother. These dogmas, while they 
 prepared the way for a better order, have at length become 
 so offensive to the prevailing sense of right as to be no 
 longer tolerable. 
 
 Socialism is a newer and truer economy. We have chosen 
 this term to express the new social movement, because of 
 its generic character. Socialism, like Christianity, admits 
 of variety in form and expression, while it sufficiently 
 differentiates itself from other systems. The integrity of 
 Christianity is not impaired by its various forms. The 
 same is true of Socialism. As all forms of Christianity 
 call for one essential, a Christianized life, so all forms of 
 Socialism have one essential, the socialization of industry. 
 
PREFACE T 
 
 We are aware of the prejudice against tlie word, but we 
 confidently believe this will disappear. We warn the reader 
 against the popular delusions that Socialism would divide 
 the property of the rich equally among the people, that it 
 would deprive individuals of all personal property, that 
 it claims that laborers are absolutely no better off than for- 
 merly, that it sanctions the social outrage of confiscation, 
 and that it secretly, if not openly, sympathizes with methods 
 of violence. 
 
 It will be seen in the following pages that these are gross 
 misrepresentations employed by capitalistic writers to dis- 
 credit Socialism in the eyes of the people. 
 
 Socialism is often summarily dismissed with the remark 
 " That the time is not ripe for it." Socialists have no idea 
 of harvesting a crop before it is ripe. They do contend, how- 
 ever, that the unripeness of a crop is no reason for not culti- 
 vating it. Socialism being the product of the social evolu- 
 tion, the only danger lies in obstructing it. Evolution is a 
 normal development, a growth ; revolution is a creation. 
 To obstruct evolution is to invite revolution. 
 
 The view that the industrial evolution having passed 
 through the successive stages of slavery and feudalism is 
 now completed and permanently crystallized in capitalism, 
 while the sense of industrial injustice was never so keen 
 and universal, is as unhistorical as it is unphilosophical. 
 No industrial organization is ultimate and permanent that 
 is discordant with recognized and universal principles of 
 truth and right. It is with these great principles and their 
 application to industrial society that we are concerned 
 in this work. Our insistence is, that these principles shall 
 be both recognized and regnant in the organization of 
 industry, from which they have heretofore been excluded ; 
 that " The Golden Eule shall be the rule for gold." That 
 this involves, great and radical changes we concede. 
 
 By these principles, the assumptions and methods of the 
 existing order separately and collectively have been tested 
 and condemned ; by these principles, the claims of Social- 
 ism have been tested and approved as in accordance with 
 reason, religion, and nature. We have given no private 
 
VI PREFACE 
 
 interpretation to these regal principles, indulged in no 
 speculations, advanced no theories, ridden no hobbies, 
 demanded no application which is not simple, natural, and 
 necessary to their integrity and supremacy. Upon these 
 principles Socialism confidently and serenely rests her 
 claims. 
 
 The controversial character of certain portions of the 
 work was unavoidable. The opponents of Socialism are 
 entitled to have their arguments either admitted or shown 
 to be fallacious. As we could not admit them we have 
 accepted the latter alternative, and this the more readily 
 because no great principle in science, politics, or religion 
 was ever established without controversy. Let there be 
 perfect courtesy, candor, and conscientiousness in the discus- 
 sion, and truth will be triumphant. We simulate ho virtue 
 in saying that we prefer truth to our own opinion. If in 
 these pages we have penned a single sentence which in 
 letter, spirit, or tendency is not approved by the highest 
 Christian ethics, we shall rejoice to discover it, and be swift 
 to "withdraw it. 
 
 Socialism in the United States is making rapid progress, 
 and is to-day the most important subject before the Ameri- 
 can people. This book is the first and only one that pre- 
 sents the claims of Socialism from a thoroughly democratic 
 and American standpoint. Gronlund's " Cooperative Com- 
 monwealth" is a concise and vigorous presentation of the 
 subject from the German standpoint. 
 
 We feel justified in claiming a fair degree of thorough- 
 ness and completeness in the treatment of the subject. 
 The reader will find every important phase of Socialism 
 considered. Its many practical advantages have been set 
 forth, and popular objections have been carefully examined 
 and, as we think, fairly answered. 
 
 Whatever be our manner of treatment, the importance of 
 the subject will be admitted by all. The social question 
 not only " will not down," but is assuming proportions that 
 in the near future threaten revolution. It is no longer a 
 "theory " that confronts society, but a "situation." It is 
 of the utmost importance that the coming revolution should 
 
PEEFACE VH 
 
 be peaceful and gradual. With the hope of insuring this 
 result, and with the earnest desire to promote peace and 
 good will by laying again the foundations of social justice 
 in accordance with the precepts of the Son of God, these 
 pages have been written. 
 
 F. M. SPRAGUE. 
 SPEiNGriELD, October, 1892. 
 
TABLE OF C0:N"TEI^TS 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 THE GENESIS OP 80CIAMSM 
 
 PAGE 
 
 I. Definition and Essential Natube. 
 
 ■ EtTiical Basis. — Two Permanent Factors. — Dis- 
 tinguished from Individualism. — Historical Sys- 
 tems of Industry. — Capitalism. — Communism. — 
 Nihilism. — Anarchism. — Essence of Socialism . 1-4 
 
 II. The Five Fingers of the Socialistic Hand. 
 The Economic. — The Social. — The Moral. — The 
 Political. — The Religious. — Eight Points of Re- 
 semblance to Christianity. — Relation to Repuhli- 
 can Government. — Marriage and the Family. — 
 Inflammatory Utterances not Representative. — 
 Working and Upper Classes Embracing Socialism, 4-10 
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 CAUSES THAT HATH PKODUCED SOCIALISM 
 
 I. The Inteodijction of Machinery. 
 
 Its Capacity. — Cause of Suffering. —Punishment of 
 Machine-breakers. — Machinery a Disappointment 
 to Laborers 11-14 
 
 II. The Concentration of Capital. 
 
 Steam and the Great Plant. — Ruin of Small In- 
 dustries. — Hardship of Laborers. — Movement of 
 Population 14-15 
 
 III. Division and Consequent Degradation of La- 
 
 bob. 
 Function of the Laborer lowered. — Labor Mo- 
 notonous. — Production cheapened at the Expense 
 of the Laborer's Manhood 15-17 
 
TABLE OF CONTENTS 
 
 IV. The Sepabation of Industbial Classes. 
 
 Assumption of Superiority by Employers. —Segre- 
 gation of Wage-worliers. — ■ Envy and Hatred 
 toward Employers. — Large Salaries. — Caste and 
 Inequality 17-20 
 
 V. Competition. 
 
 Nature. — Labor a Commodity. — Manchester 
 School.— Laissez-faire. — Failure of the Economic 
 Harmonies. — Competition Unethical. — False As- 
 sumptions. — Cause of Inequality. — Prediction of 
 Pitt. — Oppression of Labor. — Socialism the Remedy, 20-26 
 
 VI. Monopoly. 
 
 Preclfides Competition. — Oppresses Labor. — Ten- 
 dency toward Monopoly. — Natural and Artificial. 
 
 — Industrial Tyranny 27-29 
 
 VII. OVBB-PEODUCTION. 
 
 Anarchy of Private Enterprise. — Disastrous Ef- 
 fects. — No Remedy under Capitalism 29-31 
 
 VIII. COMMBECIAL CEISBS. 
 
 Periodical Occurrence. — Causes. — Theory of 
 Kodbertus. — Inherent in Capitalism. — Feverish 
 Pulse of Capitalism 31-33 
 
 IX. Patjpbbism. 
 
 Increases with Civilization. — Product of Capital- 
 Ism. — Industry. — Enforced Idleness. — Statistics. 
 — Menace to the Republic. — Cardinal Manning on 
 the Right (fo Steal. — Hung for being Poor. — Pau- 
 perism in England. — In the United States . . . 33-36 
 
 X. Class Legislation. 
 
 In Favor of Capital and against Labor. — Testimony 
 of Professor Rogers ; of Professor Jevons. — Stat- 
 ute of Laborers. — Statute of Apprentices. — Suf- 
 ferings of Laborers. — Professor Ely on Child Labor. 
 
 — Class Legislation in America 36-39 
 
 ^XI. Speead OP THE Democeatic Peinciple. 
 
 In Russia. — In England. — In France. — In the 
 United States. — Industrial Liberty Curtailed. — 
 Democracy and Socialism. — Industrial Democracy 
 a Necessity 39-42 
 
 XII. The Dissemination of Knowledge. 
 
 Power of Knowledge. — Statistics of Schools and 
 Progress of Knowledge in Russia. — In Italy. — In 
 
TABLE OP CONTENTS xi 
 
 Germany. — In France. — In Great Britain. — In 
 Spain. — In the United States. — Newspapers in the 
 United States and Canada. — Increase of Boolis. — 
 
 Effect on tlie Masses 42-45 
 
 XIII. This Decay or Kbugion. 
 
 Roscher. —Loss of Faith a Danger. — Working men 
 and the Church. — Despair of Labor Reformers. — 
 Self-Indictment of the Church. — Charities. ~ Lib- 
 erty Dependent upon Religion. — Historical Exam- 
 ples. — Purified Christianity and Socialism . . . 45-49 
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 THE FIVE POSTULATES OF SOCIALISM 
 
 I. Labor is the Source of all Value. 
 
 The Basal Principle.— Labor in its Broadest Sense.— 
 Mental and Moral Workers.— False Impressions. — 
 Manual Laborers the Principal Sufferers under Cap- 
 italism.— Two Kinds of Value.— Land. — Politico- 
 Economic Authority for this Postulate. — The Prin- 
 ciple Self-evident. — Capital. — Money not Capital. 
 — Capital Non-productive. — Mr. Rae's Remarkable 
 Assertion. — Theory that Capital employs Labor. — 
 Capital transferred to Products. — Capital is Value. 
 
 — All Capital is produced by Labor. — Socialism and 
 Capital. — The System at Fault. — Capital is Con- 
 gealed Labor. — Nature of Labor as Measure of • 
 Value. — Concrete and Abstract Labor. — Socially 
 Necessary Labor. — Quantity of Labor the Measure 
 of Value. — Equal Hours of Concrete Labor not of 
 Equal Value. — Confusion on this Subject. — Mr. 
 Rae's Erroneous Theory of Value. — Corollaries of 
 
 this Postulate. —Bright. —Dr. Behrends . . . 50-66 
 
 II. Pbivate Capital is a Social Crime. 
 
 How Private Capital is Robbery. — The System at 
 Fault. — Marx on the Method of Exploiting Labor. 
 — Socialists Object to Private Capital, not Property. 
 
 — Land. — Inheritance. — Roman and Christian 
 Ideas ofiProperty. — The New Political Economy. — 
 Land Monopoly. — Important Admission of Dr. 
 Behrends. — His Contention with Mr. George. — In- 
 consistency of Dr. Behrends. — Private Capital 
 Incompatible with Fraternity. — Vicious Maxims of 
 Politico-capitalistic Economy illustrated by an Alle- 
 gory. — Property not a Part of the Possessor as Dr. 
 
:il TABLE OF CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Behrends alleges. — Property not Absolute. — Pro- 
 fessor Ely. — Spencer. — Land Monopoly. — Mr. 
 Joseph Cook's Criticism. — Tyranny of Capital. — 
 Dr. Strong. — Christian Fathers on Private Capital. 
 
 — Land Originally Common. — Lnportant Admis- 
 sions. — The Social Evolution. — The Disinherited 
 of Leeds, England. — The Land Question in 
 America. — Equality of Eights. — The Christian 
 
 Idea of Property 66-89 
 
 IIL The Rich abe Geowing Richer, and the Poor 
 
 POOBBB. 
 
 Formula of Rodbertus. — Of Marx. — Essential Fea- 
 tures of the Capitalistic System. — Freedom of Con- 
 tract. — The Question one of Relativity. — Rich Men. 
 — Corroborative Testimony of Political Economists, 
 Professor Ely, Dr. Strong, Professor Cairnes, Profes- 
 sor Adams. — Gulf between Classes- widening. — 
 Laborers in England worse off than under Feudal- 
 ism. — Dependence of Labor. — Poverty deeperfs as 
 Wealth increases. — Over-crowding in New York. — 
 In London. — Hoiu'ible Condition of the Poor. — 
 Pi'ofits of Wall Street. — Extremes of Inequality. 
 
 — Dr. Strong's Picture of the Rich and Poor. — 
 Work of Women and Children. — Poor Food. — Un- 
 sanitary Abodes. — Impure Water. — Brutal Law of 
 the Survival of the Fittest. — Not the Absolute, but 
 J?etati»e,Condition of Rich and Poor. — Infirmity of 
 Dr. Behrends's Argument. — Average Wages. — Mr. 
 Eae against Mr. George. — Fallacy of Mr. Rae's Ar- 
 gument. — His False Assumptions as to (1) Decrease 
 of Pauperism.— (2)Higher Standard of Living, — (3) 
 Longer Life. — (4) Larger Share of Production. — (5) 
 Unaltered Proportion of Product between Rich and 
 Poor Families. — Starvation Wages. — Professor 
 Walker's Testimony. — Reform Imperative . . . 90-119 
 
 IV. The Wages op Labob fuenish a Bake Subsist- 
 ence. 
 Marx on the Method of Exploiting the Laborer. — 
 Lassalle and the Iron Law. — Meaning of Bare Sub- 
 sistence. — The Accepted Economic Law of Wages. 
 — Capitalism necessitates It. — Grinding Process. — 
 Statistics in the United States. — In England. — Com- 
 petition and a Bare Subsistence. — Malthus'sDoctrine 
 tliat Population increases Faster than Subsistence. — 
 Darwin. — Mr. George on Malthusianism. — Profes- 
 sorWalker on Competition.— Mobility not a Remedy. 
 
TABLE OF CONTENTS xiii 
 
 — Dr. Gladden affirms this Law of Wages.— Compe- 
 tition opposed to Christian Ethics. — Suffering of 
 Working Classes. — Slow Process of Starvation. — 
 Fewer Laljorers owning Their Homes. — Labor as a 
 Commodity.— Theory that Cost of producing Labor- 
 ers should determine Wages. —Men not Commodi- 
 ties. — Men degraded below Brutes. — Professional 
 Workers. — Mr. Kae's Theory of Wages. — The 
 Wages-system defrauds the Laborer. — The Just 
 Reward of Labor 119-138 
 
 V. The Public Ownership and Contbol of Capital. 
 Capital Distinguished from Other Property. — Fra- 
 ternal Government. —Equity demands Public Own- 
 ership. — Bourgeois and Proletariat Classes. — Lais- 
 sez-faire andCompetition. — Professor Cairnes on the 
 Hopelessness of Labor. — Dr. Woolsey on the Dan- 
 ger of Private Wealth. — Remedial Laws. — Chris- 
 tianity demands State Ownership. — Socialism and 
 the Gospel contrasted with Individualism. — Vi- 
 cious Principle of Self-interest. — State Ownership 
 associated with Religion. — Early Communistic So- 
 cieties. — Baboeuf. — St. Simon. — Fourier. — Brook 
 Farm. — Shakers. — Cabet. — Communism not So- 
 cialism. — Louis Blanc. — Proudhon. — Ficht6. — 
 Weitling. — Rodbertus. — Lassalle. — Professorial So- 
 cialists. — Their Principles. — Christian Socialists. 
 
 — In England, Maurice, Kingsley, Hughes. — In 
 Germany. — Catholic and Protestant Develop- 
 ment. — Golden Fruit of Christian Socialism . . 138-164 
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 THE NATURE OF THE SOCIALISTIC STATE 
 
 I. The Socialistic State rests on First Princi- 
 ples, Hence Details are not Essential. 
 Socialists not bound to furnish Details. — Presump- 
 tion in Favor of Capitalism overcome. — Eight Prin- 
 ciples may be trusted 165-167 
 
 II. The Nature of the State Critically examined. 
 Ambiguity of the Word. — Definition. — Relation of 
 Individuals. — The State is the Largest Politico-so- 
 cial Organism. — Its Object is Social Justice. — Two 
 Opposite Conceptions. — Individual Liberty Theory. 
 
 — Social Justice tlje True Object. — Constitution of 
 tjie United States. — Its Ethical Basis. — Professor 
 
XIV TABLE or CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Sumner's Vicious Definition of Civil Liberty. — The 
 State a Necessary Good, not a Kecessary Evil. — 
 Equality. — Abuse of Personal Liberty. — The State 
 and Laissez-faire 167-181 
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 THE INADEQUACY OP VABIOTJS REMEDIES PROPOSED FOB 
 SOCIAL ILLS 
 
 I. Pbofit-shabing. 
 
 Three Kinds. — Advantages. — Rev. N. P. Oilman's 
 Hopeful View. — No Economic Basis. — .Fails to 
 give Worlcmen Greater Proportionate Share. — Un- 
 certainty from Fraud, from ' Necessity. — Appli- 
 cation. — Publicity. — Want of Adaptation. — His- 
 torical Failure. — Success, Exceptional .... 182-188 
 
 II. Co-operation. 
 
 Robert Owen and Co-operation. — Development of 
 the Principle. — Distributive Co-operation. — In 
 Great Britain. — In the United States. — Partial and 
 Integral Co-operation. — Eight Reasons showing its 
 Inadequacy. — Half-truth. — Of Limited Applica- 
 tion. — Function of Government. — Competition 
 Antagonistic. — Ignorance of Wage-workers. — Its 
 Failure. — Unfavorable Conditions. — Abolition of 
 the Entrepreneur. — Ignorance overcome by Aggre- 
 gate Wisdom in Universal Co-operation .... 188-197 
 
 III. Conciliation and Arbitration. 
 
 Terms Explained. — First adopted in France. — 
 Their History. — Reasons of Insufficiency. — Settle 
 no Principle. — Unscientific to fix Wages in the Fu- 
 ture. — Involves Expense. — Mere Armistice . . 197-201 
 
 IV. The Nationalization of Land. 
 
 Theory of Mr. George that this would be Sufficient. 
 — Peculiarity of Land as a Factor in Production. — 
 Economic Rent. — Theory that Rent determines both 
 Wages and Interest. — Erroneous Conclusions. — Mr. 
 George builds Logically on the Ricardian Law of 
 Rent. — The Unsuccessful Attack of Mr. Rae. — How 
 Rent affects Price. — The Law of Rent Obsolete. — 
 Ricardo's Inconsistency. — Rent depends on Situa- 
 tion and Improvements. — Margin of Cultivation 
 does not determine Wages, Interest, or Profits. — 
 Error of Mr. George. — Land is a Form of Capital. — 
 Its Nationalization would not destroy Other Monop- 
 olies 201-214 
 
TABLE OF CONTENTS 
 
 VI. 
 
 VII. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 An Eight-hour Day. 
 Mr. Gunton's Work. — Average Length of Working 
 Day. — Leisure for Workmen. — Increased Speed of 
 Machinery. — Public Approval of an Eight-hour 
 Day. — Reasons of Its Insufficiency. — Historical Ev- 
 idence. — Real Issue one of Wages not Time. — 
 Affects no Economic Principle. — Industrial Rela- 
 tions Unchanged. — Wages not Increased. — Mr. 
 Gunton's Error as to Enforced Idleness. — No Effect 
 on Profits. — Theory that Wages depend on Stand- 
 ard of Living Unsound 214-227 
 
 Indtjsteial Schools. 
 A Movement in the Right Direction. — Not a Solu- 
 tion of the Social Question. — Prejudice against 
 Manual Labor. — Need of Apprenticeship. — Unduly 
 increases Skilled Labor. — Renders Competition 
 Fiercer 227-280 
 
 Thrift, Intelligence, and Manliness. 
 These Valuable Qualities Powerless against Capi- 
 talism. — Futility of Hackneyed Remedies. — Dis- 
 content increases with these Virtues. — Capital 
 will reap the Benefit. — Skilled Labor attacks 
 Capitalism. — Thrift, etc. — Can apply only to the 
 Few. — If General, it would intensify the Struggle. 
 — No Tendency to equalize the Burdens and Bene- 
 fits. — Example from Elgin Watch Works. . . . 
 
 230-235 
 
 The Cheistianization op Capitalism. 
 Conservatism. — Dr. Gladden's Theory of Reform. 
 — Moral Wrong cannot be Christianized. — Private 
 Capital Inconsistent with Christianity — Freedom 
 of Contract, Unjust, Immoral, and a Misnomer. — 
 Competition is War. — AH Forms of Evil seek to 
 be Christianized 
 
 236-243 
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 advantages op the socialistic state 
 
 Mammon Dbthkonbd. 
 
 Office of Money. — Relation to Capitalism. — 
 Vicious Character of Interest and Commercial 
 Credit. — Gold, Corrupting. — The Money-getting 
 Passion. — Abolition of Money a Blessing . . . 244-249 
 
Xvi TABLE OF CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 II. Labob the Fortune of All. 
 
 Socialism with Christianity requires that All 
 should Labor. — A Blessing to the Idle Kich. — 
 Dignity of Labor. — The Shiftless compelled to 
 Labor. — Labor 249-251 
 
 III. Labokbbs no Longer Exploited by Means of 
 
 Money-wages. 
 Payment in Kind. — Method of Exploitation. — 
 Two Values of Labor. — Laborer robbed by 
 Means of Money-wages 251-252 
 
 IV. Justice in Taxation. 
 
 Theory of Taxation. — Inequality. — Demoralizing 
 Effects of Evasion. — Socialism the only Remedy . 252-254 
 V. The Liquor Traffic Undermined. 
 
 Its Enormous Proportions. — Statistics. — Love of 
 Money its Chief Support. — Source of Corruption. 
 
 — In the United States. — In Great Britain. — How 
 Socialism would destroy It 254-258 
 
 VI. The Over- worked Kblibvbd. 
 
 Inequality in Social Conditions. — Two Standards 
 of Justice. — Present Disparagement of Labor. 
 
 — Overworked Old Men,.Women, and Children. — 
 
 Relief under Socialism 258-261 
 
 VII. The Purification of Politics. 
 
 Causes of Political Corruption. — Election Frauds. 
 
 — Venality of Public Office. — Purchase of Votes. 
 
 — The Lobby. — Failure of Civil Service Re- 
 form. —Effect of Abolition of Money 261-265 
 
 VIII. Illiteracy Removed. 
 
 Increase of Illiteracy. — Compulsory Education. — 
 Children in the City of New York. -^ Capitalism 
 Hostile to Popular Education. — Adam Smith. — 
 
 Salutary Effects of Socialism 265-268 
 
 IX. Poverty Abolished. 
 
 Poverty and Riches. — Poverty Unnatural and Un- * 
 
 christian. — Society should abolish it. — Ability 
 of the Socialistic State to provide Support . . . 269-272 
 X. Crime Greatly Decreased. 
 
 Relation of the State to Crime. — Idleness and 
 Crime. — The Responsibility of Society for Crime. 
 
 — Testimony of Experts. — How to " Avoid Temp- 
 tation." — Riches and Poverty determined by So- 
 ciety. — How Socialism removes Temptation. — 
 Dr. Woolsey's Fear lest the Abolition of Crime cut 
 off the "Spice" of Life. — Natural Depravity and 
 Environment 272-284 
 
TABLE OF CONTENTS XVll 
 
 PAGE 
 
 XI. The Pbevention of Waste. 
 
 Keticence of Political Economy. — Definition of 
 Economic Waste. — Twenty Sources of Waste. — 
 (1) Needless Railways. — (2) Needless Stores and 
 Manufactories. — Bureaucratic Management under 
 Capitalism and Socialism compared.' — (3) Needless 
 Advertising. — (4) Needless Drummers. — (5) 
 Needless Enforced Idleness. — (6) Needless Com- 
 mercial Crises. — (7) Needless Adulterations and 
 Imitations. — (8) Needless Litigation. — (9) Need- 
 less Police and Prisons. — (10) Needless Theft and 
 Embezzlement. — (11) Needless Intemperance. — 
 (12) Needless Change in Fashion. — (13) Needless 
 Luxury. — (14) Needless Charity. — (15) Needless 
 Inefficiency of Labor from Ignorance. — (16) 
 Needless Inefficiency from Indifference. — (17) 
 Needless Inefficiency from Want of Adaptation. 
 — (18) Needless Banking. — (19) Needless Insur- 
 ance. — (20) Needless Strikes and Lock-outs. — 
 Enormous Aggregate of Waste. — Effect of Social- 
 ism 284r-319 
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 OBJECTIONS TO SOCIALISM CONSIDERED 
 
 I. As TO THE Charge of Atheism. 
 
 Recent Socialism Christian. — Why Atheism 
 Charged. — Its Falsity. — Principles of Socialism 
 Christian. — Dr. Woolsey's Admission. — Christian 
 Ministers now Leaders. — Mr. Cook's "Proces- 
 sion " of Infidel Socialists. — Socialism honors the 
 . Sabbath 320-325 
 
 II. As TO THE ChaIiQB OF ANARCHISM. 
 
 Origin. — Socialism distinguished from Anarchism 
 and Communism. — Anarchism and Individualism 
 One. — Socialism repudiates Anarchism .... 325-328 
 
 III. As TO Equality. 
 
 Vagueness of the Word. — Natural and Artificial 
 Inequalities. — The Principle of Equality. — Theo- 
 cratic Equality. — Mere Equality of Chances un- 
 just. — The Vulgar Misrepresentation as to an 
 Equal Division of Property 328-332 
 
 IV. As TO THE Abolition of Capital. 
 
 Socialism not opposed to Capital. — Public Capital 
 demanded. — Misrepresentations 332-334 
 
XVin TABLE or CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 V. As TO THE Confiscation op Pbopbrtt. 
 
 Charge as made by Mr. Cook. — Refuted by Social- 
 istic Writers and Platforms. — Professor Clark and 
 the Eight of the State. — Ruskin on the Love of 
 Money 334-339 
 
 VI. As TO Mabeiage and the Home. 
 
 Objections as formulated by Dr. Woolsey and his 
 Admission. — Loose Utterances not Representa- 
 tive. — Divorce and TJnchastity under Individual- 
 ism. — Private Capital not necessary to Family 
 Life. — Ability of the State to care for the Helpless. 
 
 — Capitalism hinders Marriage. — Inheritance. — 
 Its Evils. — Under Socialism. — No Analogy be- 
 tween Former Utopias and Socialism. — Value of 
 the Home. — Mr. Gronlund on Family Life under 
 Socialism. — Dr. Behrends's Criticism. — His In- 
 consistency. — Capitalism threatens the Home. — 
 The Individual, not the Family, the Unit of Society. 
 
 — Socialism would increase the Number and Hap- 
 piness of Families 339-355 
 
 VII. As to the Equal Value of all Labou Time. 
 Objection Stated. — Absurdity of this Charge. — 
 Dr. Woolsey and Mr. Eae on Marx. — A Glaring 
 Misquotation. — Abstract Labor distinguished 
 from Concrete. — Dr. Woolsey's Strictures on Marx's 
 Position examined. — Misrepresentation. — Hours 
 of Different Concrete Labor not Equal. — How 
 Skilled is reduced to Simple Labor. — Socially 
 Necessary Labor determines Value. — Present 
 Unjust Inequalities of Remuneration. — Men re- 
 warded according to Smartness. — Divine Law of 
 
 Wages 355-365 
 
 VIII. As TO the Impairment op Motives to Exbe- 
 
 TION. 
 
 Mr. Rae's View that Common Property is fatal to 
 Progress. — Sixteen Reasons in Answer to this 
 Objection. — It does not affect Principles of Social- 
 ism. — Applicable only to Present Order. — Ad- 
 mission of Dr. Woolsey. — Laborer's Interest 
 Essential. — A False Assumption. — Interest in- 
 creased under Socialism. — Interest of Officers. — 
 Universality of Interest. — Riches not the only 
 Motive. — Each for All and All for Each. — Pro- 
 duction increased. — Experience. — Tendency of 
 Capitalism. — Motive to Subsistence and Riches 
 Different. — Mr. Rae's False Assumption. —Mis- 
 
TABLE OF CONTENTS xix 
 
 PAGE 
 
 conception as to State-help. — The Nature of 
 State-help. —Mr. Cook on State- and Self-help. — 
 National Progress not the Supreme End. — Histori- 
 cal Examples of the Effects of Wealth 365-375 
 
 IX. As TO THE DESTBUCTIOIf OF LiBEETY. 
 
 Objection formulated by Dr. Woolsey. — His Wo- 
 ful Picture. — Mr. Eae's Refrain. — Socialism in- 
 sures Free Choice of Occupation. — State now 
 assists Pupils in Choice of Studies. — Dr. Behrends's 
 Sweeping Assertion. — Different Kinds of Freedom. 
 — Brutal Industrial Freedom. — Freedom of Social- 
 ism. — Governmental Regulation and Guaranty 
 of Freedom. — Examples. — Need of Governmental 
 Restraint in Industry. — The Government and the 
 People One 375-382 
 
 X. As TO Class Rule bt Laborers. 
 
 Dr. Behrends fires upon his Friends. — No Classes 
 under Socialism. — All are Workers. — Dr. Behrends 
 refuted by his Own Authorities. — Objection un- 
 supported 382-384 
 
 XI. As TO THE Corruption of Politics. 
 
 Mr. Cook on this Objection. — Based on a Miscon- 
 ception of Socialism. — Changed Conditions of 
 Socialism. — The Spoils System abolished. — Num- 
 ber of Office-holders. — Corruption Money . . . 384-388 
 
 XII. As TO THE Objection that Socialism is Imprac- 
 ticable. 
 Strength and Weakness of this Objection. — 
 Twelve Reasons showing the Practicability of So- 
 cialism. — Right as against Expediency. — Exam- 
 ples of this Stock Objection to Reform. — Justice 
 is Practicable. — Socialism not a Utopia. — Dr. 
 Woolsey's Criticisms Unfounded. — History utters 
 no Voice against Socialism. — Social Progress. — 
 Solidarity. — Contradictions of Individualists. — 
 Selfishness not the only Practicable Principle. 
 '— Communistic Societies. — Distinguished from 
 Socialism. — Socialism opposes Idleness. — Details 
 not Essential. — Professor F. A. Walker on " Look- 
 ing Backward." — No Inteference with Privacies 
 of Life. — The Impracticable being realized. — 
 Present Ideal the Future Practicability. — Histori- 
 cal Examples. — The Unethical Character of this 
 Objection. — Equally Applicable to the Decalogue 
 or the Millennium 388-402 
 
XX TABLE OF CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 REVELATION AND OtTTLOOK OF SOCIALISM 
 
 ■WILL SOCIALISM BE REALIZED ? 
 
 PAGE 
 
 I. Growth and Numerical Strength of Socialism. 
 Its Phenomenal Spread. — A World Movement. — 
 Number of Socialists in Europe. — Rate of Increase 
 in Germany. — In England. — In France. — In 
 Russia. — Nihilism Temporary. — In United States. 
 
 — Labor Organizations. — The Great Meeting of 
 
 the International 403-411 
 
 II. Political Gains of. Socialism. 
 
 Extension of State Authority. — Political Progress 
 in Germany. — William II. — Labor Congress of 
 1890. — Socialists in the Reichstag. — Increase of 
 Socialistic Vote. — Socialist Legislation in Eng- 
 land. — Mr. Sidney Webb's Summary. — Socialism 
 is Self-help. — Progress in France. — In the United 
 States. — The Situation Favorable. — Extension 
 of the Functions of Government. — Professor Faw- 
 cett on the Political Outlook 412-425 
 
 III. Industrial Progress of Socialism. 
 
 Association the Essence of Socialism. — Trusts. — 
 Association of Capital. — Railroads and their 
 Nationalization. — Oppressive Capitalistic Com- 
 binations. — Association of Labor. — The Muster- 
 ing of Hostile Forces. — Labor Legislation. — 
 Farmer's Alliance. — Public Sentiment .... 426-432 
 
 IV. Educational Forces set in the Direction op 
 
 ' Socialism. 
 
 (1) Political Economy changing Front. — The New 
 School Socialistic. — The Science In Europe. — 
 Conservatism of American Economists Yielding. 
 
 — Natural and Artificial Monopolies. — Professor 
 Ely on the Business Function of Government. — 
 Logic of Professor F. A. Walker's Admissions. — ^ 
 The Revolution of Economic Philosophy in Ger- 
 many. — (2) Schools and Colleges. — Interest in 
 Sociology. — Political Economy in Schools. — In- 
 dustrial Schools in Europe. — Sociologists and 
 Socialist Professors in Colleges. — (3) Socialistic 
 Publications. — Educational Influence. — Socialist 
 Newspapers in the United States. — The Nation- 
 alist Magazine. — The New Nation. — Nation- 
 
TABLE OF CONTENTS Xxi 
 
 PAGE 
 alist Clubs. — Socialist Publications in England. — 
 (4) New Books. — The Attitude of the Press.— 
 " Progress and Poverty."—" Looking Backward." 
 — "Modern Socialism." — Favorable Tone of 
 Newspapers and Magazines 432-445 
 
 V. The New Ethics and Socialism. 
 
 Progress of Ethical Ideas. — Fraternity. — Effects 
 of Steam. — Solidarity of Society. — Essence of Re- 
 ligion. — Progress of the Conception of Brother- 
 hood. — Its Political and Social Recognition. — 
 Opposed to Individualism. — Christian Ministers 
 indorsing Socialism. ■ — Theological Seminaries. — 
 Reverend Drs. Hale, Gladden, and Abbott. — The 
 New Ethics in Europe 445-452 
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 WHAT OUGHT TO BE DONE ABOUT IT 
 
 I. Socialism ought to be inteoducbd gradually. 
 Social Reform a Growth. — Feudalism gave Way 
 Gradually. — Natural Monopolies socialized First. 
 — Only Peaceful Methods employed 454-456 
 
 II. Capitalists ought to kegaed Socialism with 
 Favob. 
 Wealth not an Unmixed Blessing. — Private Wealth 
 against the Commonwealth. — (1) Something must 
 be done. — Reform or War. — (2) Mental Suffer- 
 ing of Capitalists. — Suicides. — The Ordeal of 
 Financial Trouble and Failure. — Number of Fail- 
 ures. — (3) Personal Danger of the Rioli. — Oppres- 
 sion of Anxiety and Fear. — Annoyance from So- 
 licitations and Beggars. — (4) Riches make False 
 Promises. — Testimony of Rich Men. — Of the 
 Scriptures 456-462 
 
 III. OUB COUNTEY should MAKE HASTE SLOWLY IN 
 
 THE Accumulation of Wealth. 
 Wealth in the United States. — Increase. — Immi- 
 gration. — Not Numbers but Character needed. — 
 The Conspiracy against the Republic. — False Idea 
 of Civilization. —Danger of Luxury 463-466 
 
 IV. The Chbistian Chuech ought to espouse the 
 
 Cause of Socialism. 
 Christianity and the Social Question. — The Roots 
 of Capitalism. — Christ the Author of the Assump- 
 
TABLE OF CONTENTS 
 
 PAOE 
 
 tions of Socialism. — The New Testament opposed 
 to the Present Order. — The Attitude of the 
 Church. — Temporizing Policy Suicidal. — Losing 
 her Hold on the Masses. — The Victim' of Capital- 
 ism. — Kespectability and Cant will not avail. — 
 Pro-capitalism or Anti-capitalism.— Fiction of the 
 Church as to Riches. — Capitalistic Perversion of 
 Scripture. — The Christian Church will not retreat 
 before Capitalism 466-474 
 
SOCIALISM 
 
 CHAPTEE I 
 
 THE GENESIS OF SOCIALISM 
 
 I. — Definition and Essential Nature. 
 
 " Every Christian, who understands and earnestly accepts the teach- 
 ings of his master, is at heart a Socialist." — ^milb de Lateleye. 
 
 The title of this book indicates its character and scope. 
 Political economists of the new school agree that the cur- 
 rent orthodox political economy is fatally defective : many 
 of its assumptions are false, and it entirely ignores the 
 ethical principle which in all departments of sociology has 
 become the chief corner-stone. A member of the American 
 Social Science Association excused his absence from one of 
 its meetings by saying, " I stayed at home to read a book 
 on social science that furnishes me with a solution of all 
 the problems discussed there. The first chapter was 
 written by a man named Moses, and the last by a man 
 named John, and the name of the book is the Bible." * 
 
 If in the modern system of industry wage-workers, as a 
 class, are oppressed by the tyranny of capital, as is charged 
 by socialists, it is because the law of ethics laid down in the 
 Christian Scriptures and acknowledged as obligatory in all 
 civilized society has been violated. In an extended exam- 
 ination of the social question, the conviction that such is 
 the fact has been ever deepening. The Bible is the only 
 
 • Homiletio Review, January, 1885, p. 29. 
 1 
 
'Z SOCIALISM 
 
 solution of this question. Indeed, no wrong was ever 
 righted, no truth ever established, without a rigid applica- 
 tion of the precepts sanctioned and enforced in the Bible. 
 "The ethics of Socialism are closely akin to the ethics ot 
 Christianity, if not identical with them." ^ Socialism de- 
 notes a particular industrial order, as Christianity denotes 
 a particular religious order. Like Christianity, it is vari- 
 form. Two essential factors inhere in every phase of 
 Socialism ; one is critical, the other constructive ; one de- 
 clares that capitalism, the existing order, enriches the few 
 who are employers, and impoverishes the many who are 
 wage-workers, by robbing the latter of a large part of their 
 earnings ; the other declares that in order to remedy this 
 evil which has become insupportable, business should be 
 taken out of the hands of private persons and placed under 
 public management, so far as to secure justice to working- 
 men in the distribution of the necessities, comforts, and 
 luxuries of life which constitute wealth in the economic 
 sense. This management by the State, by society, would 
 be social rather than individual, hence Socialism. Socialism 
 is therefore twofold : it prefers a serious charge against the 
 present industrial regime and proposes an adequate remedy. 
 
 Again, Socialism is the opposite of individualism. 
 What is understood by individualism ? In answer, let us 
 glance at the different industrial systems in the history of 
 labor. The first was that of natural liberty, in which every 
 man worked for himself and had a free seat at the table of 
 nature ; the second was slavery ; the third feudalism ; the 
 fourth, which is the present and is called the capitalistic 
 system, because based upon private capital. Tts three 
 factors are private capital, freedom of contract, and free 
 competition. The centre of this system, around which 
 these three satellites move and which is the source of all 
 their light and life, is the vicious principle of self-interest. 
 
 The essence of this system is that each individual, how- 
 ever strong or weak, shall have perfect freedom to provide 
 for himself. This is economic individualism. It asks the 
 State to let business alone, and to guarantee the right of 
 
 1 Encyclopsedia Britannica, article "Socialism," 
 
THE GENESIS OF SOCIALISM 3 
 
 each individual to seek his own interest and to be relieved 
 from any responsibility for the welfare of his neighbors. 
 We shall soon see that this anti-Christian and barbarous 
 doctrine of self-interest is the corner-stone of the existing 
 order. Socialists declare that this individual or capitalistic 
 system has been thoroughly tried and everywhere results 
 in the oppression and degradation of the laborer, and that 
 this exploitation will continue until the system is abolished, 
 and the State shall assume the ownership of all land and 
 other instruments of production, and conduct all business 
 for the benefit of all the citizens alike ; then, and not till 
 then, can working men hope to receive their share of the 
 wealth they produce. 
 
 To this industrial order the term Socialism was first 
 applied by Eeyband, a French writer, in 1839. The word, 
 however, originated in England a few years earlier in 
 connection with the Owen movement. 
 
 Socialism should be sharply distinguished from commun- 
 ism, which is an older term and denotes a common life 
 with property held in common rather than by individuals. 
 Communism agrees with socialism as to the nationalization 
 of industry, but Socialism does not agree with communism 
 as to a common life. 
 
 Nihilism, which is at the antipodes of Socialism, is from 
 the Latin word nihil, meaning nothing. Nihilists put con- 
 fidence in fiothing as it now is, hence they would destroy 
 all existing institutions while proposing nothing to take 
 their place. It thus differs from Socialism, which has in 
 view a new social organism. 
 
 Anarchism is individualism gone mad. Like individual- 
 ism, anarchism says to the State " hands off, let us alone : " 
 they both agree in the industrial freedom of each individ- 
 ual, but anarchism is violent, while individualism is peace- 
 ful. Individualism is pure industrial anarchism minus 
 violence. Socialism is opposed to both. The German 
 economist Schaeffle says, "The Alpha and Omega of So- 
 cialism is the transmutation of private competing capital 
 into united collective capital." This is equivalent to say- 
 ing that the State should be the only capitalist ; it should 
 
SOCIALISM 
 
 produce and distribute all eoonbmic goods. It is evident, 
 however, that SchaefSe has in mind not critical but only 
 constructive or remedial Socialism, and of this his defini- 
 tion gives us the quintessence. 
 
 II. — The Five Fingers of the Socialistic Hand. 
 
 " ' But,' said the magistrate, ' are you not, then, a Socialist?' — 'Cer- 
 tainly.' — ' Well, but what then is Socialism ? ' — 'It is,' replied Proudon, 
 ' every aspiration towards the improvement of society.' — 'But in that 
 case,' very justly remarked the magistrate, ' we all are Socialists.' — ' That 
 is precisely what I think,' rejoined Prondon."— Smile de Laveleye. 
 
 If we examine the Socialistic hand we shall find five fin- 
 gers: 1. Economic; 2. Social; 3. Moral; 4. Political; 
 5. Religious. 
 
 1'. The economic finger points to a more equal distribu- 
 tion of wealth. The present industrial system so favors 
 the capitalist that laborers are systematically robbed. 
 The platform of the Socialistic Labor Party of the United 
 States says that under the present competitive system, thft 
 directors of labor, necessarily a small minority, monopo- 
 lize the means of labor, and the masses are therefore main- 
 tained in poverty and dependence. The products of in- 
 dustry, therefore, must be more equally distributed, and 
 nothing less than a new economical system can accom- 
 plish this result. 
 
 2. The social finger points to labor, rather than birth or 
 wealth, as the condition of social recognition. It demands 
 that the interests of society as a whole, rather than of in- 
 dividuals and classes, shall be the supreme object of the 
 State and of each citizen. Its motto is, " Each for all, and . 
 all for each." 
 
 3. The moral finger points to the principles of justice 
 and brotherhood. Socialism bases its demands upon sim- 
 ple justice. It claims that since all wealth is produced by 
 labor, it is purely a matter of right that laborers should 
 enjoy what they produce; and any system which deprives 
 them of such enjoyment and confers these products upon, 
 non-workers, enabling them to live in idleness and luxury, 
 
THE GENESIS OF SOCIALISM 5 
 
 involves the grossest injustice to working men. Again, a 
 poor man willing >to work frequently cannot get work, and 
 the present system compels him and his family to starve, 
 although directly across the way may be storehouses and 
 granaries bursting with provision. Sound morality de- 
 mands that an end should be put to this state of things. 
 It is claimed that the principle of human brotherhood is 
 equally outraged by the present industrial system. A 
 genuine fraternal feeling is not compatible with the mon- 
 strous inequalities and suffering which exist in society. 
 
 4. The political finger, which is the more recent and 
 prominent on the socialistic hand, points to the State as 
 the only power capable of introducing and sustaining the 
 new industrial order. The central idea of the present 
 order is self-interest. Certain individuals, by luck or pluck, 
 it matters hot which, get control of machinery and- all 
 other means of production, and dictate terms to laborers, 
 which want compels them to accept. In the pursuit of 
 self-interest the laws unjustly favor the capitalist. True, 
 ^equal freedom is allowed the laborer to pursue his own self- 
 interest ; but he is poor or dull, and freedom neither feeds 
 the hungry nor makes the weak strong. It is now for the 
 first time in the history of the world demonstrated, that 
 perfect legal freedom among equals results in the most 
 cruel oppression of the weak. Socialists demand, there- 
 fore, that individuals shall relinquish, and the State assume, 
 the ownership and control of all land, machinery, railroads, 
 telegraph-lines, etc. In other words, private capital, not 
 private property such as furniture, clothing, books, pic- 
 tures, statuary, food, and other species of property designed 
 for one's own use and enjoyment, but private capital, 
 which is property employed in business, shall become the 
 common property of the whole people. The State would 
 thus become a great industrial establishment. 
 
 6. The last finger is the religious. 
 
 The early and later history of Socialism reveals an 
 intense religious spirit among its advocates. Trench social- 
 ists in 1850 placed upon the walls of their assembly rooms 
 a picture of Christ with this inscription, " Jesus of Naza- 
 
6 SOCIALISM 
 
 reth the First Eepreseutative of the people." ' There were 
 not wanting socialistic leaders who, incensed at the suffer- 
 ings of the poor and the indifference of the church, bitterly 
 denounced Christianity and even blasphemed the name 
 of God; but it was not the Christianity nor the God of 
 the Bible, but rather of a church which had perverted the 
 religion of Christ and fallen into the idolatry of mammon 
 and caste. Repeatedly in the assemblies of workmen has 
 the name of Christ been greeted with cheers and the men- 
 tion of the church with hisses. The principles which 
 underlie Socialism and are its sure foundation are most 
 literal transcripts from the New Testament. Among these 
 principles are equality, fraternity, and love. 
 
 The recent powerful impulse given to Socialism, both in 
 Europe and America, is due to the recognition of its iden- 
 tity with the Christian religion. Socialism resembles Chris- 
 tianity in eight particulars. 
 
 1. It is cosmopolitan, embracing all men everywhere. 
 Christianity says, God has made of one blood all nations, 
 and is no respecter of persons. The statutes of "The 
 International Workingmen's Association" says its cause is 
 not local or national, but social, and embraces all countries, 
 and that they " Eecognize truth, right, and morality as the 
 basis of their conduct toward one another and their fellow- 
 men, without respect to color, creed, or nationality." ^ 
 Socialism therefore, like Christianity, aims to be a world 
 movement. 
 
 2. Socialism is also the friend of education. It demands 
 " compulsory education of all children under fourteen years 
 of age." It cannot admit of doubt that under Socialism 
 the more general diffusion of knowledge would be realized. 
 
 3. Equality as taught in the Bible is more honored in 
 Socialism than in the Christian church itself. Baboeuf 
 declared nearly one hundred years ago that, "The aim of 
 society is the happiness of all, and happiness consists in 
 equality." It cannot be denied that the church stops far 
 short of the kind and degree of equality which Christ 
 requires. 
 
 1 As quoted in " French and German Socialism " (Ely), p. 146. 
 
 2 " French and German Socialism," p. 21. 
 
THE GENESIS OF SOCIALISM 7 
 
 4. Socialism insists that the true idea of wealth is not 
 for private emolument, but for the benefit of society. 
 Christianity also says, "Let no man seek his own, but each 
 his neighbor's good." 
 
 6. Socialism asKs for a recognition of social justice. 
 Commercial justice, as now conceived and administered, 
 is crushing and cruel to the weak. It says to them, " The 
 inexorable laws of trade have fixed prices; give this and 
 take that, however much you may suffer by the transac- 
 tion." This is law, but not equity ; "justice, not tempered 
 with mercy." Socialists, therefore, demand the adoption 
 of social or equitable justice between man and man. 
 Christianity also says " Bear ye one another's burdens, 
 and so fulfil the law of Christ." ' 
 
 6. Socialism would have all individuals in society capa- 
 ble of work engaged in socially useful labor. Persons 
 not so engaged are unjustly eating bread earned by the 
 sweat of another's brow and have no moral right to live. 
 Christianity also says, "If any would not work neither 
 should he eat." ^ 
 
 7. Socialists have unceasingly demanded that the State 
 should prohibit all work on Sunday. Christianity also 
 requires the Sabbath day to be kept holy. It is a signifi- 
 cant fact that a body of merely social reformers should 
 come to the rescue of the Christian Sabbath, which a capi- 
 talistic Christianity, blinded by the mad pursuit of wealth, 
 is rapidly secularizing. 
 
 8. The principle of co-operation, not necessarily the 
 method, is eminently Christian. We need no citation from 
 Scripture to show that mutual helpfulness and protection 
 are the very essence of the gospel. 
 
 In these and other respects, Socialism presents a marked 
 resemblance to Christianity. The advocates of Socialism 
 have not always shown a Christian spirit in their methods 
 of propaganda. Capitalistic writers, in opposing Socialism, 
 make the most of the intemperate and inflammatory speeches 
 of certain so-called Socialist leaders of the past, thereby fill- 
 ing their readers with prejudice against Socialism itself. 
 
 iGal.vi. 2. 2 2 Thess. iii. 10. 
 
SOCIALISM 
 
 It is gravely objected that Socialism would be hostile to 
 Christianity, to republican government, to marriage, and 
 other domestic relations essential to the welfare of society. 
 We shall consider these objections at length in a subse- 
 quent chapter. Suffice it now to say, that if Socialism is 
 hostile to Christianity, then Christianity is opposed- to it- 
 self. It is difficult to see how republicanism can be injured 
 by extending its principle to industry. It is a large faith 
 in God that yields large faith in men. 
 
 It was such a faith that founded this Kepublic. It is 
 the unrighteousness of capitalism that has destroyed the 
 faith of multitudes. Unless men had faith in a higher 
 power than the State, the work of their own hands, the 
 political freedom which we now enjoy would have been a 
 thing unknown. The statue of civil liberty has for its ped- 
 estal a group of motives, aspirations, and hopes that spring 
 from a belief in an iniinite, eternal, and holy God. Once 
 destroy this belief in a power above man, and you start 
 him on the road to anarchy and barbarism. Socialism is a 
 distinct and progressive recognition of the principles of re- 
 publicanism, as derived from the law of God. 
 
 Socialism, far from affecting unhappily family life, would 
 certainly make it possible for families now broken up 
 and destroyed by capitalism to be united and happy. It is 
 capitalism that drives women and children into mills and 
 mines ; that sends from the protection of homes and par- 
 ents young girls to seek their bread and meet their ruin 
 in cities ; that has so increased divorce as to startle all 
 thoughtful menf that has raised the question, "Is marriage 
 a failure ? " and that to-day menaces the institution of home, 
 and thus threatens the very foundations of society. 
 
 The Socialism of to-day exalts the home and marriage 
 as divine institutions, and is not to be judged by the offen- 
 sive utterances of unprincipled leaders, one of whom, a 
 German, and a member of the Reichstag, said, " That under 
 Socialism, the woman needs no longer, out of respect to her 
 children, to be legally chained to one man." ' 
 
 Utterances like these, which are detested by modern 
 
 1 Quoted !>>• AVoolspy in " Conunuiiism and Socialism," p. 257. 
 
THE GENESIS OF SOCIALISM 9 
 
 Socialism, are quoted by capitalistic writers, and made the 
 basis of long and serious dissertations showing how Social- 
 ism tends to destroy the family. Socialism utterly repudi- 
 ates the violent language of a certain class of revolutionary 
 Socialists who have now for the most part gone over to 
 Anarchism, where they belong. They applied epithets to 
 capitalists so false and fiendish as to offend all right- 
 minded people, such as "The Grand larcenists of America," 
 " the slimy vampires of capitalism," " bloated bond- 
 holders," " robbers," " the entire legal fraternity, soldiers, 
 police, spies, judges, sherilfs, priests, preachers, quack- 
 doctors," etc., are "lice, leeches, vampires, and vermin."^ 
 
 They openly advocated destruction and murder in such 
 incendiary language as, " Hurrah for science, hurrah for 
 dynamite, the power which in our hands shall make an 
 end of tyranny." "We have no moment to waste. Arm! 
 I say, to the teeth. The revolution is upon you." " Kill, 
 destroy, anniiiilate your aristocracy and bourgeoisie to the 
 last man." " Whether one uses dynamite, a revolver, or a 
 rope, is a matter of indifference." 
 
 The press and public catch up these inflammatory utter- 
 ances, writers against Socialism eagerly seize upon and 
 parade them with telling effect, and the result is, that 
 when Socialism is named, the average American citizen 
 thinks of the Chicago anarchists and disposes of all Social- 
 ists with the exclamation, "A hideous band of conspira- 
 tors ! " JSTothing could be more indiscriminate or unjust. 
 It is as unjust as if one should judge the anti-slavery move- 
 ment by t]ie erratic and fanatic action of John Brown at 
 Harper's Ferry. Socialism regards capitalists and other 
 classes here assailed as among the most worthy and honor- 
 able members of society. Capitalists, even the millionnaires, 
 are no more responsible for capitalism than are paupers. 
 It is the system that is at fault, and not individual members 
 or classes. Socialism abhors the violent methods of these 
 fanatics. It is peaceful and law abiding. It puts its trust 
 in ballots rather than in bombs. 
 
 Many admit that Socialism has made a right diagnosis of 
 
 1 " The Labor Movement in America" (Ely), p. 235. 
 
10 SOCIALISM 
 
 the disease that afflicts society, but they regard its pro- 
 posed remedies as so radical, as involving so many and 
 great changes, that they refuse even to give them a hearing. 
 This is a mistake. Dr. Theodore D. Woolsey said Social- 
 ism threatens to control the working classes everywhere, 
 and " with fear of change perplexes monarchs." ^ It is 
 already controlling large numbers of the upper classes, 
 including scholars, clergymen, and business men; Social- 
 ism is taking deep root in our country. Democracy fur- 
 nishes a soil peculiarly favorable to its growth. Political 
 economists and socialists, both in Europe an-d America, 
 assure us that the great social question " will not down at 
 our bidding ; " a real grievance, a glaring wrong, lies at the 
 bottom of it. Every consideration of justice and humanity 
 demands the immediate intervention of the wisest states- 
 manship, the broadest philanthropy, and the most sancti- 
 fied common sense. 
 
 God is summoning the church to leaven these conflict- 
 ing forces of society with the principles of the gospel. If 
 the gospel has no message for the social classes at war 
 with each other, then let us " proscribe Christianity, burn 
 the Bible, teach with the ancient philosophers that natural 
 inequality justifies slavery ; above all, no more primary 
 education and newspapers. If the existing inequality of 
 conditions is permanent and necessary, then to spread the 
 gospel, to open a school, to establish a printing-press, and 
 to extend the suffrage, are in so many ways to attack the 
 existing order. "^ 
 
 It is a hopeful sign when wise and good men and women 
 throughout the land and world are devoting themselves to 
 the study of sociology. The mutterings of the lower 
 classes, the great labor organizations, the sterling character 
 of many of their leaders, the glaring injustice and social 
 tyranny that capitalism is inflicting on society, cannot 
 longer be ignored. Ignorance is inexcusable, indifference 
 criminal, vituperation suicidal. 
 
 1 " Communism and Socialism," p. 7. 
 
 2 " Socialism of To-day." (Laveleye) Introduction, p. 36. 
 
CAUSES THAT HAVE PRODUCED SOCIALISM 11 
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 CAUSES THAT HAVE PRODUCED SOCIALISM 
 
 " Broken by the oppression of ages, laborers formerly considered them- 
 selves born to maintain the great, . . . ' belief and obedience were an in- 
 heritance.' A man was a Christian and a subject because he was so 
 born. The Revolution came, saying, Arise ! you are the equals of your 
 masters. Quickly follows the question, "Wherefore this iniquitous divis- 
 ion: opulence to the idle, and destitution to the workers ?" — Lave- 
 
 LEYE. 
 
 The causes that have operated to produce Socialism are 
 many and complex. A careful and comprehensive study 
 of social phenomena is indispensable to a right understand- 
 ing of them. 
 
 This phenominal labor movement of the century extends 
 throughout Christendom. It has assumed different names 
 in different localities. In France it was called Commun- 
 ism, or Collectivism ; in Russia, Nihilism ; in England, 
 Chartism ; in Germany, Socialism ; in America, Socialism, 
 or Nationalism. 
 
 Whatever its name or nationality, it is, in one essential 
 feature, the same everywhere ; namely, a protest by wage- 
 workers against the injustice of the present industrial sys- 
 tem which deprives them of the fruits of their labor ; that 
 is, compels them to take less than they earn. 
 
 Most wage-workers making this protest have more points 
 of agreement than disagreement with Socialism. Social- 
 ism is the labor question scientifically formulated. Let us 
 now consider the causes that have produced it. 
 
 I. — The Introduction of Ifachinery. 
 
 " Hitherto it is questionable il all the mechanical inventions yet made 
 have lightened the day's toil of any human being." — John Stuart Mill. 
 
 At the beginning of the century nearly all work was per- 
 formed by hand. To-day it is nearly all done by machin- 
 
12 SOCIALISM 
 
 ery. In the little State of Massachusetts machinery is 
 doing as much work as fifty million men. 
 
 The machinery in the mills of Great Britain is equal to 
 700,000,000 men — more than all the adult inhabitants of 
 the earth. 
 
 Gladstone says, "That by the aid of machinery the 
 manufacturing power of the world doubles every seven 
 years." ^ 
 
 From this cause has occurred within a century an indus- 
 trial revolution which has so affected human society as to 
 make the world well-nigh a new planet. To-day, by the 
 aid of machinery, one man can provide bread for one hun- 
 dred, or make cloth for two hundred and fifty, or boots and 
 shoes for one thousand. Labor has smarted under these 
 changes. An invention that enables one man to do the 
 work of one hundred forces ninety-nine to stop work, 
 which often means to stop eating. The introduction of 
 the knitting-frame threw great numbers out of employ- 
 ment. 
 
 In the short space of five years, 1856 to 1861, 146,000 
 embroidery works in Ireland and Scotland were superseded 
 by machinery. In 1846 the power-loom took the bread 
 from the mouths of 260,000 workmen in Flanders. These 
 are merely samples of cases that would fill volumes. " It 
 is no wonder," says Thorold Eogers, " that they looked on 
 machinery with the profoundest hostility, that riots and 
 machine-breaking were frequent, and that the bitterest 
 animosities were engendered." ^ 
 
 Laws were enacted, punishing machine-breakers with 
 death. In 1816 six persons suffered the death penalty for 
 machine-breaking. The record of this period gives a 
 frightful list of riots, arsons, and murders occasioned by 
 the sufferings of wage-workers. The mode of warfare 
 has been modified, but the struggle continues with ill-con- 
 cealed animosity, and the distrust and hatred of the 
 laborer is met by the contempt and arrogance of the 
 master. 
 
 1 " Our Country " (Strong), p. 98. 
 
 2 "Work and Wages," p. 495. 
 
CAUSES THAT HAVE PEODUCED SOCIALISM 13 
 
 " History discloses no tragedy more horrible than the 
 gradual extinction of the English hand-loom weavers — an 
 extinction that was spread over several decades and finally 
 sealed in 1838. Many of them died of starvation ; many 
 with families vegetated for a long time on two and a 
 half pence a day. On the other hand, the English cotton 
 machinery produced an acute effect in India. The Gover- 
 nor-General reported in 1834-35, ' The misery hardly finds 
 a parallel in the history of commerce. The bones of cotton- 
 weavers are bleaching the plains of India.' " ' 
 
 Now, while it is true that the ultimate effects of machin- 
 ery confer an absolute benefit upon laborers, and while its 
 introduction is by no means always attended with discom- 
 fort to labor, and figures at hand prove that generally 
 machinery after a while employed more workmen than it 
 superseded,^ it is, nevertheless, adding insult to injury to 
 tell a laborer, pushed to the wall and rendered helpless by 
 a machine, that in the future, perhaps in the next genera- 
 tion when all industrial processes and social forces become 
 adjusted to the change, labor will be benefited by it. Not 
 one laborer in a thousand knows how this is effected, nor 
 does he care so long as his stomach is empty. In one re- 
 spect the effect of machinery is a terrible disappointment. 
 It was hoped that it would lighten labor. The toiling 
 masses believed that when invention had made iron hands 
 and steal sinews to do their work, their condition would be 
 improved. But they are disappointed. John Stuart Mill 
 says, " Hitherto it is questionable if all the mechanical in- 
 ventions yet made have lightened the day's toil of any 
 human being." This is a significant and tremendous in- 
 dictment of modern industry. By means of machinery 
 capitalists have been enriched and laborers relatively im- 
 poverished, and herein the latter have been deceived and 
 disappointed. It was a quaint and homely saying of Abra- 
 ham Lincoln, "You can fool some of the people all the 
 time, and you can fool all of the people some of the time, 
 but you can't fool all the people all the time." 
 
 1 " Capital " (Marx), p. 431-2. 
 
 3 "Contemporary Socialism" (Kae), p. 361. 
 
14 SOCIALISM 
 
 Laborers, who constitute the vast majority of the people, 
 feel that they have been victimized by the few who have 
 obtained possession of machinery and capital, hence the 
 complaint of Socialism. 
 
 The age of machinery has not passed. The disturbing 
 influence, however, and the hardships to laborers in the 
 future, can hardly equal those of the past, although it 
 would not be safe, in view of the possibilities of invention 
 and development that still await us, to say that machinery 
 may not be practically a permanent cause of discontent. It 
 is, however, a burning shame upon our civilization to allow 
 tens of thousands of poor, honest working men and 'women 
 to be turned out of work by the sudden introduction of 
 machinery without any provision for their employment, 
 thus compelling them to starve, or become the subjects of 
 the degrading and pauperizing driblets of charity. The 
 difference between capitalism and Socialism is this: in the 
 former the workman exists for the machine ; in the latter 
 the machine exists for the workman. 
 
 II. — The Concentration of Capital. 
 
 " There will therefore he an increasing tendency toward the centraliza- 
 tion of great wealth in corporations, which will simply eat up the small 
 manufactories and the small dealers. As the two classes of rich and 
 poor grow more distinct, they will hecome more estranged, and_ whether 
 the rich, like Sydney Smith, come to regard poverty as 'infamous', it is 
 quite certain that many of the poor will look upon wealth as criminal." — 
 JosiAH Strong, D.D. 
 
 Another cause of Socialism is Concentration of Capital, 
 tliereby involving the ruin of small industries. 
 
 Steam is the most important factor in modern industry. 
 Machinery in detached parts can be operated by hand or 
 horse power, which can be employed in villages and in the 
 homes of the people ; but steam will move an immense and 
 complex system of machinery, so that production may take 
 place on a scale so large as to lessen cost. 
 
 Capital therefore concentrates, and a few immense estab- 
 lishments now do the work formerly done in villages and 
 hamlets throu-ghout the land. By this change individuals. 
 
CAUSES THAT HAVE PRODUCED SOCIALISM 15 
 
 families, and whole townships have been financially ruined. 
 Since 1860 upwards of 867 woollen-mills have been swal- 
 lowed up, and the same fate has overtaken innumerable 
 shoe-shops and other small industries. All over New 
 England may be seen small shops and factories, that were 
 once hives of industry and means of comfort, happiness, 
 and manly independence, now deserted and decaying, while 
 the broken windows and falling walls too often suggest to 
 the laborer a corresponding degradation in his own estate. 
 Railroads especially have impoverished multitudes, by 
 causing industries to change location, compelling whole 
 communities of laborers to move on, often at the sacrifice 
 of their humble but hard-earned homes, and the severance 
 of kindred and all the endearing associations of life. 
 " The wholesale discharge of laborers from employment in 
 the textile manufactures during the last quarter of the 
 last century and the first quarter of the present, as the 
 result of the successive inventions and improvements of 
 machinery, required a readjustment of population to indus- 
 try which amounted almost to a continuous revolution." ^ 
 It is largely the application of steam to machinery, con- 
 centrated in great manufacturing plants, that has occasioned 
 this readjustment of population, this continual moving of 
 laborers, which has greatly aggravated their condition. A 
 rolling stone not only gathers no moss, but we have the 
 highest authority for the economical precept, " Let every 
 man abide in the same calling." ^ 
 
 III. — Division and Consequent Degradation of Labor. 
 
 " ' It is the same thing day by day, sir ; it's the same little thing, one 
 little, little thing, over and over and over.' The man who manages the 
 great establishment may become rich — the man who makes the pin-head 
 loses capacity to do anything else." — Mr. Joseph Cook. 
 
 A third cause of Socialism is the Division of Labor and 
 consequent Degradation of the Laborer. 
 
 Before the age of machinery and the massing of capital 
 
 1 " The "Wages Question " (Walker), p. 189. 
 
 2 1 Cor. vii. 20. 
 
16 SOCIALISM 
 
 and operatives in large estab^shments, a single workman 
 frequently performed every part necessary to the comple- 
 tion of an article. This required the exercise of skill and 
 sound judgment, gave variety to labor and a consciousness 
 of worth to the laborer, and caused him and his calling to 
 be respected by the community. 
 
 By the subdivision of labor the industrial function and 
 social estimate of the laborer are lowered. " The effect of 
 machinery is to reduce labor as much as possible to the 
 function of attendance and guidance." ^ In the boot and 
 shoe industry are sixty-four distinct parts, most of which 
 require but little experience or skill. The cobbler can no 
 longer stick to his last, for his last has left him. 
 
 It is humiliating and exasperating to a workman who, 
 at the cost of years of toil and application, has acquired 
 skill, which has become a source of independence and 
 honest pride, to find himself suddenly superseded by a 
 machine, and compelled at reduced wages to stand and 
 guide its movements — a service which can as well be, and 
 soon is, performed by a girl. But the laborer not only suf- 
 fers pecuniarily ; he is socially and morally degraded. 
 Division of labor contracts the sphere of the laborer, ren- 
 ders him more and more dependent upon others, dwarfs 
 him mentally, and thus degrades him. 
 
 Workmen, complaining of the itionotony of their work, 
 said to Mr. Joseph Cook, "It is the same thing day by day, 
 sir ; it's the same little thing ; one little, little thing, over 
 and over and over." — " Think," adds Dr. Josiah Strong, 
 " of making pin-heads ten hours a day, every working day 
 in the week, for a year, — twenty, forty, fifty years ! A 
 nailer . . . does his day's work by pressing into the jaws 
 of an ever-ravenous machine a small bar of iron. . . . Think 
 of making that movement for a lifetime. ... It admits of 
 little interest and no enthusiasm in one's work ; and, worst 
 of all, it cramps the mind and belittles the man. Once the 
 man who made the nail could make the iron fence also ; 
 now he cannot even make the nail, but only feed a machine 
 that makes it." 2 
 
 1 " "Work and Wages " (Rogers), p. 495. 
 
 2 " Our Country " (Strong), p. 95, 96. 
 
CAUSES THAT HAVE PBODUCBD SOCIALISM 17 
 
 Is it aiiy wonder that labor protests ? To adopt a system 
 of compulsory education, whicli enlarges workiugmen's 
 ideas of liberty, equality, and manhood, and at the same 
 time reduce them to industrial machines, will inevitably 
 result in social disturbances. It is certain that the sub- 
 division of labor cheapens production, and is therefore an 
 economic principle which will prevail more and more in the 
 development of industry. 
 
 It is equally and lamentably certain that little or noth- 
 ing has been done to counteract its baleful effect upon the 
 character of laborers. They cannot afford to become mere 
 automatons at the expense of their manhood. Because 
 machinery can go on forever, it is forgotten that flesh and 
 blood cannot do the same. 
 
 Labor may be a commodity, but the laborer is not. He 
 has social, moral, political, and religious duties to discharge ; 
 and a Christian civilization is bound to guarantee such con- 
 ditions of life as will enable him to discharge them. De- 
 spairing of capitalism, the laborer turns to Socialism for 
 relief. 
 
 IV. — The Separation of Industrial Glasses. 
 
 The first condition for Socialism is " A well-defined confrontation of 
 the rich and the poor. . . . When the rich and the poor are separated by 
 an abyss which there is no hope of ever crossing, how pride, on the one 
 side, and envy, on the other, rage." — Roscher. 
 
 The separation of the laboring and employing classes is, 
 especially in a free government, a cause of discontent. " It 
 is maintained that democracy to be real must be economic 
 as well as political." ' Those acquainted with the litera- 
 ture of Socialism have observed that its objection to the 
 present industrial system is not solely on account of eco- 
 nomic considerations. Its bitterest complaint is against the 
 assumption of superiority by employers, whom employees 
 feel to be no better than themselves. " What is required 
 here," said an English workman, " is to be very humble, 
 bow very low, say good-morning, master, and be content to 
 take a pound a week for all that." The same spirit is 
 
 ' " The Labor Movement in America " (Ely), p. 274. 
 
18 SOCIALISM 
 
 rapidly developing in America. What we have to fear is 
 ■the segregation of a poor working class called in Europe 
 the proletariat. So long as social conditions did not hin- 
 der individual success and advancement based on personal 
 merit, we had little to fear ; but once let class lines be so 
 sharply drawn as to be impassable, let the gulf between 
 Dives and Lazarus become fixed, and we shall have, not 
 heaven on one side and hades on the other, but hades on 
 both sides ; the one festering with pride and contempt, the 
 other with envy and hatred. Formerly the employer and 
 workman worked side by side ; mutual sympathy and re- 
 spect prevailed. The apprentice looked forward to being a 
 journeyman, and hoped soon to preside over a shop him- 
 self. The employer and the employed were on familiar 
 terms. Neither work nor workmen were despised. Classes 
 were practically unknown. 
 
 The history of New England shows that such an indus- 
 trial and social status produces the grandest type of man- 
 hood. "Almost every New England shoe -shop was a 
 lyceum. Not so romantic possibly as the academic groves 
 where the Grecian seekers after truth gathered about the 
 old-time philosophers, but quite in harmony with that 
 Yankee combination of utility, with a keen spirit of inquiry 
 into all things mundane and celestial. 
 
 " In the little shops of Lynn, Haverhill, Milford, and 
 other shoe centres, it was a common thing for the workmen 
 to hire a boy to read to them while they were at work the 
 contents of the last newspaper. Questions public, philo- 
 sophic, and theoretical were discussed with zest and accu- 
 men amid uninterrupted tasks." ■' This is not overdrawn. 
 
 No picture of my boyhood comes more vividly to mind 
 than the little shoe-shop where two or three workmen 
 wrought early and late, and where neighbors gathered to 
 discuss law, politics, and religion, and from which its 
 chief went forth to the legislature as the representative 
 of the people. Turn now to the great cotton-mill. Eight 
 hundred operatives rarely come in contact with the em- 
 ployer. He is a kind-hearted, benevolent, unassuming 
 
 I " The Labor Movement the Problem of To-day," p. 195. 
 
CAUSES THAT HAVE PEODUCED SOCIALISM 19 
 
 man, yet he and his family dress, ride, and live in a style 
 so far beyond his operatives as to excite' their ill-will and 
 envy. This finds vent in a Fourth of July parade, in which 
 the employer is opeuly insulted by the appearance of a 
 burlesque carriage representing the employer and his 
 family, with the inscription blazoned on a conspicuous 
 banner, " Our First Family." 
 
 We believe this incident which came under our observa- 
 tion is illustrative of a condition of things at wjiich multi- 
 tudes of laborers are inwardly chafing aud which furnishes 
 a reason for Socialism. Employees receiving wages that 
 barely enable them to live feel keenly the injustice of the 
 large remuneration of employers. The president of the 
 New York Central Eailroad is said to receive $75,000 a 
 year. Others in New York receive $60,000 a year. The 
 president of the New York Life Insurance Company is said 
 to receive $60,000. The same is paid to the president of 
 the Central Trust Company : this list could be greatly 
 extended, while the number receiving $20,000, $30,000, 
 and $40,000 in Chicago, Philadelphia, and Boston is much 
 larger. It is not uncommon for the managers of cotton 
 and woollen mills to receive salaries of $10,000, while many 
 of their employees receive barely enough to keep soul and 
 body together. Is it any wonder that such extremes of 
 compensation among those engaged in industry, especially 
 in a government in which equality is a fundamental prin- 
 ciple, should provoke discontent ? The separation of the 
 laboring and employing classes is, indeed, one of the most 
 painful and dangerous tendencies in society. It is rapidly 
 growing, in spite of any counteracting influence now exist- 
 ing. It seems certain that in a few years we shall have a 
 permanent, hereditary laboring class. It seems equally 
 certain that the genius of free institutions is incompatible, 
 on the one hand, with the existence of such a class, or, on 
 the other, of aristocracies of birth or wealth. We are 
 developing, side by side, hostile forces. Socialism is the 
 advance guard of the labor army. Political equality, the 
 ripe fruit of Christianity, implies all other kinds of equality 
 that Christian ethics demand. There are inequalities or- 
 
20 SOCIALISM 
 
 dained of God and of nature that must ever exist, and the 
 same is true in a sense of classes; but for our Republic 
 founded on political equality to sanction any principle 
 that separates tlie people into classes, and produces ine- 
 qualities practically more galling than slavery, is plainly 
 to pitch its tent towards Sodom. 
 
 V. — Competition. ■ 
 
 " What is it that the scientific people tell us always happens in the 
 struggle for existence ? Is it not that the strongest individuals and the 
 strongest races kill oH the weakest? Competition is the struggle for 
 existence, which is the law of the inferior races, adopted as the law of 
 industrial society." — "Washington Gladden, D.D. 
 
 Among the causes of Socialism, Competition stands pre- 
 eminent. Competition is the hub of the present industrial 
 wheel. Work, wages, and prices revolve around it. Labor 
 economically considered is a commodity bought and sold 
 like wheat. Competition exists in connection with buying 
 and selling. It exists between laborers seeking work ; that 
 is, seeking to bay money with labor. It exists between 
 employers seeking laborers, and between laborers and 
 employers, as when the former having labor to sell, and 
 the latter money, vie with each other as to terms. Com- 
 petition exists also among merchants, brokers, and capital- 
 ists in transactions which, in indirect ways, seriously affect 
 laborers. In case the State does not interfere with trade 
 and industry, competition is said to be free ; we then have 
 absolute free trade, domestic as well as foreign. 
 
 The Manchester or English free-trade school of econo- 
 mists have advocated this system of free competition. It 
 laid great emphasis upon the doctrine of laissez faire, let 
 alone ; that is, the State should let labor and capital alone. 
 It holds that the function of the State is to keep the peace, 
 protect the rights of person and property, and allow every 
 man to buy and sell and get gain, or labor or loaf ad libitum. 
 The theory assumes that industrial, like natural laws are 
 self-regulating and harmonious. Competition among em- 
 ployers keeps wages from being too low, and among laborers 
 from being too high. This counteraction preserves a just 
 
CAUSES THAT HAVE PRODUCED SOCIALISM 21 
 
 equilibrium between labor and capital. To illustjate : if a 
 single laborer, in competition with, bis fellows, should sell 
 his labor for less than the standard price of wages, compe- 
 tition among employers for the extra profit thus afforded 
 would soon raise this laborer's wages to the standard. If, 
 on the other hand, a laborer should get more than standard 
 wages, owing to competition among employers, other labor- 
 ers would immediately compete for the extra wages, which 
 would again reduce them to the standard rate. 
 
 But suppose the standard of wages itself should be low- 
 ered, one of two things would happen — either employers 
 would reduce the price of goods, profits remaining the 
 same, so that the laborer would gain as a consumer what 
 he lost in wages, or profits would increase, and this would 
 stimulate employers to enlarge operations, which would in- 
 crease the demand for laborers, and so raise the standard 
 of wages to its proper equilibrium. 
 
 If, on the other hand, the standard should be raised, 
 either goods would be dearer, profits remaining the same, 
 so that the laborer would lose as a consumer what he 
 gained in wages, or profits decreasing, employers would 
 contract business and discharge laborers, which, by the 
 operation of competition, would soon reduce the standard 
 to its natural level. These are called the Economic Har- 
 monizers of free competition. They are said to be natural 
 industrial laws, which only require to be let alone by the 
 State in order to work out for both labor and capital the 
 best results that are possible. Free competition therefore 
 is said to be the state of nature. 
 
 It rewards every one in proportion to his exertions. If 
 the laborer does not seek his interests, his interests will 
 seek him. 
 
 It demands freedom of contract and extols the principle 
 of self-interest, which it is claimed is not selfishness, but 
 the natural disposition of every one to provide for himself 
 by the free use of the faculties God has given him. 
 
 Competition, it is claimed, confers upon society benefits 
 of great importance. It keeps down prices, and promotes 
 progress ; it is the mother of invention ; it stimulates in- 
 
22 SOCIALISM 
 
 dividual effort, and allows every man to exercise his natu- 
 ral liberty. The principle, it is said, has its root in human 
 nature and is sanctioned by Christianity. Such is the 
 nature of competition and the advantages claimed for it. 
 
 jSTow, we are so accustomed to the principle, its laws and 
 methods are so wrought into the industrial and social life 
 of the capitalistic system of industry under which we were 
 born and bred, that to challenge its truth is regarded by 
 many almost as chimerical and offensive as it was for 
 Galileo to question the belief in the stability of the earth, 
 or the motion of the sun. 
 
 Now, let us be fair toward competition. It has not dur- 
 ing certain stages of the capitalistic regime been an 
 unmixed evil ; nay, it has been a most important factor in 
 progressive industry. It has served in the industrial evolu- 
 tion as war has in the social evolution. But, as war has 
 had its day as a factor in civilization, so the system of 
 competition must yield to a better way. Whatever its 
 relations in the past to ethics, it now conflicts with the 
 higher idea of right prevailing at the present time. 
 
 It is felt to be the cause of nearly all waste, ill-will, and 
 misery that threaten society. It is already yielding to 
 trusts, the unconscious forerunner and incipient form of 
 Socialism. It has not yielded, however, out of regard to 
 Socialism, but because it had so much rope it has hung itself. 
 
 We object to the competitive system and the whole phi- 
 losophy which underlies it for the following reasons : — 
 
 1. It assumes that competition unhindered will work it- 
 self nearly or quite perfect. Professor F. A. Walker says, 
 " We want more, not less, competition ; when it is perfect, 
 like the atmosphere, it presses equally on all." In other 
 words, it assumes that competition can be perfect among 
 unequal competitors. 
 
 2. It assumes that labor can be separated from the la^ 
 borer and treated like a mere commodity, as corn or cheese. 
 
 3. It assumes that competition among employers is as 
 severe as among laborers, so that employers have no advan- 
 tage over laborers ; in other words, that the demand for 
 labor is as great as the supply. 
 
CAUSES THAT HAVE PKODUCED SOCIALISM 23 
 
 4. It assumes that laborers can resort to the best market 
 as readily as merchandise. 
 
 5. It makes money, not man, the centre and circumfer- 
 ence of its system. Mammon swallows up humanity. 
 
 6. It ignores all ethical considerations in economics, 
 which is unscientific, and has already proved ruinous to 
 many of the higher interests of society. 
 
 7. Competition places the individual above society. It 
 rewards not according to honest effort, fidelity in service, 
 or character, but according to cunning, skill, and strength, 
 thus leaving the weak to perish in the struggle for 
 life. 
 
 8. It regards the wage-worker as a commodity subject to 
 the law of supply and demand ; assuming that, as cotton 
 mills shut down when demand slackens, so laborers will 
 stop being born the moment they are not wanted. 
 
 9. It assumes that free competition is a natural law, and 
 therefore cannot and ought not to be restricted ; that is, 
 that the Manchester or English free trade school of Politi- 
 cal Economy, the fundamental doctrine of which is lais- 
 sez faire, non-interference by the State, is a politically 
 sound and morally righteous principle. 
 
 10. It assumes that the free play of individual self-inter- 
 est will result in the highest possible good of society as a 
 whole. 
 
 11. It assumes that if a man does not seek his interest, 
 his interest will seek him. 
 
 12. It assumes that that government is best which gov- 
 erns least, and this, no matter how complex society be- 
 comes and how unjustly the strong oppress the weak. 
 
 13. It assumes the validity of the maxim, " The greatest 
 good of the greatest number," which, when analyzed, is 
 found to contain more deadly moral poison than most of 
 the current devil's saws. 
 
 We repudiate every one of these assumptions. They 
 are all utterly false and most of them vicious. They are 
 the spokes radiating from competition at the hub, and enter- 
 ing the rim of the industrial wheel at every point, and 
 binding the whole capitalistic system firmly together. Is 
 
24 SOCIALISM 
 
 it any wonder that political economy has been called the 
 " dismal science " ? 
 
 Competition has enriched employers and created an aris- 
 tocracy of wealth on the one hand, and on the other has 
 robbed and relatively degraded the laborer, pauperized 
 whole classes, and is the mother of the greater part of the 
 ills which afflict society to-day. 
 
 " Suppose, that of ten manufacturers, nine have a keen 
 appreciation of the evils that flow from protracted labor on 
 the part of women and children, and, were it in their 
 power, would gladly produce cottons without destroying 
 family life, and without setting in motion those forces that 
 must ultimately result in race deterioration. But the 
 tenth man has no such apprehensions." ^ He will grind 
 women and children and society to powder for the sake of 
 money. The nine men must adopt his methods, for their 
 goods come into competition with his. Buyers ask simply 
 the price. If the one manufacturer is grasping, inhuman, 
 and dishonest, and these methods lead to low prices, the 
 other nine must adopt them, or quit business. 
 
 Thus it is that in competition the lowest-toned man sets 
 the moral standard to which all must conform. " I detest 
 the methods of my business," said an employer, " but I am 
 powerless." — " The time will come," said Mr. Pitt, " when 
 manufacturers will have been so long established, and the 
 operatives not having any other business to flee to, that it 
 will be in the power of any one man in a town to reduce 
 the wages, and all the other manufacturers must follow." ^ 
 And he intimates when that time comes Parliament will 
 redress the wrong, or be wiped out by revolution. It was 
 competition in the mills of Nottingham, within the memory 
 of many now living, that compelled children from nine to 
 fifteen years of age to work frequently for twenty hours on 
 a stretch, from four a. m. to twelve at night. A witness 
 says that going from his office at twelve and one o'clock at 
 night in the depth of winter he often met mothers taking 
 
 1 "Eelation of the State to Industrial Action" (Adams). In Pub- 
 lications of the American Economic Association, January, 1887, p. 41, 
 S As quoted, Ibid., p, 42, 
 
CAUSES THAT HAVE PRODUCED SOCIALISM 25 
 
 their children to neighboring print-works, the children 
 crying." ' 
 
 The Mills in New England formerly ran from thirteen 
 to fifteen hours. The rules in Patterson, N.J., required 
 women and children to be at work at half-past four in the 
 morning.^ 
 
 Modern legislation prohibiting this oppression of labor 
 is due to the adoption of the socialistic principle of State 
 interference. 
 
 The waste of competition is a tremendous fact. Two 
 parallel railroads are built and operated at vast expense, 
 when one would do all the work as well. A small town 
 supports a half-dozen grocery and dry goods stores, where 
 one would accommodate the people. Socialism would do 
 away with this enormous economic waste. 
 
 Competition tolerates business practices offensive to 
 morality. 
 
 Professor J. B. Clark, in his valuable work on "The 
 Philosophy of Wealth," says, " There is one code for the 
 family, the social circle, and the church, and a different 
 one for mercantile life. It is a common remark that . . . 
 a sensitive conscience must be left at home when its pos- 
 sessor goes to the office or the shop. We helplessly depre- 
 cate the fact, we lament the forms of business depravity that 
 come to our notice, but attack them with little confidence." 
 ■ Among laborers competition is fierce. Working men 
 receiving just enough to keep their families respectably 
 clad, housed, and fed are frequently displaced by men will- 
 ing to work for wages sufficient only to maintain a semi- 
 civilized standard of living. In the winter of 1886-87 the 
 street-car drivers of Baltimore were working over seventeen 
 hours per day. Why? Because other workmen stood 
 ready to take their places. The drivers held a meeting 
 and protested. Several ministers thought that the gospel 
 of Christ had something to say against the outrage, and 
 attended the meetings. There were two results : the first 
 was the passage of a law for a twelve-hour day, the second 
 
 1 As quoted by "Walker, " The Wages Question," p. 16T. 
 
 2 " The Labor Movement in America " (Ely), p. 49. 
 
26 SOCIALISM 
 
 was that a certain minister, whose family held street I'aiV 
 way stock, said petulantly of one of the ministers who had 
 spoken at the meeting, " I wish he would confine himself 
 to preaching the simple gospel of Christ." ^ 
 
 The present industrial life is pitched to the tune of free 
 competition, but the conviction is becoming widespread 
 that the Economical Harmonies not only fail to harmonize, 
 but produce the discordant notes which threaten the whole 
 social structure. What is the remedy ? Socialism answers 
 substitute public for private control of industry. Their op- 
 ponents reply this would make a bad matter worse, — that 
 
 it is better to 
 
 "Bear those ills we have, 
 Than fly to others that we know not of." 
 
 Many, taking counsel of their fears, dare not approve 
 Socialism even when convinced of the soundriess of its 
 principles. It is worthy of note, however, that a policy of 
 restricted competition is already inaugurated in Europe and 
 in this country. This is a recognition of the demand of 
 Socialism. 
 
 When any class of citizens become so rich or so poor as to 
 disturb the peace and hazard the existence of free institu- 
 tions, then it is the duty of the State to interfere, and it is 
 the duty of the press to raise its voice in behalf of reform 
 and social justice, and it is the duty of the Christian church 
 to cut the Gordian knot of mammonistie entanglements, take 
 its pride of caste, its idolati-y of respectability, its substi- 
 tution of taste for conscience, and form for faith, and turn 
 them over to their father, the devil, and go back to the New 
 Testament and teach the doctrines of the primitive gospel, 
 the chief of which are that all men are brethren; that they 
 should love each other as themselves ; that a man's life does 
 not consist in the abundance of the things he possesses. 
 Let these truths, stripped of the superincumbent, theological, 
 dogmatic, aesthetic, literary, and mammonistie rubbish which 
 the centuries have piled upon them, be preached in purity 
 and simplicity, and competition will give way to Christian 
 Socialism. 
 
 1 Ely. " Congregationallst," March 1, 1RS8. 
 
CAUSES THAT HAVE PRODUCED SOCIALISM 27 
 
 VI. — Monopoly. 
 
 " Whenever a part of society possesses the monopoly oi the means of 
 production, tlie laborer, free or not free, must add to the working time 
 necessary to his own maintenance an extra working time in order to pro- 
 duce the means of subsistence for the owners of the means of production, 
 whether the proprietor be the Athenian xaUq, KayaBd; Etruscan theocrat, 
 civis Romanics, Korman baron, American slave-owner, Wallachian 
 boyard, modern landlord, or capitalist." — Karl Maex. 
 
 " The spirit of monopolists is barren, lazy, and oppressive."— Gibbon. 
 
 Monopolies constitute another cause of Socialism. One 
 of the statutes of the International Workingmeu's Associa- 
 tion says, " That the economic dependence of the laboring 
 man upon the monopolist of the implements of work and 
 sources of life forms the basis of every kind of servitude, 
 of social misery, of spiritual degradation, and political de- 
 pendence." A monopoly is the exclusive power to engage 
 in a particular business. The State may grant it, as in the 
 case of a patent right, which is a monopoly to encourage 
 ingenuity, or persons may create it, as when a powerful 
 corporation practically controls an industry, or a corner is 
 formed which consists in buying up the articles in market, 
 in order to sell at an advance price. 
 
 Monopoly thus precludes competition. Laborers com- 
 bine to control the labor market. They seek exclusive 
 power to work as against scabs. Here again monopoly 
 precludes competition. It is the excrescence of competi- 
 tion. When the struggle of competition ends, the victors 
 have a monopoly, and dictate terms of unconditional sur- 
 render to the vanquished competitors. 
 
 Monopoly thus forces small industries out of business and 
 small traders and manufacturers into the ranks of laborers. 
 
 Monopoly is therefore the industrial " Slaughter of the 
 innocents." Against th'ese powerful combinations the com- 
 plaint is widespread and bitter. 
 
 Labor is oppressed. When a poor man seeks employ- 
 ment in a great cotton-mill or railroad corporation, he has 
 absolutely nothing to say in the matter : the work is fixed, 
 the wages are fixed, the hours are fixed, the time of pay- 
 
28 SOCIALISM 
 
 ment is fixed by the more powerful party, and he must 
 accept them or starve. 
 
 All talk about "freedom of contract" to such a man is 
 exasperating. Helpless as a child, he might as well un- 
 dertake to negotiate with a cyclone. What then ? Is the 
 corporation at fault ? No ; but the capitalistic system. 
 
 If the great mill can produce cheaper than the small one, 
 it will and ought to survive. Socialism says this principle 
 of combination or co-operation is sound; the greater the 
 plant, the less the cost of production. Let the principle, 
 therefore, be extended to the whole social body. Put the 
 mill and the railroad into the hands of the State, and then 
 we shall have industrial freedom. It is difficult to answer 
 Socialism on this point. 
 
 The land monopolies, which in our country consist in 
 taking up immense tracts of land in the West, whether by 
 railroads, foreigners, or Americans, should be at once pro- 
 hibited. 
 
 Private monopoly in any trade or industry is the enemy 
 of industrial freedom and of the public good. 
 
 Public monopolies, such as the post service, highways, 
 etc., benefit all people, and are a public good. 
 
 The tendency at the present time is toward monopolies 
 in the shape of syndicates, corporations, and trusts, all of 
 which defy opposition, buy up or kill off weaker parties, 
 control production, and fix prices in the most arbitrary 
 manner, and are thus more objectionable than competition. 
 
 So-called natural monopolies are such as in themselves 
 naturally exclude competition, as water-works in cities, 
 railroads, canals, etc. 
 
 Artificial monopolies are those created and existing 
 under circumstances that would naturally call for competi- 
 tion. Trusts, for example, are artificial monopolies, and 
 are controlling nearly all the neces'saries of life. 
 
 Large dividends and low wages furnish the condition for 
 social disturbances. They are too ill-matched to work to- 
 gether in a free country. They involve a species of indus- 
 trial tyranny and social injustice particularly offensive to a 
 free people and to the Christian religion which says, " Loose 
 
CAUSES THAT HAVE PBODUCED SOCIALISM 29 
 
 the bands of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, and to 
 let the oppressed go free, and that ye break every yoke." ^ 
 
 VII. — Over-production. 
 
 " Until all men are well clothed, housed, and fed, and furnished with 
 material appliances for their higher life, like hooks, pictures, musical in- 
 struments, church buildings, etc., it will be a manifest absurdity to talk 
 about a general over-production. ... A glut in the market always means 
 under-consumption. This is one of the sad and curious features of the 
 life of the modem socio-economic organism." — Pkofessor K. T. Ely. 
 
 Over-production is another cause of industrial disturb- 
 ance. When in the normal condition of business operations 
 the supply of commodities greatly exceeds the demand, the 
 surplus goods constitute an over-production. Industries 
 are brought to a standstill, wages reduced, laborers dis- 
 charged, and their families plunged into economical and 
 moral disaster. "Government appoints a committee in 
 Prussia to inquire into the cause of the late depression, 
 and they report over-production ; in England committees 
 also investigate and report likewise ; in America, business 
 companies and factory owners explain their distress by 
 over-production, and are obliged to enter into mutual agree- 
 ments to produce less." ^ 
 
 But why this evil of over-production ? Why has demand 
 failed to regulate supply ? The answer is found in the 
 anarchy of private enterprise. Capital has sought invest- 
 ment ; competition has stimulated production ; prosperity 
 has made men careless and extravagant. Again, producers 
 have no way of calculating future needs ; they do not 
 work in concert ; they hope that each dull season will be 
 followed by a brisk trade. To stop and start manufactories 
 involves expense. Customers must be retained and the 
 acquired momentum of great producing plants carries them 
 forward even when the demand for their products slackens. 
 Socialism declares that this result is inevitable under the 
 present system, while in the socialistic state it would be 
 impossible. 
 
 1 Isa. Iviii. 6 ^ " Frenrh and German Socialism " (Ely), p. 208. 
 
30 SOCIALISM 
 
 So long as individual producers act each for himself, 
 without any knowledge of what others are doing or pro- 
 pose to do, there seems to be no way of adjusting supply to 
 demand. It is reported, January 1, 1892, that the South 
 has $6,600,000 worth of cotton on hand that no one wants. 
 What is the trouble ? Simply this : every farmer raised 
 cotton without any means of knowing how much others 
 were raising. 
 
 The result is over-production; sales possible only at a 
 loss entailing suffering and in some cases positive ruin. 
 Socialism, through a central bureau, would estimate the 
 probable demand for a given crop and regulate the acreage 
 to be planted accordingly ; besides, under Socialism no 
 mail would suffer, much less be ruined, by the failure of a 
 particular crop or industry, because his income does not 
 depend solely upon particular, but general, prosperity. 
 
 It is sometimes said that the real cause of surplus pro- 
 ducts is under-consumption rather than over-production, 
 since if the poor only had the means to purchase no accu- 
 mulation would have happened. This implies other indus- 
 trial and social conditions than now exist. Socialism alone 
 could make it possible. In 1884 cotton mills, unable to 
 sell their goods, piled them up till storage room failed. 
 The people had all the cotton cloth they needed. It was 
 simply a case of over-production. With the aid of machin- 
 ery and laborers multiplying as never before it is daily 
 becoming easier to supply the world's needs. Mr. Edward 
 Atkinson states that nine hundred and fifty hands can now 
 make as much cotton cloth as ninety-five thousand hands 
 formerly made. A cotton -mill with $1,000,000 capital 
 produces 17,500,000, yards of cloth per year. A few such 
 mills would supply the entire demand of a great country. 
 
 Over-production is an injury to capital and a scourge to 
 labor. Statistical science might possibly find a remedy. 
 Monthly tables showing the amount of production of any 
 given commodity, embracing those countries that are com- 
 mercially related, issued by an international statistical 
 bureau, might furnish producers with such information as 
 would prevent over-production. 
 
CAUSES THAT HAVE PRODUCED SOCIALISM 31 
 
 It may fairly be questioned, however, whether such knowl- 
 edge, under the stimulus of competition and the risks of 
 private enterprise, would be utilized. The law of supply 
 and demand is subject to economic conditions that are con- 
 stantly changing, and over which frequently man has no 
 control, as the failure of crops. 
 
 VIII. — Commercial Crises. 
 
 "These maelstroms, theorises, then, are the direct production of 
 private enterprise." — Mk. Laurence Gbonlund. 
 
 Another cause of Socialism closely connected with the 
 foregoing is Commercial Crises. These are seasons of 
 business depressions which bring ruin to capitalists and 
 distress to laborers. For above two hundred years they 
 have occurred with mysterious regularity once in about ten 
 years. " The first three years generally exhibit depression, 
 then you have three years of healthy trade, and then come, 
 say, two years of excited trade. Your ninth year is a bub- 
 ble, and your tenth year is its explosion and collapse." ' 
 
 What are the reasons for these depressions ? Political 
 economists are not agreed. Some say the cause is over- 
 production, due to illegitimate speculation : others, over- 
 consumption ; that is, people have lived beyond their means, 
 and retrenchment lessens the demand for commodities, and 
 the result is stagnation. 
 
 Henry George says that land speculation is the true 
 cause of industrial depression in the United States. Eod- 
 bertus, the eminent and conservative socialist, maintained 
 that crises result from the fact that the laborer's share of 
 all goods produced continually decreases. His theory 
 made a profound impression. It is thus illustrated. Sup- 
 pose all goods produced annually amount to a thousand 
 units : the units may be anything — a horse or a house. 
 These thousand units must be divided among four parties, 
 landlords, capitalists, laborers, and the State. Land- 
 lords take three hundred ; capitalists, three hundred ; la- 
 
 l "Socialism" (Cook), p. 32. 
 
32 SOCIALISM 
 
 borers, three hundred ; and the State, one hundred — total, 
 one thousand. Now, if production increases there is no 
 crisis so long as these proportions are maintained. La- 
 borers have means to purchase what is produced for them. 
 But the moment products increase, these proportions are 
 not maintained ; laborers' proportionate share diminishes ; 
 capitalists find their share increasing. It is not needed 
 for consumption, and so new factories are built and more 
 goods produced for workmen who cannot buy them ; goods 
 are heaped up. Then comes a crash. During the season of 
 depression society supports the poor, capitalists become 
 relatively reduced, and surplus goods are consumed, and 
 things get so far righted that business starts up again, but 
 always in such a way as to handicap the laborers, for so 
 many are seeking work that the employers can dictate 
 wages. 
 
 Thus at both the beginning and the end of the crisis 
 labor is fleeced by capital. 
 
 Such is the theory of Eodbertus, whom Professor Wag- 
 ner of Berlin called the Eicardo of Socialism. 
 
 Such is the explanation of the International Working 
 Peoples' Association, which declares that " the increase 
 of products, accompanied by simultaneous decrease of the 
 average income of the working mass of the people, leads to 
 so-called business and commercial crises, when the misery 
 of the wage-workers is forced to the extreme." ' 
 
 Socialism declares that the evil is inherent in the capi- 
 talistic system. The mischief wrought by these crises, both 
 to capital and labor and through them to all the interests of 
 society, is appalling. When mills shut down and ware- 
 houses filled with goods are locked up ; when mines are idle, 
 ships laid up, money stowed away in bank vaults, trades 
 paralyzed, and multitudes of working men forced into idle- 
 ness, to starve in the midst of plenty, or to recruit the 
 ranks of vice and crime, it becomes a matter of the deepest 
 concern, not only to political economy, but to the State and 
 society generally. 
 
 We live in a feverish age. The highest premium is put 
 on speed. 
 
 1 " The Labor Movement in America " (Ely), p. 360. 
 
CAUSES THAT HAVE PRODUCED SOCIALISM 33 
 
 If Shakespeare could say, in the sixteenth century, 
 " Tlie spirit of the times should teach me speed," 
 how shall we fitly characterize the period when steam and 
 electricity are getting to be tediously slow ? As the 
 human pulse may be sent flying up to 120 by stimulants or 
 mental excitement, so the industrial pulse, by the passion 
 for wealth, or stimulus of speculation, may be forced to 
 a point above its normal beat, and there for a time main- 
 tained ; but the reaction must come, or destruction would 
 ensue. 
 
 The crisis therefore is a blessing. The real panic, if we 
 had eyes to see it, is not when the reaction comes, but 
 when production is increasing, trade brisk, and business 
 humming. Then is the time to contract credits, to sever 
 the alliance with luxury, restrain pride and vanity, and 
 apply the moral and economical fly-wheel to regulate the 
 business pulse. The responsibility, however, for these dis- 
 astrous crises rests primarily upon the present industrial 
 system. 
 
 IX. — Pauperism. 
 
 " Pauperism accompanies progress ; ... to see human beings in the 
 most abject, the most helpless and hopeless condition, you must go, not 
 to the unfenced prairies and the log cabins of new clearings in the back 
 woods . . . but to the great cities where the ownership of a little patch 
 of ground is a fortune." — Henry George. 
 
 One of the direst evils of human society is pauperism. 
 It increases with civilization. It is this startling fact that 
 inspired the title of Henry George's remarkable book, 
 " Progress and Poverty," wherein he says, that as civiliza- 
 tion progresses and wealth increases, poverty deepens. 
 "Some get an infinitely better living, but others find it 
 hard to get a living at all. The tramps come with the 
 locomotive, and almshouses and prisons are as surely 
 the marks of material progress as are costly dwellings, 
 rich warehouses, and magnificent churches. Upon streets 
 lighted with gas and patrolled by uniformed policemen, 
 beggars wait for the passer-by, and in the shadow of col- 
 lege, and library, and museum, are gathering the more 
 
34 SOCIALISM 
 
 hideous Huns and lierce Vandals of whom Macaulay proph- 
 esied.' 
 
 This is also the indictment of Socialism against the pres- 
 ent system of industry. The International Working 
 People's Association says, " The increasing eradication of 
 working forces from the productive process annually in- 
 creases the percentage of the propertyless population, 
 which become pauperized and are driven to crime, vaga- 
 bondage, prostitution, suicide, starvation, and general de- 
 pravity. This system is unjust, insane, and murderous. It 
 is therefore necessary to totally destroy it." We are forced 
 to admit that poverty and paupers increase with wealth and 
 luxury. The explanation is to be found in the capitalistic 
 system which has outgrown its social utility and become 
 unjust and vicious. 
 
 Lazy and shiftless people always exist, but they need 
 not be paupers. In primitive conditions of society, where 
 all labor, pauperism is unknown. Any system wherein 
 the prosperity of some necessarily involves the impoverish- 
 ment of others is fearfully wrong somewhere. 
 
 Among the secondary causes of pauperism there are 
 moral, educational, and religious considerations of great 
 importance, but we are now concerned with the industrial 
 causes, chief among which is enforced idleness. Ninety 
 thousand in England, in the last half-year of 1860 were 
 idle, while during the same period much machinery was 
 , standing idle for want of hands. The consequent suffering 
 among the working classes caused Carlyle to exclaim, 
 " Enforced idleness is the Englishman's hell." 
 
 During the year including May . 1, 1885, out of a work- 
 ing force of 816,470 persons in Massachusetts, one-third 
 were idle a little over four months, or about one-third of 
 the year.2 We have no means of knowing what proportion 
 of this idleness was involuntary. Enforced idleness will 
 not be endured to any great extent in a government of the 
 people. When freemen whose daily bread depends upon 
 
 1 " Progress and Poverty," p. 7. 
 
 2 The Eighteenth Annual Report of the Bureau o{ Statistics of Labor. 
 
CAUSES THAT HAVE PRODUCED SOCIALISM 35 
 
 their daily labor cannot get work, the fact has a deep and 
 terrible significance. 
 
 Louis Blanc said, " In demanding that the right to live 
 should be regulated, should be guaranteed, one does much 
 more than demand that millions of unhappy beings should 
 be rescued from the oppression of force or of chance ; one 
 embraces in its highest generalization, and in its most pro- 
 found signification, the cause of humanity ; one greets the 
 Creator in his labor. Whenever the certainty of being able 
 to live by one's labor does not result from the essence of 
 social institutions iniquity reigns." 
 
 Cardinal Manning declared that a man who was willing 
 to work but could not get work had a right to steal bread ; 
 and he cites an English statute which says that every one 
 has " A right either to Avork, or to bread without work." 
 But does not the law say, " Thou shalt not steal ? " The 
 laborer replies the command applies to the organized taking 
 from laborers what they have earned, as well as to individual 
 theft. If industry is so organized that of the two parties 
 engaged in it, one, the employer, gets more than enough, 
 and the other, the laborer, receives so little that he is hun- 
 gry and naked, then he is robbed, and has a moral right to 
 what justly belongs to him. If David was justified in tak- 
 ing unlawful shew bread to appease his hunger, his example 
 would have weight with a Christian laborer starving in the 
 presence of overflowing granaries. The well-to-do may 
 have no fear of actual hunger and cold, wolves that con- 
 stantly prowl around the doors of the poor : and yet the 
 world's supply of food is so limited that a general failure 
 of crops for a single season would bring frightful conse- 
 quences. 
 
 "With machinery multiplying tenfold our powers of 
 production and with rapid and cheap methods of transporta- 
 tion, we are always within twelve months of starvation. 
 Let the world play for one year, and famine is king. We 
 are actually living from hand to mouth, and the world's 
 ceaseless toil is needed to keep its 1,400,000,000 alive." 
 
 The poorest paid, which constitute the great mass of 
 laborers, are often haunted by the ghastly spectre of pau- 
 
36 SOCIALISM 
 
 perism. In the reign of Henry VIII. seven thousand 
 people were branded with a hot iron and hung for being 
 poor. To assure the working poor that history repeats 
 itself and then condemn them to involuntary idleness, is a 
 dangerous proceeding. It suggests an explosion to be told 
 that every twentieth inhabitant in England is a pauper.^ 
 In 1880 this country had an army of 67,067 paupers in its 
 almshouses. There is reason to fear that the number has 
 since largely increased. In 1866 one in every thirty -five of 
 the foreign-born population of New York was a pauper. 
 Pauperism is a standing menace to our free institutions, 
 and multitudes continually stand in fear of it. 
 
 X. — Class Legislation. 
 
 " Legislation with regard to labor has almost always been class legisla- 
 tion. It is the effort ol some dominant body to keep down a lower class." 
 — Professok W. Stanly Jevons. 
 
 Nothing in connection with the present industrial regime 
 has so offended' the great mass of laborers as Class Legisla- 
 tion discriminating in favor of capital and against labor. 
 
 Thorold Eogers, in his history of " Work and Wages" in 
 England for six centuries, discloses a mass of legislation 
 against labor that is simply iniquitous. The real but gen- 
 erally disguised object of these laws is to preserve the 
 economical and social distinction of the dominant classes 
 and to reduce working men to industrial slavery. 
 
 Professor Jevons quotes approvingly the statement of 
 Brentano, " That all the statutes of the Middle Ages were 
 framed with regard to the powers and wants of the landed 
 proprietors and feudal lords," and he says of the famous 
 Statute of Laborers that "It was simply a futile attempt 
 to prevent labor from getting its proper price." And the 
 great Statute of Apprentices was the " abomination of des- 
 olation" to labor. It allowed justices of the peace to fix 
 all wages, and to tyrannize in the most shameful manner 
 over laborers. It compelled every servant or artificer to 
 work in the one trade to which he was accustomed. If he 
 
 1 " Contemporary Socialism," p. 57. 
 
CAUSES THAT HAVE PRODUCED SOCIALISM 37 
 
 removed to another town for work without a testimonial 
 from an employer, or officer, he was to be imprisoned, and 
 if he could not obtain such testimonial within twenty days, 
 he was to be whipped and treated as a vagabond. 
 
 From the middle of March to the middle of September, 
 every workman was to be at work at or before five o'clock 
 in the morning, and not depart until betwixt seven and eight 
 at night. 
 
 Young women of twelve years and upwards could be put 
 at work when and where the justice of the peace saw fit, 
 at wages fixed by him, and if they refused they were im- 
 prisoned. The most merciful thing'about the statute was, 
 it so overshot the mark, that it could not be enforced, 
 except its provisions as to apprenticeship, the evils of 
 which have been incalculable. 
 
 This Statute of Apprentices, that has disgraced England 
 for centuries, was not completely repealed until eighteen 
 years ago. Still more unjust was the law forbidding com- 
 binations of working men "for improving wages, and 
 reducing the hours of labor." What tyranny could be 
 more galling than to forbid laborers peaceably meeting to 
 discuss their own interests and at the same time encour- 
 aging combinations of capitalists ? Although the repeal of 
 this monstrous law in 1824 rendered labor unions legal, 
 still the unjust discriminations in favor of employers con- 
 tinued to oppress laborers till their final emancipation in 
 1871. 
 
 We cannot wonder at the distrust and bitterness of 
 laborers against capitalists and legislatures between which, 
 as upper and nether millstones, they have been crushed and 
 ground. Legislation has been as guilty in sins of omission 
 as of commission. 
 
 Women and children of tender years have been put at 
 tasks in a manner that disgraces civilization. Women 
 formerly worked in English mines, " harnessed with cattle 
 to loads of ore," as they even now are on the pit-banks and 
 coke-hearths.^ 
 
 Children from nine to fifteen years of age have been kept 
 
 1 " The Wages Question " (Walker), p. 52. 
 
38 SOCIALISM 
 
 at work in factories from six in the morning till nine and 
 twelve at night. 
 
 " In the agricultural districts of England gangs of chil- 
 dren of all ages, from sixteen down to ten or even iive years, 
 have been formed and driven from farm to farm and from 
 parish to parish, to work all day under strange overseers 
 and to sleep at night in barns huddled all together, without 
 distinction of sex." ' Not till 1867 could Parliament be 
 induced to interfere with such cruelty. Professor Ely says 
 of child labor in England during the first half of this cen- 
 tury, " It was little less than murder. Nay, I go further : 
 I believe in the sight of Almighty God the cannibals of the 
 Sandwich Islands were less guilty than those who, appre- 
 ciating its terrors, knowingly, wilfully supported it ; for it 
 also was a species of cannibalism, slow but more cruel, for 
 the flesh and blood of the little ones were devoured piece- 
 meal. Yet it required the struggle of a generation to pass 
 laws forbidding it, and nothing is more disgusting than the 
 evasive, shifting, lying course of its chief opponents." '^ 
 
 The spirit of class legislation against labor crossed the 
 Atlantic in the Mayflower. In 1630, in the Massachusetts 
 Colony, " it was ordered that carpenters, joiners, bricklayers, 
 sawyers, and thatchers shall not take above two shillings a 
 day." 3 Employers, however, might get them for nothing if 
 they. could. But why enact laws to prohibit laborers from 
 asking higher wages, and not prohibit employers from paying 
 lower ? It starts an honest man's blood to hear Adam Smith, 
 one hundred and fifty years later, say, " We have no acts 
 of Parliament against combining to lower the price of work ; 
 but many against combining to raise it." But immemorial 
 custom blinds oppressors to their cruelty and the oppressed 
 to their wrongs. Class legislation against labor proceeds 
 upon the pagan principle that might makes right. This 
 vicious legislation did not, however, find a congenial soil in 
 the Western world. The tendency of American legislation 
 
 1 Idem, p. 201. 
 
 2 " The Labor Movement in America," p. 316. 
 8 " The Wages Question " (Walker), p. 305. 
 
CAUSES THAT HAVE PRODUCED SOCIALISM 39 
 
 affecting capital and labor has been to favor the schemes of 
 capital rather than to interfere directly with labor. 
 
 Enormous powers and privileges have been granted to 
 capitalists, while until quite recently the policy of legisla- 
 tures has been to let laborers shift for themselves. Social- 
 ism is a protest in behalf of women and children, crushed 
 under the wheels of an industrial Juggernaut, and a demand 
 that the old capitalistic chariot, with its idol Gold, shall 
 give way to a more democratic and Christian vehicle, bear- 
 ing the goddess of social Justice and Equity. It is a most 
 hopeful sign of the times that several States, as well as the 
 general government, are collecting labor statistics, appoint- 
 ing labor bureaus and arbitration committees, and passing 
 laws to secure the individual rights of laborers. 
 
 XI. — Spread of the Democratic Principle. 
 
 " Can it be believed that Democracy, -which has overthrown the feudal 
 system and vanquished kings, will retreat helore tradesmen and capital- 
 ists? "Will it stop, now that it has grown so strong and its adversaries so 
 weak?" — De Tocqueville. 
 
 Another cause of Socialism is the Spread of the Demo- 
 cratic Principle. Political freedom is in the air, not only 
 of America, but of the nineteenth century. 
 
 Russia, at the opening of the century, bought and sold 
 human beings as cattle. The Moscow Gazette of 1801 
 advertises for sale three coachmen and two girls, eighteen 
 and fifteen, good looking and capable. Referring to a house 
 it says, " In this house one can buy a coachman and a 
 Dutch cow^." 
 
 A prominent woman killed by inhuman tortures nearly 
 one hundred of her serfs, mostly girls. All this is 
 changed. Within a generation Russia has freed sixty mil- 
 lions of serfs, extended to them civil rights, established 
 trials by jury, and inaugurated many other reforms. True, 
 certain forms of despotism remain, but the people, having 
 tasted liberty, resist them by the desperate methods of 
 nihilism. 
 
40 SOCIALISM 
 
 Within twenty years Germany has taken a great stride 
 toward democracy. In Prussia one vote of a rich man 
 counted as much as fifteen of the poor. In 1871 universal 
 suffrage was granted tlirough the whole German Empire. 
 
 England has steadily advanced toward a democracy. 
 
 The present century has witnessed vast changes in the 
 ideas of liberty and equality. " In 1815 are recorded 
 thirty-nine instances of wives exposed to public sale, like 
 cattle, at Smithfield." The life of a rabbit was of more 
 value than that of a man. " As recently as the year 1819 no 
 less than two hundred and twenty-three offences were pun- 
 ishable by death in England. If a man injured Westmin- 
 ster bridge he must be hanged. If he cut down a young 
 tree not belonging to him he must be hanged. If he were 
 found poaching at night or wrongfully killed a sheep, or 
 shot a rabbit, or stole property valued at a dollar and a 
 quarter or more, or appeared in disguise on the highway, 
 or wrote a threatening letter for money, he must be 
 hanged." ' 
 
 To-day the English sovereign is only a souvenir of the 
 past, a political figure-head facing toward the stern of the 
 ship of state. All political power is virtually in the hands 
 of the people whose temper is thoroughly democratic. 
 
 But of all political gymnastics of the nineteenth century, 
 the most remarkable have occurred in France. Setting out 
 as an absolute monarchy, like the performer at a circus, she 
 has at a single bound jumped over several political ele-. 
 phants, turned a complete somerset, and landed on her 
 feet, a full-blown republic. 
 
 Even in the United States the democratic principle 
 has so expanded that suffrage has been extended to the 
 ignorant and vicious and those who have no property 
 interests, to an extent that would have shocked even 
 Jefferson, the father of democracy, who said that a 
 qualified suffrage may succeed, provided the people 
 are educated and foreigners excluded. We are now as- 
 sured that the only civilized nation in the world that 
 legalizes slavery is about to liberate her one million 
 
 1 Key. John Cuckson. Springfleld Republican, February, 1892. 
 
CAUSES THAT HAVE PRODUCED SOCIALISM 41 
 
 slaves. Tiius the democratic principle has advanced, with 
 rapid and gigantic strides, through the present century. 
 
 On the other hand, industrial liberty has been practically 
 more and more curtailed by the introduction of machinery 
 and the massing of capital, which has narrowed the sphere 
 of the laborer and rendered him more dependent and 
 helpless. 
 
 Here is the one secret of social disturbance : political 
 freedom in collision with industrial oppression. A hand 
 that is free to vote will not be manacled in work. Politi- 
 cal forces tend to obliterate class distinctions. Industrial 
 forces tend to emphasize them ; hence the discord. 
 
 " Can it be believed," asks De Tocqueville, " that democ- 
 racy, which has overthrown the feudal system and van- 
 quished kings, will retreat before tradesmen and capital- 
 ists. Will it stop now that it has grown so strong and its 
 adversaries so weak ? " ' 
 
 Stahl and other Socialists have claimed that Socialism is 
 a necessary corollary of democracy. ^ The German type 
 of Socialism is known as social democracy. We may deny 
 any logical connection between democracy and Socialism ; 
 but it is a fair question, which wise men of the East, and 
 still wiser men of the West, are asking whether the people 
 having acquired political, religious, and educational democ- 
 racy, will not demand and obtain, at any cost, industrial 
 democracy. The question must be answered in the affirma- 
 tive. 
 
 The state, the church, the press, the platform, are com- 
 ing daily into sympathy with the reasonable demands of 
 wage-workers. The present system of corporate manage- 
 ment, which is the most imqualified industrial despotism 
 ■ that can be conceived in a free State, may not have reached 
 its climax, but the time is surely coming when laboring 
 men will not be over-worked or under-fed ; when they will 
 be eligible to hold political office; when employers shall 
 cease to feel above them and hold aloof from their society ;, 
 when wealth will not dare to treat them contemptuously ; 
 
 1 As quoteil in " Contemporary Socialism "(Rae), p. 20. 
 2/Wd., p. 19. 
 
42 SOCIALISM 
 
 and when they will feel as much at home in the city church 
 as does the richest and most fastidious worshipper of to-day. 
 We believe this simply because we believe in Christianity 
 and liberty. Not to believe it, is to be an infidel and a 
 traitor. It is a social status demanded not only by politi- 
 cal democracy, but by the democracy of the Gospel. It is 
 a state in which unjust competition will be restrained, 
 usurping trusts decapitated, soulless corporations regener- 
 ated, monopolies call upon the mountains to hide them, and 
 gambling speculations ranked with murder. 
 
 XII. — The Dissemination of Knowledge. 
 
 "The great difference between the actual position of affairs and any- 
 thing history shows us lies in the fact that the diffusion of Socialism is 
 enormously favored by the press and by the schools. Education to all, 
 even forced upon them, schools everywhere open, and cheap books, 
 pamphlets, and newspapers spread throughout the country ideas of 
 radical reform." — ;6mile de Laveleye. 
 
 The general Dissemination of Knowledge has also con- 
 tributed to the Socialist movement. Knowledge is power, 
 because it detects the causes of failure and misfortune ; it 
 avoids mistakes, seizes upon opportunities, discovers ad- 
 vantages, exposes injustice, makes choice of worthy ends, 
 selects appropriate means, utilizes forces, provides for con- 
 tingencies, and thus reduces chance and risk to a minimum. 
 
 The few, because of superior knowledge, have always 
 dominated over the many ; but as the many become intelli- 
 gent, they become independent. To know more means to 
 be and to have more. Mark the progress of knowledge 
 among the nations during the present century. Alexander 
 II. established 22,000 elementary common schools in 
 Russia. Of all his numerous reforms none was more far- 
 reaching, or more revolutionary in its results, one of which 
 is the present irrepressible demand of the people for equal 
 rights. 
 
 Italy has made elementary education compulsory. In 
 1872 she had 22 universities and 43,380 public and private 
 schools. 
 
 Germany has 20 universities, a large number of smaller 
 
CAUSES THAT HAVE PRODUCED SOCIALISM 43 
 
 institutions of learning, and 60,000 public primary schools, 
 upon which attendance is compulsory at least for five years. 
 
 France has 236 commercial colleges, besides many private 
 institutions, and about 70,000 schools for primary instruc- 
 tion. 
 
 In 1870 Great Britain adopted a national system of 
 education, established schools in every district proportionate 
 to population, making attendance compulsory. The result 
 has been marvellous. In 20 years the attendance in schools 
 increased from 531,000 to 3,560,000. The number of adults 
 who could read and write increased from 1840 to 1870, 
 35 per cent. In 1840 children who attended school were 
 only 9 per cent of the population ; -in 1850, 12 per cent ; in 
 1877, 17 per cent. In 1840 the number of children attend- 
 ing the public schools (which are for the children of the 
 working classes) was 1 in 57 of the population ; in 1877, 1 
 in 9.' 
 
 Contrast this result in general intelligence with the fact 
 that of the 26 barons who signed the Magna Charta only 
 three could write their names (the others made their mark), 
 and we get an idea of the progress of education in England. 
 
 Spain, bigoted and benighted, has not been able to arrest 
 the progress of knowledge. In 1852, out of a population of 
 16,000,000, not 2,000,000, were able to read and only one 
 person in fifteen could write. In 1845 public schools were 
 established and have since been fostered by the govern- 
 ment, till in 1867 there were 26,332 public schools, numer- 
 ous academies, and ten universities. 
 
 The progress of knowledge in the United States may be 
 estimated when it is realized what is implied in the state- 
 ment frequently made, that the boy fitted for college to- 
 day is as far advanced as the college graduate of the early 
 part of this century. 
 
 We have 367 colleges and universities, containing 75,333 
 students. The enormous sum of $3,675,000 was given to 
 42 American colleges during the year 1889. We have an 
 enrolment of more than 12,000,000 children in our common 
 schools which dot the land as the stars stud the heavens. 
 
 1 Mulhall's " Progress of the World," p. 167. 
 
44 SOCIALISM 
 
 These schools are under the supervision of 400,000 teachers, 
 superintendents, and school oificers. 
 
 The total expenditures for educational purposes, during 
 the year ending June 30, 1888, was $122,455,000. The 
 United States has donated 79,000,000 acres for education, 
 which, at f 5 per acre, would yield the enormous sum of 
 $396,000,000 as a permanent fund for the support of schools, 
 colleges, and universities. 
 
 The higher education of women is not only peculiar to 
 this age, but most potential in its results upon society. 
 The same may be said of the public libraries and the press 
 by which the people are being educated as never before. 
 
 In the year 1889 there were in the United States and 
 Canada 17,107 newspapers and periodicals, a gaiii over the 
 previous year of 797. The number of papers printed 
 weekly in 1890 in the United States and Canada was 23,- 
 228,760, which would give two copies to every family in the 
 country. During the s_ame year more than 6,653,250 copies 
 of daily papers were issued. This is a truly wonderful 
 record. No man can estimate the mighty power of the 
 press. It is a power developed almost within the memory 
 of man. " Within 150 years a book was bequeathed as an 
 invaluable legacy, and, if given to a religious house, was 
 offered on the altar and deemed a gift worthy of salvation, 
 and when a prelate borrowed a Bible his cathedral gave a 
 bond for its return. Libraries then consisted of a few 
 tracts chained or kept in chests. The famous Library of 
 Oxford, celebrated by Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, 
 contained only 600 volumes." ^ The prodigious increase 
 of books in this century has given us a new world. We 
 have literally reached the point where to the making of 
 many books there is no end. 
 
 Let it be observed that this Dissemination of Knowledge 
 corresponds in its extent to the complaint of labor and to 
 socialistic ideas. This relation is clearly not accidental, 
 but causal. The moment you educate a man, that moment 
 you increase his wants. Man is differentiated from the 
 brute by the multiplication of his wants as his faculties 
 
 ' "Harper's Magazine," vol. iii. p. 423. 
 
CAUSES THAT HAVE PRODUCED SOCIALISM 45 
 
 and powers develop. The wants of the brute are station- 
 ary. The mature and most highly developed horse has 
 not a single want that he did not have as a colt. 
 
 Popular education has civilized and refined the masses. 
 Their social, mental, and moral horizon has been enlarged. 
 The moral standard is raised ; a higher and truer sense of 
 right and justice prevails. Along with this development 
 new desires are awakened and new wants created, so that 
 with the increase of wealth, what was deemed a luxury a 
 hundred years ago is felt to be a necessity to-day. But 
 while education has developed wants, the industrial system 
 has failed to supply them pari passu, hence the social 
 friction. One of two alternatives is necessary : either 
 cease to educate the people, or supply the wants created 
 by education by a more equal distribution of wealth. 
 It is futile to attempt to stay the progress of the age, 
 and to return to the slow and rude methods of primitive 
 ages. We could not do it if we would, and we would not 
 if we could. The hand of human destiny points forward 
 rather than backward. The condition of the world, the 
 great interests of the race, religion, government, and knowl- 
 edge, all point, not backward to the beginning, but for- 
 ward to the consummation of all things. 
 
 XIII. — The Decay of Religion. 
 
 "The proletarians have heen detached from, and will return to, Chris- 
 tianity, when they hegin to understand that it hrings to them freedom 
 and equal rights ... By a complete misapplication of its ideas, the re- 
 ligion of Christ, transformed into a temporal and sacerdotal institution, 
 has been called in as the ally of caste, despotism, and the ancient regime 
 to sanction all social inequalities." — Emile de Laveleye. 
 
 Among the causes of Socialism, and the last we shall 
 mention, is the Decay of Eeligion. 
 
 Eoscher, in his masterly summary of the causes of 
 Socialism, places above all others the " general decay of 
 religion and morality in the people." The widest survey 
 of Christianity will show vast progress during the present 
 century ; but the gain has been largely confined to classes 
 
46 SOCIALISM 
 
 and localities. While the middle classes remain loyal, the • 
 rich and cultured and the proletariat of England and the 
 corresponding class of wage-workers in America have be- 
 come to an alarming extent alienated from religion. The 
 distinguished author of " Contemporary Socialism " says, 
 " Religious faith, particularly among the educated and 
 the working classes, is on the decline." ' 
 
 Eoscher uses these significant and solemn words: "When 
 every one regards wealtli as a sacred trust or office coming 
 from God, and poverty as a divine dispensation, intended to 
 educate and develop those afflicted thereby, and considers 
 all men as brothers and this earthly life only as a prepara- 
 tion for eternity, even extreme differences of property lose 
 their irritating and demoralizing jjower. On the other 
 hand, the atheist or materialist becomes only too readily a 
 mammouist, and the poor mammonist falls only too readily 
 into that despair which would gladly kindle a universal 
 conflagration in order either to plunder or lose his own 
 life." 2 
 
 Working men regard the church as mocking them. They 
 claim that they are not treated as brothers, but rather as 
 slaves, and religion seeks to reconcile them to their lot. 
 The church is insincere. She has two standards — the ideal 
 and the actual. The ideal is Christian, the actual is a travesty 
 of the teachings of Christ. For example, while the church 
 preaches that God hath chosen the poor of this world, she 
 deliberately chooses tlie rich ; while she preaches that he 
 who will not work neither shall he eat, she is continually 
 fawning upon those wlio eat and do not work ; while she 
 preaches that God is no respecter of persons, she seats her 
 congregations according to wealth ; and the wine and milk 
 of the pews, so far from being without price, are sold at a 
 premium. 
 
 Where is the rich city church that ushers the man in 
 vile raiment down the broad aisle ? The church preaclies 
 that we should be clothed with humility rather than with 
 outward adorning, and yet it is notorious that church-goers 
 dress so richly that the poor man and his family cannot 
 
 1 Introductory, p. 27. 
 
 ^ As quoted in " French and German Socialism " (Ely), p. 224, 
 
CAUSES THAT HAVE PRODUCED SOCIALISM 47 
 
 by any possibility appear in church except in raiment that 
 presents a humiliating contrast and places them at a social 
 disadvantage. The Master asks, " How hardly shall they 
 that have riches enter into the kingdom of God ? " ^ The 
 church asks " How hardly shall a poo7- man enter into the 
 kingdom of God ? " 
 
 We are not now concerned with the truth or falsity 
 of these charges, but simply with the fact that masses of 
 working men believe them to be true, and suffer the deplo- 
 rable consequences. That they should lose faith in a 
 church regarded as false to the spirit of Christ will not 
 excite our wonder ; indeed, that they should be led to 
 repudiate the church and denounce all religion is perfectly 
 natural. Such sentiments as the following are frequently 
 met with : " Heaven is a dream invented by robbers to dis- 
 tract the attention of the victims of their brigandage ; " 
 " When the laboring men understand that the heaven 
 which they are promised hereafter is but a mirage, they 
 will knock at the door of the wealthy robber with a mus- 
 ket in hand, and demand their share of the goods of this 
 life now." . . . "Religion, authority, and state are all 
 carved out of the same piece of wood. To the devil with 
 them all ! " " 
 
 Are these utterances regarded as the ravings of infidels 
 and fanatics ? Listen, then, to the indictment of conserva- 
 tive leaders in the churches. " They form an alliance with 
 the devil of mam monism. The church has forgotten her 
 mission" (R. T. Ely). "Let the'ohuroh see to it that her 
 mouth is not stopped by gags of gold" (Hon. Seth Lowe). 
 "The church is shackled with Pharisees" (Simon J. Mc- 
 Pherson, D.D.). "From all the paralyzing cant of an un- 
 felt devotion : from all the God-defying hypocrisy of an 
 uplifted voice and down-hanging arm : from all the miser- 
 able mummery of a grand external ritual and a selfish, un- 
 Christ-like daily life, good Lord deliver us ! The only 
 thing that Christianity wants just now is Christians" 
 (Canon Wilberforce). 
 
 " The rich are robbers ; a kind of Christianity must be 
 
 1 Mark x. 23. 
 
 2 " The Lator Movement in America " (Ely), p. 24.3. 
 
48 SOCIALISM 
 
 effected by making gifts out of their abundance. Better 
 all things were in common" (St. Chrysostom). We could 
 multiply similar utterances by the foremost men in the 
 church to-day. Let us therefore be charitable towards the 
 suffering masses who echo in despairing and disloyal tones 
 their charges. 
 
 No piling up of charities by the church while she sanc- 
 tions injustice will win back the people. Their self- 
 respect spurns to receive as beggars that to which they are 
 entitled as men. A select, cold-eyed, proxy Christianity 
 must be put away. Dear-bought experience has taught us 
 that the masses will never be reached by a long pole with 
 a purse-proud, caste-adoring saint at one end, and a barrel 
 of old clothing or a soup-house chapel at the other. Work- 
 ing men viten hearing in their assemblies the faithlessness 
 and hypocrisy of the church bitterly denounced, go home 
 and rehearse these sentiments to their wives and children, 
 and thus the seeds of irreligion are sown in a soil but too 
 well prepared by conditions of poverty to receive them. 
 Shall the Christian church be indifferent or silent before 
 these charges which are becoming the creed of multitudes ? 
 Herein also lies the greatest danger to liberty. 
 
 De Tocqueville says, " That the passion for material well 
 being has no check in a democratic community except reli- 
 gion, and if religion were to decline, and the pursuit of 
 comfort undoubtedly impairs it, then liberty would perish." 
 Nothing but the preaching and the practising of " pure and 
 undefiled religion " can save this Republic from religious 
 and political anarchy. 
 
 France first banished God, then plunged into social revo- 
 lution. Russia, with a minimum of Christianity, has a his- 
 tory of Nihilism written in blood. Not until Germany 
 substituted a speculative for an evangelistic Christianity 
 and religion had lost its hold upon the masses, could even 
 the burning eloquence of Lasselle arouse German laborers 
 to organize for protection. 
 
 A purified Christianity would at the present state of 
 social development give a powerful impulse to Socialistic 
 ideas. 
 
CAUSES THAT HAVE PEODUCED SOCIALISM 49 
 
 If Socialism, which is applied Christianity, is gaining 
 rapidly in England and the United States, one reason is 
 that these countries have held more closely to Christ and 
 his gospel in its purity and simplicity, and the departure 
 from these standards which capitalism threatens is more 
 quickly resented. 
 
 We have now offered thirteen causes which, in varying 
 degrees, have produced Socialism. Some of them may not 
 be operative everywhere and all may not be operative any- 
 where. It may be seen also that the causes are not merely 
 economical, but political, social, and moral. Socialism is a 
 .complex movement. Starting from industrial tyranny, it 
 soon discovers that all existing social institutions are 
 connected with, if not tributaries to, the oppression ; hence, 
 as the movement develops and formulates its principles, 
 it leaves no phase of human life untouched. 
 
50 THE FIVE POSTULATES OF SOCIALISM 
 
 CHAPTEE III 
 
 THE FIVE POSTULATES OF SOCIALISM 
 
 I. — Labor is the Source of all Value. 
 
 "Those who labor in reality feed both the pensioners (the rich) and 
 themselves." — Edmund Burke. 
 
 EoDBERTUs, regarded by some as the father of German ' 
 Socialism, announced this fundamental principle : " All 
 economic goods are to be regarded only as the product of 
 labor, and they cost nothing but labor." 
 
 Marx and Lasselle, and indeed all Socialists, substantially 
 agree with Rodbertus. This principle is of the utmost im- 
 portance. It is the economic and moral basis of Socialism, 
 and the fundamental fact on which any science of political 
 economy worthy the name must build, and the essential 
 condition of all correct ideas of industrial society. Are 
 Socialists right ? Capitalistic writers maintain that they 
 are not. We propose, by a few brief but self-evident propo- 
 sitions, to clear away the traditional cant, speculative 
 and economic rubbish, which have been employed in the 
 interest of capitalism, to bury this truth out of sight. But 
 first let us deiine our terms. What do we mean by Labor 
 and Value ? 
 
 The term labor as employed by Socialists, includes all 
 socially useful exertion, manual, mental, and moral. Social- 
 ists do not limit the term labor to manual- or wage-labor, 
 as is often falsely assumed by their opponents. Manual 
 laborers, however, constitute by far the larger number of 
 social workers, and are the greatest sufferers from the un- 
 equal distribution of wealth. 
 
 Socialists appreciate the entrepreneur function which 
 the advocates of partial co-operation have sought to dis- 
 pense with. 
 
LABOR IS THE SOURCE OF ALL VALUE 51 
 
 Inventors who increase productivity many fold, scien- 
 tists who utilize the forces of nature, teachers who impart 
 instruction, lawyers who assist the people in maintaining 
 their rights, judges who administer the laws, officers who 
 execute them, merchants and common carriers who facili- 
 tate exchange, physicians who preserve health and life, 
 scholars who stimulate thought, and statesmen wlio conserve 
 just principles of government, are all laborers together in 
 the production of economic value. 
 
 Moral labor is an equally important factor in creating 
 value. Ministers of religion constitute a class of laborers 
 whose influence is felt throughout the entire industrial 
 organism. Froude says, " All that we call modern civiliza- 
 tion, in a sense which deserves the name, is the visible 
 expression of the transforming power of the gospel." Hon- 
 esty, confidence, credit, .commercial honor, the inviolability 
 of contracts, and the sanctity of oaths, are moral forces hav- 
 ing their sanction in religion and without which all healthy 
 industrial life and progress are impossible. 
 
 Mental and moral laborers are often among the hardest 
 worked of any members of the social body. John Ericsson 
 has worked eighty-four hours per week, or fourteen hours 
 per day for thirty years, scarcely losing a day. He 
 sleeps where he works, accepts no invitations, receives no 
 visitors except on business, and practises the most rigid 
 rules of diet and sleep. 
 
 We are acquainted with many wage-workers and pro- 
 fessional men ; and the hardest worked man among them 
 all is a Christian minister, and the next is a school super- 
 intendent : they have the most hours for work, the fewest 
 for sleep, and the least for recreation, with hardly a wake- 
 ful moment they can call their own. There are working 
 men who, from sheer ignorance, regard brain-workers as 
 idlers. A man once said to the writer at the close of the 
 Sunday morning service, after having written during the 
 week two sermons and attended three funerals, one of 
 which was held in the church, a discoui-se having been 
 especially prepared, "That was a powerful sermon, hut 
 ■what do you do week-days ? " This man, however, was not 
 
52 THE FIVE POSTULATES OF SOCIALISM 
 
 a Socialist but an individualist. It is misleading and dis- 
 honest to represent as Socialists all wage-workers who de- 
 cry the professional classes, even if Socialists have indulged 
 in such folly. 
 
 The miner who formerly toiled in darkness and danger 
 owes to the patient thought of Sir Humphry Davy his 
 safety-lamp. Workers on electrical wires and mechanics 
 owe their employment to Franklin and other students of 
 nature. You say that Von Moltke won Sedan ; but think 
 again and you will say that it was Krupp who invented 
 the big guns. Let it be remembered also that, the highest 
 scientific authority assures us that three hours of severe 
 mental is equal to ten hours of ordinary manual labor. 
 
 Let all bodies of wage-workers, therefore, cease from 
 their criticism and abuse of mental and moral workers. It 
 causes ill-will and hatred and hinders reform to character- 
 ize them as " social vampires," fattening upon the toil of 
 others, and as a class that ought to be eliminated from 
 society. This would be as if a ship's crew should cast 
 away its anchor, rudder, compass, sails, and oars, and pitch 
 the captain and mate overboard as superfluous encum- 
 brances, hoping thus to lighten its labors and facilitate 
 navigation. 
 
 Socialists, then, in saying that labor is the source of all 
 value, include in the term labor all manual, mental, and 
 moral labor. 
 
 The professional classes of laborers, however, are not 
 the sufferers under competition. Manual laborers are the 
 oppressed. They constitute the great majority. " Of the 
 80,000,000 English-speaking people three-fourths, probably 
 two-thirds, certainly subsist on wages," and " manual 
 labor is the essential condition of all production of 
 wealth."' Eor these reasons, therefore, we generally in- 
 tend wage-workers by the term laborers. 
 
 What is meant by the term value? Economists agree 
 
 that value denotes utility ; and they distinguish two kinds 
 
 of utilities, such as are free to all and therefore not articles 
 
 of merchandise, and such as are bought and sold. The 
 
 1 " The Wages Question " (Walker), p. 217. 
 
tABOE IS THE SOURCE OP ALL VALUE 53 
 
 former are called values in use, tlie latter values in exchange. 
 Water has the highest utility or value in use, but will ex- 
 change for nothing, hence has no exchange value. McCul- 
 loch says, " An article may be possessed of the highest 
 degree of utility, or power to minister to our wants and 
 enjoyments, and may be universally made use of without 
 possessing exchangeable value." Political economy, how- 
 ever, has little concern with value in use. Value in ex- 
 change, on the other hand, constitutes the subject matter 
 of the science. Value in exchange is the utility or worth 
 of goods, wares, and commodities of all descriptions, also of 
 houses, lands, mines, mills, and all objects of property, 
 which are the subject of trade or exchange. We include 
 land because, though not made by man, it has no utility or 
 value except such as is created by the movements of human 
 society ; that is, at a distance from society it is worth noth- 
 ing. Land also is private property, and is bought and sold 
 like commodities. When, therefore, we employ the term 
 value, we mean whatever is the subject of merchandise as 
 an economic good. 
 
 We have defined our terms. We now proceed to show 
 that Labor is the Source of all Value. 
 
 1. This principle is laid down by Adam Smith, and con- 
 firmed by Eicardo, McCulloch, Mills, the leading econo- 
 mists of Germany, France, and America, in fact, by nearly 
 all political economists who have claim to consideration. 
 Smith says, " The value of any commodity, therefore, to the 
 person who possesses it ... is equal to the quantity of 
 labor which it enables him to purchase or command." 
 Labor, therefore, is the' real measure of the exchangeable 
 value of all commodities. . . . Labor was the first price 
 paid, the original purchase money that was paid for all 
 things. It was not by gold or by silver, but by labor, that 
 all the wealth in the world was originally purchased." ' 
 
 McCulloch says, " The cost or value of all freely produced 
 commodities, the supply of which may be indefinitely in- 
 creased (abstracting from temporary variations of supply 
 and demand), depends wholly on the quantity of labor 
 
 1 "The Wealth of Nations " (Rogers' Edition), vol. 1. p, 30. 
 
54 THE FIVE POSTULATES OF SOCIALISM 
 
 Tequired for their production, und not upon the rate at 
 which that labor may be paid. . . . This is the fundamental 
 theorem of the science of value, and the clew which unravels 
 the intricate labyrinth of the laAvs which regulate the dis- 
 tribution of wealth." ^ 
 
 Quotations can be multiplied showing that the ablest 
 economists laid down the fundamental and self-evident 
 principle that Labor is the Source of all Value. 
 
 2. Take any commodity, any article of merchandise what- 
 ever, and what is there in it but labor ? My eye rests upon 
 a stove. What part of that stove sprang from any 
 other source than labor ? I take my watch in my hand ; 
 I examine its different parts, and I can lind nothing of all 
 the minute parts of which it is composed that is not the 
 fruit of labor alone. The same is true of all exchangeable 
 utilities or values whatever. 
 
 No argument is necessary to prove this ; its truth is 
 apparent to a child. It is therefore a self-evident proposi- 
 tion, that Labor is the Source of all Value. 
 
 3. But it may be asked, is not capital a factor in produc- 
 tion, especially in modern industry where labor and capital 
 are brought together in the great manufacturing plant ? 
 
 What is capital ? The shovel or hoe of the laborer ; that 
 is, capital is property used by labor in producing value. 
 No one can add or subtract from this simple idea of capital. 
 The simplest mind can apprehend it ; the most profound 
 can only confuse it. 
 
 Money is not necessarily capital. 
 
 Suppose Eobinson Crusoe to have had a bank-note in his 
 possession : he could not eat, drink, or wear it ; he could not 
 make any use of it in raising corn, catching fish, or produ- 
 cing clothing; it is absolutely worthless to him. On the 
 other hand, a hoe or a shovel, or even a sharpened stick, is 
 useful in gaining food and clothing. These, therefore, are 
 capital, while the bank-note is nothing. Only when other 
 people appear on the island, and Crusoe and the others wish 
 to exchange commodities for convenience' sake, will the 
 bank-note be thought of, and then not as having value 
 itself, but only as a thing that represents articles of value. 
 IntroJuction to " Ricavdu's Worl<s," p. xxiv. 
 
LABOR TS THE SOURCE OF ALL VALUE 55 
 
 It is a medium of exchange. It saves, in trade, the actual 
 and troublesome handling of merchandise. Money as such, 
 therefore, is not capital, and no headway can be made in 
 the study of the principles of economy till we are able to 
 forget that there is such a thing as money. Capital is a 
 tool : it is a hoe, a machine, a building, wool or leather, or 
 any article used or transmuted by labor in producing other 
 articles of value. 
 
 Now, it is evident that such tool and raw material used 
 by the laborer are not a source of value. All the tools in 
 the world could not produce a pin or a potato. A machine 
 can produce nothing at all. If machinery is a source of 
 value, if it can produce anything, let it do so, and let the 
 laborer have a rest. Thus we have only to imagine capital 
 trying to produce the slightest value to see the absurdity 
 of the dictum, that capital is & factor, a doer in the produc- 
 tion of value. Labor, on the other hand, without the aid 
 of capital, can produce value. 
 
 Mr. Eae, in criticising Marx's theory of value, is led to 
 say that " labor by itself is as unproductive as capital by 
 itself." ^ This is a remarkable assertion. " Capital by 
 itself" is dead and utterly unproductive; whereas "labor 
 by itself " is alive and productive. 
 
 Were it otherwise, capital, not even in the most primi- 
 tive forms, could have come into existence. "Labor by 
 itself is as unproductive as capital by itself ! " How 
 strange and weird the effect of capitalism on the minds of 
 its votaries ! The falsism is continually echoed from the 
 mammon-addled brains of capitalistic writers. A learned 
 divine says in the "Bibliotheca Sacra," " PerhaiDS the sole 
 producer is capital employing machinery plus material j9/7(s 
 labor." ^ Here capital employs labor; the creature the 
 creator ! He has said before that capital is " ten shillings," 
 or a " pair of shoes." The shoes therefore employ the 
 owner: he does not use the shoes; the shoes use him ! I do 
 not employ my horse and hoe (capital), but they employ 
 
 1 " Contemporary Socialism," p. 149. 
 
 2 January, 1892. 
 
66 THE FIVE POSTULATES OF SOCIALISM 
 
 me ! The man exists for the machine, and not the machine 
 for the man. This is capitalism. It is also brutalism, and, 
 when indorsed by Christian ministers, leads us to ex- 
 claim, — 
 
 " O Judgment ! thou art fled to brutish beasts, 
 And men have lost their reason." 
 
 Capital is used by labor in production, and is transferred 
 to the products. Raw material, wear and tear of machinery 
 and buildings, and all other expenditures or depreciations 
 of capital employed in business, are always, consciously or 
 unconsciously, reduced to labor, transferred to the product, 
 and help determine its value. 
 
 4. To say that capital is used in producing value is a 
 truism. To say that it is a source, that it i-s the origin, 
 spring, or beginning of value, is manifestly false. Labor 
 alone is the source. Labor makes use of capital : it makes 
 use also of air and water, sight and hearing, and other senses 
 as helps, but not as co-ordinate helpers, in the creation of 
 value. 
 
 5. Capital is value. No one will dispute this. To say, 
 therefore, that capital is a source of value is equivalent to 
 saying that value is a source of value. 
 
 6. All capital is produced by labor as the source. Mr. 
 Mill says, "Capital is itself a product of labor." This 
 again is self-evident. If capital is produced by labor, then 
 labor is the creator, and capital the creature. The creator, 
 not the creature, is the source. Capital is used by its crea- 
 tor, labor, as a means ; it may be called a secondary cause, 
 just as gravitation is a secondary cause, God being the 
 first cause. Second causes, however, must be subject to first 
 causes. If gravitation should lift up its head and deny its 
 Lord, or assume to be king, what would happen ? Anarchy 
 and destruction. So when capital denies labor as its crea- 
 tor and lord, there is confusion, chaos, and war. 
 
 Let capital take its place at the feet of labor, and all 
 would be well. It is because capital says to labor, " I am 
 greater than thou," because capital lords it over labor, that 
 hatred and strife are engendered. If my hoe or my horse 
 (capital) should set up over me, if my hoe should acquire 
 
LABOK IS THE SOURCE OF ALL VALUE 57 
 
 the faculty of appropriating to itself every second row of 
 corn, and my horse of appropriating one-half of all the 
 produce he drew, I would cremate that hoe and horse before 
 the sun went down, and advocate any lawful measure look- 
 ing to a general reform of hoes and horses of this character. 
 
 7. Not only is this first Postulate of Socialism, that 
 Labor is the Source of all Value, the first elementary prin- 
 ciple of political economy, as laid down by its ablest writers, 
 and a self-evident truth, but it was never denied till it be- 
 came necessary for capitalism to find an excuse for the exploit- 
 ation of labor. 
 
 The doctrine in its simplicity was stated by Smith and 
 Eicardo, when no prejudices existed to warp their judg- 
 ments, and was everywhere accepted as truth, till, in the 
 evolution of the capitalistic system of industry, capital, in 
 in the shape of land and other means of production, was 
 monopolized by the few to the great wrong and misery of 
 wage-workers, and Socialism raised the cry of distress and 
 reform, planting itself squarely on the accepted teachings 
 of the current economy. Then Bastiat, the champion of 
 capitalism and the avowed enemy of Socialism,' rose up and 
 declared that capital should be let alone, competition should 
 be absolutely free, there should be a free fight in an open 
 industrial field, the big man should be pitted against the 
 little man, and the strong, wise, and cunning against the 
 weak, ignorant, and innocent. This he claimed would pro- 
 duce harmony. Social " interests, left to themselves, tend 
 to harmonious combinations." " Harmonious ! " About as 
 harmonious as the dulcet tones of bulls and bears. Society 
 has listened to the music till it is distracted. 
 
 Socialists do not complain of capital as such, much less 
 do they blame capitalists who, in the industrial struggle, 
 are no more to blame for coming out at the top than wage- 
 workers for coming out at the bottom. It is the fight, the 
 unequal and cruel war made necessary by the present sys- 
 tem, the principles of which are capital, competition, and 
 contract, free and individual, that Socialism opposes. 
 
 These principles, owing largely to the modern complex 
 organization of industry, have become vicious in their 
 
68 THE FIVE POSTULATES OF SOCIALISM 
 
 operation by enriching the few and oppressing the. many. 
 Socialism, believing that these things must inevitably go 
 from bad to worse under the regime of private capital, 
 would have capital socialized, so far at least as is necessary 
 to counteract the evils inherent in capitalism. 
 
 If now it be asked should not private capital employed 
 in production share in the distribution ? We answer, under 
 capitalism, where industry is a great grab game, and every 
 man must grab or die, yes. How much should capital 
 receive? All it can get. Should it secure the laborer at 
 the lowest possible wages, even though he suffer ? Yes. 
 Should it pay the farmer six and one-half cents per pound 
 for cotton which cost him seven to raise, even though it 
 ruined the farmer by the operation ? Yes. Why should 
 capital do all these and a hundred other wicked things ? 
 Because it must under capitalism, or run the risk of ruin 
 itself. We frankly admit that private capital must do 
 what it does do, what all justify it in doing under the pres- 
 ent disgraceful, root-hog-or-die system of industry. It is 
 because we deplore these evils necessary to private capital 
 that we would abolish it. 
 
 We have seen that Labor is the Source of all Value, and 
 that capital itself is produced by labor, being in a sense 
 only labor stored up, or congealed labor, or, as Marx says, a 
 form of " crystallized labor." 
 
 Professor William S. Sumner, an opponent of Socialism, 
 says "Capital is force, human energy stored or accumu- 
 lated.'" The .question naturally arises, how shall we esti- 
 mate this value ? 
 
 If labor is the source of value, it must form the basis of 
 the measure of value ; that is, a commodity is worth the 
 labor of making it. What are we to include in this labor ? 
 Let us have a clear idea of this term. There are many 
 kinds and qualities of labor. Labor is manual, mental, and 
 moral ; and these again admit of various kinds and degrees. 
 How, then, can we estimate this labor, which assumes the 
 form of a commodity and measures its value ? In the first 
 place, consider that labor is a social factor ; it is not, in 
 
 1 " Social Classes," etc., p. 162. 
 
LABOR IS THE SOUKCE OF ALL VALUE 59 
 
 society, an individual but a collective thing. Exchange 
 values with which we have to do show that, for the most 
 part, we eat the fruit of others' lalior and others eat the 
 fruit of our labor. It follows, that the labor that measures 
 value is not concrete but abstract labor; that is, it is not the 
 labor of one man in the production of a commodity that 
 liieasures its value, but the average amount of labor required 
 to produce it. In other words, it is the socially necessary 
 labor that is the measure of value. 
 
 If the special labor of an individual measured value, we 
 shoidd have as many prices or values for a given commod- 
 ity as there are workmen producing it, since no two 
 would put exactly equal quantities of labor into it. It is 
 not therefore individual but social labor that determines 
 value. Neither may the social labor be subject to the 
 limitations of particular commodities, but it must be gen- 
 eral and coextensive with the entire field of exchange. It 
 is therefore average social labor that determines value. 
 This social labor is abstract as distinguished from con- 
 crete labor. Individual labor, then, does not determine 
 value. A farmer expects to receive for his potatoes, not 
 what they cost him under his particular conditions of cul- 
 tivation, but what all others receive; that is, what farmers 
 generally are getting ; he finds that his individual, concrete 
 labor does not measure the value of his potatoes, but the 
 average social labor of all farmers who raise potatoes. 
 This ig abstract or social labor. Now, as intimated, there 
 are many kinds and degrees of social labor, and so com- 
 plex and highly organized is modern industry that all 
 kinds of labor are expressed in any given commodity. A 
 potato or a yard of cloth is the embodiment of many kinds 
 of manual, mental, and moral labor. Behind a yard of 
 cloth is a college, a scientific school, a church, a govern- 
 ment, civil laws, machine shops, railroads, farms, mines, 
 and mills. This yard of cloth has come directly or indi- 
 rectly into contact with all these factors, and the labor of 
 each, in some however remote degree, has entered into it. 
 It is perfectly clear, therefore, that the labor which 
 measures its value is not individual but social labor, not 
 
60 THE FIVE POSTULATES OF SOCIALISM 
 
 oonorete but abstract labor. Marx aptly calls it " undiffer- 
 entiated human labor." 
 
 The most adequate and simplest expression is socially- 
 necessary labor. We now advance a step farther and ask 
 how shall we get at socially necessary labor ; that is, how 
 estimate it so as to ascertain exactly what it is that goes 
 into a commodity ? Shall we say the labor is so much or 
 of such a kind, that is, shall we estimate by quantity, or 
 quality ? The answer is by quantity. 
 
 Ricardo says, " The value of a commodity . . . depends 
 on the relative quantity of labor which is necessary for its 
 production." ' 
 
 It is then the quantity of socially necessary labor that 
 measures value. There can be no other possible and scien- 
 tific answer. We proceed, therefore, to another question 
 of vast importance in this discussion. How shall we 
 estimate this quantity of labor that goes into a commodity 
 and determines its value ? Shall we estimate it by the 
 pound or yard, or in denominations of money, or by time ? 
 To speak of a pound or yard of labor would be a solecism ; 
 to speak of a dollar's worth of labor, as is often done, 
 clearly involves a petitio principii ; that is, it assumes as 
 ascertained that for which we are seeking. There remains, 
 then, but one answer. By quantity, when applied to labor, 
 must be understood time of labor. Marx says, " The 
 quantity of labor, however, is measured by its duration, 
 and labor-time, in its turn, finds its standard in jveeks, 
 days, and hours : " '^ and again, " We see, then, that that 
 which determines the magnitude of the value of any article 
 is the amount of labor socially necessary, or the labor-time 
 socially necessary, for its production. . . . Commodities, 
 therefore, in which equal quantities of labor are embodied 
 or which can be produced in the same time, have the same 
 value. The value of one commodity is to the value of any 
 other as the labor-time necessary for the production of the 
 other. ' As values, all commodities are only definite 
 masses of congealed labor-time.' " ' 
 
 Nine people out of ten who read this will exclaim, how 
 
 1 " Ricardo's Works " (McCuUooh), p. 9. 
 " Capital," p. 5. s Ibia., p. 6. 
 
LABOR IS THE SOURCE OF ALL VALUE 61 
 
 absurd to make ten hours of labor-time of the superintend- 
 ent of a great mill only equal ten hours of the cheapest 
 operative ! Of course this is absurd ; nothing of the kind 
 is said. It is abstract labor-time, not concrete labor-time, 
 that is compared. Labor of all kinds and degrees must be 
 reduced to abstract labor-time before comparison can be 
 made or values measured. The reduction of the different 
 kinds of concrete labor, skilled and unskilled, mental and 
 manual, to abstract labor-time, and the resolving a commod- 
 ity into this simple, single element, are going on all the 
 while. Value in exchange is the result of these processes 
 of reduction, and, indeed, could have no existence without 
 them. Marx has done incomparably more than any other 
 writer to reduce them to scientific analysis. 
 
 By this reduction the labor of a judge as well as the 
 labor of a hod-carrier can be expressed in units of simple 
 abstract labor-time. 
 
 Of these units twenty might represent the value of an 
 hour's labor by the judge and four of an hour's labor by the 
 hod-carrier. It is not for a moment to be supposed that all 
 the concrete kinds of individual labor that have entered 
 into a commodity are to be put on a par as to quantity, 
 time, value, or anything else. 
 
 All these elements of concrete labor are reduced to ab- 
 stract labor and expressed in units of abstract labor-time ; 
 and this becomes the only possible and scientific measure 
 of value. 
 
 Endless confusion has resulted from the failure to dis- 
 tinguish between these two' sorts of labor. What Marx 
 alleges to be true only of abstract labor his opponents rep- 
 resent as predicated of concrete labor. The different kinds 
 of concrete labor have different values ; but the units of 
 abstract labor-time have equal values. The sum total of 
 these units required to produce any commodity constitutes 
 the amount of abstract labor it embodies, and is the exact 
 measure of its value. In reply to Marx, Mr. Rae denies 
 that labor-time is the only measure of value ; it is such 
 only in certain cases, in other cases the measure is social 
 utility, He says " Value is not constituted by time of labor 
 
62 THE FIVE POSTULATES OF SOCIALISM 
 
 alone, except in the case of commodities admitting of in- 
 definite multiplication ; in all other cases it depends on 
 social utility." ^ Among these other cases he mentions 
 railway chairmen, etc. The reason, he says, why railway 
 chairmen and judges receive more than porters and police- 
 men, is because the work of the former is of superior 
 quality, and possesses more " social utilitj^" This is true 
 but irrelevant. The question is not one- of comparison be- 
 tween different "social utilities "or values at all, but of 
 the measure of all such utilities. To say that the measure 
 of a certain class of social utilities is labor-time, and the 
 measure of another class of social utilities is " social util- 
 ity," is ridiculous. Yet this is precisely what Mr. Rae 
 does. He says, " Value is constituted in every object by its 
 possession of two characteristics : first, that it is socially 
 useful ; second, that it costs some labor or trouble to pro- 
 cure it." ^ He has already said that the socially useful 
 element itself is value. His statement, therefore, is that 
 value is constituted, first, by value, second, by labor. This is 
 another absurdity. The argument on which Mr. Kae re- 
 lies to disprove that abstract labor-time is the only measure 
 of value, is based on his assertion that this is true only "of 
 commodities admitting of indefinite multiplication ; in all 
 other cases it depends on ' social utility.' " This position 
 is unsound for several reasons. 
 
 1. It erects a double measure of economic value, — time 
 of laboj- and " social utility." Such a double standard can 
 furnish no scientific basis of a self-consistent system of 
 political economy. 
 
 2. It confounds labor with the product of labor, measure 
 of value with value, concrete labor with abstract labor, and 
 thus renders clear thought impossible. 
 
 3. All kinds of labor, manual, mental, and moral, are now 
 estimated by quantity on a time basis and remunerated 
 accordingly. 
 
 It is not, however, the quantity of concrete labor in a given 
 case, but of social labor, that is of abstract undifferentiated 
 or socially necessary labor. Quality of labor is considered, 
 
 1 " Contemporary Socialism,'' p. 357. ^ IHd., p. 166. 
 
LABOR IS THE SOURCE OP ALL VALUE 63 
 
 though, not as quality, but as quantit]] to which it is reduced ; 
 for example, a fine watch may represent fifty days of con- 
 crete skilled labor and one hundred and twenty days of 
 abstract labor. The watchmaker has toiled years for almost 
 nothing to acquire his skill; his skill, therefore, ought to re- 
 ceive such reward as would cover the unremunerative period. 
 The fifty days of the watchmaker, therefore, will exchange 
 for perhaps seventy-five of a mechanic. Suppose the 
 watchmaker's fifty days and the mechanic's seventy-five 
 days each equalled one hundred and twenty days of abstract 
 labor-time ; then the mechanic would give seventy-five days 
 concrete labor for the watch which cost its skilled maker 
 fifty days concrete labor. The same law governs in the 
 case of the judge and the policeman. Many years of un- 
 rewarded labor and large sums of money were expended 
 before the judge could begin his work. A day's labor, 
 therefore, of the judge might equal several of the police- 
 man, when both were reduced to abstract labor-time. 
 
 Kicardo says, " I am not inattentive to the dif&culty of 
 comparing one hour's labor in one employment with the 
 same duration of labor in another. But the estimation of 
 different qualities of labor comes soon to be adjusted iu 
 the market with sufficient precision for all practical pur- 
 poses." ^ 
 
 That this is the only scientific law of the measure of value 
 in a highly organized society cannot be disputed. The 
 reasonableness of this rule is seen in the fact that the 
 element of tim,e is the only common factor to all kinds of 
 labor. Different kinds of labor could not be compared or 
 proportioned to each other were it not for this common 
 factor. These can all be reduced to units of simple social 
 labor-time, and the value of any labor whatever will depend 
 upon the number of these units it contains. 
 
 4. No line can be drawn between " commodities admit- 
 ting of indefinite multiplication " and other commodities. 
 "Organizers" of labor, "railroad chairmen" (for such in 
 capitalism are commodities) can be multiplied indefinitely. 
 The United States can now supply enough for a dozen 
 
 1 Kicardo's Works (McCullocli), p. 15. 
 
64 THE FIVE POSTULATES OF SOCIALISM 
 
 worlds, and as for judges and lawyers, it has over 75,000 ; 
 the market is glutted, and according to its ablest represen- 
 tatives a crisis is threatened unless we stop producing 
 them. 
 
 5. Admitting that there are values not measured by 
 labor-time, as Mr. Eae claims, they are so rare and non- 
 essential as to have no appreciable bearing on this subject. 
 The commodities that can be indefinitely multiplied are 
 the only ones we need concern ourselves about. 
 
 The value of these, Mr. Eae admits, is measured by labor- 
 time. Why, then, drag in a foreign consideration ? These 
 commodities embrace food, clothing, shelter, books, indeed, 
 all the necessaries, comforts, conveniences, and luxuries 
 essential to the health aud happiness of body or mind. 
 Working men have never demanded anything more. The 
 struggle between labor and capital concerns nothing else. 
 
 We have now seen that this first Postulate of Socialism, 
 that Labor is the Source of all Value, rests on a solid foun- 
 dation. Several important corollaries have been derived 
 from this truth. 
 
 1. All kinds of labor, manual, mental, or moral, in all their 
 varieties and degrees can be, and in fact are, reduced to units 
 of abstract social labor-time. 
 
 2. This social labor-time is the only scientific measure of 
 economic value. 
 
 3. Capital, which is property or value used by labor in 
 production, is itself a form of labor. It is labor stored up, 
 coagulated, or crystallized. 
 
 The present system allows this form of labor (capital) to 
 accumulate in the hands of a few and dominate over and 
 rob the many. 
 
 It enables rich employers and their families to put on 
 superior clothes and airs, to live in idleness and roll in lux- 
 ury, while the employee and his family are suffering for the 
 necessities of life. 
 
 Here is the real root of bitterness between labor and 
 capital. The sense of injustice- is intensified by the feeling 
 that is everywhere gaining ground and finding expression, 
 and which is indeed indisputably true, that it is the social, 
 
LABOR IS THE SOUKCE OF ALL VALUE 65 
 
 humane, and religious duty of all men and women, wlietlier 
 rich or poor, to engage in some useful work, manual, mental, 
 or moral, as God has given them strength. Any other con- 
 ception of life is low, materialistic, false, and Godless. Work 
 is the law of earth, rest is the law of Heaven, idleness is the 
 law of hell. 
 
 It was doubtless this unjust and wicked inequality in 
 society that led John Bright to say in an assembly of 
 working men, " Just now, as I was on my way to this place 
 to speak to you, I watched in the street a magnificent car- 
 riage pass me ; and in that carriage were two splendidly 
 dressed ladies. Who made that carriage ? You did. Who 
 made those splendid dresses ? You did. Have your wives 
 any such carriages to drive in ? Do your wives ever wear 
 clothes of this kind ? I watched, that carriage farther, and 
 I saw where it stopped.. It stopped before a, stately house 
 with an imposing portico. Who built that house ? You did. 
 Do you and your wives live in any such houses as that ? " 
 These words were greeted with tumultuous applause. 
 
 An eminent American divine, Dr. A. J. P. Behrends, in 
 his candid but inconclusive work on this general subject, 
 says of this language, " Here again is Marx's doctrine that 
 capital is the spoliation of labor, and Proudhon's maxim that 
 property is theft. Let these utterances take shape in the 
 platform of a great political party, and, under a suffrage 
 sufficiently extended, the ballot-box might introduce a revo- 
 lution whose mischief imagination cannot picture." * 
 
 The " mischief " of the ballot-box in this case consists in 
 breaking down monopoly, overthrowing industrial tyranny, 
 causing a more equal distribution of wealth, banishing en- 
 forced idleness and pauperism, and putting an end to ninety 
 per cent of all drunkenness and crime. This is the " Mis- 
 chief that imagination cannot picture." 
 
 It would further deprive the strong of the natural right 
 of oppressing his weaker brother, and of eating the bread 
 earned by the sweat of another's brow ; it would bring un- 
 told distress upon capitalists and employers, simply because 
 they could no longer pile up colossal wealth, revel in luxury, 
 
 1 " Socialism and Christianity," p. 56. 
 
66 TIIK F1\'K rOSTULATES OF SOCIALISM 
 
 and live iu idleness, while their employees and families 
 were toiling and suffering. It would consist iu bringing 
 sunshine and gladness, peace and plenty, love and good-will 
 into the hearts and homes of the people, the vast majority 
 of whom are wage-workers. 
 
 Mr. Bright's utterance finds a quick and hearty response 
 in the minds of those who see that a gigantic wrong is being 
 done to wage-workers in the distribution of wealth. The 
 sooner this wroug is recognized on the political platform, 
 in the pulpit, and by the press, the safer it will be for free 
 institutions. 
 
 II. — Private Capital is a Social Grime. 
 
 " Property, when first instituted, was endurable ; it did not then take 
 away from anybody the right an'd the means of becoming a land-owner, 
 for there was no money, while there was vacant land in abundance. 
 From the moment, however, that every free man could no longer appro- 
 priate a part of the soil, property has ceased to be a right. It has be- 
 come a crying evil, and the cause of the misery and destitution of the 
 masses." — Weitlino. 
 
 " Iniquity alone has created private property." — St. Clement. 
 
 The second Postulate of Socialism is that Private Capi- 
 tal is a Social Crime, and should be abolished. " Property 
 is robbery because it enables him who has not produced to 
 consume the fruits of other people's toil. What I produce 
 is worth what it costs ; i.e., the time and economic goods 
 which enter into it. If a capitalist or landlord takes away 
 ten per cent, then the product costs me more than it is 
 worth. I am robbed of this ten per cent. The proprietor 
 is a thief! "1 
 
 Marx says, " The foundation of the capitalistic method 
 of production is to be found in that theft which deprived 
 the masses of their rights in the soil, in the earth, the 
 common heritage of all." He claims that increase of value 
 in the process of production comes not from the dead ma- 
 terials, but from labor, and it is virtually stolen from the 
 laborers by the owners of the material. 
 
 1 As quoted in " French and German Socialism " (Ely), p. 133. 
 
PBIVATE CAPITAL IS A SOCIAL CRIME 67 
 
 This is a stinging charge. But what do Socialists mean 
 by theft ? They certainly do not use the word in its lit- 
 eral sense, which is the " felonious taking " and carrying 
 away of the personal goods of anoth;'i-."' ^ It is essentially 
 clandestine and legally criminal. 
 
 This is not the socialistic indictment against private 
 property, much less against individual capitalists. The 
 charge is against the capitalistic system, under and in con- 
 sequence of which the laborers who produce all, and are 
 therefore entitled to all, receive only a part, and in the 
 case of multitudes only a bare subsistence. 
 
 Thus, this second postulate is only a logical inference 
 from the first, that Labor is the Source of all Value. Under 
 the capitalistic system it is claimed that- the laborer who 
 works ten hours per day receives the fruit of only five 
 hours, while the fruit of the other five goes into the pocket 
 of the capitalist ; thus laborers are exploited. In the lan- 
 guage of a Socialist, there is a tree which bears golden 
 fruits, but when those who have planted it reach out their 
 hands to pluck it, it draws back and escapes them. Wound 
 about the tree there is a serpent which keeps every one 
 away from it. This tree is society ; the serpent is our pres- 
 ent economic organization, which prevents us from enjoy- 
 ing the golden fruit. Gentlemen, we are determined to 
 enjoy the golden fruit and to drive away the serpent." ^ 
 
 It will be seen that Socialism is not opposed to capital as 
 such, nor to capitalists, but to the industrial system in 
 which the wrongs of labor are inherent, and admit of no 
 remedy so long as private capital, which is the corner-stone 
 of the system, exists. 
 
 Marx states the difficulty with conciseness and simpli- 
 city in saying that labor is a simple commodity, but has 
 two values — value in use and value in exchange. The 
 exchange value is its market price — what will support 
 the laborer : this the capitalist buys. 
 
 The value in use is what it is really worth, all that the 
 capitalist can get out of it, which is what he receives in 
 
 1 Blackstone. 
 
 2 As quoted in "French and German Socialism," p. 233. 
 
68 THE FIVE POSTULATES OP SOCIALISM 
 
 the products. This value in use is greatly in excess of the 
 value in exchange. 
 
 This difference the capitalist pockets. The laborer would 
 gladly get the last price for his labor, but the capitalist has 
 all the means of production, and the laborer must take the 
 exchange value of his work or starve.* This cruel injustice 
 is a part of the economic system. Individual capitalists 
 cannot remedy it. Any man who should attempt to con- 
 duct business on any other plan would not only ruin him- 
 self, but in no way benefit society. 
 
 Trade's unions can avail little, for they leave the toiling 
 millions below them untouched. Labor legislation can 
 only allay irritation and ease friction by oiling the axle 
 while the great Juggernaut rolls on. 
 
 "By private property Socialists int&nd. ovAy private capital ; 
 that is, lands, buildings, and machinery used in production. 
 
 They do not propose to abolish private ownership in 
 personal belongings, including furniture, clothings, books, 
 works of art, and all other private property not employed as 
 capital. 
 
 Socialists are not opposed to capital as such. The 
 enemies of Socialism have purposely misrepresented them 
 in this respect. 
 
 When Marx says, " Capital is the most terrible scourge 
 of humanity ; it fattens on the miseries of the poor, the . 
 degradation of the worker, and the brutalizing toil of his 
 wife and children," it is capital in individual hands, private 
 capital, against which he is inveighing. 
 
 Public capital, as we shall soon see, is the one goal of 
 Socialism. 
 
 The abolition of private capital in land is urged, not 
 only by Socialists, but by sociologists and philanthropists 
 of widely different schools. All means of production 
 spring originally from the earth ; whoever, therefore, owns 
 the land has an advantage over his fellow-man. He not 
 only controls the means of production, but he may fence in 
 the land, force off all other persons, cut off supplies of food, 
 and thus hold in his hands the bodies and souls of men. 
 
 1 "Capital," Part III. Chapter vii. 
 
PRIVATE CAPITAL IS A SOCIAL CRIME 69 
 
 It is claimed that this is the most cruelly unjust and 
 wickedly oppressive monopoly of society, and in view of 
 the natural selfishness, greed, and inhumanity of man, it is 
 certain that, as long as it exists, the greater part of the 
 race must be consigned to poverty and misery. 
 
 The institution of private capital derives one of its 
 strongest supports from inheritance. If, therefore, private 
 capital is wrong, inheritance of capital, though not of 
 property, is wrong and should be abolished. 
 
 At the Socialists' Congress of Basel in 1869 a majority of 
 the delegates voting declared, " That the rights of inherit- 
 ance ought to be completely and radically abolished." 
 This refers of course only to capital, property which yields 
 an income, and not to furniture, plate, books, and other 
 articles of enjoyment. 
 
 We have now stated fully and fairly the Socialist's views 
 of private capital. Let us examine them in the light of the 
 most advanced sociological science. 
 
 Two ideas of property must be distinguished : the Eoman, 
 which regards property as a subjective right, and the 
 Christian, which regards it as a trust imposing obligations. •^ 
 Until the beginning of the present century the Eoman 
 idea held undisputed sway : wealth, as well as birth, be- 
 longed to the possessor by divine right. Social castes were 
 .the product of natural laws. Property and poverty were 
 alike ordained of God. 
 
 Wealth might feel pity, but it acknowledged no obliga- 
 tions. The poor might justly starve before the bursting 
 granaries of the rich. True, God was no respecter of 
 persons ; but in the current philosophy this could have no 
 reference to things so worldly as food, clothing, and shel- 
 ter. If Christ came into this world, he did not come into 
 industry. Now and then a man devoted his property to 
 charitable uses ; but this was regarded not as a social duty, 
 but as a purely religious act, and the donor was commiser- 
 ated in life and canonized in death. But with the dawn of 
 the present century the Christian principles of equality and y' 
 fraternity had so permeated societj^ that their application 
 began to be extended to industrial relations. They had 
 already found political expression in democracy. 
 
y 
 
 J 
 
 70 THE FIVE POSTULATES OP SOCIALISM 
 
 They were more and more recognized in jurisprudence 
 and in education ; they had given birth also to eleemosynary 
 institutions ; but the fact that men are brothers had been 
 supposed until now to have no connection with the question 
 of labor and capital and the distribution of wealth, matters 
 which belonged entirely to the domain of political economy, 
 which Mr. Mill says is concerned with man " solely as a 
 being who desires to possess wealth. It makes entire 
 abstraction of every other human passion and motive." ^ 
 
 This " dismal science," ignoring all other ethical consid- 
 erations and treating the mass of men as " dumb driven 
 cattle," fell into deserved contempt. 
 
 A newer and truer political economy is now announced, 
 which rejects the Roman and accepts the Christian idea of 
 property which makes it a trust imposing obligations. 
 The new philosophy declares with God, that "No man 
 liveth unto himself;" that is, society has valid claims 
 upon every man, and this claim extends to property, the 
 title to which therefore cannot be absolute. 
 
 Dr. Josiah Strong' touches hard pan when he says, 
 " What is needed is not simply an increased giving, an en- 
 larged estimate of the Lord's share, but a radically different 
 conception of our relations to our possessions." ^ He says 
 a great majority treat their property as if it were their own. 
 
 The Christian idea of property is based on the command, 
 " Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself." If this means 
 anything, it means that property should instantly respond 
 to the necessities of a neighbor ; that so sure as I am 
 bound to love him, he has a right to be loved ; . and this 
 duty on my part and right on his have a real and vital 
 connection with the production, distribution, and consump- 
 tion of wealth. This is the marrow of the social question 
 which is simply an attetnpt to realize the Christian idea of 
 property , founded upon the great principle of human brother- 
 hood, in the industrial affairs of life. 
 
 The present industrial system, root and branch, is a 
 development of the Roman idea of property, which is now 
 
 1 As quoted in " The "Wages Question " (Walker), p. 366. 
 8 " Our Country," p. 18;J. 
 
PRIVATE CAPITAL IS A SOCIAL CRIME 71 
 
 as never before felt to be anti-Christian. The new ethical 
 conception of love and fraternity is irreconcilably opposed 
 to this--[Jagait>view of property, hence the conflict. 
 
 In tHe^light of these principles, look now at land monop- 
 oly. Great Britain is owned by a mere handful of her 
 citizens. England and Wales contain about 37,243,859 
 acres — about the same as the States of New York, New 
 Jersey, and Delaware. One man owns 186,397 acres, or 
 one two-hundredth of the whole, and less than five hundred 
 men own more than one-half of the whole. The condition 
 of Scotland is still worse. Of her 18,946,694 acres, one 
 man owns 1,000,326 acres, which is equal to the whole State 
 of Rhode Island, together with all of Massachusetts from 
 Fall Eiver to the end of Cape Cod. Twenty-four men own 
 one-fourth of all Scotland. Ireland contains 20,169,687 
 acres, of which one person owns 170,119. Of the 35,000,000 
 inhabitants of Great Britain and Ireland, two-thirds of her 
 territory is held by 12,489 persons, leaving 34,987,502, or 
 substantially the whole population, shut out from the 
 greater part of the land, and at the mercy of a privileged 
 few. 
 
 Dr. A. J. F. Behrends thus indorses a truth that is noth- 
 ing less than frightful. "The ownership of land carries 
 with it the ownership of all that the land produces and of all 
 who live upon it." ' Aside from the three or four million 
 .of smaller holders of land these 12,489 British Landlords 
 may say to over 30,000,000 landless men and women, " Get 
 off my land ; " and enforce their decrees with all the mus- 
 kets and bayonets of the nation. But where shall the poor 
 people go ? There is not a foot of unclaimed land. The 
 owners will not sell, and, if they would, the people have 
 not the means with which to buy. Plainly the people must 
 escape into the air or sea. Is it any wonder they are cry- 
 ing out, — 
 
 ' Which way I fly is hell; myself am hell.' " 
 
 The average man in Great Britain to-day has no right to 
 walk the earth, much less to pluck the fruits thereof; that 
 
 1 " Socialism and diristiaiiity," p. 87. 
 
72 THE FIVE POSTULATES OF SOCIALISM 
 
 is, he has no right to live, save by the sufferance of a landed 
 aristocracy ; and, what is worst of all, there is a tendency 
 to the still greater concentration of the land. 
 / This is why Socialists demand the abolition of private 
 property in land, because, as Dr. Berhends says, " The owner- 
 ship of the land carries with it the ownership of all that 
 the land produces and of all who live upon it." We have 
 italicized the last clause, because it is an admission of the 
 tremendous charge of labor; namely, the industrial slavery 
 of the masses inevitably resulting from private property in 
 land. The admission is significant, because made by a 
 keen observer, a philosophical writer, and independent 
 thinker. 
 
 We should do him injustice, however, not to add that the 
 above declaration was made in defence of private property, 
 and especially in attempting to show the inconsistency of 
 Henry George, in declaring that, " The pen with which I 
 write is justly mine," while claiming that the land from 
 which it originally sprung was stolen property. Dr. 
 Behrends shows that if the land was stolen property, all 
 that springs from it is stolen property, including the pen 
 of Mr. George, which cannot therefore be justly his own. 
 He seems to think the refutation complete, but he has not 
 touched the thought of George, and the fallacy of his argu- 
 ment will be obvious at a glance. Mr. George is trying to 
 show that an individual may have exclusive right to what 
 he produces, but not to what God has made for all men. 
 As to the pen, Mr. George does not say, as his opponent 
 assumes, that the land from which it sprung was stolen 
 property ; it might have been land not yet appropriated, or, 
 if appropriated, the owner, without regard to his title, 
 would have^the same right to obtain materials for the pen 
 which George claims all men have — that is, a common right. 
 
 Thus the argument that " the partaker is as bad as the 
 thief" falls to the ground. Moreover, Dr. Behrends, in 
 attempting to refute George, virtually admits the principle 
 for which George is contending ; namely, that private prop- 
 erty in land is unjust. He says, "The ownership of land 
 carries with it the ownership of all that the land produces 
 
PRIVATE CAPITAL IS A SOCIAL CKIME 73 
 
 and of all who live upon it." Looking at the earth to-day 
 he is bound to substitute for, " The earth is the Lord's and 
 the fulness thereof," the earth is the landlord's and the 
 people thereof. 
 
 If this be true, if the masses doomed to live on the land 
 of others are in any sense the legitimate property of the land- 
 owners, and must suffer all that this economical and social 
 bondage implies, then private ownership in land is the 
 most economically indefensible, politically dangerous, so- 
 cially hateful, morally rotten, and religiously damnable 
 institution ever devised by human selfishness and tyranny. 
 
 There is no swifter enemy of injustice than the author 
 of " Socialism and Christianity ; " but his theory of owner- 
 ship, based on the Roman, rather than the Christian, idea 
 of property, has, it seems to us, led him into grievous error. 
 In perfect harmony with this heathen conception, he says, 
 " Individual ownership " can " pertain to land." 
 
 He preaches, however, another doctrine ; to wit : " The 
 earth is the Lord 's and the fulness thereof." He says if 
 there cannot be individual ownership "man cannot own 
 himself." He preaches, however, that no man can own 
 himself, " Ye are not your own, for ye are bought with a 
 -price." 
 
 He says again, " Possession cannot be defended when 
 ownership is denied." He preaches, however, that men are 
 only tenants, whose duty is merely to " occupy till 1 come," 
 which renders possession without ownership defensible. 
 Is it replied, these are considerations that belong to the 
 Christian religion, and the gospel of love, and not to the 
 present industrial system and the gospel of private monop- 
 oly ? Or shall it be said that ownership is against our 
 fellow-men and not as against God ? We reply, let us 
 be done with this heathen, mammonistic, and caste concep- 
 tion of religion which allows us to honor God by injuring 
 our fellow-men. He serves God best who serves man best. 
 These words of the eminent divine sound like an echo 
 from feudalistic times. Guizot says, one of the three essen- 
 tial factors of feudalism was "the amalgamation of sover- 
 eignty with property, the attribution to the proprietor of the 
 
74 THE FIVE POSTULATES OF SOCIALISM 
 
 soil over all its inhabitants, of the rights which constitute 
 what we call sovereignty." ' 
 
 Laborers do not generally live on their own land, and it 
 sounds strangely to hear from a minister of the gospel of 
 love and equality that on that account they belong to the 
 owner of the soil, and it sounds still more strangely to hear 
 him defend this principle. 
 
 If we belong to God, our property belongs to Him. But 
 God has no use either for us or our property except for the 
 good of our fellow-man. In an important sense, therefore, 
 we and all we possess belong to our neighbors. If God is 
 our Father, men are brethren, and brethren have claims 
 upon each other. 
 
 Imagine twelve brethren who set out to gather nuts, 
 their only means of subsistence. They join forces, because 
 singly they could do nothing. On returning from their 
 labor, in which each has done his best, they prepare the 
 nuts for eating, and seat themselves at the family table ; 
 whereupon one of them scoops up nine-tenths of the nuts, 
 saying, " These are mine ; I gathered them, owing to my 
 superior skill and strength. I have a longer arm and am 
 taller than you, and so could reach branches that none of 
 you could reach. 
 
 " You saw how skilfully I balanced myself, standing on a 
 limb, so that I could pick with both hands, while you could 
 use only one hand. 
 
 "My strength enabled me to shake limbs that you could 
 not move. Yes, I must have nine-tenths of the product. I 
 know, dear brothers, you will go hungry, while I have more 
 than enough. I admit that you have all worked as hard as 
 I have and deserve as much. I pity you ; but individual 
 ownership is sacred. These nuts belong to me and to our 
 Heavenly Father, and you must starve." 
 
 Thereupon these brethren cry out grievously in their dis- 
 tress. They appeal to the Law for help; it replies, "Touch 
 one mouthful of these nuts, and you go to jail." They turn 
 to Political Economy ; it says, " Political Economy is con- 
 cerned with man solely as a being who desires to possess 
 wealth." ^ 
 
 1 American Cyclopgedia, title, " Feudal System." '^ John Stuart Mill. 
 
PRIVATE CAPITAL IS A SOCIAL CRIME 75 
 
 They appeal again to the brother, saying, "You could 
 not have obtained these nuts without our help, and you 
 have no use for them. Why not share with us ? The 
 brother replies, " Ah, but this constitutes my capital." How 
 did you come by this capital ? they ask. 
 
 " By my ahslinence" he replies. The capitalist acquires 
 his capital " by abstaining from consumption, by denying 
 himself the present enjoyment."^ By what law do you 
 exercise this cruel power ? By the law of self-interest : 
 capitalism demands " free play to the activity of individuals 
 actuated by motives of self-interest." ^ 
 
 The suffering men now turn to the Economic Harmonies, 
 for surely discord and distress may find relief here. They" 
 reply, " If the wage-laborer does not seek his interest, his 
 interest will seek him ; " ' that is, if they do not seek the 
 nuts, the nuts will seek them, but for some unaccountable 
 reason the nuts do not come to them. They now call upon 
 Competition, the angel of distribution; it replies, " Competi- 
 tion expresses the desire ... of the one to give as little 
 and of the other to get as much as he can." * 
 
 Driven to despair, they appeal to the Supreme Powers 
 for help ; but the answer is " The legislature of the Supreme 
 Powers themselves has established the rule that a man's 
 success shall depend on self-help ; " 5 but to help themselves 
 under the circumstances is not table etiquette. 
 
 Then they turn beseechingly to " even-handed Justice," 
 and she replies, " The utmost that justice can do is to se- 
 cure to every man his own, to leave every man free . . . 
 to reap the fruits of his own labor." * 
 
 Now, one brother weaker than the others cries out, " my 
 brother, have mercy upon us, for justice fails ! Did you 
 not say the nuts belonged to our Heavenly Father who 
 says, " Bear ye one another's burdens and so fulfil the law of 
 Christ " ? Surely, now, the burden of hunger and distress 
 will be lifted ! But the rich brother replies, " Christianity 
 
 1 Adam Smith. ^ " Socialism of To-Day " (Laveleye), p. 89. 
 
 3 As stated, tliough not approved, in " The Wages Question " (Walker), 
 p. 411. 
 
 « Idem, p. 157. 5 " Socialism" (Cook), p. 80. 
 
 6 " Socialism and Christianity " (Behrends), p. 183. 
 
76 THE FIVE POSTULATES OF SOCIALISM 
 
 commands us so to bear each other's burdens, that every man 
 shall be able and willing to bear his own." ' But, plead the 
 suffering brothers, is there not somewhere a great authority 
 that says it is a self-evident truth that "all men are created 
 equal " ? 2 The brother replies, " The yearning after equal- 
 ity is the offspring of envy and covetousness." ^ 
 
 " Well," they continue, " are not men endowed with certain 
 unalienable rights, among which are life, liberty, and the 
 jmrsuit of happiness ? * We are unhappy and our lives are 
 in danger." — " Oh, yes," replies the brother, " but by ' lib- 
 erty ' ' each man is guaranteed the use of all his own powers 
 exclusively for his own welfare." ^ All hope is now gone, 
 and, faint and weary, these poor disinherited brothers resign 
 themselves to die. 
 
 This, however, would not benefit, but ruin, the rich 
 brother ; and so he calls to his brethren compassionately, 
 "Dear brothers, you have forgotten the one power that is 
 mighty to save." — " What is that ? " cry the brethren. 
 '^Freedom of Contract," answers the brother. Hope revives, 
 and they eagerly ask the terms. The brother replies, "If 
 you will work half the time for me, that is, allow me to 
 have one-half the nuts gathered each day during the re- 
 mainder of your lives, I will give you enough of the poorest 
 nuts to subsist on, and you shall have some nuts now. I 
 will gladly advance it out of my capital to appease your 
 present hunger." Thereupon there is great rejoicing amid 
 the brothers. " We shall live, and not die ! " they exclaim. 
 "We accept your terms. blessed principle of Freedom 
 of Contract, why did we not think of you before ? The 
 Private Capital of our dear brother and Freedom of Con- 
 tract are our saviors, in whom henceforth we live and 
 move and have our being." 
 
 Capitalism, with all its vicious and unsavory maxims 
 which we have italicized, is thus established. The rich 
 
 ' " Socialism and Cliristianity " (Behrends), p. 183. 
 2 Declaration o( Independence. 
 ' " Social Classes " (Sumner), p. 168. 
 < Declaration of Independence. 
 
 6 Quoted approvingly in "Socialism and Christianity" (Behrends), 
 p. 80. 
 
PKIVATE CAPITAL IS A SOCIAL CBIME 77 
 
 brother takes each day his agreed share of the product of 
 nuts. Soon he is a millioiinaire. He does nothing and lives 
 in luxury, while his brothers toil and suifer and die of 
 want. 
 
 This allegory is not extravagant. It represents the spirit 
 and actual workings of the existing industrial system. The 
 answers to the appeals of the brothers are quotations ver- 
 batim et litteratim from leading economists and writers 
 who defend the iniquitous system. It is not claimed that 
 these answers are destitute of all elements of truth impor- 
 tant under any system. 
 
 It is no sufficient answer to say, " Let these unfortunate 
 brothers go to work ; they have an equal chance with their 
 smarter brother." They have been at work and are hungry ; 
 and the question now concerns the distribution of the 
 fruits of labor. We admit that the bargain which, under 
 the name Freedom of Contract, the rich brother makes 
 with the others is legal and perfectly legitimate in the 
 existing order, and is everywhere and every day repeated 
 and justified. Carlyle thus represents an employer of the 
 highest social standing: " My starving workers ? " answers 
 the rich mill-owner. " ' Did not I hire them fairly in the 
 market ? Did not I pay them to the last sixpence the 
 sum covenanted for ? What have I to do with them more ? ' 
 sumptuous merchant-prince, illustrious game-preserving 
 duke, is there no way of killing thy brother but Cain's 
 rude way ? " 
 
 We object, however, in the name of offended justice, of 
 outraged humanity, and of a perverted Christianity to a 
 system that allows, nay, compels, the employer to exploit 
 his workmen. The abolition of this system involves the 
 substitution of the Christian for the pagan idea of property. 
 Until this is done there is no help for society. Dr. Behr- 
 ends quotes approvingly the dictum of Schaefile that 
 " Property is itself a part of the individual possessor." ^ 
 Can this be true ? Is it true that merchandise ranks with 
 human life and limb ? Is an ox, an ass^ or a bag of gold 
 related to its possessor as his eye, his hand, or his foot ? 
 
 1 " Socialism and Christianity," p. 89. 
 
78 THE FIVE POSTULATES OF SOCIALISM 
 
 Shall the faculties of thinking, feeling, and willing, which 
 are a part of the possessor, be co-ordinated with his stocks 
 and bonds ? Is the difference between liis bones and his 
 barns one of degree only? Property a "part, of the in- 
 dividual possessor " ! The Bible says " All that a man 
 hath will he give for his life." God certainly makes a dif- 
 ference between a man and his possessions. If property 
 is a part of the possessor, what part is it ? If the rich 
 young man, when bidden by Christ, had given all his prop- 
 erty to the poor, what part of him would have been left ? 
 If property is a part of its possessor, then the property- 
 less multitudes are deprived of some part of themselves ! 
 Truly this is an idea of property as a subjective right in 
 full and fulsome bloom. 
 
 If, as the same author declares, " the destruction of 
 private property would become ultimately the extinction 
 of personal life," are we to understand that the " personal 
 life " of the propertyless classes is to be regarded as 
 extinct ? Had He who " had not whereon to lay his 
 h«ad " " no personal life " ? Are poor men dead men ? 
 If so, it will be at least conceded that they are lively 
 corpses ; being dead, they yet speak, and their voices, like 
 the shots of Concord, are being " heard round the world." 
 No, property is not " a part of the individual possessor." 
 There is an essential difference between even the whole 
 world and a man's soul. 
 
 Property, within scriptural limitations, is a blessing to 
 man, elevating and civilizing ; but so far is it from being 
 a part of its possessor, it is, under capitalism, too often a 
 deceit and a snare, ministering to his pride, stiffening his 
 neck, hardening his heart, and shrivelling his soul for time 
 and eternity. 
 
 This is not saying that there are not rich men superior to 
 their property, who regard it as a trust. It is our privilege 
 to be intimately acquainted with rich men who, in spite of 
 their riches, are humble, industrious, and benevolent, and 
 whose delight it is to go about doing good. 
 
 The title to property cannot be regarded as absolute, but 
 relative and conditional only. It is refreshing to hear the 
 
PRIVATE CAPITAL IS A SOCIAL CBIME 79 
 
 eminent political economist, E,. T. Ely, say, " From a purely 
 scientific standpoint, we do not live for ourselves alone, 
 but for one another, as well as for ourselves." This is 
 essential Socialism. 
 
 As population increases and society becomes more highly 
 organized, it will become absolutely necessary to recognize 
 and apply this golden rule, which can only be done by 
 abolishing, not private property, but private capital, which 
 has come to be anti-Christian and is a prolific source of 
 social injustice and misery. 
 
 It is this which makes gigantic land monopolies possible. 
 This is a wrong to society which everybody sees and feels. 
 We have seen that Great Britain and Ireland are largely in 
 the hands of syndicates of land-owners. 
 
 Since no man can sustain life without access to the land 
 upon which he must live, and from which alone he can 
 supply himself with food, clothing, and shelter, it follows 
 that these British Syndicates have it in their power, by the 
 simple device of high rent, to reduce the inhabitants of 
 these islands to slavery. 
 
 Herbert Spencer says, " If one portion of the earth's sur- 
 face may justly become the possession of an individual 
 and may be held by him for his sole use and benefit, as a 
 thing to which he has an exclusive right, then other por- 
 tions of the earth may be so held ; and eventually the 
 whole of the earth's surface may be so held; and our planet 
 may thus lapse altogether into private hands." ^ 
 
 Replying to this, Mr. Joseph Cook says, " One might as 
 well fear that because the law gives a man absolute posses- 
 sion of one wife he will take two, three, or twenty." ^ The 
 oases are not parallel : the law forbids a man to take more 
 than one wife, while it allows him to take any number of 
 the " portions of the earth," even the whole of it. 
 
 Spencer is showing the injustice of land monopoly. If 
 the law allowed a man but one acre, as it does but one 
 wife, this discussion would not have arisen. A plurality 
 of wives in Utah justly awakens a storm of wrath through- 
 
 1 " Social statics," Chapter ix., Sect. 2 
 8 "Socialism," p. 47. 
 
80 THE FIVE POSTULATES OF SOCIALISM 
 
 out the whole country, and draws the lurid lightning of 
 Mr. Cook's eloquence, while the plurality of acres, which 
 any individual may monopolize, and which is conceded to 
 be a gigantic social crime, is sanctioned in the name of pri- 
 vate property. In the rapid progress of social evolution 
 this defender of the truth may yet be heard denouncing, , 
 not only polygamy in marriage, but polygamy in land. Mr. 
 Cook says, "The methods of laud tenure are decided by 
 convenience and custom and the consent of nations and 
 large general justice." ' 
 
 In a sense this is true ; but the pertinent question is, 
 for whose convenience " is the land of Great Britain and 
 Ireland held " ? Is it by the •' consent " of all the people, or 
 by a "large general justice" that 30,000,000, nearly the 
 entire population, are obliged to beg the privilege of living 
 from a few who have got exclusive possession of the land ? 
 
 We believe that few ministers of the gospel of Christ 
 can be found to-day who will indorse the doctrine of pri- 
 vate capital in land. 
 
 " I firmly believe," says Rev. Dr. J. M. Buckly, " that 
 the present system of land tenure is not in harmony with 
 either philosophy or religion." ^ 
 
 On another page Mr. Cook argues that the Socialistic 
 state could not raise money to pay for the land now held 
 by individuals. He says, " Let us suppose that there is a 
 proposition to buy all the land of England, a little island 
 over yonder in the sea. Professor Faucett has shown that 
 the money which would be needed to pay for that land would 
 be more than the present income of the United Kingdom, 
 although that income is 1,000,000,000 pounds annually." ' 
 His sword cuts both ways. If money is king, then the 
 privileged owners of this land are invested with power 
 such as no Plantagenet or Tudor ever possessed, and this 
 power is none the less cruel and tyrannous when exercised 
 socially and industrially in the exaction of rent enforced 
 by the sovereign law of the nation, than when exercised 
 politically by the mandate of the king. 
 
 1 Socialism, p. 48. 
 
 2 " The Congvegationalist," October, 1892. 
 s « Socialism," p. 25. 
 
PEIVATE CAPITAL IS SOCIAL CRIME 81 
 
 We are utterly unable to see how the monopoly of land, 
 and of consequent power in the hands o a few, can har- 
 monize with Mr. Cook's statement that the methods of 
 holding land are decided by " a large general justice." 
 It seems to us to be by a " large general " and outrageous 
 injustice. 
 
 The monopoly of land is the chief cause of social discon- 
 tent everywhere. Half of Prussia is owned by 31,000 men. 
 Of her 26,000,000 people nearly the whole are excluded 
 from the land. Most of the land of Austria is held in very 
 large estates by her nobility. The southern provinces are 
 in the hands of large proprietors. 
 
 Immense estates in Italy are closed against the people. 
 "The peasants," says Laveleye, "are reduced to extreme 
 misery by rent and taxation." 
 
 The tendency is in the same direction in the United 
 States. Land is becoming dearer and, relatively to the 
 whole population, getting into fewer hands every day. 
 Heretofore it has been plenty and cheap, and this has been 
 the cause of our unexampled prosperity ; but we are now 
 beginning to realize the European situation. There are 
 already farms in the West of ten, twenty, and even one 
 hundred thousand acres. Individuals and syndicates, both 
 American and European, have obtained possession of vast 
 tracts. To six railroads. Congress has granted an amount 
 of land equal to the whole of Great Britain, Ireland, Hol- 
 land, Belgium, Switzerland, and Greece ; that is, to a few 
 rich men who need nothing. Congress has given vast sums 
 and guaranteed their bonds to the amount of $180,000,000 ; 
 while to the many wage-workers who need everything it 
 has given and guaranteed nothing.' 
 
 The public land is being rapidly exhausted. In 1880 
 the government had left about 700,000,000 acres. Every 
 year makes a large reduction ; 19,000,000 acres were dis- 
 posed of in the year 1884. 
 
 It is agreed on all sides that, at the present rate of grants, 
 in nine years, all the public land will be reduced to private 
 
 1 " Modern Socialism " (Gronland), p. 93. 
 
82 THE FIVE POSTULATES OP SOCIALISM 
 
 ownership, and thus, as Dr. Strong says, " Our wide domain 
 will soon cease to palliate popular discontent, because it will 
 soon be beyond the reach of the poor." ' Will it be safe to 
 continue to teach the poor that life, liberty, and the pursuit 
 of happiness are unalienable rights, when land, the source 
 of life and the guarantee of libertj', is beyond their reach ? 
 Can anybody be so blind as not to see the mutual an- 
 tagonism between that idea of property which, in Great 
 Britain, allows, as Dr. Strong says, one man to ride in a 
 straight line one hundred miles on his own estate, or to own 
 a county extending across the whole country, or to fence 
 in three hundred square miles extending from sea to sea 
 for a deer-park, evicting many families to make room 
 for the deer ; and the democratic principle based upon the 
 Declaration of Independence and the word of G-od ? The 
 same idea of absolute private property in land prevails in 
 this country as in England. These principles, namely, that 
 a few may acquire the sole and exclusive right to the earth, 
 and civil liberty, we repeat, are mutually repellent, and, like 
 fire and gunpowder, when their contact becomes sufficiently 
 close there must be an explosion. Against this monopoly 
 of land God pronounces the severest judgments: "Woe 
 unto them who join house to house, that lay field to field 
 till there be no place ; " ' that is, till the laborer and the 
 less fortunate have no rights in land. 
 
 All history shows that when the masses lose their rights 
 in the land, they are subjected to social degradation, pinch- 
 ing poverty, and industrial slavery. 
 
 ' Can we wonder that the suffering millions are crying out 
 against private property in land and other means of 
 production ? 
 
 Long before the second great Commandment had found 
 expression in Socialism, Christianity had taken the same 
 position as to property. "Bossuet has merely reproduced 
 what may be read on every page of the Christian Fathers. 
 'The rich man is a thief (St. Basil). 'The rich are rob- 
 bers ; a kind of equality must be effected by making gifts 
 
 1 "Our Country," p. 150. 2 iga. v. 8. 
 
PRIVATE CAPITAL IS A SOCIAL CRIME 83 
 
 out of their abundance. Better all things in common ' (St. 
 Chrysostom). 'Opulence is always the product of a theft, 
 eommitted, if not by the actual possessor, by his ancestors ' 
 (St. Jerome). 'Nature created community; private prop- 
 erty is the offspring of usurpation ' (St. Ambrose). ' In 
 strict justice everything should belong to all. Iniquity 
 alone has created private property' (St. Clement)."^ 
 
 It is Christianity, therefore, that has taught Socialists 
 their ideas of private capital and the epithets they apply 
 to it. 
 
 We can afford to forgive men driven to madness by the 
 social wrongs they have endured, for calling property 
 theft, when the fathers of the Christian Church have 
 been declaring it theft and robbery for centuries. In 
 the beginning God gave the land into the hands of man, 
 saying let them have dominion over the earth, not over each 
 other. This dominion was not to be exercised by Adam 
 alone, or by any class of men, but by the race. This idea 
 that land was for the common benefit of all prevailed in 
 the earliest times. 
 
 Laveleye says, "In all primitive societies the soil was 
 the joint property of the tribes, and was subject to periodi- 
 cal distribution among all the families, so that all might 
 live by their labor as nature ordained. The comfort of 
 each was thus proportioned to his energy and intelligence ; 
 no one, at any rate, was destitute of the means of sub- 
 sistence, and inequality increasing from generation to gen- 
 eration was provided against." ^ 
 
 It is certain that land was thus held by the Israelites. 
 If poverty compelled one to part with the use of his land, 
 it was only for a time. The year of Jubilee restored it to 
 him or his family. 
 
 God made this law. He intended to prevent the ex- 
 tremes of wealth and poverty by prohibiting the monopoly 
 ,of land, and securing to every Israelite a right to the soil. 
 Pauperism was unknown. 
 
 Plutocratic oppression, which is now legal and no bar to 
 
 1 " Socialism of To-day " (De Laveleye). Intro, p. xix. 
 
 2 As quoted in " Progress and Poverty " (George), p. 3JJ4. 
 
84 THE FIVE POSTULATES OF SOCIALISM 
 
 liouor in cliurcli and society, would have been visited with 
 death by stoning. 
 
 Strabo says the Dalmations "redistributed their land 
 every eight years." ' 
 
 To banish inequalities of wealth among the Spartans 
 Lycurgus divided the land into 29,000 parts, and assigned 
 one part to each citizen.- Republican Rome made it unlaw- 
 ful for a citizen to own but a small portion of land. Pliny 
 says great estates ruined first Italy, then her provinces.* 
 Henry George, in "Progress and Poverty," a book which 
 marks an' epoch in the history of the land question, after 
 a wide historical survey of the subject, says the "Com- 
 mon right to land has everywhere been primarily recog- 
 nized, and private ownership has nowhere grown up save 
 by ursurpation. 
 
 " It nowhere springs from contract ; it can nowhere be 
 traced to perceptions of justice or expediency ; it has 
 everywhere had its birth in war and conquest." * An 
 examination of the origin of land tenures forces us to 
 acknowledge the truth of these assertions. 
 
 Herbert^ Spencer says, "Equity does not permit property 
 in land." John Stuart Mill says, "The land is not of man's 
 creation, and for a person to appropriate to himself a mere 
 gift of nature, not made to him in particular, but which 
 belonged to all others until he took possession of it, is prima 
 facie an injustice to all the rest." ^ 
 
 1 Not only Socialists, but an increasing number of the 
 friends of humanity, sympathize with the demand for the 
 nationalization of land. 
 
 Dr. Behrends admits "That there is a disposition on the 
 part of many to concede the justice of this demand ! " ° 
 
 Professor R. T. Ely says, " The most tremendous practical 
 consequences flow from the fact that land is a natural 
 
 1 Smith's Bible Dictionary, title, " Jubilee." Note. 
 
 2 Anthon's Classical Dictionary, title, " Sparta." 
 8 " Eoman Antiquities " (Adams), p. 385. 
 
 * " Progress and Poverty " (George), pp. 332, 333. 
 '' Dissert. IV., p. 289. 
 
 * " Socialism and Christianity," p. 87. 
 
PRIVATE CAPITAL IS A SOCIAL CRIME 85 
 
 monopoly, and the so-called land question deserves all the 
 attention it is receiving." ' 
 
 Mr. Eae, in a critical and comprehensive survey of the 
 principles of Socialism, says that when the increase of pop- 
 ulation compels a resort to inferior soils for subsistence, 
 " It becomes the duty of society to see that the most pro- 
 ductive use possible is being made of its land, and to intro- 
 duce such a mode of tenure as seems most likely effectually 
 to secure that end." ^ 
 
 Prince Bismarck said that the spread of Socialism in the 
 agricultural district of Lauenburg need not excite surprise, 
 because " the laborers could never hope to acquire the 
 smallest spot of ground as their own possession, and were 
 kept in a state of dependence on the gentry and the peas- 
 ant proprietor." " 
 
 If this means anything, it means that, when any class 
 of citizens is so shut out from its interest in the land as 
 to be dependent on land-owners, it is enslaved. 
 
 Carlyle once said to an American, " The reason why your 
 laboring people are so happy is because you have a vast 
 deal of land for a very few peo23le." * The want of land will 
 render laborers unhappy. It is difficult to see how our 
 Republic can guarantee the right to the " pursuit of happi- 
 ness," while it legalizes the monopoly of land. The people 
 are speaking plainly about monopoly. 
 
 By all parties the monopolists of the necessaries of life 
 are called thieves and robbers. Land is a necessity of life, 
 and so also are other means of production, and when Social- 
 ists call the monopolizers of these thieves and robbers, we 
 need not be too critical. 
 
 The atmosphere of this question is economically whole- 
 some and morally bracing. The wind is blowing in the 
 right direction. The sky is red, and it will be fair weather 
 to-morrow. Private capital has been a necessary condition 
 of a progressive civilization. 
 
 1 " ProWems of To-day," p. 112. 
 
 2 " Contemporary Socialism," p. 449. 
 8 Ibid., p. 35. 
 
 4 " Our Country " (Strong), p. 153. 
 
86 THE FIVE POST0LAT1CS OF SOCIALISM 
 
 In the historical social evolution, however, great and 
 radical changes take place. 
 
 Scarcely a feature of social life in the days of Moses was 
 discernible in the time of Christ. Still greater is the con- 
 trast between the dawn of the Christian era and the pres- 
 ent day. Either of the causes of Socialism formerly 
 considered is a gigantic Gulf Stream running through the 
 social organism. All of them combined have produced, 
 almost within a century, a complete metamorphosis of the 
 social structure. Nothing remains but the few fundamen- 
 tal and immutable principles of human conduct. 
 
 The discovery of these principles and their application 
 to the changed and changing conditions of human life, is 
 the problem of Sociological science. The absoluteness of 
 private property is not one of these immutable principles. 
 
 The Scriptural sanctions of private property, so far as 
 they relate to tenure, are not in their nature mandatory 
 but directory, and are made with reference to the then 
 existing and primitive condition of society. Ferdinand Las- 
 salle, whom Ex-President Theodore D. Woolsey character- 
 izes as " a man of splendid endowments," published a vol- 
 ume " to show that certain rights of vast importance — such 
 as property and inheritance — are really historical and not 
 jural; that is, they arose in circumstances that justified 
 their recognition, but that certain other circumstances 
 might require their abolition." ' 
 
 Private property may be right where land is plenty and 
 population sparse, and wrong when all the land is appropri- 
 ated and population dense. Certain it is that God never 
 intended that the time should come when private property 
 should prevent his earth from responding to the hungry 
 mouths and willing hands of any of his children ; on the 
 contrary, he says, what is utterly inconsistent with the 
 current idea of property : '' Thejjrojit of the earth is for all." ^ 
 
 When we reileot upon the cruel land monopolies of 
 Europe, where the toiling millions have no right to the 
 soil except by sufferance of the rich land-owner, and realize 
 
 1 As quoted in " Commuiiisra and Socialism," p. 175. 
 '>■ Eocles. v. 9. 
 
PRIVATE CAPITAL IS A SOCIAL CRIME 87 
 
 that the same land laws and social tendencies are rapidly 
 producing this iniquitous state of affairs in this country, 
 we are forced to believe that, while private capital is not 
 literal theft, it now involves great social injustice, is anti- 
 scriptural and especially hostile to the New Testament 
 doctrines of love and brotherhood. 
 
 The well-to-do in society have no more right to monopolize 
 the laud, as against the poor and weak, than a syndicate 
 of redeemed spirits would have to fence in against other 
 saints the crystal rivers, waving trees, and golden-paved 
 streets of heaven. 
 
 We are told that in our country at least there is no land 
 question ; we have land enough and to spare. Is it wise to 
 build up institutions on a false foundation, because the 
 conditions of mischief are, for a time, delayed ? Within 
 ten or fifteen years all our land will have become private 
 property. Every day swells the ranks of the landless, and ^ 
 hence, in a free country, dangerous classes. 
 
 To dismiss this question, therefore, as of no importance, 
 because we have land enough for the present, is to sit down 
 beside a bomb-shell in composure, because it has a long 
 fuse. The first step to be taken in this reform is to sub- 
 stitute in the popular mind, the Christian for the Roman 
 idea of property. 
 
 The pagan idea has been handed down from century to 
 century, and is wrought into the whole fabric of society. 
 It envelops us like an atmosphere. There is scarcely a 
 relatio-n in human life that does not suffer from its polluted 
 and polluting breath. It is the one relic of barbarism that 
 has defied Christian civilization. But the time has come 
 when the principle must be abandoned. The world .has 
 outgrown it. Society will no longer tolerate it. 
 
 If men are brothers, private property cannot be absolute. 
 Dr. Washington Gladden, in a candid and instructive review 
 of the social questions in their relation to Christianity, 
 says, "It is plain that there was in Jerusalem a voluntary 
 consecration, by each member of the infant church, of his 
 property to the supply of the actual needs of the brother- 
 hood. That is no doubt the Christian rule." ^ 
 1 " Applied Christianity," p. 16. 
 
88 THE FIVE POSTULATES OF SOCIALISM 
 
 The italics are ours. If this is the Christian rule, then 
 the existing order is far from being Christian. Socialism 
 demands that the Christian rule shall be adopted ; that 
 capital shall be socialized in accordance with the new idea 
 of right and social justice now prevailing. 
 
 A standard American author on real property says the 
 right of property "is so far limited that its use may be 
 regulated from time to time by law, so as to prevent its 
 being inconsistent with the rights of the community." ' 
 What are rights ? Will it be questioned that they are 
 more and different and more sacred than when private 
 property first took form and root amid pagan inequalities 
 and cruelties ? 
 
 " Equality of rights," said Charles Sumner, " is the first 
 of all rights." If God has given life to every individual, 
 he has given a right to the means of sustaining it. These 
 means are, the earth with its resources, the air and water ; 
 and these no man may monopolize. 
 
 Should a syndicate of scientists succeed in exhausting 
 the air near the surface of the earth, bottle it up, and 
 demand a price for it, which they assuredly would do if 
 they could, how long would they be allowed to hold it ? 
 Just long enough for men to want one breath. Why ? 
 Because it is a natural resource essential to life in which 
 all men have a right. The same is true of water. Why 
 not of earth as well as air and water, for land is equally 
 essential to life ? In the same sense that the earth is the 
 Lord's, it is not the landlords. When, in the evolution of 
 society, other means of production and of sustaining life 
 become related to society, as is the land, they must be 
 regarded in the same manner. Ownership is also condi- 
 tioned on the paramount right of the State. 
 
 The present industrial system sprang up when the 
 opinion prevailed that the powerful had divine right to 
 maintain themselves against and at the expense of the 
 weak. Democracy has discovered that the State, politically 
 considered, is the people ; but it is yet too fresh from mo- 
 
 1 " WashlDurn on Real Estate," p. 2. 
 
PRIVATE CAPITAL IS A SOCIAL CRIME 89 
 
 narchical ideas to think of the State, industrially considered, 
 as the people, as society itself, having the same lien upon 
 private property as the State. 
 
 These two claims upon all property, viz., the claim of 
 God as a common Father and of the State as all the people, 
 have not yet been reduced to common terms and applied to 
 industrial life ; therefore the social conflict. It is between 
 an economic aristocracy and a political democracy, between 
 industrial tyranny and social liberty, between plutocracy 
 and theocracy, between the Roman idea of property as a 
 subjective right and the Christian idea as a trust imposing 
 duties. But we are told that this Christian idea of property 
 is right in the abstract, but it is not practical, it is ideality. 
 
 So is Christianity itself ideality. It demands the aboli- 
 tion of sin in every soul and the reign of righteousness in 
 every rill of human society, and it will be satisfied with 
 nothing less. Time-serving men charge it with impracti- 
 cality and sneer at its Utopian scheme. But its ideality is 
 its crown and its glory. Ideality is God, and God will 
 ultimately win. 
 
 The practical is often variable in quantity and destitute 
 of moral quality. The ideal is divine and perfect. What 
 is should always fear and tremble before what ought to be. 
 
 All social institutions and all human activities that do 
 not have ideality as their Alpha and Omega are belittling 
 to the soul and false to the Creator. 
 
 We have now indicated the principles which must be' 
 recognized and applied in modifying the present tenure of 
 capital, so as to meet the advancing conditions of society 
 in the growth and spread among the people, of that divine 
 trinity of principles announced by Christ and sanctioned 
 by the universal Christian consciousness, liberty, equality, 
 and fraternity. 
 
 These principles now demand that private capital, which 
 is the exploitation of the wage-worker, which enables the 
 rich to take toll of his flesh and blood, and which is thus 
 a social crime, shall be abolished, so far at least as may 
 be necessary to secure social justice. 
 
90 THE PIVB POSTULATES OF SOCIALISM 
 
 III. — The Rich are growing richer, and the Poor poorer. 
 
 " It is one of the most melancholy features in the social state of this 
 country, that while there was a decrease in the consuming powers of the 
 people, and while there was an increase in the privations and distress of 
 the laboring class and operatives, there was at the same time a constant 
 accumulation of wealtli in the upper classes, and a constant increase of 
 capital." — William B. Gladstone. 
 
 The third Postulate of Socialism is that under the capi- 
 talistic system, the rich are growing richer, and the poor 
 poorer. Laborers, however, are better off than formerly. 
 The absolute condition of the poor is not here in question ; 
 but the relative rate of material progress between the rich 
 and poor. The words of Kodbertus are, " As the productiv- 
 ity of social labor increases, the wages of the laboring 
 classes constitute an ever-decreasing portion of the national 
 product." ■ 
 
 Marx states the Postulate more fully thus : " With the 
 continually decreasing number of the magnates of capital- 
 ism, who usurp and monopolize all the advantages of the 
 changed form of production, there is an accompanying in- 
 crease in the mass of misery, of oppression, of bondage, 
 of degradation, of exploitation." ^ Increasing millions of 
 laborers, not yet Socialists, believe this to be true. The 
 evil is regarded not as incidental, which a little social 
 tinkering can remedy, but as inherent in the capitalistic 
 system. 
 
 Socialism, therefore, would take the beast and cut off its 
 tail immediately behind its ears. The essential features of 
 this systen are Private Capital, Freedom of Contract, and 
 Free Competition. 
 
 The first condition of freedom of contract, is freedom not 
 to contract. Practically there can be no freedom of con- 
 tract between the weak and the powerful, the poor and the 
 rich, the dependent employee and the independent employer. 
 It is free only in the sense in which the contract of capitu- 
 lation between Lee and Grant was free. 
 
 Cold and hunger affect freedom of contract as a pistol in 
 
 1 As quoted in " French and German Socialism " (Ely), p. 161. 
 
 2 Ibid., p. 177. 
 
THE RICH GROWING RICHER, AND THE POOR POORER 91 
 
 the hands of a highwayman affects his proposal to his 
 victim, who, under the circumstances, gladly embraces the 
 opportunity to accept it. 
 
 In this Postulate it is not intended to assert the absolute 
 condition of either the rich or the poor, but only their rela- 
 tive condition. Confusion has resulted from not observing 
 this distinction. 
 
 We repeat that in the charge that the rich are growing 
 richer, and the poor poorer, it is not the absolute but the 
 relative condition of the two classes that is intended. 
 
 It will be admitted that this is a tremendous indictment. 
 against the existing order. Is it true ? Most writers 
 agree that labor has some cause of complaint against capi- 
 tal ; there is wrong somewhere. 
 
 Let us consider the grounds on which this Postulate 
 rests and the objections to it. 
 
 1. The Concentration of Wealth. There are seventy 
 persons in our country with a total of $2,700,000,000, or 
 $31,500,000 each ; 30 others are worth upwards of $30,000,- 
 000 each ; 25,000 persons own one-half the national 
 wealth, or one-seventeenth of the population owns two- 
 thirds of it. 
 
 If the present accumulation of wealth in the hands of 
 the few continues, the " United states of America will be 
 substantially owned by less than 50,000 persons " within 
 30 years.-' The case is even worse in Great Britain. "The 
 income of the United Kingdom is now (1880) a thousand 
 millions pounds annually. This enormous fortune has 
 been accumulated so rapidly, that if Great Britain had 
 started from nothing fifty years ago, and progressed at the 
 rate of the recent annual increment of her wealth, she 
 would have now not far from her present income. ■' While 
 we have been advancing with this portentous rapidity,' 
 says Mr. Gladstone, 'America is passing us by in a can- 
 ter '"^ 
 
 2. The testimony of Political Economists is important 
 on this point. Professor R. T. Ely, in describing the rise 
 
 1 Thomas G. Sherman," Forum," NoTember, 1889. 
 
 2 "Labor" (Cook), p. 16. 
 
92 THE FIVE POSTULATES OF SOCIALISM 
 
 of the fourth estate (wage-workers) , says, " The weak and 
 needy had as never before lost all connection with the 
 strong and powerful. . . . The capitalist grew richer, and 
 among the higher classes of society luxury and extrav- 
 agance increased. The laborer, noticing all this, asked him- 
 self if his lot had in any way improved. He was inclined 
 to deny that it had. . . . The rich were becoming richer ; 
 and it was thought the poor were becoming poorer." ^ 
 
 Dr. Strong furnishes valuable testimony on this subject. 
 " ' There is,' says the eminent Professor Cairues, ' a con- 
 stant growth of the national capital, with a nearly equally 
 constant decline in the proportion of capital which goes to 
 support productive labor,' and this can result, he points out, 
 only in 'a harsh separation of classes, combined with those 
 glaring inequalities in the distribution of wealth which 
 most people will agree are among the elements of our 
 instability.' ' Unequal as is the distribution of wealth 
 already in this country (England), the tendency of indus- 
 trial progress — on the supposition that the present separa- 
 tion between industrial classes is maintained — is towards 
 an inequality greater still. The rich will be growing the 
 richer and the poor at least relatively poorer.' 
 
 "Professor Henry Carter Adams says that 'the benefits 
 of the present civilization are not impartially distributed, 
 and that the laborer of to-day, as compared with the non- 
 laboring classes, holds a relatively inferior position to 
 that maintained in former times. 
 
 '"The laborer himself interprets this to mean that the 
 principle of distribution which modern society has adopted 
 is unfair to him.' Is it strange that working men should 
 agree with such conclusions of political economists ? " ^ 
 
 3. The Gulf between Social Classes is widening. The 
 evils of the industrial differentiation of the people extend 
 most unhappily to all social relations. Class distinctions 
 are growing in spite of the equalizing tendencies of demo- 
 cratic institutions, and in spite of the noble and often 
 heroic efforts of Christianity and philanthropy. 
 
 1 " French and German Socialism," pp. 7-9. 
 
 2 " Our Country," pp. 103, 104. 
 
THE BICH GKOWING BICHEB, AND THE POOK POORER 93 
 
 The meetings and feasting of the rich become more and 
 more exclusive. Their children are taught in the private 
 school, or by private tutors, to prevent contamination by 
 poorer children made of inferior clay. In the social circle 
 caste is king, and in the church are gathered the well-to-do, 
 who, while asking the question how to reach the masses, 
 abate not one jot or tittle of that mammonistic pride and 
 vanity which precisely answers the questions how not to 
 reach them. 
 
 The spirit that in Boston within forty-five years has 
 deprived a certain district with an increasing but poorer 
 population of nine churches and is now causing the tenth 
 to seek a more " desirable " field is fairly representative, 
 not of Christianity, but of the church.' All this widening 
 of class lines is undemocratic as well as unchristian. If 
 this tendency goes on in our country, till society is perma- 
 nently divided into hostile camps with a haughty plutocracy 
 on the one side and an angry proletarian class on the other, 
 then will come the severest test to our republican institu- 
 tions. 
 
 We do not despair of the republic ; but we are not 
 sanguine enough to believe that it will survive the segrega- 
 tion of wage-workers into a permanent hereditary class, 
 without property and hopeless. 
 
 4. The relative Condiion of Laborers in England is 
 worse than in feudal times. Of industrial classes in 
 England, Thorold Rogers, one of the foremost political 
 economists of England, says, "It is in vain to rejoice over 
 the aggregate of our prosperity, and to forget that great 
 part of the nation has no share in its benefits. It may be 
 that the wisdom of our forefathers was accidental ; it is 
 certain that society was divided by less sharp lines and 
 was held together by common ties in a far closer manner, 
 in the times which it has been my fortune to study (the 
 Middle Ages) than it is now. The feudal system of the 
 Middle Ages was one of mutual interest ; its theory of 
 property involved far more exacting duties than modern 
 rights ever acknowledged, or remember, or perhaps know." ^ 
 
 1 "CongresatioiilisI," An^'ust, 1888. 
 
 '•^ As quoted in " French and German Socialism " (Ely), p. 5. 
 
94 THE FIVE POSTULATES OF SOCIALISM 
 
 Here, from an unexpected source, and with no intent to 
 indorse Socialism, we come upon facts tliat furnish a solid 
 foundation for its Postulate, that under the capitalistic 
 system, the rich are growing richer, and the poor poorer. 
 
 6. Industrial Dependence Impoverishes the Laborer. 
 The deterioration of the laborer's condition must, with 
 exceptions that are only temporary, increase j)a7'i passu 
 with his increasing dependence. 
 
 The concentration of capital, the swallowing-up of small 
 industries, the use of machinery, the minute subdivision 
 of labor, all tend to destroy the independence of the in- 
 dividual laborer. In the presence of the great corporation, 
 he has less and less to say about the details of his work or 
 the amount of his wages. 
 
 All these are fixed by arbitrary, ex parte rules and regula- 
 tions, which under the system are legitimate and even 
 necessary, however socially unjust in themselves. The 
 laborer is more and more regarded as an inferior and his 
 labor as a pure commodity. This labor, owing to competi- 
 tion, he is under an increasing pressure to sell. 
 
 " Wages," says Mr. Mill, " are likely to be high where 
 none are compelled by necessity to sell their labor." ^ 
 
 The opposite is equally true ; that is, in proportion as 
 the sale of labor is compulsory wages will be low. As 
 certain, therefore, as that the tendency of industrial con- 
 ditions renders the laborer more dependent, so certain is it 
 that the laboring poor must grow relatively poorer. 
 
 6. In Cities especially Poverty Deepens as Wealth In- 
 creases. The increasing poverty and misery of American 
 cities, rendering large masses, if not a majority of citizens, 
 helpless and hopeless, is an evil so portentous that our 
 wisest statesmen stand aghast before it. 
 
 There is no surer evidence of degrading poverty than 
 overcrowding in wretched tenement houses. " No city 
 in the world suffers so deeply from this evil as New York. 
 Twenty-two thousand dwellings are supposed to shelter 
 over one-third of its population, and from these crowded 
 stalls come over fifty-three per cent of the city's dead. . . ., 
 
 1 As quoted in " The Wage Question" ("Walker), p. -848. 
 
THE RICH GROWING RICHER, AND THE POOR POORER 95 
 
 The greatest density of population in London is at the rate, 
 of 176,000 per square mile, while there are wards in New 
 York where the rate is 185,000, and even 242,000. . . . 
 Think of a plat of ground 200 feet square providing a 
 permanent home for nearly 600 persons, giving to each 
 a space of eight feet by nine ! But even so scanty a pro- 
 vision is palatial when the facts are more closely examined. 
 Sixteen families composed of eighty persons in a single 
 twenty-five foot dwelling are common. ... In a room 
 twelve by eight and five one-half feet high inspected in 
 1879, it was found that nine persons slept and prepared 
 their food. ... In another room, located in a dark cellar, 
 without screens or partitions, were huddled together two 
 men with their wives and a girl of fourteen, two single 
 men and a boy of seventeen, two women, and four boys 
 nine, ten, eleven, and fifteen years old — fourteen persons 
 in all." ... 
 
 Ninety per cent of the children born in these places are 
 the victims of an early death. " Here," to quote the words 
 of a legislative report, " infantile life unfolds its bud, but 
 perishes before its first anniversary. Here youth is ugly 
 with loathsome diseases and the deformities which follow 
 physical degeneracy . 
 
 "Here the decrepitude of age is found at thirty. The 
 poor themselves have a very expressive term for the slow 
 process of decay which they suffer ; viz., ' Tenant-House 
 Rot ' . . . Vice, crime, drunkenness, lust, disease, and death 
 here hold sway in spite of the most powerful moral and 
 religious influence." * The average American has been 
 accustomed to associate such nauseating descriptions with 
 the slums of European cities. Can it be that already in 
 the queen city of the New World, a land literally flowing 
 with milk and honey, poverty has taken on an aspect so 
 dark and dreadful ! Let the dullest imagination fill out 
 the sickening details of this horrible picture, — the gnawing 
 hunger and the pinching cold, the frightful oaths and 
 obscene jests, the brutal quarrels and hideous orgies, the 
 noisome smells and disgusting noises, the reeking filth and 
 
 1 " Socialism and Cluistianity," pp. 205, 206> 
 
96 THE FIVE POSTULATES OP SOCIALISM 
 
 shocking indecencies, the utter absence of " hope that comes 
 to all," the hot tears flowing from glassy eyes, the sighs 
 and groans of despair at tlie certainty that the only deliver- 
 ance from this sepulchre above the ground is the one below 
 it — and we are led to ask in all seriousness can there be 
 real fear of God and genuine love of man in a community 
 or country where such things are allowed to exist ? Shall 
 Socialism be condemned for seeking to put an end to such 
 a condition of things ? 
 
 But this is only half, and it may be in the sight of 
 Heaven the better half, of the picture. Over against the 
 thousands wallowing in poverty are the wealthy rolling in 
 luxury. New York paper's of 1880 published such state- 
 ments as the following: "The profits of the Wall Street 
 kings the past year were enormous. It is estimated that 
 Vanderbilt made 130,000,000; Jay Gould, $15,000,000; 
 Russell Sage, $10,000,000; Sidney Dillon, $10,000,000; 
 James E. Keene, $8,000,000 ; and three or four others from 
 one to two millions each, making a grand total for ten or 
 twelve estates of about $80,000,000." ' 
 
 . Think of it ! Twelve men, speculators in Wall Street, 
 received a greater sum in 1880 than all the 182,000 labor- 
 ers in the manufacturing establishments of Maine, New 
 Hampshire, Vermont, and Rhode Island, by some $10,000,- 
 000, and nearly one-half as much as the 527,533 laborers in 
 like establishments in the whole State of New York.^ 
 
 Think of this condition of things in the heart of the 
 Great Republic whose shibboleth is equality, and whose cor- 
 ner-stone is inscribed with the motto " We be brethren ! " 
 Think of it again, a civilization and laws that allow wealth 
 to be piled mountain high, while within sight are thousands 
 of helpless women and innocent children suffering the 
 agonies of the damned in a pre-mortem hell! Well may 
 the Christian patriot exclaim, " I tremble for my country 
 when I remember that God is just." It is no sufficient 
 answer to these things to say that wealth and poverty 
 spring from natural law, that men are unequally endowed, 
 
 1 As quoted in " Our Country " (Strong), p. 103. 
 
 2 " The Labor Movement," etc., p. 617. 
 
THE RICH GROWING RICHER, AND THE POOR POORER 97 
 
 and the true theory is to guarantee every man an equal 
 chance to get .what he can and keep what he gets. 
 
 True, men are unequally endowed ; talents differ ; but 
 we deny that God endows any man willing to work, wit^ 
 the talent to suffer and die of want in the midst of .abun- 
 dance. The very fact that men are unequally endowed, 
 shows that any system which fails to recognize this truth, 
 and places no restraint on the greed of the strong, is rotten 
 at the core. The spirit of this class of apologists for social 
 misery mocks every worthy sentiment of humanity and 
 every precept of religion. It is the kind of scepticism 
 most to be dreaded, because its prophets appear in sheep's 
 clothing while undermining our faith not only in God, but 
 in humanity. It is the coronation not of Immanuel, but of 
 the fiend of human selfishness, as lord of all. 
 
 Nothing, however, could be more unjust than to attribute 
 to individuals the evils due to a system. Rich men did not 
 make the system ; the system made them. A Vanderbilt 
 and a Gould are not one whit more to be blamed for pos- 
 sessing their millions than the laborer for receiving his 
 $1.60 per day. 
 
 " It is the city," says Dr. Josiah Strong, " where wealth 
 is massed ; and here are the tangible evidences of it piled 
 many stories high. 
 
 " Here the sway of Mammon is widest, and his worship 
 the most constant and eager. Here are luxuries gathered 
 — everything that dazzles the eye or tempts the appetite ; 
 here is the most extravagant expenditure. Here also is the 
 congestion of wealth the severest. 
 
 " Dives and Lazarus are brought face to face. Here, in 
 sharp contrast, are the ennui of surfeit and the desperation 
 of starvation. 
 
 " The rich are richer, and the poor are poorer, in the city 
 than elsewhere ; and, as a rule, the greater the city the greater 
 are the riches of the rich and the poverty of the poor. Not 
 only does the proportion of the poor increase with the 
 growth of the city, but their condition becomes more 
 wretched. The poor of a city of 8,000 inhabitants are well off 
 compared with many in New York ; and there are no such 
 
 ^y 
 
98 THE FIVE POSTULATES OF SOCIALISM 
 
 depths of woe, such utter and heart-wringing wretchedness, 
 in New York as in London. Eead in ' The bitter Cry of Out- 
 cast London,' a prophecy of what will some day be seen 
 in American cities, providing existing tendencies continue. 
 ' Few who will read these pages have any conception of what 
 these pestilential human rookeries are where tens of thou- 
 sands are crowded together amidst horrors which call to mind 
 what we have heard of the middle passage of the slave-ship. 
 To get into them you have to penetrate courts reeking with 
 poisonous and malodorous gases, arising from accumulations 
 of sewage and refuse scattered in all directions, and often 
 flowing beneath your feet ; courts, many of them which the 
 sun never penetrates, which are never visited by a breath 
 of fresh air. You have to ascend rotten staircases, grope 
 your way along dark and filthy passages swarming with 
 vermin. Then, if you are not driven back by the intoler- 
 able stench, you may gain admittance to the dens in which 
 these thousands of beings herd together. Eight feet square : 
 that is about the average size of very many of these rooms. 
 Walls and ceilings are black with the accretions of filth 
 which have gathered upon them through long years of ne- 
 glect. It is exuding through cracks in the boards ; it is 
 everywhere. . . . Every room in these rotten and reeking 
 tenements houses a family, often two. Li one cellar a 
 sanitary inspector reports finding a father, mother, three 
 children, and four pigs. . . . Here are seven people living 
 in one underground kitchen, and a little dead child lying in 
 the same room. Elsewhere is a poor widow, her three chil- 
 dren, and a child who had been dead thirteen days. Her 
 husband, who was a cabman, had shortly before committed 
 suicide. ... In another apartment, nine brothers and sisters, 
 from twenty-nine years of age downwards, live, eat, and 
 sleep together. Here is a mother who turns her children 
 into the street in the early evening, because she lets her 
 rooms for immoral purposes until long after midnight, when 
 the poor little wretches creep back again, if they have not 
 found some miserable shelter elsewhere. Where there are 
 beds, they are simply heaps of dirty rags, shavings, or 
 straw ; but for the most part these miserable beings find rest 
 
THE RICH GROWING RICHER, AND THE POOR POORER 99 
 
 only upon the filthy boards. . . . There are men and women 
 who lie and die, day by day, in their wretched single room, 
 sharing all the family trouble, enduring the hunger and the 
 cold, and waiting, without hope, without a single ray of 
 comfort, until God curtains their staring eyes with the mer- 
 ciful film of death.' " ' Here, in these dens of London, 
 
 " Where all life dies, death lives, and nature breeds, 
 Perverse, all monstrous, all prodigious things. 
 Abominable, unutterable," — 
 
 the eminent author of " Our country " says, is " a prophecy 
 of what will some day be seen in American cities, providing 
 existing tendencies continue." 
 
 What are these tendencies ? Chiefest among them is 
 the worship of Mammon. What are the three articles of 
 its creed ? First, Private Capital ; second. Freedom of 
 Contract ; third. Competition. 
 
 So long as these principles, supported by law and custom, 
 dominate industry, so long will the weak be pushed to the 
 wall by the strong, so long will the rich continue to grow 
 richer, and the poor poorer. 
 
 7. The Hardships of Laborers, with local exceptions, 
 amid advancing wealth supports this postulate as to the 
 relative condition of the rich and poor. With the intro- 
 duction of machinery and the massing of laborers in shops 
 and mines have come increased dangers to their health and 
 lives. Professor Francis A. Walker has collected a mass of 
 valuable testimony on this point. He says of the destruc- 
 tive effects of mining on human life, " When it is remem- 
 bered that in addition to the great liability to fatal acci- 
 dent the amount of carbonic acid gas, which in nature is 
 300-350 in 1,000,000, and does not ordinarily exceed 
 3,000 in the stifling atmosphere of factories and workshops, 
 often goes up to 20,000 in the air of mines, the excessive 
 mortality within this occupation will not be a matter of 
 wonder. 
 
 " Sir Thomas Bazley's report [England] for 1870 states the 
 number of deaths from accidents in collieries and iron-stone 
 
 1 As quoted in " Our Country," pp. 129, 130, 131. 
 
100 THE FIVE POSTULATES OF SOCIALISM 
 
 mines at 991. In the same year 373 persons were killed in 
 works under the Factory. Acts ; 1,378 were so injured that 
 amputation was required, while the lesser injuries footed 
 up 16,828." ' Every working day in the year witnesses the 
 bruising, maiming, and killing of between 500 and 1,000 
 laborers in this country and Europe. 
 
 Official reports and scientific investigations leave no 
 doubt that daily thousands of laborers take into their sys- 
 tems the seeds of deadly disease from exposure, from in- 
 haling mineral dust, dampness, hot and arid temperatures, 
 and from the atmosphere in shops and factories charged 
 with poisonous vapors. Here are causes that impoverish 
 laborers, that handicap them in their struggle for life, and 
 inflict upon them an aggregate of suffering and misery 
 which it is easier to overlook than to estimate. 
 
 The employment of women and children away from the 
 home, on a scale far beyond that of any former time, is in- 
 dicative of a harder lot for the laborer. lu 1883, 28,714 
 children under sixteen years of age were employed in the 
 manufacturing and mechanical industries of Massachusetts, 
 and the mothers and children earned one-third the support 
 of the average working man's family. In 1881, 44 per cent 
 of the work people in Massachusetts were children. In 
 the United states in 1880, 1,118,356 children fifteen years 
 of age and under were employed in all occupations. In 
 Pennsylvania are " Herds of little children of all ages, from 
 six years upward, at work in the coal-breakers, toiling in 
 dirt, the air thick with carbon dust, from dawn to dark of 
 every day in the week except Sunday. . . . There are no 
 schools in the world where more evil is learned, or more 
 innocence destroyed, thau in the breakers." ^ 
 
 These facts have social, moral, and political bearings of 
 startling significance ; but we adduce them here simply to 
 show the struggle of the bread-winner in the presence of 
 colossal wealth. 
 
 Still more desperate is this struggle in Europe. Women 
 and children of tender years are set to tasks the sight of 
 
 1 " The Wages Question," pp. 36, 37, and note. 
 
 2 " Our Country " (Strong), pp. 97,98. 
 
THE BICH GBOWING PaCHEE, AND THE POOK POORER 101 
 
 which is revolting. In 1870, at a meeting of social scien- 
 tists in England, a gentleman exhibited a lump of clay- 
 weighing forty-three pounds, which he had taken off the 
 head of a boy of nine years employed in a brick-yard. 
 Another boy of nine years, employed in hardening and 
 tempering crinoline steels, worked from seven a.m. till 
 nine-thirty p.m. and often till twelve at night, and once or 
 twice he had worked from seven a. m. through the day, all 
 through the night, throughout all the next day till twelve 
 o'clock at night. Children in England of six, eight, and 
 ten years are driven . in herds to fields, there to labor 
 for twelve or fourteen hours under the burning sun or in 
 the face of cold, cutting winds. In Merry England women 
 harnessed with cattle may be seen toiling on the pit-banks 
 and coke-hearths." ' 
 
 The relative condition of the rich and poor is also indi- 
 cated in the quality of food which constitutes their diet, 
 and in the abodes which they inhabit. Professor Fawcett 
 gives citations from official reports as follows : — 
 
 " Many a French factory hand never has anything better 
 for his breakfast than a large slice of common sour bread 
 rubbed over with an onion so as to give it a flavor." Again, 
 " Meat is rarely tasted by the working classes in Holland. 
 It forms no part of the bill of fare, either for the man or 
 his family." In Belgium, " Very many have for their entire 
 subsistence but potatoes with a little grease, brown or black 
 bread, often bad, and for their drink a tincture of chiccory." 
 "To-day, in the west of England, it is impossible for an 
 agricultural laborer to eat meat more than once a week." 
 Of the peasants of Devon, " The laborer breakfasts on tea- 
 kettle broth, — hot water poured on bread and flavored 
 with onions ; dines on bread and hard cheese at 2d. a 
 pound, with cider very washy and sour ; and sups on pota- 
 toes or cabbage greased with a tiny bit of fat bacon. He 
 seldom more than sees or smells of butcher's meat." ^ 
 
 Bear in mind that these are not isolated cases of poverty, 
 but they apply to the great mass of working people in large 
 
 1 " The Wages Question " (Walker), pp. 52, 53. 
 
 2 lUd., p. 56. 
 
102 THE FIVE POSTULATES OF SOCIALISM 
 
 sections of the world. Equally suggestive of their hard 
 lot are the cramped and unsanitary abodes which they in- 
 habit. We have referred to this evil in the cities as de- 
 manding special consideration; but in the country, especially 
 in large portions of Europe, the laborer is housed scarcely 
 better than the beasts of the field. " Canon Gridlestone 
 says of the homes of the peasants of Devon (England). 
 ' The cottages, as a rule, are not fit to house pigs in.' 
 01 309 cottages at Kamsbottom, near Bury, ' one of the best 
 districts in Lancashire,' remarks Colonel Sykes, 137 had 
 but one bedroom each, the aggregate occupants being 777 ; 
 172 had two bedrooms each, the aggregate occupants being 
 1,223. Some of the families occupying a single bedroom 
 consisted of from 8 to 13 individuals. . . ' One-third of the 
 population of Scotland, in 1861,' says Mr. Caird, ' lived in 
 houses of one room only ; another third, in houses of two 
 rooms only.' " * That is, only one-third of the families of 
 Scotland lived in houses of more than two rooms. 
 
 The Poor Law Report of 1842 thus describes the homes 
 of the peasants of Durham : They are " built of rubble 
 or unhewn stone. The chimneys have lost half their 
 original height, and lean on the roof with fearful gravita- 
 tion. The rafters are evidently rotten and displaced, and 
 the thatch, yawning to admit the wind and wet in some 
 parts, and in all parts utterly unfit for its original purpose 
 of giving protection from the weather, looks more like the 
 top of a dunghill than a cottage. Such is the exterior ; and 
 when the hind comes to take possession, he finds it no 
 better than a shed. The wet, if it happens to rain, is mak- 
 ing a puddle on the earth floor. . . . They have no byre 
 for their cows, nor sties for their pigs ; no pumps or wells ; 
 nothing to promote cleanliness or comfort. The average 
 size of these sheds is about 24 by 16. They are dark and 
 unwholesome ; the windows do not open, and many of them 
 are not larger than 20 inches by 16 ; and into this place are 
 crowded 8, 10, or even 12 persons." ^ 
 
 Professor Walker, who cites these facts with no purpose 
 
 1 " The Wages Question " (Walker), p. 61. 
 
 2 As quoted Ibid., p. 62, 
 
THE KICH GROWING RICHER, AND THE POOR POORER 103 
 
 to excite pity or to institute a comparison between, social 
 classes, but as a political economist, to show by what causes 
 the eflB-ciency of labor is impaired, says of the abodes of 
 laborers, " A great part, if not the great majority, of the 
 laborers of the world are to-day housed thus miserably, un- 
 counted millions worse." ^ He also says the water they are 
 compelled to drink is often dangerously impure, and he 
 gives the following result of the chemical analysis of 140 
 specimens of water in the cities and towns of Scotland : — 
 
 Number grossly contaminated by sewage matter and de- 
 cidedly unwholesome 104 
 
 Number less contaminated and less unwholesome . 32 
 
 Number tinged with sewage matter .... 4 
 
 Number free from all contamination .... 
 
 Total examined 140^ 
 
 These facts and figures respecting the actual life of the 
 poor reveal an amount of deprivation, hardship, and suffer- 
 ing that is appalling. 
 
 No statistical table can set forth the miseries which result 
 from insufficient food and housing. The hard struggle for 
 the bare necessities of life ; the ceaseless anxiety ; the con- 
 tinual gnawing of hunger, and exposure to cold and wet ; 
 the diseases engendered by these deprivations, often accom- 
 panied by inability to procure either physician or medi- 
 cine ; the sickening and the dying without anything worthy 
 the name of sympathy and love ; the hardening of the heart, 
 the dwarfing of the body, and the despair of the soul, — 
 these, with all the sorrows, tears, heart aching and breaking 
 begotten of cruel want, can never be tabulated. But thougli 
 they cannot be estimated in dollars and cents, they may 
 not be disregarded in determining the relative condition of 
 the poor. They are miseries from which the rich are happily 
 removed. They are miseries whose social and moral 
 significance arises entirely from the fact that they exist at a 
 
 1 " The Wages Questioi," p. 64. 2 /ftjcj., p. 65. 
 
104 THE FIVE POSTULATES OF SOCIALISM 
 
 time when the iricrease of wealth is unexampled. Men go 
 hungry when granaries and warehouses are bursting with 
 provisions ; they are ill-clad and naked in the presence of 
 stores and factories piled to the roof with clothing ; they 
 are cold when God has laid at their feet mines and moun- 
 tains of fuel; robbed of their rightful inheritance, stripped 
 and left half dead, they are passed by alike by the priest' 
 and Levite, who it is not unlikely are on their way to 
 preach or lecture on " How to reach the masses." 
 
 Who or what is the cause of this social outrage ? Are 
 rich men as a class oppressive and unfeeling? No, they 
 are, as a rule, kind hearted and generous. Is it from evils 
 incident to transition periods in industrial development ? 
 These, doubtless, aggravate the mischief, but they are not 
 the cause. The cause is the capitalistic system,-^ itself, 
 whose normal working widens the gulf between rich and 
 poor. Thorold Rogers says, "I am convinced that at no 
 period of English history . . . was the condition of manual 
 labor worse than it was in the years from 1782-1821, the 
 period in which manufacturers and merchants accumulated 
 fortunes rapidly." 
 
 Capitalism utterly ignores the two tremendous facts,, that 
 some are weaker than others, and that selfishness, unre- 
 strained by law, becomes tyranny. It is the law of the 
 survival of the fittest, remorselessly applied to human 
 beings. It utterly refuses to recognize the righteous prin- 
 ciple contained in the words, " We, then, that are strong 
 ought to bear the infirmities of the weak." ^ 
 
 Let us now examine the arguments put forward to meet 
 this complaint of Socialism, that the rich are growing 
 richer and the poor poorer. 
 
 The one chiefly relied on is, that the poor have more 
 than formerly ; more wages, better clothing, food, and 
 housing, and evidence of this is assumed to be proof that 
 the rich are not growing richer and the poor poorer. No- 
 body disputes this, and the assertion is quite ridiculous. 
 
 The charge is not either that the poor are poorer, or the 
 rich richer than formerly, but that the rich are richer and 
 
 ' Rom. XTi. 
 
THE RICH GROWING RICHER, AND THE POOR POORER 105 
 
 the poor poorer ; that is, the chasm between these classes 
 is deepening and widening. The question is one of rela- 
 tivity ; that is, it concerns the relation existing between 
 these classes rather than the absolute condition of either 
 class. The language of Eodbertus is, "As the productivity 
 of social labor increases, the wages of the laboring classes 
 constitute an ever-decreasing portion of the national pro- 
 duct." ^ " This does not mean necessarily," says Professor 
 Ely, "that what the laborer receives becomes 'absolutely 
 smaller ; only that it decreases relatively." 
 
 Lasselle says, " As capital grows, ... so grows the pres- 
 ence of deep poverty seated hard by the gates of enormous 
 wealth."^ It is not the "deep poverty" alone or the 
 "enormous wealth," but their co-existence, of which he 
 is complaining. 
 
 Marx says of all the improvements of modern industry 
 they are, " On the one hand, elements of historical progress 
 and development in the economic civilization of society, 
 but on the other are all means of civilized and refined ex- 
 ploitation of the laborer." ' That is, the whole of society 
 is economically improved, including the laborer who, never- 
 theless is exploited. 
 
 Is it not clear that Socialists intend the relative and not 
 the absolute condition of the poor in this charge against 
 the capitalistic system ? Arguments and statistics there- 
 fore adduced to show that the poor have more than for- 
 merly are not relevant. 
 
 This error vitiates the argument of Dr. Behrends, who 
 quotes Mr. Mulhall, showing the increased earnings of the 
 working class in England since 1688 : he also shows that 
 pauperism and the death rate have decreased and the con- 
 dition of the poor generally improved within forty years,' 
 all of which his opponents do not deny. His quotations 
 from Thorold Rogers are to the same effect. Mr. Rogers 
 says society in general has improved, but he does not even 
 
 1 As quoted in " French and German Socialism " (Ely), p. 161. 
 
 2 As quoted in " Socialism and Christianity " (Behrends), p. 42. 
 ? " Contemporary Socialism " (Rae), p. 163. 
 
 * " Socialism and Christianity," pp. 71, 79. 
 
106 THE FIVE POSTULATES OF SOCIALISM 
 
 hint that the poor relatively to the rich are not growing 
 poorer. 
 
 In this refutation, which is assumed to be complete, there 
 is no pretence of showing that the rich are not growing 
 richer, or that the rapidity of tlieir enrichment is not sep- 
 arating them more and more from the poor. It is not even 
 suggested that poverty is a relative term depending, not 
 upon what one has, but upon what one needs. No attempt 
 is made to show whether under new industrial conditions, 
 necessities, both in quantity and kind, have not increased 
 more rapidly than wages ; a comparison which alone can 
 show whether the laborer's condition has improved. These 
 things, which are vital to a consideration of this Postulate, 
 and which, if they tend to place working men at an in- 
 creasing disadvantage, would cause, if operative there, a 
 rebellion in hades, are not even touched upon. 
 
 The same writer asserts, by way of comparison, that " A 
 good carpenter or mason can purchase a barrel of flour, 
 giving him bread enough for a year, at the cost of a single 
 day's labor." ^ As we read this statement we stepped di- 
 rectly across the street, where masons and carpenters were 
 at work on a house. In answer to our inquiry, the carpenter 
 said he received $2.50, and the mason said he received 
 $3.50 per day, and these were prices for good workmen. 
 We then read to them the statement already quoted, where- 
 upon the carpenter said in a dialect, at least clear and con- 
 cise, " It is the biggest lie that was ever told." Flour at 
 retail on that day (September, 1888) was about $6 per bar- 
 rel. The statement therefore contained forty per cent of 
 pure fiction. It labored under another infirmity : it pur- 
 ports to show from the wages received, " The present con- 
 dition of the working classes " by giving the wages of 
 skilled labor only, such as carpenters and masons. 
 
 The great body of the working claSses are not skilled 
 laborers. The average annual wages in Massachusetts of 
 wage-workers who were heads of families, in 1883, was 
 $/)58.68,^ which, allowing ?>1'2 working days in the year, was 
 
 1 " Socialism ami Cliristiiiiiity." pp. 7(), 77. 
 Si " Report of Bureau of Statistics," p. 4t)l. 
 
THE RICH GKOWING EICHBE, AND THE POOR POORER 107 
 
 $1.79 per day ; while the expenses Of their families were 
 $765.42, which ivas $195.74 more than they earned. To make 
 up this deficiency of about $4.00 per week, the laborer's 
 children were obliged to leave school and his wife home to 
 engage in work. 
 
 But wages in Massachusetts are exceptionally high, and 
 heads of families receive far more than the average laborer. 
 If we take the average daily wages of the United States in 
 1880, the census tells us that, so far from being equivalent 
 to "a barrel of flour," they amount to only $1.11. 
 
 Strangely enough, Mr. Eae makes this same fallacy the 
 foundation of an elaborate argument in his review of 
 " Progress and Poverty," by Henry George, who lays down 
 at the outset the Postulate that the Rich are growing 
 richer and the. Poor poorer. 
 
 The general clearness and logical discrimination of Mr. 
 Rae's work presents a marked contrast with his argument 
 in this particular. 
 
 He disjoins the Postulate, which we have shown is one 
 and inseparable. The very passage which Mr. Eae quotes 
 from " Progress and Poverty "' shows this. As for example, 
 " I propose to seek the law which associated poverty with 
 progress and increasing want with advancing wealth." It 
 is the association that George intends. 
 
 He tells us at the outset that he does not mean that 
 want absolutely increases. "I do not mean that the condi- 
 tion of the lower class has nowhere nor in anything im- 
 proved." Again he says, "So long as all the increased 
 wealth which modern progress brings goes to build up 
 great fortunes, to increase luxury, and make sharper the 
 contrast between the house of Have and the house of Want, 
 progress is not real and cannot be permanent." ^ It is in- 
 conceivable hovr any one can fail to understand Mr. George, 
 who repeatedly explains that he is treating the words rich 
 and poor, not as absolute but relative terms ; that he is 
 dealing not with quantities but proportions. 
 
 Notwithstanding this, Mr. Eae immediately proceeds to 
 
 1 " Contemporaiy Socialism," Chapter ix. 
 
 2 " Progress and Poverty," p. 9. 
 
108 THE FIVE POSTULATES OF SOCIALISM 
 
 separate the members of the proposition, and to discuss 
 them independently. 
 
 He says, " It is a plain question of fact — is poverty in- 
 creasing ? Are the poor really getting poorer ? " ^ Thus 
 he substitutes a purely imaginary question for the one in 
 issue, and accordingly his reply is vitiated by the well-known 
 logical fallacy of answering to the wrong point. Before 
 entering upon his refutation, he offers a remarkable expla- 
 nation of the social phenomena of increasing wealth and 
 poverty. He says, " We imagine our train to be going back 
 when a parallel train is going faster forward, and we are 
 apt to take the general condition of mankind to be retro- 
 grading, when we fix our eyes exclusively on the rapid and 
 remarkable enrichment of the fortunate few; . . . that he 
 [G-eorge] had simply mistaken unequal rates of progress 
 for simultaneous movements of progress and decline.'"' 
 
 " Unequal rates of progress." This is precisely the com- 
 plaint of his opponents. Mr. Rae here admits the entire 
 question he is attempting to refute. The social conflict is 
 between the " unequal rates of progress " in industry. 
 These " unequal rates of progress " are hostile to the 
 democracy and Christianity of the nineteenth century. 
 
 " When a parallel train is going faster forward " for the 
 exclusive benefit of " the rapid and remarkable enrichment 
 of the fortunate few," there will be trouble. Thus Mr. Rae 
 himself lifts the lid of Parfdora's box from which all indus- 
 trial evils pour forth and spread themselves over the earth. 
 
 We have no contention with inequalities that result from 
 different physical and mental endowments, but rather with 
 those industrial institutions which, instead of equalizing 
 the rates of progress among social classes, tend to widen the 
 gulf between them. 
 
 After this concession the discussion would naturally end, 
 since it is admitted, first, that the rich are growing richer ; 
 second, that they are advancing faster than the poor ; third, 
 the gulf between them and the poor is widening ; fourth, 
 this is taking place under the capitalistic system. 
 
 1 " Contemporary Socialism," p. 388. 
 
 2 Ibid., 386. 
 
THE RICH GKOWINft RICHER, AND THE POOR POORER 109 
 
 Notwithstanding tliis admission of the socialistic claim 
 as to the relative condition of the two classes involved, he 
 immediately proceeds to disjoin the members of the Postu- 
 late and treat the latter as if it were an absolute question. 
 He says, " If poverty were increasing with the increase of 
 wealth, it would show itself in an increase of pauperism or 
 in a decline in the general standard of living among the 
 working classes, or in the fall in the average duration of 
 life." ' The casual reading of this statement would win 
 general assent ; but a moment's examination will satisfy the 
 thoughtful that its assumptions are not-supported by facts. 
 
 Even if poverty is not absolutely increasing, Mr. Rae's 
 argument, though plausible, involves a nonsequitur for the 
 following reasons : — 
 
 1. The general assumption which underlies and vitiates 
 the entire statement is, that poverty is an absolute term 
 rather than a relative one to be determined by a compari- 
 son of the conditions of social classes. 
 
 2. It is assumed that the decrease of pauperism in Eng- 
 land proves that wealth and property are not relatively 
 increasing. Let us see. 
 
 The poor law of England, enacted in the interests of 
 wealth, resulted in converting the poor into paupers. Rich 
 men in their greed overleaped themselves, and soon groaned 
 under the burden of taxes to support a nation of paupers. 
 Then, to relieve themselves, they enacted laws that shifted 
 the burden of support upon the poor, who were thereby con- 
 verted back again from pauperism to self-supporting poverty. 
 Now, it is claimed that this last move on the part of capital- 
 istic speculators in the poor which reduces the number of 
 paupers, shows that the rich are not growing richer and the 
 poor poorer. Thorold Rogers says, — 
 
 " The pauperism and the degradation of the English laborer were 
 the result of a sei-ies of Acts of Parliament . . . whicli weie designed 
 . . . with the express purpose of compelling the laborer to work at 
 the lowest rates of wages possible." ^ 
 
 "The English poor law, after all, was the outcome of great crimes 
 committed by the government; ... it also gave him [the peasant] as 
 
 1 " Contemporary Socialism," p. 389. 
 a " Work and Wages," p. 6. 
 
110 THE FIVE POSTULATES OF SOCIALISM 
 
 a compensation for the policy which pemiitted entails and the accu- 
 mulation of land in few hands, the right to be a pensioner on the soil, 
 from all real and permanent share in which he was practically excluded. 
 He had been robbed by the land-owner, and he was to be hereafter 
 quartered on tlie occupier." ' 
 
 He characterized tlie law as cruel and insolent, enforced 
 by magistrates " whose interest it was to screw the pittance 
 (of the laborer) down to the lowest conceivable margin, and 
 to inform the stinted recipient that when he had starved on 
 that during the days of his strength, others must work to 
 maintain him in sickness or old age."^ 
 
 He tells us that the law of parochial settlement enacted 
 in the interest of the landlord and the trades, " consummated 
 the degradation of the laborer." ° It reduced him to a serf; 
 it was heyday to wealthy land-owners. To prevent an in- 
 crease of wages, able-bodied laborers were given an allowance 
 by overseers of the poor, and were thus forced into pauper- 
 ism. Paupers were better housed and fed than independent 
 laborers. " Pauperism became a remunerative employment." 
 The honest worker was laughed at as a fool. Wives re- 
 proached their husbands for refusing to become chargeable 
 to the parish. 
 
 " Average wages were only three dollars a week, while 
 the working pauper received four dollars. It passed into a 
 proverb, ' Poor is the diet of a pauper, poorer is the diet of 
 the small-rate-payer, poorest is the diet of the independent 
 laborer.' " * Thus we are assured that the pauper is better 
 ofE than the independent laborer, but that the decrease of 
 pauperism and the increase of poor, independent laborers 
 show that poverty is not increasing with the increase of 
 wealth. 
 
 When, as was the case in one parish, the whole land was 
 offered to the paupers and declined on the ground that their 
 condition, as independent laborers, would be worse than 
 pauperism, it is useless to argue that the forcing of these 
 poor workmen out of pauperism into a more miserable and 
 
 i " Work and Wages," p. 424, 425. 2 /(,j(;.^ p. 425. » Ibid., p. 433. 
 * "Socialism and Christianity" (Behrends), p. 234. 
 
THE RICH GROWING RICHER, AND THE POOR POORER 111 
 
 degrading self-support shows that they are better ofE. The 
 point now is, not whether they ar-e better off, but whether 
 the decrease of pauperism in England necessarily shows it. 
 
 "Justice is a mockery, and philanthropy an economic 
 blunder, when, as the report of 1834 says, 'the diet of 
 the workhouse exceeds that of the cottage, and the diet 
 of the jail is more profuse than even that of the workhouse.' 
 Under such a regime the pauper and the criminal belong 
 to the privileged classes." ' 
 
 It is in order for Mr. Eae to show how the ejection of 
 this "privileged class" from the palace car of English pauper- 
 ism and stowing it away in the baggage-car of self-support, 
 with its meaner diet and shelter and less "remunerative 
 emploj'ment," shows that' it is better off; in other words, 
 how the decrease of pauperism shows that the poor are not 
 growing poorer. 
 
 The poor rates in 1817 reached the enormous sum of 
 $40,000,000. In 1834 they were $31,000,000, and England 
 was on the brink of bankruptcy. The poor rates were de- 
 vouring the land. Then her capitalists arose in their dis- 
 tress, and Parliament, always their ready tool, entered 
 resolutely upon the work of relieving them. 
 
 The report of 1839 gives us the keynote of the movement. 
 It says, " The fundamental principle with respect to the 
 legal relief of the poor is, that the condition of the pauper 
 ought to be, on the whole, less eligible than that of the in- 
 dependent laborer." In attempting to squeeze the laborers 
 to the last extremity, they have been pauperized. The 
 capitalistic gun was loaded too heavily, and its tremendous 
 charge caused it to kick grievously, while the poor at 
 the other end were not only unharmed, but "privileged 
 classes." 
 
 Things must be reversed. Laborers must be turned 
 away from the green pastures and still waters of English 
 pauperism into the dry and thirsty land of self-support, 
 where no water is. 
 
 The assumption, then, that if the poor were growing 
 poorer it would show itself in an increase of pauperism, is 
 
 1 "Socialism and Christianity" (Behrends), p. 238. 
 
112 THK FIVE POSTULATES OF SOCIALISM 
 
 not only not sustained, but certain facts go to show that the 
 physical well-beiug of English laborers was improved by 
 the transition from self-support to pauperism. 
 
 We are not discussing the question of pauperism in gen- 
 eral, or on its merits, but simply and solely with regard to 
 the assumption with which we are dealing. In general the 
 decrease of pauperism, ceteres paribus, would show improve- 
 ment in the condition of the poor. 
 
 The case of England is peculiar. Pauperism is actually 
 increasing in our own and other countries. 
 
 3. Mr. Eae assumes that if poverty were increasing, 
 the standard of living among working classes would be 
 " lower," whereas it is higher, which shows that poverty 
 is decreasing. Does this necessarily follow ? It is 
 admitted that the standard of living among the poor is 
 higher. Henry George concedes it ; but he says that the 
 fact that the city beggar may now enjoy many more things 
 than the back-woods farmer, .does not prove the beggar 
 better off than the farmer. Socialists concede that the stand- 
 ard of living is higher. Tramps now wear shoes, and 
 beggars clothes that kings and princes of former times 
 might envy. Shall we thence infer that the condition of 
 tramps and beggars is superior to former kings on this 
 account ? 
 
 The standard of living is higher for all classes. That 
 more working men have more than formerly shows that the 
 conditions of life are changed. New social and industrial 
 movements have greatly multiplied the things included in 
 the phrase necessities of life. 
 
 Indeed, Mr. Eae makes a concession which rebuts his 
 own assumption. He says, "It is true that as the general 
 standard of living rises, people feel the pinch of poverty 
 at a higher level than before, and become pauperized for 
 the want of comforts that are now necessary, but which 
 formerly few ever dreamt of possessing." ' That is, poverty 
 on a " higher level " or a higher standard of living does not, 
 after all, show that the poor are not getting poorer. The 
 question now is, not whether the poor are getting poorer, 
 
 1 "Contemporary Socialism," p. 389. 
 
THE KICH GROWING EICHBE, AND THE POOR POORBK 113 
 
 but whether a higher standard of living proves that they are 
 not. 
 
 This concession, due to the spirit of candor which charac- 
 terizes our author, touches hard pan in the social question. 
 It is not what men have, But what they require, that deter- 
 mines their condition. 
 
 "A man's poverty," says Eodbertus as paraphrased by 
 Professor Ely, "does not depend so much upon what he 
 has absolutely, as upon the relation in which his possessions 
 stand to those of others about him, and upon the extent to 
 which they allow him to share in the progress of the age. 
 A cannibal in the Sandwich Islands is not poor because he 
 has no coat ; an Englishman is. When the vast majority 
 were unable to read, a man was not poor or oppressed 
 because he was unable to purchase books, but a German 
 who to-day has not the means to do so is both poor and 
 oppressed." -^ 
 
 As men are civilized their . wants increase. If they 
 increase faster than the means of gratifying them, the con- 
 ditions of poverty are present. Such is now the case. Dr. 
 Josiah Strong well says, " It is very true that within a 
 century there has been a great multiplication of the com- 
 forts of life among the masses ; but the question is whether 
 that increase has kept pace with the multiplication of wants. 
 
 " The mechanic of to-day who has much, may be poorer 
 than his grandfather who had little." ^ 
 
 That is, the poor may be getting poorer and still enjoy 
 a higher standard of living. Dr. Strong insists with us 
 that " poverty is something relative not absolute. I do 
 not mean simply that a rich man is poor by the side of one 
 richer. That man is poor who lacks the means of supply- 
 ing what seems to him reasonable wants." ^ 
 
 4. A fourth assumption is that increased poverty would 
 show itself in shortening " the average duration " of work- 
 ing men's lives. Whereas "The Eecent Decline in the 
 English Death Rate " shows that within twenty years end- 
 
 1 " Prencli and German Socialism," p. 164, 
 
 2 " Our Country," p. 101. 
 
 3 lUd., p. 102. .. 
 
114 THE FIVE POSTULATES OP SOCIA^^ISM 
 
 ing witli 1880 there has been " a gain of two years in the 
 average duration of life." These are striking statistics. If 
 we can gain two years of life in every twenty-five, men may 
 yet become immortal. 
 
 It appears also that the discoiitent of laborers has in- 
 creased pari passu with the increased duration of their 
 lives. That is, we are asked to believe that the more im- 
 proved the laborer's condition, and the longer his life, the 
 more discontented and rebellious he becomes. The logical 
 snag, of reductio ad absurdum, stands in the way of this 
 reasoning. But, more seriouslyj we deny that a decline in 
 the death rate necessarily shows that the poor are not 
 growing poorer. The operation of other causes might 
 easily produce this result. 
 
 The knowledge of medicine has been extended. Steam 
 transportation renders famine well-nigh impossible. Hy- 
 giene has made great jjrogress. Sanitary science is under- 
 stood and applied as never before. Epidemic diseases are 
 to a great extent under control. The standard of living 
 has been raised. Human life has become sacred. Never 
 since the days of primeval historj' could men suffer so 
 much and live so long as at the present day. Many forces 
 are at work which tend to prolong human life. We are told 
 that the thirty thousand locomotives in North America 
 send over 53,000,000,000 cubic yards of vapor into the at- 
 mosphere every week to be returned in the form of rain ; 
 enough to produce a good rain fall every twenty-four hours. 
 It is also estimated that the number of other non-conduct- 
 ing engines in use send eight times as much more vapor 
 into the air every week. 
 
 In connection with this theory the following statement 
 is suggestive : " The prolonged wet season is thought in 
 England to have been conducive to the general health. 
 The constant and copious rain has scoured the sewers and 
 washed the town so that the death rate in London has 
 fallen to fifteen in the thousand." 
 
 But theories aside, it will not be questioned, that the 
 prolonging of human life might be due to the operation of 
 many causes other than those connected with wealth and 
 poverty. 
 
THE RICH GROWING RICHER, AND THE POOR POORER 115 
 
 The assumption, therefore, that " A fall in the average 
 duration of human life " would necessarily occur if the 
 poor were growing poorer, must be taken at least ctim 
 grano salis. 
 
 5. Another assumption is that if the aggregate of wages 
 " is a larger proportion of the aggregate produce of tlie 
 country," ' the poor are not growing poorer. This does 
 not follow. Suppose fifty per cent of the entire product 
 goes to 100 laborers, and at a future time seventy-five per 
 cent to 200 laborers ; are not the laborers worse off ? 
 
 If, then, the number of laborers increase faster than pro- 
 duction, or should complex industrial and social conditions 
 disproportionately increase the cost of living, the poor 
 might be continually growing poorer, even though they re- 
 ceived in wages a larger share of the aggregate production. 
 ISTumerous other factors enter into the question involved 
 in this assumption which render it inconclusive. 
 
 6. Still another assumption is tliat if the families of the 
 rich and working classes respectively now receive ahout 
 the same proportion of the national jDroduct as they did at 
 the beginning of the century, it shows that the rich are not 
 growing richer, and the poor poorer. Does this conclusion 
 follow ? Only on the further assumption that the number 
 of the rich has increased pari passu with the poor ; which 
 is contrary to the fact as shown by statistics which Mr. 
 Eae adduces for other purposes. 
 
 The whole number of families in England in 1800 was 
 1,780,000. Of this number 1,117,000 belonged to the 
 working class. In 1883 the whole number of families was 
 6,675,000, while 4,629,000 of these belonged to the work- 
 ing class. That is, while working families have increased 
 nine per cent faster than rich families, tliere has been 
 no corresponding increase in their proportion of the national 
 product ; while rich families receive the same proportion, 
 notwithstanding their diminished numbers, as at the be- 
 ginning of the century. 
 
 It would be difficult to find more convin(dng proof that 
 the rich are growing richer, and the poor poorer, than is 
 afforded by these figures adduced by Mr. Rae himself. 
 
 1 " Contemporary Socialism," p. 397. 
 
116 THE FIVE POSTULATES OF SOCIALISM 
 
 This general consideration, is doubtless what Mr. George 
 intends when he says, " I do not mean that the quantity of 
 wealth obtained by laborers as wages is necessarily less, 
 but that the proportion which it bears to the whole pro- 
 duct is necessarily less." 
 
 Mr. Rae, with a formidable array of statistics, logic, and 
 sarcasm, makes a vigorous assault upon this statement ; but 
 it contains, in the sense intended by Mr. George, a most 
 important truth. It is worthy of attention that Mr. Eae 
 endeavors to show that the poor are not only absolutely, hut 
 relatively to the rich, growing richer. 
 
 But perhaps the most remarkable feature of Mr. Eae's 
 refutation is the following inconsistency. He first declares 
 that this Postulate as to the increase of wealth simultane- 
 ously with poverty is a delusion. He says, " We imagine 
 our train to be going back when a parallel train is going 
 faster forward." The real explanation of this social phe- 
 nomenon is the "unequal rates of progress." 
 
 That is, the poor are not going back, but the rich are 
 going forward relatively very much faster. But soon it is 
 boldly asserted, and statistics are introduced to show, that 
 the poor are receiving a larger and larger proportion of the 
 national product ; that is, the poor are progressing faster 
 than the rich. Of these parallel trains, first the capitalists', 
 then the laborers' train is going the faster. Of two contra- 
 dictory propositions one must be true and the other 
 false. 
 
 We have dwelt at length upon this part of the discussion 
 because the fallacy in question is deeply seated in the pop- 
 ular mind. 
 
 Newspapers are continually comparing the present high 
 rate of wages with the miserable pittances of former times, 
 and it is hastily inferred that the laborers' charge that the 
 rich are growing richer, and the poor poorer, is thereby 
 shown to be untrue. 
 
 Writers whose predilections are on the side of capital, 
 good men and women who have merely glanced at the 
 social question, people with little sympathy for the work- 
 ing classes, readily take it for granted that, if wages have 
 
THE RICH GEOWINa EICHEB, AND THE POOR POORER 117 
 
 absolutely increased, laborers have no cause for complaint, 
 and the present social disturbance is due to caprice or 
 sheer ugliness. 
 
 Let it be understood, then, that the Postulate does not 
 deny that wages "have not increased, or that laborers with 
 all other classes of society have absolutely more than ever 
 before ; for an author to assume the contrary is to misrep- 
 resent Socialism, and to mislead the popular mind. 
 
 We admit that the man of straw which the writers we 
 have been reviewing have set up is ably attacked, but the 
 brilliancy of the pugilism should not obscure the fact that 
 the antagonist is a purely imaginary character. 
 
 This third Postulate of Socialism, then, according to its 
 intent and meaning, is true. The rich are growing richer, 
 and the poor poorer. Capital is being centralized, and not 
 diffused as Mr. Rae claims. 
 
 Dr. Theodore Woolsey, who holds many points in com- 
 mon with Mr. Eae, admits, " This enormous accumulation 
 of capital in a few hands." 
 
 It is true, as Mr. George says, " In the United States it 
 is clear that squalor and misery, and the vices and crimes 
 that spring from them, everywhere increase as the village 
 grows to the city. ... It is in the older and richer sections 
 of the Union that pauperism and distress are becoming most 
 painfully apparent. If there is less deep poverty in San 
 Francisco than in New York, is it not because San Fran- 
 cisco is yet behind New York in all that both cities are 
 striving for ? When San Francisco reaches the point where 
 New York now is, who can doubt that there will also be 
 ragged and barefooted children on her stree'ts ? " ^ 
 
 No array of statistics, no subtilty of logic, or brilliancy 
 of rhetoric, can disprove that " the tramp comes with the 
 locomotive, and almshouses and prisons are as surely the 
 marks of 'material progress' as are costly dwellings, rich 
 warehouses, and magnificent churches." ^ Whoever has eyes 
 to see and ears to hear knows that these extremes of wealth 
 and poverty are developing and increasing under the exist- 
 ing industrial regime. 
 
 1 " Progress and Poverty," p. 9. 
 
 2 Ibid., p. 7. 
 
118 THE FIVE POSTULATES OF SOCIALISM 
 
 When, notwithstanding the marvellous increase of produc- 
 tion, one-fifth of the population, as is the case in England, 
 are insufficiently clothed,^ and nearly half the laborers are 
 children of fifteen years and under, as is the case in 
 Massachusetts (p. 100) ; when, as we have shown, the 
 annual wages of the average working man at the head of a 
 family are $195.74 less than the sum necessary to support 
 his family (p. 106). and when, at the same time, million- 
 naires are daily multiplying, it requires no great credulity 
 to believe that the rich are growing richer, and the poor 
 poorer ; and we can well afford to be charitable toward 
 those who despair of any remedy so long as the principles 
 of the capitalistic system remain unmodified. 
 
 Professor Walker, after showing that "the degradation 
 of labor " is constantly imminent, and that the so-called 
 economical harmonies of our industrial system are practi- 
 cally impotent to protect the laborer, says, " The tendency 
 of purely economic forces is continually to aggravate the dis- 
 advantages from which any person or class may suffer. . . . 
 Emphatically is it true that the curse of the poor is their 
 poverty. Cheated in quantity, quality, and price in whatever 
 they purchase, tliey are notoriously unable to get as much 
 proportionately for their little as the rich for their larger 
 means. Economically speaking, this must ever remain true 
 and operate rvith increasing poivev. Moral forces may in- 
 deed enter in to restore the equilibrium ; . . . but it cannot be 
 controverted that the tendency of purely economical forces 
 is to widen the dijferences existbifj in the constitution of indus- 
 trial society." ^ The italics are ours. 
 
 This is a serious arraignment of the capitalistic system. 
 It lays the axe at the root of the tree : it suggests and 
 seems to us to say, that unless the present system is modi- 
 fied the rich will continue to grow richer and the poor 
 poorer. "Moral forces'' will doubtless continue to be em- 
 ployed "to restore the equilibrium," but the time is at hand 
 when " moral forces " will not be merely restorative ; they 
 will concern themselves not only with counteracting the 
 
 1 " Tlie Wages Question " (Walker), p. 58. 
 
 2 Ibid., p. 166. 
 
THE RICH GROWING RICHER, AND THE POOR POORER 119 
 
 effects of unrighteous institutions, by means of the current 
 capitalized efhical platitudes and pious exhortation to endur- 
 ance, or crumbs thrown from the table of charity to allay 
 social and industrial irritation, but they will address them- 
 selves to the work of prevention ; the seed of the woman 
 will cause His followers to bruise the head of the serpent, 
 instead of following him around and stepping gently now . 
 and then on. the end of his tail, or trying to patch up the 
 gaps which his frightful ravages are making in the social 
 organism. 
 
 Equality is preached while inequality is practised. Fra- 
 ternity, the essence of which is " each for all and all for 
 each," is everywhere extolled, while economic individual- 
 ism, the essence of which is every man for himself, is 
 practised with unabated zeal. 
 
 Liberty is proclaimed, while in due form of law and 
 even with prayer-book in hand, the strong, the rich, and 
 the wise oppress the weak, the poor, and the ignorant. It 
 is this complacent profession of God and the faithful 
 service of Satan, which is one of the main props of capital- 
 ism, and which must be abandoned before Socialism can be 
 realized. 
 
 IV. — The Wages of Labor furninh a bare Subsistence. 
 
 " It is found that, throughout countries comprising a large part of 
 the human race, the wages given and talten, not only provide subsistence 
 so scanty and so little nourishing that the population become stunted and 
 more or less deformed and ineffective in labor, but that, even so, a large 
 part of all who are horn die in infancy and early childhood from the 
 effects of privation." — Pkofessor Francis A. Walker. 
 
 A fourth Postulate of Soeialism is that under the wage- 
 system the Wages of Labor furnish a bare Subsistence. 
 
 Marx declared that the bourgeoisie, or capitalist class, 
 exploited the laborer "of property, for they treated him 
 as a ware, buying him in the cheapest market for the cost 
 of his production, that is to say, the cost of his living, and 
 taking frOm him the whole surplus of his work, after de- 
 ducting the value of his subsistence. Under the system of 
 wage-labor, it could not be otherwise. Wages could never, 
 
120 THE FIVE POSTULATES OF SOCIALISM 
 
 by economical laws, rise above subsistence ; and while wage 
 labor created property, it created it always for the capital- 
 ist, and never for the laborer ; and in fact the latter only 
 lived at all, so far as it was for the interest of the govern- 
 ing class, the bourgeoisie, to permit him. Class rule and wage- 
 labor must be swept away, for they were radically unjust." ^ 
 
 Lassalle declared that the wage-laborer could never get 
 more than just enough to keep body and soul together. 
 This law of wages, however, did not originate with Social- 
 ists. Adam Smith, Ricardo, and all leading economists 
 had taught that the rate of wages was determined by the 
 cost of producing labor ; that is, the cost of subsistence ac- 
 cording to the standard of living prevailing at any given 
 time and place among laborers. " This the economical law 
 of natural or necessary wages — ' the iron and cruel law,' 
 which Lassalle declared absolutely precluded the wage- 
 laborers, — i. e., ninety-six per cent of the population, — from 
 all possibility of ever improving their condition or benefit- 
 ing in the least from the growing productivity of their own 
 work." ^ 
 
 Lassalle exposed the injustice of this "iron and cruel 
 law " of wages which is not merely incidental, but lies in 
 the essence of the wage-system. With burning eloquence, 
 with a martyr's zeal, and with a wealth of learning and cul- 
 ture unsurpassed, he finally roused the German laborer to a 
 sense of his wrongs and to a determination to redress them 
 that threatened to revolutionize society and caused kings 
 to tremble on their thrones. In discussing this Postulate, 
 that Wages furnish a bare Subsistence, several points need 
 to be borne in mind. 
 
 1. The wages of skilled labor are not to be taken as a cri- 
 terion. 
 
 2. In a new country and in a pro^essive state of indus- 
 try, as in the United States, the rule admits of many 
 exceptions, not only as to individuals, but as to entire 
 communities. 
 
 3. It is not intended to deny that, even in older coun- 
 
 1 As paraphrased " Contemporary Socialism " (Kae), p. 130. 
 » Ibid., p. 97. 
 
THE WAGES OF LABOR FURNISH BARE SUBSISTENCE 121 
 
 tries, individual laborers of exceptional ability or circum- 
 stance may not save a part of their wages and become 
 themselves capitalists. 
 
 4. The phrase, bare subsistence, has no fixed meaning. 
 It does not convey precisely the same idea to any two in- 
 dividuals, even of the same time and place. This fact 
 renders clear thought, exact speech, and satisfactory con- 
 clusions in this branch of economic discussion well-nigh 
 impossible. 
 
 5. This phrase is not to Idc taken in a literal sense. 
 Cattle and swine may be sustained on a bare subsistence 
 literally understood, but not so man. The lowest classes 
 cannot subsist on mere physical necessaries; they have 
 mental, moral, and social natures, which, however dwarfed, 
 must be taken into account, when the phrase bare subsist- 
 ence is used in connection with them. 
 
 6. By a bare subsistence is intended a standard of living 
 which, though not limited to mere physical necessaries, 
 is yet so low that laborers are just able to live and propa- 
 gate their class. 
 
 In popular discussions of this Postulate nothing is more 
 common than the ignoring of one or more of these six 
 points ; hence the wide difference of opinion and unsatis- 
 factory conclusions. 
 
 It will be conceded that if with increasing wealth, wages 
 tend to furnish only a bare subsistence, the truth is one 
 which, when mixed with the thorough and rapidly spread- 
 ing democratic spirit, would easily make an explosive 
 powerful enough to blow existing social institutions into 
 atoms. 
 
 The question, then, is, does the wage-system furnish only 
 a bare subsistence to the laborer ? 
 
 1. Political Economists declare that such is the fact. 
 
 Eicardo says, " The natural price of labor is that price 
 which is necessary to enable the laborers, one with another, 
 to subsist and to perpetuate their race, without either 
 increase or diminution." ' 
 
 John Stuart Mill says that " this minimum rate of 
 1 As quoted in " French and German Socialism " (Ely), pp. 197-198. 
 
122 THE FIVE POSTULATES OF SOCIALISM 
 
 wages — either the lowest with which it is physically pos- 
 sible to keep up the population, or the lowest with which 
 the people will choose to do " — which Eicardo declares 
 everywhere exists, " is itself liable to vary." That is, the 
 minimum may be still further lowered, and the condition 
 of the laborer be permanently deteriorated.' 
 
 In his preface to " Work and Wages," Thorold Rogers 
 says, " But except for about fifty years in the earlier part 
 of the eighteenth century, the wages of labor [in England] 
 have been a bare subsistence constantly supplemented by 
 the poor rate, till in modern times a considerable amelio- 
 ration in the condition of some kinds of labor, owing, I 
 believe, to a peculiar cause, has been effected." The "pecu- 
 liar cause," as he explains, is the combination of laborers, 
 by which the degrading tendency of the wage-system is 
 counteracted. 
 
 The eminent economist, Professor J. E. Cairnes, despair- 
 ing of any improvement in the condition of laborers under 
 the present wage-system, says, " It appears to me that the 
 condition of any substantial improvement of a permanent 
 kind in the laborer's lot, is that the separation of indus- 
 trial classes into laborers and capitalists shall not be main- 
 tained, that the laborer shall cease to be a mere laborer — 
 in a word, that profit shall be brought to re-enforce the 
 wages fund." ^ 
 
 There is scarcely an economist of note who does not 
 admit that under the wage-system, laborers are oppressed 
 and that the tendency of economical forces is rather to 
 increase than diminish such oppression. 
 
 2. Capitalism Necessitates this Law of Wages. 
 
 Eodbertus has shown the philosophical necessity, under 
 the capitalistic regime, of wages being but bare subsistence. 
 " The working man," he says, " brings on the market a 
 perishable merchandise, namely, his labor. If he have 
 neither land nor capital to employ his labor, he must offer 
 it to those who can make use of it. How much will they 
 give for his services ? 
 
 1 As quoted in "French and German Socialism " (Ely), p. 199. 
 
 2 " Some Leading Principles," etc., p. 339. 
 
THE WAGES OF LABOR FUBXI8H BARE SUBSISTENCE 123 
 
 " Forced by competition to produce at the least possible 
 cost, they will give no more than what is strictly necessary, 
 but what is strictly necessary is what is needed to enable 
 the laborer to subsist and to perpetuate his kind." ^ 
 
 Suppose an employer with one employee gets a product 
 worth f 100, and of this pays the employee $50, and keeps 
 $50 himself : then he puts in a machine which doubles the 
 product. How will the $200 now be divided ? 
 
 The employee will receive the same wages as before, $50, 
 and the employer $150. This is the result of the system. 
 Before the improved process, the laborer received half 
 the product ; after it, only one quarter. As productivity of 
 labor increases, therefore the relative share of labor is less. 
 Increased productivity of labor, however, cheapens cost : 
 commodities sell for less, and so real wages are increased, 
 that is, the laborer is receiving more than enough to sus- 
 tain him. Competition among laborers, however, soon takes 
 away this increase, and so he is forced to take what will 
 barely keep him, while the capitalist grows rich. There is 
 no help for this under the existing order. 
 
 The capitalist cannot do otherwise. The surplus gets 
 into his hands unconsciously, as it were, because labor 
 competes with itself. 
 
 If I hire labor as cheaply and sell goods as dearly as I 
 can (and any other policy is suicidal), I get a profit out of 
 my help in the shape of congealed labor, which equals .com- 
 modities or capital, in spite of myself. What the men 
 have really earned slips out of their hands into mine, and 
 no one is at fault for the exploitation. All they get will 
 be a bare Subsistence. 
 
 3. Statistics show that Wages furnish but a bare Subsist- 
 ence. 
 
 The Massachusetts Bureau of Statistics, in 1883, disclosed 
 the fact that the average working man at the head of a 
 family earned $1.79 per day, while his expenses were $2.42 
 per day, or $196.74 for the year, less than his earnings. It 
 should be borne in mind that this sum was less than the 
 amount required for the baldest necessities of life ; while the 
 
 1 " Socialism of To-day " (Laveleye) , p. 16. 
 
124 .THf FIVE POSTULATES OF SOCIALISM 
 
 phrase bare subsistence calls for supplies that minister to 
 other than the mere animal wants of man. \ 
 
 With a minimum of such supplies, subsistence and the 
 rearing of a family may be accompanied with a depth of 
 poverty which degrades and brutalizes. Mr. Lawrence 
 Gronlund shows from the United States census reports, 
 that during the thirty years ending 1880, the net product 
 of manufactures in this country increased from $437,000,- 
 000, to f 1,834,000,000, or more than 400 per cent, while 
 the average yearly wages increased only from f 248 to 
 $346, about forty per cent. That is, wealth products in- 
 creased 400, but wages only forty per cent.^ 
 
 Thus under the wage-system, in a period of unexampled 
 prosperity, working men received a small proportion of the 
 increasing wealth of the nation. 
 
 It is an open secret that in this free, progressive, and pros- 
 perous Kepublic, the unskilled laborer can no longer sup- 
 port his family, much less provide for them that style of 
 living including moderate educational, religious, and social 
 advantages which is deemed necessary for one to be re- 
 garded as a worthy and respectable citizen. 
 
 This fact is staggering to sober thought. If the wage- 
 system so oppresses labor in the green tree of young, 
 growing, and democratic America, what may be expected of 
 it in the dry tree of stagnant and caste-bound European 
 society ? 
 
 The English workman in the year 1879 received only 
 $178. The income of the United Kingdom was $5,325,- 
 000,000. Of this sum 12,000,000 laborers received $2,140,- 
 000,000, while 3,000,000 other people received $3,185,000,- 
 000, and of these, 9,300 individuals received $100,000 
 each, or an aggregate of nearly half as much as all 
 the 12,000,000 laborers.2 Ten years later, in 1888, there 
 were 14.500,000 laborers in England whose wages were less 
 than $2.50 per week and there were 7,000,000 paupers. 
 Think of a system of industry, that in rich and merry Eng- 
 land forces into the poverty of living on $2.50 per week, 
 
 1 " Co-operative Commonwealth," p. 14. 
 
 2 Ibid., p. 32. 
 
THE WAGES OF LABOR FURNISH BARE SUBSISTENCE 125 
 
 more than half the entire population and into pauperism 
 more than one fourth ! ^ 
 
 It is not, however, so much the growing apart of the rich 
 and poor as the startling fact, that in enlightened and cul- 
 tured England it is considered a just and Christian thing 
 for one man to roll in luxury on f 320 per day, while his 
 brother man is struggling for life on 56 cents per day. 
 
 We have here the conditions of social revolution, and, 
 though it may for a time be averted by a false philosophy, 
 munificent charities, accommodating legislation, a subsi- 
 dized press, a temporizing pulpit, and by other tem- 
 porary expedients, the slow grinding-mill of the gods will 
 yet turn out its grist of social justice to working men. 
 
 4. The Fierce Competition among Laborers tends to 
 reduce Wages to a bare Subsistence. 
 
 Why, then, it may be asked, is the supply of laborers so 
 abundant ? 
 
 Because a bare subsistence, involving great privation and 
 suffering, will not prevent laborers from marrying and rear- 
 ing children. It is true, " and pity 'tis 'tis true," that 
 working men are everywhere bidding against each other for 
 work, by accepting wages which impoverish themselves and 
 enriclv capitalists. 
 
 In 1826 Thomas R. Malthus, an English political econo- 
 mist, published " An Essay on the Principle of Population," 
 the object of which was to show that population increases 
 in geometrical ratio, while food can increase only in an 
 arithmetical ratio ; that is, population increases faster 
 than subsistence. The result is that population must be 
 checked ; and this is effected by vice, misery, and prudential 
 or moral restraint. This theory is known as Malthusianism. 
 The vice necessary to limit population, and which is re- 
 garded as a preventative cheek, consists principally in doing 
 away with marriage by prostitution, and the destruction of 
 children by foeticide. The misery, which is regarded as a 
 positive check, consists in hunger and cold and over-exer- 
 tion, which increases infant mortality and shortens the du- 
 ration of adult life. The significance of this theory lies in 
 
 1 " Springfield Daily Union," January, 1888, 
 
126 THE FIVE POSTULATES OF SOCIALISM 
 
 the fact, that since the masses of men have not sufficient 
 virtue to practise prudential restraint, population must in- 
 crease, and as subsistence cannot be provided for all, the 
 dreadful alternative of vice and misery is a social necessity. 
 
 Malthusianism theoretically and ultimately vs^ould seem 
 to be the most tremendous fact of sociology. 
 
 Darwin says, " There is no exception to the rule that 
 every organic being naturally increases at so high a rate 
 that, if not destroyed, the earth v^ould soon be covered by 
 the progeny of a single pair. . . . The elephant is reckoned 
 the slowest breeder of all known animals ; ... it begins to 
 breed when thirty years old, and goes on breeding till ninety 
 years old, bringing forth six young in the interval and sur- 
 viving till one hundred years old; if this be so after a 
 period of from seven hundred and forty to seven hundred 
 and fifty years, there would be nearly 19,000,000 elephants 
 alive descended from the first pair. Even slow-breeding 
 man lias doubled in twenty-five years, and at this rate, in 
 less than a thousand years, there would literally not be 
 standing-room for his progeny." ' 
 
 Although practically the world at large has not yet 
 reached the point where food cannot be increased suffici- 
 ently to supply its inhabitants, yet certain localities have 
 reached this point, and in these the horrid conditions are 
 realized in the hunger, squalor, disease, and premature 
 death of multitudes. This wretchedness, however, is not 
 in consequence of any actual scarcity of subsistence. 
 
 Mr. Henry George says, " Tlie vice and misery are shown 
 to spring either from unsocial ignorance and rapacity, or 
 from bad government, unjust laws, or destructive war- 
 fare." ^ 
 
 It is true that there is an abundance in these same local- 
 ities, and tlieir wealth could command an instant supply of 
 necessities for all the people ; it is als j true that there are 
 unoccupied and fertile fields in other parts of the world, 
 to which, in theory, the poor might go ; yet in the nature 
 of things, the rich will not share with the poor, and the 
 
 1 " Origin of Species," p. 51. 
 
 2 " Progress and Poverty," p. 95, 
 
THE WAGES OF LABOIl FURNISH BARE SUBSISTENCE 127 
 
 poor cannot if they would, and many would not if they 
 could, migrate to more favorable localities. When, in a 
 great city like London, the poor cannot get bread, they 
 will still breed, and therefore vice and misery must oper- 
 ate to check population. This is practically Malthusianism, 
 at least for London. That it should be allowed to exist in 
 any country, when so large a portion of land is unoccupied 
 and unfilled, is a burning shame to the industrial sj'stem, 
 the Christianity, and the civilization of the nineteenth 
 century. 
 
 In refuting the theory that population tends to increase 
 faster than subsistence, Mr. George asks this question, 
 which is certainly pertinent, if Malthusianism is to be 
 regarded as a social justification or an excuse for the vice 
 and misery that now exist in consequence of poverty. 
 " How is it, then, that this globe of ours, after all the thou- 
 sands, and it is now thought millions, of years that man 
 has been upon the earth, is yet so thinly populated ? How 
 is it, then, that so many of the hives of human life are now 
 deserted, that once cultivated fields are rank with jungle, 
 and the wild beast licks her cubs where once were busy 
 haunts of men ? " ' It is pertinent to inquire, however, 
 before drawing conclusions, what is to be the effect on pop- 
 ulation of modern democracy and invention. This ques- 
 tion is already receiving some attention. Should it appear 
 that the political, moral, and industrial revolution which is 
 in progress will result in increasing mouths faster than 
 food, the problem of population will be one of the most 
 serious with which society will have to deal. 
 
 We have introduced this theory, however, not so much 
 to discuss its merits, as because in the minds of multitudes 
 it accounts for the continual and excessive supply of labor- 
 ers, which renders competition among them so fierce that 
 wages are kept at the minimum. 
 
 These are the steps : low wages are due to competition ; 
 competition is due to the multitude of laborers ; the mul- 
 titude of laborers is due to the natural increase of popula- 
 tion ; the natural increase of population outruns the means 
 
 1 " Progress and Poverty," p. 95. 
 
128 THE FIVE POSTULATES OF SOCIALISM 
 
 of subsistence; hBnce it is a social necessity that human 
 beings should cease to be born, and those born should die 
 prematurely. But the cessation of births and premature 
 deaths can be effected only by vice and misery. Vice and 
 misery therefore are necessary evils. Society is powerless 
 to prevent, and hence is not responsible for, their existence. 
 Malthus says, " The man born into the world whose family 
 cannot support him, and whose labor is not in demand, 
 must take himself away. For him there is no cover laid at 
 nature's table." Life is thus reduced to a struggle for 
 existence ; it is a hand-to-hand fight between individuals, 
 and the spoil rightfully belongs to the victor. The economi- 
 cal name for this species of warfare is competition. Com- 
 petition, therefore, is simply a law of nature. 
 
 Now, this hard and heathenish conclusion of political 
 economy does not satisfy the Christian conscience. The 
 chain of reasoning seems logical and complete, but the 
 heart revolts against its outcome. There is a defective 
 link somewhere. This link we believe to be competition. 
 Competition is the offending Achan that brings disaster 
 upon God's army of wage-workers ; and it may be that God 
 is saying to us as he said to his people of old, " Neither 
 will I be with yoix any more, except ye destroy the 
 accursed thing from among you." 
 
 But competition is a fundamental principle of political 
 economy ; it is the Alpha and Omega of the present indus- 
 trial system. It requires the martyr spirit to attack it. 
 To commit one's self against it is to throw overboard the 
 whole cargo of economic doctrines that have been staple 
 for centuries, and to necessitate the construction, de novo, 
 of a political economy in harmony with the idea of social 
 justice which prevails at the present day. 
 
 Perhaps the wisest service that can be rendered is to 
 expose the glaring defects of competition, and so gradually 
 prepare the minds of men for the abolition or modification 
 of the institution. 
 
 Professor Walker denies " That competition is so far 
 perfect that the laborer, as producer, always realizes the 
 highest wages which the employer can afford to pay, or 
 
THE WAGES OF LABOR FURNISH BARE SUBSISTENCE 129 
 
 else, as consumer, is recompensed in the lower price of 
 commodities for any injury he may chance to suffer as 
 producer." ^ He claims that economical forces oppress 
 certain classes ; and since these cannot be taken out from 
 under the operation of economical laws, the moral forces of 
 intelligence, frugality, sobriety, etc., must be invoked to 
 enable them to resort to the best market which will give 
 scope and sway to the beneficent agencies of competition." ^ 
 
 This seems to say that the economical force of competi- 
 tion oppresses laborers, and is opposed to moral forces, 
 and yet is a '•' beneficent " principle. We have faith to 
 believe that oppressed classes can and will be taken out 
 from under the operation of economical laws that oppress 
 them, not merely by setting moral forces to counteract 
 these laws, but by their suppression. 
 
 The case as to laborers and competition stands thus. 
 Several laborers of intelligence, frugality, and sobriety, 
 stand ready to take every place that is able to pay wages 
 sufficient to support a man and his family in a manner that 
 entitles them to be regarded as worthy and respectable citi- 
 zens : only one, however, can have the place. The question 
 is, who of them shall live, and who starve ? They begin 
 to underbid each other. The employer gets the benefit of 
 this cruel competition, and finally pays such wages as 
 furnish to the laborer a bare subsistence. 
 
 It is difficult to see how, as Professor Walker affirms, 
 " Mobility," real " Freedom of movement," facilitating a 
 resort to the best market, would remedy this state of things 
 or make competition perfect. 
 
 Where the best markets exist, there the evils of competi- 
 tion are multiplied and intensified ; they seem to be in- 
 herent in the wage system. 
 
 Dr. Gladden says, " A bare support is all that the eco- 
 nomical forces, working unhindered, will guarantee to the 
 laborer. So long as competition is the sole arbiter of his 
 destiny, that is about all he will get." ' It is important 
 that we have a clear idea of what competition is. 
 
 1 " The Wages Question," p. 410. 
 
 2 Ibid., p. 172. 
 
 8 "Applied Christianity," p. 64. 
 
130 TIIK FIVIC POSTULATES OF SOCIALISM 
 
 Professor Walker defines it thus : " Competition expresses 
 the desire and the effort of the buyer to buy as cheaply, 
 and of the seller to sell as dearly, of the one to give as 
 little and of the other to get as much as he can ; and inas- 
 much as every man is at once buyer and seller, we say he 
 gives as little and gets as much as the existing conditions 
 of industry allow." ^ What is the moral quality of this 
 "desire and effort" to give as little and get as much as 
 you can out of your neighbor ? How does it appear beside 
 the command, " Love thy neighbor as thyself," or the in- 
 junction, " Look not every man on his own things, but every 
 man also on the things of another " ? 
 
 In competition every man's sword is against his brother. 
 It is a fight ; get all you can and give the least you can ! 
 It is said if competition was perfect, all competitors would 
 get their fair share and harmony would result. So if two 
 pugilists succeeded in pummelling each other about 
 equally, it would be declared a draw game, and the prize 
 money would be equally divided between the competitors, 
 and the result would 'be pugilistic harmony. But the eco- 
 nomical harmonies fail to harmonize. So long as men are 
 physically and mentally unequal, the all-you-can doctrine 
 means victory to some, and death to others. 
 
 The phrase perfect competition is a solecism. The more 
 perfectly matched the competitors in the struggle the more 
 disastrous the consequences. 
 
 The essence of competition is self-interest, the essence 
 of self-interest is selfishness, and the essence of selfishness 
 is sin, and " Sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death." 
 Competition, therefore, is death ; and to make it more per- 
 fect, would be to intensify the agonies of the millions now 
 struggling in the clutches of the insatiate monster. 
 
 Over against this all-you-can-against-your-brother doctrine 
 of competition, we place the humane and divine principle 
 set forth in this question which God puts in the mouth of 
 the prophet, " Have we not all one father ? hath not one 
 God created us ? why do we deal treacherously every man 
 against his brother ? " ^ 
 
 1 " The Wages Question," p. 157. 2 Mai. ii. 10. 
 
THE WAGES OF LAEOK FUliNISII BAKE SUBSISTENCE 131 
 
 5. The suffering that exists aiuoiig working classes tends 
 to show that wages furnish on]3' a bare subsistence. We 
 refer the reader to pages 99-109 and following for the 
 evidence iu detail of this suffering. 
 
 The want af proper and sufficient food engenders neafl^^ 
 all the ills that flesh is heir to. Men do not drop down 
 dead from starvation ; it would often be a '• blessing big 
 with mercy " if they did. The process of starvation is slow, 
 torturing the mind, and breeding disease. The victim dies 
 by inches, and thus suffers a living death. Professor Walker 
 accurately describes the inception and progress of starvation. 
 When for a family of seven, wages will no longer buy suffi- 
 cient food, one victim will not be selected from the seven 
 and set apart to starve while the rest are fed, but all will 
 try to live on scantier food. Laborers can live for single 
 days on what they could not live for a week ; they can live 
 for a single week on what they could not for all the weeks 
 of the month ; and they can live for years on one-half what 
 would be necessary to keep them in robust health and 
 strength for efficient labor.^ 
 
 The aged and the young are less able to endure privation. 
 " Yet even when each succumbs to his turn, the nursing child 
 and the young man in his strength, the chances are that it 
 is to some distinct form of disease for which privation has 
 prepared the way. Thus in Ireland, when the annual num- 
 ber of deaths rose from 77,754, the average of the three 
 preceding years, to 122,889 in 184G, and 249,335 in 1847, 
 it was from fever, and not from literal starvation, that the 
 great mass of victims died." ^ 
 
 The amount of suffering, however, endured by laborers 
 and their families is not to be estimated by the number of 
 deaths from privation, but from the hundred-fold larger 
 luimber who continue to live in privation. The starving far 
 exceed the starved : in any single year the ill-clad and shel- 
 tered far exceed those dead from exposure and cold. 
 
 " Professor Fawcett quotes the poor-law inspectors [Great 
 Britian] as stating that one-fifth in number of the population 
 are insufficiently clothed. Insufficiency of clothing means, 
 1 " Tlie Wages Question," p. 111. ^ Ibid. 
 
132 THE FIVE POSTULATES OF SOCIALISM 
 
 of course, feebleness of working and excessive sickness and 
 mortality." ^ In the city of Leeds, with a population of 
 more than 250,000, not a single laborer or mechanic owns 
 his own house.^ In Massachusetts, in 1875, only one male 
 laborer in a hundred owned a home. The case«is still worse 
 at the present time and is daily growing worse. Is this 
 evil to grow till it reaches the frightful proportions that 
 exist in New York and London ? When the ordinary 
 laborer can no longer own a house, he will be ill-housed. 
 To be insufficiently clothed and ill-housed is to suffer not 
 only physically, but mentally and morally to a degree that 
 renders life a burden. 
 
 " It is not to die," says Carlyle, " or even to die of hunger, 
 that makes a man wretched ; many men have died ; all men 
 must die. But it is to live miserably,- we know not why; 
 to work sore and yet gain nothing; tobe heartworn, weary, 
 yet isolated, unrelated, girt in with a cold universal laissez- 
 faire." It is this condition of suffering on the part of 
 laborers that supports the Postulate that wages furnish a 
 bare subsistence. We are accustomed to commiserate the 
 wretchedness of laborers in feudal times, and to exhort the 
 discontented wage-workers of the present day to contrast 
 their improved condition with that of serfs and vassals ; but 
 Mr. Thorold Eogers, a most competent and impartial wit- 
 ness, declares "that the English workman was better off 
 four hundred years ago than he is to-day, — not only rela- 
 tively, but positively better off; that the real wages were 
 higher then than now." ° In statements like these Socialism 
 finds abundant reason for its arraignment of the wage- 
 system. 
 
 It is conceded that in the working of this system, wages 
 cannot be permanently raised. Laborers, therefore, must 
 continue to suffer hunger and cold, nakedness and death. 
 Can there be any doubt that, unless relief comes from 
 sources not now apparent, the grand jury of the people 
 will yet find a true bill of indictment against the wage- 
 
 1 As quoted in " "Work and Wages " (Rogers), p. 58. 
 
 2 " Springfield Daily Union," Sept. 25, 1888. 
 
 ' As quoted in " Applied Christianity " (Gladden), p. 63. 
 
THE WAGES OF LABOR FURNISH BARE SUBSISTENCE 133 
 
 system, and bring it to trial and condemnation before the 
 bar of an enlightened public opinion ? 
 
 The Postulate under consideration appears to be an out- 
 come of the principle which regards labor as a commodity, 
 the price of which is to be determined by the cost of pro- 
 duction. Eicardo and his school regarded this principle 
 as an economic axiom. It is admitted that the present 
 industrial system, with its formulated political economy, 
 supports this theory, and eminent scholars and philan- 
 thropists have seemed to sanction it. Adam Smith says, 
 " The real price of everything, what everything really costs 
 to the man who wants to acquire it, is the toil and trouble 
 of acquiring it." ' Mr. Joseph Cook says, " The cost of 
 producing labor should determine the price of labor." ^ 
 " No one will, I believe, question that, in the economical 
 sense, the support of each generation of laborers should be 
 charged against its own wages, just as truly as that a far- 
 mer, in solving the question whether a cow dying at a cer- 
 tain age had paid for herself, would set against the pro- 
 ceeds of the sales of her milk or butter the expense of rear- 
 ing her." ' 
 
 There is something repulsive in the idea that a certain 
 class of citizens should be set off by themselves, and placed 
 beside cows for economic estimation. We object to this 
 theory for the following reasons : — 
 
 (1.) It is the law applied to the products of industry, and 
 assumes that laborers are to be ranked with commodities. 
 The very idea of estimating men by the cost in dollars and 
 cents of producing them is offensive. Men and women 
 cost something besides money ; they are not commodities. 
 The rearing of human beings, even among the lowest classes, 
 is in no sense a manufactory, or mine, or farm for the pro- 
 duction of economic goods. 
 
 We protest against its being treated as a mere industrial 
 affair to be measured by money. What price shall be put 
 on the pangs and perils of child-birth, or the tears and 
 
 ' " The "Wealth of Nations " (Rogers' Edition), p. 31. 
 
 a " Labor," p. 227. 
 
 8 " The "Wages Question " ("Walker) , p. 34. 
 
134 THE FIVE POSTULATES OP SOCIALISM 
 
 fears and heart-aches of anxious parents ? When a child 
 is stricken with dise.'ise we can estimate the cost of a phy- 
 sician and nurse, but what price shall be put on the night 
 vigils, the mental torture, the agonizing prayers of loving 
 fathers and mothers, however poor and humble their lot 
 in life ? Political economy, coolly ignoring all these fac- 
 tors, lays down the proposition that the laborer is worth 
 only the money-cost of producing him. 
 
 The truth is, the entire conception of man on which this 
 theory proceeds is not only unchristian, but inhuman and 
 barbarous. 
 
 Man is not merely an animal ; he is a rational being with 
 spiritual affections and hopes, that take hold on eternity, 
 and possessed of an immortal soul of more value than all 
 the mines and machinery, tools and stocks, of ten thousand 
 worlds. In the question, " What shall it profit a man if he 
 gain the whole world and lose his own soul ? " God puts 
 infinite value upon the soul of man, and this Scriptural 
 estimate accords with the highest reason, with the moral 
 sense, and with the soundest philosophy ; it is diametrically 
 opposed, however, to that worship of mammon which 
 characterizes our age and especially our country. 
 
 (2.) We object to this rule, not only because it applies 
 the law of merchandise to men, but because it actually de- 
 grades men below the rank of commodities, and, as a law of 
 political economy governing the price of merchandise, is 
 untenable. In other words, the cost of production does not 
 actually determine prices ; and if it did, and applied to 
 laborers, they would rank below brutes. For example, it 
 costs in the United States $200 to raise a horse, and you 
 pay f 3 per day for the use of it. It costs f 2,000 to raise a 
 laborer, and you pay him $1.50 per day. The contract price 
 in England for raising an orphan to the age of eleven years 
 is $660.' We do not, however, base our estimate on the cost 
 of rearing orphans and paupers in England to the age of 
 eleven years, but on the cost of rearing respectable Ameri- 
 can working men. Now, if we compare wages with horse- 
 hire, with reference to the cost of production, we find that, 
 
 1 " Tlie Wages Question " (Walker), p. 33, 
 
THE WAGES OF LABOR FUBXISH BABE SUBSISTENCE 135 
 
 while it costs ten times as much to rear a mau as to raise 
 a horse, you pay only one-half as much for the use of the 
 man as for the use of the horse. If paid at the same rate, 
 the laborer would receive f 30 per day. But it is replied, 
 '■ A man can work twice the years that a horse can work." 
 Very well, reduce his wages one-half, and still he would 
 receive f 15 per day for his labor. But you. say again, 
 '•' f 3 per day will pay for a driving-horse, whereas a com- 
 mon work-horse can be had for f 1.50 per day, and it is 
 the common laborer who receives only f 1.60 per day." 
 Very well, you have reduced the hire of the horse one- 
 half ; let us make the same reduction in the case of the 
 man, and we have instead of $16, $7.60 per day as the 
 wages of the common laborer. 
 
 These wages are indeed high ; but let no employer fear, 
 for they cannot be paid till the laborer is raised to the rank 
 of a horse. We are not attempting to show that laborers 
 should receive $7.60 per day, but that, when rated with 
 horses in relation to the cost of production, they are valued 
 exactly five times less. The fact is, livery men adopt no 
 such basis in, letting horses. They must have a 'profit. 
 The same is true in the sale of commodities generally. It 
 is not the cost of production that determines prices. The 
 actual price of manufactured goods, what one has to pay 
 for them, is the cost of raw material, wages, salaries, inter- 
 est, rent, taxes, insurance, wear and tear — in a word, the 
 entire cost of production and another item, namely, -profits. 
 If wages are measured solely by the cost of producing labor, 
 it follows that laborers are economically ranked below a 
 pair of boots or a bar of soap. 
 
 (3.) The absurdity of this theory is apparent if we use the 
 term labor in its broadest sense, so as to include profes- 
 sional workers. It costs equal sums to produce two law- 
 yers, physicians, teachers,or ministers ; yet one receives $600 
 and the other $5,000 per year. It may cost as much to 
 rear a ward politician as the President of the United States, 
 but the former receives $2 and the latter $160 per day. 
 A letter-carrier and the Postmaster-General may cost alike, 
 but the former receives $800 and the latter .flO.OOO per 
 
136 THE FIVE POSTULATES OF SOCIALISM 
 
 year. What has cost of production to do with price of 
 concrete service here, or, indeed, when applied to free men 
 under any circumstances ? 
 
 It seems perfectly clear that the cost of maintenance to- 
 gether with a surplus corresponding to profits, and not cost 
 of production, should determine the price of labor; and 
 maintenance, should include provisions for social, political, 
 educational, and religious duties and privileges as becomes 
 men free-born, God-imaged, and immortal. 
 
 Mr. Rae, perceiving the logical consequences of this vi- 
 cious principle, first attempts to explain it so as to refute 
 Socialists, then, as if suspecting the futility of his explana- 
 tion, flatly denies its validity. His words are, " That doc- 
 trine itself is wrong. ... A natural or normal rate of 
 wages depends ... on the average productivity of labor." ' 
 That it ouglit so to depend is evident ; that it does not is 
 equally evident. 
 
 The machinery in the mills of Great Britain alone has so 
 increased the productivity of labor, that it equals 600,000,- 
 000 men, or more than all the adult laborers on the globe. 
 In other words, the productivity of labor has increased 
 thirty-fold. Will it be pretended that wages have increased 
 thirty-fold ? Mr. Gladstone says that " the manufacturing 
 power of the world doubles every seven years." Do wages 
 double at the same rate ? 
 
 On the contrary, Mr. Rogers declares that the laborer is 
 worse off than he was 400 years ago. Thus Mr. Rae, in at- 
 tempting to avoid Scylla, falls into Charybdis. But it may 
 be replied, " It is not said that wages increase j^ari passu 
 with the productivity of labor ; " but if the productivity of 
 labor increases faster than wages, which few will deny, 
 then the wage class is being pushed farther down in the in- 
 dustrial and social scale ; then the tendency is toward a 
 minimum of wages ; then Socialists and economists are right.] 
 
 Professor Walker, in his philosophy of wages, takes 
 higher ground. He shows that production, rather than any 
 wage-fund, furnishes the measure of wages, and declares 
 not that it actually determines the rate of wages, but that 
 " the wages-class is entitled to the immeditate benefit of 
 
 1 " Conteinpovary Socialism," p. 332, 
 
THE WAGES OF LABOK FURNISH BAKE SUBSISTENCE 137 
 
 every improvement in science and art, every discovery of 
 resources in nature, every advance in their own industrial 
 character." ^ 
 
 Bravely said, but the golden truth is the fruit of a higher 
 political economy than is now current. 
 
 This would be a different world if wage-workers thus 
 shared in the distribution of wealth ; but is this result prob- 
 able, nay, is it possible, under an industrial system based 
 on private capital, free competition, and freedom of con- 
 tract ? 
 
 The wage-system is admirably adapted to blind the eyes 
 to the manner in which the laborer is wronged. Wages are 
 estimated and paid in money. The amount received iB prima 
 facie equal to the value of his services, or their exchange 
 value ; but the real value, or value in use, is this amount plus 
 what the employer receives for these services, and this value 
 in use the laborer has no means of knowing. Instead of a 
 money payment, were he paid in kind, as formerly, he could 
 see what proportion of the fruit of his labor went to the em- 
 ployer ; or, if he worked for the latter one day and for him- 
 self five, as under the feudal system, he would not be 
 deceived ; but when paid in money he seems to be working 
 for himself all the time, whereas he is really working for 
 his employer so many hours, and creating for him so much 
 value that he grows rich, while the laborer remains poor, 
 although receiving as high wages perhaps as he has de- 
 manded. Thus by the wages-system the employer is en- 
 abled to appropriate all the surplus value created by the 
 laborer. This Socialists declare to be the secret and 
 method of the exploitation of the laborer. 
 
 The present philosophy of political economy must regard 
 labor as a commodity ; but the question pressing for solu- 
 tion is, how to regard labor as a commodity, and the la- 
 borer as a man and a brother ; and unless a solution in 
 harmony with ethical science, based on the divine revelation 
 of human brotherhood, shall be forthcoming, the whole 
 theory that labor is a commodity must be abandoned, along 
 with its degrading and inhuman corollary that wages 
 should be determined by the cost of producing laborers. 
 
 1 " The Wages Question," p. 441. 
 
138 THE FIVE POSTULATES OF SOCIALISM 
 
 The reward of labor, instead of furnishing a bare subsist- 
 ence, should be, as Adam Smith declared, the product of 
 labor. " The product of labor constitutes the natural rec- 
 ompense, or wages of labor." ' Here we have the simple, 
 sole, and unalterable law of wages, which capitalism must 
 obscure and deny at the peril of its life. 
 
 Wages which degrade men industrially and socially are 
 not the natural rate. The natural rate of wages, morally 
 expressed, is such as will fill our city governments, legisla- 
 tures, congress, and presidential chair with laborers, who 
 should constitute all the people. A government of the 
 people, by the people, and for the people is a farce, when 
 nine-tenths of these same people are practically shut out 
 from all participation in the management of public af- 
 fairs by a plutocracy whose power springs from a vicious 
 standard of wages. 
 
 The natural and the Christian law of wages, then, is the 
 total product of labor. This law can never prevail under 
 the capitalistic system. 
 
 As long as there are private capitalists, so long will there 
 be and must be the exploitation of the laborer ; hence the 
 demand for Socialism. 
 
 If it be regarded as ideal and impracticable, we reply so 
 has every advance in human society and nearly every insti- 
 tution that now blesses mankind. If it cuts across prevail- 
 ing modes of thought and accepted dogmas of political 
 economy, we submit to every candid mind that accepts the 
 ethics of the Golden Rule, that it accords perfectly with 
 the eternal principles of truth, justice, and mercy as be- 
 tween man and man. 
 
 V. — The Public Ownershif and Control of Capital. 
 
 " No laws, no customs, no rights of property are so sacred that they 
 may not be made away with, if it can be clearly shown that they stand 
 in the way of the greatest happiness. Sahis populi ; svprema lex." 
 
 W. Stanley Jevons. 
 
 The Postulates of Socialism, thus far considered, consti- 
 tute the rationale of critical Socialism. 
 
 The fifth and last Postulate concerns remedial or con- 
 
 1 " The Wealth of Nations " (Rogers' Edition), vol. 1 p. RT. 
 
THE PUBLIC OWNERSHIP AND CONTKOL OF CAPITAL 139 
 
 structive Socialism, and demands the public ownership and 
 control of the means of production. Land and other capi- 
 tal should belong to the State, which should manage all 
 business, agriculture, manufacturing, mining, transportation, 
 and trade. The State would thus be the only employer and 
 erery citizen an employee. 
 
 The International working men's association says, " The 
 liberation of work requires that the means of production be 
 converted into the common property of society." 
 
 Baboeuf declared that the State should be " Sole proprietor 
 and sole employer." Rodbertus held that labor could never 
 receive its share of products till the State owned and con- 
 trolled the instruments and means of production. Marx 
 and Lassalle reiterate the same views. 
 
 The first demand in the Platform of the Socialistic Labor 
 Party is " That the land, the instruments of production, 
 (machines, factories, etc.), and the products of labor become 
 the common property of the whole people ; and that all the 
 productions be organized co-operatively, and be carried on 
 under the direction of the Commonwealth." ^ 
 
 The three pillars of individualism are -capital, contract, 
 and competition, free and individual. 
 
 We have seen that in the industrial evolution these prin- 
 ciples have reached a stage of development which threatens 
 society. 
 
 They would each disappear under State ownership of 
 capital. 
 
 Under capitalism no man can acquire riches, except at the 
 expense of his fellow-men. This exploitation is possible 
 only through society, which is the State. The State there- 
 fore ought to put an end to it by assuming control of in- 
 dustry, whicL would equalize the burdens and benefits of 
 life, by furnishing all with honorable labor, and banishing 
 needless want and suffering. 
 
 It will be seen that Socialism in demanding this change in- 
 volves nothing less than a new science of political economy. 
 
 Socialism would not disturb private property, but private 
 capital only. 
 
 1 " The Labor Movement in America " (Ely), p. 368. 
 
140 THE FIVE POSTULATES OF SOCIALISM 
 
 Whatever ministers to personal comfort, — clothing, furni- 
 ture, books, plate, pictures, dwellings, horses and carriages, 
 in short, all personal belongings, and all property except 
 capital, — 'property employed to gain more property, — would 
 be owned and enjoyed by the individual. 
 
 It is this doctrine of State-ownership that is peculiar to 
 Socialism. " The Alpha and Omega of Socialism," says 
 iShaeffte, "is the transmutation of private, competing capi- 
 tal into united collective capital." With the absorption of 
 capital by the State, freedom of contract would disappear ; 
 competition, which is war, would forever hide its hideous 
 face ; money, the means of capitalistic exploitation, would 
 disappear : no one would have occasion to buy or sell, as the 
 State would pay all its employees in the commodities which 
 their needs and tastes required. 
 
 Society has become so complex, and men have become so 
 dependent upon eacli other, the State, for its own preserva- 
 tion, must assume new duties. An industrially organized 
 Commonwealth is becoming a necessity : it accords with the 
 newer and truer conception of the nature of the State. The 
 State is no longer the king, or the pope, or the aristocracy, 
 but the people ; and why should not the people, all the peo- 
 ple, fix their own prices, work, and wages? This is not 
 paternalism, or individualism, but fraternity in government. 
 The advantages of State ownership will be considered in 
 another chapter. The principle, which is the foundation of 
 Socialism, will be examined in the remainder of this chapter. 
 
 1. Equity demands State ownership. 
 
 Many regard the present conflict between labor and capi- 
 tal as a transient phenomenon, due to the restless spirit of 
 the age, or to causes temporary in their nature. Among 
 these are people who have bestowed on the social question 
 but a passing thought occasioned by some lurid flash of the 
 angry fires raging within the industrial body. Others believe 
 their private interests depend on the maintenance of the 
 present order. Others agdin, and they are many, led by 
 gross misrepresentations of the principles of Socialism, have 
 identified it with anarchy, the thought of which fills them 
 with horror. 
 
THE PUBLIC OWNERSHIP AND CONTROL OF CAPITAL 141 
 
 Now, of all this class it is sufficient to say that they 
 ignore the great fact that Socialism is first and foremost a 
 question of equity. The difference between a moral ques- 
 tion and one of mere expediency, is that the former does 
 not admit of two sides, while the latter may admit of a 
 dozen. Socialism is a moral question. 
 
 We do not say it is only that, but its ethical tap-root is 
 social justice ; and this has no two sides. Socialism, there- 
 fore, refuses to be treated merely from the standpoint of 
 expediency. 
 
 Here is the ground and explanation of the martyr-spirit 
 shown by many of its advocates. It is because all hope 
 of social justice under capitalism is despaired of, that the 
 socialization of capital is demanded. The laissez-faire age 
 of industry, wherein government permits industrial an- 
 ■ archy, holding itself bound merely to keep the peace be- 
 tween all competitors in tlie fierce struggle for bread and 
 gold, has had its day. We grant that it has stimulated 
 production and created unexampled wealth, which may yet, 
 however, prove to be our Trojan Horse. 
 
 During the reign of laissez-faire, an insupportable evil, 
 inherent in the system, has grown up that can only be 
 removed by removing the cause. This evil is the separa- 
 tion of society into two classes, the bourgeoisie and the 
 proletariat (capitalist and laborer), by a gulf daily widen- 
 ing and deepening. As Talleyrand declared, " Society is 
 divided into two classes, the shearers and the shorn." For- 
 merly classes were separated by barriers of birth, servi- 
 tude, or other social conditions that seemed to have the 
 sanction of the Almighty, and hence were regarded as impas- 
 sable. Men were content to remain in the rank to which 
 it was believed God had assigned them. 
 
 All this has passed. The present belief is that God, 
 since he is no Eespecter of persons, but the common Father, 
 is not the author of social palisades between his children, 
 but the proud, rapacious, and insolent heart of man has set up 
 under cover of laissez-faire an economic barrier more harsh 
 and unendurable than has ever before existed. When ine- 
 qualities were supposed to be ordained of God, the superior 
 
142 THE FIVE POSTULATES OF SOCIALISM 
 
 could safely treat his inferior as a man now treats his horse ; 
 i.e., considerately, with an eye to the welfare of the horse, 
 because the inferior did not, any more than the horse, as- 
 pire to be his equal. The master then protected his slave, 
 the lord, his vassal. He was legally and morally bound to 
 do it. The laborers' sense of dependence was accompanied 
 by a sense of support and protection which rendered his 
 condition tolerable. The result was a mutuality of interest 
 and feeling that was a real bond between social classes. 
 
 Laissez-faire has completely severed this bond. Mutu- 
 ality of interest has disappeared. Laissez-faire has made 
 all men legally free in the field of industry. To make men, 
 however, who are physically and mentally unequal, free to 
 ply their arts of speculation with and upon each other, is 
 to allow the strong to prey upon the weak and the cunning 
 to ensnare the innocent. 
 
 Competition knows nothing of sympathy. Capitalism is 
 merciless to dependent laborers. Under the regime of 
 industrial freedom, capitalists may fleece laborers, but are 
 under no obligation to protect them. Indeed, they could 
 not protect them were they so disposed, except as objects 
 of charity : but Grod have mercy on the man or class whose 
 well-being depends on charity ! But if this is the hard lot 
 of laborers generally under the present system, what shall 
 be said of the weak and unfortunate classes ? Laissezfaire 
 and competition have not overlooked these. Speaking by 
 the mouth of Spencer, they dispose of these after this fash- 
 ion: "The shouldering aside the weak by the strong, which 
 leaves so many in shallows and miseries, is the decree of 
 a large, foreseeing benevolence, regarded not separately, 
 but in connection with the interests of universal humanity. 
 To step in between weakness and its consequences suspends 
 the progress of weeding out those of lower development." ' 
 Such is the exact and merciless logic of the accepted but 
 cruel inhumanity, the refined but infernal barbarism, of our 
 industrial system. Its edict, put forth in the name of 
 "benevolence," is, let the weak seethe and writhe in the 
 
 1 As quoted in " Modern Socialism " (Gronlund), p. 79. 
 
THE PUBLIC OWNERSHIP AND CONTROL OF CAPITAL 143 
 
 caldroa of these " shallows and miseries " till death takes 
 them off. 
 
 On this commandment hang all the law and the prophets 
 of laissez-faire. There is indeed under competition but 
 just one thing for our weaker brethren to do, and that is to 
 die as soon as possible. It is enough to make the angels 
 shiver, but truth compels us to say, that, in spite of Chris- 
 tianity, there was more real brotherhood between the 
 ancient master and slave, or lord and vassal, than there is 
 to-day between employer and employee. 
 
 The hopelessness of the laborer's condition is pointed out 
 by economists" and others. Professor Cairnes says he is 
 " unaware of any rule of justice applioable to the problem, of 
 distributing the produce of industries." Again he says, 
 "that should justice be so applied as to destroy the funda- 
 mental assumptions of our economic system, capital would 
 be destroyed or infinitely curtailed." ^ Here is a note of 
 blank despair. 
 
 Justice cannot be done under the present system, but if 
 we disturb the system, we are ruined! Very well; let us 
 have justice and take the consequences. We agree with 
 Carlyle when he says, " Hunger, nakedness, death even, 
 may be borne sometimes with cheerfulness, but injustice is 
 insupportable to all men." 
 
 Professor Cairnes deplores the unequal distribution of 
 wealth, but insists that " the tendency of industrial pro- 
 gress ... is toward an inequality greater still ? " and de- 
 clares that "the first and indispensable step toward any 
 serious amendment of the laborer's lot is that he should 
 be . . . placed in a position compatible with his becoming 
 a sharer, in equal proportion with others, in the general 
 advantages arising from industrial progress." This is the 
 quintessence of Socialism. But how can this, "the first 
 and indispensable step," be taken ? State ownership is the 
 only answer. 
 
 Justice must be king, no matter what becomes of eco- 
 nomic assumptions, or systems of industry. A man or 
 
 ' As quoted in " Communism and Socialism " (Woolsey), p. 170. 
 
144 THE FIVE POSTULATES OF SOCIALISM 
 
 principle backed by justice has God on his side and must 
 ultimately win. 
 
 So conservative and cautious a writer as Dr. Theodore 
 Woolsey says if the " free use of private property must 
 end in making a few capitalists of enormous wealth and a 
 vast population of laborers dependent on them ; and if there 
 be no choice between this disease of free society and the 
 swallowing-up of all property by the State, then we admit 
 it would be hard to choose between the two evils. 
 
 Nothing would lead the mass of men to embrace Social- 
 ism sooner than the conviction that this enormous accumu- 
 lation of capital in a few hands was to be not only an evil 
 in fact, if not prevented, but a necessary evil, beyond pre- 
 vention. ... A revolution, slow or rapid, would certainly 
 bring about a new order of things." ' 
 
 Centralization of property in a few hands is already "an 
 evil in fact." As every cause necessitates an effect, it is 
 " a necessary evil," and daily increasing in magnitude and 
 malignancy. 
 
 The most striking thing, however, about this statement by 
 Dr. Woolsey is, that it would " be hard to choose between " 
 subjecting a vast population of laborers dependent on " a 
 few capitalists of enormous wealth," and the alternative 
 of State ownership ; that is, between the industrial slavery 
 of the great bulk of the people, and the people's ownership 
 and management of their own property, for the general 
 weal. We say this is a strange utterance. We had to read 
 it repeatedly to satisfy ourselves that this was its real im- 
 port. It shows how a mind of superb culture and candor, 
 trained under the influences of capitalism, will cling to an 
 existing system, while admitting that its flesh has become 
 leprous and its bones rotten. 
 
 This fact, however, gives additional value to his testimony 
 as to the hoplessness of labor under the present system, 
 unless its evil tendencies be counteracted. Can they be coun- 
 teracted and the system maintained ? This is the question 
 thoughtful men are asking. Socialism answers no. An in- 
 
 l " Communism and Socialism " (Woolsey), pp. 297, 298. 
 
THE PUBLIC OWNERSHIP AND CONTROL OF CAPITAL 145 
 
 creasing number of writers and students of the social ques- 
 tion are refusing to say yes. 
 
 Thousands who shun the name of Socialists are advo- 
 cating measures of State ownership. Remedial laws have 
 been enacted shortening the hours of labor, protecting women 
 and children, sanctioning labor organizations, instituting 
 labor bureaus, promoting the health of operatives, providing 
 for arbitration between employer and employees, and extend- 
 ing political privileges to all classes ; and yet, along with all 
 this, the real evil continues ; capital accumulates, labor is 
 depressed, working men feel a keen sense of injustice, and 
 everywhere the social auguries become less and less propi- 
 tious. 
 
 2. Christianity demands State ownership. 
 
 We refer not to the Christianity taught in certain churches, 
 which are more properly Sunday clubs, but the Christianity 
 of Christ. The essence of this as respects man's relation 
 to his fellows, is brotherhood, and this is the watchword of 
 Socialism. 
 
 The essence of brotherhood is love. " Thou shalt love 
 thy neighbor as thyself ; " and " Love worketh no ill to his 
 neighbor ; therefore love is the fulfilling of the law." 
 
 The present system does work ill to our neighbors, there. 
 ,fore it is not consonant with love. State ownership implies 
 a community of interests which is a powerful if not an in- 
 dispensable spur to the exercise of brotherly love. 
 
 The word Socialism is a glorious word ! It means, we all. 
 Its opposite is Individualism, which means, I myself . Social- 
 ism says, " Our Father." Individualism says " My Father." 
 So with the gospel Socialism says, " Love seeketh not her 
 own." Individualism says, " Let every man seek his own 
 interest." Socialism with the gospel says, " Look not every 
 man on his own things, but every man on the things of 
 another." It requires him to provide for his own and also 
 for others. 
 
 This is the basal doctrine of Socialism expressed in the 
 formula " each for all, and all for each." There is more of 
 Christ and Him crucified in that little modest formula, than 
 in all the tomes of theology ever written, than in all the 
 
146 THE FIVE POSTULATES 0¥ SOCIALISM 
 
 creeds of Christendom, or in all tlie economic and philo- 
 sophical maxims of the world. 
 
 The extreme opposite principle is self-interest, and self- 
 interest is antipodal to the gospel precept of self-denial as 
 laid down by Christ, " Let him deny himself." Self-inter- 
 est caused the angels to fall.- It was the head of self-interest 
 that the Seed of the woman was sent to bruise : self-inter- 
 est, for thirty pieces of silver betrayed the Saviour of the 
 world: it is self-interest which inspires every crime that is 
 committed, whose hands are dripping with all the human 
 blood ever shed by man, and which is the sole cause of all 
 earth's woes : self-interest is the fiend that will continue to 
 roam up and down in the earth seeking whom he may de- 
 vour, till God shall finally cast him into the bottomless pit. 
 
 Notwithstanding this, self-interest is openly and unblush- 
 ingly avowed to be the corner-stone of the present and 
 the best possible system ; the angel of light that shall scat- 
 ter social darkness and bring " Peace on earth and good- 
 will to men." When we behold such diabolism, arrayed in 
 sheep's clothing, crystallized into an axiom of political econ- 
 omy, and made the guiding business principle of wise and 
 good men who profess loyalty to the Christian Scriptures, 
 we ask in all seriousness will the foundations of justice 
 ever be laid again on earth ? Was Bryant drea,ming when 
 he wrote, — 
 
 " Truth crushed to earth will rise again ; 
 The eternal years of God are hers." 
 
 If the. moral principles which support the claims of State 
 ownership accord with Christianity, we should naturally 
 expect the advocates of Socialists to entertain strong reli- 
 gious convictions. 
 
 3. Socialists have generally associated the principles of 
 State ownership with the religious sentiment. 
 
 The history of all communistic movements confirms this 
 opinion, Socialism and Communism agree in demanding 
 public ownership of capital. They agree in condemning 
 pride of wealth, and in advocating such an equal distribu- 
 tion of economic goods as to render it impossible. 
 
THE PUBLIC OWKERSHIP AND CONTBOL OF CAPITAL 147 
 
 This much at least may be said of those early comiium- 
 istic societies, the Buddhist monks, who at first dwelt 
 in solitude or were wandering mendicants ; the Jewish 
 Essenes ; the Egyptian Therapeutae ; the Christian Com- 
 nuinists of Jerusalem ; the later orders of Eomish mo- 
 nasticism ; and the Anabaptists of Miinster who figured 
 for a short time in the sixteenth century. The religious 
 spirit prompted and pervaded these orders. Asceticism, 
 meditation, separation from the world, and worship, were 
 not, however, their only features. 
 
 The principle of Community of Goods (State ownership) 
 characterized them all, and they rested the institution on 
 the common fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of 
 man, which the gospel of Christ everywhere emphasizes. 
 
 The religious element has been no less conspicuous among 
 the more modern Socialists, if we except the latest phase 
 of Socialism, or perhaps we should say of social democracy. 
 This hostility to religion is not directed against Christian- 
 ity, but against the current perversion of it as taught in 
 the schools and churches. 
 
 That the gospel, as now conceived in respect to riches, 
 pride, caste, the relation of the strong to the weak, the love 
 of brotherhood, and the modes of their expression, is an- 
 other gospel than that taught by Christ cannot be denied. 
 
 BabcBuf, a Frenchman, born in 1794 and guillotined at 
 the age of thirty-three, organized a communistic party on 
 the basal principle that " in a true society there ought to 
 be neither rich nor poor." 
 
 This declaration sounds like an inspired paraphrase on 
 the Scripture, " Give me neither poverty nor riches." 
 
 St. Simon, another Erenchman, was the founder of the 
 order of St. Simonism. He was born in Paris of noble 
 family in 1760. Before he was of age he crossed the 
 Atlantic and fought for American independence. Freedom, 
 equality, and justice were to him the foremost considera- 
 tions among men. To the promotion of these principles 
 he gave his life. He was a philosopher, a writer of merit, 
 and a pure and true lover of his fellow-man, which entitles 
 him to be forever held in grateful remembrance. He sac- 
 
148 THE FIVE POSTULATES OF SOCIALISM 
 
 ritioed everything that men hold dear in the way of prop- 
 erty, honor, and power for the improvement of society, and 
 died in 1825 in the deepest poverty, but in fervent hope 
 that society was about to reap a glorious harvest from the 
 principles which he had sown. ■^ 
 
 The scene at his death reminds us of the last hours of 
 Christ and his disciples. He called his followers to his 
 bedside and said, " For twelve days, my friends, I have been 
 occupied with plans designed to assure the success of our 
 enterprise. . . . The fruit is ripe ; you are able to gather it. 
 The last of my labors, the New Christianity, will not be 
 immediately understood. . . . Eodrigues, do not forget, but 
 remember that .to accomplish grand deeds you must be en- 
 thusiastic. All my life is comprised in this one thought: 
 to guarantee to all men the freest development of their 
 faculties." ^ 
 
 In a few moments he raised his hand to his head and 
 died. His book, " The New Christianity," was the Bible of 
 his socialistic followers. St. Siraonism embraced among its 
 adherents a number of eminent men, among whom were 
 scholars, historians, philosophers, and political economists. 
 Professor Ely, in concluding an interesting account of his 
 work, speaks thus : " St. Simon has ceased to be the 
 prophet of a religious school, but he did not sacrifice life 
 and happiness in vain. He still lives in the lives and 
 actions of men." ^ 
 
 St. Simon's views of man in his relation to labor and 
 his fellows were in perfect harmony with the gospel of 
 Christ. He says, " In the New Christianity all morality 
 will be derived immediately from this principle ; men 
 ought to regard each other as brothers. This principle, 
 which belongs to primitive Christianity, will receive a glori- 
 fication. . . . Religion must aid society in its chief pur- 
 pose, which is the most rapid improvement in the lot of 
 the poor."' 
 
 It would seem as if his thought had been inspired by the 
 
 ' " French and German Socialism " (Ely), p. 61. 
 2 Ibid., p. 79. 3 Ibid., pp. 65-68. 
 
THE PUBLIC 0WNERSHI1> AND CONTROL OF CAPITAL 149 
 
 tender and beautiful precept of the gospel, " Bear ye one 
 another's burdens and so fulfil the law of Christ." 
 
 Among modern socialistic movements none have exerted 
 a wider influence than Tourierism, named after its founder, 
 Charles Fourier, of the same nationality as St. Simon, and 
 born in 1772. He endeavored to work out in an a priori 
 manner a true philosophy of society and of the universe. 
 
 His social system, which he believed would bring har- 
 mohy where all is now discord, he supported, not only, by 
 persistent faith and devotion, but by several important pub- 
 lications. He perceived, as none before him had done, the 
 vast and beneficent results of association both of labor and 
 capital. He would divide society into phalanxes, in which, 
 in spite of inequalities, the interests of one would be the 
 interests of all. 
 
 To Fourier and his adherents, more than to any others, is 
 due the agitation that has resulted in modern legislation in 
 the interests of labor and of sanitary reform. The social- 
 istic community at Guise, France, founded by M. Godin, 
 himself a Fourierist, has aclrieved notable success, and its 
 reputation is already worldwide. 
 
 Its declaration of principles contains such precepts as 
 these: "To love others as one's self." "To act towards 
 others as you would wish that they should act towards 
 you," "To make our abilities conduce to the perfection of 
 our existence and that of others," " To unite together and 
 give support to one another." 
 
 Fourier founds his entire system of organized industry 
 upon these four factors : " good morals ; the accord of the 
 three classes — rich, middle, and poor ; the discontinuance 
 of party quarrels, the cessation of pests, revolutions, and 
 fiscal penury ; and universal unity." 
 
 But this is only a free translation and a practical reali- 
 zation of the angelic song, " On earth peace, good will to 
 men." Fourierism has made thirty-four different experi- 
 ments in this country. Among the first was the Brook 
 Farm movement, near Boston, in 1840. It was supported 
 by such men as Hawthorne, Channing, Theodore Parker, 
 Horace Greeley, Charles A. Dana, and George W. Curtis. 
 
160 THE FIVE POSTULATES OF SOCIALISM 
 
 Its essential principles were choice of work, one rate of 
 wages, and common warehouses. Owing to a destructive 
 fire, its existence was of short duration. Its representative 
 paper said: "The life of the world is now the Christian 
 life. For eighteen centuries art, literature, philosophy, 
 poetry, have followed the fortunes of the Christian idea. 
 '• Modern history is the history of revealed religion. In 
 vain will anything try to be which is not supported 
 thereby." John Humphrey Noyes, founder of the Onej-da 
 and Wallingford communities, and author of "American 
 Socialism," declares that the religious spirit is an indispen- 
 sable condition of success. 
 
 The Shakers came out from the Society of Friends and 
 migrated from England in 1774, under the leadership of 
 Ann Lee, who claimed to be led by a direct revelation from 
 Grod. They have twelve settlements in New York and New 
 England, and own 50,000 acres of land. In 1874 they had 
 a total population of 25,000. They hold to a community 
 of goods, derived from the early Christian church at 
 Jerusalem. The Shaker settl-ements are marvels of neat- 
 ness, sobriety, thrift, economy, and business sagacity, and 
 are conspicuous for their religion and morality. 
 
 About iifty years ago Cabet, a Frenchman, and author 
 of the " Travels in Icaria," a book inspired by Sir Thomas 
 More's "Utopia," and which Professor Ely describes as "a 
 really fascinating book," came to this country and established 
 a communistic settlement at Nauvoo, 111. 
 
 It numbered 1,500. The society still exists, although 
 greatly reduced in number. Cabet was a great and good 
 man. Amid most trying circumstances, he and his followers 
 showed a purity of purpose, a nobility of aspiration and 
 endeavor, and a spirit of self-sacrifice iind heroism, accom- 
 panied by a sacred regard for law, education, morality, and 
 all that is pure, gentle, and of good report, that form one 
 of the most interesting chapters in history. 
 
 What was the governing principle in Icaria ? Let Cabet 
 answer. " If we are asked what is your science ? We 
 reply. Fraternity. What is your doctrine ? Fraternity. 
 
THE PUBLIC OWNEESHIP AND CONTBOL OF CAPITAL 151 
 
 What IS your theory ? Fraternity. What is your system ? 
 Fraternity." * And this, be it observed, is but the echo of 
 the gospel. " For one is your Master even Christ, and all 
 ye are brethren." We call attention to these societies and 
 to social reformers for a single purpose, viz., to show that^ 
 ■without exception, they found their attempts to realize 
 social justice by the social, instead of the private, employ- 
 ment of capital, upon the precepts of religion. Whatever 
 may be said of their vagaries or of their social life in its 
 influence upon the family, or of the detestable utterances 
 of certain fanatical leaders, we believe that their principle 
 of associated capital has no necessary connection with any 
 other than the very highest type of Christian morality. 
 
 We do not share the fear of those who profess to believe, 
 that the degree of economic equality demanded by distrib- 
 utive or social justice, is incompatible with social purity 
 and all other interests of morality and religion. 
 
 The difference between Communists and Socialists is not 
 only one of degree, it concerns a vital principle. Communists 
 would have common property, Socialists would have common 
 capital. The difference between these principles and their 
 outcome is hardly conceivable. 
 
 Communists demand equality. Socialists demand social 
 justice with that degree of equality necessary to secure it. 
 Some of the earliest Socialists sympathized with commun- 
 ists in their ideas of common property limited to a com- 
 munity ; while later Socialists advocate the nationalizing, 
 not of property, but of capital. "The early reformers relied 
 on religion and love as sufficient motive forces ; the latter 
 invoke also the aid of law and politics. 
 
 The Socialism of to-day is both political and moral. 
 Louis Blanc was the first advocate of State Socialism. He 
 was born in 1813 of French parents. A statesman of 
 integrity, a voluminous writer and author, a man of pure 
 and generous impulses and of catholic spirit, he exerted a 
 commanding influence, won for himself a national reputa- 
 tion, and at his death, in 1882, was honored by a state 
 funeral. 
 
 • " French and German Socialism," p. 60. 
 
162 THE FIVE POSTULATES OF SOCIALISM 
 
 Of his " History of the French Revolution," Charles 
 Sumner used to say that the first volume was one of those 
 profoundly philosophical studies which mark an epoch in 
 literature and in the development of human intelligence.^ 
 Mr. Smalley applies to him what Emerson said of Sumner : 
 " ' He was the whitest soul I ever knew ; ' " and continues, 
 " If ever a man lived free from stain, it was he who has 
 just died. All his life long the fierce light of passionate 
 political and still more passionate social controversies beat 
 upon him. He made innumerable enemies ; he was the 
 object of innumerable calumnies. Not one of his enemies 
 hated the man ; not one of the calumnies touched his 
 private worth." ^ Such is the exalted character of the first 
 State Socialist. His motive in urging State ownership of 
 capital was inspired by supreme love for God and man. He 
 saw no remedy for social misery but in the radical, though 
 gradual, change of the industrial regime from the private 
 to the public control of capital. 
 
 We quote his words, which contain more of the Sermon 
 on the Mount than any other equal number of words with 
 which we are acquainted. 
 
 " Man has received of nature certain faculties of loving, 
 of knowing, of acting. But these have by no means been 
 given him in order that he should exercise them solitarily ; 
 they are but the supreme indication of that which one owes 
 to the society of which he is a member ; and this indication 
 each one bears written in his organization in letters of fire. 
 If you are twice as strong as your neighbor, it is a proof 
 that nature has destined you to bear a double burden. If 
 your intelligence is superior, it is a sign that your mission 
 is to scatter about you more light. Weakness is a creditor 
 of strength ; ignorance of learning. The more a man can 
 the more he ought ; and this is the meaning of those 
 beautiful words of the gospel : ' Whosoever will be chief 
 among you, let him be your servant.' Whence the axiom, 
 from every one according to his faculties ; that is one's 
 duty." » 
 
 1 " French and German Socialism," p. 111. 
 
 2 As quoted Ibid., p. 116. ' As quoted Ibid., p. 121. 
 
THE PUBLIC OWNERSHIP AND CONTROL OF CAPITAL 153 
 
 Pierre Joseph Proudhon, a contemporary of Louis Blanc, 
 occupies a unique position among French Socialists. He 
 was born in 1809, and died at the age of fifty-six. He was 
 a scholar, an independent thinker, a bold writer, a sincere 
 but perhaps too zealous social reformer. Professor Ely 
 says that his essay on property "is important because it 
 led Socialists and even political economists to a more care- 
 ful revision of their facts." Proudhon was bitter in his 
 denunciation of private capital and capitalists. 
 
 Christianity had become so perverted in its unholy 
 alliance with capital that he exclaimed, " God is the Evil." 
 Communism, which destroyed a just and natural individual- 
 ism, was no less absurd than the prevailing individualism 
 which destroyed a just and natural communism. 
 
 He exposed with burning eloquence the wrongs inherent 
 in each of these systems. Property he declared to be the 
 "exploitation of the weak by the strong," while commu- 
 nism was " the exploitation of the strong by the weak." We 
 are not, however, now concerned so much with his views of 
 social order as with the spirit of the man himself. 
 
 Was he, or was he not, prompted by motives which have 
 their seat in the religious nature of man ? There can be 
 but one answer. The imprisonment and persecutions which 
 he suffered for the sake of social justice, perfectly accord 
 with this beautiful and touching prayer with which he 
 closes his work on property. 
 
 " God of liberty ! God of equality ! Thou God who 
 hast placed in my heart the sentiment of justice before my 
 reason comprehended it, hear my ardent prayer ! Thou 
 hast dictated that which I have written. Thou hast formed 
 my thought, thou hast directed my studies, thou hast 
 separated my spirit from curiosity and my heart from 
 attachment, in order that I should publish the trutii before 
 the master and the slave. I have spoken as thou hast 
 given me power and talent ; it remains for thee to complete 
 thy work. Thou knowest whether I have sought my inter- 
 est or thy glory. God of liberty ! May my memory 
 perish if humanity may but be free ; if I may but see in my 
 obscurity the people finally instructed, if noble instructors 
 
1S4 THE FIVE POSTULATES OF SOCIALISM 
 
 but enlighten it, if disinterested hearts but guide it. 
 Shorten, if it may be, our time of trial ; smother inequality, 
 pride, and avarice ; confound this idolatry of glory which 
 retains us in abjection. . . . Then the great and the small, 
 the rich and the poor, will unite in one ineffable fraternity ; 
 and all together, chanting a new hymn, will re-erect thy 
 altar, God of liberty and of equality ! " ' 
 
 This sublime appeal to G-od, with its superb disinterest- 
 edness, its pure and passionate love, and its magnificent 
 abandon of self, finds a parallel-in the pa,thetic and sacrificial 
 cry of Moses : " God, this people have sinned a great sin 
 and have made them gods of gold. Yet now, if thou wilt 
 forgive their sin ; • — and if not, blot me, I pray thee, out of 
 thy book which thou hast written." ^ 
 
 Nothing could be more irrational, then, than the irre- 
 ligion of Socialists, since every argument for their sys- 
 tem rests back upon the precepts of Jesus Christ. 
 
 German Socialists have furnished a philosophical and 
 logical basis for State ownership that can never be over- 
 thrown. Fichte, when forgotten as a metaphysician, will be 
 gratefully remembered as the forerunner of German Social- 
 ism. He was born in 1762 and died in 1814. In 1800 his 
 remarkable treatise on " The Exclusive or Isolated Com- 
 mercial State " appeared, in which he lays down the doc- 
 trine of the organized protection of industry by the State, 
 and bitterly opposes competition. In another work he 
 declares that " Labor and distribution should be collectively 
 organized ; . . . property will then be made universal. No 
 person should enjoy superfluities as long as anybody lacks 
 necessaries, for the right of property in objects of luxury 
 can have no foundation until each citizen has his share in 
 the necessaries of life."° Modern Socialism is only the 
 development of these ideas. Weitling followed Fichte, and 
 was the author of several works which set forth the prin- 
 ciples of an industrial democracy. To this end the exist- 
 ing State organizations must be destroyed. "Property, 
 when first instituted, was endurable ; it did not then take 
 away from anybody the right and the means of becoming a 
 
 1 As quoted " French and German Socialism," pp. 141, 142. 
 
 2 Exod. xxxii. 31, 32. 3 " Socialism of To-day " (Laveleye), p. 8. 
 
THE PUBLIC OWNERSHIP AND CONTKOL OF CAPITAL 155 
 
 land-owner, for there was no money, while there was vacant 
 land in abundance. Erom the moment, however, that every 
 man could no longer appropriate a part of the soil, property 
 has ceased to be a right. It has become a crying evil, and 
 the cause of the misery and destitution of the masses." ^ 
 
 It is worthy of note that these and other Socialists of 
 Germany deal with the general principles of right and jus- 
 tice in the social organism. It was reserved for later writ- 
 ers, chief of whom are Mario, Eodbertus, Marx, and Lassalle, 
 political economists of the first rank, to formulate these 
 principles into a scientific system of political economy. 
 Scientific Socialism, therefore, has for its corner-stone the 
 law of Christian ethics, and the whole vast superstructure 
 rests upon this foundation. Mario (Professor Winkelbleck), 
 who died in 1859, left a work, part of which had already 
 appeared entitled " Investigations on the Organizations of 
 Labor, or System of Universal Political Economy." 
 
 This work ably sets forth the principles of " Associated 
 Ownership." The author foresaw clearly that no permanent 
 improvement in the condition of laborers was possible 
 without the reorganization of society. He draws a sound 
 comparison between what he calls the pagan and the 
 Christian principle in political economy. 
 
 The pagan principle sacrifices the masses in order to 
 insure the pleasures and the splendors of a restricted aris- 
 tocracy, as in the ancient cities. The Christian principle 
 knows only equals, and demands that each should have a 
 share of the produce in proportion to his useful work. 
 
 The pagan method of making a profit out of the laborer 
 has taken several forms : at first slavery, then serfdom, 
 forced labor, the right of the feudal lords. To-day there 
 are practical monopolies, " cornerings, privileges, and gam- 
 bling speculations." ^ 
 
 Karl Eodbertus has been called the " Father of German 
 Socialism." He was born in 1805 and died in 1875. Al- 
 though Laveleye says that Eodbertus was not a Socialist, it 
 would be difficult to describe him as anything else. He 
 wrote a half-dozen works on social questions, and, if he did 
 
 1 " Socialism of To-day " (Laveleye), p. 8. 
 
 2 Ibid., p. 11. 
 
156 THE FIVE POSTULATES OF SOCIALISM 
 
 not avow himself a Socialist, he laid down in a few pow- 
 erful writings, all the essential economic principles on 
 which Socialism rests. Few men have had a greater influ- 
 ence in shaping economic and socialistic thought than Eod- 
 bertus. He has been called the " Eicardo of Socialism." 
 
 Karl Marx, the ablest Socialist and political economist 
 this century has produced, was born in Treves in 1819 and 
 died in 1883. His " Das Kapital " is a truly remarkable 
 book. It is called the " Bible of Socialism." In it Marx 
 shows the essential nature of labor, capital, and "sur- 
 plus value " and their mutual relations ; and shows the 
 process by which, under the capitalistic system, the laborer 
 is exploited, with a wealth of learning, aptness, and copious- 
 ness of illustration, conciseness of style, inexhaustibleness 
 of research, and unanswerable logic unequalled in the his- 
 tory of politico-economic literature. 
 
 "Das Kapital " (Capital) is the book above all others that 
 one needs to study if he would understand the true inward- 
 ness of the capitalistic system. It is not improbable that 
 it will sustain the same relation to the abolition of this 
 system that " Uncle Tom's Cabin " sustained to the aboli- 
 tion of slavery. 
 
 The last of the German Socialists whom we shall mention 
 is Ferdinand Lassalle, born in 1826 and died in 1864. Las- 
 salle was to Marx what Aaron was to Moses — his mouth- 
 piece. Learned, eloquent, zealous, he kindled a lire in 
 Germany that is burning with ever-increasing brightness, 
 that has spiread over the whole world, and that will never 
 be extinguished till Socialism is realized as the divinely 
 ordained order in human society. 
 
 Laveleye says, " Ferdinand Lassalle is looked upon by 
 his disciples as the Messiah of Socialism. During his life 
 they listened to him as an oracle, and after his death they 
 venerated him as a derai-god." ' 
 
 He pictured the luxury, crimes, and selfisliness of the 
 bourgeois, the degradation and sufferings of the proletariat 
 so faithfully and graphically as to " attract the attention 
 of the civilized world. Statesmen grew pale and kings 
 
 1 " Socialism of To-day," p. 42. 
 
THE PUBLIC OWNERSHIP AND CONTROL OF CAPITAL 167 
 
 trembled." He took Ricardo's law of wages as developed 
 by Marx, and under the title of " The Iron Laiv of Wages," 
 showed that the wage system is the most subtle, refined, 
 and cruel means of the exploitation of the laborer. 
 
 We pass these great Socialists, Eodbertus, Marx, and 
 Lassalle, the more briefly here because a general idea of 
 their teachings is obtained in the quotations from their 
 \\-ritings which we often make as authority for positions 
 taken in this volume. 
 
 4. Professorial Socialists, or Socialists of the Chair, have 
 strengthened the principles of State ownership. 
 
 They are political economists who insist that ethics are 
 not only germane to, but an essential part of, economic 
 science. The old classical economy assumes that the prin- 
 ciples of economic action were as impersonal and metallic 
 as the laws of nature, and as unchangeable as those of the 
 Medes and Persians. It dealt with human beings as the 
 mineralogist would deal with stones, except that the latter 
 would think it fatal to leave out of the account an essential 
 property of this mineral, while the older economists ignored 
 the fact that man had a moral nature. This is as if one 
 should ignore the property of hardness in stone, or mallea- 
 bility in silver, in his consideration of these minerals. 
 
 The science of producing wealth must take cognizance of 
 all data which belong to the nature of the producers. These 
 producers are men. They are not machines and animals, 
 but moral and sentient beings. Intelligence, conscience, 
 and affections are active factors in the production of 
 wealth. Money is blood, although seldom the blood of 
 its possessor, but some time, somewhere, it has cost blood; 
 somebody's brow has sweat, somebody's hand grown weary, 
 and somebody's heart ached in the production of every 
 dollar that exists. 
 
 Thus it is that the lives of men and women are wrought 
 into every yard of cloth and ton of coal. Political econ- 
 omy, then, is not a matter of hard and fast a priori laws 
 and conclusions, but must take into consideration the his- 
 torical, the practical, the just, and even the merciful in the 
 social and industrial life of men, 
 
158 THE FIVE POSTULATES OF SOCIALISM 
 
 To Germany belongs the honor of first giving this most 
 important truth a scientific recognition. In 1872 a congress 
 of one hundred and fifty members convened at Eisenach. It 
 was attended by leading politicians, but principally by pro- 
 fessors of political economy, all of whom agreed that the 
 vicious principle of laissez-faire must be renounced and 
 the State must assume a larger control of industry : this was 
 a long step in the direction of Socialism; hence the name of 
 Professorial Socialists was applied to them. 
 
 As political economists, from a purely scientific stand- 
 point, they uttered a protest in the name of justice and 
 humanity, against the existing industrial regime that is 
 being heard and approved throughout the whole earth. 
 Bismarck himself is the distinguished champion of this 
 school. He declares that he will no longer indorse the 
 representatives of a party, which in political economy advo- 
 cates the right of the stronger and deserts the weak in the 
 struggle against the might of capital, and which refers him 
 to free competition, to private insurance, and I do not 
 know what else — in short, refusing him all help of the 
 State." ^ The ethics of this passage are distinctively Chris- 
 tian. With this school the State is a divine institution- 
 It is God manifest in the body social and politic. The 
 doctrine of self-interest is repudiated. The unjust, un- 
 social, and iniquitous inequalities that exist are attributed 
 to the present economical arrangement, which must accord- 
 ingly be modified by the application of the socialistic prin- 
 ciple of association. 
 
 A gross and material individualism which fosters pride, 
 caste, and oppression, must yield to that measure of equality 
 which God has ordained. There is so"mething in this world 
 more sacred than mammon, and that is man. " What sliall 
 it profit a man if he shall gain the whole world and lose 
 his own soul ? " '^ 
 
 All this in the name of political economy ! Says Roscher, 
 " The starting-point, as well as the object-point, of our 
 science is man. All hope of resolving ' the social question ' 
 
 1 As quoted in " French and German Socialism," p. 235. 
 
 2 Maris xiii, 36, 
 
THE PUBLIC OWNERSHIP AND CONTROL OF CAPITAL 169 
 
 without a moral and intellectual elevation of mankind 
 is abandoned. The Christian religion is assigned an 
 important work in this field, aud political economy be- 
 comes a Christian science. To see the leaders of economi- 
 cal thought starting with anything rather than religious 
 predilections, gradually forced to this position, may indeed 
 be styled a triumph of Christianity." ' 
 
 5. State ownership finds a powerful ally in Christian 
 Socialism. 
 
 If the Socialist leaders and organizations, and the latest 
 and ablest political economists have been building upon the 
 precepts of the gospel, as the only sure foundation for a 
 sound economic system, we should naturally expect that 
 the Christian church would hasten to seize this vantage 
 ground. 
 
 The church, however, has become such a capitalistic in- 
 stitution that she is handicapped in any reform which 
 touches the question of property. Christian men and 
 women have discovered that the principles of Socialism 
 and the precepts of Jesus are strangely similiar, and the 
 result is an avowedly Christian Socialism. 
 
 About forty years ago a company of noble Christian men 
 in England, established a society to promote co-operation 
 and education among working people. Chief among these 
 Christian Socialists are to be found such men as Mr. Thomas 
 Hughes, author of " Tom Brown at Eugby ; " Frederick 
 Maurice, Charles Kingsley, Mansfield, Lord Kipon, E. V. 
 Neal, Ludlow, and Ellison. They established forty co- 
 operative societies in England. These societies were mostly 
 for production, and had a longer or shorter existence, and 
 were succeeded by co-operative societies for distribution. 
 While these societies were strictly economical, they sought 
 to apply the Christian idea of brotherhood by co-operation 
 and sharing of profits, as against the unchristian principle 
 of competition. The founders were filled with indignation 
 at the misery of working men amid increasing wealth, and 
 perceived as by a revelation from Heaven that the Man- 
 chester liberalism, by which was meant freedom of contract, 
 I " French and German Socialism " (Ely), p. 244, 
 
160 THE FIVE POSTULATES OF SOCIALISM 
 
 self-interest, and unrestricted oompetition, supported by law 
 and custom and buttressed by the economists and mam- 
 monists, was a triple alliance of the devil, the prolific source 
 of industrial ills, and an offence alike to God and man. 
 
 Maurice said of it : "I believe in my soul [it] would be 
 fatal to the intellect, morality and freedom. Kingsley de- 
 clared that it was the worst " of all narrow, conceited, hypo- 
 critical, anarchic, and atheistic schemes of the universe." He 
 believes, however, that Christian forces are about to usher 
 in a brighter day for working men. " Freedom, Equity, and 
 Brotherhood are here. Eealize them in thine own self, and 
 so alone thou helpest to make them realities for all. . . . 
 Not by wrath and haste, but by patience made perfect 
 through suffering, canst thou proclaim their good news to 
 the groaning masses, and deliver them, as thy. Master did 
 before thee, by the cross, and not the sword. Divine para- 
 dox ! — Folly to the rich and mighty ! — the watchword of 
 the weak, in whose weakness is God's strength made per- 
 fect. ' In your patience possess ye your souls, for the com- 
 ing of the Lord draweth nigh.' Yes, — He came then, and 
 the Babel-tyranny of Kome fell, even as the more fearful, 
 more subtle, and more diabolic tyranny of Mammon shall 
 fall ere long. . . . Yes, Babylon the Great — the commer- 
 cial world of selfish competition, drunken with the blood of 
 God's people, whose merchandise is the bodies and souls oi 
 men — her doom is gone forth. And then — then — when 
 they, the tyrants of the earth, who lived delicately with 
 her, rejoicing in her sins, the plutocrats and the bureau- 
 crats, the money-changers and devourers of labor, are crying 
 to the rocks to hide them, and to the hills to cover them 
 from the wrath of Him that sitteth on the throne — then 
 labor shall be free at last, and the poor shall eat and be sat- 
 isfied with things that 'eye hath not seen nor ear heard, 
 nor hath it entered into the heart of man to conceive, 
 but which God has prepared for those who love Him.' 
 
 "Then the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord 
 . . . and He shall reign indeed on the earth.- And then 
 shall this sacrament be an everlasting sign . . . of freedom, 
 equality, brotherhood, of Glory to God in the highest, and 
 
THE PUBLIC OWNERSHIP AND CONTROL OF CAPITAL 161 
 
 on earth peace and good will toward men. Do you be- 
 lieve ? " I 
 
 The confidence of these Christian Socialists was inspired 
 by the conviction that their cause was the cause of G-od. 
 They were co-workers with Him. So just, so simple, so 
 humane and Christian did their remedy for social ills ap- 
 pear, that Mr. Hughes said, " I certainly thought . . . that 
 here we had found the solution of the great labor question ; 
 but I was also convinced that we had nothing to do but just 
 to announce it and found an association or two, in order to 
 convert all England and usher in the millennium, so plain 
 did the whole thing seem to me." '^ They made propaganda 
 by establishing co-operative associations of laborers, by a 
 newspaper called Christian Socialist, by " Politics for the 
 People " and numerous tracts and pamphlets. 
 
 German Christian Socialism is of later origin, and has 
 had a distinct Catholic and a distinct Protestant recognition 
 and development. In 1864 the Catholic clubs of Germany, 
 composed of laborers associated together for " mutual im- 
 provement, recreation, and benefit," were urged to take up 
 the social question ; and Bishop Ketteler warmly espoused 
 the cause of working men and published a stirring pamph- 
 let on the "Labor Question and Christianity." He claimed 
 that ministers of Christ are bound to look into the bread- 
 and-butter question as a part of their religious duty. He 
 deplores that social regime that makes the food and 
 clothing and other necessities of working men and their 
 families dependent upon the fluctuations of the market. 
 " The Bishop," says Mr. Rae, " never spares an opportunity 
 of attacking ' heathen humanist-Liberalism,' which he says 
 has pushed the laboring man into the water, and now stands 
 on the bank spinning fine theories about his freedom, but 
 calmly seeing him drown." 
 
 This good and great man proposed to organize productive 
 associations which would yield laborers both wages and 
 profits; that is, the entire fruit of their labor. Others dif- 
 fered from him as to the means deemed necessary to attain 
 
 i"Alton Locke," p. 43-3. 
 
 2 As quoted in " French and German Socialism," p. 251. 
 
162 THE FIVE POSTULATES OP SOCIALISM 
 
 this result ; but all agreed that Christianity itself was es- 
 sentially Socialistic in its hostility to a selfish individ- 
 ualism. 
 
 About ten years ago the Protestant Church of Germany 
 became alarmed at the atheistic attitude of the laborers. 
 The clergy found that in their zeal for speculative theology 
 they and the churches had well-nigh forgotten the toiling 
 masses struggling for their daily bread ; and working men in 
 turn had come to regard the church as a cold, formal, hypo- 
 critical institution, false alike to her tradition, her history, 
 and her Lord. 
 
 Several able clergymen resolved to take out of the way 
 this stumbling-block, and to show working men that the 
 church was their friend. 
 
 The moment the Christian church embarks upon such a 
 work, whether in Germany or England or America, she be- 
 comes and must become socialistic. Dr. Rudolph Todt and 
 Dr. Stocker became the acknowledged leaders in this move- 
 ment. Todt published, in 1878, his " Radical German So- 
 cialism and Christian Society." 
 
 " Todt's work is designed to set forth the social principles 
 and mission of Christianity on the basis of a critical investi- 
 gation of the New Testament, which he believes to be an 
 authoritative guide on economical as well as moral and dog- 
 matic questions. He says that to solve the social problem 
 we must take political economy in one hand, the scientific 
 literature of Socialism in the other, and keep the New 
 Testament before us. As the result of his examination, he 
 condemns the existing industrial regime as being decidedly 
 unchristian, and declares the general principles of Socialism, 
 and even its main concrete proposals, to be directly pre- 
 scribed and countenanced by Holy Writ. . . . Every active 
 Christian who makes conscience of his faith has a socialis- 
 tic vein in him ; . . . every Socialist, however hostile he may 
 be to the Christian religion, has an unconscious Christianity 
 in his heart." ^ 
 
 Seldom have braver and truer words been spoken. They 
 contain a prophecy of the future. They herald the eman- 
 
 1 " Contemporary Socialispi," p. 244. 
 
THE PUBLIC OWNERSHIP ANT) CONTBQL OF CAPITAL 163 
 
 cipation of the laborer and the dawn of an industrial mil- 
 lennium when the devil of self-interest will be chained and 
 the industrial kingdoms of this world shall "become the 
 kingdoms of our Lord and of His Cliiist." 
 
 Christian Socialism has already borne golden fruit. It 
 has called the attention of the entire Christian church to 
 the social question, and enlisted many of the ablest clergy- 
 men in Europe and America, who stand forth boldly in pul- 
 pit, on the platform, and hj publication to proclaim those 
 primary and essential gospel truths which will not down 
 till a Christian Socialism is crowned king in the economical 
 arrangements of society. It has compelled legislation in 
 behalf of operatives in shops and factories, a large per 
 cent of whom are women and children. It has encouraged 
 laborers to unite for mutual protection and to secure legal 
 recognition for labor organizations. 
 
 While not advocating the abolition of private property, it 
 has brought home to popular Christian thought the mighty 
 truth that no man nor his money belongs to himself but to 
 God and society; and thus it has dealt a terrific blow at the 
 pagan idea of property as a subjective right, and thus pre- 
 pared the way for State ownership. 
 
 It has taught not only the fatherhood of God and the 
 brotherhood of man, but the fraternity of the State. The 
 State is no longer regarded as a police institution to club 
 her children into submission to laws which can never be 
 equal to unequal citizens. 
 
 A State, when society has reached that point where the 
 happiness and life of each depend upon the others, that 
 acknowledges no more obligations of protection to the weak 
 than to the strong, whatever else it may be, is not worthy 
 the name of Christian. Let us dismiss forever that con- 
 ception of the State which makes it merely a great law-and- 
 order league, or a huge machine for lynching the poor, weak, 
 and unfortunate by a process none the less murderous 
 because it proceeds by the slow, refined, and legalized 
 methods of hunger, nakedness, and disease. The most 
 cruel lynch-law, the mob most to be dreaded, is that which, 
 ignoring the divine law of love, inflicts its punishments 
 
164 THE FIVE POSTULATES OF SOCIALISM 
 
 upon the innocent victims of society in the name of justice 
 and order. 
 
 Christian Socialism is awakening interest in the toiling 
 masses which promises great things in the future. Human- 
 ity is a larger word than ever before. The " destiny that 
 shapes our ends " is not far off, but nigh ; even in society 
 about us. A Christocentrlr faith has emptied Christian 
 theology of its harshness and narrowness. It is coming 
 more and more into the thought of men that Christ is the 
 Saviour of the world — of this world in the fullest sense. 
 
 His true mission was not only to give men felicity in 
 heaven, but "peace on earth." While man's future is of 
 paramount importance. He made "the life that now is" of 
 immediate and immense concern. 
 
 His precepts touch and determine all human relations. 
 He is the Saviour of the world, socially, politically, 
 economically. His gospel would not be good news if it 
 justified social and industrial conditions that wreck multi- 
 tudes in this world in the hope that they might be picked 
 up on the shore of the next. Let us have done with that 
 conception of Christianity which eliminates Christ from 
 all connection with capital, labor, wages, and all other 
 social, industrial, and political affairs in which men live, 
 move, and have their being. 
 
 This is Christian Socialism, the tree whose leaves are 
 "For the healing of the nations." 
 
THE SOCIALISTIC STATE BESTS ON FIKST PKINCIPLBS 165 
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 THE NATURE OP THE SOCIALISTIC STATE 
 
 I. — The Socialistic State rests on First Principles, hence 
 Details are not ISssential. 
 
 " In June, 1639, the leading men of New Haven held a convention in a 
 ham, and formally adopted the Bible as the Constitution of the State." 
 
 RiDPATH'S U. S. 
 
 We have seen that the Socialistic state is simply an ex- 
 tension of the democratic principles to industry. It is 
 the political and social realization of Christian ethics, the 
 governmental recognition and application of the original, 
 fundamental, and universal principles of civil liberty, fra- 
 ternal equality, and social justice. Can we safely trust these 
 principles to work out the happiness of men and nations, 
 or shall we hesitate to adopt them without first being able 
 to point out all the details of their application ? That 
 man who, clearly perceiving the truth, hesitates to acknowl- 
 edge it, is either a knave or a coward. 
 
 Socialists are not logically bound to furnish details under 
 the regime of Socialism. There is indeed a presumption 
 in favor o£ existing institutions, but this presumption in 
 favor of capitalism is overcome. The preceding pages 
 leave no doubt as to this ; the onus prohandi is therefore 
 shifted. It has been conclusively shown that the hull of 
 the present industrial ship is rotten and utterly unsea. 
 worthy ; her keel of private capital, her vaulted ribs of 
 freedom, of contract, and her prow of free competition, all 
 fused together and festering with the vicious principle 
 of self-interest, have come to be, in the progressive evo- 
 lution of society, economically indefensible and socially 
 destructive assumptions. 
 
 Such is the leaky condition of the worn-out craft of in- 
 
166 THE NATURE OF THE SOCIALISTIC STATE 
 
 dividualism, endangering the lives alike of its capitalistic 
 cabin passengers and its laboring steerage passengers, 
 when the Socialistic Ship of State comes alongside and in- 
 vites the imperilled passengers and crew to get on board. 
 We examine the principles on which the new ship is con- 
 structed, and, finding them to be civil liberty, fraternal 
 equality, and social justice, we are logically bound to accept 
 them without regard to the particular manner in which the 
 ship may be rigged. In other words. Socialists may logi- 
 cally insist on the adoption of these principles, leaving 
 their application to future contingencies. The eternal, politi- 
 cal, and moral verities on which our republic is founded 
 were rightly regarded by our. fathers as sufRcieut ground 
 for the Eevolution and guarantee for democracy. Ques- 
 tions of administration, the relations and reciprocal duties 
 of citizens, States, and nation, the numerous details of the 
 constitution, the particulars of legislation, repeals, am-'nd- 
 ments, and experiments — in short, the entire modus oper- 
 andi involved and required in the successful working of a 
 republican form of government were outlined but dimly, if 
 at all, when the logic, none the less sound and conclusive, 
 of Concord, Lexington, and Bunker Hill was applied in the 
 name of Justice, Liberty, and Equality. 
 
 Those who would discuss details, or the working of 
 a proposed theory in order to determine the principle of 
 action, assume that the principle is one solely of expe- 
 diency. Amoral question admits of no such determination. 
 Socialism is essentially a moral question, and herein lies 
 the secret of its strength, the hope of its friends, and the 
 terror of its enemies. 
 
 It cannot be proved inductively that the. Socialistic state 
 would increase the general happiness and contentment, for 
 example and experience are wanting ; but it can be proved, 
 nay, it needs no proof, that the ethical principles on which 
 Socialism builds are recognized as valid semper, ubiqwe, et ab 
 omnibus. Distrust of these principles is pessimism. Their 
 judicious application depends upon the exigencies of time 
 and circumstances, and affords abundant room for the 
 theories of philosophers, philanthropists, and statesmen. 
 
THE NATURE OF THE STATE CRITICALLY EXAMINED 167 
 
 He who insists upon any arbitrary or invariable application 
 of them, whether a Socialist or individualist, is a fanatic 
 or a crank. 
 
 The details of the Socialistic state, as outlined by certain 
 Sjcialists, are not essential to its existence and successful 
 v.-jrking. On the contrary, they are wholly gratuitous. 
 "When, therefore, they are refuted by an opponent, let him 
 not imagine that Socialism is thereby overthrown. Other 
 details or application of the principles of Socialism are not 
 only possible but extremely probable. 
 
 Notwithstanding all this, both Socialists and their op- 
 ponents have laid such stress on certain assumed phases 
 and factors of the new social order, and the popular mind 
 is so prone to judge of Socialism according as it judges of 
 these non-essential questions, we shall, in another chapter, 
 consider certain practical features of the Socialistic state. 
 
 II. — The Nature of the State critioally examined. 
 
 "The State is the politically organized national person of a definite 
 country." — Bluntschli. 
 
 " Let the State be considered as subordinate to the people ; but let 
 everything else be subordinate to the State." — Mr. Justice Wilson. 
 
 We have reached a point in the discussion of the social 
 question where the thoughtful reader will be led to ask, 
 What is the State ? What is its object, and what are its 
 proper functions ? Much of the confusion constantly met 
 with in the discussion of sociological questions arises from 
 the ambiguity of the word "state." Ordinarily the con- 
 nection sufficiently determines its meaning, but when a 
 writer comes to define it, or treat of its various functions, 
 consistency is well-nigh impossible. At one time the State is 
 the government ; at another, all the people ; again, it is 
 society. It is regarded by some as an organ, and hence de- 
 pendent ; by others, as an organism and independent. With 
 reference to its object the word is equally indefinite. With 
 many it is to secure individual right ; with others, to secure 
 social justice. Again the primary object of the State is said 
 
168 THE XATUKE OF THE SOCIALISTIC STATE 
 
 to be liberty, and the " confusion is worse confounded," since 
 scarcely any two writers agree as to what individual rights, 
 social justice, and liberty are. By one the State, in the ex- 
 ercise of authority, is regarded as an evil, a necessary evil ; 
 by another, as the highest good. Self-contradiction, op- 
 posite conclusions, and endless discussion result from this 
 ambiguity. 
 
 The State has been defined as " the sovereign body hav- 
 ing supreme power." The ancestor of this definition is 
 tyranny. In this heredity, blood tells, for the definition is 
 a chip of the old block. In a republic the " sovereign 
 body " is the people ; and the people also constitute the 
 "supreme power." The definition, when applied to a re- 
 public, would therefore read the people having the people. 
 We admit the great elasticity of the definition in question ; 
 this is why we object to it. A definition that holds every- 
 thing must be ranked with the nostrum that cures all dis- 
 eases. 
 
 Clearness demands that a writer should define his terras 
 and invariably adhere to his definitions. By the State we 
 mean all the people united under one constitution and over 
 one government. Government is related to the State as 
 agent to principal. The State is in no sense under the gov- 
 ernment. Of course we have in mind only a democracy. 
 The largest society politically organized is the State. The 
 State is therefore a politico-social organism, a whole as dis- 
 tinguished from an organ which is a part. 
 
 The several States in the United States are called such by 
 way of accommodation only. Important corollaries follow 
 this definition of State. 
 
 The State is the highest power on earth. Individuals are 
 its constituent parts, its organs, and are related to the State 
 as the different members of the body are related to the man. 
 This relation is one^ of dependency and subordination. Al- 
 though a body of men may determine the characteristics of 
 a particular State, yet States are natural rather than artifi- 
 cial organisms ; that is, they spring'out of the social dispo- 
 sition and constitution of human nature. Government is 
 "the acceptance of conditions which came into existence by 
 
THE NATURE OF THE STATE CBITICALLY EXAMINED 169 
 
 tlie sociability inherent in man, and were developed by 
 man's spontaneous search after convenience.^ 
 
 The State is, however, more than a mere aggregation of 
 dependent organs. ■ It is a miglity personality ; it possesses 
 matter and mind, body and sotI ; it is not only a political 
 being, but also an economical, intellectual, moral, and mate- 
 rial being. So far from being a mere impersonal, political 
 machine, it is a living, organized, and sentient personality. 
 " Whilst history explains the organic nature of the State, we 
 learn from it at the same time that the State does not stand 
 on the same grade with the lower organisms of plants and 
 animals, but is of a higher kind. We learn that it is a moral 
 and spiritual organism, a great body which is capable of 
 taking up into itself the feelings and thoughts of the nation, 
 of uttering them in laws, and realizing them in acts. We 
 are informed of moral qualities and of the character of 
 each State. 
 
 " History ascribes to the State a personality which, hav- 
 ing spirit and body, possesses and manifests a will of its 
 own."^ 
 
 The State is a co-operation which is everywhere regarded 
 as endowed with all personal powers and capacities necessary 
 ■to the accomplishing of its object. 
 
 What is this object ? The answers given to this question 
 are numerous and divergent. The immediate object of our 
 fathers in establishing the republic, as set forth in the 
 Declaration of Independence, was to secure liberty ; that is, 
 freedom from British tyranny, ov political liberty. On the 
 other hand, it is asserted that the object of the State is to 
 secure individual liberty. Another says it is to guarantee 
 rights. Mill declared that its object was coextensive with 
 the general good. Others declare that its object is to estab- 
 lish justice. 
 
 In the popular mind there is a sort of equivalence in 
 these phrases, yet a little scrutiny will disclose two dia- 
 metrically opposite conceptions of the proper functions of the 
 State. The one conception makes the object of the State to 
 
 1 " The State" (Wilson). 
 
 2 Bluntschli's " The Theoiy of the State," p. 21. 
 
170 THE NATURE OF THE SOCIALISTIC STATE 
 
 be individual liberty ; the other, social justice. Liberty and 
 justice are precious words, but they are far from being 
 equivalent. Liberty means freedom from restraint. Justice 
 often means restraint. ^ 
 
 Individual liberty is not endangered in a free State ; on 
 the contrary, it is the wolf in sheep's clothing which to-day 
 threatens the stability of free States. 
 
 When kings and tyrants wantonly indulged in the de- 
 struction of the lives and confiscation of the property of 
 their subjects, individual liberty and legal security became 
 the shibboleths of the people. " This opinion arose in the 
 latter half of the eighteenth century. In those days men 
 sought to find some fundamental limitation to the over-gov- 
 ernment of that enlightened despotism which, benevolent 
 as it was, proved oppressive and destructive of personal 
 freedom, and which was accustomed to justify every inter- 
 ference with family life, with the free choice of a career, 
 and with the administration of private revenues, by a pro- 
 fessed regard for the general welfare. The definition of the 
 end of the State as the maintenance of legal security 
 seemed to offer a convenient weapon for opposing this 
 over-government successfully." ' 
 
 When at length individual liberty became triumphant 
 over the tyranny of monarchy and aristocracy in the erec- 
 tion of a republic, individual liberty was merged, or found 
 its highest expression in the larger, grander liberty of the 
 free State. 
 
 Individual liberty against the tyranny of a despot is one 
 thing ; but against the liberty of all the people in a free 
 State it is a contradiction. Nothing, however, is more 
 common than to take this glorious old watchword of the 
 politically enslaved, now embalmed in all our free institu- 
 tions, and make it serve as an segis for individual license, 
 social inequality, and individual tyranny. 
 
 On the other hand, that conception of the State which 
 makes social justice its chief concern accords with the 
 soundest principles of right reason and Christian ethics. 
 
 1 " The Theory ol the State " (Bluntschli), p. 295. 
 
THE NATURE OF THE STATE CEITICALLY EXAMINED 171 
 
 "Justice," says Hamilton, "is the end of government" — 
 Justitia Fundamentum Regni. 
 
 Social justice is legal justice plus equity. It is neither 
 commutative nor distributive justice. It demands the pub- 
 lic good, which is the good of each member of the State. 
 Solus populi suprema lex. Madison declared that "the pub- 
 lic good, the real welfare of the great body of the people, is 
 the supreme object to be pursued ; and no form of govern- 
 ment whatever has any other value than as it may be fitted 
 for the attainment of this end." ^ What does this principle 
 mean when reduced to economic terms ? It means that of 
 any two citizens one should not have, simply because he is 
 the smarter, two houses, two loaves, or two beds, and the 
 other none. True, a country may be, in a sense, as rich 
 when the bulk of property is owned by a few as when it is 
 owned by many ; but the conception of the State, composed 
 of all seeking the good of each, is utterly opposed to the 
 idea of the wealth of the few and the poverty of the many. 
 
 This idea, however, is the legitimate outcome of the indi- 
 vidual liberty theory. It pays supreme homage to individ- 
 ual smartness, which plunges a dagger into the bosom of 
 social justice. The end of the State, says Bluntschli, is 
 "the development of the national capacities, the perfecting 
 of the national life, and, finally, its completion." ^ This 
 seems too sublimated for practical use, but it answers the 
 author's purpose of broad generalization : it certainly con- 
 tains the more immediate and tangible end of social justice, 
 or the public good. 
 
 That the State in the minds of the founders of the repub- 
 lic embraced an entire people, and that its true object is 
 social justice, which is equivalent to the public good as now 
 explained, is evident from the preamble to the Constitu- 
 tion of the United States. " We, the people of the United 
 States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish 
 justice, ensure domestic tranquillity, provide for the com- 
 mon defence, promote the general welfare, and secure the 
 blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do 
 
 1 " Federalist," p. 198. 
 
 2 " The Theory o£ the State," p. 300. 
 
172 THE NATURE OF THE SOCIALISTIC STATE 
 
 ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States 
 of America." 
 
 The "liberty" here spoken of is social rather than indi- 
 vidual, public rather than private. It is the liberty of self- 
 government, of the republican State itself. In order that 
 this might be preserved, even the different States of the 
 Union, by constitutional provisions, sharply separated the 
 executive, legislative, and judicial departments. These 
 several departments would serve as mutual checks upon 
 each other. Madison says, " Usurpations are guarded 
 against by a division of the government into distinct 
 and separate departments."^ 
 
 This preamble to the grandest political constitution the 
 world has seen is itself evolved from eternal and immu- 
 table principles. " We, the people," means that " none of 
 us liveth to himself." ^ " To establish justice and promote 
 the general welfare" is simply to realize "Peace on earth 
 and good will to men." This was the mission of Jesus 
 Christ himself. "In June, 1639, the leading men of New 
 Haven held a convention in a barn, and formally adopted 
 the Bible as the Constitution of the State." 
 
 The State established by our fathers was built upon the 
 universal and imperishable truth which human seliishness 
 and pride have ever sought to obscure and distort; namely, 
 that all men are brothers. A social structure erected upon 
 this fundamental truth must have for its tap-root not indi- 
 vidual liberty, but social justice. 
 
 Madison, in commenting upon the Constitution, declares 
 that "Justice is the end of government. It is the end of 
 civil society." ^ 
 
 Notwithstanding this self-evident law of human society, 
 the opposite conception of the State as the conservator of 
 individual liberty, is still dominant in society and vigorously 
 defended by those who desire by due form of law to thrive 
 at the expense of their fellow-men. 
 
 Spencer, in his " Social Statics," says that " every man 
 has freedom to do all that he wills, provided he infringes 
 not the like freedom of any other man." If this means 
 
 1 " Federalist," p. 224. 2 Eom. xiv. Y. " " Federalist," p. 225. 
 
THE NATURE OF THE STATE CEITICALLT EXAMINED 173 
 
 anything, it means that you have freedom to kill and eat 
 me, provided you do not interfere with my freedom to treat 
 you in the same manner. It is a gospel of muscle. It 
 is a demand, in the language of Mr. Mill, " for an equal 
 chance to everybody to tyrannize," in which case, of course, 
 the strong have it all their own way. Professor William G. 
 Sumner reiterates the same vicious principle, in his defini- 
 tion of civil liberty, which is, "A status created for the indi- 
 vidual, by laws and institutions, the effect of which is that 
 each man is guaranteed the use of all his own powers exclu- 
 sively for his own welfare."^ 
 
 Several serious objections lie against this definition. In 
 the first place, civil liberty is not individual liberty; it 
 is not " a status " for the individual at all, but rather for 
 the body politic, or society. The word civil necessarily in- 
 volves the idea of association. It applies to man not as an 
 individual, but as a member of society. Civil liberty is 
 community liberty. It is not denied, however, that this 
 public liberty admits of the highest status and liberty of 
 the individual citizen consistent with the public good. 
 Again it seems the climax of error to say that civil liberty 
 guarantees to each man " th e use of all his own powers exclu- 
 sively for his own welfare." Here the public welfare . is 
 wholly ignored. Blackstone says, " Civil liberty is natural 
 liberty, so far restrained by human laws as is necessary 
 and expedient for the public good." ^ 
 
 These two conceptions of civil liberty, both in statement 
 and in their logical outcome, are as far apart as the poles 
 of the earth. 
 
 Blackstone puts emphasis upon the terms " restrained," 
 " the public good ; " Professor Sumner lays stress upon the 
 " individual," " each man," and " his own welfare." 
 
 This is individualism with a vengeance ; it makes a part 
 greater than the whole, and is both unphilosophical and 
 unethical. This atomistic conception of civil liberty fur- 
 nishes the foundation and justification of almost every 
 species of social wrong. It is well-nigh inexplicable how 
 
 1 "Social Classes," etc., p. 34 
 
 2 " Commeiitaries," Book I. Chapter i. 
 
174 THE NATURE OF THE SOCIALISTIC STATE 
 
 a man born in a republic founded on equality, fraternity, 
 and social justice, and reared amid Christian institutions, 
 can conceive of civil liberty, the corner-stone of our grand 
 and beautiful social structure, as equivalent to the unso- 
 cial, undivine, and wicked principle of human selfishness 
 which alone guarantees to each man " the use of all his own 
 powers exclusively for his own welfare." 
 
 It is the boldest indorsement and the cleanest-cut scien- 
 tific formula of the diabolical maxim, " every man for him- 
 self and the devil take the hindmost," that we have met 
 with. Was this the selfish motive that inspired our fathers 
 to pour out their treasure and blood like water to establish 
 the republic ? May we substitute on the tomb of Captain 
 Nathan Hale for the sublime and patriotic words, " I only 
 regret that I have but one life to lose for my country," the 
 inscription, " I used all my powers exclusively for my own 
 welfare " ? 
 
 When our country was imperilled by the great rebellion, 
 we left home and friends, as did tens of thousands of young 
 men, to suffer and die, if need be, for the dear old flag ; but 
 we deny thSit one single soldier ever set out for the war, 
 or marched one rod under a banner bearing the device, 
 " each man . . . for his own welfare." In spite of him- 
 self and apparently without the slightest suspicion of in- 
 consistency. Professor Sumner is led to say (p. 37) "there 
 has been no liberty at all save where a State has known 
 how ... to set barriers to selfishness, cupidity, envy, and 
 lust, in all classes from the highest to the lowest . . . and 
 to create great organs of civil life which can eliminate, 
 as far as possible, arbitrary and personal elements from 
 the adjustment of interests. Liberty is an affair of 
 laws and institutions which bring rights and duties into 
 equilibrium." Here is a flash of sweet reasonableness 
 from a lowering sky. Liberty setting "barriers to self- 
 ishness," eliminating " personal elements," and bringing 
 "rights and duties into equilibrium," would usher in 
 the social millennium, and is precisely what his quack 
 " social doctors " are praying for ; but this kind of 
 liberty, so far from guaranteeing to a man " the use of 
 
THE NATUKE OF THE STATE CRITICALLY EXAMINED 175 
 
 all his own powers exclusively for his own welfare," 
 would compel him to make the public welfare of chief 
 importance. 
 
 Notwithstanding these lucid intervals, the author works 
 out his pagan social philosophy on the basis of his defini- 
 tion of liberty. 
 
 This pernicious notion of civil liberty is derived from 
 that narrow conception of the State which regards its func- 
 tions as identical with those of a policeman. Among its 
 authors were Kant and Wilhelm von Humboldt, who "de- 
 clared the State to be a legal State, in the sense that its 
 sole duty was the maintenance of the legal security of each 
 individual." ^ 
 
 When every man, regardless of society, exerts all his 
 powers " exclusively for his own welfare," and the State by 
 its laws and authority plays second, the State becomes 
 " anarchy plus the policeman." Far truer and nobler is 
 Burke's conception of the State as a partnership of a people 
 having for its end the public good. " It is a partnership in 
 all science, a partnership in all art, a partnership in every 
 virtue and in all perfection." ^ 
 
 The State thus becomes a necessary good. The opposite 
 theory makes it a necessary evil, bad for the good and good 
 for the bad, since all restraint upon natural liberty is de- 
 clared to be interference with natural rights. Jefferson re- 
 garded it as a maxim that " that government is best which 
 governs least." On this principle, no government is best 
 of all, and the anarchists are right. But since we cannot 
 get along without the State, the evil is necessary. 
 
 " But," say the advocates of this view, " let us have just 
 as little of it as possible. No restraint on individual liberty, 
 if you please. We demand the liberty of the wise man to 
 outwit the ignorant, of the swift to outrun the slow, of the 
 strong to outdo the weak. We give you (the ignorant, 
 slow, and weak) every chance that any one else (the wise, 
 the swift, the strong) has. We are not all created equal, 
 and, even if we are, we deny that we should continue so. 
 
 1 " The Theory of the State " (Bluntschli), p. 65. 
 
 2 As quoted ntd., p. 68. 
 
176 THE NATURE OF THE SOCIALISTIC STATE 
 
 We deny that we are one body, either in Christ, the State, 
 or anything else ; and we are not ' every one members one 
 of another.' Our interests are separate and individual. 
 Let every one look out for himself, and, as Professor Sum- 
 ner says, ' mind his own business.' If the triumvirate 
 of capital, contract, and competition divides society into 
 ' shearers and shorn,' it is the decree of fate, weakness is 
 wickedness, and conscience a crime." 
 
 This cold and cheerless philosophy thus justifies itself in 
 mocking those who are outstripped in the cruel, competitive 
 struggle for existence. It says to those naked and destitute 
 of daily food, " Depart in peace ; be ye warmed and filled," 
 notwithstanding it gives them not those things which are 
 needful to the body ^ and which they would gladly earn were 
 it in their power. Dr. A. J. F. Behrends, commenting /awor- 
 ably upon Professor Sumner's definition of civil liberty 
 admits exultingly that " the plain drift of legislation and 
 public opinion for two hundred years has been in the direc- 
 tion of greater personal liberty, giving to every man the 
 right to secure his well-being in his own way." It does not 
 seem to occur to these gentlemen in their zeal for capital- 
 ism, of which it is the main support, that such a right be- 
 longs only to men in a savage state, or that this principle 
 allows one man or set of men to gobble up all the real and 
 personal property in a community or nation provided they 
 are smart enough. They assure us further that equality, 
 rights, liberty pertain only to chance, not to results. 
 
 That is, if the capitalistic system places bread seven feet 
 from the ground, so that only the tallest are sMe to reach 
 it, equality consists in giving short people the same chance 
 with six-footers. Society may fix the height of bread, but 
 it has no legal right to put a hassock under the man who 
 cannot reach it. The only right " guaranteed " him, the 
 " personal liberty ... to secure his well-being in his own 
 way," is the right and liberty of himself and family to 
 starve or become pauperized. Thus the votaries of personal 
 liberty feel the fires of industrial cannibalism. 
 
 This position, however, is essential to capitalism, which 
 
 1 James ii. 15, 16. 
 
THE NATUKE OF THE STATE CRITICALLY EXAMINED 177 
 
 rests upon the pagan's idea of property as an absolute 
 right — hence the zeal with which it is defended. Mr. 
 William E. Hearn, in his " Aryan Household," says, " The 
 history of individual property and the history of personal 
 liberty coincide." They must stand or fall together. 
 
 To-day the arch-enemy of society, of Christianity, of an 
 advancing civilization, is personal or individual liberty as 
 against civil or social liberty. Its application to modem 
 industry is now working injustice and hardship that is no 
 longer tolerable. A few men get control of the oil or coal, 
 or other necessity of life, diminish the output, raise the 
 price, and thousands suffer. Not long since personal liberty 
 took possession of all the wheat in the country, raised the 
 price of flour a dollar per barrel, and enriched itself, while 
 multitudes went hungry. The Spring Valley Coal Company 
 of Illinois refused to give employment to the miners who 
 carried food and medicine to the hungry and sick people 
 during a lockout. The relief committee were cowed and 
 supplies ceased. The New York Herald says, " A more 
 brutal and damnable action can hardly be conceived in a 
 civilized community. . . Disease and starvation may stalk 
 unchecked among helpless women and children." ' 
 
 This is characterized as "brutal slavery," but will the 
 Herald, or Professor Sumner, or Dr. Behrends tell us where^ 
 in Mr. Scott, the superintendent of this coal company, is 
 doing otherwise than using " all his own powers exclusively 
 for his own benefit," and this under the guarantee of the 
 laws? 
 
 This is declared to be civil liberty ! The cruelty in this 
 case is readily seen and denounced, but it is no less real 
 when farther removed from the cause, or the process is 
 more complex and refined. 
 
 Much of the misery of laborers and their families can be 
 traced with unerring certainty to this conception of civil 
 liberty applied to industry, which is only natural liberty in 
 its unrestrained and most brutal form. Personal liberty is 
 summoned to the aid of every species of injustice and op- 
 pression. It boldly claims the right to corrupt public and 
 
 1 December, 1889. 
 
178 THE NATURE OF THE SOCIALISTIC STATE 
 
 private morals. A bill introduced into the legislature of 
 New York authorizing the arrest of professional blacklegs, 
 thieves, etc., when the public welfare demanded it, was ob- 
 jected to as an " infringement of personal liberty." Ah, say 
 the advocates of the personal liberty theory, "the State 
 should step in and interfere in oases of abuse or injustice." 
 
 Exactly ! But where will you draw the line of State inter- 
 ference ? There can be but one answer, and this is when- 
 ever personal liberty conflicts with the public good ; and so 
 we come back to the true theory of the State that its ulti- 
 mate end is not personal liberty, but the public good. 
 
 The inherited notion of the absolute rights of individuals 
 is incompatible with the social state. It is at best a legal 
 fiction. In a state of society rights are relative. Only an 
 absolute man — a man outside the pale of society — can 
 have absolute rights. 
 
 The absolute rights of the law books are not absolute at 
 all, but only relative, which pertain to men as members of 
 society. 
 
 Blackstone says these absolute rights may be reduced to 
 three ; namely, "the right oi personal security, the right of 
 personal liberty and the right oi private property." ^ When, 
 however, he defines these rights, their exercise in each case 
 is to be in strictest accordance with the " laws of the land : " 
 in other words, related men cannot have absolute rights. 
 A part can assert or enforce no absolute right against the 
 whole. A private suit against the State is, in the name of 
 the State, determined by the State, and conducted in a State 
 court which opens and closes with " God save the State," 
 and this is based on the soundest philosophy. All that any 
 member of society owns, knows, or is, is derived mediately 
 from the society ; it is due to society, to the State, and he can 
 no more have absolute rights against it than against his 
 God. Let us get rid of the delusion that because the State 
 does not create property or knowledge directly for the 
 individual, therefore private property and knowledge are 
 independent of the State. Whatever a man is or pos- 
 sesses beyond what an isolated or a savage condition would 
 
 1 " Commentaries," Book I. Chapter i. p. 129. 
 
tHE NATURE OP THE STATE CRITICALLY EXAMINED 179 
 
 Confer, is due to society or the State, which is as much 
 entitled to its own as any person. 
 
 Relative rights the social man may jiistly claim, and if 
 lie claims more, it is because these, properly understood, 
 afford no foundation for individual greed, aggrandizement, 
 and tyranny. 
 
 This conception of the State practically disposes of the 
 question of laissez-faire. If the State is an organism, 
 and its end the public welfare, its functions must be coex- 
 tensive with this end. The sole consideration respecting 
 State interference in any matter whatever is, will it con- 
 serve the public welfare ? The principle of laissez-faire is 
 per se neither good nor bad. Its application in any par- 
 ticular case is prima facie a question of expediency. In 
 the course of industrial evolution it has done grand service ; 
 but we have now reached a stage in the development of 
 society where the demand for its modification is imperative. 
 • Immense public interests, such as railroads and telegraphs, 
 are controlled by private individuals for private gains. 
 Legislation in behalf of private corporations is bought and 
 sold like commodities. It is notorious that corporations 
 resort to all the tricks and subterfuges which human ingenu- 
 ity can devise to defeat any attempted legal limitation to 
 their greed. They are often stronger than the government 
 itself. 
 
 It is interesting to observe with what consummate noncha- 
 lance a few capitalists will ask the government for a charter 
 to enable them to serve the public when everybody knows 
 that their sole motive is to fleece the public and enrich them- 
 selves. 'Yet the government hastens to grant the franchise, 
 the people applaud, the stockholders pose as public bene- 
 factors, and nothing is wanting to solemnize the farce but 
 to call in a minister of the gospel of mammon to pronounce 
 the benediction in the name of money the father, money 
 the son, money the holy ghost, and to money be all the 
 glory for ever and ever ! Amen. 
 
 The eyes of the people, however, are being opened. Cor- 
 porate greed, irresponsibility, and corruption, reacting most 
 
 1 " Commentaries," Book I. Cliapter i. p. 129. 
 
180 THE NATUKE OF THE SOCIALISTIC STATE 
 
 dangerously upon political institutions, are seen to be 
 sources of imminent peril to society. 
 
 Private monopoly, the industrial monstrosity now prey- 
 ing upon society, is the legitimate but ill-omened offspring 
 of laissez-faire. The social body has become so compacted 
 and complicated ; the conditions of life are so changed ; 
 moral, political, and educational forces have so entered into 
 the life of the people that discontent becomes dangerous, 
 individualism becomes treason. Social justice requires that 
 the State shall assume more of a fraternal character. It 
 needs to be continually emphasized that the highest possible 
 degree of personal liberty consistent with the public good is 
 alone obtainable under a fraternal popular government. 
 
 The modern theory of the State as an organism is utterly 
 inconsistent with the theory of laissez-faire. Herbert Spen- 
 cer, although an individualist, lays the sure foundation of 
 the socialistic state in showing that it is an organism. He 
 compares the body politic with the highly developed ani- 
 mal body, and traces the analogies between them, but he 
 shrinks from the conclusions of his own logic which would 
 forbid one part of the animal organism to pursue its own 
 interests independently of the other. 
 
 The " let alone " policy would make havoc with the human 
 body. Professor Huxley, remarking upon this inconsist- 
 ency, pertinently says, " Suppose that in accordance with 
 this view, each muscle were to maintain that the nervous 
 system had no right to interfere with its contraction except 
 to prevent it from hindering the contraction of another 
 muscle ; or each gland that it had a right to secrete as 
 long as its secretion interfered with no other; suppose 
 every separate cell left free to follow its own interest and 
 be ' let alone,' lord of all ! what would become of the body 
 physiological ? " ' 
 
 There is of course a limit to State activity. Aristotle 
 declared only a half truth when he said that man was a 
 " political animal." 
 
 The lives of men are not completely expressed and bounded 
 by the term citizenship. 
 
 1 As quoted in " Modern Socialism " (Groland), p. 89. 
 
THE NATUBE OF THE STATE CRITICALLY EXAMINED 181 
 
 The politico-economic motto, each for all, no more de- 
 stroys one's individuality in the community than does the 
 command tO' love thy neighbor as thyself. It simply cuts 
 up economic selfishness by the roots. 
 
 Socialism strikes primarily at economic injustice and 
 touches other interests only in a secondary and resultant 
 manner. 
 
 A thousand interests that make for human happiness 
 would, under the co-operative commonwealth, be left as 
 they now are to individual capacity and freedom. 
 
 " The State can confer on no one the delights of friend- 
 ship and love, the charm of scientific study, or of political 
 and artistic creation, the consolations of religion, or the 
 purity and sanctification of the soul united with God." ^ 
 
 Personal choice in all that pertains to the enjoyment of 
 society, to marriage and domestic life, to recreation, travel, 
 culture, religion, labor, the possession and use of all economic 
 goods necessary to man's mental, moral, and physical well- 
 being, will not be limited or controlled by the Socialistic 
 State. 
 
 The co-operative commonwealth therefore furnishes abun- 
 dant room for a newer and truer doctrine of laissez-faire. 
 It is not the general happiness but the general misery that 
 Socialism attempts to eliminate from society, and it advo- 
 cates no changes not deemed absolutely necessary to this 
 end. 
 
 1 " The Theory of the State" (Bluntschli), p. 297. 
 
182 THE INADEQUACY OF VARIOUS REMEDIES 
 
 CHAPTEE V 
 
 THE INADEQUACY OF VARIOUS REMEDIES PROPOSED FOE 
 SOCIAL ILLS 
 
 "When the ohject is to raise the permanent condition of a people, 
 small means do not merely produce small effects ; they produce no effect 
 at all." — John Stuart Mill. 
 
 The various remedies proposed by those who are not yet 
 willing to avow themselves Socialists, to cure social ills, ^re 
 either Socialistic in character, by tending to unite the func- 
 tions of employer and employee, or in harmony with the 
 principles of Socialism. 
 
 Although inadequate, they serve to allay irritation on the 
 surface, and are generally prompted by a sincere desire to 
 restore peace and promote social justice. Let us consider 
 these insufficient measures respecting each of which volumes 
 have been written. 
 
 I. — Profit-Sharing. 
 
 " There is no reason why the least charitable and least philanthropic of 
 masters should not adopt some form of extra payment for extra results, 
 some simple form of proiit-sharing, any more than that he should adopt 
 piece-work instead of time wage." — fVestminster Review. 
 
 Profit-sharing is of three kinds : first, without wages ; 
 second, with wages ; third, through stock-owning. An ex- 
 ample of the first kind is seen in fishing ventures, where 
 the product divided among the crew is their only reward. 
 This is, strictly speaking, ^rorZwc^-shaving. 
 
 The second kind consists of a percentage of profits vol- 
 untarily given by emploj'ers in addition to wages. 
 
 The third kind takes place when the employees carry on 
 the business themselves, thus uniting the functions of em- 
 ployer and employee. Profit-sharing, as we shall now con- 
 
PROFIT-SHARING 183 
 
 sider it, and which is generally intended by industrial 
 partnership, is the division of a certain per cent of the 
 profits among employees, in addition to wages. 
 
 In France, where it was first introduced in 1842, it is 
 known as participation ; In England, as industrial partner- 
 ship ; and in Germany and the United States, as profit- 
 sharing. It is voluntary on the part of the employer. It 
 is generally adopted as a purely business expedient, al- 
 though a philanthropic motive plays an important part 
 with some. 
 
 Many employers realize the injustice of the wage-system, 
 and do everything in their power, consistent with busi- 
 ness, to mitigate its evils. They establish reading-rooms, 
 insurance and other relief societies for the benefit of their 
 employees. Profit-sharing has several advantages. It in- 
 creases the efficiency of the laborers ; it increases their real 
 wages ; it renders them more contented^ and therefore less 
 likely to strike. 
 
 The greater attention and interest bestowed on the work 
 diminishes the cost of superintendence ; it diminishes the 
 loss from waste ; it brings employer and employee into more 
 sympathetic and harmonious relations; it increases the 
 profits of employers ; and finally, because always proposed 
 by employees, it supplies the long-felt desideratum of find- 
 ing a way of benevolence without sacrifice, of giving with- 
 out impoverishing. 
 
 Many of ' the advocates of profit-sharing see in it an es- 
 cape from our industrial troubles. Bev. N. P. Gilman, in 
 the introduction to his excellent treatise on "Profit-Shar- 
 ing," says, " It is surely one of the most promising methods 
 of securing the peaceful and fruitful union of the productive 
 forces of modern industry;" and he quotes (p. 412) the 
 economist J. H. von Thunen as saying it is " the only sal- 
 vation of the laboring classes." 
 
 We cheerfully admit that profit-sharing is a step in the 
 right direction ; that its general adoption would be an im- 
 mense gain to industrial society. It tends toward that union 
 of employer and employee which finds complete and logical 
 expression in Socialism. But would profit-sharing solve the 
 
184 THE INADEQUACY OF VARIOUS REMEDIES 
 
 labor question ? Would it satisfy the just demands of 
 wage-workers and thus restore industrial harmony ? 
 
 That it would do neither of these things is evident from 
 the following considerations : — 
 
 1. Profit-sharing has no sound economic basis. 
 
 There is only one party to it, and that is the employer. 
 He proposes it ; he decides when a surplus of profits exists, 
 and how much it is ; he lays down rules for apportionment 
 and distribution among employees ; in a word, he manages 
 the business and the books, without any right of inter- 
 ference or question by employees, and from his decision 
 there is no appeal. 
 
 All these things give profit-sharing the appearance of a 
 gift bestowed, whereas it is z. payment earned if it has any 
 economic validity. It is not legally a gift which must 
 take effect immediately ; it is a mere promise without con- 
 sideration and cannot be enforced. 
 
 2. Wage-workers demand not merely greater wages, 
 which they have already obtained, but a greater proportion- 
 ate share of products in accordance with the new ethics of 
 social justice. 
 
 The parties engaged in a joint enterprise are better satis- 
 fied with nothing than with an unjust division of the spoils. 
 The social question is one of proportion, of comparison. 
 Profit-sharing not only offers no balm for this, the real 
 wound of industrial society, but aggravates the difficulty. 
 Mr. Gilman, in the work just quoted (pp. 416, 416), says 
 that employers who have adopted profit-sharing " generally 
 agree that the division of a bonus among the working men 
 is good business policy ; ... in most cases they claim that 
 their own share is greater than the whole profits were under 
 the simple wage-system." By what means has their share 
 become " greater " ? Through whose efforts are they en- 
 riched by extra profits ? Let Mr. Gilman answer. " Out 
 of this extra profit comes the share of men whose diligence 
 and care have created it." The italics are ours. 
 
 This means that the share of the employee is increased 
 by more work, wliile the share of the employer is increased 
 by less work, since he is relieved in a measure of superin- 
 tendence and anxiety. 
 
PROFIT-SHARING 185 
 
 Profit-sharing thus reduces the proportionate share of 
 workmen. If extra profits, or, in other words, more goods, 
 are produced solely by the " diligence and care " of em- 
 ployees, to them should belong the goods. No part of them 
 should go to capital, for this has played no part in creating 
 the surplus : no part should go to the employer, for he has 
 done actually less. Every consideration o£ justice demands 
 that laborers who have, by increased exertion, produced 
 more, should alone have the fruit of their labor. To bestow 
 a part of this on the laborer and a part on the employer is 
 what profit-sharing graciously offers to do ! Any scheme, 
 whatever advantages it may seem to possess, that fails to 
 give workmen a larger proportionate share of the products 
 is doomed beforehand. 
 
 3. Profit-sharing affords workmen no guarantee of a 
 share of profits, even although entitled to it. 
 
 A year of the most painstaking service may be rewarded 
 by the dishonest withholding of the bonus, and the work- 
 man has no redress, 
 
 Mismanagement may also deprive him of it. This would 
 open the door to discontent and ill-will. Business depres- 
 sion might produce the same result ; so also might expendi- 
 tures for repairs and improvements. 
 
 This element of uncertainty seems a serious objection to 
 this scheme of which so many good things can be said. It 
 may be replied that the employer himself must be subject 
 to uncertainties. True, but he is behind them, foresees 
 them, and has a chance to control circumstances and prepare 
 for contingencies. 
 
 4. A fatal argument, implied in the foregoing but 
 worthy of special emphasis, against this scheme is that 
 many employers cannot share profits, for they have none to 
 share. 
 
 Ninety per cent of business men fail; or, as a French 
 writer puts it, " ten out of a hundred succeed, fifty ' vege- 
 tate,' and forty go into bankruptcy." Most employers, 
 therefore, cannot promise any bonus. 
 
 This fact ends profit-sharing so far as affording any 
 general relief. 
 
186 THE INADEQUACY OF VARIOUS REMEDIES 
 
 5. Profit-sharing, by distributing a certain per cent of 
 the profits to employees, spreads before the public annually 
 the actual condition of a man's business. 
 
 This is what he desires to keep secret and what other 
 capitalists desire to know. If profits are large, capital 
 will be attracted to this business till it is overdone, when 
 profits cease and wages fall. The man who adopts this 
 scheme therefore labors under serious disadvantages. If 
 profits are large, he invites competition ; if small, or nothing, 
 he invites criticism, distrust, and ruin. 
 
 The inexorable law of competition thus stands directly 
 across the path of profit-sharing. 
 
 6. Profit-sharing is not adapted to manij kinds of business, 
 and therefore can afford no general relief to wage-workers. 
 
 In industries in which the value of the product depends 
 largely upon the efficiency of the workmen, the principle 
 can be applied to the best advantage. But in industries in 
 which machinery is the principal factor, in which little skill 
 on the part of labor is required and superintendence is 
 easy, profit-sharing promises little ; and it should be observed 
 that new and improved machinery is rapidly bringing most 
 industries into this latter class. Again, large bodies of 
 wage-workers, such as carpenters, masons, farm-hands, 
 street laborers and other employees of cities, wharf hands, 
 etc., cannot from the nature of their work have any partici- 
 pation in profits. Any co-operative scheme or union of 
 capital and labor so limited in its application as to leave 
 large classes of laborers subject to the injustice of the 
 wage-system may indeed be here and there temporarily 
 adopted and ease friction, but cannot commend itself to 
 practical men. 
 
 7. The history of profit-sharing shows that it has been 
 tried and discontinued in a large number of industries. 
 Professor Edward W. Bemis states, doubtless through in- 
 advertency, that " with one or two exceptions . . . not a 
 failure of the experiment can be found in this country or 
 in Europe." ' In the seventeenth Annual Report of the 
 
 1 " Co-operation in New England," in publications of the American 
 Economic Association, November, 1886. 
 
PROFIT-SHARING 187 
 
 Massachusetts Bureau of Statistics of Labor, Mr. Wright 
 shows that of the six experiments in profit-sharing in the 
 United States, /om?' were failures ; viz., A. S. Cameron & 
 Co., Brewster & Co., botli of New York ; a mercantile 
 experiment, which he says was " the most extensive trial 
 of profit-sharing by bonus ever made in Massachusetts . . . 
 was discontinued, because . . . too many showed no appre- 
 ciation of its benefits ; " and Lester Brothers, Newark N. J. 
 The failures are far more numerous in Europe than in 
 the United States. 
 
 Indeed, so far is profit-sharing from being an established 
 success " with one or two exceptions," that, of the seven 
 instances in New England cited by Professor Bemis him- 
 self, one, a shoe establishment of Brockton, Mass., was not a 
 case of profit-sharing, but a percentage on capital paid in by 
 workmen ; one, the New Haven Wire Company, merely pro- 
 posed the plan to the employees, which was rejected ; and 
 indeed oTiZy owe of the entire seven had ever paid a dividend. 
 Its friends claim that in many cases of discontinuance the 
 failure was due, not to anything inherent in the system, 
 but to extrinsic causes. This is true and is the most 
 damaging and conclusive testimony against the system as 
 a solvent of the labor question. Extrinsic causes are as 
 fatal as intrinsic ones. Bullets in battle are extrinsic. 
 The extrinsic causes so hostile to profit-sharing are the sine 
 qua nan of capitalism, and ever-increasingly active. The 
 principles of profit-sharing and capitalism are antagonistic, 
 and can no more unite than oil and water. They may 
 indeed be stirred up together and a seeming union secured, 
 but it will be abnormal and temporary. 
 
 The mistake is continually being made, of considering 
 the phenomena of profit-sharing apart from and independ- 
 ent of the hostile forces of the capitalistic system on which 
 it is unnaturally grafted. Profit-sharing, when successful, 
 has generally been under the guiding hand of a master 
 mind, who has generally and bravely stepped forth from 
 the ranks of employers with the purpose of improving, not 
 only his own, but the condition of his employees. 
 
 The feature that renders this scheme attractive to econ- 
 
188 THE INADEQUACY OF VAKIOUS REMEDIES 
 
 omists" and philanthropists is its Socialistic one ; namely, 
 the tendency to unite the interests of employer and em- 
 ployee. Our contention is not against this tendency, but 
 against the claim that the abortive and sporadic applica- 
 tion of it by profit-sharing is sufficient. A careful considera- 
 tion of this method of co-operation shows its inadequacy. 
 Its history and working show that it is exceptional, 
 indeJBnite, capricious, and opposed by the whole genius 
 of the existing industrial system. Notwithstanding all 
 this, it concedes the justice of the laborer's claiih to a larger 
 share of the product, and is, as we observed at the outset, 
 a step in the right direction. We shall be glad to see it 
 more generally adopted, as an encouraging sign of progress 
 toward that larger and juster union of economic forces 
 which Socialism demands and which alone will restore in- 
 dustrial and social peace. 
 
 II. — Co-operation. 
 
 " The pathology of co-operation may he studied with profit." 
 
 Professor Amos G. Walker. 
 
 Co-operation, in its broadest sense, means to labor together, 
 and by implication, for the same end, and in a spirit of 
 mutual helpfulness and sympathy. This is the economic 
 and ethical key-note of Socialism. Indeed, the term co- 
 operation was first applied to industry about 1820 by 
 Robert Owen, the founder of English Socialism. 
 
 This reformer, moved at the hard lot and degraded con- 
 dition of laborers, proposed the establishment of working 
 communities of from 500 to 3,000 people with 1,500 or more 
 acres of land for each community. Each should carry on 
 agriculture and manufacturing with the best machinery, 
 and offer every variety of employment. Work and the 
 rewards of work should be in common. " 'As these town- 
 ships,' as he also called them, ' should increase in number, 
 unions of them federatively united shall be formed in circles 
 of tens, hundreds, and thousands,' till they should embrace 
 the whole world in a common interest." ^ 
 
 1 "Encyclopaedia Britaiinica," title, " Owen, Robert." 
 
CO-OPBKATION 189 
 
 Such was the expectation of the founder of the co-opera- 
 tive movement in England. A scheme so humane in its 
 aims, so curative of social ills, so Christian in its principles, 
 and so promising in outlook attracted wide attention. 
 Many thought the era of industrial association and equality- 
 was about to dawn. It is needless to say the expectation 
 has not been realized. Old Plutus does not abdicate so 
 easily. The capitalistic system admits of variations, but it 
 is capitalism still. Mr. Holyoake says, " The term co-opera- 
 tion was at first, as the reader sees, used iii the sense of 
 communism, as denoting a general arrangement of society 
 for the mutual benefit of all concerned in sustaining it. 
 Later the term co-operation came to be restricted to the 
 humbler occupations of buying and selling." ' 
 
 Thus the great industrial principle announced by Owen 
 took form and developed in a manner different from his 
 expectations. So far from becoming' a general movement, 
 based on the motto " each for all and all for each," .it 
 was only able to unite individual bodies of laborers for 
 purposes of trade or manufacturing ; thus securing a 
 partial and temporary, advantage in the struggle with com- 
 petition. 
 
 Holyoake defines the term thus : " Co-operation, in the 
 social sense of the word, is a new power of industry, con- 
 stituted by the equitable combination of worker, capitalist, 
 and consumer, and a new means of commercial morality, by 
 which honesty is rendered productive. It is the concert of 
 many for compassing advantages impossible to be reached 
 by one, in order that the gain may be fairly shared by all con- 
 cerned in its attainment." ^ This definition is very general. 
 It can be made to fit Socialism or its extreme opposite, 
 individualism, and it includes profit-sharing. It reminds us 
 of the answer of a western physician who, after a fifty-mile 
 drive over the prairies visiting patients, was thus rallied by 
 a friend who had accompanied him : " How is it, doctor, that 
 you have given the same medicine to all your patients 
 irrespective of their ailments ? " The doctor spiritedly 
 replied, " Bless your heart, there are forty-five different 
 
 1 " History of Co-operatioii," vol. i. p. 68. 2 Ibid.^ p. 2. 
 
190 THE INADEQUACY OF VARIOUS REMEDIES 
 
 ingredients in that medicine, and it is a pity if some one 
 of them doesn't fit each case ! " 
 
 This deiiuition of co-operation fits about all the social 
 theories that have been proposed. An " equitable combina- 
 tion," " gain fairly shared," is all anybody asks ; but what 
 is this, and how can it be secured ? The truth is co-operar 
 tion is too large a term to fit the partial schemes of in- 
 dividualist social reformers. No definition that does not 
 measure integral co-operation, or the co-operative common- 
 wealth, will be ethically satisfactory, or socially scientific. 
 What is historically known as co-operation has been con- 
 fined chiefly to distribution. This consists in the union 
 of many consumers for the purchasing of commodities and 
 the dividing of profits on the basis of the amount of pur- 
 chases. " Such co-operative unions are upon the continent 
 of Europe termed ' consumers' societies.' As has been said, 
 'they have succeeded in making twenty shillings of earnings 
 go as far as twenty-two or twenty-three in an ordinary 
 shop. The true problem of co-operation lies deeper : that 
 is, how to secure the original twentj'' shillings in work- 
 shops under their own management.' " ^ 
 
 Co-operation in production is indeed the real problem. 
 Can it be solved under the existing regime ? Can substan- 
 tial headway be made in this direction in the face of cap- 
 italism ? To the first question we answer unhesitatingly 
 no. The answer to the second is doubtful. 
 
 We have no contention with those who advocate co- 
 operation in every direction. We heartily believe in it ; 
 but we join issue when they assure us that this is not only 
 efficient, but sufficient. With them we point with pride to 
 the history and results of co-operation. Great Britain, 
 where the scheme has been most thoroughly tried, had, in 
 1830, 300 societies with a membership of 20,000 ; in 1852, 
 the number of societies had dwindled to 140; in 1862, it had 
 increased to 460, with a membership of 90,000 and a capital 
 of $2,250,000 ; in 1883, the societies numbered 1,304 and the 
 membership 680,165. To this membership $120,420,560 
 
 1 Carroll D. Wright; " Suventeentli Annual Report, Massachusetts 
 Bureau of Statistics of Labor," jj. 12, 
 
CO-OPERATION 191 
 
 in profits have been saved and distributed. If partial 
 co-operation can achieve suck grand results, what might 
 not be expected when the pure and divine principle had 
 the field all to itself as it would in Socialistic co-operation ? 
 
 The phenomena of co-operation in the United States are 
 peculiar. 
 
 The term is applied to so great a variety of associations 
 that no single definition can contain them. We have co- 
 operative building and loan associations, co-operative in- 
 surance and agricultural associations, and co-operative 
 stores. The order of the Patrons of Husbandry (Grangers) 
 is a national co-operative association of farmers for the 
 wholesale purchase and shipment of goods by the local 
 grange. The Sovereigns of Industry, not limited to farmers, 
 sought the same object. Co-operative creameries are a 
 later development of this principle. The term co-operative 
 is equally indefinite when applied to productive enter- 
 prises. It includes joint-stock concerns owned wholly or 
 in part by workmen without dividends to labor, and also 
 profit-sharing through stock-owning. The great variety of 
 methods to which this term is applied is a hopeful sign ; 
 it shows the expansive power and adaptability of the 
 principle of co-operation and the growing esteem in which 
 it is held. No means are at hand of ascertaining, even 
 approximately, the total amount of co-operative business 
 done in the United States. The figures for New England 
 for 1886, as given by Professor Edward Bemis, are $7,000,- 
 000.' He describes 18 stores and 12 manufactories on the 
 co-operative plan. Professor Amos Gr. Walker says, respect- 
 ing co-operation in the West, that he has obtained informa- 
 tion " regarding something over 30 " stores, and he describes 
 50 productive establishments.^ The co-operative business of 
 the country for the year 1890 is probably not less than 
 $20,000,000. Co-operation thus assumes an importance that 
 few have suspected. That the movement has only begun 
 
 1 " Co-operation in New England, " p. 136, in Publications of the 
 American Economic Association, November, 1886. 
 
 2 " Three Phases of Co-operation in the "West." — Publications of the 
 American Economic Association, March, 1887, 
 
192 THE INADEQUACY OF VARIOUS REMEDIES 
 
 may easily be believed. It is beginning to be felt that iiiuii 
 is not only a political, but a co-operative being. Co-opera- 
 tion is now the industrial watchword among wage-workers. 
 There is magic in the word. There is every reason to 
 believe that what the principle has done for capital, from 
 the simple forms of co-partnership to the trust, it can do 
 for labor, and will do as rapidly as wage-workers acquire 
 sufficient intelligence to apply it. 
 
 It would be a mistake, however, to suppose that this 
 partial or individual co-operation can be a substitute for 
 integral or universal co-operation. It may, and we believe 
 it ought, to be a precursor of it. It is a necessary link in 
 the chain of industrial evolution. 
 
 The "New Nation" must be ushered in by evolution, not 
 revolution. The kingdom of Socialism, like the kingdom of 
 heaven, cometh not by violence. 
 
 We offer eight reasons showing why partial co-operation 
 cannot restore industrial peace : — 
 
 1. It is a half truth, and no half truth ever yet had an 
 easy chair or permanent lease of life. 
 
 2. It can be applied to but few industries, and no scheme 
 will be accepted as an ultimatum that leaves the great mass 
 of wage-workers unprotected. 
 
 3. It is the function of government, not of classes, to 
 establish justice. 
 
 Social or industrial justice, outraged by the existing sys- 
 tem, like civil justice, must have the power of the State 
 behind it. This great truth is ignored by those- who advo- 
 cate partial co-operation as sufficient. 
 
 4. Competition is the . arch-enemy of co-operation. It 
 has slain its hundreds. At Lima, 0., the regular mer- 
 chants agreed to sell each, some one article below cost, and 
 the co-operative store was forced to collapse. There is no 
 cohesive principle between co-operative stores or manufac- 
 tories ; each is for itself and against another, and capital- 
 ism is against them all. 
 
 5. Wage-workers have not sufficient intelligence for 
 co-operation except in a few industries. Thorold Rogers 
 says that men trained in the habits of due subordination 
 
CO-OPERATION 193 
 
 and unhesitating obedience are necessary to success in co- 
 operation.' 
 
 Holyoake, speaking of the causes of failure, says, "As 
 soon as the sunshine of success warms up the scheme, the 
 envies and jealousies crawl out like parasites, and, in some 
 eases, when human nature is worse than in others, they 
 overrun everything and make the society morally uninhab- 
 itable."^ Professor Bemis, who adduces this testimony 
 himself, declares that men of an exalted " type of Chris- 
 tian manhood " are needed in all co-operative enterprises. 
 " The men who have succeeded in co-operation," says Pro- 
 fessor F. H. Giddings, " have been men of superior charac- 
 ter and energy."' Such men are of course exceptional. 
 
 Individual co-operation, therefore, must generally end in 
 failure. It is the uniform testimony that co-operation fails 
 because co-operators fail to co-operate, and they fail for 
 want of intelligence and moral discipline. 
 
 6. Co-operative Production, after an experience of three- 
 quarters of a century, has hardly a name to live. Most of 
 its experiments have been like man born of woman, of few 
 days, and full of trouble. A few industries of peculiar 
 character, like the coopers' shops of Minneapolis, where the 
 entreiyreneur function is of small account, may succeed ; 
 but unless co-operative production can bring relief to the 
 great body of wage-workers, it is not the remedy society 
 demands. 
 
 President Earle, of the Sovereigns of Industry, exclaims 
 " What avails the successful operations and the increasing 
 trade of distributing societies, if the relative position of 
 capitalist and laborer, the einployer and the employed, is 
 to remain the same, and the poor toiler is still to be satis- 
 fied with the little he can obtain in the general scramble . 
 for the wealth which his labor produces ? " 
 
 7. Co-operative distribution, so far as it aims to get rid 
 
 1 As quoted by Edward W. Bemis, in " Co-operation inNew England," 
 in Publications of the American Economic Association p. 17. 
 
 2 Ibid. 
 
 8 "Co-operation" in "The Labor Movement the Problem of To- 
 day," p. 523. 
 
194 THE INADEQUACY OF VAKIOUS REMEDIES 
 
 of the middleman, has an ever-narrowing field. The mass- 
 ing of capital and the power of monopoly enable the whole- 
 sale dealer to convert the retailer into a mere agent for 
 dispensing his commodities. This does away with the 
 independent middle merchant, and brings the consumer as 
 near the producer as does the co-operative store. 
 
 Examples are furnished in nearly every branch of trade. 
 Immense dry-goods stores cheapen goods, "as do the co-op- 
 erative stores ill England, by cutting off the profits of the 
 small middlemen." It is notorious that the large brewers 
 in New York control the saloons so that the saloon-keeper 
 is practically a wage-worker. Vast clothing establishments 
 are constantly sending to individuals throughQut the coun- 
 try samples of goods, rules for self-measurement, etc., thus 
 doing away with the small local dealer and his profits. 
 
 8. Co-operation is seriously, if not fatally, handicapped 
 in the matter of management and supervision. Capitalis- 
 tic enterprises can, and co-oi^erative will not, if they can, 
 pay the highest price for skilful management. Mr. 
 Thomas Brassey asks, " Where shall we find co-operative 
 shareholders ready to give 6,000 pounds a year for a com- 
 petent manager ? And yet the sum I have named is 
 sometimes readily paid by private employers to an able 
 lieutenant." ' 
 
 Professor Walker presents an unanswerable argument 
 in this connection against co-operation. He says, " Co- 
 operation ... is nothing more or less than getting rid 
 of the employer, the entrepreneur, the middleman." ^ It 
 is certain that the " entrepreneur function, " under capi- 
 talism, is of increasing importance to success in busi- 
 ness. As competition intensifies, markets are extended, 
 means of communication multiply, fashions change, ma- 
 chinery improves, and new methods are demanded. Qual- 
 ities of the highest order are required in the . successful 
 manager, and these will be had at any cost. Professor 
 Walker, after a brief survey of the ill success of co- 
 operation in England, France, Germany, and Switzerland, 
 
 1 As quoted in the " Wages Question " (Walker), pp. 277, 278. 
 
 2 Ibid., p. 265, 
 
CO-OPEKATION 195 
 
 well says, " Small groups of highly skilled artisans . . . 
 carefully selected . . . may achieve success, . . . but where 
 laborers of very various qualifications, of all ages and both 
 sexes, are to be brought together iu industries which in- 
 volve a great many processes requiring differing degrees 
 of strength and skill, and which produce goods for distant, 
 and perhaps, at the time of production, unknown markets, 
 we see as yet scarcely a sign of the services of the employer 
 being dispensed with. 
 
 " What, then, is the reason for this comparative failure of 
 "industrial co-operation ? I answer, the difficulty of effect- 
 ing co-operation on a large scale is directly as its desira- 
 bleness. It is solely because of the importance of the 
 entrepreneur function that the employing class are able to 
 realize those large profits which so naturally and properly 
 excite the desires of the wages-class ; and it is for precisely 
 the same reason that it is found so diflticult to get rid of 
 the employing class." ' 
 
 These are among the reasons why partial co-operation, 
 which is generally understood by the term, cannot restore 
 industrial peace. 
 
 Most capitalistic economists speak kindly of the move- 
 ment and gladly record any instance where it has afforded 
 wage-workers even a slight relief. As men humane and 
 Christian, they wish it well and hope it may have some- 
 thing of a future, but as consistent economists of capitalism 
 they know it is abnormal and can have no scientific basis. 
 
 Nothing short of the co-operation of Socialism can with- 
 stand the mighty power of competition. To this position 
 taken by Mr. William Morris, Professor F. H. Gidding 
 replies, " This is to overlook the vitally important truth, 
 that there are monstrous evils associated with competition, 
 at present, which have grown up through the shameful 
 neglect of the government to fulfil its primary functions 
 of protecting eqwd riyhts and enforcing justice." ^ The 
 italics are ours. 
 
 1 As quoted in the " Wages Question " (Walker), pp. 274, 275. 
 
 2 "Co-operation" in "The Lahor Movement the Problem of To- 
 day," p. 531, 
 
196 THE INADEQUACY OF VARIOUS REMEDIES 
 
 Here is the marrow of the social question. A govern- 
 ment that stands for "equal rights" and "justice" is all 
 that Socialism demands. But the new ethics require a new 
 and enlarged conception of the terms right and justice. 
 Whatever may have been the primary functions of govern- 
 ment in a primitive and rude condition of society, the 
 higher and more complex organization to-day would seem 
 to require a new application and extension of these func- 
 tions. The evolution of industry and revolution in science, 
 the increase and congestion of population and wealth, and 
 the advance of civilization have wrought such a social , 
 transformation, and so changed all human relations and 
 institutions that eg'jw^ industrial as ivell as political rights, 
 and social rather than merely commutative justice are imper- 
 atively demanded. 
 
 The great body of Socialists approve partial co-operation 
 as a means, but not as an end. It is not the full corn in 
 the ear, but it is the blade. If it be asked how the blade is 
 to advance against the hostile forces of capitalism, we 
 reply, God and the new ethics will take care of the truth. 
 These are puissant forces which capitalism and political 
 economists will be obliged to reckon with, notwithstanding 
 the claim that they lie outside the economist's province. 
 Every one of these eight obstacles to co-operation disap- 
 pears under Socialism. The chief one is perhaps the insuffi- 
 cient intelligence of wage-workers. Would this not defeat 
 universal as well as partial co-operation? By no means. 
 Let co-operators have behind them the united, collective 
 intelligence of society, crystallized in industrial laws, and 
 the evil is remedied. If two heads are better than one, the 
 heads of all the citizens are better than two or any num- 
 ber less tlian the whole. Here we see the moral and edu- 
 cational value of law. It is the expression of aggregate 
 wisdom, and is therefore wiser than any single legislator 
 or body of legislators. 
 
 Law alone makes extensive co-operation of any kind pos- 
 sible. The State is a co-operative establishment; the same 
 is true of all political and social institutions. Why not 
 apply the same principle to industry ? 
 
CONCILIATION AND ARBITRATION 197 
 
 If laborers cannot voluntarily, for want of intelligence and 
 moral discipline, co-operate, they might gladly do it by the 
 aid and support of law. It requires a power beyond indi- 
 vidual control to cause men to acquiesce in what is for the 
 common good. In cheerful obedieuoe to this power we 
 build our highways, maintain public works and institutions, 
 pay our taxes, and in a hundr-ed ways do what, if left to 
 ' ourselves, we would not and could not do. This power 
 springs directly from that united and collective intelligence 
 which would cause men to labor harmoniously in integral 
 co-operation. 
 
 III. — Conciliation and Arbitration. 
 
 " It is not an end nor a solution of the problem. It is on the way to 
 the end, and is much nearer it than a strike or a look-out." 
 
 Carroll D. Wright. 
 
 Those who look to industrial Conciliation and Arbitra- 
 tion as a means of permanently reconciling the opposing 
 forces of labor and capital, have made a very superficial 
 diagnosis of the disease which af&icts society ; and they 
 will find little encouragement from any school of social 
 philosophers. Conciliation is related to arbitration as 
 moral suasion is to legal suasion. Conciliation effects a 
 settlement by the parties themselves through the friendly 
 offices of a conciliator. Arbitration effects a settlement by 
 a third party, an arbitrator, who, after the hearing, pro- 
 nounces judgment. He may be appointed by the parties 
 themselves, or by some superior authority. The proceeding 
 should be under statutory provisions and the result binding. 
 
 This manner of settling differences between capitalist 
 and laborer was first adopted in Prance at the beginning 
 of the century, and has proved of great benefit to French 
 industry. In 1847, 19,721 cases, and in 1850, 28,000 cases 
 were settled by these councils oi prud' hommes. The number 
 annually settled in France varies from 35,000 to 45,000. 
 Tliis is a remarkable record, and is doubtless due in part 
 to the legal character of the proceedings. Courts of con- 
 ciliation and arbitration are established by law. These are 
 
198 THE INADEQUACY OF VARIOUS KEMEDIES 
 
 called councils and are composed of an equal number of 
 employers and workmen, elected by their respective classes, 
 and a president and vice-president appointed by the gov- 
 ernment. On the application of either party, the other is 
 bound to appear, and the cause at issue is heard and the 
 decision enforced by law. How this council differs from a 
 regular court of law may be inferred from the fact that 
 generally an agreement is reached in the course of the pro- 
 ceedings by conciliation, rendering a formal judgment by 
 arbitration unnecessary. ' 
 
 The ratio of cases thus settled was as seven to one in 
 1847. 
 
 A recent report gives the number of councils as 136. Of 
 the 42,000 case's brought before them, about 16,000 were 
 amicably settled, about 12,000 were voluntarily withdrawn 
 before the termination of the proceedings, and about 13,000 
 were referred for judgment. 
 
 In England and the United States conciliation and arbi- 
 tration have played a far less important part than in France. 
 The legal and compulsory features are more objectionable, 
 and the industrial conditions somewhat different. An Eng- 
 lish statute providing for compulsory arbitration has been 
 inoperative for more than half a century. 
 
 Mr. Rupert Kettle says, " It is agreed that according to 
 the spirit of our laws and the freedom of our people, any 
 procedure, to be popular, must be accepted voluntarily by 
 both contending parties." ' 
 
 During the last twen%y years Boards of Conciliation and 
 Arbitration in England, organized on a purely voluntary 
 basis, have accomplished excellent results. Several States 
 in this country have established Boards of Arbitration with 
 good results. Mr. Wright says, " Of the great value of 
 arbitration and conciliation as means of settling trades 
 disputes, there can be no question. That it is iniinitely to 
 be preferred to the barbarous method of strikes and lock- 
 outs is scarcely a subject of argument. In the terse lan- 
 guage of Mr. George Howell, formerly secretary of the 
 
 1 As quoted l>y Carroll D. Wright in " Industrial Conciliation and At; 
 titration in Eiigliind," p. 9. 
 
CONCILIATION AND AKBITEATION 199 
 
 Trades Union Congress, 'the whole question lies in a nut- 
 shell. Is brute force better than reason ? If it be, then a 
 costermonger may be a greater personage than a philoso- 
 pher, and Tom Sayers might have been considered superior 
 to John Stuart Mill.' " » 
 
 Strikes and lock-outs are not, however, the same as 
 '■ brute force," and they are daily less attended with vio- 
 lence. Neither is the award, even when accepted, generally 
 regarded as right " reason." 
 
 There is important truth, however, in what Mr. Howell 
 says. In conciliation and arbitration each party recog- 
 nizes the other as possessing rights which are to be re- 
 spected. Each party deprecates the injury which both 
 must suffer by standing out. Each sees clearly that "dis- 
 cretion is the better part erf valor." In these respects 
 reason resorts to a referee and bids the parties submit to 
 the award, although each considers it unjust. Under the 
 circumstances it is the best thing to do. The daily increase 
 of friction between labor and capital renders conciliation 
 and arbitration a necessity as industry is now organized. 
 It is the safety-valve which will of itself blow off and 
 prevent explosion till the old boiler of capitalism is worn 
 out and condemned, and as sueh we heartily commend it 
 and hope to see it more generally adopted. 
 
 That it offers no permanent basis of peace to the hostile 
 forces of capital and labor is evident from the following 
 considerations : — 
 
 1. Conciliation and arbitration settle nothing. They 
 touch no principle, remove no injustice. The real casus 
 belli remains. They may, and often do, show that the rela- 
 tion between wages and profits is, for the time being, not 
 exactly what was supposed. 
 
 2. They are entirely outside the pale of the economics 
 of capitalism, unless it be in the matter of the saving of 
 waste, which the economists of capitalism naturally let 
 pretty much alone. Conciliation and arbitration can get 
 little help therefore from this source. 
 
 ' As quoted by Carroll D. Wright in " Industrial Conciliation and Ar- 
 bitration in England," p. 34. 
 
200 THE INADEQUACY OF VAKIOUS KEMEDIB8 
 
 3. The thoroughly uneconomic character of this scheme 
 is more fully seen in the fact that its object generally is 
 to fix wages for the future. This is im'possible, since every- 
 body admits that wages continually vary. The state of 
 the market to-day, an important factor in making up the 
 .award, may change to-morrow and thus leave the parties 
 more dissatisfied than ever. 
 
 4. Courts of conciliation and arbitration entail an ex- 
 pense which in the last analysis labor must bear. Suppose 
 the cases brought before the councils in France have .aver- 
 aged 35,000 for fifty years, this would be a total of 1,750,000 
 cases ; suppose $25 to be the cost of each case ; this would 
 amount to f 43,750,000, and this enormous sum would rep- 
 resent the waste in France alone caused by the necessity of 
 keeping open this outlet, through which the pus of the 
 bruised and wounded boiy industrial may escape. Add to 
 these figures the expense of maintaining these councils and 
 boards in other countries, and we get some idea of the tre- 
 mendous tax they lay upon industry, and we are in a 
 position also to appreciate the shallowness of the utterance 
 of Governor Bishop of Ohio in his message to the legislature 
 of 1880 : " Boards of Arbitration and Conciliation are a sim- 
 ple, inexpensive, and complete plan by which labor troubles 
 may be avoided." The italics are ours. It is no sufficient 
 answer to this objection of ivaste to say that strikes, and 
 lock-outs would have been more wasteful, when waste from 
 both causes can and ought to be avoided by an ethically 
 just and economically scientific organization of industrial 
 society. Any system that necessitates enormous waste is 
 essentially and scientifically uneconomic, whatever it may 
 be called. 
 
 5. So far from being " a complete plan by which labor 
 troubles may be avoided,'" conciliation and arbitration are 
 merely an armistice whereby each army hopes to gain an 
 advantage over the other, or it has the effect of nightfall in, 
 the midst of battle ; each army can take breath and bind 
 up its wounds, can get fresh supplies of rations, ammuni- 
 tion, bring up reserves, and devise new stratagems for a 
 more desperate renewal of the conflict on the morrow. 
 
THE NATIONALIZATION. OF LAND 201 
 
 All this, however, may be in harmony with the evolution 
 of industry. Each stair is necessary to the flight. It is 
 well if it leads upward. 
 
 Conciliation and arbitration certainly lead in this direc- 
 tion. We approve them moreover as substitutes for strikes 
 and lock-outs and violence, as we would have approved 
 similar boards to settle diiferences between the American 
 master and slave' as a substitute for the lash, the blood- 
 hound, and the auction block. 
 
 As every consideration of general justice demanded the 
 abolition of slavery, so it demands the abolition of capital- 
 ism. As the former should have been accomplished by 
 peaceful and gradual means, so should it be with the latter. 
 This is why Socialists, following the injunction of their 
 great Founder and Leader, Jesus Christ, advocate all meas- 
 ures looking to the peaceful and gradual emancipation of 
 labor. 
 
 IV. — The Nationalisation of Land. 
 
 "Everybody knows that the greatest part of the wealth of modern 
 society is not concentrated in the hands of the landlords at all, that it 
 has not accrued from rent, and that it would not be a farthing the less 
 though private property in land were abolished to-morrow." — John Bae. 
 
 We have seen in a former chapter (chapter iii. section ii.) 
 that the evils which now threaten social institutions spring 
 out of private capital in land and other means of produc- 
 tion. Socialism demands the nationalization not only .of 
 land but of all industries so far as necessary to secure social 
 justice. Not that this step should be taken at once, but 
 gradually and with due regard to the rights of all classes. 
 
 It believes that in no other way can an equitable distri- 
 bution of wealth be brought about. This is precisely the 
 end sought by the advocates of land nationalization. Mr. 
 Henry George is One of the ablest representatives of those 
 wlio believe that the governmental ownership of land alone 
 would suffice to right all industrial wrongs. "We must 
 therefore substitute for the individual ownership of land a 
 common ownership. JSTothing else will go to the cause of 
 
202 THE INADEQUACV OF VARIOUS KEMBDIES 
 
 the evil — in nothing else is there the slightest hope.'" 
 He accepts the dictum of Herbert Spencer, which indeed 
 is everywhere gaining the approval of thoughtful minds, 
 that "Equity does not permit property in land." 
 
 We shall see, however, that every reason he gives for the 
 nationalization of laud applies to all the means of production. 
 It is not difficult to understand why he should regard the 
 monopoly of land as the most fundamentally and obviously 
 unjust ; but it is not equally clear why he should overlook 
 the glaring injustice of other monopolies that spring, not 
 from land, but from other forms of capital. 
 
 He claims as the foundation for the superstructure he 
 rears, that three factors are employed in production — land, 
 labor, and capital ; therefore the product should be distrib- 
 uted into three corresponding parts ; namely, rent, wages, 
 and interest. He says land, unlike other means of produc- 
 tion, is the gift of God to the race. Every man must have 
 access to it to sustain life. To monopolize it is therefore 
 robbery. The form this robbery takes is rent. Reiit 
 absorbs all that labor earns save a bare subsistence, and all 
 that capital earns save a bare interest. Rent therefore is 
 the cause of poverty and the source of all industrial discord. 
 These evils 'he asserts will disappear if we abolish private 
 property in laud and make it as God and nature intended, 
 the common heritage of all. 
 
 We believe in the nationalization of land; but the ques- 
 tion is, would this alone usher in the era of industrial peace 
 and plenty, while individual capital, contract, and competi- 
 tion remain undisturbed ? Mr. George thinks it would. As 
 we cannot admit his conclusion, we are bound to point out 
 the defect in his reasoning. Mr. George bases his argu ■ 
 ment on llicardo's law of rent. He says, — 
 
 "tfhe rent of land is determined by the excess of its prod- 
 uce over that which the same application can secure from 
 the least productive land in use."^ This least productive 
 land is called the margin of cultivation. It will pay-no 
 rent, for it yields only enough to give the laborer a bare 
 subsistence, and this constitutes his wages. 
 
 1 " Progress and Poverty," p. 29r). 2 iJjid.^ p. 151. 
 
THE NATIONALIZATION OF LAND 203 
 
 Any land that will produce more must pay the surplus 
 in rent. As population and wealth increase, there is con- 
 tinually a resort to poorer land ; that is to say, the margin of 
 cultivation is extended (crowded down) and always to the 
 disadvantage of the laborer, for rent takes all above what 
 the poorest land in use produces. " Eent invariably pro- 
 ceeds from the employment of an additional quantity of 
 labor with a proportionately less return." ' Rent therefore, 
 increases as wages relatively decrease. What causes the rise 
 of rent, or what forces the laborer to resort to poorer land ? 
 The increase of population and wealth, that is the progress 
 of society ; neither the landlord nor the laborer does any- 
 thing to cause it. Although the former, sitting still, grows 
 rich, the latter, working hard, grows relatively poorer. 
 
 This unjust and cruel condition of things must continue 
 so long as land is private property. 
 
 We have outlined the position of Mr. George respecting 
 land and labor ; but what of capital, the third factor in 
 production? Has this anything to do with social ills ? 
 
 Nothing, according to Mr. G-eorge. Capital along with 
 labor is crushed beneath the iron heel of rent. How is 
 this ? The explanation is, that the margin of cultivation 
 determines interest just as it does wages. If capital joins 
 with labor in cultivation^ it will receive its share of the 
 product, which equals interest. Eent, in this case, absorbs 
 everything but wages and interest. Mr. George is build- 
 ing logically on the foundation of the accepted law of rent. 
 
 He substitutes the term interest for profits, but this is 
 immaterial. " No matter what be the production that re- 
 sults from the application of labor and capital, these two 
 factors will only receive in wages and interest such part of 
 the produce as they could have produced on land' free to 
 them without the payment of rent — that is on the least 
 productive land or point in use." ^ Capital, therefore, is 
 subject to the margin of cultivation, and, like labor, is con- 
 tinually, as population and wealth advance, forced to resort 
 to poorer land, and all that it can produce above interest — 
 
 1 "Kicardo" (McCulloch), p. 37. 
 
 2 " Progress and Poverty j" p. 153. 
 
204 THE INADEQUACY OF VARIOUS REMEDIES 
 
 a bare subsistence for capital — goes to the landlord in 
 rent. " The general rate of interest will be determined by 
 the return to capital upon the poorest land." ^ 
 
 Thus the law of wages is the law of interest. Thus capi- 
 tal in its misery joins hands with labor, and together they 
 tread the jjath of oppression and degradation. 
 
 We have followed Mr. G-eorge with a good deal of sym- 
 pathy, but this conclusion staggers us. Something is 
 wrong. Truth is before all things. It is not true that all 
 the earnings of capital, save the meagre returns obtained 
 from the poorest land on which it is employed, are absorbed 
 by rent. We have only to look around us to see capital 
 employed, and vast fortunes piled up, where rent is an in- 
 significant factor. It is not true even that rent absorbs all 
 the fruit of labor above the margin of cultivation. Capital 
 is everywhere, if not facile primus, a particeps criminis in 
 this absorption. It is not true that capitalists are "dumb 
 driven slaves " under the lash of landlords. The names of 
 capitalists who can buy up of the land-owners whole to'wn- 
 ships is legion. It is not true that capital can secure no 
 greater interest or return than what can be secured on the 
 poorest land in use. On the other hand, this is the lowest, 
 most unsatisfactory return capital receives ; and in some 
 rich countries the men who are land-poor are to be com- 
 miserated. These facts are so patent that it is idle to dis- 
 cuss them. How, then, does Mr. George come by such 
 conclusions ? In the first place they furnish a solid basis 
 for the nationalization of laud ; in the second place, they 
 are perfectly logical deductions from the accepted princi- 
 ples of current political economy. By a little manipula- 
 tion of terms Mr. George has, with great ingenuity and 
 splendid rhetoric, traced out the Eicardian and the orthodox 
 law of rent, wages, and profits to their natural, logical, but 
 absurd and even ridiculous conclusions. 
 
 'So economist who accepts these laws has successfully 
 answered or can answer Mr. George on tfi,e orients of his 
 argximents. They admit the laws which are his premises, 
 but, while objecting to his conclusions, fail utterly to show 
 
 1 " Progress and Poverty," p. 182. 
 
THE NATIONALIZATION OF LAND 205 
 
 wherein they are illogical. Mr. Rae makes a formal at- 
 tempt to overthrow them ; but it consists in petty criticisms 
 on side issues and a somewhat lofty tone of irony. For ex- 
 ample, he shows that Mr. George, after correctly stating the 
 law of rent, falls into the inconsistency of first claiming 
 that rent is determined by wages, and then that wages are 
 determined by rent, and what is Mr. Eae's conclusion ? 
 That the law of rent does not, from its very nature, take all 
 but a bare subsistence from the laborer as Mr. George claims 
 and is trying to show ? Not at all ; but merely that Mr. 
 George " does not understand the law of rent ! " ' 
 
 It may be that in the genesis of rent and wages, wages in 
 the first instance fix rent and then rent fixes wages. The 
 landlord, not the laborer, is finally master of the situation ; 
 and the master generally has something to say about what 
 part of the produce shall go to the slave. All this, however, 
 has nothing to do with the main argument of Mr. George. 
 Mr. Rae criticises also the views of his opponent on popula- 
 tion, subsistence, the use of the term interest for profits, 
 and other points not material to the issue, while he observes 
 an ominous silence respecting the most unwelcome but 
 remorseless logic of the law of rent on which Mr. George 
 securely builds. 
 
 That law is that rent is the entire produce of land above 
 the returns that labor and capital obtain on the poorest land 
 in use ; that is, land which can be had for nothing. All 
 returns from capital, above what can be obtained from the 
 poorest land in use, go to the landlord, "Because no em- 
 ployment more profitable can be found for it. The common 
 rate of profit would be in that proportion, and if the origi- 
 nal tenant refused, some other person would be found will- 
 ing to give all which exceeded that rate of profit to the 
 owner of the land from which he derived it." ^ 
 
 The latest American authority, Professor E. T. Ely, con- 
 firms this law. " Now, what determines the amount of 
 rent ? . . . The poorest land cultivated. . . . What is re- 
 ceived comes simply as a return on capital and labor. . . . 
 
 1 " Contemporary Socialism," p. 427. 
 
 2 "Rioardo " (McCulloch), p. 37. 
 
206 THE INADEQUACY OF VARIOUS REMEDIES 
 
 Whatever surplus land yields above returns on labor and 
 capital is rent." ^ That is- to say, the landlord takes all the 
 returns from capital save what it can earn when invested 
 on " the poorest land cultivated." 
 
 Mr. George has thus abundant authority for saying that 
 rent absorbs everything ; that it robs labor of all but a bare 
 subsistence, and capital of all but the lowest interest that 
 is anywhere obtained. 
 
 Competition comes to the support of this law of rent by 
 assuring us that the lowest rate of interest for which capi- 
 tal will be employed is the highest that it can anywhere 
 obtain. It ill becomes the advocates of current economics, 
 after indorsing a theory of rent that makes it an insatiable 
 leech sucking the blood of labor and capital alike, to criti- 
 cise Mr. George for tracing out the theory to its legitimate 
 but absurd conclusions, thus compelling them to eat their 
 own words. Mr. E.ae even goes to the length of saying 
 that the continual rise of rent, so far from being a source 
 of oppression, does not enter into the price of the product. 
 He says, — 
 
 " Ko part of Ricardo's theory is more elementary or more 
 unchallenged than this, that the rent of land constitutes 
 no part of the price of bread, and that high rent is not 
 the cause of dear bread, but dear bread the cause of high 
 rent." ^ 
 
 Is it true that the rent of land does not affect the 
 price of bread ? Does not dear land make raw material 
 harder to get and hence dearer ? Does anybody really be- 
 lieve that dear raw material does not make dear manu- 
 factured product ? Is it replied that this begs the question, 
 which is, does high rent increase the price of food ? Let 
 us see. I pay at the rate of $20 per cow for the use of a 
 pasture, and sell milk at six cents a quart, and just make a 
 living. Rent is increased to $40 per cow. Must I not 
 raise the price of milk ? To ask the question is to answer 
 it, and yet we are told that rent constitutes no part of 
 price. 
 
 Does anybody believe that to double the rent of corn- 
 
 1 " Political Economy," pp. 215, 216. 
 
 2 " Contemporary Socialism," p. 428. 
 
THE NATIONALIZATION OF LAND 207 
 
 land would not raise the price of corn ? Suppose I pay 
 $50 rent for a piece of land on which I raise corn that will 
 sell for $100, leaving me $50 for my labor, which is the 
 least I can live on. The next year $100 is demanded in 
 rent, but I must still have my $50 for labor. What follows ? 
 The same crop or quantity of corn must bring $150 ; that 
 is, the price of bread is raised one-third. Is it replied that 
 rent cannot be thus arbitrarily raised because poorer land 
 would be at once resorted to ? We answer that all the 
 land in the community may be already under cultivation 
 and subject to the advanced rent ; or, in case of land remote, 
 its cultivation is impracticable because beyond the limits 
 of comfortable conditions of life. 
 
 The objection falls to the ground. We need not debate 
 the matter. Rent is being continually thus raised, and 
 tenants are forced to pay the increase, and bread is dearer 
 in consequence. Incidental causes as, machinery, railways, 
 etc., may tend to keep bread down, but no thanks to rent ; 
 it is in spite of it. As increased rent makes dearer bread, 
 so decreased rent makes cheaper bread. Professor R. T. 
 Ely, however, says, " If rent paid were abolished, price 
 would not be altered. Ask any tenant if he would lower 
 the price of potatoes if his landlord would release him 
 from paying rent." ^ Let us see. Suppose a township of 
 fifty farms of equal fertility and rental value, only twenty- 
 five of which are cultivated. Each of these pays a rent 
 of $100. All raise potatoes only. They sell for $1 per 
 bushel. Each farmer must sell 100 bushels to pay rent. 
 Now, suppose rent abolished. The farmers, of course, begin 
 to coin money. Potatoes at $1 per bushel and no rent, is 
 an attractive state of things. The next year every one 
 of those twenty-five before uncultivated farms is in 
 demand. They are planted to potatoes. The crop, one 
 hundred per cent greater, is carried to market. The 
 market is glutted, and lo ! potatoes bring only 50 cents per 
 bushel. What is the matter ? Why, rent was abolished. 
 Here comes Professor Ely's farmer with a big load of 
 potatoes for sale. We will interrogate him as requested. 
 
 1 " Political Economy," p. 216. 
 
208 THE IXADBQUACY OF VARIOUS KEMBDIES 
 
 " Will you lower the price of potatoes, your rent having been 
 released ? " He replies, " No ; but potatoes have lowered 
 themselves." We are not surprised, therefore, that Pro- 
 fessor Ely, almost in the same breath, says, " A part of 
 price usually paid is rent."' No theorizing on rent, as 
 determined by the margin of cultivation, can vitiate this 
 practical conclusion. There is land in every direction un- 
 cultivated and fertile, but for which a high rent is de- 
 manded. 
 
 In case of a short crop and high prices, farmers will the 
 next year plant a few acres more, and price drops because 
 supply exceeds demand. It is doubtless necessary, in a, 
 theoretical science constructed to maintain capitalism, to 
 say that, " the rent of land constitutes iro part of the price 
 of bread," but it does violence to common sense, and tends 
 to bring into contempt a science which might be a blessing 
 to society, if only a clean heart could be created and a right 
 spirit renewed within it. 
 
 If economic rent is what the current political economy 
 declares it to be, Mr. George is right in claiming that rent 
 robs labor and capital alike, and is the one cause of in- 
 dustrial strife and social misery. If the law of rent is ob- 
 solete or inoperative from any cause, then Mr. George is 
 wrong. That it is obsolete is evident from the inappli- 
 cability of its corollaries to the present industrial conditions. 
 Eioardo says that the value of corn is regulated by the 
 quantity of labor bestowed on its production on land that 
 pays no rent.^ This, if ever true, is not true now. There 
 is no such corn land in use. Any structure built on this 
 foundation leans more than the tower of Pisa. If it eon- 
 tains any truth, it must be traced through the far-away 
 vista of primitive industrial conditions. 
 
 The value of corn in London or New York depends on 
 land, labor, capital, railroads, ships, insurance, pools, gam- 
 blers, commission merchants, retail dealers, and many 
 other minor factors. There is something wrong in a politi- 
 cal economy that, instead of lending us a helping hand in 
 
 1 " Political Economy," p. 216. 
 
 2 " Ricardo " (MoCulloch), p. 38. 
 
THE NATIONALIZATION OF LAND 209 
 
 time of need, bids us, if we ask information, to seek the 
 answer by going round the house, Behind the barn, over 
 the fence, across the field, through the woods, down into 
 the swamp, where land and everything else can be had for 
 nothing, because good for nothing. 
 
 We do not live there, and we do not propose to take the 
 conditions of sustaining life there, to explain the complex 
 life of progressive society, or to furnish a basis and justifica- 
 tion for the ever-increasing oppression of the weak by the 
 strong by means of the wages-system. 
 
 Eicardo unwittingly contradicts himself in his specu- 
 lations about rent. He says, " Corn is not high because a 
 rent is paid, but a rent is paid because corn is high ; and 
 ... no reduction wouid take place in the price of corn, 
 although landlords should forego the whole of their rent. 
 Such a measure would only enable some farmers to live like 
 gentlemen, but would not diminish the quantity of labor 
 necessary to raise raw produce on the least productive land 
 in cultivation." ' We have italicized the word " gentlemen," 
 who are the men who do nothing. Here Eicardo lets the 
 cat out of the bag. Let us see if the men who " live like 
 gentlemen" affect the price of corn. We will suppose 
 a little colony of ten men on an island ; by working each 
 ten hours per day they can raise just corn enough to have 
 three meals each day. By some means, it matters not 
 what, two of the ten get the ownership and control of the 
 island, and say to the other eight, " We are now ' gentle- 
 men ' and must live without work. You may work the 
 land if you will give each of us corn enough for four meals 
 each per day as rent." The other eight have no alterna- 
 tive but to submit. Now, how does this change affect the 
 price of corn ? 
 
 Not at all, we are told. But let us see. Two men have 
 become non-producers, but larger consumers ; that is to say, 
 six meals less are produced, while two meals more are con- 
 sumed. The demand now exceeds the supply by eight 
 meals on account of rent, and yet we are assured the price of 
 corn will not be raised. As surely as the law of supply and 
 
 1 "Kicardo" (McCulloch), p. 39. 
 
210 THE INADEQUACY OF VARIOUS REMEDIES 
 
 demand affects price, so sure is it that the price of corn 
 will advance. It is not true, then, that " corn is not high 
 because rent is high." It will be observed that in the case 
 supposed population has not increased, nor is there a state 
 of diminished returns. Indeed, do we need to argue a 
 moment to show that the more non-working gentlemen land- 
 lords there are, the harder it is for the workers and the 
 dearer bread will be, other things being equal, which we 
 are bound to assume in discussing the law of one thing ? 
 It is amazing to see the sophistries and subtleties to which 
 political economy has resorted to prove that the member 
 of society who does nothing does not live by the additional 
 sweat of the laborer's brow. Is it said that in the case sup- 
 posed corn is dearer, not because rent is paid, but because 
 there are fewer workers ? Well, then, we ask what makes 
 fewer workers ? Is it not because rent is paid ? Certainly. 
 Is it not true, therefore, that " corn is not high because a 
 rent is paid " ? The fact which everybody knows to be true, 
 but which economic rent is obliged to deny, is that just in 
 proportion as gentlemen (non-producers) increase, bread 
 will be dearer, and, if all aspire to be gentlemen, bread can- 
 not be had at any price. It may be replied, " The law of 
 rent depends on the margin of cultivation, but there can be 
 no resort to poorer land on an island all under cultivation." 
 We reply, first, your economics claim that water must be 
 regarded as land. Poorer land therefore is in abundance. 
 " The landlord, however, whose estate is bounded by a kelp 
 shore of this kind, demands a rent for it as much as for his 
 corn-fields. The sea in the neighborhood of the islands of 
 Shetland is more than commonly abundant in fish. . . . The 
 rent of the landlord is in proportion, not to what the 
 farmer can make by the land, but to what he can make, 
 both by the land and by the water." ' 
 
 Second, if the last argument is not conclusive, consider 
 this : Great Britain is an island, and is there a single acre in 
 all its territory that can keep a decent life in a man's body 
 that can be had /or nothing, which is always the margin of 
 cultivation ? Eent always begins at this point. 
 
 1 Smith's " The Wealth of Nations " (Rogers), vol. i. p. 153. 
 
THE NATIONALIZATION OF LAND 211 
 
 Land, tliat can be had for nothing, without deprivation 
 that renders life not worth living, is getting scarce even in 
 America. We do not know of any free land where, under 
 the changed conditions of modern life, a man can rear a 
 family in ordinary comfort and respectability. 
 
 These are among the infirmities that attach to the cur- 
 rent' law of economic rent on wliich Mr. George builds. As 
 we have seen, there is no such law in operation. There is 
 no available land that can be had for nothing. Rent is not 
 now based on "the original and indestructible powers of 
 the soil." ■^ It is not based on agricultural lands or their fer- 
 tility at all. It would be far more correct to say that rent 
 of land is based on situation. Kent, however, in law and 
 as everywhere understood, is not based on land at all in 
 the economic sense, that is, on the naked soil. Land in law 
 and in common speech has long since included improve- 
 ments. Blackstone wrote in 1753 : " Land comprehends all 
 things of a permanent, substantial nature. ... If a man 
 grants all his lands, he thereby grants all his mines, . . . 
 his woods, his waters, and his houses as well as his fields 
 and meadows." ^ More than half a century later (1817) 
 Ricardo elaborated a theory of rent that ignored and con- 
 tinues to ignore the established meaning of the terms land 
 and rent. ■' Rent," says Blackstone, " is a certain profit 
 issuing out of lands and tenements corporeal." ^ Rent, 
 then, is not based on the soil alone, as Ricardo claims, but 
 pertains to buildings and other fixtures which have become 
 blended with the soil. But more than this : it is not true 
 that "the rent of land is determined by the excess of its 
 produce over that which the same application can secure 
 from the least productive land in use," that is, on land 
 which can be had for nothing. How can it be true in a 
 community where there is no such land ? Most men live 
 in such communities. Rent values are fixed, not by what 
 the land will produce, or by any other one factor, but by 
 the progress of society. 
 
 1 " Eicardo" (McCulloch), p. 34. 
 
 2 Chitty's " Blackstone," Book II. pp. 13, 14. 
 
 3 Ibid., Book II. p. 32. 
 
212 THE INADEQUACY OF VARIOUS REMEDIES 
 
 It is not true, as the law of rent assumes, that wages are 
 fixed by the margin of cultivation ; that is to say, that 
 wages are the return from labor alone on the poorest land, 
 in use which is had for nothing, all above this return going 
 to rent except what goes to interest in case capital has 
 been employed. This we admit to be a necessary deduc- 
 tion from the law of rent. But those who adhere to the 
 law of rent deny this conclusion. Wages may or may not 
 equal this standard, but that they are not determined by it 
 has been shown in Chapter III., Section IV. It is not true, 
 as the law of rent assumes, that the returns to capital, call 
 it interest or profits, are fixed by the margin of cultivation ; 
 that is, by such returns as capital employed on the poorest 
 land in use will yield. Interest, especially if, as Mr. George 
 claims, it includes profits, is much higher. Interest in this 
 sense is all the way from nothing to 500 per cent. It de- 
 pends on the amount of capital seeking investment, on the 
 security offered, that is to say, upon the risk taken ; it is 
 fixed in some places by statute. To-day it is one rate, to- 
 morrow another. It is one rate here, another there. The 
 law that governs interest is about as fixed as the law that 
 governs the course of a butterfly. It has indeed its limitar 
 tions, but they are not determined as Mr. George, following 
 the law of rent, declares, by the margin of cultivation. 
 
 Political economy has been too largely a system of a 
 priori speculations that contradict the most palpable facts. 
 The question how rent arises, has no more to do with 
 practical economies of to-day than the question how sin got 
 into the world has to do with practical Christianity. These 
 are some of the errors which have led Mr. George to con- 
 clude that rent is alone responsible for social ills. Another 
 error consists in treating laud as something different from 
 capital. When all the land is owned by private individuals 
 who have paid for it a valuable consideration, such land 
 stands related to industry and commerce precisely as all 
 other private capital stands related. It differs in its 
 origin from other forms of capital more than these forms 
 differ from each other. It is also limited in quantity, but 
 that it is a form of capital cannot be disputed. Professor 
 
THE NATIONALIZATION OF LAND 213 
 
 Francis A. Walker includes " proprietors of land and owners 
 of other forms of wealth which may be used productively 
 in one capital-class." ^ Land, then, is capital, and it greatly 
 simplifies a discussion to call things by their right names. 
 If land is capital, two factors, labor and capital, instead of 
 three, land, labor, and capital, enter into production. If 
 only two factors enter into production, the product should 
 be divided into two parts, wages and interest, instead of 
 into three or four, rent, wages, interest, and profits. There 
 is no end to the confusion introduced into the discussion 
 of economic questions by disregarding this simple rule. 
 Mr. George does insist on calling all returns from capital 
 interest ; but in treating land, as do Eicardo and his fol- 
 lowers, as something different from capital, he is hopelessly 
 stranded on the shoal of rent. Eent is sole bar to the 
 removal of poverty, the head and front of all social and 
 industrial offending. It matters not what names, for the 
 sake of convenience, may be given to the returns from the 
 different forms of capital, — rent may express the. return 
 from land, interest the return from money loaned, profit a 
 return from capital employed in business, a dividend em- 
 bracing both interest and profit, — all of these are happily 
 included under the general term interest. Interest, as thus 
 used, would vary from nothing to the largest return realized 
 from capital. Land, being, as we have seen, only one form 
 of capital, would not by becoming common property remove 
 the evils of capitalism. 
 
 Once let Mr. George regard land as capital, and he would 
 demand the abolition of all private capital as the real 
 oppressor of society, and not merely a single form of it 
 called land. That land monopoly is a great evil we do not 
 deny; but monopolies of other forms of capital are frequently, 
 at least for the time, more oppressive than that of land. It 
 is true that "to whomsoever the soil at any time belongs, 
 to him belong the fruits of it." The same can be said of 
 the other means of production under modern conditions. 
 He who owns the mill and machinery owns the product. 
 
 These other forms of monopolies will not be destroyed by 
 
 1 " The Wages Question," p. 224, 225. 
 
214 THE INADEQUACY OF VARIOUS REMEDIES 
 
 the nationalization of land. " Progress and Poverty " offers 
 no argument to show that they will, except the one derived 
 from the law of economic rent. This law we have shown 
 to be a misnomer, or, at least, to liave little or no application 
 to existing industrial conditions. 
 
 People with a slight acquaintance with these conditions 
 will be slow to believe that with the great engines of capital- 
 ism, capital, contract, and competition free and individual, 
 in full blast, the nationalization of land alone will usher in 
 the industrial millennium, as claimed by Mr. George. Mr. 
 Rae goes so far as to say, "Everybody knows that the 
 greatest part of the wealth of modern society is not con- 
 centrated in the hands of the landlords at all, that it has 
 not accrued from rent, and that it would not be a farthing 
 the less though private property in land were abolished 
 to-morrow." ^ That it would tend, however, to a more equal 
 distribution of wealth seems well-nigh certain, and for this 
 reason we welcome any plan for accomplishing it that will 
 be just toward land-owners. The plan proposed by Mr. 
 George that government should take forcible possession of 
 all land by confiscating rent, thus robbing multitudes of 
 land-owners who have purchased and paid for their land, 
 frequently with the savings of a lifetime of toil, is so 
 repugnant to reason, so vicious in principle, it so outrages 
 every sense of justice, that we are left to wonder how a 
 head so clear and a heart so humane could suggest a measure 
 so anarchistic and villanous. 
 
 V. — An Eight-Hour Day. 
 
 " The eight-hour movement ; ... it disturbs no existing interests ; 
 it does not change the relation of buyers to sellers, or laborers to employ- 
 ers."— George GUNTON. 
 
 A powerful and widespread agitation for a normal day's 
 labor of eight hours is now in progress. Mr. George 
 Gunton has presented able and exhaustive arguments in 
 favor of the movement.^ We sympathize with his con- 
 
 ! " Contemporary Socialism," p. 421. 
 2 " Wealth and Progress." 
 
AN EIGHT-HOUR DAY 215 
 
 elusions, not, however, on account of the " economic philos- 
 ophy " from which he deduces it, but principally on account 
 of moral considerations. Under conditions of political 
 freedom, as the number of'those who do nothing increases, 
 the shorter will be the day of the workers : and this with- 
 out primary regard to " economic philosophy." 
 
 Law or custom generally fixes the length of a day's 
 labor in different countries. In several States in this 
 country it is ten hours. 
 
 Taking the country at large and including all occupations, 
 the average day is about eleven hours. In England the 
 statute day is nine and one-half hours ; in France, twelve ; 
 while in Germany custom fixes the laboring day from 
 twelve to fourteen hours. A reduction to eight hours 
 would therefore in this country, if generally adopted, take 
 off three hours from the present average working day. 
 
 Cogent reasons are urged in favor of an eight-hour day. 
 Justice demands that wage-workers should have more 
 leisure for mental and moral culture. Eight workmen out 
 of ten, after a day's labor, are too exhausted for mental 
 exercise. Many of them no sooner take up a book or 
 paper than they fall asleep. Too weary to read or to think, 
 or to take an interest in public affairs, they are dwarfed 
 in mind, and settle down to a plane of living but little above 
 the animal. Leisure, therefore, is said to be the indispen- 
 sable condition of improving the laborer's lot. The increased 
 productivity of labor, chiefly by the aid of machinery, 
 renders it possible to supply all the needs of society with 
 less labor than heretofore. Mr. Leone Levy, an English 
 statistician, says, " One and a half hours' work per day by 
 each individual would do the work of the world." Frank- 
 lin thought that in his day four hours would suffice. The 
 increasing speed of machinery often puts a strain upon the 
 workman which necessitates shorter hours. Improved 
 machinery and increased speed enabled the employer to 
 compress twelve hours' work into less than ten. " The speed 
 of the spindles has increased upon throstles 600 and upon 
 mules 1,000 revolutions a minute ; i.e., the speed of the 
 throstle spindle, which in 1839 was 4,500 times a minute, 
 
216 THE INADEQUACY OF VAKIOUS KEMEDIES 
 
 is now (1862) 5,000 ; and of the mule spindle, that was 
 5,000 is now 6,000 times a minute, amounting in the former 
 case to one-tenth, and in the second case to one-fifth addi- 
 tional increase." ^ 
 
 The ten-hour day no sooner went into operation than 
 capital sought to compensate itself by thus heightening the 
 intensity of labor in increasing the productivity and speed 
 of machinery. It is indeed questionable whether a shorter 
 day of intense application is better for the laborer than a 
 longer one of moderate effort. What he needs for mental, 
 moral, and social culture is not only more time, but more 
 strength. It does not follow that because labor produced 
 as much in ten hours as before in twelve, it will pro- 
 duce as much in eight as it does in ten hours. Such 
 reasoning, if carried farther, would lead us to the absurd 
 conclusion that production could be carried on without 
 any work whatever. There must be a limit, and, with 
 whatever of reason, labor has fixed on eight hours as the 
 ideal day. It is coming to be more clearly recognized also 
 by thoughtful men that the stability of the republic rests, 
 not simply on what is called universal suffrage, but upon 
 the intelligence and social well-being of the masses. The 
 first condition for greater intelligence is more leisure. It 
 is worthy of notice that the intelligence and social well- 
 being of the individual worker, or classes of workers, is in 
 proportion to the shortness of their hours of labor. Th& 
 amount of human energy required in work differs so mucii 
 in the various occupations, that no day of a fixed number 
 of hours can do equal and exact justice to all wage-workers, 
 
 We believe that all labor should be by the hour, and the 
 hours should vary in the different occupations. In the 
 industrial evolution, however, an eight-hour day may be a 
 realized fact in the near future. Labor not only demands 
 it, but it finds favor in public opinion as voiced by the 
 press, by philanthropists and statesmen. The Knights of 
 Labor, in their declarations of principles, demand an eight- 
 hour day, as do most, if not all, labor organizations. It was 
 adopted in Australia in 1856. It is the legal day in this 
 
 1 Report of Factory Industry, " Capital " (Marx), pp. 413, 413. 
 
AN EIGHT-HOUR DAT 217 
 
 country for government employees. It is already adopted 
 iu various trades in Great Britain and in this country. 
 Up to May, 1881, the carpenters in the United States 
 had obtained an eight-hour day in 137 cities, including 
 46,197 men, and in other localities they obtained nine hours 
 a day. In answer to a circular recently sent by the Ameri- 
 can Federation of Labor to five hundred prominent persons 
 throughout the country, asking their opinion as to whether 
 laborers should be required to work more than eight hours 
 per day, and as to its effects " upon the economic, social, 
 industrial, and commercial condition of the people of our 
 country," nearly all who replied gave the movement their 
 unqualified approval. Among these were Professor Robert 
 Ellis Thompson, Congressman Chipman of Detroit, Senator 
 Blair of New Hampshire, Eev. W. D. P. Bliss, Congress- 
 man McKinley of Ohio, Senator Hoar of Massachusetts, 
 and Senator Stewart of Nevada, Professor Thomas David- 
 son of Orange, N.J., Congressman Frank Lawler of Chi- 
 cago, and Honorable P. A. Collins of Massachusetts, who 
 says "two hours more of fun, air," family, books, rest, 
 and recreation cannot but enormously help in health, 
 morals, and mind those who would use them wisely." ^ It 
 is of course no insuperable objection to an eight-hour day 
 that it cannot be applied to all industries ; farmers, domes- 
 tics, sailors, accountants, clerks, teachers, and other work- 
 ers would be as little affected by an eight-liour as they 
 are by a ten-hour day. If it applied to the great body of 
 mechanics and artisans and wage-workers, it would accom- 
 plish its object. That the change, if effected, should be 
 Ijrought about gradually is of the greatest importance. 
 To precipitate a change so great would bring disaster upon 
 capitalists and laborers alike. It should be first introduced 
 into those trades which could most readily adjust them- 
 selves to the change ; for example, the building trade would 
 be as little disturbed as any ; it might then be applied to 
 the iron and steel trades. Working men have recently 
 shown great wisdom in urging this movement. They have 
 
 1 " Public Opinion," Jan. 18, 1890. 
 
218 THE INADEQUACY OF VARIOUS KEMEDIBS 
 
 appealed to reason, and their peaceful methods have done 
 much to win the sympathy and support of the public. 
 
 Thus far we have said nothing of strictly economic 
 effects of shortening the hours of labor. Would it increase 
 or decrease the production of wealth ? What would be its 
 effect on distribution, on wages and profits, and on indus- 
 trial conditions generally ? We are assured that it would 
 benefit them all. We cannot share these sanguine expec- 
 tations. 
 
 Mr. Gunton concludes his book with these words : " If an 
 eight-hour system for adults and half-time system for all 
 working children under sixteen years of age could be uni- 
 formly adopted in this country, England, France, Germany, 
 Belgium, and Switzerland, its effects upon emigration, en- 
 forced idleness, biisiness depression, and upon real wages, 
 together with the growth of intelligence and social charac- 
 ter would in twenty-five years change the face of the in- 
 dustrial and social institutions of Christendom." ^ Samuel 
 Gompers, President of the American Federation of Labor, 
 says, "Amid the diversity of theories advanced for the 
 solution of the labor problem, the eight-hour movement has 
 held its place as the measure nearest the heart of the labor- 
 ing man." ^ We take issue with those who claim that an 
 eight-hour day will cure the evils of capitalism, and who 
 therefore characterize as Utopian other plans of reform, 
 including Socialism. We offer the following consideratious 
 in support of this view : — 
 
 1. If an eight-hour day " would in twejity-five years 
 change the face of the industrial and social institutions of 
 Christendom," and thus give to its present anxious, angry 
 visage a serene and contented aspect, why, we ask, have 
 not these happy results attended the shortening of the 
 day's labor in the past ? In 1802 England by statute short- 
 ened the day in woollen and cotton mills to twelve hours. 
 How about the " face " of labor ? For the succeeding 
 twenty-five years it was haggard with a poverty deeper 
 than before. Wages " sunk about seventeen per cent from 
 
 1 " Wealth and Progress," p. 382. 
 
 2 " Public Opinion," April 20, 1800. 
 
AN EIGHT-HOLK DAY 219 
 
 1814 to 1818 ; about twenty per cent more in 1819-20 ; 
 about twelve per cent more in 1821 ; and five per cent more 
 in 1822." ^ Again, in 1832 the ten-hour bill was introduced 
 into the Parliament of Great Britain. How about the 
 " face " of labor during the years that followed ? It wore 
 an expression of dissatisfaction that finally gave place to 
 wrath which found expression in Chartism. Violence and 
 bloodshed threatened the foundations of society. 
 
 In 1847 a ten-hour law was enacted, and the following 
 year went into effect. How about the "face" of labor 
 now ? Men like Charles Kingsley, Thomas Hughes, and 
 Frederick Maurice, alarmed and horrified at the sufferings 
 of the laboring classes, came to their rescue in tlie co-oper- 
 ative movement of Christian Socialism to which, rather 
 than to a shorter labor day, the hopes of English working 
 men are now turning. At about the same time the ten- 
 hour agitation began in this country, and discontent has 
 grown jpari passu with the reduction of the hours of labor. 
 It is not claimed that discontent has been in consequence 
 of shorter hours, but in spite of them. Neither is it 
 claimed that wages have not absolutely increased. Had 
 they not increased, while the rich continued to grow richer, 
 the day of judgment for society would have come ere this. 
 The assertion, therefore, that a shorter day of labor " would 
 in twenty-five years change the face of the industrial and 
 social institutions of Christendom " is contradicted by 
 history. 
 
 2. The real question at issue is one not of time but 
 wages. Labor refuses to be longer exploited by capital. 
 It demands not fewer hours, but more product, all the prod- 
 uct honestly produced by it. "The produce of labor con- 
 stitutes the natural recompense or wages of labor." ^ 
 Labor will be satisfied with nothing less. This, the just 
 reward of labor, an eight-hour day will not give. 
 
 3. An eight-hour day changes no principle of the indus- 
 trial organization. The fundamental economic assumptions, 
 capital, contract, and competition free and individual, re- 
 
 1 <■ Work and Wages " (Thorolcl Rogers), p. 110. 
 
 2 "The Wealth of Nations," p. 67. 
 
220 THE INADEQUACY OF VARIOUS KBMEDIBS 
 
 main in full force. The normal working of these princi- 
 ples has produced the tremendous inequalities and glaring 
 injustice that threaten society. Why, then, treat the social 
 disease as if it was caused by long hours of labor ? 
 
 Patch the social garment, if you please, but do not put 
 the patch just on one side the hole and then shout eurelca! 
 The adoption of an eight-hour day could no more restore 
 industrial peace, while the unjust and oppressive princi- 
 ples of capitalism remain intact, than the repeal of the 
 Stamp Act in 1766 could restore political peace between 
 the American Colonies and Great Britain, while the latter 
 asserted the absolute power of Parliament over the Colo- 
 nies. The repeal indeed was received with great rejoicing: 
 pealing bells, booming cannon, bonfires, and thanksgiving 
 in the churches proclaimed the event that was to right all 
 wrongs and insure lasting tranquillity. In just ten years 
 the curtain rises again, and we behold a deadly conilict over 
 an unjust principle, which no side issue or superficial tink- 
 ering could longer bury out of sight. An eight-hour day 
 may come and be hailed with demonstrations of joy and 
 yield a temporary peace, but the next scene will reveal a 
 fiercer struggle between the unjust assumptions of capital- 
 ism, which are the real disturbers of the peace, and the 
 rights of labor. 
 
 4. An eight-hour day not only changes no principle of 
 the industrial organization, it effects no change in the 
 relatio7i of the so-called factors in production, or in any 
 department of industry. 
 
 Capitalists, employers, laborers, and consumers will stand 
 related to each other as before. It is very probable that 
 profits of capital, wages of labor, and prices to consumers 
 would bear about the same ratio to each other as at present. 
 Any disturbance of these relations would depend upon the 
 manner of the introduction of the shorter day, and would 
 be, in any event, only temporary. 
 
 5. An eight-hour day would not increase wages abso- 
 lutely. This is not saying that wages will not rise in the 
 future as in the past, but that they will not rise in conse- 
 quence of a shorter labor day. 
 
AN BIGHT-HOUE DAY 221 
 
 We have already seen that the time element does not 
 necessarily aifect wages. The increasing strain upon the 
 laborer, owing to improved methods of production, render 
 a reduction of the hours of labor from time to time neces- 
 sary. It is a mistake to attribute the increase of wages in 
 the past, due to steam and machinery, to the reduction of 
 the hours of labor. " The more the productiveness of 
 labor increases, the more can the working day be shortened ; 
 and the more the working day is shortened, the more can 
 the intensity of labor increase." ' 
 
 If the eight-hour day should be introduced at once in the 
 various departments of industry, a temporary rise in wages 
 per hour would surely take place. The work laid out and 
 waiting to be done, the customary demand for commodities 
 which would continue for a while, would call for one-fifth 
 more laborers. This would, for the time being, cause " two 
 bosses to be after one man," which would raise wages by 
 increasing the rate per hour if not by the day. But this 
 s'tate of things would not continue. Many small traders, 
 who barely live on the ten-hour system, would go out of 
 business. Production would decrease and prices advance. 
 These would be the immediate effects of a general and sud- 
 den adoption of an eight-hour day. Mr. George Gunton 
 says the reduction of hours to eight would, by the census of 
 1880, call for 3,652,069 new laborers. This he says would 
 raise wages, increase production, injure no one, but help 
 everybody and hasten the millennium. Let us see : we will 
 suppose there are 1,000,000 in enforced idleness. Suppose 
 all these to be at once employed ; deducting this number 
 from the 3,662,059 that would be needed, leaves 2,652,059 la- 
 borers needed to keep up the present supply of economic goods 
 in this country alone. They are not here. Where are they 
 coming from ? Immigration could not help us, for a simi- 
 lar state of things would exist in other countries; that 
 is to say, each country would at once employ all its 
 laborers in enforced idleness, including its able-bodied 
 paupers, and then be short of laborers necessary to its 
 present production by millions. This country, as we 
 
 I " Capital " (Marx), p. D40. 
 
222 THE INADEQUACY OF VARIOUS REMEDIES 
 
 have seen, would be short by 2,552,059, with no possible 
 means of supplying them. Mr. Gunton overlooks this little 
 circumstance, and assures us that " twenty per cent more 
 factories and workshops would be needed, besides setting 
 all our present idle machinery in operation." ^ He does 
 not offer to show liow he can dismiss hands and start idle 
 machinery, or how, with practically 2,500,000 fewer work- 
 ers, he can start up thousands of new factories ; but he 
 assures us that by an eight-hour day this vast number of 
 additional laborers would be at once needed to maintain 
 the present production, and wages would rise, production 
 would increase, and profits be undiminished. Mr. Gunton 
 admits that if Socialism had such " a scientific basis " as 
 this scheme, it would warrant the overthrow of existing 
 institutions.^ He tells us also that this " is not a fanciful 
 speculation." We have seen also that it is not a fact. 
 Mr. Gunton's zeal has led him into error. An eight-hour 
 day, generally and suddenly adopted, would temporarily 
 greatly lessen production and profits and advance wages 
 and prices. The laborer would be no better off and the 
 employer would be worse off, and very soon all parties, 
 owing to diminished production, would be absolutely worse 
 off than before. But another tendency would appear 
 along with these changes and soon counteract them ; viz., 
 improvements in production ; the factors before named, 
 better machinery, increased speed, better facilities for 
 transportation, new apjplications of natural and mechanical 
 forces, new devices for condensing and intensifying work, 
 which capital can furnish ad infinitum, would, ere long, 
 counteract the immediate effects of an eight-hour day, and 
 wages would become, relatively to profits, what tliey are 
 now if they did not fare worse. For be it remembered 
 that while wages have absolutely advanced they have, rela- 
 tively to profits, fallen with every reduction of the hours of 
 labor. 
 
 6. An eight-hour day would not ultimately affect profits. 
 
 That its immediate and temporary effect would be to 
 lower profits we have seen ; and this is the object of 
 ' " Wealth aud Progress," p. 264. 2 lUd., p. 259. 
 
AN EIGHT-HOUR DAY 223 
 
 labor in demanding shorter hours ; viz., to lower profits 
 and raise wages; and we admit that if wages should be 
 permanently raised, profits would permanently fall, if un- 
 influenced by other factors. But we have seen, in con- 
 sidering the effect of shorter hours on wages, that capital, 
 by increasing tlie productivity of labor in the manner 
 specified, secures its profits under all circumstances. 
 Given free capital, contract, and competition, and capital 
 will be king. Never, so long as a political economy based 
 on these assumptions exists, will you find a Dives sitting 
 at the feet of Lazarus. Profits have always increased, not 
 in consequence of a shorter day, but after it. Many in- 
 stances are at hand of the adoption of an eight-hour day 
 with no lessening of profits. Mr. L^wis Miller, manufac- 
 turer of agricultural implements in Akron, 0., after several 
 years of an eight-hour day, says it has not diminished 
 production ; i.e., profits.^ Professor Munro of Owens Col- 
 lege, England, after examining six mining districts with 
 reference to their hours of labor, finds that "the output 
 of coal per miner in each district increases or diminishes 
 in inverse ratio to the number of hours worked ; " " that 
 is to say, profits are larger as the hours are fewer. There 
 must of course be a point below which this result could 
 not take place. 
 
 Public opinion and labor unions may help to secure 
 a shorter day, and labor will secure a temporary gain 
 thereby ; but capital supported by the right wing of free 
 contract and its left wing of free competition, and 
 backed by the puissant forces of law, custom, tradition, and 
 social institutions will continue to have something to say in 
 a division of the spoils with labor. 
 
 A few industries may adopt an eight-hour day without 
 temporarily diminishing production, but they are excep- 
 tional. An ordinary laborer at ordinary work will produce 
 more in a ten-hour than in an eight-hour day. This every 
 laborer and every employer knows, if he knows anything. 
 If other things were equal, therefore, a shorter day would 
 
 1 " Public Opinion," April 26, 1890, 
 
 2 IbiU., Jan. 9, 1892. 
 
224 THE INADEQUACY OF VARIOUS REMEDIES 
 
 lessen profits. But other things are not equal ; on the 
 contrary, they tend steadily and irresistibly to counter- 
 act the advantage which the shorter day would give , to 
 labor. 
 
 7. It is a significant fact that many laborers fail to see 
 any benefit in an eight-hour day. The members of the 
 Printers' Association in Washington voluntarily voted to 
 repeal the rule prohibiting members from working more 
 than eight hours. A great trades union, the Printers' or- 
 ganization, voted down a proposition for a nine-hour day 
 during last year (1891). In September, 1891, the Trades 
 Union Congress, in session at Newcastle, representing 
 2,000,000 English laborers, voted that the eight-hour day 
 should not be compulsory in any trade without the consent 
 of two-thirds of its organized members. 
 
 Mr. Gunton rests his entire argument for an eight-hour 
 day upon two assumptions : first, that " wages are regulated 
 by the standard of living " ' in the different occupations, sec- 
 ond, that this standard of living depends on the wants of the 
 laborers, which would be greatly increased by the leisure 
 and social opportunities of a reduction of the hours of 
 labor. It is doubtless true that leisure, which Mr. Gunton 
 clearly distinguishes from idleness, as time for intellectual 
 and moral improvement, would develop wants. He does 
 not, however, consider whether it would be wise or safe to 
 increase the wants of the working masses further or faster 
 than the means of satisfying them. The trouble now is that 
 wants have developed faster than wages, the means of meet- 
 ing them. To increase them therefore would be to add 
 . fuel to the flame. The industrial boiler has about all the 
 steam she can carry. To get up more steam therefore by 
 increasing the laborer's wants is to invite an explosion. 
 The reply to this is that increased wants will cause in- 
 creased production and so preserve equilibrium. This is a 
 pure assumption ; at all events, the remedy is less certain 
 than the disease. It is, to say the least, a novel way to 
 restore industrial peace by " the increase of human wants," 
 as Mr. Gunton proposes. The ordinary intellect will cer- 
 1 " Wealth and Progress," p. 193. 
 
AN EIGHT-HOUR DAT 225 
 
 tainly be excused for not at once seeing by what magic a 
 half-starved man can be satisfied by increasing his hunger. 
 Mr. Gunton's cliief error lies in his first assumption that a 
 man's wages depend on his standard of living. This eco- 
 nomic dictum heretofore current contains only a modicum 
 of truth, as appears from the following considerations : — 
 
 1. Adam Smith mentions five causes which determine 
 wages, but not one of them is the " standard of living." 
 
 2. In the accepted law of rent, wages are determined (by 
 necessary implication) by the margin of cultivation ; that is 
 to say, wages are the product of labor alone on the poorest 
 land in use. 
 
 3. The consensus of political economists of the present 
 day will not warrant the dictum that wages depend upon 
 the " standard of living " which labor chooses to adopt, 
 without regard to other industrial conditions. 
 
 4. Ask any employer if, when he hires a laborer, he first 
 asks him as to his " standard of living " and fixes the wages 
 accordingly, and he would laugh in your face. 
 
 5. Ask any laborer if, when he applies for a job and is 
 asked his price, he names a price based on his "standard of 
 living," and he also will laugh in your face. 
 
 6. So far from the truth is it that wages depend on the 
 "standard of living" that the exact opposite is truer; 
 namely, that the standard of living depends on wages and 
 changes with every variation in wages. 
 
 7. No factor controlled by labor is more important in 
 fixing wages than efiBciency. 
 
 8. This whole theory of Mr. Gunton that wages are gov- 
 erned by the standard of living, assumes that laborers them- 
 selves fix their own wages regardless of capital ; that is to 
 say, the " standard of living " the laborer chooses to adopt 
 can be maintained merely by naming to capital the prices at 
 which it will work. How long would there be a labor ques- 
 tion if this were really true ? The Ricardian law of wages 
 puts a standard of the laborer's living in the hands of capi- 
 tal, and causes it to vary at the bidding of capital, taking 
 care generally that it furnishes the laborer but a bare sub- 
 sistence. 
 
226 THE INADEQUACY OP VARIOUS REMEDIES 
 
 We may not be able to say what determines wages. If 
 we were to sell labor, we would get the most possible ; if 
 we were to buy it, we would pay the least possible, for the 
 simple reason that while we abhor the system that makes 
 competition necessary, any other course, under individual- 
 ism, would soon compel us to take up our march " over" the 
 hill to the poorhouse." But the inability to discover a law 
 of wages, if, indeed, there be such a law, furnishes no rea- 
 son for accepting unchallenged the a priori theories of those 
 who first set up a hole for social ventilation and then 
 attempt to build around it. 
 
 It is certainly comforting, after going up and down the 
 century in the vain search of the law of wages, to hear an 
 eminent political economist declare with a refreshing indef- 
 initeness that wages are " fixed by uncontrollable move- 
 ments in a universal market." ' 
 
 It is a psychological mystery, surpassing that of miracles, 
 how a wise man can coolly lay down the proposition that 
 wages are governed by the " standard of living," which 
 every laborer and employer in the land knows to be the 
 exact reverse of what is true, which contradicts the every- 
 day experiences of men, and even does violence to common 
 sense ; and then gravely proceed to build thereon a social 
 scheme which will relieve poverty on the one hand, and 
 on the other prop up the tottering institutions which 
 cause it. So much easier is it, obeying the traditions of 
 capitalism, to say " It is Corban," than to deny mammon 
 and serve God. 
 
 We do not object to speculation within its province, but 
 the unpardonable sin of the philosophy of capitalism con- 
 sists in this, that in attempting to make its peace with God 
 and morality it posits its dogmatic conclusions on purely 
 speculative premises. 
 
 On such a basis only, rests the argument that an eight- 
 hour day will solve the labor problem. 
 
 1 " The Modern Distributive Process " (Clark), p. 39. 
 
INDUSTRIAL SCHOOLS 227 
 
 VI. — Industrial Schools. 
 
 " As the machines have grown in intelligence, the need of intelligence 
 in the operator has decreased." — Springfield Republican, 
 
 " The remuneration of lahor, as such, skilled or unskilled, can never 
 rise much above its present level." — Professor J. E. Cairnes. 
 
 At the dedication of the Drexel Institute in Philadelphia 
 Chauncey M. Depew said, " The manual training-school 
 solves the problem of labor and industrial development." ' 
 In a subsequent chapter we shall call attention to the 
 development and progress of industrial schools in Europe 
 as indicating the Socialistic tendency in education. We 
 need not now, therefore, discuss their merits or demerits. 
 We have only words of praise for the noble-hearted man, 
 Anthony J. Drexel, who has made the sacrifice of a mag- 
 nanimous peace-offering to the cruel industrial war now 
 raging. Our contention is not against the industrial school, 
 which we heartilj' approve, but solely with the assumption 
 that it "solves the problem of labor and industrial devel- 
 opment." We are unable to indorse this conclusion for 
 the following reasons : — 
 
 1. No such extravagant claim is made by the friends of 
 manual training in Europe where industrial schools have 
 been the longest and most extensively established. 
 
 2. The industrial school in America serves with many 
 as a righteous protest against the contemptuous attitude of 
 the wealthy classes toward manual labor. Even the boys 
 and girls in our common schools, especially in cities, are 
 ashamed of work. Thousands every year graduate from 
 the schools and are let loose upon society, too ignorant for 
 a profession, too proud to work, and too poor not to. 
 
 They seek a clerkship or some sort of polite work so 
 far removed from dust and dirt as not to soil their fine 
 clothes or delicate hands. Others recruit the ever-increas- 
 ing ranks of youthful criminals. Here we have a problem 
 that vexes parents and menaces society. 
 
 The graduates of our high schools are but little better 
 1 " Public Opinion," Dec. 26, 1891. 
 
228 THE INADEQUACY OP VARIOUS EEMEDIBS 
 
 off. They want positions which either they cannot fill or 
 find already filled. Manual labor they dislike; they are 
 educated ; and of all pitiable sights is an educated parasite. 
 To remedy this evil, which has already assumed tremen- 
 dous proportions, to make manual work honorable, and to 
 dignify the laborer rather than to put an end to the strife 
 between labor and capital, is one reason why many favor 
 industrial schools. 
 
 3. Another reason for manual training is the disappear- 
 ance of the apprenticeship system, not only in this country 
 but largely throughout Europe. This system, with all its 
 hardships, had many advantages. 
 
 The boy learned his trade and was taken care of till, by 
 his trade, he could take care of himself. What is to become 
 of the average boy of fifteen to-day who leaves school with 
 no trade, whom nobody will take as an apprentice, whom 
 most employers will not have around, and who has no 
 chance to learn a trade ? We know several such boys at 
 this moment and tremble for their future. The industrial 
 school is a partial, but only a partial, answer. It will help ; 
 it will give the pupils some little practical acquaintance 
 with the use of tools and the rudiments of a trade which 
 will help them to start in some kind of useful occupation. 
 
 4. This leads to a more serious consideration. The 
 industrial school must necessarily limit its teaching, for 
 the most part, to the mechanical trades in which machinery 
 is most extensively employed. But improvement and 
 application of machinery render skilled labor less and 
 less necessary. Time was when the brain wrought equally 
 with the hand in production. The machine now largely 
 takes the place of both brain and hands. True, all 
 labor, even shovelling, is labor mixed with brains ; but 
 skill and cunning and manual dexterity have been pat- 
 ented. The laborer is more and more a servant of the 
 machine, if not a part of it. In every department of indus- 
 try the machine is displacing the man. Even shovelling is 
 being done by machinery. What, then, are the youths who 
 graduate from the industrial school to do ? Suppose the 
 industrial schools have helped to make a body of skilled 
 
INDUSTKIAt SCHOOLS 229 
 
 lathers who are all doing well at their trade. Suddenly 
 they find themselves displaced by a boy putting up wire 
 lathing. What are they to do now ? Siippose again a 
 large company of carpenters, the product of the industrial 
 school : they are making good wages ; all goes smoothly, 
 but very soon matters get worse and complaint is loud. 
 What is the matter ? Why, machinery has stepped in and 
 is doing all the work. Frames are sawed and sized at the 
 mill ; boards are cut to a width and length, and come 
 planed and jointed and matched doors and windows with 
 their frames ; thresholds, stools, casings, jambs, base, rails, 
 posts, balusters, mouldings, all outside finish, corner 
 boards, clapboards, water boards, piazza posts, brackets 
 and rails, cornice, indeed, every piece of wood required in 
 the construction of the house, comes gotten out by machin- 
 ery, tended oftentimes by mere boys, and which a novice at 
 carpentering can put up. What now are the carpenters 
 thus displaced by machinery going to do ? So we might 
 go on through the whole list of mechanical trades. Will 
 the industrial school solve this problem ? Rather, will it 
 not add to the difficulty by tending to increase the supply 
 of skilled labor beyond the demand ? 
 
 5. There is another force that the industrial school must 
 reckon with ; viz., covipetition. Suppose manual training to 
 be general and all youths alike better equipped as they 
 enter the field of industry, would not competition be 
 fiercer than ever ? Besides, it is a fair question whether 
 competition among laborers for work and higher wages 
 does not stimulate the laborer's activity, sharpen his wits, 
 and so conduce to his efficiency to a degree so much greater 
 than could result from any training he could receive in the 
 school as to make the latter insignificant. So long as com- 
 petition is allowed to exist it will be king. 
 
 6. The fact that the experiment of industrial training 
 in the schools has been tried and proved a failure is 
 worthy of notice. 
 
 After a trial of three years in the Netherlands indus- 
 trial training was pronounced a failure. None of the advo- 
 cates of industrial schools have offered to show how these 
 
230 THE INADEQUACY OF VARIOUS REMEDIES 
 
 would solve the labor question. Have they forgotten that 
 skilled laborers, whose ranks these schools would augment, 
 are in the front of the battle with capital ? 
 
 Were this otherwise, it is not easy to see how schools 
 for training the eye and hand can bring industrial peace, 
 when inventions, machinery, and division of labor are daily 
 rendering skilled eyes and hands unnecessary. Neverthe- 
 less, let this kind of training go on. It will bring tem- 
 porary relief to some ; it is a step in the right direction. 
 It is a tacit recognition of the logic of events. It shows 
 that the thoughtful perceive the slough into which labor 
 has fallen, and, realizing the dangers, are determined that 
 something must be done. No reasonable man will expect 
 the right thing or the adequate thing to be done till other 
 inadequate measures have had their day and failed. It 
 would contradict all experience. A poultice is generally 
 useful as preparatory for the lance. 
 
 VII. — Thrift, Intelligence, and Manliness. 
 
 " Thrift is an excellent thing, but to render it possible for the laborer 
 there must be a raore equitable distribution of produce." — Lavhleye. 
 
 Another panacea for social ills is thrift, under which 
 term maybe included the virtues of " manliness," "intelli- 
 gence," "temperance," "frugality," " efSciency," etc. Let 
 the wage-worker practise these virtues, we are told, and the 
 lowering industrial clouds will scatter and the lion of capi- 
 tal and the lamb of labor will die down together. 
 
 Dr. Behrends declares the conditions of the laborer's sal- 
 vation to be " intelligent industry and thrift," " personal 
 manhood," " intelligence and skill." ^ Professor Francis 
 A. Walker says the '• increasing intelligence, sobriety, and 
 frugality on the part of the wages-class, securing them a 
 prompt, easy, and sure resort to the best market, is the 
 most hopeful path of progress for the immediate future."^ 
 We yield to none in our appreciation of the personal quali- 
 ties recommended to the laborer by these and other advo- 
 
 1 " Socialism and Christianity," pp. IIG, 124, 131. 
 
 2 " The Wages Question," p. 280. 
 
THRIFT, INTELLIGENCE, AND MANLINESS 231 
 
 cates of capitalism. The question, however, before us is, 
 can the wages-class, by cultivating thrift, manhood, intelli- 
 gence, frugality, and skill, singly, or all combined, solve the 
 labor problem under the capitalistic regime ? We answer 
 emphatically no, and for the following reasons : — 
 
 1. To prescribe old and hackneyed remedies, under the 
 operation of which the social body has steadily grown 
 worse, is not only futile but aggravating. 
 
 2. Just in proportion as laborers have developed these 
 qualities, manhood, thrift, etc., they have become discon- 
 tented with the present industrial regime. Every one 
 knows that the thriftiest and most skilful period of labor 
 in the world's history is exactly contemporaneous with 
 the period wherein the laborer's sense of injustice is the 
 keenest. Intelligence on the part of laborers is the im- 
 placable enemy of the capitalistic system. Deprive them of 
 it, crush their manhood, and take away their thrift, and you 
 give the system a new and permanent lease of life. What 
 is it but manhood that is standing at the gates of capitalism 
 and calling upon it to surrender in the name of justice and 
 Jehovah ? How its defenders can consistently furnish 
 arms and ammunition to wage-workers, by equipping them 
 with intelligence, manhood, and thrift, is inconceivable. 
 These are the very marks of the progress of society, the 
 very conditions in the industrial evolution that render the 
 old economy impossible and the new possible. 
 
 3. Capital will reap the principal benefit of the increased 
 eflSciency of labor. All economists agree that employers 
 make the most profits from the most skilful hands. In 
 dull times the least skilful are first discharged. " Employ- 
 ers," says Professor Walker, " usually take on their lowest- 
 paid laborers last," and he quotes Mr. Chadwick as saying, 
 " Masters ' prefer those laborers who earn the most wages.' " ' 
 No one disputes this. Dr. Behrends says the workman 
 paid the highest wages on account of his efficiency was 
 " the most profitable employee. The higher wages proved 
 to be more economical to the owners." ^ 
 
 1 "The Wages Question," pp. 40, 41. 
 
 8 " Socialism and Cliristianity," pp. 118, 119. 
 
232 THE INADEQUACY OF VARIOUS REMEDIES 
 
 Will these gentleiueii wlio first exhort the laborer to in- 
 creased efficiency, and in the next breath assure us that 
 this efficiency is what most adds to the employer's profits, 
 the sole cause of trouble now, tell us how this tends to 
 equalize distribution and secure peace ? The argument 
 stands thus : the employer says to the employee, "Increase 
 your manhood or efficiency to get higher wages ; then I can 
 make more profit out of you, and so we will have peace." 
 It is as if the cannibal should piously advise his intended 
 victim to eat heartily and fatten himself, so that he might 
 improve his condition, which would the sooner put an end 
 to strife. If, then, the laborer's efficiency increases the em- 
 ployer's profits, it would only intensify existing bitterness. 
 It is no answer to say that efficiency increases wages also. 
 Wages have increased, and war also at an equal pace. It is 
 not an increase of wages, but a larger share of the product, 
 even though it were less wages, that alone will give peace. 
 
 4. Intelligence, skill, and thrift on the part of laborers^ 
 not only increase the employer's profits, and thus aggravate 
 the situation, but these are the immediate disturbing fac- 
 tors in society. Skilled, not common laborers, are attack- 
 ing the existing order. " As a matter of indisputable fact, 
 strikes have not proceeded from the least but from the 
 most fortunate portion of the working population. It has 
 not been common, but skilled labor that has been concerned. 
 It has not been hopeless misery, but growing ambition, 
 which has prompted nearly all the demands which it has 
 been sought to enforce by the last resort."^ It is thus 
 seen to be the skilled, intelligent workmen who are fore- 
 most in their opposition to the assumptions of capitalism. 
 Indeed this adhiits of no doubt. It is the uniform testi- 
 mony of writers upon this subject. How, then, is harmony 
 to be restored by increasing skill and intelligence — the 
 cause of the discord ? 
 
 The truth is, " manliness," the crown of these virtues, 
 demands industrial justice, and this, under the present 
 regiine, it cannot have. 
 
 ' Professor F. A. Walker, as quoted by William F. Willoughby: Pub- 
 lications of the American Economic Association, Vol, v. No. 2, p. 43, 
 
THRIFT, INTELLIGENCE, AND MANLINESS 233 
 
 5. Again admitting that in the competitive struggle hte 
 more thrifty and intelligent will succeed, how does it ap- 
 pear that intelligence, thrift, and skill can improve the gen- 
 eral relative condition of wage-workers ? It must be evident 
 to all who have given the least thought to the labor ques- 
 tion that no measure for the solution of the problem that 
 leaves the great mass of laborers still subject to the injus- 
 tice of the present system has the least chance of success. 
 What is required is a greater degree of economic equality. 
 
 Those who rely on the remedies under discussion do not 
 pretend that they would or could enable all wage-workers 
 to secure a larger relative share of products. The most 
 that could be expected from such conditions would be that 
 a few laborers, by superior efficiency, would secure an 
 advantage. 
 
 6. Again, let us suppose that, by a general advance in 
 the virtues under consideration, the common level of all 
 laborers was raised ; would this, under the present system, 
 satisfy justice ? By no means. The gulf between the rich 
 and poor would be widened. The laborer might receive 
 absolutely more, but, as we have seen, the more thrifty and 
 industrious the laborer the larger the relative share of the 
 product which capital receives. It is not the absolute but 
 the relative condition of classes that causes disturbance. 
 
 The new idea of right, the new conception of social jus- 
 tice, demands that the present unrighteous inequality shall 
 cease. All talk, therefore, about advancing wage-workers 
 and restoring peace by the laborer's manhood, thrift, and 
 intelligence under capitalism, is the veriest nonsense. One 
 might as well argue that the more industrious the bees in 
 filling their hive with honey during the summer, the more 
 they will have to enjoy during the winter. The busy bees 
 in the hives of human industry have discovered that the 
 more industrious they are, the more honey they are making 
 for the masters of the hive. 
 
 7. The virtues of thrift, intelligence, and manliness in 
 no way help to equalize the burdens and benefits of society ; 
 but, on the contrary, their exercise, under competition, is 
 accompanied with influences at once unjust and brutalizing. 
 
234 THE INADEQUACY OF VARIOUS REMEDIES 
 
 By their means one man is enabled to get ahead and on the 
 top of his weaker brother. Men are not equally endowed 
 with the power to acquire these virtues, nor have they an 
 equal opportunity to cultivate them. Under individualism, 
 therefore, their exercise tends to blunt the sense of brother- 
 hood and contributes to social inequality. The man who 
 is provident and thrifty will get on, and the man who is 
 the reverse, we are told, has nobody to blame but himself if 
 he does not get on. This sort of talk is simply cruel ; but 
 society is continually indulging in it till people who are not 
 born smart actually feel guilty. Who made you smart and 
 me dull, that j'ou should eat the fat of the land and be 
 clothed in fine linen, while I am hungry and naked ? We 
 are told that this inequality is the decree of God and it is 
 useless to fight against it. It is rather the decree of Satan, 
 upheld and enforced by the artificial and false assumptions 
 of the current political economy, expressed by the terms 
 capitalism and individualism. Socialism demands the 
 recognition of fraternity ; it demands that in the household 
 of society the children, though unequally endowed with 
 physical and moral qualities, shall be clothed and fed and 
 kindly and impartially treated. If this is paternalism, it 
 is also the fraternalism of the Christianity of Christ and 
 the New Testament. 
 
 8. The inadequacy of these personal virtues to bring the 
 needed relief is apparent when we attempt to apply them to 
 any particular industry. The Elgin (Illinois) watch works, 
 for example, employ about thirty-five hundred hands. The 
 business was established about twenty-seven years ago, and 
 many of the workmen have been with it from the start. 
 By the improvement of machinery the work of making a 
 watch has been divided into eight hundred distinct opera- 
 tions, and the pay has been gradually reduced from fifteen 
 to sixty per cent. The skill of the average workman is 
 ■now sharpened down to the performance of but one of these 
 eight hundred operations. 
 
 Dexterity in doing one little thing day after day and 
 year after year is all that is required. Workmen of twenty 
 years' standing are displaced by a machine tended by a girl 
 at sixty cents a day. 
 
THKIFT, INTELLIGENCE, AND MANLINESS 235 
 
 A workman says, Twenty-five years ago I went to work 
 here at four dollars a day ; . . . reduction followed reduction, 
 and to-day, after twenty-five years of hard, conscientious 
 work, I would be glad to accept two dollars and seventy-five 
 cents per day. This last cut has reduced me another fifty 
 cents, and I am going to strike. The workniau in the 
 modern watch factory is the most dependent wage-slave in 
 the world. He has no trade. He may work in a watch 
 factory fifty years and know no more about a watch when 
 he quits than on the first day he entered the shops. He 
 does the same thing day after day, week after week, and 
 year after year. Cut him loose from the factory, after 
 having devoted the best part of his life to such work, and 
 he is almost helpless. The company has taken advantage 
 of this fact in the reduction of wages, and our only hope 
 lies in concerted action — a strike,! ^ 
 
 Now comes the advocate of the panacea of the personal 
 virtues, and says, " Wait, my complaining friend, I have a 
 remedy for your personal ills that you have overlooked : 
 cultivate skill, intelligence, thrift, manliness, and all will 
 be well." Could any utterance be conceived more exas- 
 perating to the man who, for a quarter of a century, had 
 bravely struggled against the iron laws of capitalism ? Of 
 all remedies proposed to heal the gaping wounds of society 
 the exhortation to manliness and thrift is the most insipid 
 and jejune. The watch-works laborers are representatives 
 of a large class of wage-workers throughout the country. 
 The Springfield Republican, after commenting on the watch- 
 trust war, says, " This is a fair sample chapter of the in- 
 dustrial progress of the time." ^ We may as well face the 
 fact, daily emphasized, that wage-workers cannot compete 
 with corporations and machines of iron and steel, with 
 mammoth wheels and engines that roll and roar like de- 
 vouring monsters crushing all that oppose them. Laborers 
 must come into different relations to these industrial 
 forces before harmony can be restored. To prescribe such 
 palliatives as thrift and manhood for the disease that threat- • 
 ens society, is as futile as would be the bathing of a gan- 
 grened limb that threatened the vitals, with rose-water. 
 1 " Springfield Republican," January, 1892. 2 Ibid. 
 
236 THE INADEQUACY OF VARIOUS REMEDIES 
 
 VIII. — • The Christianization of Capitalism. 
 
 " What fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness, and what 
 communion hath light with darkness? " — 2 Cor. vi. 14. 
 
 Many wise and good men recognize the evils that threaten 
 society, but shrink from other than the ordinary remedial 
 measures. They admit that the exigency is extraordinary, 
 but decline to employ extraordinary means for relief. 
 Conservatism opposes error and truth alike. It restrains 
 fanaticism and blocks reform. The conservative never 
 abandons himself to a great truth ; he is prudential if any- 
 thing ; he walks by sight, not by faith. He has no sympathy 
 with a Galileo for declaring that the earth moves, without 
 being able to explain all the phenomena of its motion ; or 
 with Columbus setting out, under the inspiration of a 
 mighty truth, for a new world, without knowing precisely 
 where he was going to land. This is the attitude of the 
 conservative mind toward the new order of society. It 
 deprecates the evils of individualism ; it sees the glorious 
 truth of Socialism, but dares not embark upon it because the 
 landing-place is uncertain. We are willing rather, with the 
 Magi of the East, to follow the Star of Truth, even though 
 we know not the way in which it will lead us. While many 
 religious teachers are leaning towards Socialism as the only 
 way of escape from social perils, there are some who think 
 it possible to avert danger and work needed reform by 
 imbuing capitalism with Christian principles. Dr. Wash- 
 ington Gladden, one of the foremost of American sociological 
 and Christian writers, says, " The reform needed is not the 
 destruction, but the Christianization of the present order." ^ 
 Dr. Gladden is so fair in the discussion of social problems, 
 he has so much sympathy for the .oppressed, and feels so 
 keenly the wrongs of which Socialists complain, that his 
 opinion should have great weight with them. If "the pres- 
 ent order" could be Christianized, it ought by all means to 
 'be done. Dr. Gladden entertains the expectation that 
 individuals, moved by the spirit of Christianity, will 
 
 1 " Applied Christianity," p. 98. 
 
THE CHKISTIANIZATION OF CAPITALISM 237 
 
 voluntarily surrender the means and practice of exploitation. 
 " The principal remedy for the evils of which Socialists 
 complain is to be found, therefore, in the application by 
 individuals of Christian principles and methods to the so- 
 lution of the social problem." ' We cannot share his expec- 
 tation. He looks to the union of labor and capital on some 
 kind and Christian basis. He commends profit-sharing and 
 other forms of co-operation, and believes that egotism and 
 altruism can be united under capitalism. " It must be the 
 business of the employer to promote the welfare of his 
 workmen, and the business of the workmen to promote the 
 interest of their employer." " 
 
 But this is the doctrine of each for all and all for each, 
 which is Socialism. He believes in co-operation ; but in- 
 tegral co-operation is Socialism. He believes in " the appli- 
 cation of Christian principles and methods to the solution of 
 the social problem ; " but this again is Socialism. All tlie 
 evils belong to individualism, while all his remedies are 
 Socialistic. It seems to us therefore that the only thing to 
 do is to socialize industry. We do not believe it possible 
 to Christianize " the existing order." The expression seems 
 to us to involve a contradiction. The principles of "the ex- 
 isting order " are wrong and must be given up. You cannot 
 Christianize theft ; it must be abandoned. When a man is 
 Christianized, his principles are changed, " Old things pass 
 away, and all things become new." The man himself becomes 
 a new creature. But this is not what Dr. Gladden means 
 by "the Christianization of the existing order." He does 
 not want its principles changed; he does not want the old 
 things, viz., private capital, freedom of contract, and free 
 competition, and the wage-system, to pass away and all 
 things to become new, including the " order " itself ; this, 
 rather, is what Socialism wants, and it is also what Chris- 
 tianity demands. Socialism and Christianitv are allies. 
 Individualism, or the present order, and Christianity are 
 enemies. The present order, like the natural heart, is 
 emnity against God. 
 
 Neither of the principles of the existing order of capital- 
 
 1 " Applied Christianity," p. 100. » Ibid., p. 98. 
 
238 THE INADEQUACY OF VARIOUS REMEDIES 
 
 ism admits of Christianization. These J)i'inciples are the 
 fundamental assumptions of the current political economy. 
 They are the absoluteness of private capital, free competi- 
 tion, and free contract. Let us glance at their ethical 
 character. 
 
 1. The absoluteness of private capital is inconsistent with 
 Christianity, and must be abandoned. 
 
 Private capital gives the owner a privilege or advantage 
 over another man. This is contrary to the spirit of the 
 gospel. Private capital, especially by means of the wage- 
 system, enables the owner to exploit his neighbor. This, 
 the most selfish, unchristian, and devilish thing that can be 
 coiiceived of, is the essence of the existing order. What 
 power of darkness is it that blinds our eyes to the truth that 
 no man or set of men has a right to thrive at the expense of 
 others ? The capitalist may sit in his easy -chair and take 
 half of all his neighbor can produce, and no more dream of 
 doing wrong than did the saints of Salem in hanging witches, 
 or the slave-holders in keeping slaves, or the inquisitors of 
 the Holy Office in imprisoning and burning alive 341,021 
 Spaniards. 
 
 You cannot Christianize exploitation, for it violates the 
 Golden Eule which, as has been well said, must be the rule 
 for gold. 
 
 If private capital is Christian, certainly no limit is set to 
 its acquisition. One man may rightfully own all the land 
 and other means of production in the community. His 
 fellow-men therefore are practically his slaves ; they have 
 no right to live except by his sufferance, " The ownership 
 of land," says a stanch defender of individualism, " carries 
 with it the ownership of all that the land produces and of 
 all who live upon it." ' These conclusions are antagonized by 
 Christianity. No man has a right to lord it over his fellows 
 or to enter into temptation to so lord it. One man X)wns 
 if^5 part of tlie land of England and Wales ; 24 men own J 
 of all Scotland. 
 
 Can you Christianize an institution which, in principle, 
 allows one man to say to his fellow-men, "Leave the 
 
 > "Socialism and Christianity," p. 87. 
 
THE CHKISTIANIZATION OF CAPITALISM 239 
 
 country or the world, for it is mine " ? Is it any wonder 
 that ministers of the gospel are beginning to denounce this 
 principle ? 
 
 The monopoly of land at present is no different in 
 principle, or more unjust in its results, than the monopoly 
 of the other means of production, or of the necessities of 
 life. The tap-root of all private monopoly is private 
 capital, which, as we have seen in Chapter III., is contrary 
 to Christianity. 
 
 2. The second principle in "the existing order" is free- 
 dom of contract. A denial of this doctrine will be regarded 
 as a species of sociological heresy and economic infidelity 
 worthy of the swiftest condemnation. The question now, 
 however, is not primarily one of sociology or economics, but 
 of Christian ethics. Is freedom of contract in harmony 
 with Christianity ? If not, can it be Christianized ? 
 
 To each of these questions we answer no. " A contract 
 in legal contemplation is an agreement between two or more 
 parties for the doing or not doing of some particular thing." '■ 
 Freedom of contract means the unrestrained liberty to make 
 such agreements. A moment's reflection will convince any 
 one that this is not consistent with Christianity. One of 
 the parties to a suit at law contracts with the judge for 
 a given decision. Freedom of contract, of course, allows 
 this. But Christianity says, " Fire shall consume the taber- 
 nacles of bribery." ^ Can bribery be Christianized ? Two 
 men agree that if the one will kill a certain man the other 
 shall pay him a stipulated sum. Freedom of contract allows 
 this. But Christianity says, " Thou shalt not kill." If 
 freedom of contract can be Christianized, then murder can 
 be Christianized. But it is replied this is absurd ! 
 
 Certainly it is. In other words, by freedom of contract 
 we do not mean freedom at all. Freedom of contract, how- 
 ever, is a convenient phrase ; it hides a multitude of social 
 sins. The contracts above supposed are, and ought to be, 
 prohibited by law. If prohibited, they are not free. All 
 would agree that some restraint should be put upon free- 
 dom of contract. To what extent should this restraint go ? 
 
 1 "Parsons on Contract," Vol. i. p. 6. 2 Job xv. 34. 
 
240 THE INADEQUACY OF VARIOUS REMEDIES 
 
 The answer and the only rational answer is, it should go 
 so far as to meet the demands of social justice. This is pre- 
 cisely the demands of Socialism. Let us now grant that 
 by freedom of contract absolute freedom is not intended, 
 but freedom to buy and sell in accordance with civil law and 
 the principles of the existing order. 
 
 Is freedom of contract thus qualified Christian ? If not, 
 can it be Christianized ? The answer must be in the 
 negative. In the summer of 1891 a man bought up 
 14,000,000, bushels of corn and withheld it till the price 
 advanced 20 per cent to the disadvantage and distress 
 of thousands. Christianity says, " He that withholdeth 
 corn, the people shall curse him.'" Can this corn trans- 
 action, which is representative under freedom of contract, 
 be Christianized ? Fresh in memory is a Chicago wheat 
 corner which so " squeezed " an old and honorable firm in 
 New York that the senior member found relief in suicide. 
 A secular journal that upholds " the present order," char- 
 acterizes this corn-dealer and this wheat-squeezer, whose 
 only offence and complete defence is that each is doing a 
 lawful business under freedom of contract, as " a thief and 
 a robber." ^ 
 
 Strong language this for the eye of capitalism to use 
 towards its hand ; for there ought to be no schism between 
 the members of the capitalistic body. But nothing is more 
 common than for the friends of the existing order to exalt 
 freedom of contract, or some other capitalistic principle, 
 and then roundly condemn the man who employs it most 
 logically and most successfully. Witness the kind of epi- 
 thets applied to J. Gould, Vanderbilt, and indeed nearly 
 all men who, by extraordinary ability, have secured a for- 
 tune, in perfect accordance with the laws of the land, of 
 society, and of the " existing order." We do not say, how- 
 ever, in accordance with Christianity. Speculation is 
 everywhere ; it pervades society like an atmosphere. 
 Your grocer engages in it ; so does everybody. The gam- 
 bling spirit is not confined to the St^ock Exchange. Get- 
 ting something and all one can for nothing is the universal 
 I Prov. xi. 20. 2 " Springfield Daily Union," Sept. 7, 1888. 
 
THE CHEISTIANIZATION OF CAPITALISM 241 
 
 practice. The head of a large manufacturing plant recently 
 told the writer that the law of business was " to claim the 
 whole world and concede only as you must." We do not 
 approve the business of cornering commodities, even on the 
 small scale which every small dealer is practising. What 
 we insist on is, that the advocate of the existing order, of 
 which cornering is a most perfect, natural, and consum- 
 mate flower, cannot consistently condemn it. A. tree, how- 
 ever, is known by its fruit. " A good tree cannot bring 
 forth evil fruit ; " and Socialism, in the language of its 
 Great Head, says, not that the tree shall be Christianized, 
 but "hewn down and cast into the fire." But this is not 
 the worst count in the bill of indictment Christianity 
 brings against freedom of contract. By the exercise of 
 this principle, capital combines and secures control, not 
 only of necessary commodities, but of work itself by which 
 the poor man can alone sustain life. He stands before a 
 great corporation to sell his labor, and has no more to say 
 about the price than an infant. It may be his only chance 
 for work at any price; he may have a helpless family 
 behind him and starvation before him ; he is forced to take 
 the wages offered, however low; and this also is called 
 freedom of contract. The phrase is elastic. We exclude 
 bribery, a case of real freedom, and include the hiring of 
 the laborer by the corporation, a case of the entire absence 
 of freedom. But this elasticity of freedom of contract is 
 its most valuable quality ; it solves the capitalistic prob- 
 lem how to serve God and mammon at the same time. 
 About 600 railroad companies in the United States em- 
 ploy 800,000 men. The employees of some of these com- 
 panies, numbering thousands, are dependent upon the nod 
 of one man for their daily bread. "The mutuality of 
 dependence between a great railroad corporation and any 
 single one of its hundreds of machinists, engineers, firemen, 
 brakemen, switchmen, trackmen, or other employees, is 
 absolutely inappreciable. The dependence is altogether 
 one-sided." ^ 
 
 Freedom of contract is a misnomer when one party arbi- 
 trarily fixes the terms of contract and the other is com- 
 pelled to accept. 
 
242 THE INADEQUACY OP VARIOUS REMEDIES 
 
 A most uujust and socially harmful exercise of this 
 principle is the formation of trusts to control production 
 and raise prices. A trust is only a perpetual corner. The 
 coal trust meets and decides to reduce the output of coal, 
 and price is advanced twenty-five cents per ton. What 
 has the consumer to say anyway about the price he shall 
 pay for coal ? The Standard Oil Trust agrees to give the 
 Producers' Association 5,000,000 barrels of oil, if the latter 
 would reduce the production of crude oil 17,500 barrels per 
 day, and is justified under the sacred principle of freedom 
 of contract. We deny the moral right of a few thus to 
 enrich themselves at the expense of the many, and we are 
 unable to see how these transactions can be Christianized. 
 
 Christianity says, " And if thou sell aught unto thy 
 neighbor, or buyest aught of "thy neighbor's hand, ye 
 shall not oppress one another." ' 
 
 Freedom of contract allows the strong and the cunning 
 to impose upon the weak and the innocent. This it has 
 done and is doing till unspeakable mischief and misery have 
 been inflicted upon society. 
 
 3. Competition, the third principle of the existing order, 
 
 / is not only relatively but absolutely anti-Christian. The 
 
 formula for competition is, man against man. Christianity 
 
 says man for man, "ye are members one of another." Com- 
 
 y petition is war ; Christianity is peace. 
 
 We can no more mix Christianity and competition than 
 we can mix oil and water. But we need not dwell upon 
 this point, for it is admitted. Dr. Gladden declares compe- 
 tition to be war : " A war in which the strongest will win. . . 
 The wage-system, when it rests on competition as its sole 
 basis, is anti-social and anti-Christian." ^ This is our posi- 
 tion precisely. 
 
 Competition, the third principle in capitalism, is anti- 
 Christian. What is essentially anti-Christian cannot be 
 Christianized ; it must be abolished. 
 
 Socialism would remove the evil -effects of these princi- 
 ples by removing th» cause. It would sweeten the stream 
 at which society is drinking by purifying the fountain, 
 1 Lev. XXV. 14. 2 " ADpliert Christianity," p. 33. 
 
THE CHKISTIANIZATION OF CAPITALISM 243 
 
 rather than by spasmodic and inadequate attempts to filter 
 the water along the current. 
 
 These evils are not merely incidental to a system which 
 can be Christianized by preventing them ; they inhere in 
 the system itself. The existing order is a necessary link 
 in the chain of industrial development. Individualism was 
 as necessary for Socialism as slavery was for feudalism, 
 or feudalism for capitalism. Each of these systems was 
 regarded as the divinely ordained and final order. As they 
 outgrew their usefulness and the evils connected with them 
 became threatening and unendurable, conservative and 
 good men sought to perpetuate by Christianizing them as 
 they now do the existing order. Slavery was a divine 
 order, and men sought to Christianize it, but in vain. 
 Polygamy was a divine institution, and when society out- 
 grew it, Christianization was attempted only to end in 
 failure. 
 
 The liquor traffic seeks to be Christianized. A saloon in 
 Salt Lake bore the inscriptio'n, "Holiness to the Lord;" 
 but Christianity refuses to baptize the liquor trafiic. Every 
 form of human selfishness seeks to be Christianized. 
 Hardly any great error or institution which becomes a 
 menace to society dies without seeking, and too often tem- 
 porarily finding, shelter under the protecting aegis of 
 Christianity. 
 
244 ADVANTAGES OF THE SOCIALISTIC STATE 
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 ADVANTAGES OP THE SOCIALISTIC STATE 
 
 ' ' With fervency I spoke of that new world blessed with plenty, purified 
 by justice, and sweetened by brotherly kindness, the world of which I had 
 indeed but dreamed, but which might so easily be made real."— Edwaed 
 Bellamy. 
 
 Socialism aims primarily at industrial reformation, but 
 it affects all social interests, as they are vitally connected 
 with industry. 
 
 For an interesting resume of the advantages of the " Co- 
 operative Commonwealth," we might refer to " Looking 
 Backward," a book which, under the guise of a simple but 
 charming romance, vividly portrays the harmonious and 
 wholesome working of social and industrial institutions 
 under the Socialistic state. 
 
 If it be said this is Utopian, let us bear in mind that 
 the particular details of the working of the great principles 
 of Socialism are of little consequence. " Looking Back- 
 ward " has not stirred the hearts of the nations on account 
 of its non-essential details, but rather on account of its 
 mighty truths set over against terrible wrongs in such a 
 way as to amount to a new discovery. If these truths are 
 Utopian, the New Testament is Utopian. Their applica- 
 tion, which is wholly gratuitous, but which superficial peo- 
 ple regard as paramount to the principles themselves, must 
 be experimental and vary with circumstances. 
 
 The character of this treatise, however, calls for facts, 
 for things that are practicable and probable. We proceed, 
 therefore, to specify some of the actual advantages of the 
 Socialistic state. 
 
MAMMON DETHRONED 245 
 
 I. — Mammon dethroned. 
 " Money should not breed." — Aristotle. 
 
 Money is the medium of exchange and the proximate 
 measure of value. As we have already shown, labor-time 
 is the primary measure of all value ; it requires a certain 
 amount of social labor-time to mine and mint a gold or 
 silver dollar. These metals are more durable, divisible, 
 portable, and unchangeable than other commodities, hence 
 they are made to serve as money. Under Socialism, how- 
 ever, the exchange of commodities would disappear ; no 
 medium, therefore, would be necessary. Money would be 
 abolished. • This, of course, implies a complete nationaliza- 
 tion of all industry. 
 
 It is possible, however, that the object sought by Social- 
 ism might be realized and still leave certain minor affairs 
 of business in private hands. Money, therefore, might 
 play some part under Socialism. The abolition of private 
 capital, freedom of contract and competition, would cer- 
 tainly destroy mammonism, which is the idolatry of money. 
 Money is to the capitalistic system what the blood is to 
 the body. It is the vitalizing, energizing power that makes 
 it what it is. It is the seat of life, or the life itself. Like 
 the blood, money circulates ; with this difference, however : 
 the blood distributes what is nutritious throughout the sys- 
 tem, but gathers up and casts out all impurities and insists 
 on keeping itself pure ; but money, while it distributes the 
 necessities of life through the body economic, creates im- 
 purities, retains all corruptions, and thus poisons the entire 
 social body. The disease from which capitalist society is 
 now suffering is money-poisoning, and it is fatal. 
 
 The definition of money, which is everywhere accepted, 
 as a medium of exchange, shows that it cannot be legiti- 
 mately hoarded or used to accumulate ptivate wealth. To 
 hoard it, or to employ it for breeding purposes, that is, for 
 self-increase, is to pervert its object. Aristotle said that 
 " money should not breed." Interest is as legitimate in 
 capitalism as bayonets in war. 
 
246 ADVANTAGES OF THE SOCIALISTIC STATE 
 
 Interest, however, " is not based on nature, but on mutual 
 cheatings, therefore the usurer is most rightly hated, be- 
 cause money itself is the source of his gain, and is not 
 used for the purposes for which it was invented. For it 
 originated for the exchange of commodities, but interest 
 makes out of money, more money. Hence its name ('d^oc, 
 interest and offspring). For the begotten are like those 
 who beget them. But interest is money of money, so th^t 
 of all modes of making a living this is the most contrary 
 to nature." ' 
 
 The occasion for interest is credit. Commercial credit 
 is in itself one of the most terrible scourges that ever 
 visited the human race. To this can be traced a large per 
 cent of the crimes that afHict society. It is, howpver, 
 necessary to the capitalistic system. Interest is the means 
 by which capitalists exploit each other. It is the most 
 specious, subtle, and deceitful kind of blood money. It 
 can, like Milton's fiend in his flight towards this world to 
 corrupt the race, transform itself into a cherub with celes- 
 tial smile, flowing hair, golden wings, and a silver wand, and 
 deceive the archangels themselves. Idleness, luxury, pride, 
 vanity, and vice take refuge under its wings. It was pro- 
 hibited by ancient law and is forbidden by the gospel. 
 
 Mediaeval and modern states have prohibited it or set 
 bounds to it, but without success. Perhaps nothing so 
 shows the vicious nature of interest as the fact that the 
 more needy the borrower, the higher the rate of interest he 
 is obliged to pay. A poor man often pays fifteen per cent, 
 while the rich only three or four per cent. This, however, 
 is considered right ; a matter of course, under capitalism. 
 
 There is not a precept or truth in the whole realm of 
 nature or revelation that is not obscured and corrupted by 
 gold. 
 
 "Gold, yellow, glittering, precious gold! . . . 
 Thus much of this will make black, white; foul, fair; 
 Wrong, right; base, noble; old, young; coward, valiant; 
 This yellow slave 
 
 1 As quoted in " Capital '' (M.arx), p. 143. 
 
MAMMON DBTHEONED 247 
 
 Will knit and break religions, bless the accursed, 
 Make the hoar leprosy adored, place thieves, 
 And give them title, knee, and approbation 
 With senators on the bench. " 
 
 Shakspeakb: " Timon of Athens." 
 
 We are horrified to read that the Moors, in seeking to 
 obtain gold from the Jews banished from Spain, " ripped 
 open their bellies in order to search for the gold which 
 they were supposed to have concealed in their bowels." ^ 
 We do not blame them for wanting the gold; it was their 
 atrociously direct and straightforward methods that offend 
 us. The refined but more cruel methods which capitalism 
 employs in extracting gold from its victims awaken no 
 interest, much less any criticism. 
 
 Rather than spend my life under the shadow of want, 
 depriving myself of nutritious food and sufficient clothing, 
 impoverishing my blood and engendering disease, not daring 
 for want of means to call a physician, continually haunted 
 by the spectre of hunger and cold, fearful least finally my 
 strength utterly fail and I become a public charge, — I say 
 rather than live and endure this slow torture till God in 
 mercy should relieve me, I would welcome the Moor. Yet 
 this is what capitalism is doing to thousands and tens of 
 thousands in every large city in the world by the established 
 and most approved methods of mammonism. 
 
 The influence of the money-getting passion upon society 
 is beyond calculation. It is a standing menace to individ- 
 ual character, to the home, the church, the state. It is an 
 ill-omened eagle that preys without ceasing upon the vitals 
 of society. More than all other things together it is the 
 cause of " man's inhumanity to man." It is the one pas- 
 sion that successfully withstands the combined forces of 
 religion and morality. The present economic constitution 
 of society, however, forces men to employ this passion to 
 the utmost. 
 
 Life to-day is a great grab-bag scheme. It is every one's 
 duty to grab, and they are the most worthy who can man- 
 age to grab often est and can get the iliost ; and these success- 
 
 i Tytler's History, Book VI., chap, xiv., p. 219. 
 
248 ADVANTAGES OF THE SOCIALISTIC STATE 
 
 ful ones say, under their breath, of the poor fellow who 
 gets nothing, " It were good for that man if he had never 
 been born." 
 
 If the " Love of money is a root of all evil," the evil 
 would disappear if this root were torn up. This is the first 
 thing that the Socialistic state would do. It would take 
 away the desire of riches by making them impossible. Is it 
 asked how could we get along without money ? We 
 answer there will be no need of money when every want is 
 supplied and every legitimate taste gratified by the great 
 co-operative stores of the State in return for services ren- 
 dered. A record of industrial services would be kept and 
 credit given. Tickets or certificates of labor could readily 
 take the place of money. For settling balances with for- 
 eign nations the precious metals might easily be used. 
 The abolition of money will strike some as an absurd idea, 
 but the evils connected with it are becoming so serious as 
 to challenge the attention of thoughtful men. 
 
 Professor E. T. Ely says, money is "merely small change 
 in great industrial centres, and it is conceivable that cir- 
 cumstances may exist under which it would be the best 
 thing for us to have money leave the country." ^ Nothing 
 is more common than to hear people opposing Socialism by 
 such twaddle as the following : " The accounts could not be 
 kept ; " " The enormous bookkeeping would break down ; " 
 " Nobody could get what he wanted ; " " We should all be 
 slaves ; " " What would become of the delicate and feeble ? " 
 " We should all have to dress alike," and so on ad infini- 
 tum et ad nauseam,. All this proceeds from a profound 
 ignorance of Socialism, and, what is worse, from a deep 
 distrust of the great principles of justice and religion on 
 which it rests. Abolish not private property, but private 
 capital, and Mammon would fall on his face before the ark 
 of the Lord with his head and the palms of his hands cut off 
 and only the stump of Mammon would be left.'' Abolish 
 private capital, and we give a death-blow to that pride and 
 vanity which now set men against their fellow-men and 
 against their Creator. " Abolish private capital, and you 
 
 1 " Political Economy," p. 273. ' 1 Sam. v. 
 
LABOK THE FORTUNE OE ALL 249 
 
 destroy industrial tyranny. God and history, ethics and 
 humanity, call just as loudly for industrial as for political 
 democracy. No tyranny was ever more intolerable than 
 the tyranny of private wealth. It causes envying and 
 strife, jealousy and hatred, however disguised, which stir 
 whatever is meanest and most venomous in the human 
 breast. If men cannot serve both God and mammon, it 
 would seem the part of wisdom for society to get rid of 
 mammon. That would indeed be a rainbow of promise for 
 human society, which should' substitute for an aristocracy of 
 wealth an aristocracy of character ; for the love of money, 
 the love of man. 
 
 II. — Labor the Fortune of All. 
 
 " An idle brain is the devil's workshop." — English Puoyebb. 
 " The Nineteenth Century says to the Twentieth, "All men must 
 labor." — President Merrill E. Gates. 
 
 This is the unmistakable voice of the people, and we 
 believe that " vox populi vox Dei." 
 
 The fundamental economic principle which underlies 
 socialism is that every one should work. This is the 
 teaching of Christianity : " If any will not work, neither 
 shall he eat." * All would by no means be manual laborers ; 
 physicians, teachers, artists, writers, would be even more in 
 demand than at present, and every one would be enabled 
 to choose the calling for which he was adapted. Idleness 
 would become disgraceful and criminal. Daily bread and 
 daily labor, which God and nature have joined together, 
 but which private capital has put asunder, would be re- 
 united. When all are laborers, labor will be honorable. 
 The State would be the only capitalist and employer, and 
 all the products of labor, including what are now profits, 
 would be equitably distributed among all the people. 
 Labor, compulsory, universal, honorable, would prove an 
 untold blessing to society. 
 
 Especially is this true of that large class, the families 
 and proteges of private wealth, who live on the labor of 
 1 2 Thess. iii. 10. 
 
250 ADVANTAGES OF THE SOCIALISTIC STATE 
 
 others, unconscious of the essential selfishness of such a 
 course, and whose manner of life is so different from those 
 by the sweat of whose brow they are clothed and fed, that 
 they have as little in common with them as though they 
 belonged to another race of beings. To this entire class, 
 which in our own country at least is rapidly increasing, it 
 would be a " blessing big with mercy " if, instead of the 
 aimlessness, the vanity, the ennui, of a life forced upon 
 them by a system of which they are the innocent though 
 unconscious victims, a useful and ennobling occupation 
 should engage their attention ; useful, because helpful 
 to others ; ennobling, because it gives one the conscious- 
 ness of worth, a sense of true dignity arising from the 
 desire to make the world better off because one is living 
 in it. 
 
 Republican Rome can teach the nineteenth century a lise- 
 ful lesson. A boy walked beside the Roman woman on her 
 wedding-march bearing a basket containing a hank of wool, 
 spindle, and distaff. Spinning was the jewel in the crown 
 of the Roman matron of the republic. 
 
 It is objected that the State would not be able to compel 
 the indolent, the shiftless, and the obstinate to labor. Mr. 
 Cook says of "Looking Backward," "It encourages Social- 
 ism and Communism by stimulating the hopes of the 
 shiftless and the vicious." ^ 
 
 It is sufB.cient to reply that such people could not exist 
 under Socialism. It would be so hot for them that they 
 would " say to the mountains, fall on us ; and to the hills, 
 cover us." When society is so constituted that bread 
 depends upon work, which is always to be had and waiting, 
 men will work. Hunger is a strong motive. There may be 
 some who would rather die than work, and it is certain that 
 neither nature nor revelation has made any provision for 
 the mundane existence of such people. 
 
 Other powerful incentives to work would exist in the 
 Socialistic state. The well-being and glory of the State 
 would be at stake. 
 
 The weak, the sick, the aged, would have to be provided 
 
 1 " The Congregationalist," Feb. 2, 1890. 
 
LABORERS XO LONGER EXPLOITED 261 
 
 for, but patriotism and pliilauthropy are among the strong- 
 est motives to human effort. When the only or principal 
 way to express these motives is by labor, iew would ven- 
 ture to object to it. Not to work would be to insult the 
 flag and to proclaim one's self a hater of his neighbor. 
 
 But if the authority of the State should be needed to 
 compel work, it does not appear why such authority could 
 not be as effectively exercised as it now is in collecting 
 taxes, or in securing the faithful services of its soldiers. 
 It is a rare occurrence when a citizen escapes taxation or an 
 able-bodied soldier refuses to " fall in." 
 
 III. — Laborers no longer exploited by Means of Money-wages. 
 
 " The produce of labor constitutes the natural recompense or wages 
 of labor." — Adam Smith. 
 
 We have seen that money is a medium of exchange, a 
 substitute for commodities. This enables the employer to 
 pay the laborer in money instead of in the commodities 
 which he produces. This latter method is called payment 
 in kind : the laborer receives a number of bushels or yards 
 which are a part of the entire product. He knows how 
 much he receives and how much the employer receives. 
 On the other hand, when paid in money, he is utterly in the 
 dark as to the employer's share. Under modern methods 
 of production, and especially in consequence of the minute 
 subdivisions of labor, whereby many laborers produce com- 
 modities for which they themselves have no need, money- 
 wages almost everywhere prevail. The exploitation of the 
 laborer proceeds • from the fact that labor is treated as a 
 commodity and has two values — value in use, and value in 
 exchange. The exchange value of labor is what it sells for, 
 which is the wage received. The use value is what it 
 really earns — what the employer receives for it. In the 
 process of production the raw material itself does not 
 increase in value. It has assumed a new form, but labor 
 has given the form. It is the labor, therefore, that is worth 
 more than has been paid for it. The wool wrought into a 
 
252 ADVANTAGES OF THE SOCIALISTIC STATE 
 
 given quantity of cloth is worth, uo more as wool than 
 before it was made into cloth. 
 
 The manufacturer, therefore, makes nothing on the raw 
 material, but only on the labor which he buys and sells. 
 Now, to make money out of the flesh and blood of a 
 brother man is simply shocking. It would not be one 
 whit worse to open his veins and draw out a portion of 
 his blood. The values in all just exchanges must be 
 equivalent. 
 
 If the laborer does not receive all he earns, he is robbed. 
 Luther was a Socialist when he said, " Whoever takes more 
 or better than he gives, that is usury, and is not service, 
 but wrong done to his neighbor, as when one steals and 
 robs." No logic, no sophistry, no custom, no plea of 
 necessity, no power on earth or in heaven, can make it 
 right for one man to thrive at the expense of another. The 
 laborer is compelled to take the exchange value for his 
 labor. He would gladly get the use value, but he cannot, 
 because all the means of production are in the hands of 
 capitalists. So long as he is paid in money wages this 
 exploitation will, nay, must, go on. 
 
 Socialism would abolish money-wages. Laborers would 
 receive from the State in whose employ they were all 
 needed goods ; and, what is of the last importance, they 
 would receive all the produce of their labor consistent with 
 social justice. 
 
 IV. — Justice in Taxation. 
 
 " Taxation involves the disclosure of eveiy man's private affairs, and 
 thrusts official hands into private pockets." — Professor "William "W. 
 
 FOLWELL. 
 
 It is doubtful whether any institution connected with 
 the existing order of capitalism is open to more serious 
 criticism than its system of taxation. Taxation is based 
 on the principle that each citizen should contribute to the 
 maintenance of the State in proportion to his property. 
 The amount of this property, however, unless it be real, 
 the assessors have no means of ascertaining, and the 
 
JUSTICE IN TAXATION 253 
 
 average tax-payer is not disposed to make a full and fair 
 statement. The law, indeed, in certain States, allows a 
 man to withhold information from the assessors^ but only 
 at the peril of having no redress unless he can show that 
 he has been assessed too much by at least one-half. 
 
 The result is a sharp inquisition on the part of the 
 assessors, and a hesitating, prevaricating, and lying course 
 on the part of the tax-payer ; and when the work is com- 
 pleted, and taxes are paid, every one knows that the 
 grossest inequality and unfairness have taken place. The 
 magnitude of this evil is co-extensive with the system of 
 taxation. .Its effect upon public and private morality is 
 disastrous. 
 
 An article in one of our ablest journals on " The Moral 
 Basis of Tax-paying " significantly asks, " How many of us 
 would find it quite easy to explain to a Sunday-school 
 class, for instance, just what and why he persqiaally does, 
 or does not do, as to paying taxes ? " The boys in our 
 schools, however, are not ignorant in this matter. 
 
 So seared is the public conscience as to the payment of 
 taxes, that the boys look forward to getting the best of the 
 tax-collector as the privilege, if not the duty, of a free 
 man. It occasions little surprise to be told that the man 
 who gave millions to found a boys' industrial school " held 
 securities taxable by the State amounting to $3,750,000, 
 and yet paid taxes on only $67,500." The difference be- . 
 tween these sums is $3,682,600. It thus appears that 
 this gentleman owned and was protected in the enjoyment 
 of $3,682,500, on which he paid not one penny by way of 
 taxes. The enormous injustice of this is seen, if we con- 
 sider that this is equivalent to 3,682 men, each owning 
 property to the amount of $1,000 and evading all taxation 
 whatever. People once accustomed to inhale noisome fumes 
 soon become oblivious to the malodor. If the disgraceful 
 and dishonest evasion of the payment of taxes is not a 
 stench in the nostrils of society, it is because society has 
 become so accustomed to breathe the foul atmosphere as to 
 be no longer sensitive to it. It is estimated that the value 
 of the personal property in Boston is four times that of 
 
254 ADVANTAGES OF THE SOCIALISTIC STATE 
 
 the real estate, while it is assessed for only one-fourth as 
 much. 
 
 The mystery of iniquity involved in this system is in- 
 separably connected with the present capitalistic regime. 
 The average tax-payer is afflicted with moral paralysis that 
 is traditional and even respectable. Who ever heard of a 
 man losing caste in society or church because he had suc- 
 ceeded in cheating the government out of half his taxes ? 
 It would be an immense gain to the cause of morals and 
 religion if the whole demoralizing system of taxation could 
 be swept out of existence ; and this the Socialistic state 
 would do. 
 
 If the State is sole capitalist and employer, it would 
 simply retain such part of its product as would be neces- 
 sary to defray the expenses of government. Individuals 
 would have no taxes to pay, and hence none to evade. 
 The vast army of tax assessors and collectors would be 
 disbanded and converted into producers. The socially 
 righteous principle, each for all, would be recognized as the 
 corner-stone of a true social ystem. It would thus be 
 possible to answer in the negative the question asked in 
 the article above referred to : " Can any one with self- 
 respect accept daily and hourly the benefit of protection, 
 safety, comfort — of streets, lights, drainage, sewerage, 
 police, schools, roads, fire-engines, and the rest — and let 
 • his neighbors pay his share ? " 
 
 V. — The Liquor Ti'dffic undermined. 
 
 " Judge, so long as tliere is e.iglit cents profit on a ten-cent drink, you 
 will never stop the liquor traffic." — Liquor Seller about to he sentenced. 
 
 It is conceded that the liquor traffic is the most gigan- 
 tic evil that now preys upon society. Wise men stand 
 aghast at its enormous proportions and appalling results. 
 It perplexes statesmen and legislators. The frightful sta- 
 tistics continually spread before us j'ield but a faint idea of 
 the waste and wickedness, the cruelty and crime, caused by 
 it. According to Mr. Gladstone, the liquor traffic has cost 
 more money and misery in Great Britain than wars, pesti- 
 
THE LIQUOR TEAFFIC UNDERMINED 255 
 
 lence, and famine combined. It has been rightly called 
 " the devil in solution." 
 
 Americans are optimists when their country is spoken 
 of ; and looking at the vastness of our territory, the magni- 
 tude of our resources, our unprecedented history and enor- 
 mous wealth, listening to the terrific thud of our industries, 
 and remembering that this Great Western Ship of State is 
 being steered by Anglo-Saxon grit and grip, there is ground 
 for our optimism ; yet notwithstanding our material great- 
 ness, our faith in tlie perpetuity of free institutions is 
 exactly measured by the morality of the people. It is 
 oppressive to be told that in spite of the increasing num- 
 ber of temperance organizations and total abstainers, the 
 efforts of the church, temperance literature and legislation, 
 the consumption of alcoholic liquors is increasing more 
 rapidly than population, education, churches, and wealth. 
 In 1840 we consumed four gallons of intoxicating drinks 
 ■per capita ; in 1883, twelve gallons. During the five years 
 ending in 1884 population increased 15 per cent, while the 
 use of distilled liquors increased 44.5 per cent, and that of 
 malt liquors 60.2 per cent.^ 
 
 It is believed by thoughtful and conservative men that 
 our civilization is engaged in a death struggle with intem- 
 perance. This insatiate Moloch, appeased only with human 
 sacrifices and frequently demanding the first-born, finds its 
 surest support in the love of money. Take away the power 
 of making money by this traffic, and the heaviest gun of the 
 enemy is spiked. A judge about to sentence a liquor- 
 dealer who had been repeatedly before the court for the 
 same ofi'ence, said to him, "I propose to stop this traf&c by 
 imposing upon you the severest penalty the law will allow." 
 Looking the judge calmly in the face, the liquor-dealer 
 replied, " Judge, as long as there is eight cents profit in a 
 ten-cent drink, you will never stop it." 
 
 The capital invested in the liquor business is enormous. 
 A moderate estimate places it at $1,000,000,000, of which 
 176,000,000 are in the city of Boston. Hon. P. V. Deuster, 
 
 1 " Our Country" (Josiah Strong), p. 75. 
 
256 ADVANTAGES OF THE SOCIALISTIC STATE 
 
 9 
 
 member of congress from Wisconsin, in a speech in favor 
 of the whiskey interests, declared, " That the total market 
 value of the spirituous, malt, and vinous liquors produced in 
 1883 was $490,961,588." ' The census for 1880 showed that 
 $132,051,260 were invested in their manufacture. The 
 annual liquor bill of the United States is $900,000,000." 
 
 It is this love of money that gives the liquor interests 
 such power in politics and which corrupts legislators, bribes 
 officers, demoralizes juries, perverts the course of jus- 
 tice, and in other ways debauches the public and private 
 conscience. A judge of the Superior Court of Massachusetts 
 recently administered this stinging rebuke to a jury in a 
 liquor case : " I do not hesitate to say, sitting here as a 
 judge, that the evidence in that case left no doubt in my 
 mind that the defendant was guilty. I do not see how the 
 jury could intelligently and conscientiously have acquitted 
 him." '- 
 
 The liquor-dealers of Illinois instructed their new Board 
 of Trustees to " spare neither trouble nor expense to prop- 
 erly organize every senatorial district in the State, so that, 
 by the time of the next election of members of the General 
 Assembly, the business men engaged in the liquor trade 
 may be thoroughly organized and disciplined." The Brew- 
 ers of New York claim to control 35,000 votes. An em- 
 ployee in a brewery who, serving on a jury, voted to 
 convict a saloon-keeper, was immediately discharged. 
 The liquor lobby at Albany, N. Y. (1878-79), admitted 
 that it had expended $1,000,000 to influence legislation. 
 "Although the liquor lobby during the last forty years 
 has used millions of dollars in corrupt bargaining and briberi/, 
 and never has made a secret of the fact, yet no member 
 was ever caught, in the act, and, it is fair to presume, no 
 one ever will be. There is no way so dark they cannot 
 find their road through." ^ It is notorious that our cities 
 are controlled by the liquor power. In 1883 twelve out of 
 the twenty-four aldermen of New York were, or had been, 
 
 1 " Our Country " (Josiah Strong), p. 79. 
 
 2 Judge Justin Dewey; "Springfield Republican," November, 1891. 
 
 3 " Our Country" (Josiah Strong), p. 83. 
 
THE LIQUOR TRAFFIC UNDERMINED 257 
 
 liquor-dealers. There is hardly a city in the United States 
 in which the saloons do not exercise more power in 
 local government than all the educational, religious, and 
 industrial institutions combined. 
 
 The same is true of Europe. In a recent remarkable 
 speech. Lord Randolph Churchill said of the liquor power 
 in England, " The liquor interest is an organization so 
 powerful that it is almost like a Prussian army. It can be 
 mobilized at any moment, and brought to bear upon the 
 point that is threatened. It has already directly over- 
 thrown two governments." The drink bill of the United 
 Kingdom for 1891 was 141,260,000 pounds, or about $706,- 
 250,000, an increase over 1890 of $8,750,000. This equals 
 nearly $100 for each family of five persons. Well may 
 English statesmen stand aghast in the presence of this 
 peril. 
 
 In the abolition of private capital Socialism would smite 
 King Alcohol in his most sensitive and vulnerable spot. 
 
 We do not overlook the imperious nature of the alcoholic 
 appetite, or the relation of supply to demand. We say that 
 the traffic increases the appetite, and private capital stimu- 
 lates the traffic ; and we say, furthermore, that the demand 
 for intoxicating drink no more justifies society in furnish- 
 ing the supply, than the demand for the indulgence of other 
 appetites and desires socially hurtful would justify society 
 in supplying the opportunities for their gratification. 
 
 It is not claimed that intemperance would altogether cease 
 in the Socialistic state ; but by making private gain impos- 
 sible in connection with the traffic, a tremendous incentive 
 to the evil, one which now paralyzes all efforts for its sup- 
 pression, would be entirely removed. It would put an end 
 also to the mischievous practice of adulterating liquors, 
 since the State would have no interest to serve in the poison- 
 ing of its citizens. 
 
 In another way the present industrial system is the 
 strongest ally of intemperance. A large per cent of drunk- 
 enness is due to overworked hands and overtaxed brains. 
 Care, anxiety, the nervous strain which men are every- 
 where under, cause them to resort to strong drink. So 
 
268 ADVANTAGES OF THE SOCTALISTIC STATE 
 
 severe is tins competitive struggle that the most exhaust- 
 ive labors are often felt to be positively necessary, and a 
 resort to alcoholic stimulants perfectly justifiable. Remove 
 the cause and you remove the effect. Socialism removes 
 the cause. It insures freedom from excessive manual labor, 
 and from the care and pressure that now weigh and prey 
 upon multitudes who feel unable to bear the strain without 
 the aid of alcohol. 
 
 VI. — The Overworked Relieved. 
 
 " Res est sacra miser " (A suffering person is sacred). — Pkoverb. 
 
 We are so accustomed to see a portion of our fellow-men 
 toiling incessantly, and another portion living in idleness, 
 or busy only in the pursuit of what is pleasurable and 
 frivolous, that we fail to realize the social injustice involved 
 in this state of things. A little reflection, however, will 
 convince any candid mind that this glaring inequality in 
 the conditions of life is unnatural, unjust, and due to the 
 artificial arrangements of society, whereby the strong are 
 enabled to exploit the weak. 
 
 God has not intended, but only tolerated, this evil ; and 
 there is no surer way to alienate still farther from Chris- 
 tianity the toiling masses, than by assuring them that 
 divine justice sanctions the wrong, and the gospel of Christ 
 bids them be patient and endure to the end, in the hope 
 that God will be no respecter of persons in the next world, 
 even though he appears to be in this. 
 
 The church can no longer countenance the idea which 
 has held a controlling place among its leges non scriptas, 
 that God has two standards of justice ; one for the life that 
 now is, and one for the life to come. If the church 
 preaches a heaven without caste, it must cease to accom- 
 modate itself to the demands of caste here. 
 
 No distinction of caste is more repugnant to the spirit 
 of Christianity than that founded on the disparagement of 
 labor. Its essential shallowness, and meanness is seen 
 when one reflects that the labor and laborers most shunned 
 and despised are precisely the ones most necessary to 
 
THE OVEKWORKEI) KELIEVED 259 
 
 human happiness and even existence. As, for example, the 
 digger at the bottom of the sewer, who is taking poison 
 from our door, or the coal-carrier, begrimed with sweat and 
 dirt, while bringing to us the warmth without which we 
 should perish. 
 
 We have shown (chapter ii., section 10) the hardship 
 and suffering endured by those who are compelled to work 
 beyond their strength. Disease and death are the angels 
 of mercy that put an end to their misery. The real mur- 
 derer, however, is society, which upholds an industrial 
 regime that demands these human sacrifices. We read 
 with horror that the ancients killed their decrepit men and 
 women to get rid of them, and the Spartans had a board of 
 judges to examine all infants at birth, and, if found weak, to 
 destroy them ; but the course of the ancients was far more 
 ' humane and merciful than the slow aud refined methods of 
 torture and death by which society now rids itself of its 
 poor and weak. It is because of the indignity placed upon 
 labor that so little is done to relieve those who are over- 
 worked. Good people who pray and pay for the preven- 
 tion of cruelty to animals, often have less pity for men 
 and women whose weak and weary bodies are racked with 
 pain, and prematurely crushed under the burden of daily 
 tasks from which there is no escape. 
 
 Work under proper conditions is the duty of all the 
 able-bodied ; but it is cruel to put to the torture of pro- 
 tracted manual labor the sick, the aged, and children of 
 tender years. Nothing, however, is more common than the 
 spectacle of old men, stiff and crippled by half a century 
 of unremitted toil, compelled to stand side by side with 
 workmen in the prime of their powers, or moving to and 
 fro with bent forms and measured tread. How many frail 
 and toil-worn women one everywhere meets whose very 
 flesh and blood are being wrought into the commodities 
 they make. Thousands of pale-faced wives and mothers 
 are compelled, in defiance of all conjugal and domestic 
 laws, and of the imperative claims of maternity, to go to 
 their daily tasks in shop or mill, and to return at night 
 weary and hopeless to their neglected and cheerless homes. 
 
260 ADVANTAGES OF tHE SOCIALISTIC STATBl 
 
 We have only to consult the labor reports to learn how- 
 vast is the army of children toiling in factories and shops, 
 ■with dwarfed minds, dulled sensibilities, and stunted bodies. 
 Mrs. Browning, whom Mr. Cook happily calls " Shak- 
 speare's daughter," has put into " The Cry of the Children " 
 the cruel facts to which society can no longer turn a deaf 
 ear: — 
 
 " The young lambs are bleating in the meadows; 
 The young birds are chirping in their nests; 
 The young fawns are playing with the shadows; 
 
 The young flowers are blowing towards the west ; 
 But the young, young children, O my brothers ! 
 
 They are weeping bitterly: 
 They are weeping in the playtime of the others, 
 In the country of the free. 
 
 ' For oh ! ' say the children, ' we are weary, 
 
 And we cannot run or leap ; 
 If we cared for the meadows, it were merely 
 
 To drop down in them, and sleep. 
 Our knees tremble sorely in the stooping ; 
 
 We fall upon our faces trying to go; 
 And, underneath our heavy eyelids drooping, 
 
 The reddest flowers would loot as pale as snow. 
 
 For all day long we bear our.burden tiring 
 
 Through the coal-dark underground ; 
 Or all day we drive the wheels of iron 
 
 In the factories round and round." 
 
 Although we are so accustorhed to see these overworked 
 classes that we have come to regard their lot as a matter of 
 course, a thing that cannot be helped, and one, therefore, 
 over which it is not worth while to waste sympathy, yet 
 we affirm that it is both unnatural and unnecessary, and 
 due to organized selfishness and cruelty. 
 
 Factory acts and other legislation have done something 
 to remedy the evil ; but so long as the one basal principle 
 of industry is every one for himself, there can be no effectual 
 remedy. Charity only temporarily relieves individual 
 cases. 
 
 The Socialistic state would put an end to this cruel 
 wrong. 
 
fHE PUEIFICATION OF POLITICS 2G1 
 
 When all work, there will be no need of overwork on 
 the part of any. Indeed, when all work, two or three hours 
 of labor per diem would probably supply the demand of 
 society for all commodities. If before the age of machin- 
 ery the world's wants could have been met, according to 
 Franklin's estimate, by four hours' daily labor on the part 
 of every able-bodied citizen ; and if the use of machinery 
 has increased the productivity of labor ten-fold ; then, had 
 not human wants increased, twenty-four minutes' daily 
 labor on the part of each would be sufficient to supply 
 human needs. But granting that necessities have greatly 
 multiplied, it is absolutely certain that, should all the able- 
 bodied engage in labor, the hours of labor could be greatly 
 shortened ; none would be overworked ; production might 
 be vastly increased, and society immensely enriched. Never 
 could another Burns, looking upon his poor over-worked 
 brother, sing : — 
 
 "See yonder poor, o'erlabour'd wight, 
 
 So abject, mean, and vile, 
 Who begs a brother of the earth 
 
 T( give him leave to toil ; 
 And ee his lordly fellow-worin 
 
 The poor-petition spurn, 
 Unmindful, though a weeping wife 
 
 And helpless offspring mourn." 
 
 VII. — The Purification of Politics. 
 
 " Political prizes in the United States are now greater than they ever 
 were in the Roman Empire, and are doubling in fatness and value every 
 thirty years. Csesar, Antony, and Lepidus were never tempted by 
 spoils as alluring as will dazzle and perhaps derange the American polit- 
 ical future." — Joseph Cook. 
 
 It is conceded that since the War of the Rebellion po- 
 litical corruption has advanced rapidly and boldly in the 
 United States. Among the secondary causes are the 
 extension of the civil service, due to the admission of States 
 and increase of population ; the unparalleled accumulation 
 "of wealth, and the consequent indulgence in extravagance 
 and luxury ; the introduction of vast hordes of foreigners, 
 
262 ADVANTAGES OF THE SOCIALISTIC STATE 
 
 who become an easy prey of demagogues ; and the laxity 
 in morals attendant on sudden prosperity. The remedial 
 forces of society will doubtless counteract any immediate 
 danger to our institutions from this evil. But what of 
 the future ? Public office is now regarded as a prize. 
 
 Upwards of 100,000 of these are the reward of success 
 in a presidential election. Frauds, vaster and uglier than 
 any recorded in history, have disgraced these elections. 
 Rome was unblushingly put up at auction and sold to the 
 highest bidder. It is an open secret that the highest oifice 
 in the gift of the American people, once, if not twice, since 
 the War of the Rebellion, was for sale by corrupt politicians. 
 An investigation revealed such startling facts as these: 
 "In Oregon $5,000 were offered for an elector, and Demo- 
 cratic money sent to pay for the fraud ; in Florida $50, - 
 000 were thus offered by a responsible agent at Gram- 
 ercy Park in New York ; ... in South Carolina |80,000 
 were offered, and the money sent to Baltimore to pay for 
 the fraud ; ... in Louisiana the Republican record is not 
 clean, and the Democratic far from being so." ' When a 
 congressional committee demanded of the telegraph com- 
 pany the despatches on both sides, the company assured 
 the committee that it "would compromise conspicuous men 
 of both parties, and make a horrible scandal." 
 
 Leaders on both sides met and agreed to discontinue 
 further examination of each other's record. Patronage in 
 public office, and corruption-money, are institutions in our 
 republic. The fact that our congressmen, with a few 
 exceptions, are rich men, more than one-quarter of the 
 members of a recent senate being millionnaires, can have 
 but one meaning, and that is, that public office is venal. In 
 1890 seventeen United States senators were worth frou; 
 11,000,000 to $30,000,000 each. 
 
 Of the seventeen, only four took any part in shaping 
 legislation or moulding public opinion. Men exception- 
 ally good and true, who can say, as Ex-President Julius 
 Seelye of Amherst College is reported to have said, " My 
 election has cost me three postage-stamps," may sometimes 
 1 "Labor" (Joseph Cook), p. 152. 
 
THE PURIFICATION OF POLITICS 263 
 
 be elected to oifice ; but it is a matter of the gravest import 
 that money is becoming more and more the sine qua non 
 of a successful candidacy. 
 
 An increasingly large class of voters are for sale at all 
 important elections. Mr. Joseph Cook says he was told by 
 a prominent politician, " Not far from New York City, that, 
 ■vyhen he put the question to a Democratic manager, ' How 
 many of your day-laborers, minor mechanics, and men of 
 small means, refuse to be bought ? ' the reply was, ' Not 
 over a third. In a close election we can buy two-thirds of 
 all the votes cast by the unfortunate class. The wealthy 
 do not sell their votes, but those who need to exert 
 themselves a little severely to make the year's ends meet, 
 sometimes put down among their assets their votes. 
 Father and four sons in a family put down $25.00 for their 
 votes among their assets.' I have heard ... of a man be- 
 ing elected to Congress, who bought two hundred and fifty 
 votes, and was carried into office by them ; and he kept a 
 list of the men he bought, and used to show it to his friends 
 as a matter of pride." ^ 
 
 What constitutes the dark background of this porten- 
 tous picture is the fact that the vast majority of laborers, 
 no longer eligible to office, are perfectly indifferent to fraud- 
 ulent raids upon the public treasury, or to political jobbery 
 of any sort. 
 
 The lobby is an evil, natural, if not necessary, to the cap- 
 italistic system. It is a dangerous and disgusting tumor 
 growing on legislative bodies, whose pus poisons the very 
 fountains of law and justice ; and j-et so seared is the pub- 
 lic conscience that the average citizen looks upon the lobby 
 as a legitimate institution ; honorable men do not hesitate 
 to enter upon its dirty work, as the agents of corporations 
 and other moneyed interests. It is asserted in Massachu- 
 setts that " high of&cials in the Legislature have declined 
 re-election in order that they may sell to corporations the 
 influence they have obtained from their official position." 
 The charge is made, however, not as an attack upon indi- 
 
 1 " Labor" (Joseph Cook), p. 155. 
 
264 ADVANTAGES OF THE SOCIALISTIC STATE 
 
 viduals, but upon a " system which blunts the consciences 
 of honorable men and makes corruption inevitable " ^ 
 
 The Legislature of California in 1891 was called the 
 " Legislature of one thousand scandals," because of the 
 bills introduced for the express purpose of having them 
 bought off.^ 
 
 The civil-service reform is a severe disappointment.. 
 More than 100,000 offices, connected with the executive 
 functions of the government, are filled by appointment of 
 the president. The Civil Service Reform Law enacted by 
 Congress in 1883 has at this writing been applied to only 
 27,597 offices. Thus the law, one of the most important 
 enacted since the war, and which gave promise of great 
 things, is practically inoperative. The spoils' system, that 
 unclean beast, still ravages society, polluting the whole 
 political atmosphere. , - 
 
 Garfield while in Congress declared that one-third of the 
 time of its members was demanded by office-seekers, and 
 the system could not prevent unworthy men from gaining 
 office. President Lincoln said the " wriggle and scramble 
 for office " threatened the existence of the republic. A 
 fierce and shameful struggle for a corruption fund of 
 $60,000,000 occurs every four years. 
 
 The day is not far distant when our civil service, already 
 colossal, will require 200,000 office-holders. All the signs 
 of the times indicate that our republic is destined to 
 grapple with the question of political corruption in a 
 fiercer, mightier struggle than the world has ever wit- 
 nessed. Is there no danger to free institutions from all 
 this ? No candid man will deny that money, private 
 wealth, is the prime instrument in this corruption. Abol- 
 ish private wealth, and the whole system of patronage in 
 office, along with its concomitants of venality and bribery, 
 must fall with it. It is the system that is wrong. It is 
 futile to blame individuals, to censure public officials for 
 doing the very thing they are expected, if not elected, to 
 do. Yet this is what men and newspapers are continually 
 
 ' George D. Ayers, President of the National Club. 
 2 "Tlie New Nation," January 30, 1892. 
 
ILLITERACY KEMOVBD 265 
 
 doing. To support a system, and at the same time make 
 war on tliose who administer it, is the popular modus 
 operandi of civil-service reform. 
 
 The spoils' system is a deadly enemy of the republic. 
 We have no sympathy with those who advocate a com- 
 promising policy in dealing with it ; who, instead of abol- 
 ishing it, prefer to employ palliatives and to invent remedies 
 to counteract its evils. 
 
 The Socialistic state strikes at the system. By abolish- 
 ing private wealth it renders political corruption impossible. 
 Eliminate the factor of money in politics, and nothing is 
 left but character or fitness as a passport to public office. 
 Surely this consideration alone would be an immense gain 
 to society. 
 
 VIII. — Illiteracy removed. 
 
 " If this Union was in jeopardy while one part was slave, and one 
 part free, it is also in jeopardy while one part is taught, and another 
 part untaught." — Chicago Advance. 
 
 AVe have called attention to the general dissemination of 
 knowledge as among the causes of Socialism. Popular 
 education throughout the world has made vast strides 
 within two centuries ; yet a vast ' amount of illiteracy re- 
 mains, and in this country it is on the increase, and occa- 
 sions serious apprehension. 
 
 Socialists of all schools lay special emphasis upon 
 education. 
 
 The resolution passed at Eisenach in 1869 by the Social 
 Democratic j^''orkingmen's Party is representative. It de- 
 mands, "Obligatory instruction in common schools, and 
 gratuitous instruction in all public institutions for polite 
 education." 
 
 The existing order is favorable to the higher education 
 of the few, but compels the masses to remain in ignorance. 
 The increase of illiteracy in the most prosperous States of the 
 Union is a menacing fact. According to the census of 1880, 
 there were 832,000 illiterate white voters in the Southern 
 States. Of our 36,761,000 over ten years of age, 6,000,000 
 
266 ADVANTAGES OP THE SOCIALISTIC STATE 
 
 caiinot read, and 6,239,000 cannot write. In six large States 
 half the people are illiterate. 
 
 Compulsory education is helpful, but bears with severity 
 upon the poor. Parents find it impossible to live without 
 the labor of their children. Mines and factories find it 
 profitable to employ children. Both parties seek to evade 
 the law. It is for the private interest of the rich em- 
 ployer and the poor operative that children should be 
 kept out of school. The competitive system is thus 
 the. enemy of education. As long as social forces con- 
 tinue to inflame the passion for riches, so long will labor 
 be regarded only as a commodity ; and as long as labor is 
 regarded as only a commodity — an article of barter — 
 so long will the children of laborers be kept in comparative 
 ignorance. The English report of the Children's Employ- 
 ment Commission of 1866 says, " It is unhappily to a pain- 
 ful degree apparent throughout the whole of the evidence, 
 that against no persons do the children of both sexes so 
 much require protection as against their parents." The 
 Second Annual Report of the New York Labor Bureau 
 says, " The Compulsory Education Law is a dead letter." 
 
 There are 100,000 boys and girls under sixteen years of 
 age in the city of New York earning their own living. No 
 one will pretend that they are being educated. There are 
 100,000 children between ten and fifteen years of age daily 
 roaming the streets of that great city, neither going to 
 school nor engaged in any sort of labor.^ There is here 
 not only food for reflection, but cause for action. We are 
 not surprised that in the year of grace 1890 New York 
 City spent $400,000 less for the public sch(|^ls than for 
 its police department. No faith in the destiny of the glori- 
 ous republic, no popular superstition that God is on the 
 side of the United States, can obscure the plain, unvarnished 
 fact that, unless the tide of illiteracy turns, the time will 
 come when one flag will no longer float over these States. 
 
 The fact to which we call especial attention, but which 
 capitalism attempts to conceal, is that the capitalistic order 
 is essentially hostile to popular education. This is no new 
 1 " New York Press," September, 1890. 
 
ILLITERACY KEMOVED 267 
 
 discovery of Socialism. Adam Smith declared it before 
 Socialism was thought of. 
 
 " In the progress of the •division of labor, the employment 
 of the far greater part of those who live by labor, that is, of 
 the great body of the people, comes to be confined to a few 
 very simple operations ; frequently to one or two. But the 
 understandings of the greater part of men are necessarily 
 formed, by their ordinary employment. . . . His dexterity 
 at his own particular trade seems in this manner to be ac- 
 quired at the expense of his intellectual, social, and martial 
 virtues. But in every improved and civilized society this is 
 the state into which the laboring poor, that is, the great body 
 of people, must necessarily fall. . . . Notwithstanding the 
 great ability of those few (who have ability and leisure), 
 all the nobler parts of the human character may be, in a great 
 measure, obliterated and extinguished in the great body of the 
 people." -^ Such is the effect of the division of labor under 
 the capitalistic system, according to the clear, cool, un- 
 prejudiced judgment of the foremost orthodox political 
 economist. How does Adam Smith propose to avert this 
 dire result ? By the Socialistic method of State interfer- 
 ence in education. He says, " Let government take some 
 pains to prevent it." Let us clearly understand that the 
 general dissemination of knowledge is vastly more impor- 
 tant to the nation and to the race than the higher education 
 of the few. We would not be understood for a moment as 
 concurring with those critics who claim that the Socialistic 
 state would be unfavorable to higher education, or to those 
 sesthetical and intellectual studies especially adapted to 
 discipline the mind. 
 
 We heartily dissent also from the position frequently 
 assumed, that the motives to intellectual effort are insep- 
 arably connected with the love of money, and will therefore 
 cease with the abolition of private wealth. The desire of 
 approbation, the innate thirst for knowledge, the satisfac- 
 tion wlild rtalent and genius find in expressing themselves, 
 are motives sufficiently strong for the severest mental 
 exertion. 
 
 1 "The "Wealth of Nations " (Rogers' Edition), vol. ii., pp. 365-367. 
 
268 ADVANTAGES OF THE SOCIALISTIC STATE 
 
 Under the regime of Socialism, no one would have any 
 interest in depriving the young of education, while each in- 
 dividual and society as a whole would be immensely bene- 
 fited by it. Socialism would, therefore, naturally raise the 
 general standard of education ; and as the State would no 
 longer encounter the forces that now oppose- educational 
 laws and their enforcement, illiteracy would disappear. 
 
 The State could give a longer time for schooling than is 
 now possible, and a more thorough training to those des- 
 tined for teachers and the professions generally. The hours 
 of leisure, which would come to all when all engaged in 
 labor, would also afford opportunities for literary pursuits. 
 From such considerations we might reasonably suppose 
 that the Socialistic state would secure greater attainment 
 in learning than the world has yet seen. Then society 
 might realize that happy condition wherein, in the words 
 of Bacon, " Learning lights her torch at every man's 
 candle." 
 
 It is true that certain learned professions might be 
 eliminated under Socialism. The abolition of private 
 wealth would remove in large measure the temptations 
 to crime, and would do away altogether with private 
 contracts. The legal profession, therefore, would virtu- 
 ally disappear. As society is now constituted it is indis- 
 pensable ; but certainly that social order which introduces 
 a reign of peace, and renders lawyers unnecessary by 
 removing the causes of crime and litigation, would be the 
 fulfilment of the angelic prophecy uttered at the advent 
 of the Saviour of the world, "Peace on earth, good will 
 to men." 
 
 It is to be bornCvin mind that our present school system, 
 of which we are justly proud, is thoroughly Socialistic in 
 principle ; but under the working of competition the prin- 
 ciple is continually defeated. Socialism would only em- 
 phasize and enforce the principle by removing the obstacles 
 to its operation. ' 
 
POVERTY ABOLISHED 269 
 
 IX. — Poverty abolished. 
 
 " Carlyle somewhere says that poverty is the hell of which the modern 
 Englishman is most afraid. . . . You love your wife, you love your chil- 
 dren ; but would it not be easier to see them die than to see them rediiced 
 to the pinch of want in which large classes in every highly civilized com- 
 munity live ? " — Mr. Henry Geokge. 
 
 Poverty and riches are relative terms. Poverty in com- 
 mon parlance means not enough, and riches much more than 
 enough, for physical well-being. When want of the neces- 
 sities of life, or the struggle to get them, necessitates physi- 
 cal suffering, poverty exists. There are those who believe 
 that poverty was ordained of God. They are content to 
 leave the unfortunate to their fate : not that they disap- 
 prove of philanthropy or well-regulated charities, but any 
 movement toward the abolition of the evil itself, especially 
 if their own security is thereby threatened, is regarded as 
 chimerical, and its authors as cranks or amiable idiots. 
 Poverty is not ordained of God. Poverty in the midst of 
 plenty is the work of Satan ; to hold to the contrary is 
 fatalism. ,If God and nature have doomed toiling multi- 
 tudes, and millions yet unborn, to struggle with the horrors 
 of poverty through a brief and miserable existence, and die 
 in its cold, cruel embrace, then the most doleful pessimism 
 is the truest philosophy. It is this sort of teaching that 
 makes infidels and atheists. The church has acquiesced in 
 this false philosophy. 
 
 She teaches that poverty is to be endured, rather than to 
 be cured. She quotes the Scripture, " Ye have the poor 
 always with you," as if poverty was a divine institution, 
 sanctioned by, if not founded on, the gospel. She is ready 
 to relieve the distress of poverty, and her charities are 
 magnificent ; but she utters no word to prevent poverty. 
 Her alliance with wealth silences the voice that she would 
 otherwise raise against an industrial system founded on 
 economical assumptions that antagonize the whole spirit of 
 the gospel ; assumptions that both justify and necessitate 
 poverty and pauperism. 
 
 "The tendency of purely economic forces," says Profes- 
 
270. ADVANTAGES OF THE SOCIALISTIC STATE 
 
 sor Walker, " is continually to aggravate the disadvantages , 
 from which any person or class may suffer. . . . Emphati- 
 cally is it true that the curse of the poor is their poverty." 
 The multitude of poor, their want, their suffering, their 
 hopelessness, as a class, are regarded as necessary evils 
 growing out of the nature of things. Current literature, 
 religion, laws, customs, and social science itself, are leav- 
 ened with this view of the poor, and accept it as final 
 truth. 
 
 Now, this whole theory is the rankest social heresy. It 
 is the most unchristian and inhuman doctrine that blots the 
 nineteenth century. Poverty to-day in the midst of unpar- 
 alleled prosperity, of unbounded wealth ; poverty side by 
 side with storehouses and granaries bursting with food and 
 clothing, is not the legitimate fruit of a Christian civiliza- 
 tion : it is unnatural and unnecessary. It is due to the arti- 
 ficial arrangements of society, whereby selfishness, strength, 
 and smartness are enabled to monopolize the processes and 
 products of industry. Let the fact be once recognized that 
 poverty in the midst of plenty is not a natural thing, but a 
 monstrous social crime, and men will no longer be content 
 merely to dull its edges with crumbs of charity, but will 
 lend their ears to measures designed to abolish it. 
 
 Socialism is such a measure. It aims at nothing less 
 than the prevention of poverty by the distribution of the 
 necessities of life among all the inhabitants of the State. 
 It proposes to give nothing. It says all must work moder- 
 ately and at tasks suited to their individual tastes and 
 abilities ; and then it guarantees to every individual the 
 reward of honest labor ; and this state of things we unhesi- 
 tatingly declare to be in accordance with nature, revelation, 
 and reason. It is asked how can the Socialistic state 
 guarantee a support to all ? We reply first, it is entirely 
 immaterial how the State can do it. If it is right to do a 
 thing, nay, if the thing ought to be done, the particular 
 method employed is a secondary matter. Truth and right- 
 eousness will find a way, objections and objectors to the 
 contrary notwithstanding. Second, the State at present 
 finds no difficulty in providing a generous support for large 
 
POVBKTY ABOLISHED 271 
 
 numbers of its employees and dependants ; its soldiers are 
 well fed and clothed. Public hospitals and asylums furnish 
 all the necessaries and comforts of life, and their sanitary 
 arrangements may well be envied by most private dwellings. 
 We have just returned from a visit to a reformatory prison 
 containing six hundred boys and men. Whoever doubts 
 the ability of the State to clothe, feed, and house her chil- 
 dren in the neatest, healthiest, and most economical and 
 orderly manner, should visit this institution.^ Even luxuries 
 were to be found on the bill of fare provided by the State, 
 as the presence of a cord or more of watermelons testified ; 
 and this in the early season, before many private families 
 had tasted this luxury. 
 
 We reply, in the third place, that when all labor for the 
 State, the State would be far wealthier than at present. 
 Indeed, the State, the body of the people, possesses little or 
 nothing. Individuals are rich. The talk about national 
 wealth is merely an accommodation to a false political 
 economy, a clever device to cover up the social injustice of 
 the capitalistic system, which enriches the few individuals, 
 but leaves the great majority in the State in poverty. Let 
 the State be sole employer, and let all the people work, and 
 it is evident that the plague of poverty would disappear. 
 A few hours' labor per day on the part of each individual 
 would provide all the necessities, comforts, and luxuries 
 that men require for the highest civilization. The State 
 would have the immense advantage of regulating produc- 
 tion according to the demand of the whole nation. The 
 enormous waste in both material and labor thus saved 
 would be itself a source of vast wealth to the nation. 
 
 It is not easy to see how an unprejudiced mind can doubt 
 that when all work, and work for the State, the State will 
 be abundantly able to support all its citizens. This, after 
 all, is only saying that all men (who constitute the State) 
 will be abundantly able to support themselves, and when 
 ability, opportunity, and obligation assert their united 
 claim upon a man, and guarantee him a just reward for 
 labor, and render punishment for idleness severe and cer- 
 
 J The Reform atoiy at Concord, Mass. 
 
272 ADVANTAGES OF THE SOCIALISTIC STATE 
 
 tain, he will find it difficult, if not impossible, either to be 
 idle or destitute. Thus the Socialistic state would abolish 
 poverty. 
 
 X. — Crime greatly decreased. 
 
 " The crimes of to-day are due to the business and the social spirit of 
 to-day." — Ex-President Hayes. 
 
 " A faulty political economy is the fruitful parent of crime." — Dr. 
 Thomas Arnold. 
 
 It is important that we understand the relation of the 
 State or society to crime. Crime is against the State, 
 hence the State may punish it. Sin. is opposition to God. 
 Many forms of sin are not cognizable by the State, and 
 many offences which the -State regards as crimes are not 
 sins ; they are simply mala prohibita. Society therefore 
 decides what conduct is criminal, and fixes the penalty. 
 
 It follows that crime, both as to quality and quantity, 
 depends on the constitution and laws of the State. If, for 
 example, the State imposed no taxes, men would not be 
 guilty of evasion ; the State by laying duties renders smug- 
 gling possible, and makes it a crime. Let society abolish 
 the liquor traffic, and drunkenness would disappear. We 
 have abolished slavery, and no one is tempted to buy and 
 sell slaves. The State, therefore, by its laws always 
 determines the kinds and degrees of crime. Society is 
 bound to do this ; but if it enacts laws not grounded in 
 righteousness or social justice, it, and not the law-breaker, 
 is the morally guilty party. This leads to an important 
 consideration in the relation of the State to crime. 
 
 The State, not only by its laws determines crime, but by 
 the character of its institutions may be responsible for it ; 
 may actually cause it. Parents, excusing the evil conduct 
 of their children, frequently and justly say, " The blame is 
 ours." The children are what they are by virtue of their 
 bringing up. So the State, which Cicero said was the 
 mother of us all, is responsible for her children. If she 
 adopts social institutions and economical principles that 
 work injustice and hardship toward any class of her chil- 
 
CKIME GREATLY DECKEASED 273 
 
 dren, and crime is the consequence, she, rather than her 
 victim, is the real criminal. The present order of society 
 oiSers continual temptations to large numbers of people to 
 commit criminal acts. 
 
 Observe the working of competition. Two men begin 
 the struggle for existence : one is strong, the other weak. 
 Society says to the weak one, "You shall have no advantage 
 or help in the struggle ; we know you will be worsted, but 
 we have adopted the institutions of freedom of contract 
 and free competition, which allow a man to get all he can, 
 and of private capital, which allows him to keep all he 
 gets." It says to the strong one, " You may exercise to 
 the fullest your superior strength : we know you will have 
 every advantage over the weak one, and succeed in making 
 him your footstool ; but this is the right of personal liberty, 
 which is sacred : we will, therefore, protect you in the en- 
 joyment of it." Herbert Spencer thus formulates this 
 doctrine : " Justice requires that individuals shall severally 
 take the consequences of their conduct, neither increased 
 nor decreased. The superior shall have the good of his 
 superiority, and the inferior the evil of his inferiority." 
 
 The consequence of this unequal and cruel struggle for 
 which society has become responsible, is that we have 
 large classes which feel that they have been crushed down 
 and out by social forces over which they have no control ; 
 and it is from these classes that criminals are mostly 
 recruited. 
 
 The enforced idleness, inevitable under the present sys- 
 tem, means crime. Of 1,060 convicts in the Eastern peni- 
 tentiary of Pennsylvania, only 19 are bred mechanics. 
 The vast majority of criminals are made such by the want 
 of work. The report of Rev. W. J. Batt, the moral in- 
 structor in the Concord Reformatory (Mass.), containing a 
 population of six or seven hundred men, whose average 
 age is twenty-two, says that idleness and indolence are 
 sources of crime as prolific as strong drink.' Social and 
 economical forces, the industrial environment, are most 
 potent factors in the development of character; in other 
 
 ' "The Congregationalist," Jan. 23, 1890. 
 
274 ADVANTAGES OF THE SOCIALISTIC STATE 
 
 ■words, society for the most part causes crime and poverty. 
 This is an unwelcome truth. It is not for the interest of 
 those who are at tlie top, and manage the social machine, 
 to see or admit it ; hence the criminal. victim is unsparingly 
 condemned ; hence the popular flavor of such proverbs as, 
 "Every tub must stand on its own bottom;" "God helps 
 the man who helps himself." This maxim with many is 
 equivalent to the sentiment that " God is on the side of the 
 heaviest artillery : " might makes right. This is individ- 
 ualism. This is the sacred symbol of private capital, free- 
 dom of contract, and free competition, that destroys all 
 sense of brotherhood, creates caste, disintegrates society, 
 weaves a network of want and woe around the weak and 
 unfortunate, stirs the bad blood of human nature, engen- 
 dering envy, jealousy, pride, vanity, hatred, and the whole 
 nest of inordinate desires and evil passions, and driving 
 multitudes to crime. 
 
 We have some weighty, because disinterested, testimony, 
 showing that society rather than the individual is responsi- 
 ble for crime. These witnesses were summoned to speak 
 on the reformation of criminals.' Carleton T. Lewis, an 
 officer of the Prison Association of New York, says of those 
 sentenced to prison for crime, "Not less than eighty per 
 cent, on the average, are susceptible to moral influences; 
 that is to say, their character and habits are such that 
 when every possible influence that their surroundings can ex- 
 ercise is of the best, they may be expected to become decent, self- 
 supporting members of society." The italics are ours. If 
 social influences can reform criminals, can they not prevent 
 crime? Nowhere is it more true, that "an ounce of pre- 
 vention is worth a pound of cure ; " and it is a hundred 
 times easier. Equally pertinenfis the testimony of Judge 
 Henry A. Gildersleeve. He speaks of the criminal as 
 " One who, by habit, surroundings, and circumstances, has 
 drifted into a criminal life without any original intention 
 of becoming a criminal, because very few persons ever 
 start out with that intention." Again, "Many persons 
 commit crime through the force of circumstances, much 
 1 " The Independent," June 27, 1889. 
 
CRIME GREATLY DECREASED 275 
 
 against their own inclination, by reason of falling in with 
 bad associates, by reason of great poverty, in order to 
 gratify some temporary ambition ; through a mistake in 
 judgment they commit crime for the purpose of tempora- 
 rily advancing their interests." Finally and directly to 
 the point he says, " There are many cases where young men 
 ■may be said to have been made criminals by society." Thomas 
 Byrnes, chief of the detective force in New York, says, 
 '■ Most thieves sent to prison for the first time have stolen 
 simply because they ivanted money at the time for some 
 particular purpose. In an unfortunate moment they hap- 
 pened to steal ; they are found out, convicted, and sent to 
 jail, though probably they know nothing about criminal life 
 as such." Charles Stewart, Superintendent of the House 
 of Industry, etc., of New York, quotes approvingly the 
 declaration of Seiior Armengal of Spain, that "criminals 
 might say, ' we are criminals because society used no means 
 to make us virtuous.' " Alexander S. Williams, Inspector 
 of the New York Police says, " Society itself makes 
 criminals ; . . . the attitude of criminals towards society is 
 largely the fault of society itself ; . . . but all the criminals 
 are not known as such. A good many of our bank tellers, 
 our bank presidents, and our ministers are morally bad; 
 i.e., bad by nature. Have you not seen men who have 
 lived apparently respectable lives, at death had tony 
 funerals, but who were honest simply because they never 
 saw a safe opportunity to be dishonest ? All their lives 
 they have been criminals, thieves in heart, and have sim- 
 ply been honest through fear, or because they could not 
 get the price for the crime they were willing to commit." 
 One might reply to this, that if society makes thieves it 
 also makes men honest. Yes, honest after a fashion ; but 
 Heaven save us from this sort of honesty ! On the whole, 
 this officer's utterance contains the severest stricture on 
 existing society we have yet recorded. James W. Ridge- 
 way, District Attorney for King's County, says, " Society 
 does not always treat the criminal right. When a man 
 comes out of prison, and shows a disposition to do right, if 
 society would take hold of him, try and do something for 
 
276 ADVANTAGES Or THE SOCIALISTIC STATE 
 
 him, encourage him, and not constantly show that it is 
 suspicious of him because he once went wrong, there would 
 be more criminals reformed than there are at present." 
 Patrick G. Duffy, Police Justice of New York City, is 
 hopeless as to the reformation of criminals. He says they 
 " are horn bad." Evidently he has no faith in society as 
 now constituted to reform them : " What is inborn in a 
 man or woman cannot be eradicated by the modern methods 
 advocated by good but mistaken people interested in stop- 
 ping crime. It is the fact that the children of criminals 
 generally become criminals." 
 
 Prom this standpoint the only effectual remedy could be 
 in a society so constituted that all temptation to crime 
 would be taken away. Eev. J. G. Bass, visiting mission- 
 ary to the King's County Prison, arraigns society severely 
 for its attitude towards criminals. He says, " Men come 
 out of prison with the very best intentions of doing right, 
 hut society does not give them a fair chance." He asks, 
 "What is the man coming out of prison, without friends, 
 without money, to do ? If he begs, he is liable to be 
 arrested for vagrancy. He either steals or starves ; he 
 steals, and gets back to prison. There are two in prison 
 now who camejOut without a penny not less than thirteen 
 times." He shows that a class of criminals are made such 
 "from force of circumstances." The following is from Bx- 
 President Hayes : " Consider ; there are two classes of 
 criminals in all civilized countries. . . . The crimes of 
 capital and the crimes of sudden wealth. . . . That spirit 
 leads to the crimes of those who are at the top of the wall 
 of fortune, not always punished, not always convicted, too 
 frequently admired and envied. The opportunities here 
 by speculation, by gambling, by every description of illegit- 
 imate effort, to make great fortunes, leaving others with- 
 out that opportunity, are a great cause of crime in this 
 country; and then I say, with Governor Seymour, 'For all 
 this the community itself is more or less responsible in their 
 laws, in their conduct of business, in their general lives.' "'^ 
 The italics are ours. A single witness more. Mrs. Conger, 
 
 1 Ab quoted in " The Nationalist," November, 1890. 
 
CRIME GREATLY DECREASED 277 
 
 Superintendent of the New York Bible and Fruit Mission, 
 declares that even praying will not help criminals, " unless 
 they watch themselves at the same time and see that they 
 avoid temptations." "Avoid temptations!" Yes, by all 
 means; but how? the criminal asks. Why, keep away 
 from hunger and cold. Under no circumstances be poor; 
 for all admit that poverty is a great temptation to crime. 
 " Avoid " wishing that you had the comforts of the well-to- 
 do, or could taste their pleasures; for the wish is father to 
 the deed. " Avoid " being born amid unfavorable circum- 
 stances, since, as Carlyle says, the first five years determine 
 your entire subsequent life. When the crisis forces you and 
 tens of thousands out of work, keep right on and " avoid " 
 
 idleness, — 
 
 " For Satan finds some mischief still 
 For idle hands to do." 
 
 Shun a clerkship, for here honesty may be fatal. Fou- 
 rier when a little boy was punished for telling the truth in 
 a childlike manner to a customer who was purchasing 
 goods in his father's store. Imagine a clerk saying, " This 
 piece of goods is all wool, though it is shoddy ; it will not 
 wear well, is of light weight, and sure to fade ; how many 
 yards will you have ? " He would not be allowed to tell 
 the truth twice in that store, and his discharge would cast 
 no reflection upon the proprietor ; any other policy, under 
 competition, might bankrupt him. "Avoid" bad associ- 
 ates. We have shown you how " society," that is, the good 
 people, are ready to receive you with open arms. "Avoid" 
 trade, for the fierce competition will continually tempt you 
 to do otherwise than you would wish to be done by. Do 
 not attempt to manufacture any commodity, not even bak- 
 ing-powder, for the temptation to adulterate, deceive, and 
 cheat, is irresistible. " Avoid " any contact with people 
 who wear finer clothes, live in finer houses, and drive finer 
 horses than you, and you will escape the " temptations " to 
 envy. There are, indeed, worthy politicians; but look not 
 upon polities, for they " are like unto whited sepulchres, 
 which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full 
 of dead men's bones, and of all uncleanness." Above all, 
 
278 ADVANTAGES OS THE SOCIALISTIC STATE 
 
 have no desire to be rich. We who are not criminals dili- 
 gently " avoid " this temptation ; for God says, " They that 
 will be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into n?any 
 foolish and hurtful lusts." In a word, the way to "avoid 
 temptations " is to let money alone ; " for the love of money 
 is a root of all evil." 
 
 All this is absurd ! exclaims one. Of course it is, as 
 society is now constituted. To " avoid temptations " would 
 be suicidal ; we do not advise any one to try it. We do 
 not advise the mariner on a leaky vessel to jump ove'rboard, 
 but we do recommend the abandonment of the vessel fpr a 
 seaworthy one as soon as we can make a harbor and do it 
 with safety ; and we believe it is the part of wisdom to 
 head the vessel toward the harbor, and employ all reason- 
 able means to get it there. Our insistence is, that society 
 is at present so constituted that it offers continual tempta- 
 tion to large numbers to commit criminal acts. If the 
 testimony we have adduced fails to convince any one of the 
 responsibility of society in this respect, we have little 
 encouragement to reason with him. None of these wit- 
 nesses, so far as we know, are Socialists, and this fact gives 
 additional weight to their testimony. Their righteous con- 
 demnation of society will incline many to look with favor 
 upon Socialism as the only preventive of crime. We do 
 not exonerate individuals from all guilt in the commission 
 of crime. There is no danger that their case will be over- 
 looked. What we insist on is that society by tempting to 
 crime is a parttceps criminis, and the more guilty party. 
 
 The responsibility of society extends not only to crime, 
 but to the entire status of the individual ; his material as 
 well as moral condition is determined to a degree not yet 
 recognized even by social philosophers, by laws, customs, 
 and institutions which society adopts, and by its esprit de 
 corps, which is a direct consequence. The dismal belief 
 that some are rich and others poor not from sociaZ, but 
 from natural causes, has all the force and effect of a popu- 
 lar prejudice. It causes even wise and good men to look 
 with favor upon the present system, and with suspicion 
 upon any attempt to modify it. " Nature does not produce 
 
CKIME GREATLY DECREASED 279 
 
 on the one side owners of money or commodities, and on 
 the other men possessing, nothing but their own labor- 
 power. This relation has no natural basis, neither is its 
 social basis one that is common to all historical periods. 
 It is clearly the result of a past historical development, the 
 product of many economical revolutions, of the extinction 
 of a whole series of older forms of social production." ' 
 
 It is not nature, then, but society, that gives to the rich 
 man hi% wealth. Suppose him to be the owner of a tract 
 of land in the heart of a growing city, or even in the coun- 
 try ; this land has little or no value except what society, 
 that is, the quantity and quality of other people who are 
 near to or have access to it, impart. It amounts to the 
 sanle thing, to say its value depends upon its location. 
 
 " Those qualities of the soil that are in the fullest sense 
 original and indestructible, the qualities that would have 
 existed if man had never been created . . . have, at pres- 
 ent, no direct influence on rent." ^ This writer says the 
 properties that give land a rental value, that is, that 
 render it economically worth anything, have been created 
 by " collective action," and such as " individuals impart 
 by the direct labor of improvement." These " individuals," 
 however, are not isolated, for rent is the product and con- 
 comitant of "collective action," which may, therefore, 
 include individual action for the present purpose. It is, 
 therefore, " collective action," social forces, that make the 
 land-owner rich. Similar logic shows that most forms of 
 individual wealth, as it now exists, are due to the opera- 
 tion of the same forces. But if society is responsible for 
 individual wealth, it is responsible for individual poverty. 
 It is likewise responsible in a large degree for personal 
 intelligence and ignorance, for virtue and vice, morality 
 and crime. Crime will cease when temptation is removed. 
 This is the high purpose, the glorious aim, of the Socialistic 
 state. It will remove all temptation to the great bulk of 
 crime that now exists. Abolish private capital, and you 
 
 1 "Capital" (Marx), p. 147. 
 
 2 " Capital and its Earnings " (J. B. Clark), p. 33. Publications of the 
 American Economic Association, May, 1888. 
 
280 ADVANTAGES OF THE SOCIALISTIC STATE 
 
 remove almost entirely the temptation to steal ; and, should 
 one steal from the State, he could make little use of the 
 stolen property. Merchants could not cheat, for there 
 would be an end to all buying and selling. Lying would 
 no longer be "one of the great powers of Europe," or 
 America, for there would be little to lie about. Manufac- 
 turers could not deceive, for the State would be the sole 
 producer. Contractors would no longer defraud ; bank 
 defalcations would not be heard of when banks ceased to 
 exist ; trustees could not embezzle when there was no 
 property to be held in trust : in short, all crimes against 
 property, and crimes against persons, prompted by the 
 desire of money, would certainly disappear in the Socialis- 
 tic state, because the temptation to commit them would be 
 removed. Abolish money and private property, and covet- 
 ousness, which pervades society like a foul atmosphere, 
 would disappear. Abolish money, and the moral pesti- 
 lence of gambling would disappear forever. "Policy-shops 
 to the number of fifty flourish in Boston alone, and 
 $800,000 a year is a low estimate of the amount betted in 
 them. Poolrooms, where young clerks bet on ball-games 
 and horse-races, flourish, seven hundred young men hav- 
 ing been counted going in one during the short space of 
 four hours. Ten per cent of the $25,000,000 income of 
 the Louisiana Lottery comes from Boston. Portland, 
 Me., furnishes $60,000 per month, and Springfield, Mass., 
 $60,000 to the same lottery." ' 
 
 Murder now offers premiums greater than a lifetime of 
 toil can yield. To-day's paper heads the sickening details 
 of a horrible butchery thus : " Murdered for their money." 
 Another reads, " Poison did it — The will cannot be found." 
 This is but a sample of what occurs every day in the year. 
 
 All this shedding of man's blood for money would cease 
 under Socialism. False witnessing in four cases out of iive 
 occurs in connection with causes involving questions of 
 property. It is not claimed that sin, superstition, and self- 
 ishness would not exist in the Socialistic state. Socialism 
 does not undertake to transform the earth into a paradise, 
 1 "The Congregationaliat," May, 1891. 
 
CRIME GEEATLY DECREASED 281 
 
 but merely to purify the atmosphere of the present indus- 
 trial and social loca inferna. 
 
 Under the present social order poverty is one of the 
 strongest motives to crime ; but we have seen that in the 
 new social order poverty cannot exist. A writer says, " As 
 poverty is the cause, directly or indirectly, of all crime, 
 therefore, by the abolition of poverty, crime would become 
 almost unknown ; and with the crime would disappear all 
 the lice, leeches, vampires, and vermin that fatten on its 
 filth : such as the entire legal fraternity, soldiers, police, 
 spies, judges, sheriffs, priests, preachers, quack doctors, 
 etc." ^ 
 
 The inelegance and extravagance of this passage should 
 not blind us to the truth it contains : diamonds are found 
 in the dirt. 
 
 The ablest defenders of the capitalistic syst'em concede 
 the advantage, now under consideration, of the Socialistic 
 state. Dr. Theodore D. Woolsey says, "There would be 
 no tramps, no public beggars, and no strangers coming to 
 steal. ... In fact, the eighth commandment would be far 
 easier to keep than in society as it now is. The sixth 
 commandment, too, might also lie on the shelf; for if 
 now a large part of the crimes of violence originate in 
 desires for the property of others, they would be greatly 
 diminished when property should cease to be in private 
 hands. . . . Then a number of crimes, such as forgery, 
 embezzlement, counterfeiting — all crimes, in fact, against 
 property, and many of those which injure the person, would 
 be much limited in their sphere of operation . . . and if 
 an end were put to all these things, society evidently 
 would return to a state of things in which lawyers, judges, 
 and voluminous statutes would not be necessary. 
 
 " How far this simplification of life would be an indirect 
 disadvantage by cutting off some of those causes on which 
 the spice, variety, and spirit of life depend, I will not stop 
 to inquire ; but the direct good in several respects would 
 be apparent." ^ This is a candid admission ; but it contains 
 
 1 As quoted in the " Labor Movement of America " (E. T. Ely), p. 235. 
 
 2 " Communism and Socialism," pp. 26t, 262. 
 
282 ADVANTAGES OF THE SOCIALISTIC STATE 
 
 one qualification that is interesting if not amusing. It is 
 the fear expressed that the abolition of these crimes and 
 their concomitants, lawyers and judges, would cut off " some 
 of those causes on which the spice, variety, and spirit of 
 life depend " ! Some are so wedded to the capitalistic 
 system that they find something attractive in its ugliest 
 features. 
 
 Think of mourning the loss of the "spice, variety, and 
 spirit of life " dependent on crime ! The Socialistic state, 
 opposed on the ground that the nerve of personal effort 
 will be cut, life reduced to painful monotony, and hardly 
 worth living, when stealing, lying, gambling, forgery, kill- 
 ing, and other allies of private enterprise, are no more ! 
 What will stir our sluggish blood when the clamor of the 
 gambling stock-exchange is hushed ? How insipid will 
 street-life become when the brass-buttoned and billy-armed 
 policemen dragging along his victim is seen no more for- 
 ever ! What incentive will be left to live, move, and have 
 any being, wheti the "spice " of lying and cheating, when 
 the " variety " of criminal reports, when the " spirit " of 
 mammon, have abandoned the hearts of men, and taken 
 refuge in the bosom of their father, the Devil ? How all 
 progress will be doomed when the individual has no longer 
 any room for the free exercise of all his faculties and in- 
 genuities under the guidance of supreme selfishness, to 
 climb around and over his brothers, and weave a social web 
 wherein they shall be reduced to toil and want, while he 
 revels in ease and luxury ! In a word, what hope for the 
 race when the individual shall be denied the sacred right 
 to do wrong ? 
 
 Let us dismiss these unworthy fears. To indulge them 
 is to distrust not only humanity, but God. Faith in God is 
 faith in the right. Truth, justice, and love are to be fear- 
 lessly and wisely proclaimed and embraced, no matter what 
 hindrances we encounter. 
 
 The present constitution of society furnishes temptation 
 to crime. Socialism would remove it. The reformation of 
 individuals is a noble work; the reformation of society is 
 nobler, by as much as to prevent crime is better than to cure 
 
CRIME GREATLY DECREASED 283 
 
 it. Socialism makes this modest and most Christian demand 
 in the language of another, " We do not claim that under 
 Socialism men or women will be any better than they now 
 are, or ever have been. We want to reform their surround- 
 ings, the constitution of society, the mould in which their 
 lives, thoughts, and feelings are cast. Socialists want to 
 make it the interest of all to be honest ; to make it to the 
 advantage of all to do their best work ; to make it natural 
 for men to love their neighbor as themselves." ' " All this 
 sounds very well," says an objector, " but you have left out 
 of account the fact that men are depraved ; ' the heart of 
 men is set to do evil.' You put upon society the blame 
 ■which belongs to the individual." We do not overlook the 
 fact of personal depravity — -and a tremendous fact it is ; but 
 it is clearly irrelevant to the present issue. One might as 
 well say drunkenness will exist since men are depraved, 
 therefore we will not shut up the saloons, or do anything to 
 remove temptation. The wan who will uphold a social 
 system that tempts men to lie and steal, on the ground that 
 depravity leads them to commit these offences, is guilty of 
 the grossest inconsistency. We do not abate one jot or 
 tittle of personal responsibility. It is fatalism to say that 
 man is the creature of circumstances. It is Christian truth 
 to say that he is to a large extent the creature of circum- 
 stances. The Germans got hold of a truth that needed an 
 emphasis that nothing but overstatement can give, when 
 they declared that social and industrial surroundings make 
 the man. Had the reader been born in the heart of Africa 
 he would have been an African, socially, morally, mentally, 
 and in every other respect. Even right here in the heart 
 of civilization, if we ask a Christian why he belongs to this 
 or that religious sect instead of another, in nine cases out 
 of ten he will tell you, if he is honest, that it is because his 
 parents belonged to it. Environment has far more to do 
 with character than we are wont to admit. Every man 
 contributes something toward forming future environments, 
 that is, social institutions ; and for this contribution he is to 
 be held to the strictest account. The man who prays, 
 1 " The Co-operative Commonwealth " (Giunlund), pp. 253, 254. 
 
284 ADVANTAGES OF THE SOCIALISTIC STATE 
 
 " Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil," 
 and then indorses a set of economical assumptions that 
 constitute the warp and woof of society, and which natur- 
 ally and inevitably lead men into all manner of "tempta- 
 tions " and " evil," may regard himself as innocent because ■ 
 of his ignorance ; but when light has broken in upon him, 
 if he still prefers darkness to light he will regard himself 
 as a hypocrite, and be so regarded by reflective and candid 
 minds. 
 
 XI. — . The Prevention of Waste. 
 
 " Society has become obliged to husband its resources ; if it will do so 
 most effectually by means of private property, private property will 
 stand; if not, then it must fall. Of course land is not the. only kind 
 of property that is subject to this social claim." — John Eae. 
 
 Capitalism is responsible for enormous economic waste, 
 which would largely disappear under Socialism. Political 
 economists are reticent respecting waste. The word does 
 not even appear in the index to Adam Smith or Eicardo. It 
 is ignored by nearly all modern economists. The Ainerican 
 economists, F. A. Walker and E-. T. Ely, barely mention it. 
 Waste, however, is one of the most important of economic 
 phenomena. The reason for this silence is not difBcult to 
 understand. > 
 
 Waste and competition are as inseparably connected as 
 were the Siamese Twins. To attack waste, therefore, is to 
 attack competition, which is the tap-root of the economic 
 tree. It is not to be expected that its advocates will lay 
 the axe at the root of the tree. The only attempt to 
 prevent waste consists in a little pruning of seared leaves, 
 the removal of remote twigs and superfluous blossoms, 
 while the huge and monstrous limbs of waste that grow 
 directly from the trunk are not disturbed, lest the life of 
 the tree be endangered. This will be apparent from con- 
 siderations which we shall presently offer. 
 
 What is waste? Professor Francis A. Walker says that 
 waste in its broadest sense expresses " the breakage and 
 the undue wear and tear of implements and machinery', the 
 destruction or impairment of materials, the cost of super- 
 
THE PKEVENTION OF WASTE 285 
 
 vision and oversight to keep men from idling or blundering, 
 nnd, finally, the hindrance of many by the fault or failure 
 of one." ' 
 
 This is not proposed as a scientific definition, but of 
 waste only as it affects, " the value of the laborer's services 
 to the employer. 
 
 We define economic waste as the needless impairment, 
 loss, or destruction of utility tvithout equivalent gain. 
 
 It must be needless. If wrought by nature, or causes be- 
 yond man's control, it cannot be regarded as waste in the 
 economic sense, because it cannot be said to be needless. 
 In the popular sense waste is loosely employed to include 
 many losses of utility that cannot be avoided. In his recent 
 unique and valuable treatise on "Political Economy" (p. 
 276), Professor Ely says, " The most important economic 
 waste is caused by the death of man, the chief agent in 
 production." 
 
 This conception of waste seems to us too wid& Death is 
 natural and inevitable ; man is in no way responsible for it. 
 If economic waste can be predicated of death, it can be pred- 
 icated of the blowing of the wind, the shining of the sun, 
 or the motion of the ocean waves ; for these all, frequently, 
 cause the loss or destruction of utility ; but they cannot be 
 said to be needless, therefore they cannot properly be said 
 to produce waste. To attribute economic waste to the 
 operation of the- irresponsible forces of nature, is in great 
 measure to relieve man of responsibility, and to confound 
 the distinction between natural or mental and mo.ral 
 philosophy. 
 
 Political economy is the product of the human mind, 
 and as such justly places upon human society a large 
 measure of responsibility for its phenomena. Among the 
 causes of waste for which the capitalistic system is respon- 
 sible, the following twenty are conspicuous. 
 
 1. N'eedless Railways. 
 
 The waste from this source is enormous. "There are 
 very few roads," says Professor Arthur T. Hadley, " which 
 could not advantageously handle a much larger traffic than 
 
 1 " The "Wages Question," p. 48. 
 
286 ADVANTAGES OF THE SOCIALISTIC STATE 
 
 they at present enjoy. If you attempt to do this on two 
 lines instead of one, it is just so much waste." '■ The relent- 
 less struggle between competing roads has frequently re- 
 sulted not only in bankrupting the roads, but in carrying 
 ruin to industries established along the lines and dependent 
 on them. 
 
 To this kind of competition the most villanous word in 
 our language, namely, cut-throat, is applied and justified by 
 the very essence of the competitive principle. If the two 
 roads are equally matched in power and pluck, competition 
 is perfect, the fight is terrific, and the ruin complete. Par- 
 allel lines of railways furnish conspicuous examples of 
 waste. Por example : the West Shore and the Nickel-plate 
 roads run parallel from New York to Chicago ■ $200,000,000 
 were wasted in their construction. This was "a sum suffi- 
 cient to build 200,000 homes for a million people. Probably 
 the waste in railway construction and operation in the 
 United States during the past fifty years would be amply 
 sufficient to build comfortable homes for every man, woman, 
 and child now in the country." ^ Thus speaks a thoroughly 
 competent and disinterested witness ; and it is one of the 
 most scathing indictments ever brought against the capital- 
 istic system. It is conceded on all sides that Socialism 
 would put an end to this species of waste. 
 
 2. Needless Stores and Manufactories. 
 
 These are seen in every town of considerable size. 
 " What is the need of so many stores in this place ? " is 
 the common-sense question every one asks till silenced in 
 the high and mighty name of competition. Every one 
 understands that the people in the community support its 
 stores and shops. If two or ten stores exist where only 
 one is needed, then the people must support two or ten in- 
 stead of one. Should a merchant employ ten clerks, or a 
 manufacturer ten workmen, when only one was necessary, 
 or should a farmer keep ten horses to do the work of one, 
 it would be regarded as proof of insanity. 
 
 1 " Private Monopolies and Public Rights," in the " Quarterly Journal 
 of Economies," Octoher, 1886. 
 
 2 " Political Economy " (Ely), p. 254, 
 
THE PEEVENTIOX OF WASTE 287 
 
 But should not a community, an incorporate body of cit- 
 izens, conduct business economically ? Is it any less insane 
 for a community to support ten stores when only one is 
 necessary ? We do not overlook the increased expenses of 
 a store sxipplying ten times as many customers; but this is 
 almost as nothing compared with the enormous waste of 
 maintaining nine useless establishments.- This, however, 
 takes place in a single community. Reflect for a moment 
 on the fact that, under capitalism, clerks and employers 
 often have nothing to do half the time. Imagine the 
 enormous aggregate waste on this account ! 
 
 We have no statistics to help us in this matter ; but when 
 we consider the vast number of needless stores throughout 
 the country, when we reflect that tens of thousands of pro- 
 prietors and their families, that hundreds of thousands of 
 clerks, that costly buildings, occupying valuable land, almost 
 without number, are needlessly maintained by the productive 
 laborers of the country, we may get some idea of the colossal 
 waste from this source. Socialism would reduce the num- 
 ber of stores to the actual needs of society, and thus enable 
 the millions who are now mere consumers to engage in pro- 
 duction. What has been said respecting superfluous stores 
 is true, though in a less degree of manufacturing establish- 
 ments. It is claimed, however, that private has great 
 advantages over public management of industries ; that the 
 latter is more extravagant and wasteful. This seems at 
 first view plausible, and with many is conclusive. 
 
 Mr. John Eae says, "Capitalistic management is pro- 
 verbially unrivalled for two qualities in which bureaucratic 
 management is as proverbially deficient, economy and enter- 
 prise." ' Accordingly he says that "the probabilities all 
 point to the conclusion that capitalistic management ... is 
 really cheaper than that by which Socialism would super- 
 sede it." Even if his first statement is true, his "conclu- 
 sion " is wholly unwarranted. It assumes that the results 
 of bureaucratic management under capitalism would be the 
 same under Socialism where the conditions are entirely 
 changed. He admits that Socialism involves the most radi- 
 
 1 "Contemporary Socialism," p. 360. 
 
288 ADVANTAGES OF THE SOCIALISTIC STATE 
 
 cal political and industrial changes, and yet he assumes 
 that these changes would in no way aifect the bureaucratic 
 management as it exists under capitalism. 
 
 We shall show (page 368) that at present such manage- 
 ment is apt to be a mere political affair. Large numbers 
 of citizens feel no interest whatever in these products of 
 machine politics. The political managers do not consult 
 the people, and do not feel responsible to them. This state 
 of things could not exist under Socialism, where all work 
 would be under bureaucratic management ; where the food, 
 clothing, and shelter, in a word, the entire well-being of each 
 individual, would depend upon bureaucratic management, 
 and where, as a necessary consequence, every citizen would 
 take the keenest interest in such management. Is it not 
 reasonable to infer that bureaucratic management might 
 fail now, where it would succeed under Socialism ? 
 
 Having thus seen that Mr. Rae's statement, if true, does 
 not support his "conclusion," we now seriously question its 
 truth. Professor Ely says that when " services of a mo- 
 nopolistic nature are performed by the public ... a better 
 management is the result. It is only a popular superstition 
 that private enterprise is superior to public enterprise."^ 
 From returns received by him from twenty American cities 
 owning electric-lighting plants, he finds that the average 
 cost of lights per night was less than fourteen cents, while 
 seventy-five private companies in various cities charged 
 over forty-two cents for a similar light, — more than three 
 times as much. He shows the superiority, as carriers, of 
 the public post-offices over private express companies, both 
 as respects promptness and courtesy. The same is true 
 also of public over private management of the telegraph, 
 gas-works, etc., as is seen both in Europe and in the United 
 States. 
 
 The writer is personally acquainted with a number of 
 the employees in the United States Armory at Springfield, 
 Mass., and with its management. This is a. governmental 
 manufacturing establishment doing a large business. So 
 far from there being any lack of incentive to effort on the 
 
 I " Political Economy," p. 255. 
 
THE PREVENTiON OF WASTE 289 
 
 part of employees, or any disadvantage from bureaucratic 
 management, there is not only a careful avoidance of waste, 
 and a sound economic administration in all departments 
 of the business, but there is a marked degree of personal 
 interest, pride, and fidelity in the workmen ; and, what is 
 more, the average character of the workmen, in intelligence, 
 morals, and good citizenship, has long been a source of just 
 pride in the entire community. In view of these, among 
 other considerations, is there not some foundation for the 
 belief that the Socialistic regime would render the indus- 
 trial conditions so favorable for State management, that it 
 would be cheaper than private management, and result in 
 the saving of waste ? 
 
 3. Needless Advertising. 
 
 Competition has given rise to a vast system of Adver- 
 tising. Every person who purchases a commodity must 
 pay an additional price on account of this expense. Adver- 
 tisements are costly. Newspapers set them forth in flam- 
 ing type ; they are blazoned on barn walls and mile-boards ; 
 they meet us in hotels, street-cars, and on corners ; in fact, 
 everywhere : magnificent buildings, elegant furniture and 
 fixtures, dazzling with electric lights ; windows of expensive 
 plate glass, and the most extravagant appointments ; floors 
 inlaid with silver and gold coins, gilded signs ; and curious 
 and costly devices arrest attention and woo the purchaser. 
 The article purchased is covered with trade-marks, stamps, 
 and labels, exquisitely wrought, and which cost frequently 
 more than the article itself ; and, lastly, it 4s wrapped in 
 paper stamped with the name of the dealer, and sent to the 
 purchaser in a delivery wagon covered all over with huge 
 gaudy letters that can be seen from a distance of a quar- 
 ter of a mile. This is expensive business. The writing of 
 advertisements has become a profession. A compensation 
 of $10,000 per annum is not unfrequently received by an 
 adept for writing attractive advertisements. A proposed 
 ordinance in the city of Boston, prohibiting the distribu- 
 tion of hand-bills on the streets, is opposed by the printers 
 and paper-dealers of that city, on the ground that they 
 would lose $500,000 thereby. Let it be remembered that 
 
290 ADVAN^TAG?:S OF THE SOCIALISTIC STATE 
 
 this advertising is utterly needless and wasteful; that 
 the cost in the aggregate would clothe and feed the poor 
 throughout the whole country ; that while society is in no 
 way benefited, it is in every way injured by it; that it cor- 
 rupts the press, engenders unwholesome rivalry, makes 
 exaggeration and lying fine arts, and increases the burden 
 not only of every laborer, but of society generally. Social- 
 ism, by abolishing competition, would put a stop to this 
 evil. Aside from the waste it involves, the spirit of 
 modern advertising is peculiarly offensive to all refined " 
 and Christian instinct. Mr. Bellamy's representation of 
 an advertisement is true to the spirit, and almost to the 
 letter : " Help John Jones ; never mind the rest. They are 
 frauds : I, John Jones, am the right one. Buy of me. 
 Employ me. Visit me. Hear me, John Jones. Look at 
 me. Make no mistake : John Jones is the man, and nobody 
 else. Let the rest starve ; but for God's sake remember 
 John Jones." 
 
 Nowhere is the wolf of competition unmasked, and his 
 malevolent purpose revealed, more than in advertisement. 
 Its spirit is essentially selfish, heathen, and inhuman ; and 
 yet it is so essential to capitalistic society that men every- 
 where regarded as Christians, and regarding themselves as 
 such, freely resort to it without a thought of inconsistency. 
 
 4. Needless Drummers. 
 
 A form of advertising worthy of separate mention is that 
 of employing men on ■'■'the road" to solicit custom. It 
 would seem that by means of printing, engraving, and the 
 almost perfect mail service, this species of waste, even 
 under the present system, might be cut ofE ; but competition 
 is inexorable. " Careful estimates from a variety of reliable 
 sources place the number of commercial travellers in this 
 country at 250,000. Their railroad fares, express, or freight 
 upon baggage, hotel bills, and incidental expenses, range 
 from $4.00 to f 12.00 and more a day, averaging about 
 $6.00 daily. Salaries range upwards from f 900 a year. 
 Thousands of men earn $2,000 and $2,500 a year ; a smaller 
 number receive salaries between $3,000 and $5,000-, while 
 a comparative few are paid from $,5,000 to $15,000, and 
 
THE PREVT5NTI01Sr OF WASTE 291 
 
 ill rare instances even more. Of course, as in every field 
 of employment, the lower salaries are vastly in the majority, 
 and $1,800 a year is a fair average. 
 
 Let us see what these figures will give us for the cost 
 of this single element- in competition. The expenses of 
 250,000 travelling men, at $6.00 per day, amount to $1,500,- 
 000 daily, or $547,600,000 in 365 days. Then the salaries 
 of 250,000 men, averaged at $1,800 a year, aggregate $450,- 
 000,000, so that the two items of salaries and travelling- 
 expenses to be charged against the commercial traveller 
 mount up to the astonishing total of $997,500,000 a year. 
 Nor is this all. In nearly every branch of business each 
 man must be provided with his outfit of trunks, sample 
 cases, and his more or less complete line of samples." ^ 
 There are, as this writer shows, other items of expense, 
 swelling the vast total to more than $1,000,000,000. This 
 colossal sum, annually expended to maintain the institu- 
 tion of drumming, is wasted. Drummers add nothing to 
 the aggregate production of the country, and they do not, 
 in the long run, affect consumption. 
 
 Employers in the first instance pay their expenses, but 
 they are ultimately charged to the consumer in enhanced 
 prices. The most ardent supporter of capitalism will not 
 venture to deny that under Socialism this enormous waste 
 would be saved. 
 
 6. Needless Enforced Idleness. 
 
 Leisure must not be confounded with idleness, and espe- 
 cially Enforced Idleness. The former may be a social gain, 
 while the latter means waste as well as want. The capital- 
 istic system is nowhere more justly open to criticism than 
 in the enforced idleness which it causes. We have already 
 considered this subject in connection with the causes of 
 Socialism, and call attention now simply to the economic 
 waste it involves. In England, during the last half of the 
 year 1860, 90,000 were idle, while during the same period 
 much machinery was standing idle for want of hands. Dur- 
 ing the. year ending May 1, 1885, out of a working-force of 
 816,470 persons in Massachusetts, one-third were idle over 
 
 1 Edward H. Sanborn in "The Nationalist," July, 1889. 
 
292 ADVANTAGES OF THE SOCIALISTIC STATE 
 
 three months. Statistics show that all wage-workers are 
 idle about one out of every ten working-days in the year. 
 
 We can approximate our national loss during the last 
 forty years from this cause. Let us take the middle year 
 1870. 2,000,000 wage-workers received $620,000,000, or an 
 average of $310 each. 
 
 But if forced to be idle a tenth of this time, this sum 
 represents only nine-tenths of what they should have re- 
 ceived, and the remaining tenth was wasted. This would 
 equal a waste to each laborer of more than $33.00 ; and a 
 total waste to society of about $69,000,000 in a single year, 
 and for the forty years ending with 1890, $2,760,000,000. 
 
 In other words, the present system from enforced idle- 
 ness alone has caused a waste during the last forty years 
 equal to about one-seventeenth of all the property real and 
 personal in the United States. 
 
 Furthermore, this enormous sum by no means represents 
 the total loss from this cause ; for in our calculation we 
 have taken into consideration only those wage-workers 
 engaged in manufacturing. 
 
 Could we extend the calculation so as to include the loss 
 from enforced idleness of laborers engaged in agriculture, 
 trade, transportation, mechanics, and mining, we should 
 reach an aggregate of waste from this cause that would be 
 nothing less than startling. 
 
 For this economic crime against society the capitalistic 
 system is strictly responsible. It is the legitimate and 
 inevitable product of its basal principles, capital, contract, 
 and competition, free and individual. It is a kind of war- 
 fare in which every man loads and fires at will ; it is 
 without method, without system, without a single unifying 
 principle, and without accountability. Is it any wonder 
 that men shoot each other and themselves, to the great 
 waste of ammunition and the sore wounding of society ? 
 
 Manufacturers increase production with no means of 
 knowing what others are doing, and the result is over-pro- 
 duction. Men are continually going into business only to 
 find that it is already overdone. 
 
 Laborers enter upon an occupation which, from a score 
 
THE PREVENTION OF WASTE 293 
 
 of causes, is soon overcrowded. The result is not only 
 disappointment, but waste. 
 
 For example, to-day's paper says that, owing to depression 
 in the ingrain-carpet industry, the manufacturers' associa- 
 tion will advise a stoppage of twenty-five per cent of the 
 looms for nine months. 
 
 The calamity that will overtake large numbers of opera- 
 tives, suddenly forced into idleness and want, is looked upon 
 as a matter of course, as natural and inevitable as a stroke 
 of lightning. There is not a secular day in the year in 
 which such items do not appear in the papers. Intelligent 
 people are now reading between the lines, and putting 
 questions to political economy that it has not been ac- 
 customed to hear. 
 
 "We have said that waste from enforced idleness is 
 inherent in the capitalistic system. Doubtless sporadic 
 efforts for relief will continue to be made ; but no social 
 tinkering, no politico-economic palliatives, can do more 
 than afford temporary and spasmodic relief. Socialism 
 would remove effect by removing the cause. The last 
 thing that Socialism would be likely to tolerate would 
 be enforced idleness. Indeed, Socialism is objected to by 
 its opponents be.'ause it proposes enforced labor ; it is 
 hardly necessary, therefore, to argue against waste from 
 enforced idleness under Socialism. All the causes that 
 now operate to throw laborers out of employment would be 
 removed. Socialism would enroll every citizen as an em- 
 ployee. All work would be organized and regulated so as 
 to equalize the burden. All would have work, and all would 
 have leisure, and these are conditions under which waste 
 could be reduced to a minimum. ' 
 
 6. Needless Commercial Crises. 
 
 In our discussion of Commercial Crises (chapter ii.) we 
 did not allude to the waste caused by them. This is an 
 important consideration. In connection with certain forms 
 of waste, some advantage may frequently be found ; but 
 there is uniform testimony that crises are an unmixed evil, 
 inflicting upon society, with almost tidal regularity, an 
 industrial paralysis attended with financial ruin and a 
 
294 ADVANTAGES OF THE SOCIALISTIC STATE 
 
 general waste of economic force. In these " hard times " 
 of depression, we witness a general stagnation of business. 
 Warehouses, full of goods for which there is no demand, 
 are locked up ; factories shut down, and machinery stands 
 idle; mines cease to be worked; transportation falls off; 
 ruin stares traders in the face ; failures occur on every 
 hand ; large bodies of working men are daily discharged, 
 and vast capitals are idle. 
 
 We say nothing now of the struggle and agony accom- 
 panying financial ruin, or of the physical sufferings of the 
 laboring poor, when to be without work means to be with- 
 out bread. Our contention now is that this stoppage of all 
 the wheels of industry and the idleness of multitudes of 
 laborers involves a colossal economic waste for which capi- 
 talism is solely responsible. How the forces of capitalism 
 combine to bring about the crisis is a matter about which 
 political economists may differ ; but that it is due, in some 
 way, to private enterprise, is agreed by most terrestrial 
 economists. A few account for crises by the celestial opera- 
 tions of the sun and moon : the argument is that the solar 
 spots and lunar influences control the weather, the weather 
 controls the harvest, and the harvest controls the crisis ! 
 
 Mr. Francis Gronlund gives the genesis of crises in a 
 terse and common-sense manner : "Private enterprise com- 
 pels every producer to produce for himself, to sell for 
 himself, to keep all his transactions secret ; . . . but the 
 producer and merchant . . . find daily out that their suc- 
 cess or failure depends, in the first place, precisely on how 
 much others produce and sell ; and in the second place, on a 
 multitude of causes, often on things that may happen thou- 
 sands of miles away, which determine the power of purchase 
 of their customers. They have got no measure at hand at all 
 by which they can even approximately estimate the actual 
 effective demand of consumers, or ascertain the producing 
 capacity of their rivals. In other Words, private 'enter- 
 prise' is a defiance of nature's law which decrees that the 
 interests of society are interdependent. . . . Every manu- 
 facturer, every merchant, strives in every possible way — 
 by glaring advertisements, by under selling others, by 
 
THE PKEVENTION OF WASTE 295 
 
 giving long credits, by sending out an army of drummers 
 — to beat his rivals. . . . All of them receive orders in 
 greater number than they expected. These orders stimu- 
 late each one of the manufacturers to a more and more 
 enlarged production, far ahead of the orders received ; . . . 
 this production of all these manufacturers is, and must 
 necessarily be, absolutely planless; . . . must end in the 
 market being at some time overstocked with commodi- 
 ties. . . . One branch of industry depends upon another. 
 . . . The circle of depression thus grows larger from month 
 to month ; failure succeeds failure ; the general consump- 
 tion diminishes ; all production and commerce is paralyzed. 
 We have got the crisis." ^ 
 
 This seems to be a true explanation of the cause of com- 
 mercial crises, set forth with clearness and simplicity. This 
 cause is private enterprise operating on the three pillars of 
 capitalism, — capital, contract, and competition free and indi- 
 vidual. Private enterprise, with its rivalry, its secrecy, its 
 ignorance of what others are doing, and its risks, is, there- 
 fore, responsible for the enormous waste of these crises. 
 Instead of all this chaos in production, Socialism proposes 
 concerted, organized action, that would enable the State to 
 adapt the supply of commodities to the demand, as the 
 agent of a single manufacturing establishment adapts the 
 supplies of raw material to the number and capacity of his 
 emplo3'ees. Under Socialism, therefore, commercial crises 
 would be impossible, and the great waste they entail upon 
 society would be prevented. 
 
 7. Needless Loss from Fraudulent Adulterations and 
 Imitations. 
 
 By this we intend the loss in both labor and material 
 from adulterations, imitations, and other shams in the pro- 
 duction of commodities. This species of fraud has become 
 so common that the law is invoked for the protection of 
 unsuspecting purchasers. In spite of all efforts, however, 
 the evil, under the stimulus of private gain, continually 
 increases. 
 
 Food adulteration is carried to an extent undreamed of 
 
 1 " Modern Socialism, "pp. 43, 43. 
 
296 ADVANTAGES OF THE SOCIALISTIC STATE 
 
 by most people. Before a legislative committee in a large 
 city the dealers in lard testified, without exception, that 
 they adulterated this staple commodity. The oleomarga- 
 rine and butter contest is not on account of oleomargarine 
 as such, but because it is colored, packed, sold, and con- 
 sumed as butter. The United States consume 276,000,000 
 pounds of coffee annually. Experts estimate that from 96,- 
 000,000 to 120,000,000 pounds of this are bogus. We pay an- 
 nually $30,000,000 for roasted peas, beans, chiccory, and rye, 
 masquerading under the name of coffee. A single company 
 manufactures 10,000 pounds per week of this bogus stuff, at 
 an enormous profit ; the company recently refusing $1,000,- 
 000 for their plant.^ Aside from the consideration of fraud, 
 ■we call attention to the fact that the labor of every em- 
 ployee in this establishment is utterly wasted, as are also 
 the time of the proprietors, also the buildings, machinery, 
 and circulating-capital invested. 
 
 The adulteration of drugs has increased to an alarming 
 extent, and druggists tell us there is no way to prevent it. 
 
 In the matter of dry goods it is come to that pass where 
 the one essential qualification of good shopping is the abil- 
 ity to detect fraud in fabrics. 
 
 The nasty decoctions swallowed as tea, sugar mixed with 
 rock-dust, etc., are notorious. Indeed, " The representative 
 of a leading spice-house lately said, ' We sell to the trade 
 more adulterated goods than pure. We cannot help it. 
 We simply sell the retailer what he wants. It would ruin 
 the trade to prohibit adulteration.' " 
 
 It costs needless labor and material to make " warranted 
 all-leather shoes out of imitation leather pasteboard." 
 
 We have merely sampled the commercial frauds of this 
 character. It is to be borne in mind, that in all these cases 
 the labor and material employed in the production of bogus 
 goods are wasted. We have no means of estimating the 
 aggregate amount ; that it is enormous, no one will dispute ; 
 and that it is wholly caused by the desire for private gain, 
 and an unscrupulous and wicked system, is equally clear. 
 Socialism cuts the Gordian knot of this evil, by taking away 
 
 1 " Public Opinion," Feb. 15, 1890. 
 
THE PREVENTION OF WASTE 297 
 
 all motive for fraudulent adulterations and imitations, and 
 by making it not only for the public interest, but for tbe 
 private interest, of every individual to produce only pure 
 and genuine commodities. 
 
 8. Needless Litigation. 
 
 Capitalism is responsible for the large expenditure of 
 time and money caused by litigation. Private contract not 
 only gives rise to innumerable misunderstandings, but opens 
 the door to every species of fraud and dishonesty. To rem- 
 edy these evils, courts of justice, with all their expensive 
 accompaniments, are established. There are in the United 
 States 70,000 lawyers as against 7,000 in Germany, and 
 8,000 in France ; ten times the number needed, and seven 
 times as many in proportion to population as Germany, and 
 five times as many as France contains.^ In the city of 
 New York alone there are 6,460 lawyers, and it is said 1,000 
 ' only are needed. The annual cost of maintaining the bench 
 and bar in the United States, allowing for 3,000 judges, an 
 average of $5,000 each, and each lawyer $2,500, is about 
 $190,000,000. 
 
 The Socialistic state might, indeed, require a minimum 
 of outlay on this account ; but capitalism, with its system of 
 free contracts, necessitates this tremendous expenditure, 
 nine-tenths of which, at least, is annually wasted. Add to 
 this the cost of court-houses, furnishings, etc. ; fees of sub- 
 sidiary references and commissions ; salaries of clerks, sten- 
 ographers, of&cers ; costs of writs, processes, fees, and all 
 other incidental expenses, — and still you have only a 
 part of the tremendous waste of litigation. The valuable 
 time of jurors and witnesses is an important item. We 
 have known twenty witnesses to hang around a court- 
 house for a week waiting for a case to be reached in 
 which only two or three hundred dollars were involved. 
 Every one familiar with the trial of causes knows how 
 vexatious is this loss of time on the part of witnesses. 
 Lawsuits have become almost interminable. Everybody 
 knows that ordinary cases, involving simple matters of jus- 
 tice, could be settled by a proper arrangement of society in 
 
 1 " Public Opinion," Nov. 30, 1889. 
 
298 ADVANTAGES OF THE SOCIALISTIC STATE 
 
 m 
 
 from ten minutes to ten hours, whereas they are now fre- 
 quently protracted through five or ten years. It shows 
 what absurdities people will submit to, provided only they 
 be done in due form of law. 
 
 All good citizens deplore the necessity of lawsuits. 
 Their wastefulness is admitted, and many prefer to suffer 
 loss and injustice than to engage in them. But they are a 
 part of the capitalistic system ; and society has become so 
 accustomed to them that any proposal looking to their abo- 
 lition is regarded as contra naturam, and its author as a 
 hot-head or a blockhead. But it is neither chimerical nor 
 unreasonable to advocate peace and fraternity among men, 
 and to point out analogies between the home and the large 
 family of the State. The spectacle of two members of the 
 same family quarrelling over property is looked upon by 
 all as disgraceful as well as wasteful. Is it any less dis- 
 astrous to all the higher interests of society when two of 
 its members declare war on account of filthy lucre, become 
 public litigants, call into the arena a crowd of lawyers, 
 officers, judges, and witnesses, employ experts to act as 
 seconds and hold the sponge, while they proceed, according 
 to the law in such cases made and provided, to pommel 
 each other till the legal number of rounds has been com- 
 pleted and both parties retire from the struggle exhausted, 
 imbittered, and often impoverished ? 
 
 This entire proceeding is justified in the name of economy. 
 
 We admit that it is inevitable under the present system ; 
 and it is for this reason, among others, that we object to 
 the system, as essentially wasteful, as well as immoral and 
 barbarous. Abolish private capital and this will disappear. 
 Socialism aims to do this. It does not claim that, under 
 its regime, all litigation will cease. Private property in 
 many forms will continue to exist, and private interests of 
 various kinds might conflict, which would require judiciary 
 intervention ; but a large per cent, probably not less than 
 nine-tenths, of the present waste from litigation, would be 
 saved. 
 
 9. Needless Police and Prisons. 
 
 It is conceded by the opponents of Socialism, that crimes 
 
THE PREVENTION OF WASTE 299 
 
 against property would, for the most part, cease when 
 money, contracts, and private capital were done away with. 
 The great bulk of crime at the present time can be traced 
 directly to these institutions of capitalism. In order to 
 prevent and suppress crime, a large body of criminal officers, 
 numerous courts, and expensive prisons and reformatories 
 are maintained at the public cost. 
 
 It is not easy to estimate the economic waste from this 
 source, but we can approximate it. The annual prison pop- 
 ulation in our country is 350,000, although only one-fifth 
 of this number is in confinement at any one time. The 
 cost of each criminal for " sustenance, police surveillance, 
 expenses of trial," etc., is $1,800. This makes a grand 
 total of $126,000,000, which is only a part of the sum 
 society annually loses through crime, principally caused 
 by the present economic system. The waste from this 
 cause is steadily increasing. This is a most important 
 matter. In 1880 our country had only one criminal to 
 every 855 of the population. In the same year Massa- 
 chusetts had only one to every 487, while in 1886, only 
 six years later, she had one to every 337 of the population. 
 This increase of crime is far greater proportionately than 
 the increase of population in the country. While the 
 latter from 1850 to 1887 increased 99 per cent, criminals 
 increased 320 per cent. Make due allowance for all ex- 
 tenuating circumstances, and still we have a condition of 
 things that constitutes a most scathing indictment of 
 the present social order. It is not for a moment to be 
 claimed that Socialism would have no criminals or prisons ; 
 but it is safe to say that we could discharge nine- 
 tenths of our police, abolish nine-tenths of our criminal 
 courts, shut up nine-tenths of our prisons and reforma- 
 tories, and put to useful labor nine-tenths of our prison 
 population. 
 
 A moment's reflection will convince any one that this 
 change would be not only a saving of one of the worst forms 
 of economic waste, but an immense moral and social gain 
 to society. 
 
 10. Needless Theft and Embezzlement. 
 
300 ADVANTAGES OF THE SOCIALISTIC STATE 
 
 There is one species of waste suggested by the one last 
 named that might easily escape notice, because of the 
 greater importance attached to it on account of its criminal 
 character. This is the waste caused by theft and embezzle- 
 ment. These are not only offences against divine and 
 human law, but they are treason to the capitalistic system. 
 No other crime, save murder, is so offensive to capitalism. 
 " The costliest unclean beast that society can keep in its 
 menagerie is an unpunished commercial rogue." That 
 these crimes involve a vast economical waste cannot be 
 doubted. It is said that the embezzlements in the United 
 States during the year 1891 reached the enormous sum of 
 $19,720,294, which was more than double the amount of 
 defalcations for the preceding year. Many cases are 
 hushed up, so that this estimate must fall far short of 
 the actual fact. 
 
 "If the actual total could be arrived at, the Tribune 
 thinks it would rise as high as f 25,000,000, or an average 
 of forty cents for every inhabitant of the United States 
 lost, by men who abuse the trust reposed in them by 
 others." ^ We must add to this- vast sum all the moneys 
 taken by other forms of theft, if we would get the total of 
 all that was squandered and lost in this country during the 
 year 1891. What does capitalism propose, to check " this 
 great and growing national evil " ? Absolutely nothing. 
 How can it prevent this economic waste ? It cannot pre- 
 vent it. Is it no recommendation for Socialism, that by 
 abolishing private capital it would at once and forever put 
 an end to this form of wickedness and waste ? 
 
 11. Needless Intemperance. 
 
 By needless, here, we intend the intemperance due directly 
 to capitalism, or, in other words, to the stimulus given to 
 the liquor traffic because there is money in it. This is a 
 kind of business in which the supply, to a large extent, 
 creates the demand. We have already discussed this sub- 
 ject (p. 254), and refer to it again merely to show the enor- 
 mous waste it entails upon society. In the United States 
 800,000 persons are, in one way or another, engaged in the 
 1 " Public Opinion," March 12, 1892. ■ 
 
THE PREVENTION OF WASTE 301 
 
 liquor trafiBc, with a capital of $1,000,000,000, of which 
 f 132,051,260, according to the census of 1880, are invested 
 in the maniifacture of intoxicating liquors. The annual 
 liquor bill of the United States is $900,000,000, which 
 equals $16.00 for every man, woman, and child in the 
 country. In 1887 we consumed 71,064,733 gallons of dis- 
 tilled spirits, 717,748,854 gallons of malt liquors, and 32,618,- 
 290 gallons of wine ; in all, 821,431,877 gallons, " which if 
 poured together would fill a channel twenty feet in depth, 
 twenty feet in width, and forty-six miles long." The eco- 
 nomic waste occasioned by the liquor traflSc is almost beyond 
 calculation. We do not say that all alcoholic liquors are 
 wasted. Those used for mechanical and medicinal purposes 
 are not wasted, and possibly certain forms of alcoholic 
 beverage may be said to yield an equivalent gain ; neither 
 do we say that Socialism would put an end to all waste 
 from this source : what is maintained here is, that capital- 
 ism encourages men to engage in the liquor traffic for the 
 sake oi private gain; that it has now in the United States 
 3,000,000 men and dependants directly interested in and 
 benefited by it ; and that immense vested interests stand 
 behind it, and successfully resist efforts to suppress it. Our 
 insistence is, that Socialism, by removing all hope of private 
 gain, would break the back of this leviathan ; that out of 
 the $1,000,000,000 invested in the traffic, the 800,000 
 men engaged in it, the 850,000 drunkards, and the seven or 
 eight million bushels of grain now consumed by it. Socialism 
 would save enough annually to feed every wage-worker and 
 his family in the United States. 
 
 We have not considered other forms of intemperance 
 which Socialism would be in a position to check, if not 
 abolish altogether. The opium habit is even more dis- 
 astrous in its effects on both mind and body than alcohol ; 
 it is rapidly increasing in the United States, and so long 
 as it is supplied by the irresistible incentive of private 
 gain, the waste from the opium habit will be likely to 
 increase. 
 
 12. Needless Change in Fashion. 
 
 The present economic constitution of society suffers no 
 
302 ADVANTAGES OF THE SOCIALISTIC STATE 
 
 inconsiderable loss from changing fashion. It is not that 
 change in fashion in itself is necessarily objectionable, but 
 the present modus operandi cannot be too severely con- 
 demned. It is capricious, irresponsible, extravagant, and 
 wasteful, to a degree not dreamed of by the thoughtless. 
 Articles of apparel purchased to-day must be made over or 
 discarded before they are half worn out because " out of 
 fashion." This is pure waste, and to estimate its sum total 
 we have only to multiply the labor and loss of a single 
 family by the total number of families in the country. 
 Waste from change in fashion is as serious in production 
 as in consumption. Professor Francis A. Walker says, 
 " Seemingly petty changes in fashion will often produce 
 wide-reaching effects in production. Mr. Malthus states 
 that the substitution of shoe ribbons for buckles was a 
 severe blow, long felt by Sheffield and Birmingham. ' On a 
 smaller scale, and with less notoriety,' says a writer in 
 the Atheneum, 'the dismal tragedy of the cotton famine 
 is enacted every year in one or another of our great cities. 
 Every time fashion selects a new material for dress, . . . 
 workmen are thrown out of employment.' Professor Eogers 
 gives the following piquant illustration of the effect of 
 changes in the mere fashion of dress : ' A year or two ago 
 every woman who made any pretensions to dress according 
 to the custom of the day, surrounded herself with a con- 
 geries of parallel steel hoops. It is said that fifty tons of 
 crinoline wire were turned out weekly from the factories, 
 chiefly in Yorkshire. The fashion has passed away, and 
 the demand for the material and the labor has ceased. 
 Thousands of persons once engaged in this production are 
 now reduced to enforced idleness, or constrained to betake 
 themselves to some other occupation. Again, a few years 
 ago, women dressed themselves plentifully with ribbons. 
 This fashion has also changed ; where a hundred yards 
 were sold, one is hardly, produced now, and the looms of a 
 multitude of silk-operatives are idle. To quote another 
 instance. At the present time women are pleased to walk 
 about bareheaded. The straw-plaiters of Bedfordshire, 
 Bucks, Hertfordshire, and Essex are reduced suddenly from 
 
THE PREVENTION OF WASTE 303 
 
 a condition of tolerable prosperity to one of great poverty 
 and distress.' " ' 
 
 But waste from this source is not confined to wearing- 
 apparel. It extends to all the furnishings of a house 
 which, although good as new, fashion requires to be re- 
 placed every few years ; even the house itself soon gets to 
 be out of style, and must be pulled down or remodelled. 
 As already intimated, changes in fashion are not per se ob- 
 jectionable, but rather desirable. They give variety to life, 
 furnish opportunities for the exercise of taste, and yield a 
 certain pleasure which is innocent and even helpful ; but 
 any considerable waste in connection with such changes is 
 illegitimate. It is, however, unavoidable under the present 
 competitive system, which justifies the individual producer 
 in enriching himself, however great the waste to others and 
 to society at large, and which recognizes no ' law in the 
 production of commodities but the whim of the individual. 
 Socialism, on the other hand, by recognizing the solidarity 
 of society, would proceed to cut off the greater part of this 
 waste, through an industrial organization that would regu- 
 late both the time and quantity of the production of com- 
 modities, and would give due notice of changes in fashions, 
 and thus save a large per cent of the time and labor now 
 wasted on this account. 
 
 13. Needless Luxury. 
 
 Closely associated with the foregoing cause of waste is 
 the expenditure caused by Luxury, which cannot be said to 
 yield an equivalent gain. It may, indeed, yield a certain 
 kind of pleasure ; but it is a pleasure which, while it does 
 no one any real good, is positively harmful to society. 
 
 It is difficult to define luxury except in the abstract, and 
 especially because the word is not always used in a bad 
 sense. The more general conception, however, regards 
 luxury as an evil. In this sense it is any costly object of 
 pleasure that is, on the whole, harmful to the individual 
 and to society. Professor E. W. Bemis defines it as " What- 
 ever contributes chiefly to enjoyment, rather than to the 
 better training of our powers. Luxury is defensible only 
 1 " The Wages Question," p. 1T8. Note. 
 
304 ADVANTAGES OF THE SOCIALISTIC STATE 
 
 in so far as it does not hinder the development of a better 
 manhood in us, and in all those whom we could influence." 
 The definition is worthy of more than a superficial reading. 
 It condemns whatever ministers to pride and vanity ; all those 
 expenditures, whose name is legion, that gratify sensuality, 
 and voluptuousness; objects and pursuits that weaken the 
 muscles and demoralize the mind, but which capitalism and 
 the prevailing Christianity may easily approve ; and finally 
 it condemns the entire lives of a large self-indulging, 
 pleasure-seeking class, the product of capitalism, whose 
 influence is to lower the standard of true manhood. This 
 involves a vast economic waste. 
 
 The current political economy, however, is handicapped 
 in attempting to treat of this species of waste, because of 
 a false assumption concerning utility. A utility is some- 
 thing useful, and a thing is useful not merely because it is 
 full of use, but because it is a good. 
 
 By a utility, therefore, must be understood something 
 good, and not something bad. Economists, however, ignore 
 this distinction ; for example, the latest woi-k on political 
 economy, in accordance with the highest authorities, says, 
 " Those quantities of utility which result from labor are 
 called economic goods. . . . Everything which satisfies a 
 human wa.nt we call a good." ^ Economically speaking, 
 every luxury is a good, a utility, however mischievous in 
 its nature, because it " satisfies a human want." This is 
 true of many wicked things. Gambling-dens, liquor saloons, 
 brothels, internal machines for wholesale murder, and many 
 other things which employ millions of money and men, 
 '■satisfy human wants;" but can good or titility be predi- 
 cated of them on this account ? So long as political economy 
 continues to confound all distinction between products of 
 labor that benefit and those that injure society, designating 
 both alike as goods, utilities, so long must it observe a 
 prudential reticence concerning the waste of luxury. The 
 difficulty of drawing the line should not prevent any line 
 being drawn. Many of the luxuries that satisfy human 
 
 1 " Political Economy" (Ely), p. 144. 
 
THE PREVENTION OP WASTE 305 
 
 wants are not goods, but evils, not utilities, but inutilities ; 
 and as such they are wasteful. We have no means of com- 
 puting the amount of this waste. The capitalistic system, 
 by guaranteeing men the right to do wrong industrially, 
 that is, to produce and traffic for the sake of gain, in ways 
 that injure society; by piling up wealth in the hands of the 
 few, which enables them to indulge in the most lavish ex- 
 penditures for dress, furniture, equipage, etc., which requires 
 the labors of vast numbers of producers, puts a premium 
 on luxury and keeps a large number from useful production. 
 On the other hand. Socialism, by a more equal distribution 
 of the burdens and benefits of society resulting from the 
 nationalization of capital, would cut up by the roots this 
 source of waste. It would remove not only the means 
 which make vulgar display possible, and minister to pas- 
 sions and tastes that foster caste, effeminate the mind, and 
 render flabby moral and physical fibre, but it would remove 
 the desire of luxury, by causing it to be regarded as a 
 public enemy. 
 
 14. Needless Charity. 
 
 Public sentiment has within a few years undergone a 
 marked change in regard to both public and private chari- 
 ties. Charity in the way of almsgiving is now discounte- 
 nanced by all wise philanthropy, on the ground that it 
 creates more distress and pauperism than it relieves. In 
 other words, our charities to a large extent are an economic 
 waste. A French epigram says, " Charity creates one-half 
 the misery she relieves, but cannot relieve one-half the 
 misery she creates." We have the following testimony 
 from Dr. Washington Gladden, one of the ablest American 
 Sociologists : " I have no hesitation in saying, that until 
 within the last few years the Christian churches of this 
 country, in the distribution of what they call their chari- 
 ties, have done more harm than good. They have found 
 and relieved some cases of actual want, and it would have 
 been a great pity if these cases had not been found and re- 
 lieved ; but in doing this they have bred paupers by the 
 thousand ; by their careless and unquestioning doles they 
 have paved the way for whole families to enter the steep 
 
306 ADVANTAGES OF THE SOCIALISTIC STATE 
 
 and slimy paths of beggary." ' In other words ■Dr.v.-se 
 church charities, the vast total of which we have n* means 
 of estimating, have been worse than wasted. We believe 
 the aggregate of strictly private charities far exceeds that 
 of church charities. 
 
 The well-to-do and kindly disposed people in all our 
 cities and large towns are continually distributing money 
 and clothing, fuel, etc., to those who are morally and physi- 
 cally rendered more helpless thereby. The greatest waste, 
 however, occurs in connection with public charities, which 
 capitalism renders more and more necessary. Paupers are 
 of different classes. Those mentally or physically incapa- 
 ble of self-support are liable under any industrial system 
 to become a public charge. Socialism, however, by relieving 
 humanity of the fearful nervous strain to which competi- 
 tion subjects it, would largely diminish the number of this 
 class of paupers, consisting of the insane, imbecile, and 
 crippled. It would certainly at once and forever relieve 
 society of the burden of supporting the oiit-door able- 
 bodied poor, and this item alone would save England 
 $20,000,000 per annum. Look at the famous Margaret 
 Jukes's case, with reference to the economic waste of 
 capitalistic, able-bodied pauperism. This woman was born 
 in the State of New York more than a hundred years ago, 
 and lived and died a vagabond and pauper. She had .709 
 descendants, of whom 280 were paupers, and received 
 $60,000 in relief : the unrecorded charities they received 
 would greatly increase this sum, all of which was waste. 
 There are Jukes in almost every city and town in the land. 
 They are the product of capitalism. 
 
 In 1880 we had 67,067 paupers in our poor-houses and 
 almshouses, and 92,000 in our insane-asylums. Add to 
 this the pauper population in all other public and quasi- 
 public charitable institutions in the United States, and we 
 have a total of at least 200,000 supported by public charity. 
 The testimony of experts shows that the principal causes 
 that lead to pauperism are directly traceable to the social 
 order; that is, to "environment," to which must be referred 
 " Applied Christianity," p. 224. 
 
THE PREVENTION OF WASTE 807 
 
 over-crowding, looseness of the marriage relation, intem- 
 perance, etc. 
 
 Suppose that 100,000, or one-half the paupers in our 
 poor-houses and asylums, are pauperized by the normal 
 working of capitalism, and that the average cost of sup- 
 porting each pauper is f 400 per annum, including super- 
 intendence, buildings, and all other expenses ; this would 
 make an annual expenditure of f 4:0",000,000. This is waste, 
 pure and simple. An equal amount is probably worse than 
 thrown away by church benevolences, private charities, and 
 all sorts of indiscriminate giving to parasites and beggars. 
 A grand total of 180,000,000 annually, or 1255,691.05 for 
 every secular day in the year, wasted in the name of charity ! 
 Modern organized charities are an immense gain ; but the 
 gain is moral rather than economic. Organization itself is 
 expensive, and, in the matter of charity, may easily become 
 as productive as it is curative of evils. The point to be 
 emphasized is that capitalism tends to increase pauperism. 
 It produces, also, magnificent charities, because they are 
 needed, because humanity demands them, and because 
 capitalism itself could not exist without them. The least 
 that capitalism can do after lacerating and amputating the 
 limbs of men, women, and children, is to furnish lint and 
 salves in generous quantities. Christianity also requires 
 such gifts. Men are generally disposed to mitigate evil 
 effects to others when they themselves flourish by the 
 cause. Only give a man the chance to play Dives over 
 Lazarus, and he will cheerfully and plentifully throw 
 crumbs to his victim. '■' A merciful man is merciful to his 
 beast," even though his beast be a two-handed, rational, and 
 G-od-imaged fellow-being. The difference between Capi- 
 talism and Socialism is, that the latter would stop the 
 brutalizing process ; stop lacerating and crippling men by 
 pauperizing them, as the more economical as well as the 
 more humane course. It is a painful and significant fact 
 that the average citizen, and even Christian, is more inter- 
 ested in the methods of charity than in efforts to render it 
 unnecessary ; in relieving rather than in preventing pau- 
 perism. Such is the magic of capitalism, that men under 
 
308 ADVANTAGES OF THE SOCIALISTIC STATE 
 
 its spell are incapacitated for consistent and logical deduc- 
 tions. For example, the social causes of pauperism are 
 rightly declared to be '•' illiteracy, intemperance, over-crowd- 
 ing, and the looseness of the marriage tie." But what is 
 the cause of these causes ? Capitalism. But capitalism is 
 justified by those who condemn its legitimate fruits of 
 illiteracy, etc., without a suspicion of iuconsistency. It is 
 like justifying a fever while condemning its symptoms. 
 That the causes which produce pauperism have their 
 source in the present social order, is admitted by nearly 
 all sociologists. 
 
 Dr. Amory H. Bradford, in a thoughtful study on " The 
 Problem of Pauperism,"' says pauperism has two causes, 
 "Corrupt heredity and vicious environments." And he 
 reduces heredity to environment as follows : " The correc- 
 tion for vicious heredity is change of environment, as the 
 proper thing for a person by the seaboard with hereditary 
 tendency to consumption is to go to Colorado or California." 
 
 In other words, the great cause of pauperism is environ- 
 ment, for which the social order is largely responsible. 
 These secondary causes of pauperism, " illiteracy, intemper- 
 ance, over-crowding, and looseness of the marriage tie," 
 are important factors in the social environment of cap- 
 italism. " Illiteracy " in many quarters is on the increase. 
 Capitalism makes it for the economic interest of employer 
 and employee to place children who ought to be in school, 
 at work, and to keep them there. Nobody will deny that 
 " intemperance " is frightfully increased because there are 
 fortunes in the traf&c. 
 
 The third cause of pauperism, " over-crowding," is due 
 mainly to capitalistic landlordism ; and, finally, " the loose- 
 ness of the marriage tie " is thus accounted for by a fore- 
 most American economist : " The causes for divorces have 
 been shown by the National Department of Labor at Wash- 
 ington to be largely economic." ' 
 
 While we do not overlook the individual causes of pau- 
 perism, we unhesitatingly affirm that the existing social 
 
 1 " Andover Review," March, 1890, p. 261. 
 
 2 " Political Economy " (Ely), p. 2(il. 
 
THE PEEVENTION OP WASTE 309 
 
 order is largely responsible for them. These causes Social- 
 ism would seek to stamp out. 
 
 The whole genius of Socialism is opposed to " illiteracy, 
 intemperance, over-crowding, and looseness of the marriage 
 tie," the immediate social causes of pauperism which make 
 louder and louder demands for both public and private 
 charities, and thus entail upon society an enormous waste. 
 
 15. Needless Inefficiency of Labor from Ignorance. 
 Waste from the ignorance of the laborer is observable on 
 
 every hand. The industrial efficiency of working men of 
 different nationalities is in proportion to their knowledge. 
 In his able and exhaustive study on " The Wages Ques- 
 tion " (p. 65), Professor F. A. Walker says, " The general 
 intelligence of the laborer is a factor of his industrial effi- 
 ciency. This proposition is too well-established and too 
 familiar to need extended illustration. The intelligent 
 laborer is more useful, not merely because he knows how to 
 apply his bodily force in his work with the greatest effect, 
 but also because, — 
 
 " (a) He requires a shorter apprenticeship and less tech- 
 nical instruction. 'A recruit,' says Professor Rogers, 'who 
 knows how to read and write can learn his drill in half the 
 time in which a totally ignorant person can.' 
 
 "(b) He requires far less superintendence. Superinten- 
 dence is always costly. . . . 
 
 " (c) He is far less wasteful of material. . . . 
 
 " (d) He can use delicate and intricate machinery. The 
 cost of repairing and replacing this with ignorant labor 
 very soon eats up the profits of production . . . 'Experi- 
 enced mechanicians assert that . . . there is probably as 
 much sound, practical, labor-saving invention and machinery 
 unused as there is used ; and that it is unused solely in 
 consequence of the ignorance and incompetency of the 
 work-people.' " 
 
 If this is true, then millions of dollars are annually 
 wasted which a higher and more general intelligence would 
 save. It is precisely this advanced knowledge that Social- 
 ism everywhere and always demands. 
 
 16. Needless Inefficiency of Labor from Indifference. 
 
310 ADVANTAGES OF THE SOCIALISTIC STATE 
 
 Every employer of labor justly complains of needless 
 loss from this cause. " The men take no interest in their 
 work," is a remark everywhere heard. Why should they ? 
 In nine cases out of ten they would not receive a farthing 
 more pay if they did. Why exert themselves for the bene- 
 fit of employers ? To give something, for nothing is not a 
 tenet of the present industrial system. 
 
 The waste from indifference and carelessness of em- 
 ployees cannot be easily estimated. It is probably far 
 greater than that from ignorance. 
 
 N. P. Gilman in his exhaustive work on " Profit Shar- 
 ing " (p. 422), gives the testimony of various employers on 
 this point. " ' Can the workman save twenty-five centimes 
 in a day by avoiding^ waste of the materials intrusted to 
 him, and by bestowing care on the preservation of the 
 tools ? All answer in the affirmative.' . . . The Messrs. 
 Briggs calculated that if their miners were careful in get- 
 ting out and sorting the coal, they would increase the net 
 product at Whitwood by £3,000 every year. . . . The 
 opportunity for savings in the iron industry was em- 
 phatically presented to the employees of the Springfield 
 Foundery in the circular of 1888. ' Some men,' it says, 
 ' have been careless, and made imperfect castings, fit only 
 for scrap iron. ... It may surprise you to know it, but it 
 is nevertheless true, that our average loss per pound on bad 
 castings (day work) is over seven times the average profit 
 on good castings.' " 
 
 It is the same story in all industries. In cutting leather 
 and in other processes performed in the shoe factory, it is 
 estimated that the interested attention of the operative 
 would save a sum equal to five per cent of his wages. It 
 would save it, however, at present for the employer ; and 
 hence increased saving from the removal of indifference is 
 absolutely hopeless under capitalism, as is evident also 
 from the despairing tone with which economists and em- 
 ployers of labor speak of waste from this cause. 
 
 Now, if it be asked, How can Socialism prevent this 
 waste ? the reason is not far to seek. It substitutes interest 
 for indifference, attention for carelessness, by actually increas- 
 
THE PREVENTION OF WASTE 311 
 
 ing the laborer's wages for the one, and as certainly decreas- 
 ing them on account of the other. It is this principle that 
 wages are in proportion to personal interest in work, that 
 justifies proiit-sharing, co-operation, and every other scheme 
 whereby the laborer becomes a participator in the entire 
 industry and its results. The basal principle of most of 
 the half-way schemes for solving the labor problem is 
 purely Socialistic. Their advocates may stop short of this 
 goal, but the result is contained in the germinal principle 
 of association, as the oak is contained in the acorn ; and 
 the agitation and expansion will go on till the dynamic 
 evolution be complete. For this consummation we believe 
 all the forces of nature and the supernatural stand pledged. 
 
 17. Needless Inefl&ciency of Labor from Want of Adap- 
 tation. 
 
 Working at the wrong employment is one of the most 
 serious evils of capitalism. A large proportion of laborers 
 now have really no choice as to their employment. They 
 must take anything they can get in the way of work, 
 whether suited or not to their capacity. Inefficiency and 
 waste are the necessary consequences. The average boy of 
 the wages-class, upon the completion of his school-days, 
 looks about for employment. He would like to do that 
 kind of work for which he feels himself adapted. Some- 
 times, indeed, he succeeds in getting work agreeable to 
 his taste ; but oftener he is disappointed, and, driven by 
 necessity, he is glad to accept any employment that he can 
 find. Thus he has no choice in the matter ; and he has no 
 sooner learned his trade than he puts forth this complaint : 
 " I do not like my work ; I have no taste for it. I wish I 
 could get something else to do." His friends see that his 
 talent lies in another direction ; his employer esteems him 
 lightly, and gives him minimum wages ; but the die has 
 been cast. Having embarked upon his life's work, having 
 now, it may be, others dependent upon his daily labor, he 
 cannot change his occupation, which would involve the 
 learning of a new trade and the beginning of life over 
 again ; and so he toils on year after year, chafing under 
 work which not he, but a vicious system, has chosen for 
 
312 ADVANTAGES OF THE SOCIALISTIC STATE 
 
 him. The economic waste resulting from such misdirected 
 energies is incalculable. Friction is always wasteful. On 
 the other hand, contentment and cheerfulness in the per- 
 formance of labor are indispensable to a true economy. 
 
 The present system is open to the severest criticism in 
 this respect. Thousands if not millions of men and women 
 in this free country, whose chief corner-stone is the princi- 
 ple that the Almighty has endowed every man with the 
 inalienable right to the pursuit of happiness, are rendered 
 miserable by a social order that remorselessly drives them 
 to tasks for which they have no taste or adaptation, but in 
 which they are hopelessly doomed to toil till death releases 
 them. Professor Walker justly characterizes such a con- 
 dition as "slavery." "I say 'slavery,' for that labor is 
 only truly free which is exercised as the result of a 
 choice." ' Society as now constituted furnishes no assist- 
 ance to laborers in getting work for which they are adapted. 
 It says, "Let every man look out for himself;" utterly 
 ignoring the fact that multitudes, in a complex society, 
 have not the ability to cope with the competitive in- 
 dustrial forces, so as to secure for themselves either suit- 
 able work, or a comfortable share of economic goods. To 
 this capitalism replies, that '■' it always was so ; the present 
 order is according to the nature of things : while it seems 
 a pity that any should be placed at a disadvantage, all 
 remedies that can be proposed are worse than the evils to 
 be cured." We cannot accept this view. A social order 
 that, in its legitimate working, necessarily and perma- 
 nently places some members of society at a disadvantage, 
 is wrong. It is economic and moral infidelity. With 
 reference to our present consideration it is not only waste- 
 ful, but wicked. 
 
 Socialism would remove both evils. It would aid all 
 laborers needing assistance to secure the kind of work for 
 which they were best adapted ; just as the State now aids 
 its children in securing an education. Different depart- 
 ments of knowledge or courses of study are laid out ; com- 
 petent agents, such as superintendents, teachers, and school- 
 
 1 " The Wages Question," p. 127. 
 
THE PREVENTION OF WASTE 313 
 
 boards are appointed ; to assist the pupil in making the 
 best choice of studies and the wisest use of his powers, 
 without any infringement whatever of his individual 
 liberty. Precisely the same help could and should be 
 rendered by the State to all members in choosing an occu- 
 pation. How to do this ? what particular methods should 
 be adopted ? are questions wholly subordinate. It is the 
 principle, and not the ever-varying methods of its applica- 
 tion, for which we are contending. We will anticipate the 
 shallow criticism, that grown-up men and women will not 
 submit to dictation as to the kind of work they shall per- 
 form, by saying that this is precisely the evil Socialism 
 would remedy. Capitalism not only dictates the kind of 
 work, but sets men at the wrong employment, and does it 
 arbitrarily, and the laborer has no redress. Socialism would 
 substitute for the arbitrary dictation of capitalism the 
 friendly aid of the State of which the laborer is a member, 
 and whose authority would be felt to be not dictation, but 
 advice and assistance, such as is now rendered to pupils in 
 the public schools. The utter helplessness of capitalism 
 to remedy the evil or prevent the waste resulting from 
 working at the wrong employment, is seen in the conflict- 
 ing suggestions it offers working men. One says, "Every 
 laborer should have more than one trade." Another says, 
 " Labor has become so specialized that the laborer must 
 learn to do one thing perfectly, or there is no hope for 
 him." Again laborers are told to be " temperate, frugal, 
 skilful, and they will succeed better than ever before." 
 Another assures us that this intelligence and frugality are 
 fe-ure to increase desires, cultivate the taste, and develop the 
 wants of laborers, which they have no means of gratifying ; 
 and it is notorious that our labor troubles all spring from 
 the best-paid and most intelligent classes ; that about 
 twenty per cent of wage-workers who are the most skil- 
 ful feel most oppressed by capitalism, and are at the bottom 
 of all labor disturbance. Thus capitalism flounders around 
 in attempting to defend itself against Socialism. 
 
 It is a proverb, that a jack-at-all-trades is master of none. 
 Let a young man attempt to learn a half-dozen trades, 
 
314 ADVANTAGES OF THE SOCIALISTIC STATE 
 
 and he is handicapped for life ; let him become master of 
 one, and get " big wages^' and he becomes keenly alive to 
 the fact that the present social order is an unfair arrange- 
 ment. He demands democracy, not only in politics, but 
 in industry. 
 
 18. Needless Banking. 
 
 Few people are aware of the extent of the banking-busi- 
 ness of the country. The aggregate of capital and labor 
 required to carry it on is not easily ascertained. The total 
 amount of reserve funds or idle money which the law re- 
 quires our national banks to keep is about 1200,000,000. 
 This vast sum is locked up and of no use to anybody. 
 But this is not all : the real and personal property, exclu- 
 sive of the idle monej' required for conducting loanking- 
 operations, is an important factor in estimating the total 
 capital of the banking-system. The total cost of the system 
 must include also the salaries of all persons in any way em- 
 ployed in the business, and all other current expenses. All 
 annual expenses and taxes of the average bank in the city of 
 Springfield, Mass., are approximately estimated at $19,000. 
 " The expense to the government on account of the depart- 
 ment of Comptroller of the Currency for the year ending 
 June'30, 1889, was in round numbers $159,000." 
 
 The annual report of the comptroller (October, 1889) shows 
 that the total number of national banks was 3,290. Sup- 
 pose the average annual expense of conducting these banks 
 is $8,000, the total would amount to $26,320,000. If we 
 add to these sums the capital invested in all private bank- 
 ing-operations, we have a total of between three and four 
 hundred million dollars employed in banking. 
 
 Now, under capitalism, banking is an indispensable condi- • 
 tion of carrying on the business of the country. Our banks 
 are at once a convenience and security, without which busi- 
 ness in many directions would be paralyzed. It is equally 
 clear, however, that Socialism would have no need of banks. 
 It would save these millions to society. That it would be 
 in itself an immense economic advantage to the country to 
 liberate millions of capital and thousands of men from con- 
 finement in bank vaults and behind bank bars, and convert 
 them into producers, will hardly be denied. 
 
THE PREVENTION OF WASTE 315 
 
 19. Needless Insurance. 
 
 The institution of Insurance is a legitimate offspring of 
 capitalism. It is a necessary evil. The insured pay, on 
 the average, more than they receive, by as much as it costs 
 to maintain the institution and give the companies their 
 profits. This bonus is an immense sum. The loss, how- 
 ever, is gladly borne by the insured. It is forced upon 
 them by the cruel necessities of capitalism, which says to 
 the citizen, "Give to the insurance companies annually 
 large sums of money, or confront financial ruin, social dis- 
 grace, and perhaps physical suffering." A man will cheer- 
 fully submit to the plucking out of an eye to save his life. 
 But what of the system that renders the plucking out 
 necessary ? Let us not be misunderstood : we are not object- 
 ing to insurance as things now are; on the contrary, we 
 advise all to fly to it as they would fly to a nauseating 
 antidote to save themselves from the effects of poison. 
 
 The institution of insurance is, per se, uneconomical, 
 because the maintenance of a vast capital and an army of 
 men who are not only non-producers, but consumers of 
 economic goods, is to the last degree wasteful. 
 
 Insurance opens the door to some of the most aggra- 
 vated forms of fraud and wickedness. Fires are set and 
 property wilfully destroyed, to obtain the insurance. The 
 total losses from fires in the United States for 1891 
 amounted to $125,000,000. Insurance companies say that 
 about one-third of the loss is caused by fraudulent fires ; 
 of the other two-thirds, " the greater part can be safely 
 ascribed to careless and flimsy buildings." This is due 
 to the competitive system. Of the $125,000,000 paid in 
 losses, it is estimated that this system caused at least 
 $100,000,000.1 
 
 If we add the losses from fires on uninsured buildings, 
 we have a grand total of probably not less than $160,000,- 
 000 needlessly destroyed in' the year 1891. The greater 
 part of this vast sum would be saved under Socialism. 
 
 There is another indictment against this institution of a 
 still more serious character. Thousands have been mur- 
 
 1 " The New Nation," Deo. 26, 1891. 
 
316 ADVANTAGES OF THE SOCIALISTIC STATE 
 
 dered, and the death of thousands more is at this moment 
 secretly longed for, on account of the benefit from insur- 
 ance which would accrue to the survivors. The Superin- 
 tendent of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to 
 Children in New York affirms that the lives of 100,000 
 children under seven years of age in New York have been 
 insured by parents or guardians, and " that three-fourths of 
 the cases of inhuman treatment of children brought to the 
 notice of the society are children so insured, where death 
 would bring money to those having them in charge." ^ 
 
 This form of insurance is still more extensive in Great 
 Britain, where there are 600,000 children said to be insured. 
 Agents go about the country receiving thirty per cent of 
 the premiums paid. The Bishop of Peterboro succeeded 
 in having a Committee of Parliament appointed in 1890 
 to investigate this matter. The bishop pointed out that 
 " even if only one in a thousand of these children met with 
 death in this way, that would mean that 600 children would 
 each year be murdered." If, however, insurance be consid- 
 ered in its relation to the capitalistic system, its advantages 
 are at once apparent. Its element of chance can easily 
 take on the respectable character of a legitimate business 
 risk. It can easily be viewed as a wise provision against 
 misfortune, which, instead of falling wholly upon one, is 
 distributed among many, and, as Professor Ely happily 
 says, " It is a fine example of solidarity of the right sort." 
 It is this sort of solidarity that Socialism would apply 
 throughout the entire range of economic societj^. 
 
 Our present concern with insurance, however, is on ac- 
 count of the vast economic waste it entails upon society. 
 To estimate this waste we must take into account all life; 
 fire, marine, and accident insurance companies. Society 
 loses what it costs to maintain these companies, also their 
 profits, besides all the items of. time, trouble, and expense, 
 to which policy-holders are subject, and the expense of ar- 
 bitration and litigation growing out of the insurance busi- 
 ness, in addition to the enormoiis waste from fraudulent 
 fires and deaths. No statistics furnish the means of es- 
 
 1 " Tlio Congiegationalist," Marcli 6, 1890. 
 
THE PEEVENliON OF WASTE 317 
 
 timatiiig these sums. The census of the United States 
 (1880) shows, that the authorized capital of all our fire and 
 marine insurance companies, in the year 1879, was $144,- 
 939,200, while their total available assets were $892,271,666, 
 and the current expenses $27,976,531. The authorized 
 capital of all life insurance companies for the same year 
 was $15,770,000; ledger assets $419,868,467, and current 
 expenses $13,280,434.17. We do not include in expenses 
 payments to policy-holders. Society does not lose the cap- 
 ital stock of insurance companies, but it does lose the use 
 of this capital, or the profits of the business, which in 
 1879 amounted to $9,341,001 in fire and marine companies 
 alone. It loses also all current expenses necessary to carry 
 on the business, the total of which in 1879 was $41,256,- 
 965.17. Thus, exclusive of the profits of life companies, 
 we have, taking the year 1879 as a basis, a grand total of 
 $50,697,966.17 expended in a single year to maintain this 
 excrescence of capitalism. It is believed that the figures 
 for 1891 would swell this vast sum by one-third. , This 
 treasure is wasted : instead of being employed productively, 
 it is required to maintain men and capital in a business 
 which in no way contributes to the productive powers of 
 society. What could exceed the reckless wastefulness of 
 paying a salary of $100,000 to an insurance president ? 
 Such a salary a president in New York admitted he 
 received. 
 
 Insurance is a constant tax on productive energy, and a 
 business which, under a healthier form of social organiza- 
 tion, would be wholly unnecessary. Socialism is such a 
 form. In the first place, when all the people of the State 
 were members of a common industrial household, the death 
 of one member would not leave others destitute, or com- 
 promise their social position, hence there would be no need 
 of life insurance. Again, State ownership of all capital 
 would put an end to private insurance companies. The 
 State, were it deemed wise, could easily secure its members 
 against the loss of such private property as might still 
 exist. Such property would always represent the industry 
 and thrift of the owner, and the State might well put a 
 
318 ADVANTAGES OF THE SOCIALISTIC STATE 
 
 premium on these virtues, by replacing it if lost. At any 
 rate, it is certain that under Socialism society would be 
 relieved from the costly arid burdensome institution of 
 insurance. 
 
 20. Keedless Strikes and Lockouts. 
 
 We cannot even approximate the waste from Strikes and 
 Lockouts. Professor Walker, in showing the loss of time 
 from irregularity in employment, calls attention to the 
 strike of the London builders in 1859 ; it continued twenty- 
 six weeks, and, had it been successful, would have required 
 ten and two-fifths years' continuous work at the extra rate to 
 make up the loss of wages. In the strike of the weavers 
 of Colne, it would have required twenty-eight years' con- 
 tinuous labor to make up the wages lost."^ Although the 
 amount of loss is not computed here, it was enormous. 
 
 Strikes and Lockouts in Massachusetts during the years 
 1881-1886 cost the workmen $5,152,799 and the employers 
 $2,521,556. For the same period the total loss to employ- 
 ees in the United States was $64,403,035 and to employers 
 $34,163,814.^ We have not the statistics for the years 
 since 1886, but if the loss was at the same rate we should 
 have a total loss to industry of $197,133,698 in a little 
 more than one decade from this cause. The loss since 1886 
 has probably been much greater, since the number of strikes 
 increased rapidly during each of the years 1881-1886. 
 There were in 1886 in Illinois four times as many as in 
 1881, more than twenty times as many in Massachusetts, 
 twice as many in Pennsylvania, and in the whole country 
 about three times as many. Taking the probable increase 
 into consideration, we believe the loss from strikes and 
 lockouts in the foregoing period was not less than $400,- 
 000,000. According to Bradstreet's record, the larger 
 strikes in the United States that failed in 1887 caused a 
 total loss of $10,530,000 in wages alone. The total loss 
 from all strikes during the same time was over $15,000,- 
 000, or 10,000,000 days' time, by 350,000 men. The aver- 
 
 1 "The Wages Question," p. 31. 
 
 2 " mth Annual Report of the Massachusetts Bureau of Statistics of 
 Labor," 
 
THE PREVENTION OP WASTE 319 
 
 age loss to each "workman was one month's wages. This 
 by no means represents the total loss and waste from this 
 cause. In nearly all strikes there is a loss, not only to the 
 individuals and industries immediately concerned, but to 
 society in general. So interdependent are social interests 
 and classes, that when one suffers, the whole suffer. A 
 strike or lockout in a particular industry may paralyze the 
 entire business of the community. Its effects are far- 
 reaching and often disastrous. These facts and figures re- 
 veal a situation the gravity of which will impress even the 
 careless. That this economic waste springs directly from 
 the capitalistic system and is wholly needless, no one will 
 deny. Neither can it be denied that, under Socialism, it 
 could not possibly take place. 
 
 We might mention other sources of economic waste due 
 to the mischievous working of the capitalistic system. We 
 have called attention to such only as Socialism, from its 
 very constitution, would remedy. The aggregate of waste 
 during the last decade in the United States would support 
 handsomely every man, woman, and child in the country 
 during the remainder of their lives. What now has capi- 
 talism to say in the presence of this appalling wastefulness ? 
 It is the result of industrial anarchy, of individualism, for 
 which Socialism is the only remedy. We have character- 
 ized these twenty sources of waste as needless. They are 
 not such, however, under capitalism. On the other hand, 
 they are necessary. They are indigenous to capitalism ; 
 they'spring out of it, as a toadstool springs out of a com- 
 post heap ; they are just as necessary, therefore, as rash 
 to scarlet-fever, or disinfectants in contagious diseases. 
 Neither do we say that nothing can or ought to be done 
 under capitalism to lessen the waste or mitigate its evil 
 effects. Let us by all means employ all economic and social 
 disinfectants at our command ; but it would be far more 
 sensible to strike at the cause of the disease, to adopt as 
 rapidly as possible sanitary measures for the prevention of 
 the evil, — and this is the worthy aim of Socialism. 
 
320 OBJECTIONS TO SOCIALISM CONSIDERED 
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 OBJECTIONS TO SOCIALISM CONSIDERED 
 
 I. — As to the Charge of Atheism. 
 
 " The telief in God is the bond and cement of all human society, and 
 the support of justice." — Plutakch. 
 
 " It must be fairly stated, that their opposition to religion lias no logical 
 connection with their socialistic views." — Pkofessor R. T. Ely. 
 
 It is charged that Socialism is atheistic and materialistic. 
 It is not strange that such a charge has been made ; it would 
 be strange, however, if any well-informed writer should here- 
 after make it. 
 
 The Socialism of to-day is thoroughly Christian. Cer- 
 tain leaders of the earlier French and German Socialism 
 fiercely attacked nearly all social institutions, including 
 the church, and startled society by their blasphemous ut- 
 terances. To-day the real leaders of Socialism are rever- 
 ent, thoughtful, and Christian men and women, among 
 whom are many moral and religious teachers. Socialism 
 has come out from Communism and all other fanatical and 
 Utopian schemes for reforming society. It takes its stand 
 squarely and simply upon the eternal principles of Tight 
 reason, social justice, and neighborly love. It is the prod- 
 uct not of atheistic agitators, but of social and industrial 
 evolution. It has reached that stage of development where 
 it commands the attention of all thoughtful men. 
 
 It is fast being recognized as a new political economy, 
 founded upon the highest type of ethics and the soundest 
 social philosophy. No social movement, not even Chris- 
 tianity itself, ever spread with such rapidity among the 
 masses, or in the same period gathered to itself so many 
 wise and good men, throughout the civilized world. Is it 
 reasonable to suppose such a movement to be inspired by 
 
AS TO THE CHARGE OF ATHEISM 321 
 
 atheism ? Why, then, the charge ? There are two reasons : 
 one is because the irreligion of certain earlier Socialists 
 was hastily inferred to be inherent in the system ; the other 
 is because capitalistic writers found that, in the absence of 
 valid argument, they could discredit Socialism by the charge 
 of atheism. 
 
 We concede, however, the eminently scientific spirit and 
 method of certain Socialists who have weighted the cause 
 with materialistic views. 
 
 Marx would abolish religion. He says, " The critique of 
 religion ends with the doctrine that man is the highest 
 being for men ; and thus with the categorical imperative of 
 overthrowing all relations in which man is a degraded, 
 enslaved, forsaken, contemptible being ; relations which 
 one cannot better describe than by the exclamation of 
 a Frenchman, on occasion of a projected dog-tax, ' Poor 
 dogs! They are going to treat you like men.'"^ The 
 significance of this commiseration may be seen in the fact 
 that dogs actually received better treatment than human 
 beings. To harness women with dogs for carting produce, 
 as is daily done in Paris, is to honor dogs above men. In 
 Berlin the law allows the dog to draw no more than seven 
 kilos, or about sixteen pounds, but puts no limit upon the 
 load a woman may pull. 
 
 The irreligion of certain Socialistic leaders has naturally 
 lead to the impression that Socialism is atheistic, or at 
 least has allied itself with the grossest materialism, and is 
 necessarily the enemy of religion. 
 
 Without entering into an extended refutation of this 
 charge, we will submit several reasons that show con- 
 clusively its falsity. 
 
 1. The tap-root of Socialism on its economic side is its 
 principle as to industrial methods. It advocates the princi- 
 ple of association, rather than that of individualism, in in- 
 dustry ; and this principle, ^e?' se, has no, more to do with 
 atheism or materialism than the multiplication-table. 
 
 2. The social consequences that necessarily follow the 
 adoption of this first principle, some of which we have con- 
 
 1 As quoted in " Communism and Socialism " (Woolsey), p. 247. 
 
322 OBJKliTJONS 'J'd SIKJIALISM CONSIDERED 
 
 sidered in the last chapter, are not only not atheistic, but 
 in the highest degree Christian. 
 
 3. No one of the five postulates of Socialism considered 
 in chapter iii. furnishes the slightest ground for this charge. 
 A whole is equal to all its parts. 
 
 4. The principles of justice, equality, and fraternity 
 among all men, which Socialism always emphasizes, and on 
 which it builds, are the most glorious fruits of a theistic 
 and spiritual religion. 
 
 6. Some of the closest students of Socialism, who are 
 its ablest opponents, candidly admit that atheism and the 
 material philosophy are not inherent in, but accidental 
 to. Socialism. Laveleye says, '•' It is impossible to under- 
 stand by what strange blindness Socialists adopt Darwinian 
 theories, which condemn their claims of equality, while 
 at the same time they reject Christianity, whence those 
 claims have issued and where their justification may he 
 found." The italics are ours. 
 
 Dr. Woolsey, an opponent of Socialism, explains this 
 mystery. He tells us that before Socialism was thought of, 
 France and Germany had lost their faith in Christianity : 
 philosophers, scholars, and leaders of thought generally, had 
 rejected the supernatural, and not only Socialism, but every 
 other ism, would be treated from a materialistic standpoint. 
 " A large part of the thinkers of France, and nearly all of 
 those who leaned toward communism, had discarded Chris- 
 tianity ; but, far worse than this, the great mass of the work- 
 men in Paris and other towns of France were leavened 
 with unbelief in God and Christ." ^ 
 
 In answer to the question, " Has it (Socialism) made the 
 working men atheists ; or were they atheists already ? " 
 he says, " The old German faith had begun to give way 
 within the church or churches themselves some time before 
 socialistic principles were thought of. . . . The free think- " 
 ing which showed itself so mighty a destructive agent in 
 France, spread in Germany. . . . Philosophy, in the shape 
 given to it by Hegel, became pantheistic, and when it went 
 down among the people atheistic. To this source the 
 
 1 " Communism and Socialism," pp. 244, 245. 
 
AS TO THE CHARGE OF ATHEISM 323 
 
 departure of the nation from the faith of the Scriptures 
 must be ascribed. 
 
 So, then, the working class was not so much to blame for 
 their atheism as were those who had the intelligence of the 
 country in their possession." '■ Is this not really conclusive 
 of this charge ? 
 
 It appears that it is not Socialism, but the capitalistic 
 system, with its intelligent leaders, that naturally brings 
 forth atheism and materialism. 
 
 6. It is conceded that Socialism would abolish outright 
 many of the evils condemned by the Scriptures, and which 
 the gospel of Christ, handicapped as it is by the existing 
 economy, is seeking to overcome. 
 
 This is not only not atheism, but Christianity. 
 
 7. Socialism being the application to industry of those 
 rules of human conduct laid down by Jesus Christ, namely, 
 the Golden Rule, love, fraternity, unselfishness, it is the 
 most humane and most just, the most divine and beautiful 
 system ever devised by the human mind and presented to 
 mankind for their adoption. 
 
 8. The early French Socialists paid special honor to 
 Christ. Professor R. T. Ely says of these reformers of 
 1850, " At that time if any one had visited the assembly 
 rooms of a communistic or Socialistic society in Paris, he 
 would in all probability have found there a picture of 
 Christ with these words written under it, 'Jesus of Naza- 
 reth, the first representative of the people.' " ^ 
 
 9. Among the leaders of this movement to-day are min- 
 isters of religion, philanthropists, political economists, 
 public teachers, and writers, who think, independently, and 
 have no interest to serve but the truth. 
 
 Opponents of Socialism can hardly resist the temptation 
 to prejudice the cause in the minds of the people by asso- 
 ciating it with irreligion. Even Dr. Woolsey, forced to eon- 
 cede that faith had given way " before Socialistic principles 
 ■were thought of," proceeds to indulge in a series of a priori 
 
 1 " Communism and Socialism," p. 240. 
 
 2 " French and German Socialism, ".p. 146. 
 
324 OBJECTIONS TO SOCIALISM CONSIDEKED 
 
 speculations, tending to show that the Socialistic state 
 might not be favorable to religion. 
 
 Next to the patience of God must be ranked the patience 
 and long-suffering of the toiling masses with a church 
 founded by Jesus Christ and perpetuated by those profess- 
 ing to be his disciples, but allied with wealth and caste, 
 and upholding a social organization that oppresses and 
 degrades them, and makes the brotherhood taught by 
 Christ 'a farce. 
 
 We are not so foolish as to expect that this charge of 
 atheism will be at once withdrawn. Newspapers and maga- 
 zines must continue to supply what their readers demand. 
 
 Some preachers as yet know little of Socialism, and they 
 are not only uninformed but human. It is just as easy now 
 for a minister to preach himself out of his pulpit as it was 
 in the days of Jonathan Edwards. 
 
 The commercial law of supply and demand obtains too 
 largely between pulpit and pew, although exceptional abil- 
 ity will, of course, admit of exceptional boldness. If- the 
 real causes of irreligion among German working men and 
 Socialists have been such as Dr. Woolsey points out, there 
 is no foundation for the implication contained in such 
 paragraphs as the following : — 
 
 "The International Society proclaims itself atheist. A 
 procession of twenty thousand Socialists, singing ribald 
 songs, passed lately into a cemetery in Berlin through 
 gates on which were inscribed the words : ' There is no 
 hereafter."" What of the fact that probably many 
 times as many individualists in Berlin believe the same 
 doctrine? The infidelity of these Socialists was not 
 due to their Socialism. Thomas Paine and other Eevo-. 
 lutionary patriots were infidels, but this was not due to 
 democracy. Our republic was born on an ebbing tide of 
 religion ; loyalty to liberty and treason to Christianity went 
 hand in hand. Infidelity was cultured and fashionable. 
 When Timothy Dwight entered upon the presidency of 
 Yale College in 1795, " a considerable portion of the class 
 which he first taught had assumed the names of the prin- 
 1 " Labor " (Cook), p. 12. 
 
AS TO THE CHARGE OF ANARCHISM 325 
 
 cipal English, and French infidels, and were more familiarly- 
 known by them than by their own." Socialism is no more 
 responsible for the unbelief of this procession of German 
 Socialists than the love of liberty is for the unbelief of a 
 much larger procession of American patriots. 
 
 When an esoteric and plutocratic faith or a speculative 
 philosophy of religion has blotted out the belief in a here- 
 after, or has emphasized the blessedness of heaven, as com- 
 pensating for the wretchedness of earth, and made such 
 blessedness hereafter an excuse for a capitalistic system 
 that dooms the great body of working men to a hopeless 
 purgatory here, it is hardly consistent to characterize their 
 struggle for industrial freedom and justice as an infidel and 
 atheistic movement. The simple truth is, that Socialists in 
 their philippics against the church have only been demand- 
 ing a return to the principles of the gospel. 
 
 One point is worthy of emphasis in connection with this 
 charge of atheism. It is the demand of socialism for cessa- 
 tion of work on the Sabbath. Sabbath desecration now 
 menaces our civilization. Private enterprise is directly 
 responsible for it. To make money the Sunday trains are 
 run and the Sunday passenger travels ; to make money 
 the Sunday paper is issued ; to make money nearly all Sun- 
 day work is done; and so demoralized is the public con- 
 science, that almost every kind of business can take refuge 
 on Sunday under the segis of necessity and charity. Under 
 Socialism there will be no money to make, and no private 
 interest to serve ; hence no temptation from this source 
 to desecrate the Sabbath. It certainly looks as though the 
 charge of atheism was more applicable to individualism 
 than to Socialism. 
 
 II. — As to the Charge of Anarchism. 
 
 " Socialists and Anarchists, as such, are enemies. They pursue con- 
 trary aims, and the success of the former will forever destroy the fanati- 
 cal hopes of the latter." — Committee of the Socialistic Labor Party. 
 
 It is objected to Socialism that it is Anarchistic. With 
 many people the very word Socialism suggests dynamite 
 
326 OBJECTIONS TO SOCIALISM CONSIDERED 
 
 and assassination. This is owing to three causes. First, 
 certain forms of Socialism in Europe were formerly associ- 
 ated with methods of violence ; second, Socialistic writers 
 often employ such stinging language to express their in- 
 dignation at social wrongs as to suggest violence, although 
 advocates of peaceful methods. Third, the enemies of 
 Socialism lose no opportunity to take advantage of this 
 misconception to intensify popular prejudice. 
 
 " Alton Locke " represents English workmen as resorting 
 to violence. Chartism was anarchism. Was it Socialism ? 
 If so, it has been forgiven. It may be that every great So- 
 cial reform has its revolutionary stage. Such was the 
 case with Christianity, the Reformation of the sixteenth 
 century, and the establishment of constitutional liberty 
 everywhere. If there was ever any sympathy between 
 Socialism and anarchism, it was because they had a com- 
 mon enemy. 
 
 Socialism, however, did not long mistake its mission or 
 its methods. When his Lord was attacked, Peter drew his 
 sword, but sheathed it again at the bidding of the Master. 
 Socialism, in obedience to the same spirit, lays aside all 
 methods of violence, and draws its weapons of warfare from 
 the arsenal of justice, truth, and love. 
 
 Herein it differs from anarchism. Socialism is unselfish ; 
 anarchism is essentially selfish. It differs from both 
 anarchism and communism as follows : — 
 
 Communism means every one according to his need. 
 Anarchism means every one according to his greed. 
 Socialism means every one according to his deed. 
 
 This is not an adequate statement of Socialism, but it is 
 sufficient to distinguish it from communism and anarchism. 
 Socialism would render deeds both possible and necessary 
 to all, and it would make deeds more equal. Social- 
 Ism, like the sacred Scriptures, judges man according to 
 "deeds." It allows him to eat according to his labor, and 
 is no respecter of persons, but says to all men, " Go work 
 in my vineyard." Anarchism is destructive. Socialism is 
 
AS TO THE CHARGE OF ANARCHISM 327 
 
 constructive. The former would lay society in ruins ; tlie 
 latter would regenerate and thus save it. 
 
 A single statement will suffice to show conclusively that 
 Socialism and anarchism are at the antipodes of each other. 
 Anarchism wants no govevnment, while Socialism makes 
 the most of government. 
 
 Anarchism says, — 
 
 " The very best government of all 
 Is that which governs not at all." 
 
 Anarchism and individualism or capitalism are one. 
 With anarchism, laissez-faire (capitalism), regards the State 
 as a necessary evil. 
 
 Laissez-faire with anarchism says, "I want no State 
 interference in industry. Let every man do as he pleases. 
 Away with all government in matters of property and 
 competition." Socialism, on the other hand, regards the 
 State as the highest good, and abhors anarchism or indi- 
 vidualism. A pamphlet published by the National Execu- 
 tive Committee of the Socialistic Labor Party is entitled, 
 " Socialism and Anarchism — Antagonistic Opposites." The 
 writer says, — 
 
 " Socialists and anarchists, as such, are enemies. They 
 pursue contrary aims, and the success of the former will 
 forever destroy the fanatical hopes of the latter." ' 
 
 Herr Bebel, in a speech advocating the Socialist Bill in 
 the German Reichstag, Jan. 26, 1890, declared that the 
 disappearance of anarchism from Germany was due to the 
 efforts of the Socialistic party. 
 
 The significant fact came to light, also, that the friends 
 of capitalism, and even the government, had interested 
 themselves in supporting anarchist movements, and for the 
 sole purpose of confounding its acts and declarations with 
 Socialism, in order thereby to discredit the latter. 
 
 The position of German Socialism, in its opposition to 
 anarchism, is heartily indorsed by American' Socialists. 
 At a meeting of Socialists held in Chicago, Jan. 26, 1890, 
 the resolutions concluded as follows : "We hereby empha- 
 
 1 Quoted in " Tlie Labor Movement in America" (Ely), p. 228. 
 
328 OBJECTIONS TO SOCIALISM CONSIDERED 
 
 size the necessity of Socialists in the United States giving 
 heed to this declaration of the policy and principles of 
 German Socialism, that in this country dynamite agitation 
 has no justification whatever, and its advocates should be 
 recognized and treated as agents of despots, and not as 
 reformers ; and the antagonism between Socialism and 
 their reactionary agitation be kept as well-defined and 
 aggressive as in Germany." 
 
 One of the first votes of the International Socialist Con- 
 gress held at Brussels, Aug. 16, 1891, containing delegates 
 from every civilized country in the world, save Russia and 
 Portugal, was, to expel anarchists. This is the final voice 
 of all Socialists in the world. We submit to the candid 
 reader that this charge of anarchism is utterly groundless. 
 
 III. — As to Equality. 
 
 " Men are born unequal. It is the great benefit of society to diminish 
 this inequality as much as possible, by granting to all security, a com- 
 petency, education, and help." — Joubert. 
 
 Socialism is charged with advocating equality. An emi- 
 nent writer asks, " What will life amount to when men are 
 reduced to a dead level ? " 
 
 Enter into conversation upon the subject of Socialism 
 with the average man, and he will say, " It is useless to try 
 and make all men equal ; you cannot do it." 
 
 There is a vagueness about this charge against Socialism, 
 arising from the fact that equality is an uncertain term. 
 In the first place, no one desires to reduce men " to a dead 
 level." There is no snch thing as a " dead level ; " equality 
 in any such sense is absurd. Does it follow that million- 
 naires and paupers are the only alternative ? 
 
 Socialism recognizes natural inequalities among men, and, 
 wherever these work social injustice, proposes to counter- 
 act their mischievous effects. 
 
 There are natural inequalities that are harmless and even 
 helpful in society : they might more properly be called 
 differences, since the word equality has become closely 
 associated with rights. Capitalism not only aggravates 
 
AS TO EQUALITY 329 
 
 the ills arising from natural inequalities, but creates arti- 
 ficial ones, and so makes a bad matter worse. Socialism 
 resents the imputation that it seeks an equality that would 
 reduce all men to a physical, mental, and moral sameness. 
 It does, however, demand that kind and degree of equality 
 which God and humanity require, but which capitalism 
 denies. It is generally conceded that in some respects all 
 men are equal. They "are born free and equal," whatever 
 that may mean. They have equal rights ; they are equally 
 entitled to the protection of law, and, in a democracy, are 
 equal in respect to political and religious privilege. These 
 equalities are not, indeed, fully realized, owing to disturbing 
 factors ; but they are at least theoretical, and there is a con- 
 stant hope and promise that they will be made actual. 
 Socialism unhesitatingly demands theocratic equality. 
 
 The idea of equality finds something responsive in every 
 human breast. It is the countersign of the nineteenth 
 century. Equality is blazoned on the banner of every 
 reform. It has wrought wonders in modern history. It 
 has tempered laws, founded States, planted the common 
 school, and regenerated the church. The sentiment is not 
 the monopoly of any class or sect. Capitalists and em- 
 ployers everywhere encourage emploj^ees to rise to equal 
 positions ; pupils are urged to equal attainments with the 
 teachers ; the rich often honestly wish the poor were as 
 rich as themselves ; individualists as well as Socialists 
 deplore certain unhappy inequalities in society. The prin- 
 cipal difference between these latter is that Socialists would 
 take the steps necessary to remove these inequalities, while 
 individualists are not ready for measures that involve 
 changes so radical. It is the system that needs to be 
 reformed. 
 
 The present system of economic individualism declares 
 that all men have, socially and individually, an equality of 
 chances ; and this, it is claimed, is all to which they are 
 justly entitled. The poor and .the ignorant may have an 
 equal chance with the rich and wise. Equality of rights, 
 without regard to equalit}- of condition, is all that men may 
 ask. We claim that this principle in the evolution of 
 
330 OBJECTIONS TO SOCIALISM CONSIDERED 
 
 society has become intolerable. History and experience 
 show that the mere equality of chances results in the crush- 
 ing of the unfortunate multitude by the powerful few. 
 
 Individualists assume that the Christian precept, " Bear 
 ye one another's burdens," is merely a charitable sentiment, 
 and should not be recognized by the State ; but that the 
 State should recognize and enforce the opposite principle 
 of selfishness, by which the way is cleared for the strong 
 to prey upon the weak, under the guaranty of legal pro- 
 tection. 
 
 This barbarous principle is incorporated into the organic 
 law of society, and openly justified. An eminent divine 
 writes thus : " The utmost that an enlightened philan- 
 thropy, giving direction to public justice, can safely do, is 
 to clear away the obstacles in a man's path, and to protect 
 him against interference with his natural rights." ^ This 
 reduced to practical terms, in the struggle for life, means 
 that if twenty-four hungry persons, twelve of whom are 
 small and weak, and twelve large and strong, are obliged 
 to run a race for bread, "public justice" can only clear 
 the way, and see that each lets the other alone, while it 
 allows the strong, who are sure to win, to get and keep all 
 the bread, and the weak to take the consequences of their 
 weakness, which is starvation. We protest against any 
 theory of "public justice," or natural rights, which yields 
 conclusions so undivine and inhuman. 
 
 So long as men are unequally endowed, mentally, mor- 
 ally, and physically, the mere equality of chances must re- 
 sult, in a highly organized society, in injustice and cruelty. 
 
 This doctrine of equality of chances is the Darwinian 
 theory of the struggle for existence, with the survival of 
 the fittest, applied to human beings. Socialism, grounding 
 itself upon the principle that no man liveth to himself, 
 would adopt a system that would restrain selfishness and 
 greed on the one hand, and assist the weak on the other ; 
 and thus make possible such an equality as both religion 
 and humanity demand. 
 
 Socialism demands no other equality. If at any time it 
 1 " Socialism and Clivistianity " (Belirends), p. 124. 
 
AS TO EQUALITY 331 
 
 has seemed to place undue emphasis on equality, it is 
 because of the cruel inequality caused by capitalism. Why, 
 then, this charge ? Chiefly because it is intended to convey 
 the idea that Socialism demands an equal division of all 
 existing property. The pulpit, the press, and platform, all 
 give currency to this gross misrepresentation. Nothing could 
 be farther from the truth. Professor B. T. Ely, a most 
 competent critic of Socialism, says no Socialist " advocates, 
 or even desires, an equal division of productive property. 
 What they wish is a concentration of all the means of 
 production in the property of the people as a whole, and 
 the distribution of the income, that is, of the products 
 only, either equally or unequally, according to the views 
 entertained of what is just and expedient." ^ 
 
 A hundred years ago Baboeuf and other leaders of French 
 communism made " equality " the watchword of their 
 party. Their motto was expressed in these words, " The 
 aim of society is the happiness of all, and happiness con- 
 sists in equality." ^ There is a deep truth in this declara- 
 tion ; but there is not a scintilla of truth in the popular 
 inference that has been drawn from it ; namely, that its 
 authors would bring about this ^quality by the distribution 
 of all existing goods and money equally among all members 
 of society. The present competitive system which has 
 wrought these inequalities would do it again within twenty- 
 four hours. " This," says Professor Ely, " is so perfectly 
 obvious, that no communist of note has ever proposed any- 
 thing so childish and absurd." ^ 
 
 Francis Groiilund, a professed Socialist, quotes Pro- 
 fessor Eawcett of England as seriously saying, " If the 
 State divided all lands among the inhabitants, there would 
 gradually arise the same inequality of wealth which exists 
 now ; " and then adds, " that now-a-days no one outside of 
 a lunatic asylum proposes any such thing, and that Pro- 
 fessor Eawcett ought to know it." * Not a trace of such 
 
 1 " The Labor Movement in America," p. 211. 
 
 2 " French and German Socialism " (Ely), p. 34. 
 
 3 Idem, p. 35. 
 
 4 " The Co-operative Commonwealth," p. 107. 
 
332 OBJECTIONS TO SOCIALISM CONSIDBEBD 
 
 an idea can be found in the writings of Marx or Lassalle, 
 and no Socialistic, or even communistic platform ever pro- 
 posed such, a measure. The extent to which this miscon- 
 ception of Socialism has spread, even among the most 
 cultured, is well illustrated by this vehement passage from 
 Mr. Joseph Cook : " Kather than give property Monday 
 morning into the control of men who before Saturday night 
 will have produced inequality again by their own spend- 
 thrift character, we will see to it that in this country sterner 
 regulations are made than now exist to repress heresies and 
 demagogues under universal suffrage." (Applause.) ^ 
 
 At a recent commencement at Smith College, the orator 
 of the day repeated, as an argument against Socialism, the 
 stale incident of one of the Rothschilds offering a laborer, 
 complaining of the inequality of society, a small sum as 
 his share of the banker's wealth. The applause which 
 followed revealed the depth of prejudice and the density 
 of ignorance which still exist among the most intelligent 
 and even learned classes respecting this subject. 
 
 The principles of Socialism, however, have only to be 
 understood to be accepted by candid and disinterested 
 minds ; and they are now commanding attention and gain- 
 ing acceptance at a rapid rate. Men who opposed them 
 yesterday are thoughtful to-day, and will be ashamed to- 
 morrow. The truth will be triumphant. This vulgar notion 
 that Socialism would divide all existing wealth equally 
 among the members of society, will soon be repeated with 
 applause for the last time. 
 
 IV. — As to the Abolition of Capital, 
 
 " Socialists malce no war on capital, strictly speaking. No one but a 
 fool would do such a thing. What Socialists object to is not capital, but 
 the private capitalist." — Professor R. T. Ely. 
 
 The conflict between labor and capital has led the popu- 
 lar mind to regard Socialism as the enemy of capital. 
 
 The destruction of property from time to time by enraged 
 working men and strikers, and the declaration of Socialists 
 
 1 " Socialism," p. 83. 
 
AS TO THE ABOLITION OF CAPITAL 333 
 
 that private property is theft, have tended to confirm the 
 popular opinion. 
 
 We need not be detained but a moment in correcting 
 this false impression. Socialism would abolish not capital, 
 but private capitalists. They have the highest regard for 
 capital, as an essential help in production. 
 
 Proudhon exclaimed, '• Property is the suicide of society ! " 
 but the least acquaintance with his system shows that he 
 means private capital. He declares, in so many words, that 
 " all property becomes . . . collective." Professor Ely in 
 his resume of the teachings of Rodbertus says, he " waged 
 no crusade against land or capital. No one was ever so 
 great a fool as to do that. Every social Democrat, even, 
 admits the necessity of . . . capital. . . . There is the 
 same difference between capital and capitalist as there is 
 between labor and slave. Once he who waged war on 
 slavery was looked upon as a man who was trying to abolish 
 labor. 
 
 " In the future Rodbertus thinks we will separate in the 
 same manner capital and capitalist, and abolish the capi- 
 talist class as we have already abolished the slave-holding 
 class. This does not at all imply equality. Great differ- 
 ences could still exist, but they would be based on merit." ^ 
 
 Marx, a Socialist, and the profoundest thinker and politi- 
 cal economist the century has produced, levelled his re- 
 morseless logic, not against capital, but against capitalists 
 who employed the means of production as the instrument 
 "of exploiting and ruling the laborer." 
 
 The State, in the view of Socialists, should be sole capi- 
 talist and producer, owning a.nd managing all manufactories, 
 railroads, etc. So far from abolishing capital, it is con- 
 fidently asserted that under the new regime the aggregate 
 of capital would be largely increased, since, production 
 would be greatly stimulated from the vastly increased 
 number of laborers and demand for commodities which 
 would at once spring up from the improved condition of 
 the people. 
 
 We are now prepared to judge correctly, statements of 
 
 1 " French and German Socialism," p. 168. 
 
334 OBJECTIONS TO SOCIALISM CONSIDERED 
 
 which the following is representative : " If there were no 
 capitalists, there would be no factories, mills, railroads, 
 machinery, or wages. How can capital be our enemy, when 
 its absence from society would throw us back into a state 
 of barbarism ? Without it we would not travel by rail or 
 by sea, or have anything to wear, except what we made 
 with our own hands. Its enterprise enlarges the field of 
 operation, increases the demand for labor, and enhances its 
 market value." ^ This is heartily approved by a leading 
 religious newspaper, and is probably indorsed by nine out 
 of every ten readers. It bristles with error and misrepre- 
 sentation. It is not true that " there would be no fac- 
 tories," etc., under State ownership, that is, without 
 private " capitalists." It is misleading to use " capitalists " 
 and " capital " as equivalent terms. The question, " How 
 can capital be our enemy ? " implies that somebody claims 
 that it is ; whereas no Socialist, no organization of laborers, 
 no body of men, or writer of intelligence or influence, 
 denies, or even questions, the importance of capital in 
 industry. 
 
 By such misrepresentation and balderdash it is sought 
 to prejudice the people against the new social movement, 
 and to strengthen the foundations of the present system. 
 Such criticisms, so obviously unjust, will defeat their own 
 object. They really help what they oppose, because fair- 
 minded men will befriend with greater zeal the cause they 
 have condemned because of misrepresentation and decep- 
 tion, when once the falsehood is unmasked. 
 
 V. — As to the Confiscation of Property. 
 
 " They (Socialists) are also ready to admit, that . . . they (capital- 
 ists) ought to be fairly compensated." — Mr. Lawkbncb Geonlund. 
 
 This charge against Socialism is made by Mr. Joseph 
 Cook in the following language : — 
 
 " Socialism and Communism have said over and over at 
 
 1 " Natural Law in the Business World " (Mr. Henry Wood). 
 
AS TO THE CONFISCATION OF PBOPEKTT 335 
 
 the mouth of Proudhon, at the lips of Lassalle, and by the 
 pen of Karl Marx, that property in land is robbery. Marx 
 elaborately defended the deeds of the Parisian Commune. 
 Over and over the ringleaders among Socialists have indi- 
 cated their willingness, if they only had the power, to con- 
 fiscate, in whole or in part, property in land, and in all the 
 means of production." (Applause.) ' 
 
 This utterance produces a wrong impression. We have 
 shown conclusively (chap. iii. sect. 11), that Proudhon, Las- 
 salle, and Marx did not intend by " theft " and " robbery " 
 the literal criminal acts denoted by these terms, and which 
 alone give lawful owners an immediate right to the pos- 
 session of stolen property. The eminent critic would not 
 for a moment claim this. There is certainly no hint here 
 of confiscation. 
 
 Where does Mr. Cook find evidence of their " willing- 
 ness " to confiscate property ? In the voluminous writings 
 of Marx, in the eloquent and fervid speeches of Lassalle, 
 or in the stinging words of Proudhon, we find nothing to 
 warrant this implication. Proudhon advocated the pro- 
 gressive abolition of private property by the reduction of 
 rent, interest, etc. Lassalle said, "The transformation of 
 society will be the work of centuries." Marx, in the 
 preface to his great work, "Capital," says the capitalist 
 is the " creature " of " social conditions," and cannot free 
 himself from them. 
 
 Eodbertus thought it would require five centuries to 
 work the needed reform. Babcenf, fifty years. Marx 
 says, " The knell of capitalist private property sounds. 
 The expropriators are expropriated." It does not follow that 
 this is to be done by confiscation. There is no need of 
 confiscation for the transmutation of private into collective 
 capital. It could be accomplished so gradually and with 
 such methods of compensation as to work no injustice or 
 inconvenience. 
 
 Socialists desire this. Will our critic, or any who prefer 
 this unjust charge against Socialism, name a single standard 
 Socialistic writer who advocates confiscation ? Lawrence 
 
 1 " Socialism," p. 83. 
 
336 OBJECTIONS TO SOCIALISM CONSIDERED 
 
 Gronlund, speaking for all Socialists, says of those who give 
 up their possessions, "They ought to be fairly compen- 
 sated." ^ Edward Bellamy,/aci7e jjnwiMs of American Social- 
 ists (nationalists), would indignantly repudiate the idea of 
 confiscation. 
 
 No judgment of Socialists is fair or final which regards 
 only the fanatical utterances of unprincipled agitators. 
 Such, however, must be the " ringleaders " to whom Mr. 
 Cook refers. A careful examination of representative So- 
 cialistic platforms, with one or two exceptions, shows an 
 utter absence of any reference to the confiscation of prop- 
 erty. The permanent statutes of the International Work- 
 ingmen's Association, adopted in London in 1864, declares 
 that Socialists " recognize truth, right, and morality as the 
 basis of their conduct toward one another and their fellow- 
 men, without respect to color, creed, or nationality." ^ This 
 sounds more like the gospel of love than the confiscation of 
 property. 
 
 The Social Democrats of Germany, at their Congress in 
 1880, expelled Most for his extreme anarchistic views. It 
 is anarchy, not Socialism, that would lay unjust and violent 
 hands on property. 
 
 A single group of English Socialists may be said to have 
 sanctioned confiscation. The "Democratic Federation," 
 formed in 1881, of which Mr. Hyndman was a leading mem- 
 ber, says, in a " Summary of the Principles of Socialism," 
 "But is this confiscation ? Ear from it; it is restitution. 
 Those who cry for compensation for past robbery, and 
 shriek confiscation because the right to rob in future is 
 challenged, should bear in mind that the men and women 
 whom we would compensate are those who are now stum- 
 bling, half-clothed and half-fed, from a pauper cradle to a 
 pauper grave, in order that capitalists and landlords may 
 live in luxury and excess. The dead have passed beyond 
 compensation : it will be well if the living do not call for 
 vengeance on their behalf. Our first principle as Socialists 
 is that all should be well fed, well housed, well educated. 
 
 1 "Modem Socialism," p. 12.t. 
 
 2 As quoted in " French and German Socialism" (Ely), p. 184. 
 
AS TO THE CONFISCATION OF PEOPEKTY 337 
 
 For this object we urge forward the revolution which our 
 enemies hysterically shriek at, and frantically try to dam 
 back." ^ This declaration was never representative ; the 
 " Democratic Federation " itself had only bitter denuncia- 
 tions for other classes of Socialists. Nothing could be more 
 unfair than to charge confiscation upon Socialism on account 
 of such sporadic utterances. Mr. Henry George has, indeed, 
 laid himself open to this charge, but he is not a Socialist. 
 Socialism does not indorse even the qualified confiscation 
 which he advocates, and which would apply to land, but not 
 to other kinds of property. He says, " Let the land-owners 
 retain their improvements and personal property in secure 
 possession." ^ 
 
 Socialists, however, do not agree with Mr. G-eorge in pro- 
 posing that the State should take land from its owners 
 without compensation. The owners have acquired title 
 under the sanction and laws of society. The fruit of a life- 
 time of toil may be put by purchase into a piece of land : 
 to take this land without compensation under ordinary cir- 
 cumstances would be both needless and unjust. There are 
 circumstances, however, when all would admit that appro- 
 priation by the State might be both necessary and just: we 
 say appropriation, for confiscation implies punishment, and 
 spoliation is robbery. 
 
 When does such an exigency arise ? When may the 
 State take private property without compensating the own- 
 ers ? There can be but one answer, namely, when the 
 public good requires. 
 
 The right of the State to do this has always been con- 
 ceded and exercised. This sovereign power may not be 
 exercised capriciously or lawlessly, otherwise it could not 
 be justified. 
 
 In a discriminating analysis and defence of private capi- 
 tal, a writer speaks thus, " What if it " [the State] " should 
 leave every owner in possession of his land, and by taxing 
 that land up to its full rental value, take all the value out 
 of it, would it be robbery ? N"o : it would be the quin- 
 
 1 As quoted in " Socialism of To-day " (Laveleye), p. 318. 
 
 2 " Progress and Poverty," p. 330. 
 
338 OBJECTIONS TO SOCIALISM CONSIDEKED 
 
 tessence of robbery ; the act of the highwayman, who should 
 demand your money, take it from your purse, and complai- 
 santly present to you the purse as the sole thing to which 
 you have a right, would be in comparison a mild offence." ' 
 This language is none too strong to characterize the 
 act of the State in wantonly taking private property. It 
 seems, however, to need qualification, so as to recognize the 
 right of the State to take private property if the public 
 good or the safety of the State requires it ; but such quali- 
 fication seems to be excluded by the sweeping statement 
 made on the preceding page, that "the State must in any 
 case preserve all value created by personal sacrifice." 
 Surely the State may, at the sacrifice of all values, pre- 
 serve its life ; and if it may preserve its life, it may main- 
 tain its health. The State is sovereign. It may and does 
 tax land a tenth of its rental value. This is not robbery. 
 Would it be robbery to tax it a fifth of its rental value, 
 should the public good require it ? No. Would it be 
 wrong to tax it any fractional part of its rental value ? 
 ISTo. Then it would not be wrong to tax it "up to its full 
 rental value," if the public good required. Indeed, the 
 State may, if need be, take not only the owner's rent, but 
 his land, all other property, and even life itself, without 
 compensation. It may command him to bare his bosom to 
 the sword of the enemy and die, as it has so often done, for 
 the public weal, and no one charges the State with murder. 
 Why, then, charge it with robbery for taking land or other 
 private property for the same reason ? Is property so 
 much more sacred than life ? Yes ; let us be honest : 
 money under the present economy has become more sacred 
 than life. Ruskin says, " I will tell you, good reader, what 
 would have seemed Utopian on the side of evil instead of 
 good : That ever men should have come to value their 
 money so much more than their lives ; that if you call upon 
 them to become soldiers, and take chance of a bullet 
 through their heart, and of wife and children being left 
 desolate, for their pride's sake they will do it gayly ; but 
 if you ask them for their country's sake to spend a hun- 
 
 1 " Capital and Its Earnings " (Clark), p. 68. 
 
AS TO MAKEIAGB AND THE HOME 339 
 
 dred pounds, without security of getting back a hundred 
 and five, they will laugh in your face." Soldiers in this 
 connection are not an exceptional class. It is monetary 
 not military glory that is god over all. Such is th3 idolatry 
 of mammon, that men constantly hazard life, and yield it 
 up, rather than give up their idol. 
 
 Not a day passes that does not chronicle voluntary death 
 preferred to the loss of possessions. This is the natural 
 outcome of an economy that makes wealth rather than man 
 the centre of its system, and that relegates the divine 
 declaration, " All that a man hath will he give for his life," 
 to the region of sentiment. Over against this deification 
 of wealth Socialism places humanity. It exalts man rather 
 than money, and life for all rather than luxury for the 
 few. It believes, on historical and ethical grounds, that a 
 State founded on other principles contains the germs of 
 social disease which, as they ripen, will rot the whole social 
 structure. 
 
 While holding that political science and common-sense 
 give the State the right to take private property without 
 compensation, when necessary for the public good. Social- 
 ists do not believe that things have come, or will be 
 allowed to come, to that pass when the right must be exer- 
 cised. 
 
 They believe that private capital may become public so 
 gradually, with so little friction, that vested interests will 
 realize no interference, and that capitalists as well as la- 
 borers will rejoice in the change. 
 
 VI. — As to Marriage and the Home. 
 
 ' ' The causes for divorces have been shown by the National Department 
 of Labor at Washington to be largely economic." — Professor R. T. 
 Ely. 
 
 It is objected to the Socialistic state, that it would en- 
 danger the institutions of marriage and the home ; that if 
 capital becomes common, that is, owned by the State, wives 
 will become common, and children will belong to the State ; 
 or, if this extreme is not reached, marriage will be held 
 
340 OBJECTIONS TO SOCIALISM CONSIDERED 
 
 less sacred, children will be less under the influence of 
 parents, and loose relations between the sexes, with all 
 their deplorable consequences, will follow. Dr. Theodore 
 D. Woolsey speaks as follows, " The crime of unchastity 
 would, one may fairly suppose, be peculiarly prevalent 
 under Socialistic institutions ; for, as we have seen, the 
 abolition of inheritance must deduct something from the 
 .importance attached to the family, and the low material- 
 istic views with which Socialism starts must deduct some- 
 thing more ; nor can one discern anything in its institu- 
 tions which is fitted to counteract these unhappy tendencies. 
 Divorce, too, it is probable, would be granted on insufficient 
 grounds, and marriage become an affair of convenience." i 
 These words are deliberate and fairly representative of 
 those individualists who oppose this objection to Socialism. 
 
 Let us see if this charge is sustained by facts. It is 
 admitted that certain phases of communal life in the 
 past have impaired the domestic relations. Some naively 
 argne from the communistic society to the Socialistic state. 
 This is unfair. Dr. Woolsey says, " It can readily be seen 
 that the former must put the family in the background, 
 while the other need not have this effect ; . . . since the 
 communities here [in Socialism] are for industrial purposes 
 only, and nothing more than assemblages of working men, 
 each for the most part having his own home there. Thus 
 the privacies of the family, its separate loves and enjoy- 
 ments and secrets, may there flourish, if no other causes 
 beside the nature of the State prevent." ^ 
 
 Men who know how to weigh evidence will appreciate 
 this admission of a distinguished opponent. 
 
 Socialism, moreover, is not to be judged by the flippant 
 and disgusting utterances of fanatical orators. Capitalistic 
 writers never tire of rehearsing the declaration of Hasen- 
 clever, in an assembly at Berlin, that under Socialism "the 
 bond between the sexes will be simply a moral one ; and 
 then such a bond, if the characters did not harmonize, could 
 be dissolved." 
 
 1 " Communism and Socialism," p. 263. 
 
 2 Ibid., pp. 254, 255. 
 
AS TO MARRIAGE AND THE HOME 341 
 
 Another orator, Jorissen, declared that, " a maiden who 
 disposed freely of her love was no prostitute — she was 
 the free wife of the future. In the State of the future 
 only love should direct the unions of the sexes. Between 
 the married wife and the so-called prostitute there was 
 only a quantitative difference. The children would neces- 
 sarily belong to the State, and the State provide for 
 both." 1 
 
 These utterances, however, are not representative ; they 
 were not approved by the assembly to which they were 
 addressed, and they are indignantly repudiated by the vast 
 majority of Socialists. Dr. Woolsey, after quoting them, 
 says, "It is not quite fair to argue from the expressions of 
 unprincipled leaders of the Socialistic parties in Germany, 
 what will be the feelings and the conduct of the rank and 
 file when they get into the promised land." ^ 
 
 ISTo one charges capitalism with invading the home and 
 encouraging iiiipurity, because certain individualists cham- 
 pion the cause of those who seek to send obscene literature 
 through the mails. It is equally unfair to charge Social- 
 ism with impairing the domestic relations because of the 
 loose views of unprincipled Socialists. 
 
 If, then, no argument can be drawn, either from the 
 nature of the Socialistic state, or "the expressions of 
 unprincipled leaders" in support of this objection, on what 
 ground does it continue to be urged ? We answer, for 
 reasons purely speculative. The able critic just quoted 
 has no real foundation for inferences so positive and im- 
 portant ; he only fears that certain tendencies may be harm- 
 ful, or that this or that may happen. 
 
 One may, he says, "fairly suppose," certain evils might 
 result. It does sound strange to hear this master of 
 dialectics arguing in the following manner: Socialism will 
 abolish inheritance and start with materialistic views ; 
 therefore, "unohastity" would be "prevalent," and "di- 
 vorce be . . . granted on insufficient grounds." 
 
 What links the conclusion with the premise ? Is the 
 
 1 As quoted in " Communism and Socialism" (Woolsey), p. 258. 
 
 2 Ibid. 
 
342 OBJECTIONS TO SOCIALISM CONSIDEEED 
 
 connection so obvious and necessary as to warrant conclu- 
 sions so unqualified and of such tremendous import ? 
 
 The evils of unchastity and divorce would doubtless exist 
 under Socialism. They have grown to frightful proportions 
 under individualism. " The causes for divorce have been 
 shown by the National Department of Labor at Washington 
 to be largely economic." ' It is officially shown that 
 divorces have increased in the United States within the 
 last twenty years more than twice as fast as the population. 
 400,000 divorces within this period is a startling record. 
 It ill becomes individualism, with its 40,000 harlots in the 
 city of New York, to charge unchastity upon Socialism. 
 Materialism, which is also declared to be the cause of these 
 evils, has had its rise and development under capitalism ; 
 but we have seen that Socialism, both in its theory and 
 working, is through and through Christian ; and whatever 
 may be said of past leaders, those who are flocking to its 
 standard to-day are inspired by the Ten Commandments, 
 the Sermon on the Mount, and the gospel of unselfishness. 
 A State that enthrones these principles in the organic law 
 of society will be as likely to restrain vice as one which 
 enthrones and inculcates the pagan and diabolical doctrine 
 of self-interest. 
 
 The effect of the abolition of inheritance upon the 
 family is a most important consideration ; but would it, 
 as Dr. Woolsey says, "deduct something from the impor- 
 tance attached to the family " ? Yes, from some families ; 
 the ones of which he is thinking ; but by as much as it 
 would deduct from the few families, might it not add to 
 the many ? 
 
 Do we forget that under capitalism the vast majority of 
 families in every land have no part or lot in inlieritance ? 
 Inheritance is the vehicle in which family pride is trans- 
 mitted and social caste perpetuated. 
 
 The notion that private property is necessary to family 
 life is nothing new or unnatural. It is the old heathen 
 and feudalistic idea, born of the spirit of caste, and nour- 
 ished by family pride. Exclusiveness and Mammon are 
 1 " Political Economy " (Ely), p. 261. 
 
AS TO MAKEIAGE AND THE HOME 343 
 
 twin demons. Brotherhood as it is in the New Testament 
 can have no fellowship with them. 
 
 The same author says, " The prospect that a life of work 
 would at its end leave a family helpless would tend, by a 
 sort of law of society, to make marriage less desirable than 
 it is now, and less sacred." ^ 
 
 If this rule works both ways, then the more certain a 
 man is that his family will not be left helpless, the more 
 desirable is marriage. 
 
 Now what are the facts ? Exactly the opposite from 
 what is assumed. Under Socialism no faTtiily can he left 
 helpless. In consideration for " a life of work," the State 
 guarantees the necessary support of a man's family. This 
 Dr. Woolsey admits in these words, " It is not, indeed, 
 likely that the State would neglect the care of its helpless 
 ones." 
 
 Thus he shows that Socialism, by caring for the helpless, 
 would render marriage more desirable and sacred, and then 
 infers directly the contrary ! 
 
 A cause is seriously discounted when this le'arned and 
 sagacious writer falls into inconsistency in advocating it. 
 
 The ability of the State to thus care for the helpless 
 cannot be questioned when all the able-bodied work, as 
 God and nature designed. Supplies for convenience and 
 comfort will be so abundant, that children, the sick and 
 aged, and all excusable non-workers, will be amply and ten- 
 derly provided for by the State ; not on the workhouse 
 plan, but according to the dictates of sympathy and kind- 
 ness which prevail in the family, which are demanded by 
 humanity, and which are cornmanded both by the letter and 
 the spirit of the gospel of Christ. 
 
 This argument against Socialism, that marriage would 
 be undesirable, from inability to provide for a family, is 
 remarkable. It is precisely the argument, and one of the 
 strongest ones, that is urged against the present order. In 
 every community there is an increasing number of young 
 people who refuse to marry because mammon will not 
 preside at the nuptials and become the household god. 
 1 " Communism and Socialism" (Woolsey), p. 255. 
 
344 OBJECTIONS TO SOCIALISM CONSIDERED 
 
 Marriage is often a pecuniary if not a social come-down, and 
 there are fewer and fewer unmarried persons who feel able 
 to maintain their standard of living and support a family. 
 
 The capitalist critic who offers this argument, the inabil- 
 ity to support a family, — one of the most cruel features 
 of individualism, against Socialism which guarantees such 
 support, — confesses that he is out of ammunition. 
 
 It is the capitalistic system that now leaves the great 
 majority of families helpless, and it is to remedy just this 
 disastrous state of things that furnishes the ground and 
 hope of Socialism. 
 
 Inheritance is a sine qua non of society as now consti- 
 tuted. Capital, contract, and competition, individual and 
 free, all centre in one fundamental principle, namely, let 
 each individual get and keep every possible advantage 
 over his fellows. Under such a regime, inheritance is 
 prime minister. 
 
 Dr. Woolsey says, "Whatever motives, therefore, drawn 
 from the hope of leaving an inheritance to a wife and 
 children, act upon men in society as it now is, to promote 
 thrift and heighten family affections, nearly all these will 
 be lost when society shall suffer the changes which the 
 Socialists threaten." ^ That such salutary motives operate 
 " in society as it now is," is an important fact. Socialism, 
 however, does not propose to leave " society as it now is." 
 The abolition of inheritance under the present system, 
 should it remain otherwise intact, might work the evils 
 complained of ; but it is unwarrantably assumed that the 
 same evils would also exist under Socialism, wherein the 
 conditions are entirely changed. 
 
 Inheritance, however, even now, does not always " pro- 
 mote thrift and heighten family affections." There is a 
 darker side to this institution. Unthrift is frequently its 
 offspring. By enabling many to live in idleness and lux- 
 ury, it cuts the nerve of eJI healthy endeavor and aspira- 
 tion. It causes children to be reared without learning the 
 lesson of sacrifice and discipline, and causes young men to 
 take "the portion of goods that falleth" to them and 
 1 " Communism and Socialism " (Woolsey), p. 255. 
 
AS TO MARRIAGE AND THE HOME 345 
 
 become prodigals, wasting their substance with riotous liv- 
 ing. It renders its possessors incompetent and shiftless ; 
 it nourishes pride, vanity, and caste ; it breeds a clasS\ of 
 worthless pleasure-seeking dilettanti ; it continually ruins, 
 or renders unworthy and thriftless, multitudes who would 
 otherwise have been self-reliant, self-sustaining, useful 
 members of society. Inheritance, as our author says, does 
 promote thrift ; but where it promotes thrift in one, it ren- 
 ders a hundred others unthrifty, wasteful, and weak. 
 
 Our author says, again, that inheritance "heightens fam- 
 ily affections." It does, but it also blights them ; and this 
 is the most damaging charge against the institution. Every- 
 where families are quarrelling over wills. The inscription 
 over the door of our probate courts is not " family affec- 
 tion," but "family feuds." 
 
 There is no more pitiful and shameful spectacle than to 
 see kindred fighting over the property of their beloved dead. 
 
 What is it that enters into a family circle where all is 
 love, gentleness, and peace, and begets suspicion, jealousy, 
 and alienation ? Inheritance. What is it that converts 
 brothers and sisters into bitter and life-long enemies ? 
 Inheritance. What drags the family into courts of jus- 
 tice, and lays bare to the public eye and ear the family 
 secrets and all the privacy of the home ?• Inheritance. 
 What causes the enormous waste in litigation, frequently 
 consuming the entire estate in the contesting of a will ? 
 Inheritance. Why are aged parents neglected and desired 
 to die ? Inheritance. Why is the maker of a last will 
 and testament congratulated on account of his clear mind 
 and sound judgment, and then as soon as he is dead 
 declared by the same parties to have been demented ? 
 Inheritance. Why are unsuspecting testators murdered ? 
 Inheritance. It is inheritance that begets the lust of 
 money and stirs the bad blood in human nature. " From 
 whence come wars and fightings among you ? Come they 
 not hence even of your lusts that war in your members ? 
 Ye lust, and have not ; ye kill, and desire to have, and can- 
 not obtain." ' Inheritance " heightens family affection " ! 
 1 James iv. 1, 2 
 
346 OBJECTIONS TO SOCIALISM CONSIDERED 
 
 To what height does it lead this " affection " ? It takes it 
 to the point where the Devil took Jesus, even to the 
 pinnacle of the temple, but only to let it fall a greater 
 distance, that it may be dashed in pieces. The evils of 
 inheritance, of which the destruction of "family affection" 
 is not the least, have become so numerous and aggravated, 
 that the words, " This is the heir ; come let us kill him, and 
 let us seize on his inheritance," are no longer a parable, but 
 a daily fact in this capitalistic world. 
 
 It will strike the candid reader as at least singular that 
 this defender of capitalism should have seen in the insti- 
 tution of inheritance only an unqualified good ; that he 
 should have entirely ignored tendencies notoriously evil, 
 and which were plainly pertinent to the subject in hand. 
 
 It is proper now to observe that certain forms of inherit- 
 ance need not be abolished under Socialism. There is a 
 kind of inheritance that, like mercy, is " twice blessed ; it 
 blesses him that gives , and him that takes." It pertains 
 to household belongings, heirlooms, etc. It carries with 
 it genuine family affection : it preserves the memory 
 of ancestors ; and this, if they were good and noble, is 
 the richest legacy children can inherit. Socialism would 
 encourage this kind of inheritance. We need to bear in 
 mind continually the distinction between the terms prop- 
 erty and capital. In the Socialistic state family property 
 will be just as sacred as at present ; but family capital will 
 not exist. A family, however, may have continued posses- 
 sion of a house, own all its furnishings and all the means 
 essential to family enjoyment and life. 
 
 The great majority of families to-day in every land own 
 no capital, but the family life is as intact and the marriage 
 relation as sacred as among the- capitalistic class. Nay, 
 it is more sacred. The proportion of divorces for " cause " 
 is much greater among the well-to-do than among the 
 poorer classes ; indeed, among the Irish population, who 
 have the least capital, the marriage relation, and to their 
 praise be it said, is held the most inviolable. Socialism 
 is the principle of associated capital expanded so as to 
 embrace all parties interested. This principle is now 
 
AS TO MARRIAGE AND THE HOME 347 
 
 asserting itself as never before, in the formation of great 
 stock companies, trusts, and other forms of combination. 
 Do we discover any logical connection between the asso- 
 ciation of capital and community of wives or looser relation 
 between the sexes ? • It is in order for those who entertain 
 this view to show that the families of the stockholders of 
 great corporations are specially demoralized. 
 
 The people, in their associated capacity as the State, now 
 control many social and economic interests, without a hint 
 from any quarter that our homes are being endangered, or 
 the relation of the sexes being disturbed thereby. And yet 
 it is confidently asserted that we have only to extend the 
 principle of industrial association till all the people get the 
 benefit of it ; that is, till we reach the co-operative com- 
 monwealth, to find the lid of this ill-omened Pandora's box 
 flying open and the dreadful contents let loose to prey 
 upon society. 
 
 Why, it may be asked, is this objection urged against 
 Socialism, if it cannot be drawn either from the nature of 
 the Socialistic state or the utterance of irresponsible lead- 
 ers ? The answer is not difficult. It is not alone that 
 private property mobilizes for its defence the strongest 
 desires and intensest passions of the human breast, which 
 lead men to seize upon any and every argument, however 
 sophistical, that can be urged to excite popular prejudice 
 against any system that attacks it; nor is it alone the 
 fact that the reputation and power of those who seek to 
 defend the present system depend upon their loyalty to 
 it ; but it is due largely to the fact that many writers have 
 supposed that a real analogy existed between certain 
 ancient and mediaeval schemes for the improvement of 
 society, and modern Socialism. 
 
 Plato, in his " Republic," advocates both community of 
 property and- wives. Thomas Campanilla, in the " City 
 of the Sun," published in 162.3, sets forth an ideal social 
 state in which private property is abolished, and, as a con- 
 sequence, the family ; for since no man can own a house, 
 he cannot maintain a wife and children. He says, " The 
 spirit of property increases among us only because we 
 
348 OBJECTIONS TO SOCIALISM CONSIDEEED 
 
 have each a house, a wife, and children of our own' 
 Thence comes selfishness ; for in order to raise a son to 
 honors and riches, and to make him heir of a great fortune, 
 we dilapidate the public treasure, if we can control others 
 by our wealth and power ; or, if We are feeble, poor, and of 
 an obscure family, we become avaricious, perfidious hypo- 
 crites." ^ 
 
 The " City of the Sun," buried in oblivion for centuries, 
 seems to have been resurrected for the sole purpose of dis- 
 crediting, by its offensive doctrine respecting marriage, the 
 idea of the co-operative commonwealth. 
 
 Such are the nauseating fossils raked up from pagan 
 rubbish and mediaeval refuse, and paraded before the public 
 to give them an idea of what Socialism really is from a 
 historical, and hence, presumably, correct point of view ! 
 Opponents of Socialism understand full well the advantage 
 secured if they can ally Socialism with those forces that 
 endanger the home. 
 
 Home is a precious word. It is the foundation of what- 
 ever is pure, beautiful, and enduring in human society. 
 Wise and good men are just now sensitive on the subject 
 of the home, since some nefarious influence, whether the 
 insidious spirit of individualism or not, is at work invading 
 its sanctity, demoralizing and separating husbands and 
 wives and children. 
 
 Any movement that threatens the home is doomed before- 
 hand. It is not strange, therefore, that opponents of Social- 
 ism should avail themselves of this argument, if it has a 
 shadow of plausibility. It is, however, as we have already 
 intimated, aji argumentum ad populum. 
 
 The author of " The Co-operative Commonwealth " is 
 sharply criticised by a writer for the looseness and flip- 
 pancy of his views of marriage and the home. 
 
 A careful perusal of all that Mr. Gronlund says on this 
 subject will lead many to feel that, so far from impairing 
 the domestic relations, he champions the cause of woman 
 and the home in a way to cause even the brazen cheeks of 
 capitalism to blush with shame. He says, " Socialists are 
 
 As quoted in " Communism and Socialism " (Woolsey), pp, 93, 91. 
 
AS TO JIAIiKIAGE AND THE HOME 349 
 
 charged ignorautly or insidiously with attempting to de- 
 stroy the family. Why ! we want to enable every man 
 and woman to form a happy family ! " ' He would have 
 women paid at the same rate with men for equal work. 
 He deplores the savage competition to which women are 
 subject, and which keeps them underpaid and overworked. 
 He demands that women shall be employed only at work 
 suitable to their sex and strength ; that they should not be 
 compelled to stand on their feet from morning till night ; 
 that the difference between the sexes in temperament, taste, 
 muscle, and other physiological respects should be recog- 
 nized in "special vocations of the sexes;" that women 
 shall have " economic equality ; " that is, be economically 
 free, and not in bondage, as is now too often the case ; that 
 no woman should be forced for the sake of support to 
 marry the man she did not love, as is now often and notori- 
 ously the case ; that she should " have fuller opportunities 
 than she ever yet has had of developing her specific gifts 
 of womanhood." 
 
 As to public occupations under Socialism he says, "Noth- 
 ing will prevent the daughters from remaining at home, 
 assisting their mothers or caring for their fathers, and 
 nothing will compel married women to neglect their do- 
 mestic affairs. It simply means that every woman will be 
 enabled to earn her oVn living, honorably and pleasantly, 
 whenever she chooses to do so ; and this power is essential 
 to the dignity of woman, whether married or single." 
 
 He advocates, in accordance with the soundest principles 
 of private morality and social order, " early and universal 
 marriages," and quotes approvingly John S. Mill's state- 
 ment that " The family . . . should be the school of sym- 
 pathy, tenderness, and loving forgetfulness of self," instead 
 of "a school of wilfulness and overbearingness and un- 
 bounded self-indulgence on the part of its chief because, in 
 the eye of the law, the wife is nothing bu# the husband's 
 property." 
 
 He deprecates the necessity " of married women to 
 earn their own living," and rightly claims that, in this 
 
 i "Modo'ii Socialism," p. 208. 
 
350 OBJECTIONS TO SOCIALISM COKSIDEKED 
 
 respect, the capitalistic era is destroying family life. He 
 denies that Socialism will favor divorce, although it will 
 facilitate it where there is mutual dislike between husband 
 and wife, and " their union is an unmitigated evil to both, 
 and not the least to their children, if they have any ; " and 
 finally he would mercifully apply the principle of co-opera- 
 tion, so as to relieve women of the drudgery in housekeep- 
 ing, but without " sacrificing one jot of privacy or real 
 home life," and this in order to give them " leisure, the pre- 
 requisite for all development, all education." ^ Such is the 
 exalted view of woman, and of the necessity and sacredness 
 of the home, that is characterized by the author of " Social- 
 ism and Christianity " as " nauseating reading, from the 
 heartless flippancy and cheap sprightliness with which the 
 domestic problem is discussed, and from the apparent ab- 
 sence of all suspicion that here is an ethical element in the 
 marriage contract." ^ 
 
 Mr. Gronlund does not pretend to treat marriage directly 
 from its ethical or religious side, but merely as it will be 
 affected "by refashioning economic relations." 
 
 His indignation at the present degradation of woman 
 and the home, wrought, as he thinks, by the capital- 
 istic system, leads him to characterize too severely, if that 
 is possible, the "dainty lady " who had married a rich man, 
 not for love, but for his money ; that is, had sold herself to 
 him, "sweeping by a fallen sister, as if fearing that the 
 hem of her garment might be touched and defiled." He is 
 clearly in error in supposing that the only difference be- 
 tween these women is one of degree. Neither is it neces- 
 sary to agree with him that Socialism would or ought to 
 facilitate divorce, even when the " union is an unmitigated 
 evil" to both husband and wife. He may also be justly 
 open to criticism in other particulars ; but how a writer so 
 candid and discriminating as the author of " Socialism and 
 Christianity " can see only defects, and nothing of merit, in 
 these exalted views of woman and the family, inspired as 
 they manifestly are by an earnest and honest desire to im- 
 
 1 " Modem Socialism," p. 208. 
 
 2 " Socialism aud Christianity " (Behrends), p. 279. 
 
AS TO MAERTAGE AND THE HOME 351 
 
 prove their material and moral condition, can characterize 
 the "entire chapter" as "nauseating reading" is diflB.cult 
 to understand. 
 
 Even Christian ministers will not be able to see any good 
 thing come out of Socialism so long as they look at it only 
 through capitalistic glasses, No matter how keen the 
 vision, prejudice will obscure the truth as effectually as 
 snuffers extinguish the candle. 
 
 How, for example, can our distinguished critic justify 
 the following remark ? " The plan of massing the children 
 in great structures, under public care, is one against which 
 the objections are many and unanswerable." ' Is it in- 
 tended to strike a blow at our public school system ? This 
 is precisely what this system now does. Is it rather in- 
 tended to represent Socialism as proposing to commit chil- 
 dren wholly to the care of the public ? No living Socialist 
 desires to do any such thing : why, then, the remark ? Why 
 follow it up by showing how "mortality would be enormously 
 increased," " affections would be blighted," etc. ? Will it 
 not be time enough to attribute these direful evils to Social- 
 ism when Socialists advocate any measure which necessitates 
 them, or when these dreadful fruits cease to grow so luxu- 
 riously on the existing tree of individualism ? Construc- 
 tive Socialism, if it ever laid itself open to such criticism, 
 has a right to demand judgment on what it is rather than 
 on what it was. It protests against the practice of seizing 
 upon the chimerical statements of extremists, made while 
 it was in the throes of birth, or yet in its swaddling 
 clothes, but which have been outgrown and rejected by the 
 scientific development and formulation of its principles, 
 and parading them before the inquiring public as the Social- 
 ism that now pleads for recognition. 
 
 We confess our inability to reconcile this charge preferred 
 against Socialism by this critic, namely, that it tends to 
 destroy the family, with precisely the same charge which 
 he makes against the present social regime. '• It is not so 
 much Socialism that has created a revolt against the Chris- 
 tian doctrine of marriage, as it is the prevalence of low 
 
 1 " Socialism and Cliiistiaiiity " (Behrends), p. 282. 
 
352 OBJECTIONS TO SOCIALISM CONSIDERED 
 
 views of wedded life and tlie facility of divorce that have 
 produced Socialistic theories of the relation between the 
 sexes. The philosophy of domestic life, like that of indus- 
 trialism, has been practically atheistic. . . . The secularism 
 of modern industrialism has invaded the domain of home, 
 and its treatment of the latter has been as atheistic as that 
 of the former." ^ Socialism, after all, is not a cause but a 
 result of '■ low views of weddedlife " ! It is not Socialism, 
 but capitalisTti, "modern industrialism," that walks hand in 
 hand with an atheistic "philosophy of domestic life." 
 
 It is inconsistent to say that " modern industrialism " 
 has produced low views of marriage, and then assume that 
 Socialism, a system directly the opposite, would do the 
 same thing. 
 
 But this concession accords with the claim of Socialists 
 and with the truth. It is the capitalistic system that men- 
 aces the home, — ■ earth's purest and grandest institution. 
 
 We heartily indorse all that our critic so admirably says 
 as to the social position and importance of the home. 
 
 It is said that the family, rather than the individual, is 
 the unit of society. What is understood by this expression ? 
 The family is not the unit of society in any such sense as 
 to reduce the increasing millions of men, women, and chil- 
 dren without homes to zero ; nor in any such sense as to 
 cause the entire household of the next Achan convicted of 
 theft to be stoned along with the thief ; nor in any such 
 sense as to ignore the civil rights of individual members 
 of a family. 
 
 The family is indeed a divine institution ; so, also, is 
 every individual, however poor, weak, ignorant, or helpless, 
 a divine institution. 
 
 The family cannot be the unit of society, if we use words 
 in their ordiflary acceptation. A unit is a " sinc/le tiling or 
 person;" a single person is not a family, therefore the fam- 
 ily is not the unit of society. 
 
 This is not quibbling. A unit is one; a family consists 
 of more than one. If the family is the unit of society, 
 
 1 " Socialism and Christianity " (Behrends), pp. 274, 275, 
 
AS TO MARRIAGE AND THE HOME 353 
 
 what are the 60,000 unmarried women and the 60,000 
 unmarried men in the State of Massachusetts ? They 
 would each resent being called less than one, and none of 
 them claim to be more. Great Britain contains 900,000 
 more women than men ; Germany 1,000,000 more ; Sweden 
 and Norway 260,000 more ; Austria 60,000. In the United 
 States, Canada, and Australia there are, on the other hand, 
 1,000,000 more men than women. These figures repre- 
 sent only a part of the people in these several countries 
 who are independent of the family relation. Is society to 
 make abstraction of them on this account ? The unit of 
 society is not the family, but the individual who is the inte- 
 gral part of the society. Municipal law also regards the 
 individual as complete in himself, and even makes married 
 people separately and individually amenable to law. In 
 the same way the laws of God deal with the individual, 
 rather than the family, as the unit of society. Human 
 and divine laws regulate domestic relations, if people choose 
 to enter into them ; but these regulations do not supersede 
 the laws which relate to individuals as social units. Neither 
 jurisprudence nor social science regards the family as the 
 unit of society ; the idea has no support from Christian 
 Scriptures. These authorities emphasize the sacredness of 
 marriage and the family, but they nowhere hint that the 
 family, rather than the individual, is the unit of society. 
 
 Nothing so seriously hinders progress in social science 
 as cant. It appears upon the threshold of every reform, 
 and with regal authority commands progress to halt in the 
 high and mighty name of custom, law, and religion. Truth, 
 however, is potential, and is ever breaking through the social 
 forms in which it temporarily crystallizes. Truth alone is 
 catholic, consistent, and permanent. No fact is rightly 
 held when it is found to conflict with other established 
 truths, whether in the same or another science or system. 
 To hold that the family is the unit of society is to deny 
 the universally recognized relations of the individual as the 
 social unit. Socialism does not exalt the individual or 
 the State above the family in such manner as to impair the 
 value or sacredness of the family, which is essential to the 
 
354 OBJECTIONS TO SOCIALISM CONSIDERED 
 
 highest and most Christian form of society. On the con- 
 trary, it would vastly increase the number and happiness of 
 homes, and secure the better training of children. It would 
 increase, rather than diminish, the sense of parental respon- 
 sibility. Parents knowing that the position of their chil- 
 dren depended entirely on merit, rather than money, would 
 take care to give them the best possible training. This is 
 only natural. When social and political preferment is 
 based on character, the home and society itself will wear a 
 brighter and more hopeful aspect than at present. 
 
 It is, as our critic admits, "modern industrialism" that 
 invades the sanctity of the home and causes domestic unity 
 to depart. Competition compels women and children to 
 become practically homeless in the struggle for bread. 
 Marriage is contract, and under freedom of contract it 
 tends to become nothing else. But it is of the very essence 
 of contract, that it may be avoided when both parties agree 
 thereto. 
 
 The spirit of mercantilism has polluted the stream of 
 love and virtue till the most sacred human relation is often 
 made a matter of commerce. 
 
 Welcome Socialism or any other system that will tend to 
 remove the domestic cancer that threatens the home, and 
 with it our religion and civilization. 
 
 This objection against Socialism is seen to have no foun- 
 dation, either in the principles or the philosophy of Social- 
 ism, or in the nature of the Socialistic state. The ablest 
 and most comprehensive critiques of Socialism by Laveleye 
 and Rae give no hint of it in their table of contents. It 
 is a far-fetched, unnecessary deduction, based on social 
 schemes of former philosophies, the materialism and free- 
 love views begotten of capitalism, the coarse utterances of 
 unprincipled leaders respecting marriage, and the traditional 
 belief, doubtless true, that an aristocracy of birth, or family 
 distinction, can only be maintained by private wealth. 
 
 The objection rests on purely a priori speculations, and 
 the reasons put forth to sustain it are not axiomatic, but 
 inferential. The Socialism of to-day wears an aspect wholly 
 different from that of the Socialism of ten or even five 
 
AS TO THE EQUAL VALUE OE ALL LABOR-TIME 355 
 
 years ago. It is no longer merely political, but ethical ; it 
 is more gentle, philanthropic, and Christian, and as such is 
 drawing multitudes to its standard. 
 
 VII. — As to the Equal Value of all Labor-Time. 
 
 "All labor of a higher or more complicated character than average 
 labor is expenditure of labor-power of a more costly kind ; labor-power 
 whose production has cost more time and labor, and which, therefore, has 
 a higher value than unskilled or simple labor-time. This power being of 
 higher value, its consumption is labor of a higher class ; labor that creates 
 in equal times proportionally higher values than unskilled labor does." 
 
 Karl Mabx. 
 
 It is charged against Socialism that it proposes to pay 
 the same price for all kinds of work on a simple time basis. 
 For example, equal hours of labor, whether of sweeping or 
 superintending the streets, whether of wiping or driving 
 an engine, should be regarded as equivalent in value. Thus 
 all kinds of work will be put upon the same level; the 
 hod-carrier would receive equal pay with the mason, the 
 ^water-boy with the conductor, the yard-hand in the mill 
 with the superintendent. 
 
 We are told that labor-time alone, quantity of labor, ir- 
 respective of quality or conditions, determines the amount 
 of recompense. This is objected to as both unjust and 
 absurd. Does Socialism advance this doctrine ? That it is 
 charged with it may be seen from nearly all its recent 
 critics. Dr. Woolsey says, "It is impossible to count 
 hour's work in different employments as having the same 
 value; or to put difficult or dangerous work by the side 
 of easy or safe work, as though they ought to be sub- 
 jected to the same measure ; or to give equal rewards to 
 intellectual and artistic work and to that performed by the 
 common operative." ^ 
 
 Mr. Eae thus paraphrases Marx in "Das Kapital:" 
 "Value, then, is quantity of abstract labor; and now what 
 is quantity of labor ? How is it to be ascertained ? Labor 
 is the exertion or use of man's natural powers of labor, and 
 the quantity of labor is measured by the duration of the 
 1 " Communism and Socialism," pp. 165, 166. 
 
356 OBJECTIONS TO SOCIALISM CONSIDEEED 
 
 exertion. Quantity of labor is tlius reduced to time of 
 labor, and is measured by hours and days and weeks." ' 
 
 Tliat Mr. Rae by the quotation, " Quantity of labor is 
 measured by the duration of the exertion," represents 
 Marx as placing the same value upon all hours of concrete 
 work, whatever be the occupation, is evident from the fol- 
 lowing statement, which he naively quotes from Marx: 
 " A day's labor of given length always turns out a product 
 of the same value." ^ 
 
 Thus put into circulation by the ablest critics of Social- 
 ism, this charge has become widely current, and is contin- 
 ually reiterated from the press and platform. In reply, we 
 say, first, it is not true ; and secondly, if it were true, that 
 is, had a few Socialists indulged in this sentiment, it would 
 no more discredit Socialism than the crusades or its other 
 excrescences discredit Christianity. Socialism, like Chris- 
 tianity, consists of a body of. principles admitting of great 
 variety and latitude of expression and application. 
 
 1. This charge is inherently unreasonable and absurd. Is 
 it natural to suppose that men of learning and sound judg- . 
 ment, like Eodbertus and Marx, would claim that health in 
 occupation is of no account ? That, for an example, the man 
 who inhales sixty times as much carbonic acid gas as the 
 laborer in pure air, should receive no more than the latter 
 for one hour's labor, or should work the same number of 
 hours for the same pay, which amounts tO the same thing ? 
 Shall occupations that endanger life and limb, and in 
 which the record of mortality is frightful, be put on a par 
 V ith those wherein is perfect safety ? 
 
 Is the severest strain on mind, muscle, and nerve, to re- 
 ceive the same compensation per hour as the most indiffer- 
 ent, happy-go-easy sort of work ? skill that has cost half 
 a lifetime and an outlay of thousands of dollars, to be paid 
 no more than the young, green hand who picks up a shovel 
 or broom for the first time ! Such are the interrogations 
 and exclamations indulged in by people who really believe 
 that Socialism indorses such absurdities. They remind us 
 
 ' " Contemporary Socialism," p. 162. 
 2 md., p. 152. 
 
AS TO THE EQUAL VALUE OF ALL LABOE-TIME 357 
 
 of the poor ignorant whites in the South during the war, 
 who assured us that when they first saw the Yankees, they 
 were surprised to find them without horns and tails, which 
 they had been told by their leaders all Yankees possessed. 
 
 2. The alleged quotation from Marx, which furnishes the 
 foundation of Mr. Rae's criticism, is a glaring misquotation : 
 it is that, " a day's labor of given length always turns out 
 a product of the same value." Marx says nothing of the 
 kind in his great work on capital, neither does any other 
 Socialistic writer regarded as authority. 
 
 The words of Marx, in "Das Kapital," which Mr. Eae is 
 criticising, are, " The same labor, exercised during equal 
 periods of time, always yields equal amounts of value." ^ 
 Marx shows that even this rule would be varied by dif- 
 ferent degrees of production ; it holds only caeteris pari- 
 bus. It is then " the same labor," and not " a day's labor," 
 in any occupation that produces equal values. The two 
 statements are as wide apart as the poles of the earth. 
 The former is eminently true ; the latter eminently untrue, 
 and even ridiculous. Furthermore, Marx does not mean by 
 the "same labor" concrete labor at all, but average social 
 labor ; that is, labor in the abstract. This renders the mis- 
 representation still more glaring. Mr. Eae's quotation is 
 thus seen to be a false witness, doing the greatest injustice 
 to Marx. It has not even the merit of a caricature, which 
 generally deceives no one ; while thi^ misrepresentation is 
 caught up and believed, not only by newspapers and maga- 
 zines which touch lightly on the profoundest themes, but 
 also by eminent writers who have, until recently, been 
 obliged to accept their knowledge of Marx at second hand, 
 and is made the occasion of animadversion and ridicule, 
 which have filled the popular mind with prejudice and even 
 indignation. 
 
 3. The utter groundlessness of the charge under con- 
 sideration is at once apparent when Dr. Woolsey's stric- 
 tures are carefully examined. 
 
 In his chapter on " The Theory of Marx," he says, " It is 
 impossible to count hours of work in different employ- 
 1 " Das Kapital," pp. 13, 14. 
 
368 OBJECTIONS TO SOCIALISM CONSIDERED 
 
 merits as having the same value ; or to put difficult or 
 dangerous work by the side of easy or safe work, as though 
 they ought to have the same measure," etc. He does not 
 claim to give the exact words of Marx, but only the idea. 
 Marx is represented as counting all hours of work, of what- 
 ever kind, as having the same value. One of "common" 
 is equated to one hour of "skilled" labor; one hour of 
 work of " the common operative " to one hour of " intel- 
 lectual and artistic work." 
 
 Let Marx reply to this parody on his views. " Skilled 
 labor counts only as simple labor intensified, or rather, as 
 multiplied simple labor, a given quantity of skilled being 
 considered equal to a greater quantity of simple labor. . . . 
 A commodity may be the product of the most skilled labor, 
 but its value, by equating it to the product of simple, un- 
 skilled labor, represents a definite quantity of the latter 
 labor alone. The different proportions in which different 
 sorts of labor are reduced to unskilled labor as their stand- 
 ard, are established by a social process that goes on ,behind 
 the backs of the producers, and, consequently, appears to be 
 fixed by custom. For simplicity's sake we shall hence- 
 forth account every kind of labor to be unskilled, simple 
 labor ; by this we do no more than save ourselves the 
 trouble of making the reduction." ' 
 
 Throughout his monumental work, Marx adheres to this 
 rule, which, indeed, is the only scientific basis on which the 
 discussion can proceed. 
 
 So far from counting " hours of work in different occu- 
 pations as having the same value," Marx distinctly recog- 
 nizes the different sorts of concrete labor as having for 
 equal hours different values. So far from equating one 
 hour's work of "the common operative" to one hour of 
 " intellectual and artistic work," as Dr. Woolsey alleges, 
 he sharply distinguishes " simple," common labor from 
 skilled labor. " Skilled labor counts " not as simple, but 
 as " simple labor intensified, or rather as multiplied simple 
 labor." Notwithstanding his plain and emphatic words, 
 " A given quantity of skilled being considered equal to a 
 
 1 " Capital," pp. 11, 12. 
 
AS TO THE EQUAL VALUE OF ALL LABOR-TIME 359 
 
 greater quantity of simple labor," his critic persists in rep- 
 resenting him as counting " hours of work in different 
 employment as having the same value." What is the more 
 remarkable, Marx nowhere employs any dicta in which this 
 egregious misrepresentation can take refuge ; on the con- 
 trary, he repeatedly emphasizes the difference in value of 
 different kinds of work for the same periods of time ; " all 
 labor of a higher or more complicated character than aver- 
 age labor, is expenditure of labor-power of a more costly 
 kind, labor-power, whose production has cost more time 
 and labor, and which therefore has a higher value than un- 
 skilled or simple labor-power. This power being of higher 
 value, its consumption is labor of a higher class, labor that 
 creates in equal times proportionally higher values than un- 
 skilled labor does." ^ * 
 
 The italics are ours. Further citations are unnecessary. 
 It is evident that Marx has been misunderstood and mis- 
 represented. The charge that he advocated the same pay 
 per hour for all sorts of work has no foundation, save in 
 the imagination of Dr. Woolsey, Mr. Rae, and others, who 
 have given it wide circulation. The bubble is no sooner 
 pricked by the truth than it collapses. The false impres- 
 sions created cannot, however, be so readily counteracted. 
 
 These critics, though unfriendly, doubtless intended to 
 be fair. Dr. Woolsey was the embodiment of candor and 
 fairness, but he was a born aristocrat and capitalist ; but 
 how hardly is it possible for a rich man to enter into the 
 kingdom of Socialism ? His chapter on " Leading Fea- 
 tures of the Theory of Marx " abounds in errors and mis- 
 conceptions. We have already seen that the assertion 
 that Marx advocated equal pay for equal hours of all kinds 
 of work has not the shadow of support. Take another 
 instance equally unjust to Marx. The latter says, " That 
 which determines the magnitude of the value of any article 
 is the amount of labor socially necessary, or the labor-time 
 socially necessary, for its production." ^ Dr. Woolsey, as- 
 suming that manual labor of wage-workers alone is in- 
 tended, replies, "It is not true that the a,mount of labor 
 
 1 "Capital," p. 179. 2 Ihid., p. 6. 
 
360 OBJECTIONS TO SOCIALISM CONSIDERED 
 
 is the only source of value ; . . . the employer is a vital 
 factor in all work which requires time for its completion, 
 which is conducted on a large scale, which requires many 
 hands and careful supervision," etc. ' The clear implica- 
 tion here is that Marx denies this ; that in the phrase " the 
 amount of labor socially necessary," he does not include 
 the work of the " employer " or superintendent, who. Dr. 
 Woolsey says, is " thrown out of calculation and treated as 
 of no account." Nothing could be further from the truth. 
 Marx distinctly and repeatedly recognizes the functions of 
 the brain, as well as the hand, in work. "Each such func- 
 tion," he says, "whatever may be its nature or form, is 
 essentially the expenditure of human brain, nerves, muscle, 
 etc." ^ Such expressions as " the work of supervision," 
 "the labor o? superintendence," are continually employed. 
 " In order to labor productively," he says, " it is no longer 
 necessary for you to do manual work yourself." ' Indeed, 
 there is not a syllable in "Das Kapital " to support this in- 
 ference of Dr. Woolsey. Again, the latter says of Marx's 
 system, "The differences of influence upon the amount 
 produced by skilled and unskilled, efficient and inefficient 
 work, . . . and by labor little above brute force, are not 
 estimated. . . . All who work an hour are paid alike." ^ 
 So far is this from being true, that Marx repeatedly ihows 
 the keenest appreciation of these various factors in pro- 
 duction. For example, he says, " In every process of creat- 
 ing value, the reduction of skilled labor to average social 
 labor, for example, one day of skilled to six days of un- 
 skilled labor is unavoidable ; we therefore save ourselves 
 a superfluous operation, and simplify our analysis by the 
 assumption, that the labor of the workmen employed by the 
 capitalist is unskilled average labor." ^ 
 
 It fairly takes one's breath away to be told, after state- 
 ments like this, as to the parts played by skilled and un- 
 skilled labor, that "they are not estimated." "Efficient 
 
 • 1 " Communism and Socialism," pp. 165, 166. 
 
 2 "Capital," p. 42. . 
 
 3 Ibid., p. 517. 
 
 < " Communism and Socialism," p. 168. 
 * "Capital," p. 180. 
 
AS TO THE EQUAL VALUE OF ALL LABOE-TIME 361 
 
 and ineflB.cient work " are also carefully distinguished, the 
 one from the other in his theory of value. 
 
 The value of a commodity is constituted not by the par- 
 ticular labor embodied in it, but by the labor commonly 
 required for its production ; by labor socially necessary, 
 according to the average skill, efficiency, and other condi- 
 tions prevailing at any given time and place. 
 
 It is not, then, any particular degree of efficiency or inef- 
 ficiency, but the average quantity of labor, that determines 
 value. Marx is sometimes hard to be understood, but there 
 is no obscurity here. He says, " Some people might think 
 that if the value of a commodity is determined by the 
 quantity of labor spent on it, the more idle and unskilfxil 
 the laborer, the more valuable would his commodity be, 
 because more time would be required in ifs production. 
 The labor, however, that forms the substance of value is 
 homogeneous human labor, expenditure of one uniform 
 labor-power. The total labor-power of society, which is 
 embodied in the sum total of the values of all commodities 
 produced by that society, counts here as one homogeneous 
 mass of human labor-power, composed though it be of 
 innumerable individual units." ^ 
 
 However these units may differ in other respects, they 
 have one common character as component parts of "the 
 average labor-power of society," which alone determines 
 value. No author was ever more completely travestied than 
 is Marx in, this remarkable chapter by Dr. Woolsey. The 
 implication contained in his question, "Suppose that all 
 the profits were paid over to the operatives ; would that 
 mitigate any of the evils of society ? " ^ is as misleading 
 as to Marx's position as anything to which we have called 
 attention. His statement that a body of German Socialists 
 expect that in " the new Socialistic world of the future all the 
 returns from labor will go to the laborer ; for instance, that 
 a year's production of cotton cloth, consisting of fifty mil- 
 lion yards at ten cents the yard, or $5,000,000, would have no 
 deductions made from it by the new employer, the State," ° 
 
 1 " Capital," pp. 5, 6. 
 
 2 " Communism and Socialism," p. 160. 
 8 Ibid., pp. 170-172. 
 
362 OBJECTIONS TO SOCIALISM CONSIDEKEB 
 
 is the most far-fetclied, fictitious, and utterly unwarrantable 
 of all. " The State," the proper support of which is a sine 
 qua non, is the very foundation of Socialism, recognized by 
 all representative Socialistic writers. This eminent critic 
 could find no authority for this statement^ or others to which 
 we have called attention, nor does he pretend to give any. 
 These statements, however, have been regarded as authority 
 in the subject-matters to which they relate, by large num- 
 bers who recognize the great ability and reputation of their 
 author. 
 
 It is not exaggeration to say that his entire chapter is a 
 tissue of misrepresentations from beginning to end. That 
 such misrepresentation was unintentional renders it none 
 the less mischievous in its consequences. It is not only 
 unjust to Marx, but, what is far more serious, it falsifies 
 the position of all Socialists, renders Socialism at once 
 absurd and odious to an inquirer, and thus hinders it from 
 having a fair hearing. 
 
 We have seen (chapter iii., section 1) that labor in its 
 most comprehensive sense is the only source of value ; that 
 nearly, if not all kinds of manual, mental, and moral labor 
 can be reduced to simple labor-time, and, for the most part, 
 actually are so reduced and paid on a time basis. The 
 analysis of the process of this reduction unmasks the in- 
 justice in the great inequalities of remuneration received 
 by the different classes of laborers. Socialism seeks to 
 remedy this injustice, which all right-minded men must 
 deplore, but which is inherent in the capitalistic system. 
 
 The present extremes of compensation received by the 
 highest and lowest social workers, are condemned by Chris- 
 tian ethics as unjust and dangerous to society. 
 
 Socialism would not equate hard labor with easy, or 
 skilled with unskilled, or dangerous with safe. It would 
 reward labor more equally, and hence more justly, than does 
 the present system. 
 
 Rodbertus proposed that all goods should go directly 
 from the farm or manufactory into great magazines ; that 
 laborers should receive a kind of paper money representing 
 hours of labor. These they would present at the magazine, 
 
AS TO THE EQUAL VALUE OF ALL LABOK-TIME 363 
 
 and receive whatever they need. The State should be sole 
 producer; all citizens would be workers under this system. 
 If, by the introduction of machinery, the power or produc- 
 tivity of labor was doubled, twice as many goods would go 
 to the magazine, and twice as many would be received for an 
 hour's labor. This, or something like this, is what Socialism 
 seeks. It does not propose an equal number of hours, with 
 equal pay, for all kinds of labor ; but it would in some man- 
 ner, to be ascertained perhaps only after many experiments, 
 apportion the rewards of labor more equally among the 
 people. The method of applying a right principle is of 
 secondary importance. He who would insist on knowing 
 how truth and righteousness are going to work before he 
 adopts them, is a temporizer and a coward. Socialism 
 adopts as a fundamental principle of human society, not 
 individual privilege, but obligation ; not liberty, but duty. 
 This is none other than the law of God. " To whomsoever 
 much is given, of him shall be much required." This prin- 
 ciple plunges a dagger into the heart of individualism ; 
 expressed economically, it says, no member of the social 
 body shall use his superior powers to exploit either his 
 neighbor or society, but rather for the good of his fellow- 
 men. If this is Socialism, it is also the original, simple 
 gospel of Jesus Christ. 
 
 The present economy distributes the necessities, com- 
 forts, and luxuries of life to men according to their smart- 
 ness ; and there are -sage men who assure us that this is 
 the divinely constituted order. It is, on the contrary, a 
 travesty of the .gospel of love ; it is thoroughly earthly, 
 sensual, and devilish. Is it forgotten that the holy Scrip, 
 tures have something to say concerning a general law of 
 wages ? Does God reward laborers according to their 
 smartness or talents ? In the parable of the talents we 
 read, " Unto one he gave five talents, to another two, and 
 to another one ; to every man according to his several abil- 
 ity." ' When the pay-day arrives, how are their wages 
 determined ? By their talents or ability ? Not at all ; but 
 by their fidelity. The man with two received as much as 
 
 1 Matt. XXV. 
 
364 OBJECTIONS TO SOCIALISM CONSIDERED 
 
 the man with five talents, because he had done the best he 
 could. But the man who would not do anything is con- 
 signed to " outer darkness," where he ought to be. But it 
 is objected, "This parable of the talents is designed to show 
 the state of things in the kingdom of heaven, and not in 
 the kingdom of industrialism." What, now, is the crime of 
 Socialism ? That it would introduce the kingdom of God 
 on earth ! That it seeks to make heaven begin here below ! 
 
 This divine law of wages is enforced even more strongly 
 in the parable of the vineyard. The owner wants help : 
 he goes out in the morning to hire laborers ; the price of 
 one penny per day is agreed upon, and the men go to work. 
 At nine o'clock the employer visited " the market-place," 
 and found others looking for a job, and at once set them 
 at work, promising them " whatsoever is right." At noon, at 
 three o'clock, and even as late as five in the afternoon, he 
 found laborers looking for work, and said to them, " Why 
 stand ye here all the day idle ? " They replied, " Because 
 no man hath hired us." Immediately he sets them all at 
 work, promising, as before, to give " whatsoever is right." 
 At night he settles with the laborers, and, "mirahile dictu," 
 he pays them all alike ; the short-time workers receive a 
 penny, and the all-day workers receive no more. " This," 
 exclaims the capitalistic system, " is an unpardonable sin ! " 
 The Scriptures reply, "But the poor fellows who came last 
 needed as much, and were as worthy, as those who came 
 first; their families were equally dependent on them ; they 
 were willing to labor, but work was scarce, and surely the 
 first have all they expected." Capitalisn:^ replies, "But 
 this is revolutionary. What will become of competition and 
 the economic harmonies ? We protest in the name of all 
 classical political economy ! The law of wages is utterly 
 subverted ! If the poor and the weak and the unfortu- 
 nate have a right to live and be comfortable, my days are 
 numbered. When was my right to all I could get, though 
 thousands starved, ever before called in question ? Away 
 with this sentimental nonsense ; business is business." 
 
 Thus speaks the present capitalistic system, upheld and 
 defended even by Christian men, — 
 
AS TO THE IMPAIRMENT OF MOTIVES TO EXERTION 566 
 
 " Who, for the poor renown of being smart, 
 Would leave a sting within a brother's heart." 
 
 If now it be asked whether Socialism proposes to remu- 
 nerate all citizens in the employ of the State equally, we 
 answer no. Some classes of workmen require more than 
 others. The character of the work as to intensity, health, 
 agreeableness, and many other features must be taken into 
 account. 
 
 Socialism would not, however, tolerate a system of re- 
 muneration that would enable one member of the social 
 body to be rich and lord it over another who was equally 
 worthy and deserving. It would banish only such inequal- 
 ities as spring from what is vicious in human nature, and 
 cause men to hate and trample upon each other. It would 
 uphold a law of wages founded in social justice, consonant 
 with the principles of brotherhood, and sanctioned by the 
 gospel of God. Such is the moral foundation of the law 
 of wages that Marx and all Socialists would adopt. It is 
 essentially equitable and Christian, and if it be unscien- 
 tific and uneconomic, so much the worse for science, falsely 
 so called. 
 
 It is charged that this law of wages proposes to place an 
 equal value upon all labor-tim*. This charge we have 
 shown to have been conceived in prejudice, brought forth 
 in misunderstanding, and maintained in misrepresentation. 
 
 VIII. — As to the Im-jmirment of Motives to Exertion. 
 
 " No thinking man will controvert that associated industry is the most 
 powerful agent of production, and that the principle of association is sus- 
 ceptible of further and beneficial development." — John Stuart Mill. 
 
 It is objected to Socialism that it would impair the 
 motives to exertion, and thus diminish production and 
 retard progress. "The purely economic argument against 
 Socialism is that it would be less efficient in producing 
 wealth." This is important if true. Mr. Eae says, " The 
 incentives to energy of production would be relaxed." ^ 
 Again he tell us that " producer's wealth, they [Socialists] 
 1 " Contemporary Socialism," p. 363. 
 
366 OBJECTIONS TO SOCIALISM CONSIDEKED 
 
 hold, should be common property, and neither be owned 
 nor inherited by individuals. If this theory were to be 
 enforced it would be fatal to progress." ■■ 
 
 It is admitted that without incentive men will not labor ; 
 that without labor there can be no production ; and that 
 without production there can be no progress ; and, further, 
 that, cceteris paribus, in proportion as these causes operate 
 will be their respective effects. But this is not in issue. 
 The question is, would Socialism weaken individual incen- 
 tive and occasion the ills complained of ? Mr. Rae answers 
 in the affirmative. How does he know ? He does not. He 
 boldly assumes that society is still, and must continue to be, 
 in that stage of development in which, if every man fights 
 for himself and all fight each other, " production " and 
 " progress " will be greater thaif if all the members of 
 society should work together for a common end under a 
 system of co-operation. Such co-operation is Socialism. 
 In opposing Socialism, Mr. Rae finds it necessary to lay 
 down the principle that in c^is-union there is strength; a 
 principle that antagonizes all history and experience. 
 
 The following considerations are pertinent to this sub- 
 ject : — 
 
 1. This objection does not affect the 2»"ineiples of Social- 
 ism, but only its modus operandi. 
 
 2. The objection is founded on the assumptions of ihe 
 existing political economy, and is true under this system, 
 but has no application to a Socialistic state. Adam Smith 
 said, " A person who can acquire no property can have no 
 other interest but to eat as much, and to labor as little, as 
 possible." ^ He is speaking only of slave labor under a 
 capitalistic regime. His statement is a general truth. 
 Under Socialism, where every one is a freeman and a joint 
 owner of the entire capital, and the conditions are different, 
 toto cmlo, it is unwarrantably declared that the results will 
 be the same. 
 
 3. It is evident that no one can safely dogmatize in this 
 matter. Dr. Woolsey frankly admits that " an unknown 
 
 1 " Contemporary Socialism," p. 365. 
 
 2 "The Wealth of Nations " (Rogers' Edition), vol. i., p. 391. 
 
AS TO THE IMPAIEMEXT OF MOTIVES TO EXERTION 367 
 
 quantity enters into the question. Everything depends on 
 the influence of the new conditions of work and on the new 
 causes in general acting upon the character of the work- 
 men themselves. "Will thej^ be made manly, self-relying, 
 conscientious, and provident, or the opposite of all this ? " ^ 
 
 4. It is conceded that an economic interest on the part 
 of the individual must be maintained under Socialism. 
 Schseffle says, '■ Socialism would have to give the individual 
 at least as strong an interest in the collective work as he 
 has under the liberal system of production. It would have 
 to secure to every sub-group a premium on extraordinary 
 amounts of collective production, and a loss through col- 
 lective slackness ; . . .to bestow effective distinction on all 
 special success in technical development, and duly to re- 
 ward great individual merit." ^ It by no means follows, 
 however, that the interest jn the one system need be 
 exactly equal to that in the other. An excess of economic 
 zeal has destroyed the harmony and happiness of many 
 lives. 
 
 5. The objection under consideration proceeds on the 
 assumption that economic interest under any regime neces- 
 sarily depends for its healthy existence and operation upon 
 the opportunity and expectation of accumulating private 
 riches. This assumption cannot for a moment be admitted. 
 
 6. Inasmuch as the income and social well-being of 
 every individual would depend, first, upon his own zeal, 
 and second, upon the zeal of others, he. would be doubly 
 interested in securing the largest possible product ; for his 
 share of this product would measure the amount of neces- 
 sary comforts and luxuries which he would receive. Each 
 workman would, therefore, have a personal interest in the 
 work of every other. A careless or lazy workman would 
 receive less than the more worthy ; every one would be 
 interested in the efRciency of labor, by which cost would 
 be reduced and the social product increased. So far from 
 impairing the motive to effort, it is easy to imagine almost 
 any degree of honest pride and enthusiasm of labor when 
 
 1 " Communism and Socialism," p. 211. 
 
 2 "Quintessence of Socialism," p. 57. 
 
368 OBJECTIONS TO SOCIALISM COKSIDEKBD 
 
 every workman had a personal interest in tlie work of 
 every other; and, on the other hand, the detestation with 
 which idleness and laziu3ss would be regarded when these 
 vices assumed the character of direct injury to one's fel- 
 lows and of treason to the State. 
 
 7. Because public functionaries in a capitalistic state 
 are often indifferent as to economic results, it is erroneously 
 inferred that the same would be true in the Socialistic 
 state. " It would," we are told, " render universal the 
 maladministration inherent in all public productive depart- 
 ments." It is entirely overlooked that the conditions are 
 wholly changed. Under capitalism, the official has no 
 economic interest at stake. Under Socialism, such interest 
 is bound up with the results of the social production. In 
 the former case he draws his pay regardless of the quality 
 of his work ; in the latter, both pay and position are 
 affected by the quality of work. It is certain that when 
 political preferment and honor depended upon economic 
 products, a stimulus would be given to production. 
 
 8. At present large numbers do not work; they have 
 no contact with labor, no interest in lightening its burden 
 or improving its methods. Under Socialism, all are work- 
 ers ; all will therefore have an interest in lightening the 
 burden of labor, and we might reasonably expect an era 
 of labor-saving inventions such as capitalism has never 
 dreamed of. 
 
 9. There are other motives to exertion even stronger 
 than the desire of riches, but which are generally ignored 
 by the critics of Socialism. There are, besides the demands 
 which satisfy merely physical wants, the love of glory, the 
 desire of esteem, family affection, the love of justice, the 
 passion for knowledge, and even the religious principle, all 
 of which are springs of human activity often more potent 
 than the love of money ; and when their activity and reali- 
 zation are made to depend entirely upon labor, manual, 
 mental, or moral, is it reasonable to suppose that there, 
 would be any lack of incentive to economic or other social 
 effort ? 
 
 We have only to witness the generous and wholesome 
 
AS TO THE IMPAIRMENT OF MOTIVES TO EXERTION 369 
 
 rivalries among a thousand college students where the 
 stimulus of pecuniary reward is unknown, to satisfy us 
 on this point. We speak from personal observation and 
 knowledge in saying that we have never witnessed a nobler 
 ambition and spirit of self-sacrifice than was displayed in 
 the army that suppressed the Rebellion. Soldiers, without 
 the least regard to a money consideration, vied with each 
 other in performing the most difficult and dangerous duties. 
 
 10. The maxim, Each for all and all for each, admits and 
 demands only that kind and degree of self-interest which 
 is just or tolerable in a state of society. 
 
 11. It is inherently probable that production would be 
 vastly greater when men assisted and encouraged each 
 other, than when .they opposed and ruined each other. To 
 hold to the contrary is anarchistic, unethical, and unnatu- 
 ral. It is virtually to abandon all faith in God and all 
 hope of the race. 
 
 12. Experience does not sustain this charge. Co-opera- 
 tive enterprises in which the share of each is affected by 
 the total result, show no abatement, but rather an increase, 
 of private zeal. This is one of the advantages urged in 
 favor of co-operation. Does the soundness of the principle 
 depend upon the size of the co-operative establishment ? 
 Evidently not : then it holds good of the co-operative com- 
 monwealth. 
 
 13. The capitalistic system, by depriving wage-workers 
 of a just share in the product, tends to destroy i\\Qvi: interest 
 in the work, and to render them lazy, wasteful, and inefficient. 
 In his excellent work on "Profit Sharing," IST. P. Gilman 
 holds that "the wages-system, viewed in its simplest form 
 of time-wages, does not supply the necessary motives for 
 the workman to do his best." ' 
 
 The bitterest and most universal complaint of employers 
 of labor is, " The workmen take no interest in their work." 
 
 14. A clear distinction should be made between the 
 motives to efforts for a, comfortable subsistence, and the mo- 
 tives to efforts for acquiring riches. It is the last class of 
 motives of which capitalism is ever jealous, but for which 
 
 1 " Profit Sharing," p. 62. 
 
370 OBJECTIONS TO SOCIALISM COS^SIDERED 
 
 Socialism, backed by ethical science, declares the judgment 
 day to be at hand. 
 
 15. We have seen that the interest which the laborer 
 took in his work would, under Socialism, be an important 
 factor in determining the measure of his reward. This 
 objection, that Socialism would impair the motive to effort, 
 derives a fictitious importance, because based on a false 
 conception of Socialism, which is thus formulated by Mr. 
 E,ae : " Under a Socialistic regime, they [laborers] cannot 
 by any merit acquire more property than they enjoy in 
 daily use, and they cannot by any fault fail to possess 
 that." ^ This is the substance of only half, and the purely 
 communistic half, of the formula adopted by Louis Blanc : 
 "Each produces according to his faculties, and consumes 
 according to his wants." Mr. Kae's inference, ignoring the 
 half that demands the best effort of the laborer, and assert- 
 ing that the same reward would be to the worthy and the 
 unworthy, is an unwarrantable disjointing and perversion 
 of this formula, and of the teaching of Socialism. 
 
 16. The argument that State-help would impair the mo- 
 tive to effort is fallacious. It employs the term State-help 
 as the equivalent of charity. It contrasts State-help with 
 self-help under the capitalistic regime, and assumes that 
 Socialism will render all citizens objects of charity, quasi 
 paupers, and as such socially demoralized. This is a strange 
 mistake. The very object of Socialism is to render State- 
 help in this sense unnecessary. There is a sense in which 
 the State helps and must help its members. Property, as 
 now conceived, can neither be acquired nor held without 
 the aid of the State through its laws. State-help, in pro- 
 tecting life and limb, is demanded by all. Economically 
 speaking, men are becoming more and more dependent 
 upon the help of each other. " In his economic position, 
 in the manner and in the success of his economic activity, 
 in all that pertains to his income and to his resources, the 
 individual becomes dependent upon the economic activity 
 and acts of others." ^ 
 
 1 " Contemporary Socialism," p. 364. 
 
 2 Schtinberg, as quotrd in "Political Economy" (Ely), p. 26. 
 
AS TO THE IMPAIRMENT OF MOTIVES TO EXERTION 371 
 
 Indeed, all communication by mail, telegraph, or tele- 
 phone, is through State-help. We cannot go anywhere, nor 
 transport anything, nor engage in any business, without the 
 assistance and security of the laws ; that is, without State- 
 help. This is the nature of State-help which Socialism 
 will render to individuals. It will help them to help them- 
 selves. It will encourage them by removing obstacles which 
 society now puts in their way. It will help them, as State- 
 help, by its roads and regulations, now assists a traveller on 
 his way, and enables him to reach his destination. 
 
 In no sense is the State-help which Socialism would ren- 
 der, a charity tending to impair economic motive and pau- 
 perize its recipients. On the other hand, multitudes who 
 now receive State-help as charity, would become self-sup- 
 porting and self-respecting citizens. Mr. Joseph Cook 
 says, " You may pour in State-help, ages and ages, without 
 filling the Socialistic bag ; and until self-help gives it a 
 bottom, the filling will be useless." ' He ignores the fact 
 that State-help even now renders self-help effective or even 
 possible. Co-operation is the first and last principle of 
 Socialism ; not communistic, but socialistic co-operation. 
 Whenever tried, co-operative-help has intensfied the spirit 
 of self-help. Mr. Cook admits this, and says " Co-opera- 
 tion : — 
 
 1. Obviates strikes. 
 
 2. Stimulates the workmen to industry and carefulness. 
 
 3. Incites him to frugality. 
 
 4. Improves his moral, social, and political character. 
 
 5. Provides for him employment, independent of the will 
 of the middleman. 
 
 6. Gives him the middleman's share of the profit."^ 
 
 If co-operative-help can do all this for workmen in the 
 face of the present bitter and implacable economic forces, 
 what may we not expect from co-operative-help when its 
 grand principle becomes fully developed and perfected in 
 the co-operative commonwealth ? 
 
 This is State-help if you please, but it is nevertheless self- 
 help. It is difficult to see the logical force of Mr. Cook's 
 
 1 " Socialism," p. 87. 2 j^ji^,^ p. 117. 
 
372 OBJECTIONS TO SOCIALISM CONSIDERED 
 
 distinction between the " Socialist " who depends on State- 
 help, and the " Co-operator " who depends on " self-help ; " 
 it would seem to be a distinction without a difference, or 
 with a difference decidedly in favor of Socialism. Socialists 
 have no sympathy with pauperism. They abhor it; they 
 are all self-helpers, and in this way helpers of others. The 
 opposite of self-help is not State-help, but each-other-help. 
 Socialism says to every able-bodied man, " You must work." 
 Is this State-help ? Individualism says to the idle millions 
 that cohstitute parasitic society, "You need not work ; you 
 need not depend on self-help, nor State-help, nor the help of 
 the Almightjr, as I have got society so organized that you 
 can compel the toiling multitudes to earn your bread, and 
 you can live in idleness." The pauper spirit is one that 
 seeks to get what another has earned, and it is disastrous 
 to society, whether it accomplishes this through the exploi- 
 tation of the laborer, or begs from door to door. 
 
 One would imagine, from the solicitude of the defenders 
 of capitalism lest self-help should be imperilled by Social- 
 ism, that it was the corner-stone of the capitalistic regime. 
 On the contrary, self-employment is becoming more and 
 more difficult, and has already entirely disappeared among 
 large classes of laborers ; and the sad accompaniment is a 
 loss of hope, of patriotism, of faith in God, of noble emula- 
 tion, and of all motives save such as minister to the sat- 
 isfaction of animal wants. Socialism, it is confidently 
 believed, would revive the hope and courage of these dis- 
 franchised classes and restore them to their inheritance. 
 
 Besides these sixteen considerations which bear directly 
 on the question before us, and render it at least improbable 
 that in the co-operative commonwealth the motive to effort 
 would be impaired, production diminished, and progress 
 retarded, another phase of the subject is worthy of attention. 
 We will pass by the fact that, even if the incentive to effort 
 should be somewhat weakened, the large number of present 
 non-producers which would be added to the army of work- 
 ers would greatly increase production ; and the further fact 
 that the immense waste of capitalism, to which we have 
 called attention, would be saved under Socialism, and tend 
 
AS TO THE IMPAIEMENO? OF MOTIVES TO EXBKTION 373 
 
 still further to the total production. Suppose, then, that 
 material " progress " was retarded ; what would happen ? 
 Is it absolutely certain that society could not survive the 
 terrible consequences should it slacken its pace in " making 
 haste to be rich " ? 
 
 The most recent and significant voice of political econ- 
 omy says, " To show that a practical measure will create 
 wealth is not enough to commend it. The main question 
 is, what effect will it have on the entire life of the nation, 
 also of humanity ? The true starting-point in economic 
 discussions is the ethical community, of which the indi- 
 vidual is a member." ^ This is well and bravely said. 
 The race of nations is not always to the swift. This 
 country would live longer if it lived more slowly. Our 
 mushroom growth, however flattering to our vanity, is 
 anything but assuring to the students of history. The 
 result of economic zeal under capitalism is the vast accu- 
 mulation of private riches ; and this, if history repeats itself, 
 will be the signal for national decay and dissolution. Not 
 until " silver was in Jerusalem as stones," was the powerful 
 kingdom of the Israelites divided and destroj'ed. Mighty 
 Babylon succumbed, not to the armies of Cyrus, but to the 
 fatal revelry begotten of her wealth and splendor ; and the 
 wonder of the whole world became " an astonishment and 
 a hissing, without an inhabitant." The glory of Sparta 
 departed with the acquisition of wealth. A single sentence 
 of the historian reveals the cause of her fall : " The primi- 
 tive simplicity of Spartan manners had been completely 
 destroyed by the collection of wealth into a few hands, and 
 by the consequent progress of luxury." " The rise and 
 power of the different states of Greece were contemporary 
 with the industrious habits of all the people. Chiefs and 
 nobles at first performed manual labor, and their wives and 
 daughters not only wove and spun, but assisted their slaves 
 fetching water and washing garments ; but with the accu- 
 mulation of wealth, and the consequent weakening of phys- 
 ical and moral fibre, came national decay and ruin. 
 
 1 " Political Economy " (Ely), p. 84. 
 ! " History of Greece " (Smitli), p. 530. 
 
374 OBJECTIONS TO SOCIALISM CONSIDERED 
 
 Gibbon dates ttie decline of the Roman Empire from the 
 accession of Commodus, when the wealth of all Europe, 
 Asia, and Africa lay at her feet. In more recent times 
 when Spain began to overflow with gold under Charles V., 
 her national power and glory began to ebb. Professor Ely 
 says truly, " Economic forces are prominent in the decay 
 of civilization." ' History furnishes abundant evidence 
 that in all ages cities and countries become popular and 
 powerful, then perish from their riches and consequent 
 moral rottenness. 
 
 Mr. Eae tells us that " Socialists ignore the civilizing 
 value of private property and inheritance." ^ A more im- 
 portant question in the light of history is, do political econ- 
 omists and advocates of the capitalistic system appreciate 
 the demoralizing and ruinous tendencies of these institu- 
 tions ? 
 
 If all social " progress " depends on the amassing of prop- 
 erty, at what point does society begin to progress back- 
 wards ? 
 
 This word "pivc/ress " may yet break the back of free 
 institutions. The notion is now practically limited to 
 materialism in its broadest and grossest sense : it suggests 
 gigantic financial schemes, the development of natural 
 resources, the utilization of the forces of nature, and the 
 material aggrandizement of individuals and nations ; in a 
 word, the enthronement of physical science as paramount 
 to all other considerations, temporal or eternal. Moral and 
 psychological science of infinite importance to the race is 
 comparatively neglected and ignored. We do not worship 
 "the good old times," nor do we care to have civilization 
 set back to primitive times; but we have no objection to 
 going back to what was good, and better than now. We 
 forget that the world got along fairly well without steam- 
 engines, railroads, electric wires, and printing-presses. 
 Plato was something of a traveller and writer. Socrates 
 succeeded in getting around Athens without an elevated 
 railway, and he understood tolerably well the art of con- 
 
 1 " Political Economy," p. 1.31. 
 
 2 "Contemporary Socialism," p. 36i 
 
AS TO THE DKSTRUCTION OF LIBEKTY 375 
 
 versatioii. Could Noah have availed himself of our "prog- 
 ress " and built the ark in thirty days, the day of doom for 
 the race would have been hastened one hundred and twenty 
 years. The " fulness of time," according to infinite wis- 
 dom, so far from being in the nineteenth century, was two 
 thousand years ago. Christ managed to get along without 
 steam, and actually went on foot through Palestine. Bacon 
 and Shakspeare, Franklin and Washington, without the 
 telegraph and telephone, contrived to say and do some 
 things worth remembering. Flatter ourselves as we may, 
 material " Progress " alone will never restore " the lost 
 arts," bring back the as yet unapproached Attic culture, or 
 introduce the Millennium. We believe in " progress," only 
 do not let us as individuals or nations seek to gain the 
 whole world, at the expense of losing heaven both here 
 and hereafter. The sole condition of all healthy, happy 
 human life, is mens sana in corpore sano. This soundness 
 of mind and body for the individual as well as for the State 
 can be acquired and can continue to exist only by cultivat- 
 ing the homely virtues of temperance in diet, simplicity of 
 manners, naturalness of physical habits, morality and reli- 
 gion, and the proportionate exercise and development of 
 the mental and physical powers. Riches and luxury are 
 as great a curse as poverty and want.- 
 
 IX. — As to the Destruction of Liberty. 
 
 " There are two freedoms : the false, where a man is free to do what 
 • he likes ; the true, where a man is free to do what he ought." 
 
 Charles Kingsley. 
 
 It is objected to Socialism that it would destroy the lib- 
 erty of the citizen, and place him in the relation of a serf 
 to the State. Dr. Woolsey thus formulates this objection: 
 " The laborer has, and can have, no effective choice . in 
 regard to employment or amount of wages or place of 
 abode, if the State is to be the great employer and capital- 
 ist." ^ This is a sweeping statement. No form of human 
 slavery could be more complete and abject. When a man's 
 1 " Communism a^d Socialism," p. 164. 
 
376 OBJECTIONS TO SOCIALISM CONSIDEBED 
 
 work, compensation, and abode are arbitrarily determined 
 by a master, his liberty is indeed lost. But worse than 
 this, he assures us that when the State has "all production, 
 transportation, and the furnishing of supplies in its hands, 
 . . . not much choice would be left to private persons in 
 reference to articles they would wish to use, and to the 
 satisfaction of their desires." ' This is, indeed, a woful 
 picture. Under Socialism, according to this writer, the 
 citizen not only has no effective choice as to his work, 
 wages, or abode, but not even as to what he shall eat, 
 drink, or wear. The Greek, Eoman, and even American 
 slave was a freeman in comparison. Mr. Rae also says, 
 " Under a regivie of Socialism, freedom would be choked." '^ 
 Freedom, he says, is necessary for individual development 
 and social progress. Socialists hold the same. What, then, 
 is the difference ? Socialists claim that the new order 
 would, and their critics that it would not, admit of freedom, 
 especially freedom of choice in occupation. 
 
 In the first place, let us glance at the character of the 
 arguments employed by Mr. Rae to sustain this serious 
 charge. At present he says the demand for a certain kind 
 of labor regulates the number of workmen seeking that 
 employment. The same, he admits, might be true under 
 Socialism ; but since the State would assign to each laborer 
 his work, those who failed to get the most desirable work 
 would feel that they had been discriminated against, and 
 hence wronged. This would be a loss of freedom. A 
 single statement will furnish a complete answer to this 
 argument. The State could give shorter hours or less pay 
 for easy and attractive work, and in this way, by propor- 
 tioning reward to work, easily regulate the supply of 
 laborers throughout the entire field of industry. This is 
 only one of a hundred devices which the State might adopt 
 to secure the same end. Mr. Eae's argument is after this 
 fashion : " If you attempt to make a wheel revolve on an 
 axle, the motion will create heat, the axle will swell, and 
 the wheel stop. The wheel and axle idea, therefore, is 
 
 1 "Communism and Socialism," p. 208. 
 
 2 "Contemporary Socialism," p. 365. 
 
AS TO THE DESTRUCTION OF LIBEBTT 377 
 
 only the Utopian dream of impracticable men." By the 
 application of a little oil, however, the wheel and axle are 
 found to work admirably. In the same way, if the critics 
 of Socialism would allow a little of the oil of common- 
 sense in the adjustment and practical working of its prin- 
 ciples, they would attach less importance to their hard and 
 fast theories. Now let us look at this matter of freedom 
 of choice in occupations, which Dr. Woolsey and others lay 
 so much stress upon. Might not Socialism help the indi- 
 vidual to secure his choice of work as the present Socialis- 
 tic highways assist the traveller on his journey, or as our 
 thoroughly Socialistic school system helps each scholar to 
 make the wisest choice of studies ? It is in order for our 
 critics to show that because the State owns the school plants, 
 the means of the production and distribution of knowledge, 
 that ih.e. freedom of the scholar is destroyed ; that he cannot 
 choose his study ; that his individuality is lost, and that j?ro^- 
 ress in knowledge must cease. Socialism in education is 
 no longer an experiment, but a historical and glorious fact. 
 It does not " choke freedom " in the choice of studies, but 
 furnishes the individual with help, the value of which can- 
 not be over-estimated. ' What is to hinder the same result 
 in industry ? When the State owns and controls the means 
 of production and distribution, and takes charge of all the 
 industrial workers, it is difficult to see why it may not 
 assist the individual in the choice of a pursuit in any 
 department of manual, mental, or moral activity. Dr. A. 
 J. F. Behrends, however, does not hesitate to say, "It 
 could not be anything else than a despotism of extreme 
 type, more oppressive and exacting than any that ever 
 cursed the fair lands of the East. . . . Wages would once 
 more be determined by law, or by vote of committee, for 
 men, and not by them." ^ In support of these sweeping 
 assertions, no evidence is adduced, no facts are given, no 
 appeal is made to history or philosophy, and no attempt is 
 even made to deduce them from the way in which Socialism 
 might be supposed to work. On the contrary, the opinion 
 is taken for granted, and then boldly asserted. The state- 
 
 1 " Sooia]^.9in and Christianity," p. 85. 
 
378 ■ OBJECTIONS TO SOCIALISM CONSIDERED 
 
 ment that " wages would once more be determined by law," 
 is contradicted by all Socialists, by the genius of Socialism 
 itself, and implied in the author's own admission that the 
 State would be sole producer. In Socialism, the entire pro- 
 duction of the country belongs to the people, all of whom 
 are laborers. The product is annually distributed among 
 all the people. The share of each, which would depend 
 largely on the annual product, is therefore his wages. 
 Wages would be determined, therefore, not by law, but by 
 the amount of j^roduction. 
 
 There is, indeed, a kind of freedom which is " choked by " 
 the State's control of education. It is the freedom of the indi- 
 vidual to let his children grow up in ignorance if he so de- 
 sires. Under Socialism, a man must send his children to 
 school. Every citizen must be able to read and write. In 
 these and other respects natural freedom is restrained for 
 the sake of civil or social freedom. Natural or personal 
 freedom allows every man to go where he pleases, to do 
 what he chooses, to take possession of whatever he likes, 
 without the slightest regard to any other human being. 
 It is the freedom of the wild beast. The moment men 
 form themselves into society, however, this sort of free- 
 dom must be surrendered in exchange for tne greater ben- 
 efits conferred by society. Freedom is still an ambiguous 
 term. If we intend by it the natural, wholly unrestrained 
 movement of the individual, it is the most brutal, savage, 
 and wicked word that ever entered the thought of man or 
 demon. If, on the other hand, we intend by it that move- 
 ment of the individual which is restrained and limited by 
 the requirements of society, according to the eternal prin- 
 ciples of right and justice, then freedom is the grandest, 
 sublimest word in the world's vocabulary. 
 
 The present volcanic upheaval of industrial fire and lava 
 is due to the fact that natural freedom is let loose upon an 
 advancing social state. Civil or social freedom has been 
 largely realized in education, in politics and religion, but 
 in industry natural freedom has not been sufficiently re- 
 strained ; individuals are left free to prey upon the weaker 
 members of the social body, and every attempt to limit this 
 
AS TO THE DBSTRUCTIO^' OF LIBEBTY 379 
 
 freedom is met by the cry that freedom is endangered. And 
 so it is ; not social freedom, let it be borne in mind, but 
 natural or animal freedom which allows one to kill and eat 
 the next man he meets, provided he is strong enough, and 
 provided his methods of cannibalism are sufficiently refined 
 and within due form of law ; and provided further that he 
 inscribes on the fillet of his victim this motto sacred to indi- 
 vidualism : "You have an equal chance to kill and eat me, 
 were you strong enough, which sacred right is guaranteed 
 by freedom." We have called attention to the insufficiency 
 of the doctrine of equal chances and need not discuss it here. 
 Socialism demands that natural freedom in industrial 
 affairs be so far restrained as is necessary for the good of 
 all the people ; that is, for the highest degree of civil free- 
 dom. The charge under consideration, that Socialism would 
 destroy the freedom of the workmen, is supported only by 
 arguments based ou pure assumption. For example, an 
 able writer says, " When government supervises all work, it 
 will determine what each laborer must do, and he will have 
 uo choice in the matter." jSTo argument is adduced in 
 support of this bold assertion. It by no means follows that 
 because government supervises work the workman '• will 
 have no choice in the matter." One might with equal 
 propriety say that because government supervises mar- 
 riage, including all the details of certificates and returns, 
 it therefore determines what woman a man shall marry. 
 Freedom of choice in occupations, under government super- 
 vision of labor, need not be interfered with any more than 
 is the present freedom of choice in marriage. A similar 
 logic would show that the " factory acts " interfere with the 
 freedom of the manufacturer in choosing the kind and 
 quality of the goods he shall produce. Would any say, be- 
 cause the government owns and supervises the highways, 
 because it requires the traveller to turn out on a certain 
 side, to walk his team on a bridge, to drive through the 
 street so as not to exceed a certain rate of speed, to tie his 
 liorse when he stops, and not to drive him at all unless the 
 government regards him in a proper pliysical condition, 
 that freedom of travel is destroyed, and that a man can no 
 
380 OBJECTIONS TO SOCIALISM CONSIDERED 
 
 longer clioose his destination, but the government must 
 decide where every man must go ? We might multiply 
 illustrations showing that the State controls institutions 
 and social activities without at all interfering with freedom 
 of choice except in cases where society would be injured 
 thereby. Natural freedom, however, is always interfered 
 with by civil laws and institutions. Natural or personal 
 freedom in education, in manufacturing, in travelling, and 
 in many other respects, is. restricted for the good of society, 
 but without injustice to any. The same might be true in 
 government control of industry. If in any respect the 
 natural freedom of laborers should be restricted, it would 
 be seen to be for the good of society at large, and hence for 
 the good of laborers themselves, as all would be workers. 
 The need of governmental restraint is a great desideratum 
 in all departments of industry. " Twenty years ago, a man 
 who was out of debt and drawing a salary that supported 
 his family in medium comfort, conceived the idea of building 
 a business block. It cost several times more than his esti- 
 mate. The builders took advantage of his ignorance of 
 materials and cheated him ; and at length he came to a 
 stop, with a heavy debt and the block unfinished. There 
 is still litigation over this structure. Many of the creditors 
 lost money, and the projector of it lost everything he had, 
 chief of which was his peace of mind for twenty years. 
 He could not educate his children, nor give them any per- 
 sonal attention, being always closely pushed to keep his 
 importunate creditors at bay while he reserved enough from 
 his constant labor to live. He borrowed of his personal' 
 friends to appease his creditors, and then -could not pay 
 these latter debts. The sum of discomfort that this one 
 man, who was perfectly honest, well-meaning, and indus- 
 trious to a fault, .was able to bring upon himself and fifty 
 or sixty others directly, to say nothing of the derangement 
 that he effected in the business community where he 
 launched his venture, is not to be estimated. The com- 
 mercial highway is strewn with such failures, which are 
 the quite inevitable consequence of a business chaos that 
 allows any one to undertake anything he is disposed to 
 
AS TO THE DESTRUCTION OF LIBERTY 381 
 
 undertake, without the least preparation or proven qualifi- 
 cation. As a physician is educated in the principles and 
 practice of medicine, the business novice ought to pass 
 through a similar apprenticeship in business methods re- 
 quired by the community for self-protection and for his 
 protection." ' 
 
 Such is the anarchy of individualism or the capitalistic 
 system. Any remedy that is effectual involves a denial of 
 the fundamental assumptions of this system, and an accept- 
 ance of the principles of Socialism. 
 
 The objection that Socialism would be destructive to 
 liberty proceeds from the assumption that its government 
 would be despotic, a power outside of and above the people. 
 It thus by skilful rhetorical manoeuvring enlists in its 
 support the popular alarm and antipathy with which tyran- 
 nical governments are regarded, It is assumed that even 
 among a free people government is not the State, but some 
 power opposed to the people and sure to tyrannize over 
 them. Although this assumption appears plausible, from 
 the fact that history even of the immediate past deals 
 largely with the tyranny of despotic governments, it has 
 absolutely no foundation in a republic. The people are the 
 State, and the State for present purposes is the govern- 
 ment. If the people govern themselves, they are the gov- 
 ernment. " A government of the people, by the people, and 
 for the people " cannot by any fictio orationis, be different 
 from the people themselves acting in their political capa- 
 city. If we could rid ourselves of the notion that a truly 
 republican government is something different from the 
 State, and likely to be opposed to the people, it would be 
 an immense gain, not only to clearness of ideas, but espe- 
 cially to a fair consideration of the claims of Socialism. 
 
 We have only to bear in mind that the Socialistic govern- 
 ment is the people, all of whom are workers, to see that 
 the charge that the government would destroy the freedom 
 of the workmen is exactly equivalent to the charge that 
 the people would destroy their own freedom. When a 
 government of, by, and for the people chooses the occupa- 
 1 Morrison I. Swift, " Andover Keview," December, 1891. 
 
382 OBJECTIONS TO SOCIALISM CONSIDERED 
 
 tions of the people, such occupations are chosen by the 
 people themselves ; and this none the less if perchance 
 the people appoint commissioners to advise and assist 
 individuals in making a choice. 
 
 The sweeping charge of Dr. Woolsey which we noticed 
 at the outset is nowhere sustained ; and we submit to the 
 candid reader that it labors under the burden of improb- 
 ability. 
 
 Over-government may easily happen in a monarchy, an 
 oligarchy or aristocracy, but not in a democracy. As a man 
 who controls himself cannot be too much controlled, so a 
 people who govern themselves cannot be too much governed. 
 Only so far as the government is not democratic need there 
 be any fear of centralized power. Democracy stands on 
 two legs, the general dissemination of knowledge and a 
 high standard of morality. Socialism places special em- 
 phasis upon the former, and aims to secure the latter by a 
 recognition in the organic law of society of the spirit and 
 letter of the Golden Rule. 
 
 X. — As to Class Rule by Laborers. 
 
 " The working class Is the only class which is not a class. It is the 
 nation. It represents, so to speak, the body as a whole, of which the 
 other classes only represent special organs. These organs no doubt 
 have great and indispensable functions, hut for most purposes of govern- 
 ment the State consists of the laboring majority. Its welfare depends on 
 what their lives are like." — Frederick Harrison. 
 
 Socialism is objected to on the ground that it aims to 
 •place the functions of government exclusively in the hands 
 of working men. The charge is thus formulated by Dr. 
 Behrends : " The Socialistic ideal is the dominance of the 
 laboring classes, a supremacy as really sectional as the 
 monarchical, the aristocratic, the military, and the pluto- 
 cratic, against each of which, in turn, society has protested 
 and revolted. The divine right of labor to rule is as 
 partisan and despotic a formula as the divine right of 
 kings, of birth, blood, and wealth ; in this matter there can 
 be no compromise with tlie advocates of the new order." ' 
 
 ' " Socialism and Christianity," p. 82. 
 
AS TO CLASS RULE BY LABORERS 383 
 
 We heartily indorse this sentiment as to class rule. It 
 is a solid shot from a long-ranged and truly American 
 columbiad. It labors, however, under this difficulty : while 
 aimed at Socialism, it hits squarely the bull's-eye of 
 capitalism. Three-fourths of the people are wage-workers ; 
 and yet in the halls of Congress, in the several State Legis- 
 latures, and even in the city governments, a wage-worker 
 is regarded as a vara avis. Legislation by the moneyed class 
 is the 'bane of the present system. Against this class rule 
 Socialism is the long, loud, and irrepressible protest. A 
 writer coming to the defence of capitalism as against 
 Socialism on the ground of class rule, protesting in the 
 name of liberty and equality against a system that would 
 substitute the rule of three-fourths of the people for that 
 of the now dominant one-fourth, is a circumstance that will 
 not escape the attention of the candid reader. We have 
 made this concession, however, simply to meet our critic 
 on his own ground. We now withdraw it. Socialism does 
 not advocate " the dominance of the laboring classes." It 
 recognizes no such distinction as laboring and non-laboring 
 classes. Its fundamental principle is that all citizens are 
 laborers, either manual, mental, or moral, in the Socialistic 
 vineyard. It knows nothing of able-bodied non-workers. 
 In this Socialist writers of all schools are agreed. Laborers 
 would indeed be dominant, but only because all citizens 
 were laborers. In such a regime the idea of class rule by 
 laborers would be an absurdity. 
 
 It is the more remarkable that our critic should have 
 advanced this idea because it is repudiated by the author- 
 ities cited in the introduction to his work and on which he 
 relies. Among these is Ely's " French and German Social- 
 ism," which gives an abstract of the views of Baboeuf, 
 Cabet, St. Simon, Fourier, Louis Blanc, Proudhon, Rodbertus, 
 Marx, and Lassalle. These writers represent every phase 
 of Socialism, and not one of them fails to repudiate the 
 vicious principle of class rule by laborers. Neither can it 
 be deduced from the nature of Socialism. Such rule is 
 contrary to its very genius. This is admitted by Laveleye 
 in his " Socialism of To-day," which our critic characterizes 
 
384 OBJECTIONS TO SOCIALISM CONSIDEKED 
 
 as a " masterly survey," also by Schaeffle and other able 
 writers on Avhom he claims to rely. 
 
 Laveleye says, " Socialism demands that wealth shall no 
 longer be the privilege of idleness, and that he that sows 
 not shall not reap. This is exactly what St. Paul so em- 
 phatically says : Qui ?ion laborat nee manducet ; ' If any 
 will not work, neither shall he eat.' " ^ In other words, 
 Socialism demands that all shall work as they have ability. 
 Schaefile on almost his opening page declares this to be the 
 fundamental principle of Socialism. All talk therefore 
 about " the dominance of the laboring classes " in such an 
 order involves an absurdity. 
 
 This objection can find no su-pport from the exhortations of 
 Socialist orators and manifestoes urging proletarians of all 
 lands to unite, or the fourth estate to assert their right to 
 rule ; for such language refers to the injustice of the present 
 system, the methods of agitation, and the means of effecting 
 the social change, but never to the Socialistic state itself, 
 which includes every citizen in its fourth which would then 
 be the first and only estate. 
 
 Nothing, however, is more common than to seize upon 
 these watch-words of social reformers, separate them from 
 their connection, pervert their meaning, associate them 
 with whatever is offensive, and then sound them in the 
 popular ear as the teachings of Socialism. 
 
 XI. — As to the Corruption of Politics. 
 
 "Gigantic party political frauds, — these are cause and effect. They 
 imperil the peace of the republic. They must do so more and more as 
 our population grows. Ultimately in America there will be either civil- 
 service reform or civil war." — Joseph Cook. 
 
 It is charged against Socialism that it would open wide 
 the door to political corruption. We have shown in the 
 preceding chapter that Socialism would purify politics. 
 We shall therefore confine ourselves strictly to this charge 
 and to its refutation. 
 
 Mr. Joseph Cook says, "The State which places at the 
 
 ' " Socialism of To-day," Introduction, p. 39. 
 
AS TO THE COREUPTIOK OF POLITICS 385 
 
 disposal of its government its money, land, and all means of 
 production, opens the way for endless pecuniary and politi- 
 cal corruption." ^ This proposition is illustrated and en- 
 forced by wit and simile, history and philosophy, dogma 
 and logic, after the inimitable manner of its illustrious 
 author. Multitudes turn away from Socialism at the bare 
 mention of its supposed political money, political lands, 
 mines, factories, and the political management of all the 
 processes in the production and distribution of economic 
 goods. Can free institutions exist, it is plausibly asked, 
 when public patronage is thus increased, and the hungry 
 hordes of officials are numbered by millions instead of 
 hundreds of thousands, and the doors of political corruption, 
 and jobbery are thrown open in every direction ? 
 
 This reasoning is based upon a fundamental misconcep- 
 tion of what Socialism is. It assumes the validity of three 
 " principles which Socialism utterly repudiates : first, that 
 the government or State is separate and opposed to the 
 people ; second, that the spoils system would continue in 
 the Socialistic state ; third, that money would continue to 
 play the same part as under capitalism. These three as- 
 sumptions constitute, under capitalism, the tripod on which 
 rests the institution of political corruption, and which fur- 
 nishes a basis for the argument that an increased number 
 of government officials necessarily leads to increased politi- 
 cal corruption. Neither of them applies to the Socialistic 
 state. At present the government is regarded more and 
 more as something distinct from the people. This is 
 treason to the very idea of democracy. It is due largely 
 to the influence of private capital which now controls 
 public office. Politics are now a business, a big moneyed 
 monopoly or trust, with its boss managers, board of 
 directors, and stockholders, while the people, imagining 
 themselves freemen, simply obey orders, having little voice 
 in the management and receiving no dividends. So long 
 as King Mammon, with Prince Caucus and Lord Tammany, 
 presides over politics, severing the connection between the 
 electors and elected, the State and government will be re- 
 1 " Socialism," p. 56. 
 
386 OBJECTIONS TO SOCIALISM CONSIDEEED 
 
 garded as distinct from the people, and the increase of 
 officers will be accompanied with increased corruption. 
 
 Now let us change the conditions ; let us blot out the 
 mischievous idea that the State and the government are 
 other than the people; let us establish the government that 
 we applaud on paper, a government of the people, by the 
 people, and for the people ; then, when all the voters shall 
 have a personal and patriotic interest in the conduct 
 of affairs, the unscrupulousness or mere indifference of a 
 public officer would be regarded, not as a clever manipula- 
 tion of politics, but as the rankest treason. Nothing is 
 more common than for those who make the charge of polit- 
 ical corruption against Socialism to assume, when they de- 
 sire to show how it would aggravate existing evils, that 
 the Socialistic state would be the same as the existing one ; 
 but when they desire to show how existing good would be 
 destroyed, that the nature of the State would be changed. 
 
 The spoils system is the second factor in political corrup- 
 tion. It is assumed also that this would continue to exist 
 under Socialism, and bring forth the same evil fruits. This 
 is a grave error. Every citizen will be a public functionary 
 under Socialism, where, as in an army, all, from the highest 
 to the lowest, are striving for one common object, and 
 where, on account of the glory of the object and unity of 
 interest, few are so base as not to condemn shirking and 
 cowardice. No motive for personal effort is so powerful 
 in the human breast as that produced by the union of a 
 vast body of men struggling to achieve a noble end. 
 
 In a co-operative commonwealth, where all individual and 
 collective interests and results depended largely on the 
 efficiency of foremen and superintendents who are for the 
 most part the officers, is it reasonable to suppose that on 
 every election the experienced and efficient foremen would 
 be dismissed to make places for office-seekers ? Would 
 voters whose food, clothing, housing, and all comforts and 
 luxuries, were at stake be likely to acquiesce in such pro- 
 ceedings ? The civil service which now puts a premium 
 on corruption will reform itself when every citizen has a 
 direct personal interest in its purity. No increase in the 
 
AS TO THE CORRUPTION OF POLITICS 387 
 
 number of officials would tend to corruption, when the 
 offices ceased to be merely political institutions and hence 
 venal ; but were industrial positions held only on merit, by 
 incumbents who were in immediate contact with the people 
 and responsible to them, such a tenure of office, and the 
 substitution of public for partisan administration, would 
 leave no room or motive for political corruption. 
 
 It seems to be overlooked in considering the increase in 
 the number of of&ce-holders in the Socialistic state, that 
 thousands and tens of thousands of offices now required by 
 capitalism would be discontinued. A large per cent of 
 sheriffs, constables, and other police officers, multitudes of 
 tax assessors and collectors, clerks, attorneys, judges, etc., 
 would be discharged. It is not contended, however, that the 
 totality of public officials would not be largely increased. 
 What is insisted on is, that under the changed conditions 
 of Socialism- an increase of offices is compatible with a de- 
 crease of political corruption, and not only compatible, but 
 certain when the motive for all corruption has disappeared. 
 The spoils system is the fruitful source of demagogism, 
 official patronage, political fraud and jobbery. This un- 
 clean beast. Socialism would destroy and thus give a death 
 blow to political corruption. 
 
 The third and all-important factor in political corruption 
 is money. Money can be secretly handled and hoarded. 
 By means of money political assessments can be levied ; 
 offices and officers bought and sold ; a bank-note or coin 
 can be slipped into the hands of a voter without observa- 
 tion. It is money and money alone that supports the lobby, 
 corrupts legislation, bribes judges and jurors, and perverts 
 justice. Indeed, without money political corruption could 
 not exist for a day. Socialism abolishes money. 
 
 Now, the objection to Socialism on the ground that it opens 
 the doors to prodigious political corruption, is based on the 
 assumption that the institution of money will continue to 
 exist and play the same part as under the present regime. 
 The assumption is utterly groundless, and this is an end of 
 the discussion. There is absolutely nothing further to be 
 
388 OBJECTIONS TO SOCIALISM CONSIDERED 
 
 said. With the abolition of money political corruption 
 could no more exist than the lungs could be inflated with- 
 out air. 
 
 XII. — As to the Objection that Socialism is Impracticable. 
 
 " The question, therefore, is not whetlier we have reached the perfec- 
 tion of character whicli would be necessary in order to a perfect working 
 of the scheme of nationalization of industry, but whether we have 
 reached such a degree of development as would make an imperfect 
 working of the scheme possible." — T. B. Vebben. 
 
 This is at once the strongest and the weakest objection 
 urged against Socialism. The strongest, because it appeals 
 to the cupidity of the rich, the timidity of the poor, the 
 conservatism of the temporizer, and the disposition of men 
 rather " to suffer while evils are sufferable than to right 
 themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are ac- 
 customed." It is the weakest, because it is utterly destitute 
 of moral support. 
 
 We submit twelve considerations in answer to this 
 objection. 
 
 1. The question is not one of mere expediency, but of 
 right. 
 
 Were the question one of expediency merely, were it not 
 that the alpha and omega of Socialism is none other than 
 the eternal and immutable principle of social justice and 
 right, the objection of impracticability might end the discus- 
 sion, and capitalism, like ^sop's wolf, might continue un- 
 molested to tear in pieces and feast upon the weak and 
 innocent lambs of society ; but in view of its ethical factor 
 the objection has not a feather's weight. Given an insti- 
 tution containing ninety-nine parts of expediency and one 
 part of injustice and that institution is doomed. Thoreau 
 said, "One man with God on his side is in a majority." 
 There is more potency in a grain of rig/ht than in a ton of 
 expediency. To deny this is to deny faith in God and in 
 the right. The mills of the gods may grind slowly, but they 
 grind surely. Eather than stand with the multitude in the 
 wrong, I had rather with Noah stand solitary and alone in 
 
THE OBJECTION THAT SOCIALISM IS IMPRACTICABLE 389 
 
 the right, even though, as was the case with Noah, a hun- 
 dred and twenty years elapsed before the right could be 
 realized. 
 
 The men who have lifted human society have always 
 stood alone. Solon and Socrates, Moses and Christ, Colum- 
 bus, Galileo, and Luther were in the eyes of their wise eon- 
 temporaries visionaries and Utopianists. Robert Fulton, the 
 inventor of torpedoes and steam navigation, was oflBcially 
 pronounced " impracticable." Richard Arkwright was im- 
 practicable in attempting to invent the spinning-frame : he 
 encountered the contempt, ridicule, and bitter hostility of 
 his wiser and more conservative contemporaries. More than 
 a score of acknowledged authorities on electricity wrote 
 essays to prove that Edison's system of electrical lighting 
 by means of incandescent lamps was utterly impracticable ; 
 meantime Edison was completely successful. Eli Whitney 
 invented the cotton-gin, of which Lord Macaulay said, " What 
 Peter the Great did to make Russia dominant, Eli Whit- 
 ney's invention of the cotton-gin has more than equalled in 
 its relation to the power and progress of the United States." 
 The way of this industrial and social transgressor, however, 
 was hard. He was "impracticable." " The rewards which he 
 received for his invention of the cotton-gin were disheart- 
 ening misfortunes, the loss of a lucrative and honorable 
 profession, costly and troublesome law-suits, health shat- 
 tered by worry and travel, a paltry grant from South Caro- 
 lina, and — imperishable fame as one of the foremost figures 
 in the history of industrial development." 
 
 Probably the most Utopian and impracticable scheme in 
 the eyes of all the world was the attempt of the American 
 Colonies to set up this Republic. There is no good thing 
 extant, no beneficent institution, no established economy 
 in any department of human life, that was not at its birth 
 and during its infancy opposed as " impracticable," and de- 
 nounced as the chimerical scheme of dreamers, by the great 
 body of the wise, the wealthy, and the good. 
 
 The charge, therefore, that Socialism is impracticable will 
 satisfy only those whose outlook is limited to immediate 
 and temporary ends. These are by no means to be lost 
 
390 OBJECTIONS TO SOCIALISM CONSIDERED 
 
 sight of, but he has a frivolous heart and a shallow head 
 who regards them as supreme aud final. 
 
 2. Industrial justice is not impracticable. 
 
 Socialists would be satisfied with the establishment of 
 industrial justice. Constructive Socialism is state control 
 of industries so far as is necessary to secure industrial 
 justice. Socialists would be abundantly satisfied with this 
 measure of state control. If exclusive State control of all 
 industries is advocated, it is only because it is supposed 
 that the desired end could be reached by a change no less 
 complete. It is, however, certain that whenever, in the 
 progress of the movement, such end would be reached, 
 Socialists would oppose any further interference by the 
 State. 
 
 Let us examine some of the forms in which this charge 
 of impracticability is made. 
 
 3. Socialism is not a Utopia. 
 
 Dr. Woolsey asks, " Is Socialism a mere Utopia, or can it 
 be realized in the world ? " ' He answers that it is a Utopia, 
 and assigns the five following reasons : 
 
 First. If the new faith is a law of nature, as Socialists 
 claim, its progress must be measured not by years but by 
 centuries ; and in the mean time the evils of capitalism 
 can be remedied by legislation. The answer is obvious. 
 Remedy hy legislation is Socialism. Dr. Woolsey thus 
 erects the very Utopia charged against Socialism. The 
 progress of this law of nature has already been measured by 
 three centuries. The only question is. Has the fulness of 
 time yet come ? 
 
 Second. Socialists cannot persuade men that the present 
 system plunders operatives, or that they would fare better 
 at the hands of the State than they now do under private 
 employers. It is sufficient to reply that men are already 
 persuaded of this plundering, and this is the sole immediate 
 cause of the social question. 
 
 Third. Socialism makes no provision for satisfying the 
 demand for specific articles, nor for the mobility of labor, 
 nor could it accommodate itself to the changing fashions and 
 
 1 " Communism and Socialism," p. 276. 
 
THE OBJECTION THAT SOCIALISM IS IMPKACTICABLE 391 
 
 wants. As to furnishing specific articles, we reply that it 
 will be time enough to furnish them when needed. Would 
 any one oppose the founding of a college because as yet it 
 had made no provision for teaching some particular branch 
 of knowledge ? As to the mobility of labor, it seems to be 
 entirely overlooked that under Socialism the necessity for 
 such mobility would disappear. 
 
 The curse inseparable' from the present system is that it 
 keeps laborers on the move ; but it is assumed that, however 
 it may be with a rolling stone, the only way for laborers to 
 gather moss is to keep rolling. Socialism would not be able 
 to accommodate itself to the " changing fashions of society." 
 That, we reply, would be a consummation most devoutly to 
 be wished. If Socialism would check the vanity, the waste, 
 extravagance, and consequent demoralization of changing 
 fashions, the State might well issue a thanksgiving procla- 
 mation closing with the patriotic and pious invocation, God 
 save the Co-operative Commonwealth ! 
 
 Fourth. Socialism will affect unfavorably the individual, 
 the family, the government, morals, religion, and all spirit- 
 ual and moral forces. 
 
 A mere assertion so inclusive and sweeping carries little 
 weight. We have already treated at length its different 
 elements. We do not believe that such would be the result 
 of Socialism. If it was, would Socialism on that account 
 be "impracticable"? Because under individualism these 
 institutions suffer injuries, is individualism thereby ren- 
 dered impracticable ? Socialism might properly be opposed 
 on this account, but not on the ground of impracticability. 
 Fifth. This change in society can be effected only by 
 violence, in which case the advantage would be in favor of 
 the existing order. 
 
 Dr. Woolsey failed to discover the temper of modern 
 Socialism. It is not violent, but peaceful: it finds that 
 "the pen is mightier than the sword." Socialism is being 
 evolved and daily approved even by those who but yester- 
 day opposed it. It is true that the existing order always 
 has an advantage ; but we have read history to little pur- 
 pose if such advantage can be relied upon to prevent the 
 
302 OBJECTIONS TO SOCIALISM CONSIDBKED 
 
 most radical social revolutions, whether peaceful or violent. 
 That Socialism could only be brought about by violence is 
 an assumption shown to be unfounded by the rapid and 
 peaceful advance Socialism is everywhere making. 
 
 This charge of impracticability by Dr. Woolsey is one of 
 the most formal and specific that we have ever seen. We 
 submit to the candid reader that it is not sustained by 
 either or all of the reasons assigned. 
 
 4. History furnishes no evidence that Socialism is 
 impracticable. 
 
 The popular manner in which this objection is made is 
 well illustrated by the hastj' statements of an influential 
 newspaper : " Every race, tribe, and nation has tried the 
 nationalist business in some form, at some time. The first 
 pressure broke its fastenings in every instance." ^ 
 
 If this were true it might with equal propriety be said 
 of past republics. It was the argument confidently relied 
 upon by the Tories to show the futility of the attempt to 
 establish the American Republic. But it is not true. The 
 nationalism now advocated is by a people free, intelligent, 
 and moral : a people who have attained a high degree of 
 industrial development ; in a word, a people highly civil- 
 ized and prepared for an advanced social regime. Would 
 the writer quoted pretend that state Socialism under such , 
 conditions was ever before attempted ? If not, what weight 
 should attach to his statement? Success in any experi- 
 ment waits upon conditions. The historical precedents 
 to which he refers were either mere communistic societies 
 within the State, of which we have had no less than seventy- 
 two in our own country, or the joint interests of wandering 
 tribes of savages, or the feudalistic regime of ancient Sparta, 
 or the communes of primitive and semi-civilized peoples. 
 
 Dr. Woolsey, who, as we have seen, opposes Socialism by 
 arguments drawn from all plausible sources, is careful to 
 say, " History has no voice to utter concerning communistic 
 states." 2 
 
 5. Social progress tends to solidarity and hence to a 
 practical Socialism. 
 
 1 " Kansas City Times "as quoted in " Public Opinion," January, 1890. 
 
 2 " Communism and Socialism," p. 22. 
 
THE OBJECTION THAT SOCIALISM IS IMPKACTICABLE 393 
 
 History and especially psychology show that as men 
 advance they develop the same desires and faculties. Not- 
 withstanding this law the article before referred to asks, 
 " Do you say that the nation's present unfitness for the sys- 
 tem is no bar to an expectation that it may be [iit] before 
 long ? the fatal objection to that view is that the more men 
 develop the more they differentiate. Desires, faculties, 
 and points of view, become more and more varied, compli- 
 cated, and inexplicable." Then, in Heaven's name let us 
 stop this diiferentiation before we all have each other by 
 the ears. It is not true, however, that as men develop 
 they " differentiate " so as to be less able to live together 
 in peace. Exactly the opposite is the fact. The present 
 differentiation is due to the fact that some have not de- 
 veloped, have had no chance to develop, while others have been 
 more fortunate. The idea that men are to grow unlike by 
 development antagonizes all history. There is a unity, a 
 oneness, to be attained not only in the kingdom of heaven, 
 but in the kingdom of earth, which all good men hope and 
 pray for. Human solidarity in religion demands a solidar- 
 ity in economic and social relations. In such union there is 
 perfect freedom in the exercise of all proper personal tastes, 
 desires, and faculties. The reason, says Professor Francis 
 A. Walker, why the skulls of civilized men "contain more 
 than thirty ounces of brain matter, and their foreheads 
 slope backwards at an angle of more than forty-five de- 
 grees,'" is not because under equal conditions "the more 
 men develop the more they differentiate," but because the 
 one class has had the benefit of the principle of competition, 
 while the other class, from the absence of proper conditions, 
 has developed scarcely at all. What shall be said when 
 the opponents of Socialism differ so essentially among 
 themselves ? One says, " Historical precedents settle this 
 Utopian scheme." Dr. Woolsey replies, " History has no 
 voice to utter concerning communistic states. " One says, 
 "Men differentiate as they develop." ^Professor Walker 
 claims that the difference is because one class has and the 
 other has not developed. Dr. Washington Gladden says, 
 1 " The Atlantic Monthly," February, 1890. 
 
394 OBJECTIONS TO SOCIALISM CONSIDEBBD 
 
 " Competition means war,"' ' vvliile Professor Walker says, 
 " It is God's maxim." ^ Wlien the opponents of Socialism 
 flounder around in this fashion, it shows that the supply of 
 valid arguments falls far short of the demand. 
 
 6. Selfishness is not the only practicable principle. 
 
 In a single sentence the article to which we have called 
 attention ^ pays homage to the principle which is essential 
 to the integrity of capitalism. That principle is selfishness. 
 It says, " Selfishness has scarcely been diminished by the 
 thousands of years during which what we label civilization 
 has been staggering forward and slipping backward." All 
 prosperity, it seems, is due to selfishness. " Selfishness has 
 produced our laws, our railroads, our poems, and our public 
 schools," and would he not add our religion ? We had sup- 
 posed that at least public schools, along with our liberty 
 and religion, had been produced in spite of selfishness. We 
 admire the candor, but deplore the cussedness, of this admis- 
 sion. We are perfectly willing to have the issue joined, on 
 this question : Shall selfishness be made the basal princi- 
 ple of all economic activity ? 
 
 7. The impracticability of Communism should not be 
 attributed to Socialism. 
 
 It is necessary to guard against the sophistry of critics 
 in confounding Socialism with Communism. They have 
 many features in common, just as men and brutes have all 
 the senses in common, but they differ as much as men dif- 
 fer from brutes. The immortal soul of Socialism is justice, 
 the breath of life of Communism is equality. The first 
 move that the capitalistic player on the social chessboard 
 makes, is to confound Socialism with Communism, or if he 
 makes a distinction he immediately proceeds to disregard 
 it. Every conclusion against Communism is naively applied 
 to Socialism. Against this well-known fallacy ignoratio 
 elenchi, answering to the wrong point, we protest. Com- 
 munism demands equality at the expense of justice ; 
 Socialism demands justice with that degree of equality 
 
 1 " Applied Christianity," p. 104. 
 
 2 " Atlantic Monthly," February, 1890. 
 
 3 In " Public Opinion," January, 1890. 
 
THE OBJECTION THAT SOCIALISM IS IMPRACTICABLE 395 
 
 necessary to insure it. Communism would supply men's 
 wants whether they worked or not ; Socialism would sup- 
 ply their wants according as they worked, but it would 
 insist on work for all. The former would extend the prin- 
 ciple of community not only to political and industrial 
 life, but to domestic relations ; the latter would limit 
 it to industry, and apply it even here only so far as 
 justice required. Communism would destroy individual- 
 ity; Socialism would destroy individualism. Communism 
 would rob men of that degree of personal liberty essen- 
 tial to individual incentive and social progress ; Socialism 
 would say to every man : " You must engage in some kind 
 of work, and earn a decent subsistence so as not to menace 
 society by dirt, disease, and deviltry. Beyond that, your 
 condition, reputation, honor, and happiness generally 
 depend upon your own exertions." Socialism also says 
 that there is abundant room and incentive here for the 
 exercise of all healthy motives, without the stimulus of 
 accumulating private property in order to diiferentiate 
 one's self from his fellows and at their expense. Other 
 important differences exist between Communism and Social- 
 ism. .We have contrasted them here for the simple pur- 
 pose of exposing the sophistical trick of considering them 
 as one and the same in order to discredit Socialism. Com- 
 munism has by general consent had leave to withdraw. 
 
 8. The practicability of Socialism does not depend on 
 minor details. 
 
 To this .same fallacy of answering to the wrong point 
 must be referred all those arguments against the practica- 
 bility of Socialism derived from the criticism of minor 
 details, such, for example, as are set forth in " Looking 
 Backward." It is amusing to observe the supercilious, 
 condescending tone of the critics of this work, which is 
 more widely known and is influencing more thoughtful 
 minds than all its critics combined, and the wisdom and 
 prophecy of which will continue to command the attention 
 of men when most of these censors shall have been for- 
 gotten. This is, however, not because of the value of any 
 or all of its details, which are wholly gratuitous, but because 
 
396 objectio:ns to socialism considekbd 
 
 it enthrones God and Humanity where Mammon and Covet- 
 ousness have sat undisturbed for millenniums. 
 
 Nothing is more common, however, than to overthrow 
 some detail, or criticise some unessential feature, and then 
 infer that Socialism is demolished. For example, we have 
 before us an article by Professor F. A. Walker, one of our 
 foremost political economists, declaring that Mr. Bellamy's 
 State in " Looking Backward " is a " wild weak dream " be- 
 cause forsooth a century or less is too brief a space in which 
 to effect changes so vast. The critic might as well have char- 
 acterized the attempt to suppress the rebellion as a " wild 
 weak dream " because Lincoln supposed three months to 
 be sufficient. He regards it as also chimerical, because he 
 is able to show that Mr. Bellamy's analogy between a mili- 
 tary and an industrial army breaks down at several points ; 
 and because he finds in the story certain features, as the 
 "absolute equality of conditions," or too great freedom 
 from "cares that cark," overdrawn. Does any one really 
 suppose that Mr. Bellamy's Socialistic state, founded upon 
 great moral, political, and industrial principles which are 
 its crown of glory, is dependent upon the literal applica- 
 tion and operation of these subordinate and wholly gratui- 
 tous features ? Shall these and similar arguments by 
 critics be regarded as touching the real issue ? The same 
 line of argument which rejects the truth of a romance or 
 allegory because of fiction or imperfection in their drapery, 
 would compel him to characterize "Paradise Lost," "Pil- 
 grim's Progress," "Alton Locke," "Uncle Tom's Cabin," 
 and the parables of Jesus as " wild weak dreams." 
 
 9. Socialism does not encourage idleness. 
 
 It is charged that Socialism is impracticable because it 
 represents men and women as being able to live in luxury 
 and without toil. " Can Socialism repeal the law that men 
 shall eat bread in the sweat of their brows ? " Shall it 
 tell working men " that the commonest and most obscure 
 laborer will live if he chooses in dwellings as beautiful 
 and convenient as any which are now monopolized by the 
 wealthy " ? 
 
 The authors of these questions answer them by gravely 
 
THE OBJECTION THAT SOCIALISM IS IMPRACTICABLE 397 
 
 showing that work is a law of nature ; that only Indian 
 tribes or savages can live without toil, and that individual 
 character, development, and social progress depend on the 
 homely virtues of industry, thrift, and sacrifice. 
 
 Now, all this is the grossest caricature of Socialism. Its 
 corner-stone is work for all and all for work. It does seek 
 to equalize burdens by relieving the overworked, and ask- 
 ing the able-bodied idler in society either to lend a hand 
 or be kind enough to die. We deny that Socialism, as its 
 enemies represent, seeks or expects any such Elysian 
 fields and perennial fountains of nectar here on earth. 
 There is not a Socialistic platform extant, there is not an 
 utterance of a leading Socialistic writer, that can be quoted 
 directly or indirectly in support of this view, save perhaps 
 the single exception of Him who said, " Be not anxious for 
 your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink ; nor 
 yet for your body what ye shall put on." ' , But Socialists 
 generally, whatever may be true of their opponents, have 
 not Christian faith enough to expect an economic paradise 
 where all anxiety for one's material welfare will disappear. 
 
 10. Socialism need not be introduced at once. 
 Socialism cannot be regarded as impracticable because 
 
 certain of its friends have been sanguine enough to believe 
 that it could be introduced in a comparatively short period. 
 This might indeed be impracticable, while the ultimate 
 fact is none the less feasible. Nothing is- more uncertain 
 than the time element in forecasting social movements. So 
 many and different factors, seen and unseen, enter into the 
 problem, that while prediction is often folly, the culmina- 
 tion is frequently precipitated to the astonishment of every 
 one. 
 
 11. Socialism does not interfere with personal and pri- 
 vate concerns of life. 
 
 In refuting this charge against Socialism we have in 
 mind a Socialistic state which allows the largest exercise 
 of individual liberty consistent with social justice. This, 
 however, is not what the enemies of Socialism intend. 
 They first represent Socialism as necessarily an interfer- 
 1 Matthew vi. 25. 
 
398 OBjECTioisrs to socialism considered 
 
 ence on the part of the State, not only in matters of in- 
 dustry, but in all the most personal and private concerns of 
 life. They assure us that the State would arbitrarily de- 
 cide not only individual occupations, wages, and other con- 
 ditions of work, but also what and how much each man 
 shall eat, drink, and wear ; when and whom he shall marry ; 
 how many children he may rear ; in short, he can lie down, 
 rise up, gape, and sneeze only at the dictation of the State. 
 After thus representing the Socialistic state as one in 
 which every vestige of liberty is lost, in which all citizens 
 like dumb cattle are hampered, have rings in their noses, 
 and are hitched by governmental halters to the public bar- 
 racks to nibble at the national haystacks, it is generally 
 asserted that this theory is impracticable. A free people 
 will not submit to it. Socialists are beside themselves. 
 With many this sort of logic is conclusive of the whole 
 matter. It is ^ sufficient answer to say that this whole 
 conception of Socialism is as inadequate and ridiculous as 
 was the ancient definition of man as a "two-legged animal 
 without feathers." 
 
 The co-operative commonwealth in no way interferes with, 
 the free exercise of individual tastes, desires, and prefer- 
 ences in all private and domestic affairs. Moreover, it in- 
 terferes with the possession of economic goods only so far 
 as is necessary to secure social justice and the public good. 
 
 Those who contend that Socialism is impracticable are 
 bound to show either that its ethical claims can be realized 
 under capitalism, or that no injustice is essentially involved 
 in the present system of production and distribution. Few 
 have the hardihood to maintain the latter ; and hence most 
 writers on economic questions, while upholding capitalism, 
 seek to devise ways and means of mitigating its evils. 
 That these evils, as Socialists claim, are inherent in the 
 system, is evident from the fact that nearly every measure 
 proposed is in the direction of Socialism, and when such 
 measures are carried far enough to effectually remove ex- 
 isting wrongs the result is Socialism. 
 
 12. The impracticable is being realized. 
 
 Nothing is more common than to find the advocates of 
 
THE OBJECTION THAT SOCIALISM IS IMPKACTICABLE 399 
 
 capitalism sanctioning and even proposing measures that 
 are purely Socialistic in spirit, purpose, and tendency. Such 
 are all proposals for state, municipal, or social control of 
 industrial affairs. To this extent the impracticable is being 
 continually realized, and the prospect is that in the near 
 future ^ large amount of this impracticability will be an 
 actual fact. 
 
 13. The present ideal is always the future practicability. 
 
 As we remarked at the outset, in discussing this charge 
 it is the weakest of all objections against Socialism, because 
 it is not only without ethical support, but it is sustained 
 by arguments essentially vicious. Let it be conceded that 
 the great end of Socialism is justice ; what is the moral 
 quality of such statements as these ? — " We must take men 
 as they are." " AVe should all be Socialists if we could 
 eliminate selfishness." " If it were a question as to a pos- 
 sible ideal state of society, we should all be Socialists." 
 Had we not better set before us a,n ideal and follow it, even 
 though we follow it afar off ? Was anything great or good 
 ever achieved that was not inspired by an ideal ? Will any 
 one deny that we owe our best efforts, our highest aims and 
 brightest hopes, all generous and philanthropic endeavor, 
 all advance in art and science, all educational, social, and 
 moral culture, in a word all progress and civilization, to 
 noble ideals ? Every beneficent institution that exists was 
 once ideal before it was real. Our system of education, 
 from the common school to the college, existed at first only 
 in fancy. The judiciary of England and America, the 
 most perfect piece of social mechanism the world has ever 
 seen, was once purely visionary. The wildest dreams of 
 philanthropic reformers at the dawn of modern history 
 never pictured the magnificent eleemosynary institutions 
 now maintained at the public expense. Not only Aristotle, 
 but Jefferson Davis with millions of followers, supposed 
 slavery to be a law of nature as unalterable as the law of 
 gravitation. The most Utopian scheme conceivable only 
 three decades ago was the emancipation of the American 
 slave. Democracy itself almost within the memory of man 
 was regarded by the civilized world as the most compli- 
 
400 OBJECTIONS TO SOCIALISM CONSIDERED 
 
 cated, visioiiaiy, and revolutionary project ever hatched by 
 the disordered brain of man. Vox populi non semper vox 
 Dei. The reverse, however, the voice of God is always the 
 voice of the people, is true in the long run. It is not 
 claimed that Socialism can be realized in a day, or perhaps 
 in a century; but that man is oblivious to the teachings of 
 history who on this account regards it as impracticable. 
 A movement that has God and humanity behind it, that 
 pays supreme homage to truth, justice, and mercy, will not 
 be seriously discounted because it is as yet ideal. The 
 Decalogue might be opposed on the same ground and with 
 equal propriety. It was and still is an ideal. Is it less 
 valuable on this account ?' What the pillar of fire was to 
 the Israelites, what the compass is to the mariner, what the 
 sun is to the universe, such is the Decalogue to the human 
 race. True, it may not be fully realized, but it can be ap- 
 proximated, and all human thought and endeavor should be 
 a struggle toward it. Will our critics oppose the Deca- 
 logue on the ground that " we must take men as they are " ? 
 This is one of the devil's maxims. We do not propose to 
 " take men as they are ; " we do not propose to take our- 
 selves as we are, so long as there is a higher ideal, some- 
 thing better to be attained. There is a sense of course in 
 which this saying is true. To accomplish immediate, prac- 
 tical results we must make use of the material at hand ; 
 but the maxim has no sympathy with progress ; nay, it 
 is the enemy of all moral, social, and economic reform. 
 Where is the Christian minister or moralist who dares stand 
 forth and say, " My friends, this thing is right, but it is not 
 practicable." What is intended by the statement, "We 
 should all be Socialists if we could eliminate selfishness " ? 
 Are we not bound to try to eliminate selfishness ? Is there 
 any higher or nobler end to work for ? Is Socialism to be 
 rejected because it sets before it this ideal ? Many of those 
 who oppose this objection to Socialism profess to believe, 
 in company with the entire Christian Church, in the mil- 
 lennium, and profess to be hoping and working for its ad- 
 vent. But what is the millennium at present but a " possible 
 ideal state," a place where selfishness will be eliminated, 
 
THE OBJECTION THAT SOCIALISM IS IMPRACTICABLE 401 
 
 and a state that can only be reached by not taking "men 
 as we find them " ? It is in order for these critics to show 
 that the millennium is not practicable. Their logical 
 quiver is full of argumentative arrows ready for use, of 
 which the following are samples : The millennium supposes 
 a state of society that " is contrary to all human experi- 
 ence." It is impossible "from the constitution of man and 
 the very nature of things." " We must take men as we 
 find them." The millennium is " optimistic and vision- 
 ary. It is not necessary, because the evils of the present 
 system," the regime of selfishness and sin, " can be reme- 
 died by legislation." The millennium "does not show how 
 wages will increase, neither does it make any provision for 
 the mobility of labor." As unselfishness and human brother- 
 hood must be actually realized in the millennium, is not this 
 the end of the argument ? " Selfishness has scarcely been 
 diminished by the thousands of years " of our civilization. 
 " Equality of conditions demanded by the " millennium " can 
 exist only among miserable imbruted savages." " In such 
 a state the man whose strength enables him to produce the 
 most can have no more than others ; thus he is compelled 
 to work half his time for others. This is slavery and 
 robbery. Can we approve " a millennium " in which such 
 flagrant dishonesty exists " ? " Besides a state " like the 
 millennium, " in which the conditions of life should cease 
 to be arduous and stern, is not desirable." Let us have 
 " more competition," more of the grand economic princi- 
 ple of the survival of the fittest, more of that law of lib- 
 erty which guarantees to the strong man " the use of all 
 his own powers exclusively for his own benefit " and leaves 
 the weak to take the "consequences of his weakness." 
 The millennium is "a wild weak dream." It is not re- 
 sponsive to say, this is what.it comes to after all, the mil- 
 lennium is about as probable and practical as Socialism. 
 This is not now in question. The point is, that*men who 
 believe in the millennium, proclaim themselves its adher- 
 ents, claim to shape their thought and conduct so as to 
 hasten its advent, and feel scandalized to Iiear it character- 
 ized as Utopian and impracticable, do not hesitate to em- 
 
402 OBJECTIONS TO SOCIALISM CONSIDERED 
 
 ploy the foregoing language in characterizing Socialism, 
 which is but a single step in the direction of the millennium, 
 and to human ken a hundred times nearer and more prac- 
 ticable. Every argument hurled against Socialism which 
 they oppose, smites with tenfold more force the millen- 
 nium in which they believe. It seems not to have occurred 
 to these gentlemen that there is anything inconsistent in 
 advocating a system of ethics that hastens the millennium, 
 and a system of political economy that hinders it. This 
 argument, indeed, has force only with those who believe in 
 a millennium. Those who reject such belief are compara- 
 tively few. As certain as God exists and governs the world 
 he has created, so certain is it that ultimately right must 
 triumph over wrong, truth over error, virtue over vice, love 
 over hate, and happiness over misery ; and when social 
 justice is thus crowned king the millennium has come. 
 That only is a sound and healthy economy, whether polit- 
 ical, social, or moral, which sets before it this ideal, and 
 labors unswervingly for its realization. 
 
KEVKLATIOK AXJD OUTLOOK OF SOCIALISM 403 
 
 CHAPTEE VIII. 
 
 REVELATION AND OUTLOOK OF SOCIALISM. 
 
 " The future belongs to the purified Socialism." — Albert ScHAPrLB. 
 
 "On the irresistible momentum of these two inevitable and ever- 
 growing forces — the concentration of industry and the growth of 
 the new democracy — Socialism depends for the realization of its scheme 
 of transformation." — JfUncyclopsBdia Britannica. " Socialism," 
 
 Will Socialism be realized ? This is a vital question. 
 
 If the industrial disturbance is only temporary, a mere 
 excrescence of a social system that is on the whole healthy 
 and natural, it will soon be removed by absorption or a 
 little capitalistic surgery. If, on the other hand, the great 
 labor rebellion, embracing all civilized countries, is not 
 founded upon mere caprice or temporary wrongs, but upon 
 the changed conditions of society; if the old social gar- 
 ment is outworn and outgrown, then all attempts to patch 
 it bj^ putting new cloth to it will ere long only make the 
 rent worse. 
 
 Many causes, some of which we have mentioned in chap- 
 ter II. have been operating to produce the present crisis. 
 To-day we are witnessing not so much a revolution as an 
 epochal period in industrial evolution. We should look 
 forward and not backward. But will Socialism ever be- 
 come a fact ? We do not hesitate to affirm that the evils 
 it opposes will be abolished, and the good it seeks will be 
 fealized. Every step to this end will be Socialistic, and 
 the result will be Socialism or all that Socialism demands. 
 As Christianity is bound to be realized, although it may 
 never permanently and unalterably crystallize in any par- 
 ticular form, so Socialism may not take on any particular 
 form now proposed and still be realized. If it is a regime 
 which best meets the new and better civilization, which 
 best satisfies the new conception of the State and its proper 
 
404 REVELATION AND OUTLOOK OE SOCIALISM 
 
 functions, of the idea of right and social justice which now 
 prevails, of the universal brotherhood of man, and of the 
 solidarity of society, then Socialism, whatever name or form 
 it may assume, is an inevitable and ultimate fact. 
 
 The prejudice against the term has led to the adoption 
 in this country of the word Nationalism, which is a happy 
 synonym of Socialism. 
 
 It is amusing as it is common to meet with people who 
 can hardly conceal their impatience at the mention of 
 Socialism, yet heartily approve every one of its principles. 
 This prejudice, however, is rapidly disappearing as is evi- 
 dent from the friendly attitude of thoughtful minds toward 
 the new order. 
 
 I. — Growth and Numerical Strength of Socialism. 
 
 " In scientific garb Socialism is transforming politics and is occupying 
 the greater number of professorial chairs in Germany and Italy. 
 
 Under the form of State Socialism it sits in the conncil-chamber of 
 sovereigns ; and finally under a Christian form it is making its influence 
 felt in the hearts of the Catholic clergy, and still more in the hearts of 
 different Protestant denominations." — Laveleye. 
 
 The rapid spread of Socialism is phenomenal ; history 
 records nothing like it. It no sooner enters a country than 
 it captures the moral sentiment of the people. It can 
 repeat the famous apothegm of Csesar, -Veni, vidi, vici. A 
 decade since it had hardly an adherent in the United 
 States ; now it numbers millions openly or secretly in 
 sympathy with its leading principles. 
 
 Socialism pays no regard to local or national boundaries. 
 This is one of its characteristic features. It is a world 
 economy. This is because its leading principles are univer- 
 sal and immutable truths, which have heretofore been sup'- 
 posed to have no application to questions of labor and 
 capital, or to the organization of industrial forces, but 
 which are now seen to afford the only proper basis for an 
 industrial system. This amounts to a new discovery ; a 
 discovery the grandest and most beneficial ever made by 
 man. It will transform society, result in a new industrial 
 world, and make possible to the race a higher civilization. 
 
GROWTH AND NUMERICAL STRENGTH OF SOCIAIiISM 405 
 
 It is impossible to estimate the total number of Social- 
 ists. A competent witness testified nearly six years ago, 
 before an immigration committee in !N"ew York, that there 
 were 50,000,000 Socialists in Europe, and 2,000,000 extrem- 
 ists in this country. So rapidly is the movement gaining 
 ground that an estimate to-day would be too small to-mor- 
 row. But while we have no exact data for estimating the 
 total number of Socialists, we have certain facts and figures 
 which give us some idea of the rapid progress they are 
 making. . 
 
 They have increased in Germany at the average rate of 
 600,000 annually, or 1,644 daily for the last seven years. 
 To-day Germany contains not less than 8,000,000 avowed 
 Socialists, which is more than one-sixth the entire popula- 
 tion It is fair to presume that 3,000,000 more who have 
 not openly avowed themselves Socialists are in sympathy 
 with the movement. Probably the actual gain has been 
 nearly 1,000,000 per annum. At this rate of increase, should 
 the population remain stationary, Germany would be Social- 
 istic by a clear majority in fourteen years, and in twenty- 
 eight years every man, woman, and child in. the empire 
 would be a Socialist. Counter movements cannot be fore- 
 seen, but at present all social forces in Germany indicate 
 that this rate of increase will be accelerated rather than 
 retarded. 
 
 In England, while Socialism is less forward than in Ger- 
 many, it has even a broader foundation. The tree in 
 Germany has been allowed to top out as its roots and trunk 
 developed, while in England it has been cut back, its 
 branches pruned and buds pinched, which has resulted in 
 strengthening the foundations till its roots have honey- 
 combed the whole social organism. 
 
 Hardly a change is adopted or a measure proposed in 
 polities, law, education, industry, or religion, that is not, 
 however disguised, thoroughly Socialistic in its tendency. 
 
 We believe that notwithstanding the political forward- 
 ness of German Socialism, general public sentiment favor- 
 able to Socialistic principles is farther advanced in 
 England than in Germany ; only in the latter country the 
 
406 REVELATION AND OUTLOOK OF SOCIALISM 
 
 movement is called Socialism, while in England the word 
 is hardlj'' yet used in a good sense. 
 
 While Englishmen have been ridiculing Socialism as a 
 mere " Utopia," a social bubble of half-crazed Frenchmen 
 long since exploded, they have been advocating and adopt- 
 ing its principles with a zeal and rapidity unequalled by 
 any other people. This is largely due to propagandist 
 organizations of which there are many. The oldest and 
 most important was the " Democratic Federation," founded 
 in 1881, and which two years later adopted its present 
 name of the " Social Democratic Federation." " Under 
 this title it became a propagandist organization of great 
 effect in London, and many of the provincial industrial 
 centres having scores of energetic and self-supporting 
 local branches." It numbers among its members scholars, 
 orators, and authors of note. 
 
 The " Socialistic League," founded in 1883 by Mr. Wil- 
 liam Morris, the " Fabian Society," founded the same year, 
 and the " Christian Socialists Society," are popular organi- 
 zations whose influence by means of books, newspapers, 
 tracts, and lectures is felt far and near. Besides these a 
 large number of local societies are scattered throughout the 
 country. 
 
 Scotland has Socialistic societies in all the industrial 
 centres. The movement is also spreading in Ireland. 
 
 We have no means of estimating the total number of 
 Socialists in England. Any mere numerical estimate, how- 
 ever, would be of little use, for by far the greater number of 
 Socialists do not avow themselves such, partly because of the 
 prejudice against the word due to its suggestion of revolu- 
 tion and violence, partly because the advocates of Socialism 
 have prematurely raised issues respecting matters of mere 
 detail, and partly because they are not aware of the identity 
 between Socialistic movements and the social reform every- 
 where in progress. 
 
 Perhaps not one of the 500,000 working men who recently 
 marched into Hyde Park and demanded the recognition of 
 their rights, called himself a Socialist, and yet every move- 
 ment of Socialism may count on their liearty support. 
 
GKOWTH AND NUMERICAL STRENGTH OF SOCIALISM 407 
 
 France for the past twenty years has been engaged in 
 laying the foundations of the Republic upon the ruins of 
 the Empire. The attention of her people has been absorbed 
 in the creating of new institutions, and in the adjustment 
 of old ones to a republican form of government. 
 
 Socialism, therefore, as a distinct social or political issue 
 has received less attention than in some other countries. 
 It is not to be inferred on this account that Socialism is 
 extinct in France ; on the contrary, there are probably more 
 Socialists in France in proportion to its population than in 
 any other country. De Laveleye, a most competent judge, 
 says that a majority of workmen in France are Socialists ; ' 
 and it is a fact worthy of notice that this majority is com- 
 posed of the most skilled, intelligent, and thrifty class of 
 laborers. 
 
 Already, according to De Laveleye, there are among 
 the laborers alone 6,000,000 Socialists in France. Popular 
 liberty will soon enable them to make their voice heard. 
 Already the feeling of security from the plots of imperial- 
 ists, monarchists, and demagogues has been followed by 
 Socialistic movements. 
 
 Russian Nihilism is not Socialism ; but as the most vio- 
 lent thunder-storm is succeeded by the rainbow, so Nihilism 
 will yield to Socialism. 
 
 The Nihilist is the product of political tyranny. Russia 
 has educated her youth, then forbidden them to think ; 
 she has given the people liberty, then forbidden them to 
 exercise it ; thus while the social atmosphere is charged 
 with democracy the people are bound and gagged. 
 
 In addition to this the worst form of industrial oppres- 
 sion is rigidly maintained by the upper classes, and backed 
 by political and all other dominant forces of society. To 
 murmur means Siberia; to protest means death. The 
 result, which in England or America would be a bloody 
 revolution, is in Russia Nihilism, which destroys less 
 property and sheds less blood. The American or English- 
 man who is shocked at the methods of the Nihilist would, 
 were he forced to change places with him, be the first to 
 1 " French and German Socialism" (Ely), p. 154. 
 
408 REVELATION AND OUTLOOK OF SOCIALISM 
 
 adopt them. Assassination is indeed terrible, but tyranny 
 is more so; and when this becomes so intolerable that 
 rather than endure it, the sacrifice of property, and even 
 torture and death, are preferred, we must pity the sufferers 
 though we are shocked at their methods of last resort 
 
 Let us remember that the Russian Nihilist has no redress 
 for his wrongs. The law is against him ; the press, the 
 platform, all freedom of speech, are denied him. He must 
 tamely submit to the most cruel injustice, and if he dares 
 to object he must speak in a whisper, move in secret and 
 even then at his peril. He has therefore no choice as to 
 his mode of warfare ; it is Nihilism or hopeless slavery. 
 
 Under unsupportable wrong men have always been a law 
 unto themselves. God himself winked at certain sins 
 although he did not thereby approve. 
 
 Liberty will wink at the desperate deeds of men strug- 
 gling to be free. Good motives and bad methods often go 
 together. Moral quality attaches to motives. The end 
 may not justify the means, but it must be considered in 
 pronouncing judgment. The era of dynamite and daggers, 
 of poison and incendiarism, cannot long continue. For this, 
 history, experience, and particularly the nineteenth century, 
 stand pledged. 
 
 Nihilism is an abnormal or transitional phenomenon due 
 to social conditions of peculiar aggravation; it cannot en- 
 dure ; already the signs of wiser counsels and more con- 
 servative methods begin to appear. 
 
 We call attention to Russian Nihilism because in the 
 social evolution its next stage will be Socialism. It is, 
 therefore, an important factor in considering the outlook 
 of Socialism. 
 
 We may form some estimate of what the Russian Social- 
 ist will be from the present character of Nihilist men and 
 women, when a friendly voice shall be heard saying to 
 them as the Master said to Peter : " Put up again thy sword 
 into his place ; for all that take the sword shall perish 
 with the sword." ' The Nihilists are found in all ranks of 
 society. Their principles are their religion. While this 
 1 Matt. xxvi. 52. 
 
GROWTH AND NUMERICAL STRENGTH OF SOCIALISM 409 
 
 is not enough we are free to say that any religion without 
 these principles, whatever label it bears, is in so far a sham. 
 Herein lie the power and prophecy of Nihilism. The zeal 
 and devotion of its leaders are remarkable. They are ready 
 to die for their cause, and scores have died as triumphantly 
 and exultingly as did the Christian martyrs. Here is grand 
 material for candidates for any cause. "In all the con- 
 spiracies there we find rich and cultured women, even 
 daughters of state functionaries, of military officers, and 
 of nobles. The secret is so well kept that when the police 
 lay hands on the Nihilists they never succeed in tracking 
 out the main body of the association from the fragment 
 that they seize. The Nihilists penetrate everywhere ; they 
 shrink from no means of executing the sentence of the 
 secret tribunal. When they are shot or hanged they die with- 
 out repenting, and they defy both judge and executioner." ' 
 Many of the noblest spirits among Russian youths are en- 
 thusiastic in this movement. They are found especially 
 in the higher institutions of learning, a fact of great sig- 
 nificance. 
 
 The following is among the examples given by Laveleye : 
 Among several of the young men joining the new order at 
 one time " was a student of the Academy of Agriculture, 
 named Ivanoff, who was devoting himself to works of 
 charity with the exultation of a saint. He was much es- 
 teemed by his fellow-students, and had great influence 
 among them. He had organized aid funds for poor stu- 
 dents ; he used to devote all his spare time to teaching the 
 children of the peasants, and he habitually stinted himself 
 in order to give to others. He believed, however, that 
 individual beneficence could only assist a few unfortunates, 
 and that nothing but a social revolution could put an end 
 to the misery that exists. Netchaieff and Ivanoff did not 
 long pull together. Netchaieff had some revolutionary 
 proclamations posted up in the cheap boarding-houses that 
 Ivanoff had organized for poor students. These were in 
 consequence shut up, and the managers sent into exile. 
 Ivanoff was much distressed at this, and announced his 
 
 1 " Socialism of To-day " (Laveleye), pp. 205, 206.. 
 
410 EEVELATION AND OUTLOOK OF SOCIALISM 
 
 intention of quitting the association. Then, in fear lest he 
 should betray the secret, Netchaieff and two other mem- 
 bers, Pryoff and Nicolaleff, though hitherto friends of 
 Ivanoff, enticed him one evening into a quiet garden, 
 under pretext of digging up a secret press, and then they 
 shot him dead with a revolver and threw his body into a 
 pond." ^ 
 
 Socialism in our own country is daily winning adherents 
 to its principles. Many of its ardent supporters, however, 
 do not appropriate the name. Edward Bellamy, for ex- 
 ample, prefers to be called a Nationalist ; Helen Campbell, 
 who unhesitatingly declared to the writer her belief in 
 Socialism, is not known as a Socialist. These authors and 
 writers are representative of a large number who are de- 
 voting their talents and their means to Socialistic propa- 
 ganda while Socialism is rarely named in connection with 
 their work. 
 
 Any accurate numerical estimate of Socialists in the 
 United States is therefore impossible. About five years 
 ago Professor R. T. Ely said, " There might be half a mil- 
 lion adherents of the general principles of moderate and 
 peaceful Socialism." ^ Since that time the movement has 
 spread with a rapidity unparalleled in any other country or 
 time. There are a dozen Socialists now where there was 
 one then. 
 
 What we have prophesied of ISTihilism in Russia and 
 elsewhere has already taken place here. Many of the 
 Nihilists and revolutionists of yesterday, as it were, are 
 now peaceful Socialists. President Seelye of Amherst 
 College, said about six years ago : " There are probably 
 100,000 men in the United States to-day whose animosity 
 against all existing social institutions is hardly less than 
 boundless." A large per cent of these 100,000 are now 
 adherents of peaceful Socialism. 
 
 The International Workingmen's Association, minus its 
 anarchy which is rapidly disappearing, will become Social- 
 istic: They claim to number 25,000 men. Six years ago 
 
 1 " Socialism of To-day " (Laveleyc), p. 207. 
 : "The Labor Movement in America," p. 282. 
 
GROWTH AND NUMERICAL STRENGTH OF SOCIALISM 411 
 
 Professor Ely estimated the adherents of the Socialistic 
 Labor party in the United States as about 10,000. 
 
 The growth of Socialism may be inferred from the mul- 
 tiplication of labor organizations during the last few years. 
 They have spread over the country and through all ranks 
 of laborers with a rapidity that has constantly engaged 
 public attention. Their members do not avow themselves 
 Socialists, and some might object to being classified with 
 them, but their aims and demands are thoroughly Social- 
 istic. The "Knights of Labor" numbered at one time 
 800,000 members. Of their " Declaration of Principles " 
 Professor Ely says it "means undoubtedly Socialism if 
 one draws the logical conclusion of their statements." Yet 
 he justly admits that some of them are violently opposed 
 to the theory of Socialism. 
 
 We have, however, before noticed the significant fact 
 that many who oppose Socialism are fighting manfully for 
 its principles. 
 
 We shall show the growth of Socialistic ideas in differ- 
 ent departments of the social organism. The numerical 
 increase, great as it has been, is perhaps the least signifi- 
 cant. We ought, however, to bear in mind the world-wide 
 extent of this movement. It embraces nearly all lands 
 and tongues. The meeting of the " International " in 1881 
 was attended by " fifty-four delegates, representing three 
 hundred and twenty ' divisions ' or groups composed of 
 600,000 members. The countries represented were Prance, 
 Belgium, Holland, Germany, Austria, Italy, Spain, Switzer- 
 land, Eussia, Siberia, Bulgaria, Roumania, Turkey, Egypt, 
 England, Mexico, and the United States." ^ Probably no 
 body of men was ever convened so representative of the race. 
 No congress was ever more entitled to be called " the par- 
 liament of man, the federation of the world." It shows 
 unmistakably that the dissatisfaction with the present 
 industrial organization of society is not only increasing, 
 but is universal and irrepressible. Is it wise in our zeal 
 for individualism, or through prejudice against Socialism, 
 or indifference to the wrongs of working men, to deny the 
 significance of such a gathering and sneer at its results ? 
 
 1 "The Labor Movement in America " (Ely), jj. 253. 
 • 
 
412 KEVBLATION AND OUTLOOK OF SOCIALISM 
 
 II. — Political Gains of Socialism. 
 
 " While schools are faithfully inculcating ' laissez-faire,' the inter- 
 ference of government in finance, education, railways, labor, has been 
 steadily increasing for a generation. . . . Government cannot lei alone, 
 and the most difficult problem of the future economist is to place the 
 proper limits to public economy." — William W. Folwel. 
 
 " Under the old civilization no one questioned the rich man's peace- 
 ful possession of his property but the king and the brigand. Under the 
 new civilization, legislation tends toward the appropriation or the 
 direction of the disposition of estates." — Chatjncey M. Depew. 
 
 Few people are aware of the progress Socialism is mak- 
 ing in politics. Quietly and almost unconsciously the State 
 is extending its authority in all social and industrial activ- 
 ities. It is not our purpose to trace the rise and history of 
 any particular class of legislation respecting capital or 
 labor, but rather to call attention to certain measures and 
 movements that show unmistakably the Socialistic trend of 
 political forces. 
 
 1. Political progress in Germany. 
 
 At the present time the gaze of Europe and America is 
 fixed npon Germany and its emperor. The latter has 
 made the following remarkable declaration : " It is the 
 duty of the State to so regulate the duration and nature of 
 labor as to insure the health, the morality, and the supply 
 of all the economic wants of the working man." Whatever 
 be the motive that prompted this utterance, or however it 
 may be interpreted, it involves the whole of Socialism pure 
 and simple. It is the mo^t staggering blow the doctrine of 
 laissez-faire has yet received. 
 
 Like a thunder-bolt from Zeus it has shaken to its centre 
 the institution of capitalism. 
 
 Thus the young emperor signalizes his accession to the 
 imperial throne by becoming the champion of Socialism. 
 With a keen appreciation of the wrongs which capitalfsm 
 is inflicting upon laborers, he not only called upon his state 
 councillors to investigate the labor question, but boldly in- 
 vited the nations of Europe to meet in congress to consult 
 upon measures for the relief of laborers. 
 
POLITICAL GAINS OF SOCIALISM 413 
 
 Accordingly in March, 1890, a great labor congress was 
 held in Berlin, at which distinguished representatives from 
 Great Britain, France, Austria, Hungary, Italy, Belgium, 
 Holland, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, and Denmark were 
 present. For two weeks the congress was in session, and 
 the result was a series of resolutions in the interest of 
 labor. 
 
 The congress recommended that women and children be 
 not allowed to work in mines or at night ; that women 
 should not work per day for a longer period than eleven 
 hours, or children under fourteen more than six ; that the 
 latter should not work at all in dangerous or unhealthy 
 trades, and that all unnecessary work on Sunday should be 
 prohibited. 
 
 Thus the great powers of Europe have united in a protest 
 against certain forms of capitalistic oppression. 
 
 Capitalistic public opinion of course speaks respectfully 
 and even commendatorily of this congress and its resolu- 
 tions, but it greatly underestimates its importance. No 
 deliverance by any body of men was ever more significant. 
 It shows unmistakably the trend of social forces ; it deals a 
 deadly blow at laissez-faire; it recognizes the wrongs of 
 labor, the abuses of capital, and points to the coming crisis 
 when radical changes will be necessary to meet the new 
 social conditions. 
 
 William II. believes in state control of industries so far 
 as necessary to secure social justice. This as we have said 
 is Socialism. 
 
 It doubtless is true that his Socialism is. imperial rather 
 than democratic, that is, that he would do everything for 
 the people rather than hy them. His imperialism, however, 
 is temporary. It was to be expected ; it is both hereditary 
 and traditional, but it will decrease, while democracy will 
 increase. The progress of republican ideas in Europe is a 
 sure pledge of ultimate triumph. No people in the world 
 are more capable of or riper for democracy than the 
 Germans. 
 
 The election which followed the Emperor's rescripts re- 
 sulted in a great victory for the social democratic party. 
 
414 REVELATION AND OUTLOOK OF SOCIALISM 
 
 Sixty socialists were elected to the Reichstag, which is 
 more than one-seventh of that entire body. This result 
 following the rejection of the anti-Socialist bill shows the 
 increasing importance of Socialism as a political issue. 
 
 This is the more extraordinary in view of the fact that 
 for more than a decade the government has sought by con- 
 trolling the press, prohibiting freedom of speech, and 
 banishment, to suppress Socialism. 
 
 In the following election, however, it was the burning 
 question in the contest, and the result' was a Socialistic vote 
 more than twice as large as ever before cast. Observe the 
 political gains of Socialism in Germany. 
 
 " Since the organization of the German Empire, the 
 social democratic votes for members of the Imperial Parlia- 
 ment (Keichstag) have numbered as follows : 1871, 123,975 ; 
 1874, 351,952; 1877, 493,288; 1878, 437,158. The entire 
 number of votes cast in 1877 was 5,401,021. The social 
 democratic votes numbered over one-eleventh of all the 
 voters in that year." ' In 1884 the Socialists cast 700,000 
 votes, of which Berlin alone polled 68,000. But in 1890 
 the total Socialistic vote went up to 1,500,000. The most 
 rapid progress has been made during the last three years, 
 andthe Socialists doubled their vote in the recent election. 
 Nearly one-sixth of all the voters were Socialists. In Ber- 
 lin they increased their vote by 33,000. These voters rep- 
 resent the political sentiments of a much larger part of the 
 population than the mere number -of votes would indicate, 
 as the men become Socialists in sympathy and sentiment 
 before they ara willing to give political expression to their 
 views. It is to be noted also that, while the German gov- 
 ernment has sought to suppress the social democrats, it has 
 in its own way boldly espoused the cause of Socialism. 
 Bismarck himself proposed several measures, notably the 
 Accident Insurance Bill for the relief of laborers, and 
 formally declared that the State should take better care of 
 its poorer members. 
 
 The Socialism of the emperor is imperial, while that of 
 the people is democratic, and this explains the cause of the 
 1 " French and German Socialism " (Ely), p. 213. 
 
POLITICAL GAINS OF SOCIALISM 415 
 
 bitter contest between the two parties. The recent political 
 movement toward Socialism both on the part of the govern- 
 ment and the social democrats of Germany cannot fail to 
 have upon other nations results the most far-reaching and 
 favorable to Socialism. 
 
 M. Jules Simon, one of the foremost statesmen of France 
 and a delegate to the Berlin Conference, speaks as follows : 
 •' I regard the emperor's rescript as marking an important 
 epoch in the progress of the Socialistic movement. Already 
 I can hear the mutterings of what must be the struggle of 
 the future ; the bitter struggle between the many and the 
 few ; between the toiling millions who have thus far suf- 
 fered silently and those who have made them suffer ; be- 
 tween capital and labor ; between luxury and starvation ; 
 between misery and wealth. No human being can avert 
 that struggle, but human power may do much to hasten its 
 approach. I shall not see the day, and you may not see it, 
 but the day is coming when the autocratic powers of Europe 
 will be forced to unite against a united Socialistic army and 
 to stand or fall together." 
 
 2. Political progress in England. 
 
 The most remarkable feature of political Socialism both 
 in England and the United States is its theoretical rejection 
 accompanied by its practical adoption. It is not uncommon 
 both in the English parliament and the American legislature 
 to hear statesmen who would resent the charge of being 
 Socialists strenuously urging the adoption of measures 
 controlling the movements of capital and labor,_ which is 
 the fundamental principle of political Socialism. 
 
 Since the first Factory Act in 1802 England has witnessed 
 an ever-widening stream of legislation, interfering with 
 the movements of labor and capital, till it may now be said 
 that the broad' principle laid down by Jevons has been 
 adopted by the English legislator. No "rights of prop- 
 erty are so sacred that they may not be made way with " 
 to promote "the greatest happiness." He does not say 
 " the greatest happiness of the greatest number ; " a vicious 
 and cruel maxim that sacrifices the weak to the strong, and 
 is guilty of the blood of millions. 
 
416 REVELATION AND OUTLOOK OF SOCIALISM 
 
 While the industrial system still rests upon the institu- 
 tions of capital, contract, and competition, in the main free 
 and individual, there is hardly any point in connection with 
 them that English Socialistic legislation has not touched, 
 and in cases of industrial injustice does not threaten. 
 
 The progress of political Socialism in England is vividly 
 portrayed by Sidney Webb in his " Socialism in England." 
 He says that the zenith of industrial individualism waa 
 reached in the beginning of the present century, and 
 beginning with the Factory Act of 1802 already mentioned, 
 he points out many of the important acts of parliament 
 that have been prompted by the ever-increasing Socialistic 
 impulse ; such as the "Reform Bill " of 1832, resulting in 
 the acts of 1842, 1844, and 1847, each imposing restrictions 
 on the private ownership of capital, the " Mining Act " 
 (1842), the "Municipal Corporations Act" (1835), the 
 " Public Health Act " (1876), and " Shop Hours Regulation 
 Act " (1887). 
 
 " Municipal Socialism " is progressing not only in matters 
 of sanitation, but extends to many industries. One hundred 
 and sixty-eight localities manufacture their own gas ; the 
 water supply is being rapidly taken out of private hands, 
 no less than seventy-one governing bodies obtaining loans 
 for this purpose in a single year ; thirty-one localities own, 
 and twenty -three own and operate their own street rail- 
 ways, being one-fourth of all in the kingdom. The public 
 already regulate the hours of labor of " young persons," 
 and similar legislation is now sought for adults. 
 
 The essentially Socialist character of the public schools 
 is recognized in England more than in the United States, 
 and the income of the rich is being absorbed to provide for 
 the education of the poor. A movement is now on foot to 
 furnish one free meal a day to the school children. 
 
 The government finds it necessary to take steps for 
 providing work for the unemployed. The " housing of 
 the poor " is beginning to engage public attention. Over 
 $6,000,000 have already been spent by London authorities 
 in subsidizingthebuildingof cheap artisans' dwellings ; and 
 the city of Glasgow (which already provides gas, water, 
 
POLITICAL GAINS OF SOCIALISM 417 
 
 markets, baths, wash-houses, slaughter-houses, parks, bo- 
 tanic gardens, art galleries, museums, libraries, tramways, 
 " houses of refuge," and industrial and other schools) 
 having demolished vast areas of " slum " property and 
 itself built large blocks of dwellings for the poor, lets them 
 at " moderate " rents. 
 
 The English government in its various ramifioations is 
 by far the largest employer of labor in the country. In 
 1891 it realized a profit of $2,000,000 on the post-offioe and 
 express business, which are united and under state manage- 
 ment. Mr. Webb gives the following comprehensive sum- 
 mary of governmental activities : " Beside our international 
 relations and the army, navy, police, and courts of justice, 
 the community now carries on for itself, in some part or 
 another of these islands, the post-office, telegraph, carriage 
 of small commodities, coinage surveys, the regulation of 
 the currency and note issue, the provision of weights and 
 measures, the making, sweeping, ligliting, and repairing of 
 the streets, roads, and bridges, life insurance, the grant of 
 annuities, ship-building, stock broking, farming and money 
 lending. It provides for many thousands of us from birth to 
 burial, midwifery, nursery, education, board and lodging, 
 vaccination, medical attendance, medicine, public worship, 
 amusements, and burial. It furnishes and maintains its own 
 museums, parks, botanic gardens, art galleries, libraries, 
 concert halls, roads, streets, bridges, markets, fire engines, 
 light-houses, pilots, ferries, surf boats, steam-tugs, life-boats, 
 slaughter-houses, pounds, harbors, piers, wharves, hospitals, 
 dispensaries, gas-works, water-works, tramways, telegraph, 
 cables,-allotments, cow meadows, artisan dwellings, common 
 lodging-houses, schools, churches, and reading-rooms. It 
 carries on and publishes its own researches in geology, 
 meteorology, statistics, zoology, geography, and even the- 
 ology. In our colonies the English government further 
 allows and encourages the communities to provide for 
 themselves railways, canals, pawn-broking, theatres, for- 
 estry, cinchona farms, irrigation, leper villages, casinos, 
 bathing establishments, and immigration ; and to deal in 
 ballast, guano, quinine, opium, salt, and what not. Every 
 
418 REVELATIOX AND OUTLOOK OF SOCIALISM 
 
 one of these functions, including even the army, navy, police 
 and courts of justice, was at one time left to private enter- 
 prise, and was a source of legitimate individual investment 
 of capital. Step by step the community has absorbed them 
 wholly or partially, and the area of private exploitation 
 has been lessened. Parallel with this progressive national- 
 ization or municipalization of industry there has gone on, 
 outside, the elimination of the purely personal element in 
 
 business management The State now registers, inspects 
 
 and controls nearly all tlie industrial functions which it 
 has not yet absorbed. In addition to births, marriages, 
 deaths, and electors, the State registers all solicitors, bar- 
 risters, notaries, brokers, newspaper proprietors, playing- 
 card makers, brewers, bankers, seamen, captains, mates, 
 doctors, cabmen, hawkers, pawnbrokers, tobacconists, dis- 
 tillers, plate dealers, game dealers, all insurance companies, 
 friendly societies, endowed schools and charities, limited 
 companies, lands, houses, deeds, bills of sale, compositions, 
 ships, arms, dogs, cats, omnibuses, books, plays, pamphlets, 
 newspapers, raw cotton, trade-marks, and patents ; lodging- 
 houses, public houses, refreshment houses, theatres, music 
 halls, places of worship, elementary schools, and dancing- 
 rooms. 
 
 " Nor is the registration a mere form. Most of the fore- 
 going are all inspected and criticised. . . . The inspection 
 is often detailed and exhaustive. . . . The State in most 
 of the larger industrial operations prescribes the age of 
 the worker, the hours of work, the amount of air, light, 
 cubic space, heat, lavatory accommodations, holidays, and 
 meal times ; where, when, and how wages shall be paid ; 
 how machinery, staircases, lift-holes, mines, and quarries 
 are to be fenced and guarded ; how and when the plant 
 shall be cleaned, repaired, and worked. Even the kind of 
 package in which some articles shall be sold is duly pre- 
 scribed, so that the individual capitalist shall take no 
 advantage of his position." ^ 
 
 Even the well-informed will be astonished at this array 
 
 1 " Socialism in England; " Publications of the American Economic 
 Association," April, 1889. 
 
POLITICAL GAINS OF SOCIALISM 419 
 
 of social and industrial activities to which governmental 
 interference and control have already been extended in 
 England. A single statistical fact is of more value than vol- 
 umes in proof of this. In 1841 the expenses of the English 
 government were forty times as great as in 1685, although 
 the population was only threefold. Recent similar com- 
 parisons furnish like evidence. 
 
 It is to be noted also that the whole current of English 
 thought, legislation, and social forces sets strongly in the 
 direction of the collectivist principle and away from 
 the individualism that has until recently dominated society. 
 All this is of the essence of Socialism. Englishmen, how- 
 ever, are still shy of this term. They are fond of the word 
 reform, and apply it to every movement calculated to im- 
 prove society. Socialism is simply refowning society on 
 the basal principle of human solidarity. The prejudice 
 against the term is rapidly disappearing. Men who a few 
 years and even a few months since could not have been 
 induced to admit that their views were Socialistic now 
 openly avow themselves Socialists, and this without any 
 impairment of their influence. Nearly every government 
 office contains several pronounced Socialists. Sir William 
 Harcourt said in the House of Commons : " We are all 
 Socialists now." The Prince of Wales has made the same 
 declaration. 
 
 The entire artisan class demand remedial measures, and 
 the surest path to political promotion is to favor Socialistic 
 legislation. The demand for the removal of urban poverty, 
 the state insurance of wage-workers, the building of arti' 
 sans' dwellings by city councils, and the nationalization of 
 land become daily more imperative. A law has already 
 been enacted enabling communities to purchase land for the 
 purpose of letting it to small cultivators. Two hundred or 
 more workingmen's clubs of London are now demanding 
 "a progressive collectivism." 
 
 The united demand of the working people in any free 
 country will ultimately be heard. The political situation 
 in England indicates that Socialism will make greater 
 progress in the future than in the past. 
 
420 REVELATION AND OUTLOOK OF SOCIALISM 
 
 Herbert Spencer's prophecy is being rapidly fulfilled. 
 "The numerous Socialistic changes made by Acts of Parlia- 
 ment joined with numerous others presently to be made, 
 will by and by be all merged in State Socialism — swallowed 
 in the vast wave which they have little by little raised." ^ 
 
 The gradual political extension of the Socialistic principle 
 in England has already had the happiest effects in the 
 direction of equalizing the burdens and benefits of the social 
 organization. Yet gentlemen on both sides of the Atlantic 
 who persist in viewing all social phenomena through capi- 
 talistic spectacles, attribute the progress that has been 
 made, or that is possible, to self-help, rather than the adop- 
 tion of the collectivist principle. " Socialism," says Mr. 
 Cook, " by fostering dependence o"n state-help, undermines 
 the spirit of self-help, and so is a fatal enemy of the cause 
 of the poor." " On the contrary, the state-help which Social- 
 ism demands, being but the intelligent and free industrial 
 co-operation of laborers, is the most scientific and effective 
 form of self-help. 
 
 " Our unconscious acceptance of this progressive Social- 
 ism is a striking testimony to the change which has come 
 over the country of Goodwin, Malthus, and James Mill. 
 The 'practical man,' oblivious or contemptuous of any theory 
 of the social organism, or general principles of social or- 
 ganization, has been forced by the necessities of the time 
 into an ever-deepening collectivist channel. Socialism of 
 course he still rejects and despises. The individualist city 
 councillor will walk along the municipal pavement, lit by 
 municipal gas and cleansed by municipal brooms with muni- 
 cipal water, and seeing by the municipal clock in the 
 municipal market that he is too early to meet his children 
 coming from the municipal school hard by the county 
 lunatic asylum and municipal hospital, will use the 
 national telegraph system to tell them not to walk through 
 the municipal park, but to come by the municipal tram- 
 way, to meet him in the municipal reading-room, by the 
 
 ' As quoted, "Socialism in England" (Webb): Publications of the 
 American Economic Association, April, 1889, p. 64. 
 2 " Socialism," p. 89. 
 
POLITICAL GAINS OF SOCIALISM 421 
 
 muuicipal art gallery, museum, and library, where he 
 intends to consult some of the national publications 
 in order to prepare his next speech in the municipal 
 town hall, in favor of the nationalization of canals and the 
 increase of the government control over the railroad sys- 
 tem. 'Socialism, sir,' he will say, 'don't waste the time 
 of a practical man by your fantastic absurdities. Self-help, 
 sir, individual self-help, that's what's made our city what 
 it is.' " 1 ■ 
 
 3. Political progress in France. 
 
 The establishment of a republic upon the ruins of a mon- 
 archy has so absorbed the attention of the people of France 
 during the past twenty years that the industrial question 
 has been in abeyance. With the opening, however, of the 
 present year (1892) Socialism suddenly becomes the one 
 absorbing political and social question. Government, re- 
 gardless of laissez-faire,comes to the defence of the laborer 
 in such a way as to threaten the existence of the great cap- 
 italistic employer. A thoughtful French writer says, " The 
 truth is, that the contrast between the luxury of some and 
 the misery of others has never been so marked as now. 
 There has rarelj'' been a time when fortunes have been 
 made so rapidly or when rich people have so boldly and 
 so brutally flaunted so publicly their wealth. Until now 
 the press has not done much in enlightening the public on 
 the precarious condition of millions of working men, but 
 the striking contrast between the brilliant and joyous life 
 led by the wealthy, and the suffering and sorrow of the 
 poor, has begun to touch even those who had scarcely before 
 given a thought to the subject." ^ 
 
 All the signs of the times in France point to an imme- 
 diate enlargement of the functions of the State to embrace 
 industrial operations. 
 
 In 1881 France assumed control of the tobacco industry. 
 In 1889 she purchased, at a cost of 8,000,000 francs, the 
 telephone business ; she also owns and operates the match 
 
 1 "Socialism in England" ("Webb): Publications of the American 
 Economic Association, April, 1889, p. 65. 
 
 2 " Public Opinion," Jan. 23, 1892. 
 
422 REVELATION AND OUTLOOK OF SOCIALISM 
 
 business. From all kinds of business in which she is now 
 engaged France makes a net profit of $80,000,000. 
 
 4. Political progress in the United States. 
 
 Political Socialism in the United States is much more 
 recent than in England, but it has advanced in much the 
 same way though not to the same extent. If we are behind 
 Germany, England, and France in this respect, it is only 
 because the occasion for state interference is comparatively 
 recent ; social conditions have been different ; we have no 
 aristocracy of birth. Social castes have heretofore hardly 
 existed if we except negro slavery. We have plenty of 
 land. Until quite recently the broadest equality in educa- 
 tion, politics, religion, and industry has prevailed. Since 
 the civil war, however, in consequence of our unprecedented 
 accumulation of wealth a counter tendency has rapidly 
 developed, and the class evils and inequalities that spring 
 from individualism in industry are now keenly felt, and are 
 more intolerable to the people who are their victims than 
 in any other country on earth. This is due to the antago- 
 nism necessarily existing between our free institutions and 
 any sort of social oppression. 
 
 Our inherited ideas of liberty and equality create a certain 
 social status for the individual that affects his whole life 
 and character. 
 
 The true American is a citizen, not a subject ; an equal, 
 not an inferior; a friend, not a servant ; a patriotic soldier, 
 not a mercenary ; a partner, not a hireling. 
 
 He knows nothing of liberty without equality, or equality 
 without liberty. A dependent laborer is not a free man. 
 To the American deprived by capitalism of land and the 
 means of production, all talk about " the pursuit of happi- 
 ness " is a farce. This status of citizenship which is pecu- 
 liar to our country and constitution, and which is cherished 
 as the crowning glory of our democratic and Christian civil- 
 ization, has been seriously damaged and endangered by the 
 forces of capitalism during the last few decades. Caste, 
 poverty, inequality, and discontent have increased paripassu 
 with wealth and progress, so that the term commonwealth 
 formerly applied to the State is now felt to be a misnomer. 
 
POLITICAL GAINS OF SOCIALISM 423 
 
 Those placed at a disadvantage by this state of things, being 
 the great body of wage-workers, have at last awakened to a 
 sense of their wrong, and among other results have de- 
 manded legislation restricting the operations of capital in 
 the interests of working men. The character of this legis- 
 lation, however disguised its appearance or unconscious its 
 originators and promoters may be of the fact, is Socialistic. 
 
 Already the national and state governments have enacted 
 laws interfering with the management of almost all branches 
 of industry. To enumerate the laws bearing upon these 
 various industries and social activities would be largely a 
 repetition of the long catalogue already given of similar 
 laws in England. It may be confidently affirmed that any 
 found therein and not yet adopted in this country are sure 
 to be enacted as rapidly as the occasions demanding them 
 may arise. Our government is now the largest employer of 
 labor in the country. It has to-day not less than 150,000 
 employees. 
 
 The principle of state interference whenever the public 
 good requires it is generally accepted by American states- 
 men and economists, and governmental control of industries 
 will naturally meet with less opposition where the people 
 constitute the government. It needs to be constantly borne 
 in mind that this State Socialism involves no change in our 
 form of government. It is simply the enlargement of the 
 strictly democratic functions of government, and will pro- 
 duce a type of civil liberty more equal, just, and beneficent 
 than the world has ever seen. 
 
 By act of Congress contracts for labor with residents of 
 other countries are now prohibited. 
 
 Such industries as street-cars, water- works, street lighting, 
 which were once entirely in private hands, are beinggradu- 
 ally owned and operated by the public. It is a significant 
 fact that when government once assumes control of an in- 
 dustry it seldom goes back into private hands. The propo- 
 sition to nationalize land, railroads, canals, the telegraph 
 and telephone is daily growing in public favor. 
 
 During the thirty years ending 1888 the expenditures of 
 the United States increased four and one-third times, while 
 
424 B?:VELATION AND OUTLOOK. OF SOCIALISM 
 
 the population only about doubled. The extraordinary dis- 
 bursements for pensions and interest contribute somewhat 
 to this result ; but if we base our comparison on the civil 
 and miscellaneous expenses, we find that during this period 
 thes§ have increased three and one-half times. ^ 
 
 Among the most important acts of President Cleveland's 
 administration was the establishment of a Department of 
 Labor. The government thus assumes the duty of investi- 
 gating the whole question of labor in its relation to capital, 
 including wages, hours of labor, time and methods of pay- 
 ment ; it will also consider the social status of the laborer 
 as estimated by his material, mental, and moral condition. 
 
 There is deep significance in the fact that twenty-two 
 Bureaus of Labor Statistics have been created in the differ- 
 ent States, and all with the exception of the Massachusetts 
 bureau within the last twelve years. 
 
 It is not overlooked here that the increased expenditures 
 of government are due somewhat to legislation designed to 
 further private interests. 
 
 It is easy to see that when the State assumes the sole 
 right to create by law an industrial establishment, to go 
 through it and count its hands, inspect its machinery and 
 buildings, prescribe rules for its operation, the hours of labor, 
 the age of the laborers, the time and mode of payments, the 
 amount of capital and dividends, and even changes its sani- 
 tary arrangements, conditions of safety, etc., it is theoreti- 
 cally but a short step to the owning and operating of the 
 establishment. On this ground the president of the Chicago 
 and Alton Railroad recently proposed that the general gov- 
 ernment purchase, or by right of eminent domain take all 
 the railroads in the country engaged in interstate traf&c. 
 He is a thoroughly practical business man and proposes 
 that the railroads be run not for profit but for the accom- 
 modation of the people. This is precisely the Socialist 
 position, and thousands will to-day heartily indorse it who 
 twelve months ago would have regarded such a proposition 
 as little short of insanity. 
 
 We believe that the people of the United States have 
 
 1 " The National Reveiiuus ' (Shaw), p. 231. 
 
POLITICAL GAINS OF SOCIALISM 425 
 
 only to become sufficiently familiar with the idea and ad- 
 vantages of the public control of industry to embrace it 
 with a readiness and even enthusiasm that will surprise its 
 most ardent supporters. 
 
 The progress of municipal and state Socialism is not pre- 
 cipitous; it injures no one; it occasions no disturbance of 
 business ; it is a perfectly natural developemeut in the in- 
 dustrial evolution. All things have led up to it, but so 
 naturally and gradually that it is not generally recognized 
 as anything new or strange. It is only when the move- 
 ment is pointed out and analyzed, and a name sought to be 
 given to it, that the attention is arrested. Then the changes 
 at once seen to be logically involved are so radical, so con- 
 trary to tradition, historical precedent, and deep and well- 
 worn grooves of social thought and industrial action, that 
 prejudice and opposition are aroused which have to be over- 
 come before one can calmly consider the new movement on 
 its merits. 
 
 The recent and rapid progress of political and municipal 
 Socialism in the United States fully justifies the statement 
 of Professor Fawcett made a few years ago in opening a 
 course of lectures in Oxford , " That if the growth of the 
 Socialistic political vote progressed in Germany and in the 
 United States for the next fifty years as it has for the last 
 fifty, capital can do nothing effectual against Socialism." ^ 
 
 So marked and universal is the tendency toward state 
 control of social forces that the German economist Wagner 
 designates it as "the law of the increasing function of 
 government." Washington Gladden confirms this opinion : 
 "Laissez-faire is at the present time losing ground because 
 of evolutionary tendencies which neither political power 
 nor social philosophy can resist ; the government must as- 
 sume a larger share of duties, and laissez-faire must so far 
 stand aside." ^ 
 
 1 "Socialism "(Cook), p. 17. 
 
 2 As quoted in "Applied Christianity " (Gladden), p. 76. 
 
426 REVELATION AND OUTLOOK OF SOCIALISM 
 
 III. — Industrial Progress of iSocialism. 
 
 "The Socialistic tendency in trusts and other artificial mouopolieB 
 admits of no doubt." — Professor R. T. Elt. 
 
 Since Socialism is the opposite of individualism in in- 
 dustrial operations, the principle of association is of the 
 very essence of Socialism. All combinations of capital and 
 labor in which the management is social instead of indi- 
 vidual, such as partnerships, co-operations, trusts for the 
 management of capital, or labor unions and organizations 
 which bring labor and laborers under a social and central 
 control, are Socialistic in character and tendency. "The 
 Socialistic tendency in trusts and other artificial monopo- 
 lies admits of no doubt." ' The only logical or possible 
 outcome is Socialism, which means simply the largest 
 possible application and utilization of the principle of asso- 
 ciation in the production and distribution of economic 
 goods. This association both of labor and capital is one 
 of the most remarkable of modern industrial phenomena. 
 
 1. The association of capital. 
 
 The association of capital has indeed been going on for 
 a much longer period than that of labor, for the reason 
 that capital has been powerful to' secure legislation in its 
 own favor and prejudicial to labor. 
 
 Recently a great impulse has been given to the principle 
 of association, resulting in vast consolidations of capital 
 under the name of trusts, in which all parties in the country, 
 whether individuals, firms, or corporations, engaged in a cer- 
 tain industry unite their interests. The trust fixes the 
 amount of production, prices and wages, and thus controls 
 in its own interest as against the people the necessaries 
 and comforts of life. Transfer this institution to the State, 
 and let the peo])le instead of private parties have the bene- 
 fits, and you have Socialism. "Socialism I will define, 
 then, as the exclusive management of all production and 
 distribution by a single trust on behalf of the people."^ 
 
 1 "Problems of To-day " (Ely), p. 109. 
 
 2 B. T, Ely in "The National Revenues " (Shaw), p. 58. 
 
INDUSTBIAL PEOGKESS OF SOCIALISM 427 
 
 Trusts, however objectionable in some of their features, 
 are a perfectly legitimate result of the development of the 
 capitalistic system. Given steam, machinery, division of 
 labor, concentration of private capital, contract, and free 
 competition, all expanding and progressing, and in due time 
 the trust follows as naturally and necessarily as the earing 
 of corn follows the blade, and Socialism will follow the 
 trust as surely as the full corn in the ear succeeds the 
 earing. 
 
 There is one industry that deserves separate treatment 
 because of its rapid growth, its vastness, and its Socialistic 
 tendency. We refer to the railroad system. Mr. Chaun- 
 cey M. Depew said of the railroads of the United States : 
 " When you take the 700,000 railroad employees and their 
 families, giving them an average of six each, and the mil- 
 lion of men who are engaged in the manufacture of rail- 
 road supplies and their families, and the men, women, and 
 children who are dependent upon the income from the 
 $8,000,000,000 invested in railroads, you have of the 60,- 
 000,000 people in the United States, one-half of them liv- 
 ing upon the railroad." 
 
 Probably half of all the transportation of goods and 
 travel is due to the sea-saw methods of capitalistic pro- 
 duction. Commodities are carried all over the country 
 and finally consumed in the very place where they were 
 produced. Socialism would save this enorjnous waste. 
 Another more serious matter is suggested. Among these 
 30 000,000 living on the railroads, and having vital com- 
 mon interest, the grossest inequality 23revails. A few 
 mao-nates own and control the entire business. It is this 
 o-laring inequality that renders the socializing of industry 
 a necessity. There are 600 "railroad corporations in the 
 United States, but they are rapidly consolidating, and 
 nationalization is the certain and near result. 
 
 Mr. Webb says, "The older economists doubted whether 
 anything but banking and insurance could be carried on 
 by joint-stock enterprise ; now every conceivable industry 
 down to baking and milk-selling is successfully managed 
 by salaried officers of large corporations of idle share-hold- 
 
428 REVELATION AND OUTLOOK OF SOCIALISM 
 
 ers. More than one-third of the whole business of Eng- 
 land, measured by the capital employed, is now done by 
 joint-stock companies whose share-holders could be expro- 
 priated by the community with little more dislocation of 
 industry than is caused by the daily purchase of shares on 
 the Stock Exchange." ' 
 
 It should be observed that there is no essential difference 
 in the various associations of capital from simple partner- 
 ships to the gigantic trust. The difference is mainly of 
 size, and consequent power and oppression. It may be 
 said in general that the larger the concentration the 
 cheaper the cost of production and dislribution, and the 
 greater the possible economic utility in all directions. 
 
 That the people do not have the benefit of this utility, 
 that prices to the consumers are higher than they should 
 be in view of the reduced cost of production, is due to pri- 
 vate monopoly. Of this nature are the associations of 
 manufacturers and dealers in particular commodities, such 
 as plumbers' materials, steam fittings, etc., for the purpose 
 of preventing the consumer from purchasing directly of 
 the manufacturers or dealers, thereby saving the middle- 
 men's profits. 
 
 The writer recently attempted to purchase certain plumb- 
 ing goods in Boston, only to be told by the proprietor that 
 he could "sell only to the trade." A remark about free- 
 dom of contract was met with a gracious and patronizing 
 smile. We said nothing against paying the commission 
 house and wholesaler's profits, the manufacturer's profits, 
 and the dealer's profits, but we naturally demurred at being 
 compelled to pay for the support of a fifth party, and sug- 
 gested that we could find a dealer _who would sell to us, 
 whereupon the proprietor remarked, " If he does, we'll fix 
 him ; " that is, any dealer who sold directly to the con- 
 sumer would be boycotted or black-listed in some way in 
 such cases made and provided. Now, the reason given for 
 this arbitrary proceeding is that unless the producers and 
 distributers of the particular line of goods thus combine 
 
 1 " Socialism in England:" Publications of the American Economic 
 Association, April, 1889, p. 02. 
 
INDUSTRIAL PROGRESS OF SOCIALISM 429 
 
 " the trade will be ruined." The middlemen, who live by 
 taking toll of both producer and consumer, will find tlieir 
 occupation gone, and so they must be provided for whether 
 society has any need of them or not. 
 
 Let this principle be extended to other branches of trade 
 and observe how it would work. The dry-goods dealer 
 would sell only to professional dress-makers, milliners, 
 and seamstresses ; private citizens could no longer purchase 
 medicine, as the druggist would sell only to physicians, 
 and so on through the whole list of necessary commodities. 
 
 Now, does any one imagine that free men will submit to 
 any such industrial tyranny and waste, when once they 
 become aware of its real character ? And yet' this sort of 
 association and monopoly is perfectly legitimate under the 
 capitalistic system. Competition leads directly to private 
 monopoly, and private monopoly is essentially tyrannous ; 
 and when it becomes insupportable it will be transferred 
 to the people to whom it belongs, which will end the indus- 
 trial strife by restoring economic harmony and social jus- 
 tice. We call attention to trusts, railroad consolidations, 
 and other forms of associated capital, simply to show the 
 increasing tendency in this direction. Association per- 
 fected is Socialism. 
 
 2. The association of labor. 
 
 A still more remarkable factor in the industrial progress 
 toward Socialism is the rapid growth of labor organizations. 
 
 We have long been familiar with various forms of asso- 
 ciated capital, and. new methods of combination excite com- 
 paratively little attention ; but the general federation of 
 the difEerent classes of laborers against capital constitutes 
 the most astonishing feature of modern industrial develop- 
 ment. Disguise it as we may these labor unions are shak- 
 ing the present system to its very foundations. 
 
 We are in the midst of an industrial war to which his- 
 tory furnishes no parallel. There is not a secular day in 
 the year in which some great wheel of industry is not 
 brought to a stand-still, and business paralyzed by the join- 
 ing of the hostile forces. No war more relentless or bitter 
 was ever waged between hostile armies. On the one side 
 
430 REVELATION AND OUTLOOK OF SOCIALISM 
 
 are the forces of capital thoroughly organized and disci- 
 plined, possessed of unlimited resources and power of 
 mobility, having for centuries the prestige of victory, and 
 having at their command a secret armed force of "Pink- 
 erton men " larger than the army of the United States, 
 and ready to move at a moment's notice. Opposed to these 
 are the forces of labor as yet raw and undisciplined, having 
 been but recently recruited, handicapped by habits of ser- 
 vility, lack of resources, personal poverty, laws in the inter- 
 est of capital, and all dominant forces in society. 
 
 It is evident, however, to the least attentive observer of 
 what is going on in the camps of the laborers, that their 
 troops are being rapidly drilled, equipped, and disciplined; 
 that thousands are daily flocking to 'their ranks, and it 
 looks now as if in the near future the whole class of man- 
 ual laborers would be organized under one central and abso- 
 lute control, and move as one man at the edict of their 
 chief. Even now the grievance, real or fancied, of a single 
 laborer is taken up by his fellows, carried before the local 
 union to which he belongs, then if need be referred to an 
 investigating committee of the federated unions, and thus 
 the grievance of a single individual becomes the personal 
 concern of all the laborers in the country. 
 
 The rapid rise of labor organizations, and the change 
 that has taken place in public opinion respecting them, are 
 among the most significant facts of our time. Within the 
 memory of many now living it was a punishable offence 
 both in Europe and America for laborers to unite for mu- 
 tual protection. In 1831 Stephen Simpson of Philadelphia 
 writes, " If mechanics combine to raise their wages, the 
 laws punish them as conspirators against the good of 
 society, and the dungeon awaits them as it does the robber. 
 But the laws have made it a just and meritorious act that 
 capitalists shall combine to strip the man of labor of his 
 earnings, and reduce him to a dry crust and a gourd of 
 water." * 
 
 These cruel combination and conspiracy laws of England 
 were regarded as a part of the common law in this country 
 
 1 As quoted in " The Labor Mo\'ement iu America" (Ely), p. 46. 
 
INDUSTIUAI. PROGRESS OF SOCIALISM 431 
 
 although the conditions of the new country were so favor- 
 able to laborers that an appeal to them was seldom made. 
 Contrast this law and the public sentiment by which it 
 was upheld with the state of things to-day. Labor organ- 
 izations now exist embracing mechanics and nearly every 
 class of working men except common laborers, and it is 
 probable that these latter will soon be organized and re- 
 ceive recognition in the grand federation of all manual 
 laborers throughout the country. 
 
 The Socialistic Labor party in this country had seventy- 
 two distinct sections in 1886, and some of these sections 
 have several branches. 
 
 The distinctively Socialistic labor organizations are, of 
 course working directly for Socialism. At a convention of 
 the Farmers' Alliance in North Dakota in 1889 it was 
 resolved that " all public necessities, so far as practicable, 
 should be owned and controlled by the government and 
 managed in such a way that no class should be allowed to 
 exact unjust rates for the use thereof." Though aimed 
 primarily at the railroads, the principle here laid down 
 covers the wide field of " public necessities," and would find 
 supporters in all the labor organizations of the country. 
 
 It it easy for capital to resist strikes and defeat groups of 
 laborers scattered and disunited, but when this united army 
 of workmen shall move as one solid phalanx under experi- 
 enced and skilful leaders there can be but one issue to the 
 conflict. Popular liberty and education have made it certain 
 that tlie majority in an open field and fair fight will win, 
 especially when backed by God and humanity, as the cause 
 of the laborers assuredly is. 
 
 The growth of public sentiment in favor of organized 
 labor has been greater the past five j-ears than during the 
 preceding eighty-five years of the century. It is indica- 
 tive of the approach of an industrial and social crisis, when 
 manual, mental, and moral labor, the only original and 
 essential factor in production, the only real source of value, 
 and the one God-ordained heritage common to all men, 
 shall be crowned king. Toward this result we believe all 
 associations of both capital and labor, whether consciously 
 
432 RE\rELATION AND OUTLOOK OF SOCIALISM 
 
 or unconsciously, are inevitably tending. The association 
 of capital is simply the socializing of capital. The associa- 
 tion of laborers is the socializing of labor. The association 
 of capital and labor, now admitted by all parties to be 
 necessary, is the socializing of industry, and this trans- 
 ferred from private to public control for the benefit of all 
 the people is State Socialism. 
 
 IV. — Educational Forces set in the Direction of Socialism. 
 
 " When the editors of the Encyclopaedia Britannica needed for their 
 ninth edition an article setting forth the development and position of 
 political economy, it was to a Socialistic Positivist that they addressed 
 themselves, and the article took the form of a lengthy survey of the 
 steady convergence of all the tendencies toward a Socialistic state." 
 
 Sidney Webb. 
 
 Among these educational forces we include the latest 
 teachings of political economy, the influence of schools and. 
 colleges, Socialist publications, and the attitude of the 
 press and current literature. A brief survey of these sev- 
 eral sources of popular education vpill disclose in each of 
 them a growing sympathy with and frequently an advo- 
 cacy of the principles of Socialism, 
 
 1. Political economy. 
 
 Political economy has changed front within the past 
 three or four decades. This is especially true in England 
 where the science has received most attention. 
 
 Laissez-faire, Malthusianism, the wages fund theory, the 
 absolute right of private projoerty, the economic harmonies, 
 the conception of the State as atomistic, have all been 
 abandoned by most political economists, and the doctrine 
 of individualism that rested on these assumptions has been 
 greatly modified and in many quarters altogether rejected. 
 A single example will illustrate the completeness of the 
 change that has taken place in political economy. Prior to 
 1850 every Factory Act passed during half a century was 
 stubbornly opposed by all economists. Since that date no 
 economist of note has denied their Titility, and all now 
 agree that these and other similar acts in behalf of labor 
 have proved an economic and social blessing. 
 
SOCIALISTIC TENDENCY IN EDUCATION 433 
 
 The dictum of Mr. Jevons, that "No laws, no customs, 
 no rights of property, are so sacred that they may not be 
 made way with if it can be clearly shown that they stand 
 in the way of the greatest happiness," ^ has become the 
 accepted theory of English political economists. This is 
 the fundamental principle of Socialism. What becomes of 
 the idea set forth by Adam Smith and that dominated all 
 economic thought for the first half of this century, that the 
 sole object of the science of political economy was to 
 " enrich the people and tlie government " ? Economists 
 now admit that to " enrich the people " at the expense of 
 their morals and manhood is supreme folly. 
 
 Thorold Eogers in his comments on Smith says, " Modern 
 economists limit their inquiries to the causes which in- 
 crease or waste wealth." ' Most economists, however, go 
 farther. The truth is, there is hardly a human act or 
 thought that does not tend to "increase or waste wealth," 
 and that in the economic sense. 
 
 When economic science proposes merely to increase 
 wealth, and moi-al science and history assure us that this 
 increase of wealth imperils the general health, happiness, 
 and stability of the nation, it is evident that such economic 
 science conflicts with ethical science. 
 
 In other words, it is not science in the proper sense of 
 the word ; for all true science is not only consistent with 
 itself but with all other established truth. " Truth is 
 catholic and nature one." 
 
 Political economy has heretofore labored under a burden 
 of conflicting opinions, false theories, self-contradictions, 
 and antagonism to the accepted truths of other sciences 
 that caused Carlyle to characterize it as "the dismal 
 science " and brought it to the verge of " innocuous desue- 
 tude." It is a fact of great significance that the revival of 
 interest in this science has been in exact proportion to 
 its practical recognition . and adoption of the tenets of 
 Socialism. 
 
 Economists who still oppose Socialism are found to 
 
 1 " Tlie State in Relation to Labor," p. 11. 
 
 2 Smith's " Wealth of Niition.s " (Rogers' Edition), Vol. II. p. 1, note. 
 
434 EEVELATION AND OUTLOOK OF SOCIALISM 
 
 approve nearly all its principles. Their contention is in- 
 variably with some non-essential detail or method of appli- 
 cation that in no way invalidates the broad principles of 
 the system. Mr. Webb says, " The scientific difference be- 
 tween the ' orthodox ' economist and the economic Socialist 
 has now become mainly one of terminology and relative 
 stress, with the result that one competent economist not 
 himself a Socialist publishes regretfully to the world that 
 " all the younger men are now Socialists, with many of the 
 professors." ^ The same gentleman tells us that in Decem- 
 ber, 1887, it was computed that of the fourteen courses of 
 lectures on economics then being delivered in London 
 eight or more were given by professed Socialists. Other 
 facts of equal weight are adduced showing the trend of 
 modern economic thought toward Socialism, and making it 
 well-nigh certain that the political economy of the future, 
 the only one that is worthy the name of science, must be 
 that of the Socialist. 
 
 Political economists in America are far behind their 
 English cousins. In mental, moral, and most physical 
 sciences we are not leaders but followers of the mother 
 country. Our economists have, however, done much 
 original and independent thinking, and have reduced to 
 absurdities many of the old positions once regarded as 
 impregnable; but they have not had encouragement to 
 come out flat-footed as have English economists in favor of 
 Socialistic principles, and against the defunct and morally 
 rotten tenets of the old capitalistic political economy. 
 Their social environment is against them. The rapidity 
 with which riches are accumulated, the worship of the al- 
 mighty dollar, and the greater equality of conditions among 
 us, have produced an individualism more intense than in any 
 other part of the world. Individualism is therefore popu- 
 lar in America. Many economists feel that they could be 
 Socialists only at a sacrifice of reputation and possibly of 
 place. 
 
 A professor of political economy in one of our colleges 
 
 1 "Socialism in England: " Publications of the American Economic 
 Association, April, 1889, p. 4f). 
 
SOCIALISTIC TENDENCY IN EDUCATION 435 
 
 was recently requested to resign because he was leaning 
 too strongly toward. Socialism. Most men have a much 
 stronger leaning toward an unsound position with popular 
 support than to a sound one without it. They feel no 
 special call to martyrdom for which this age offers small 
 inducements. The law of supply and demand largely de- 
 termines the kind and quality of thought and speech. To 
 succeed in popular error is more prudential, certainly more 
 remunerative, than to secede in the right. 
 
 Many leaders of public opinion honestly believe that re- 
 form and progress are best served by a temporizing policy. 
 
 The conservatism of American economists, however, is 
 yielding to the logic of events ; and many of the younger 
 men, instead of attempting to tinker up the old system or 
 to adjust its tenets to the new social conditions, are ignor- 
 ing its assumptions and advocating measures that make for 
 Socialism, not in the lump, but in instalments, such as 
 municipal control of street lighting, water supply, street 
 railways, the nationalization of railroads, telegraphs, etc. 
 This is a mighty step toward Socialism, and owing to the 
 popular methods our economists are wisely employing its 
 influence is felt through all ranks of society. 
 
 Havino- gone thus far we believe there is no logical halt- 
 ing-place short of the full admission and adoption of the 
 principle of State Socialism. City water-works, etc., are 
 recommended to public control on the ground that they are 
 nntural monopolies. The distinction between natural and 
 artificial monopolies seems to have no scientific basis. It 
 is, however, a happy accommodation to a conservatism 
 opposed to progress. We like the way of progressive ap- 
 proach toward Socialism. It is said that "natural monopo- 
 lies are those businesses which become monopolies on 
 account of their own inherent properties." ^ What are we 
 to understand by " inherent properties " ? According to 
 Professor Ely a business or pursuit may become an arti- 
 ficial monopoly in either of two ways : by legislation as a 
 protective tariff, or by connection with a natural monopoly 
 as the Standard Oil Company or the great coal com- 
 
 1 " Political Economy " (Ely), p. 251. 
 
436 REVELATION AJfD OUTLOOK OF SOCIALISM 
 
 panies, in securing reduced freight rates from railroads. 
 No doubt these oil and coal companies form alliances with 
 railroads, but it would be hard to tell which was the most 
 natural or mischievous monopoly. But how about the 
 trust monopolies and other combinations which have no 
 special connection with the railroads or any other so-called 
 natural monopolies ? Or how does the manner in which a 
 monopoly chances to be established effect its "inherent 
 nature " ? There seems to be one circumstance that might 
 distinguish a natural from an artificial monopoly, and that 
 is, the former is less subject to competition. Just so far as 
 a commodity or a convenience is freed from the laws of 
 competition it becomes a monopoly, and according to the 
 social evolution a perfectly natural one. 
 
 Almost every commodity is now controlled by a trust, 
 which fixes the quantity and price, and with which compe- 
 tition has less and less to do. Indeed, the whole object of 
 the trust is to kill competition. 
 
 If any monopoly can be called artificial according to 
 those who insist on the distinction, it is the trust which 
 completely crushes competition. This, however, is the 
 condition of natural monopoly. 
 
 Professor Ely says, "A pursuit is a natural monopoly 
 when it is excluded from the steady, constant pressure of 
 competition." ^ The distinction therefore between natural 
 and artificial monopolies has no scientific importance. 
 
 Professor Ely has done more than any other American 
 economist to popularize economic science. His broad and 
 catholic views, his extensive range of knowledge, the spirit 
 of candor that characterizes his writings, and the manly inde- 
 pendence of his thought, have given him a foremost place 
 among American economists. In his latest work he says, 
 " It may perhaps be laid clown as a general rule that wheii 
 for any class of business it becomes necessary to abandon the 
 principles of freedom in the establishment of enterprises, this 
 business should be entirely turned over to the government, 
 either local, State, or federal, according to the nature of the 
 undertaking.'' '■' 
 
 1 " Problems of To-day," p. 117. 
 
 2 "Political Economy," p. 82. 
 
SOCIALISTIC TENDENCY IN EDUCATION 437 
 
 Here, it seems to us, the whole principle of Socialism is 
 admitted ; that is, all that Socialism claims is logically in- 
 volved in this position. Another eminent economist and 
 writer, Professor J. B. Clark, did not hesitate to say, in a 
 meeting of the Connecticut Valley Economic Association : 
 " If it were a question as to a possible ideal state of society, 
 we should all be Socialists." This admits that Socialism 
 is in itself desirable, that it is just and right. What, then, 
 is the implication as to its opposite, individualism ? Even 
 Professor Francis A. Walker, who regards Socialism as a 
 Utopian scheme, writes passage after passage in his excel- 
 lent treatise on " The Wages Question " that accords per- 
 fectly with the principles of Socialism. He says (p. 166), 
 " The tendency of purely economic forces is to widen 
 the differences existing in the constitution of industrial 
 society." Again he says (p. 172), " Failing to find relief 
 in economical forces, he [the political economist] will 
 look away to moral forces to achieve the emancipation of 
 the economically oppressed classes." He does not hesitate 
 to "challenge the assumption that underlies the orthodox 
 doctrine of wages, namely, the sufficiency of the sense of 
 self-interest" (p. 73). " Cheerfulness and hopefulness in 
 the laborer are springs of exertion " of the utmost im- 
 portance (p. 73). The " economic harmonies " succeed 
 chiefly in failing (p. 83). Freedom of contract must yield 
 whenever the moral and physical well-being of the people 
 require it (pp. 173, 369). "Sympathy and respect for labor 
 in the community " are necessary, if the laborer is to receive 
 a fair share of economic goods (p. 362). 
 
 In these and many other passages of like import Profes- 
 sor Walker completely knocks away the underpinning of 
 the capitalistic structure. 
 
 It remains to point out in this connection the complete 
 revolution in economic philosophy that has taken place in 
 Germany. Its key-note is sounded in the words of Roscher, 
 "The starting point as well as the object point of our 
 science is man." This is also the beginning and the end 
 of Socialism. So numerous and influential are German 
 political economists who advocate doctrines tending to 
 
438 REVELATION AND OUTLOOK OF SOCIALISM 
 
 Socialism tliat their opponents have named them Socialists 
 of the Chair. Among them are found the ablest econo- 
 mists in Germany. Laveleye says, "Ever since the ideas 
 of Adam Smith and his disciples commenced to spread in 
 Germany they have met with critics there, such as Pro- 
 fessor Lueder and Count Soden, who regarded as important, 
 not the mere growth of wealth, but the general progress 
 of civilization. Next have followed Von Thtinen, Adam 
 Mtiller, Charles Bernhardi, List, Lorenz Stein, Roscher, 
 Knies, Hildebrand, Hermann, and to-day their name is 
 legion : Nasse, Schmoller, Brentano, Schoenberg, Roesler, 
 Diihring, Wagner, Schaeffle, Cohn, Von Scheel, Samter, 
 Engel." 1 
 
 The new school adopts, in whole or in part, the historical 
 and inductive or realistic method, as distinguished from 
 the a jmori deduction of the old school of economists. 
 They make men rather than money the centre of the sys- 
 tem ; they repudiate all economic ideas not in harmony 
 with the law of Christian ethics, and insist that it is the 
 duty of the State to interfere so far as necessary to secure 
 industrial and social justice. They differ, says Laveleye, 
 from " the old school in their views of the foundation, 
 the method, the mission, and the conclusions of economic 
 science." ^ It will thus be seen that the difference is rad- 
 ical, involving a new and Socialistic science of political 
 economy. Recent Socialistic progress in Germany is due 
 in no small degree to the advanced teachings of her polit- 
 ical economists. 
 
 2. Schools and colleges. 
 
 Another educational influence favorable to Socialism 
 emanates from schools and colleges. A few years since 
 little or no attention was given to the study of sociology 
 and economics ; to-day these branches occupy an important 
 place. To what is this change due ? To the rapid increase 
 of wealth ? No. To the marvellous inventions and im- 
 provements in machinery ? No. To the increase of pop- 
 ulation or the massing of capital and labor in industrial 
 
 1 " Socialism o£ To-day" (Laveleye), p. 27.3. 
 
 2 Ibid., p. 2f)5. 
 
SOCIALISTIC TENDENCY IN EDUCATION 439 
 
 cities ? jSTo. To what, then, is it due ? We answer, to the 
 ever-deepening popular conviction tliat labor is cheated and 
 degraded, and social injustice reigns in flagrant violation 
 of the spirit of equality, fraternity, and humanity. It is 
 to right this insupportable wrong that the people have 
 turned to political economy, and nothing is more certain 
 than that they will accept no economic science that is not 
 based on social justice. 
 
 The attempt is being made to introduce the study of 
 political economy into the common schools. Within the 
 past few years manual training has been taught in many 
 schools throughout the country with good results. Several 
 industrial schools have been established in the United 
 States. The system seems to be taking root in this country. 
 It is a system, and herein lies its significance. It has been 
 in operation in the manufacturing town.s of Europe for 
 fifty years. 
 
 Eussia has 1,200 schools with 20,000 pupils. Belgium 
 has 36, some of which are evening schools, with over 25,000 
 attendants. Holland has 32 with 7,000 pupils ; Switzerland 
 87 with 8,000 pupils ; Denmark 77 with 6,000 pupils ; Sweden 
 28, and the school in Stockholm has 8,000 pupils ; Italy in 
 1885 had 136 industrial schools with 16,274 pupils.^ The 
 abolition of apprenticeship and the development of capital 
 leaves the youth dependent and helpless. An army of 
 young men in any country without a trade, without any 
 means of livelihood, is a danger that no nation dare en- 
 counter. The European states therefore have been forced 
 into industrial education. The next move will see the 
 man employed where as a boy he has learned his trade. 
 
 The study of economics is now made a part of the cur- 
 riculum of all the higher institutions of learning. The 
 establishment of departments of Christian sociology in 
 our theological seminaries is of great significance and 
 promise. In England more especially, teachers and pro- 
 fessors of avowed Socialistic principles are found in schools 
 and universities. Mr. Webb says that both Oxford and 
 Cambridge are now paying considerable attention to Social- 
 1 " Public Opinion," June 27, 1891. 
 
440 KEVELATION AND OUTLOOK OF SOCIALISM 
 
 ism. At each of these several Fellows and .tutors of col- 
 leges are avowed Socialists and members of Socialist 
 organizations. Socialist lectures have been given in sev- 
 eral colleges. The " Toynbee Hall Settlement " is sustained 
 by university graduates who are mostly Socialists. Sev- 
 eral recent publications from the universities are strongly 
 Socialistic in character. The old a priori individualism is 
 abandoned. " No professor ever founds any argument, 
 whether in defence of the rights of property or otherwise, 
 upon the inherent right of the individual to his own phys- 
 ical freedom and to the possession of such raw material as 
 he has made his own by expending personal effort upon. 
 ' The first step must be to rid our minds of the idea that 
 there are any such things in social matters as abstract 
 rights.' . . . The whole case on both sides is now made to 
 turn exclusively on the balance of social advantage, and 
 practically no individualist axiomata media are allowed to 
 be taken for granted. " ' 
 
 German universities pay more attention to economics, 
 and more of their professors of political economy are Social- 
 ists than in any other country in the world. In Russia the 
 ranks of the Nihilists, the future Socialists, are recruited 
 principally from the youths in the schools. 
 
 It is pointed out by all writers on the social problem in 
 Russia that her universities and higher schools are the 
 chief centres of Socialistic influence. 
 
 These are important facts. When the young men and 
 women that crowd the institutions of learning in Europe 
 and America come forth with the conviction that in the 
 social and industrial evolution capitalism with its anti- 
 social and anti-Christian assumptions respecting capital, 
 contract, and competition, is unjust and inhuman, and al- 
 ready obsolescent, we may reasonably look for a political 
 economy that shall be dynamic, rather than static, practical 
 rather than theoretical, social rather than individual, Chris- 
 tian rather than pagan. For such a science of economics 
 Socialism furnishes the only basis. 
 
 ^ " Socialism in England: " Publications of the American Economic 
 Association, April, 1889, p. 43. 
 
SOCIALISTIC TENDENCY IN EDUCATION 441 
 
 3. Socialistic publications. 
 
 The educational influence of Socialistic publications can 
 be easily under-estimated. The average citizen does not see 
 them, he is not looking for them, and when a list of such 
 publications is brought to his notice he is simply aston- 
 ished. The volume of these books, newspapers, and pam- 
 phlets is increasing both in this couStry and Europe. 
 
 In 1886 thirtj^-four journals, of which five were daily, 
 representing various phases of Socialism, were disseminating 
 its principles among the people of the United States. The 
 Socialist, started in 1885, claimed to have 3,000 sub- 
 scribers in its fourth number. The New Yorker Volkszei- 
 tung claims to have a circulation of over 30,000. "We 
 have fifty or more papers and magazines unreservedly ad- 
 vocating Nationalism. They are country weeklies, farmers' 
 papers, labor publications, and several daily papers." ^ 
 
 The Nationalist, a monthly published in Boston by 
 " The Nationalist Educational Association," issued its first 
 number in May, 1889. Within six months 36,000 copies 
 were necessary to supply the demand. Its motto was, " The 
 nationalization of industry and the promotion of the 
 brotherhood of humanity." It was succeeded by the New 
 Nation, a weekly, edited by Edward Bellamy and having in 
 view the same noble object. While zealous in the advocacy 
 of its principles, the New Nation is temperate in its tone, 
 moderate toward opponents, radically but conservatively 
 progressive, making its strongest appeal to conservative 
 and thoughtful minds, and numbers among its contributors 
 professors, clergymen, philanthropists, and other writers of 
 national reputation. It is exerting a wide influence through- 
 out the nation. 
 
 The formation of Nationalist clubs is one of the most 
 extraordinary movements of this generation, and indicates 
 nothing less than a national interest in the cause of Social- 
 ism. The first club was formed in December, 1888, and 
 within eighteen months there were no less than one hun- 
 dred and twenty-eight organized clubs, embracing twenty- 
 seven States. The immediate inspiration of these clubs was 
 1 " The Nationalist," December, 1889, p. 39. 
 
442 REVELATION AND OUTLOOK OF SOCIALISM 
 
 Mr. Edward Bellamy's " Looking Backward." But the time 
 had come in the progress of Socialistic thought for public 
 expression and organized action, and Mr. Bellamy's great 
 work sounded the call for organization. 
 
 The influence of these clubs in spreading a knowledge of 
 Socialistic principles and in winning adherents, composed 
 as they are of the moart intelligent and cultivkted persons 
 in society, cannot be over-estimated. They may prove a 
 temporary phenomenon in the great social movement ; they 
 certainly constitute an epoch in the history of Socialism in 
 the United States, and if they give way it will only be to 
 another and more aggressive method of propaganda. 
 
 We have not attempted a complete enumeration of 
 Socialist publications in the United States, but only a 
 general survey which may give us an idea of their influence 
 as an educational force among the people. 
 
 In England, Socialistic publications are still more numer- 
 ous and influential. Mr. Webb calls attention to the follow- 
 ing, among other recent publications from the universities : 
 Professor Karl Pearson's " The Ethics of Free Thought," 
 a collection of Socialist essays ; " Darwinism and Politics," 
 by D. G. Eitchie, M.A. ; "The Moral Function of the 
 State " by the same author ; Schaefile's " Quintessence of 
 Socialism," translated by Bernard Bosanquet, M.A. 
 
 Justice is a weekly paper published in London and 
 having a larger circulation than any other Socialist paper. 
 The Commonweal, another weekly, is the organ of the 
 Socialist League. Among the more important issues of the 
 Social Democratic Federation are " Socialism Made Plain " 
 (seventy -first thousand); "The Socialist Catechism," by 
 J. L. Joynes, M.A. (twentieth thousand); Mr. Hyndman's 
 "A Commune for London," and "The Emigration Fraud;" 
 " The Principles of Socialism," by Hyudman and Morris ; 
 Prince Krapatkine's " Appeal to the Young ; " and Karl 
 Marx's " Wage, Labor, and Capital." 
 
 We shall not attempt to give a complete list of the Social- 
 istic publications in England. Their name is legion. The 
 same is true of the Socialistic press in Germany. The En- 
 cyclopaedia Britannica says, " The literature of Socialism is 
 
SOCIALISTIC TEXUENCY IN EDUCATION 443 
 
 enormous and rapidly growing," and appends a long list 
 of some of its leading works. 
 
 These Socialist publications both in Europe and America 
 are eagerly read by the people, and especially by the culti- 
 vated classes, and the result will be an industrial and 
 social transformation of which the chief danger is that it 
 will be too rapid. 
 
 4. New books and the attitude of the press. 
 Another educational force deserving separate mention 
 is the recent appearance of certain books by American 
 authors ; also the attitude of the press toward the new 
 order. Among these books may be mentioned "Progress 
 and Poverty," by Henry George ; " Modern Socialism," by 
 Laurence Groulund ; and especially " Looking Backward," 
 by Edward Bellamy. 
 
 These books have fallen like manna upon multitudes 
 whose souls were starving in the barren wilderness of 
 capitalism. These authors maintain that there is a God in 
 political economy. The discovery is new and startling. 
 Thaf the Almighty should presume to enter the domain of 
 Plutus, and assert his right to recognition in economics, is 
 regarded by many economists as subversive of the very 
 foundations of the science as heretofore conceived. 
 
 Mr. George in " Progress and Poverty " does not make 
 Socialism his goal ; indeed, he devotes directly but few 
 paragraphs to the subject. " Looking Backward" does not 
 even mention the word; while Mr. Gronlund makes it the 
 title of his book. Mr. George aims at the nationalization 
 of land ; Mr. Bellamy and Mr. Gronlund at the co-opera- 
 tive commonwealth. All are keen, practical, political econo- 
 mists, and insist with irresistible logic upon the recognition 
 of social justice as the basis of any economic science worthy 
 the name. 
 
 " Progress and Poverty " has had an enormous circula- 
 tion both in this country and in Europe, and, as Mr. Webb 
 observes, " gave a touch which caused all the seething in- 
 fluence to crystallize into a popular Socialistic movement. 
 The optimistic and confident tone of the book, and the 
 irresistible force of its popularization of Ricardo's law 
 
444 KEVELATION AND OUTLOOK OF SOCIALISM 
 
 of rent, sounded the dominant ' note ' of the English 
 Socialist party of to-day. Adherents of Mr. George's views 
 gathered into little pr.opagandist societies, and gradually 
 developed in many cases into complete Socialists." 
 
 " Looking Backward " took the world by storm. Critics 
 and reviewers of all schools of thought were forced to 
 exclaim, " It is the ' Uncle Tom's Cabin ' of the industrial 
 slavery of to-day ! " " Wonderful book ! " " Extraordi- 
 nary ! " " Astonishing ! " " It is a revelation and an 
 evangel ! " " It is a new '' Iliad.' Homer glorifies war in 
 the destruction of men; Bellamy glorifies peace in the 
 salvation of humanity." Within a few months of its pub- 
 lication the book had reached its two hundred and tenth 
 thousand, and was reported to be selling at the rate of 10,000 
 a week. It has been translated into many languages, and 
 is read all over the globe ; and yet this is the book that 
 Prof. Francis A. Walker does not hesitate to call a " wild 
 weak dream ! " Comment is needless. 
 
 " Modern Socialism " is a vigorous and trenchant arraign- 
 ment of the capitalistic system, and sets forth in a concise 
 and popular manner the advantages of " the co-operative 
 commonwealth." 
 
 The attitude of the general press is also a significant 
 factor in the educational forces that make for Socialism. 
 Newspapers and magazines that but a few years since had 
 little to say on the social question except to condemn 
 unqualifiedly all phases of Socialism now devote large 
 space to its consideration ; and it is the exception when 
 they do not indorse one or more of its tenets. 
 
 The whole manner of looking at the relations between 
 capital and labor, at the nature of capital itself, at the 
 proper functions of the State, at labor legislation and 
 organizations, has been completely revolutionized within a 
 few years. The change consists in the substitution of the 
 Socialistic for the individualistic standpoint of observation. 
 Newspapers, magazines, and pamphlets are teeming with 
 articles sympathizing with laborers, assuring the public 
 that a certain great body of strikers seem to have the right 
 of it; that employers ought not only to treat with them, 
 
THE XEW ETHICS AND SOCIALISM 445 
 
 but to yield to their just demands ; 'that wages are too low 
 and profits too large ; that eight hours should constitute a 
 day's work ; and that the gulf between the rich and the 
 poor should be bridged at all hazard ; and a multitude of 
 similar propositions which a few years ago would have 
 been regarded as the wildest, weakest, and socially the 
 most treasonable balderdash. 
 
 The employer of labor who but- yesterday as it were 
 would have indignantly resented the slightest interference 
 on the part of his employees with his management, now 
 consults with them as a matter of course. He has been 
 forced to do this by the progress of public sentiment. 
 His newspaper assures him that it is onlj' reasonable and 
 just ; that labor has rights ; that in the social evolution 
 the almighty dollar must do obeisance to the more almighty 
 labor ; and that in the assumptions of political economy 
 and in the conditions of industrial progress old things 
 have passed away and all things become new. 
 
 No writer, even among the stanchest supporters of in- 
 dividualism, ventures to propose any solution of the labor 
 problem aside from prescribing a mere salve to allay irrita- 
 tion on the surface, that is not in its nature and tendency 
 co-operative and fraternal. Is this Socialism ? No, it is 
 only Socialistic. 
 
 V. — The New Ethics and Socialism. 
 
 " Finally this system [the wages] is indicted in the name of that 
 Christian religion whose two cardinal principles it disregards and brings 
 into disrepute — the brotherhood of man and the fatherhood of God. 
 Dividing society into two classes it practically disrupts the first, and' 
 whatsoever does that leads on to the denial of the second." — 1)r. Lyman 
 Abbott. 
 
 The significance of this title may not be at once. appar- 
 ent to those who have not given attention to the progress 
 of ethical ideas. 
 
 It would be strange indeed if the new social conditions 
 which have brought men into new relations with each other 
 should not be accompanied with new duties. The .central 
 
446 BEVBLATIOX AJs'D OUTLOOK OF SOCIALISM 
 
 principle of the new ebhics is fraternity. If we seek the 
 material cause that has wrought the industrial and social 
 changes of the present century, it may be suuined up in one 
 word, steavi. Steam has revolutionized all human activities 
 both on land and sea. It has multiplied machinery, con- 
 centrated capital, massed laborers, specialized work, created 
 great industrial centres, depopulated the country and 
 crowded the town, increased production as well as human 
 want many fold ; by facilitating travel and communication it 
 has founded schools and colleges, built theatres and churches, 
 and flooded the world with literature both good and bad ; 
 it has carried the gospel and opium to China, Christianity 
 and infidelity to Japan, democracy and dynamite to Russia, 
 missionaries and rum to Africa; it has made frightful in- 
 roads upon the sanctity of home and marriage, and changed 
 the whole face of social and domestic life by causing society 
 to break ranks in every direction ; steam has annihilated 
 distance, opened hermit nations, made neighbors of the 
 remotest regions, reduced the size of the world by one-half, 
 and made all men cosmopolitans and members of one 
 family. 
 
 This complete metamorphosis of social life has evolved 
 one principle which is essential to our civilization, a prin- 
 ciple indeed as old as the race, but hidden from philoso- 
 phers, dimly foreseen by prophets, hardly recognized by 
 priests, and denied by the world ; that principle is the es- 
 sential unity and solidarity of human society. This, the 
 grandest of all human truths, has at length dawned upon 
 the world, and its first fruit is the purely ethical idea of 
 fraternity with the divinely beautiful sentiments of sym- 
 pathy, uoselfishness, and love that cluster around it. 
 
 All true religion consists in the fatherhood of God and 
 the brotherhood of man. It is the neiu conception of these 
 two great truths that has inspired during the present cen- 
 tury the grandest missionary movement the world has ever 
 seen. Formerly God was regarded as the Father only of 
 particular tribes and nations ; foreigners were not brothers 
 but enemies even among the Jews. Whatever idea of 
 brotherhood existed was confined to one's own i:)eople ; no 
 
THE NEW ETHICS AND SOCIALISM 447 
 
 stranger could be a brother. The book of Sifri says, " A 
 single Israelite is of more worth in the sight of God than 
 all the nations of the world." " It was thought that God 
 himself loved only the Jews. He was the God of Abraham, 
 of Isaac, and of Jacob. . . . The prayer of Israel was, ' Pour 
 out thy wrath upon the heathen that know not thee.' The 
 Jew knew no neighbor outside of his own race, and in this 
 he was like other nations. Max Mtiller says that the word 
 mankind never passed the lips of Socrates, or Plato, or 
 Aristotle. The greatest teachers of the most learned nations 
 had not conceived the idea of human brotherhood in which 
 all have common rights and where each owes to all the 
 others common duties." ' No rights without corresponding 
 duties. More than this, "common rights" and "common 
 duties." 
 
 Here is a conception of fraternity new but pre-eminently 
 Christian, and which is already beginning to dominate all 
 ethical thought. It is recognized by the State in relation 
 to crime. Formerly the State only punished crime ; now 
 it is attempting to prevent it, and this is certainly more 
 eoonomical and rational as well as more merciful. It is 
 this conception of fraternity that has established state re- 
 formatories and eleemosynary institutions that are nothing 
 less than phenomenal. It is this spirit that sends millions 
 of bushels of wheat to famine-stricken Russia ; that enters 
 a solemn protest against nations about to declare needless 
 war; that is making human life more sacred the world 
 over; that is everywhere multiplying societies to emphasize 
 the great principle of brotherhood ; and that is compelling 
 Christian dehominations to lay aside their weapons of sec- 
 tarian warfare and erect the olive-branch of peace and good 
 will. 
 
 What steam has done for economic production, fraternity 
 is about to do for social reorganization. Fraternity declares 
 that every man is his brother's keeper. Individualism based 
 on the opposite principle of selfishness says, as voiced by 
 Professor William G. Sumner : " Let every man mind his 
 own business ! " This is not, however, original : the senti- 
 1 Eev. A. E. Dunning, D.D., in " Congregationalist," May, 1890. 
 
448 KEVELATION AND OUTLOOK OF SOCIALISM 
 
 ment is borrywed from Cain. This is what the priest and 
 Levite said as they passed the wounded and dying man by 
 the road-side. This is the dictum of laissez-faire, the shib- 
 boleth of capitalism, and a rule of conduct too often ac- 
 quiesced in by the church. Even the pagan Solon said, 
 '■Every man should make the care of the injured his own." 
 This selfish and devilish principle is now, for the first time 
 in the history of the race, formally confronted by the new 
 ethics oi fraterniti/. There will be no compromise; one or 
 the other must fall, and if we rightly interpret the spirit of 
 the age the issue cannot be doubtful. Applied fraternity 
 will be Socialism realized. 
 
 In support of these views we call attention to the ad- 
 vanced position already taken by many Christian ministers. 
 The Christian Scriptures have so much to say respecting 
 capital and labor and all social relations, and the existing 
 struggle is so bitter and its issues so important, that, reli- 
 gious teachers can no longer be indifferent or silent. The 
 earliest attempts both in Europe and America to correct 
 the abuse of capitalism by the substitution in industry of 
 the Socialistic principle were heartily supported by lead- 
 ing ministers and laymen in the church. That Christ was 
 the first Socialist cannot be denied. A great revival of in- 
 terest in Socialism on the part of the clergy is certainly in 
 progress. Hardly a day passes in which some influential 
 minister does not declare himself in sympathy with the 
 principle of Socialism. To-day's paper contains the follow- 
 ing : "In the formation of the 21st district club (jS"ational- 
 ist, New York City), Tuesday night, such men as Rev. Dr. 
 DeCosta, Ilev. S. G. Raymond, Professor Daniel DeLeon, 
 and Thaddeus B. Wakeman took a leading part. Their ef- 
 forts are pledged to the overthrow of the competitive 
 industrial system, and in their declaration of principles 
 they say the principle of competition is simply the applica- 
 tion of the brutal law of the survival of the strongest and 
 most cunning." ^ 
 
 A surprisingly large number of Christian ministers, 
 among whom are many leaders in the church, have identi- 
 
 1 " Springfielil Republican," July, 1890. 
 
THE NEW ETHICS AND SOCIALISM 449 
 
 lied themselves with these Socialist organizations which are 
 . scattered throughout the country. Eev. George Cannon is 
 president of the club in Vineland, California. Resolutions 
 indorsing Eev. Dr. Silcox "in the stand he has taken for 
 the emancipation of the race," were passed by the club in 
 Oakland, California. Rev. E. M. Webster delivered a course 
 of lectures of marked ability before the club in Pasadena, 
 California. The first lecture delivered before the club in 
 Tescott, Kansas, was by Rev. D. McGurk, the vice-president 
 of the club. Eev. Samuel Longden is a member of the 
 advisory committee of the club in Greeneastle, Indiana. 
 The club at Hartford, Connecticut, numbers among its mem- 
 bers Eev. Floyd Tomkins, rector of Christ Church. Eev. 
 Frederick A. Hinkley is a member of the club in Boston, 
 and a second club in the same city was recently addressed 
 by Eev. James Yeams, an honorary member. Eev. George 
 P. Bethel, presiding over the club in Columbus, Ohio, 
 discussed and explained its declaration of principles. The 
 president of the club in Tacoma, Washington, is Rev. W. 
 E. Capeland. 
 
 Rev. Philo W. Sprague recently addressed the Fourth 
 Club of Boston on " What we want and why we want it." 
 Rev. W. C. Gannett addressed the club in Rochester, New 
 York. The Ninth Club of New York listens to an eloquent 
 address upon Nationalism by Rev. H. H. Brown. At the 
 organization of the club at Santa Ana, California, Rev. H. 
 D. Council was elected vice-president. Rev. M. J. Callan 
 was also elected vice-president of the Salem Club. Rev. 
 W. E. Sillence addressed the club in Chicago on the " Re- 
 ligious Aspect of Nationalism." The club in San Diego, 
 California, elected Eev. B. F. McDaniel president. In a 
 series of lectures given in the different churches of Min- 
 neapolis, the first was by Eev. Kristofer Janson, a pro- 
 nounced Nationalist. Rev. C. A. Cressy has delivered sev- 
 eral able lectures in that city. Rev. Samuel Freuder of 
 San Francisco is devoting himself exclusively to making 
 known the gospel of Nationalism. At the formation of the 
 club in Fort Dodge, Iowa, Rev. H. H. Bradshaw was elected 
 secretary. Eev. H. H. Brown is president of the Second 
 
450 REVELATION AND OUTLOOK OF SOCIALISM 
 
 Club ill Brooklyn, New York. Rev. Alexander Kent was 
 elected first president of the club in Washington, District 
 of Columbia.' This is by no means a complete list of the 
 ministers in this country who have joined this movement 
 as the only hope of society, and indeed of the Christian 
 Church. We believe that for every one who has joined these 
 societies a hundred others are in sympathy with Socialistic 
 principles, and many of the latter, if not members, are equally 
 outspoken in their convictions. Rev. Heber Newton, Rev. 
 James Huntington, Rev. Mr. Wendte, Rev. Morrison I. 
 Swift, Rev. W. J. Hopkins, Rev. D. Y. Bowen, Rev. 0. P. 
 Gifford, Rev. H. C. Yrooman, Rev. W. D. P. Bliss, Rev. 
 Francis E. Marsten, Rev. H. J. Stern, are among the preach- 
 ers and writers who are exerting a powerful influence in 
 favor of Socialism. They represent all denominations, and 
 among them are editors, lecturers, and writers of national 
 reputation. Rev. Leighton Williams, Rev. Walter Ren- 
 schenbusch, and Rev. J. E. Raymond, of New York, publish 
 a paper called For fhe Right in the interest of Christian 
 Socialism.^ 
 
 It is not unlikely that our theological seminaries, which 
 are giving increased attention to social questions, and where 
 the new ethics can receive the fullest and fairest consider- 
 ation, are likely to become centres of Socialistic influence. 
 Rev. Dr. Graham Taylor of the Hartford Seminary says, 
 " I suppose that in the broad meaning of the terms, Nation- 
 alism and Christianity are synonymous." He suggested 
 the probable formation of a class in Christian Socialism. 
 In another divinity school a Nationalist club was formed. 
 Andover and other theological seminaries are establishing 
 chairs of Christian Sociology. 
 
 The recent establishment of a congregation in connection 
 with his church in Boston, effected by Rev. W. D. P. Bliss, 
 for the " study of social problems and the application of 
 the principles of Socialism," is but the indication of a wide- 
 spread feeling in many churches. There are ministers and 
 
 1 The names of tliese clergymen and an account ol the various Na- 
 tionalist clubs may be found in the " Nationalist Magazine." 
 
 2 " Springfield Daily Union," November, 1891. 
 
THE NEW ETHICS AND SOCIALISM 451 
 
 laymen everywhere who, weary and well-nigh hopeless on 
 account of the antagonism between the present order of 
 society and the Christianity of Christ, hail this movement 
 as the harbinger of better days. One of these exclaims in 
 view of its progress and the certainty of its triumph : " In 
 a month I shall be seventy, and my first wish was that I 
 might have been born a hundred years latter. ... I have 
 never felt so much like saying, ' Now lettest thou thy ser- 
 vant depart in peace, for mine eyes have seen thy salvation, 
 which thou hast prepared before the face of all the people.' " 
 
 When such writers as Washington Gladden, Edward 
 Everett Hale, Lyman Abbott, and other leaders of the 
 American pulpit and of American thought, declare that the 
 Socialist's diagnosis of the disease which now afflicts society 
 is the correct one, and avow their adherence to many of the 
 remedial measures proposed by Socialism, it is easy to see 
 the drift of public opinion and- to forecast the result. 
 
 These writers are not necessarily Socialists. Dr. Gladden 
 rejects Socialism "as a positive programme for the recon- 
 struction of society." Nevertheless, most of the remedial 
 measures he advocates are heartily approved by the great 
 body of Socialists to-day, and it is difficult to see how the 
 reform which he demands can take place without adopting 
 the Socialistic programme. Dr. Abbott is president of a 
 Christian Socialist society in Brooklyn ; he is also editor 
 of the Christian Union, which is doing a grand work in 
 disseminating the principles of Socialism. 
 
 Let it not-be supposed that the names already given of 
 ministers of religion who are more or less favorable to the 
 claims of Socialism exhaust the list. Probably three- 
 fourths of all Christian ministers in the country are in 
 sympathy with the demands of working men. 
 
 Nor are ministers alone or chiefly interested ; cultured and 
 influential laymen, lawyers, judges, professors, teachers, 
 physicians, editors, bankers, merchants, and philanthropists 
 are more and more attracted to Socialism, while in the 
 Nationalist clubs are found large numbers of ladies of 
 culture and refinement. Helen Campbell and Mary A. 
 Livermore, beside many other women whom the people 
 
452 REVELATION AND OUTLOOK OF SOCIALISM 
 
 delight to honor, are moved by an earnest purpose to realize 
 the new ethics in the social organization. Can any intel- 
 ligent person doubt, when the spirit of the gospel thus 
 moves upon the face of the waters and says " Let there be 
 light," that there will be light ? 
 
 The new conception of ethics has found even larger 
 expression in other countries than in our own. In France 
 and Germany, and especially in England, it is revolutioniz- 
 ing the science. Mr. Webb gives a list of prominent Chris- 
 tian ministers who have written approvingly of Socialism. 
 He says, " It is indeed beginning to be suspected by not 
 a few earnest Christians that the future of Christianity in 
 England is very largely bound up with Socialism and de- 
 mocracy. Unless Christianity can once more become the 
 accepted faith of the masses, its influence must inevitably 
 undergo a serious popular decline, and it is already certain 
 that the masses will accept no anti-Socialist faith." ' 
 
 Christianity among the masses has already undergone a 
 serious decline. The ethical principle has been so outraged 
 in the social organization that forbearance ceases to be a 
 virtue. The new ethics demand a reconstruction of society 
 on a fraternal basis. Philanthropy is not fraternity ; 
 neither is charity nor any other principle measured by 
 percentage. 
 
 Slavery, serfdom, and vassalage were tolerable because 
 the victims believed oppression was natural, right, and 
 Christian. The wage-slaves now believe their oppression 
 to be wrong and anti-Christian, and they are right. Ethics 
 and Christianity will be triumphant. Socialism will come. 
 
 1 " Socialism in England: " Publications of the American Economic 
 Association, April, 1889, p. 38. 
 
WHAT OUGHT TO BE DONE ABOUT IT 463 
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 WHAT OUGHT TO BE DONE ABOUT IT 
 
 " Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are 
 honorahle, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, what- 
 soever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report ; if there 
 be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things."— Phil. 
 iv. 8. 
 
 We have now traced the most remarkable social movement 
 of our time known as Socialism from its Genesis to its 
 Revelation ; the former is its origin and history, the latter 
 its outlook and prophecy. 
 
 We have seen in studying its causes how social forces, 
 political, educational, industrial and ethical, have all devel- 
 oped under individualism along converging lines until they 
 have met in the grand central truth of human solidarity. 
 The expression of this truth is Socialism ; a system in 
 perfect harmony with the spirit and precepts of Christianity. 
 
 We have examined the main postulates of Socialism and 
 find that they present a true bill of indictment against the 
 evils of the present order which is generally admitted, and 
 a true theory of social reorganization which is generally 
 and rapidly gaining adherents. We have also critically 
 examined the nature of the Socialistic state, and found it 
 to rest upon the soundest philosophy and the most approved 
 principles of social utility and justice. We have seen the 
 inadequacy of the remedies, or various half-way measures 
 of social reform, proposed by individualists, such as profit 
 sharing, etc. We next considered the many and great 
 advantages of Socialism over the present order, attention 
 being especially called to the saving of the present enormous 
 waste. 
 
 The objections generally urged against Socialism have 
 been considered in order, and most of them found to have 
 
454 WHAT OUGHT TO BE DONE ABOUT IT 
 
 little if any foundation, and finally under " The Revelation 
 and Outlook of Socialism " we noticed the rapid spread of 
 the new movement, its numerical growth, political gains, • 
 industrial progress, and lastly the powerful support it is 
 receiving from educational forces and the new ethics. 
 
 The few remaining pages will be devoted to some sugges- 
 tions as to the mode of introducing Socialism and the 
 proper attitude to maintain toward social reform. 
 
 I. — Socialism ought to be introduced gradually. 
 
 " It is an advantage of co-operation, not a drawbacli;, that it cannot 
 advance further than the minds and morals of the people engaged in it, 
 no faster than honest and competent men and women can be found to 
 manage its concerns." — Lavelete. 
 
 There is no royal road no Socialism. The path of all 
 great reforms has been long and crooked. The land of 
 promise was only one day by rail from Egypt, yet forty 
 years of wandering were required to reach it, but it was 
 none the less certain. 
 
 Socialism will come by instalments ; and this is the way it 
 should come, without prejudice to any interests and with- 
 out wrong to any individual. Eeudalism gave way grad- 
 ually to the wage system ; so the wage system should 
 gradually be replaced by Socialism. Eeudalism itself was 
 gradually superinduced upon allodialism. " The process 
 by which the machinery of government became feudalized, 
 though rapid, was gradual." ' 
 
 Doubtless many vestiges of capitalism would survive 
 under Socialism, as certain customs and institutions of 
 feudalism still exist under the present order. The law 
 of real property is feudal in its main lines, so also are 
 its most general terms in their original meaning. The 
 English nobility is but a survival of the upper caste of 
 feudalistio society. 
 
 This gradual and partial change under Socialism is in 
 every way desirable. Society would in no way be disturbed, 
 no one would be wronged or even inconvenienced, and 
 
 1 "Encyclopaedia Britannica," title ."Feudalism." 
 
SOCIALISM OUGHT TO BE INTRODUCED CiEADUALLY 4-55 
 
 most people would be wholly unconscious of changes made 
 from time to time. Again, the State would need to assume 
 control of industries so fast and so far only as was necessary 
 • to accomplish the end in view, which is social justice. 
 
 Socialists ask nothing more. Some even among intelligent 
 people continue to represent Socialists as desiring revolu- 
 tion for the sake of revolution. Nothing could be farther 
 from the truth. Socialists want social justice, and state 
 control is urged simply as means to an end. Whenever 
 the end is accomplished Socialists will be satisfied. If any 
 way can be devised whereby the partial socialization of 
 industries can remove existing evils and insure justice all 
 good men would be abundantly satisfied. 
 
 A beginning should be made with industries known as 
 natural monopolies. Among these are railroads, water- 
 works, gas-works, street cars, electric lighting, telegraphs, 
 and telephones. Many cities have already municipalized 
 water-works, city lighting, and street cars with unarked suc- 
 cess. The Postmaster-General of the United States has 
 already recommended the nationalization of the telegraph 
 and telephone in connection with the postal system, and 
 its adoption in the near future may be confidently expected. 
 
 What has heretofore distinguished the so-called natural 
 from artificial monopolies, namely the absenceof competition 
 in the former, is fast disappearing ; that is to say, the trust 
 stage has appeared which is being applied to all industries 
 and which cuts off competition, thus rendering the artificial 
 as objectionable as the natural monopoly so far as the 
 abuse of power and the oppression of the people are con- 
 cerned. Such monopolies and businesses as are most 
 prejudicial to the public interests should first be national- 
 ized, and in every case with full remuneration to all parties 
 who might suffer financially by the change. 
 
 It should be borne in mind that Socialists propose only 
 peaceful means for the introduction of the new order. Its 
 opponents are continually representing them as disposed to 
 violence, and the most cowardly and contemptible way of 
 doing this is by mentioning them in the same breath with 
 anarchists, to whom in temper and iuirpose they are more 
 
456 WHAT OUGHT TO BE DONE ABOUT IT 
 
 opposed than are individualists. Socialists trust the forces 
 of evolution. Capitalistic obstruction of evolution will 
 alone cause revolution. If the social struggle becomes an 
 " irrepressible conflict " and resort is had to arms, we 
 believe the first gun will be -.fired by the oppressor rather 
 than by the oppressed, as was the case in the war which 
 freed the American slave. 
 
 II. — Capitalists ought to regard Socialism with Favor. 
 
 " The laborer has his legitimate, his necessary, his honorable, and 
 honored place in God's creation ; hut in all God's creation there Is no 
 place appointed for the idle wealthy man." — "William E. Gladstone. 
 
 The advantages of wealth are far from being an unmixed 
 blessing. The fear of losing caste, which might result from 
 a single turn in the wheel of fortune, is often as painful as 
 the fear of actual want on the part of the laboring classes. 
 The rich not only fear the loss of social caste, but are often 
 haunted with the fear of being reduced to actual want. 
 
 The possession of money begets the love of it, and there 
 is in the breast of almost every rich man something of the 
 miser spirit of hoarding and the miser dread of loss and 
 want. It is not a comforting reflection to the average rich 
 family of to-day that, owing to the tendency of wealth to 
 sap manhood, the distance to poverty is measured by only 
 about three generations. 
 
 The two greatest evils that can exist in a republic are 
 riches and poverty, ^ay, they cannot exist side by side 
 for any great length of time. The wealth of a few and the 
 commo7iwealth are antagonistic ideas ; they are now as 
 never before seen to be hostile not only to each other, to 
 the genius of democracy, and to the new ethics, but to the 
 Christianity of Christ. These social forces are working 
 together and working powerfully against this great in- 
 equality, and the issue cannot be doubtful. The recent 
 Papal Encyclical says, " All agree . . . and there can be 
 no question whatever that some remedy must be found, and 
 quickly found, for the misery and wretchedness which press 
 so heavily at this moment on the large majority of the 
 
CAPITALISTS OUGHT TO KBGAKD IT WITH FAVOE 457 
 
 very poor. ... A small number of very rich men have 
 been able to lay upon the masses of the poor a yoke little 
 better than slavery itself." 
 
 The social question is not merely the labor question, it is 
 the capitalist's question as well. Why should the rich 
 look with favor upon Socialism ? We answer : — 
 
 1. Because something must be dane. The forces of 
 labor and capital are preparing for war. Just as surely as 
 the occasional firing of the pickets and advance guard tells 
 the advancing troops that the ordeal of battle is at hand, so 
 the mustering and concentration of the forces of labor and 
 capital and the occasional outbreak of hostilities clearly 
 indicate the impending struggle. 
 
 I am not an alarmist. All students of the social ques- 
 tion agree that the danger can be averted only by immedi- 
 ate action. A conservative capitalistic writer says, " If 
 men of wealth cannot be made to hear and heed the small 
 voice there will come again, as in the Peasants' War, and 
 Wat Tyler's rebellion, and the French Revolution, the 
 rumbling earthquake, the rending whirlwind, and the 
 sheeted fire." ^ Better a thousand times for the rich to 
 recognize and submit to the inevitable, than to refuse to 
 see or to resist it till the crash comes which will bury in 
 common ruin our wealth, our institutions, and our civilizar 
 tion. 
 
 There is an increasingly large number of capitalists who 
 deprecate the wrongs which they are powerless to prevent, 
 and patiently await the developments of Socialism, saying 
 of it as Gamaliel said of the gospel, " If this counsel or 
 this work be of men, it will come to naught ; but if it be of 
 God ye cannot overthrow it." 
 
 2. The mental suffering of the capitalistic class furnishes 
 a strong argument for Socialism. ~ It may strike wage- 
 workers as bordering on the ridiculous to speak of the 
 sufferings of capitalists, but this is because of their 
 ignorance. 
 
 What is the significance of the daily record of suicides 
 committed by members of the capitalistic class ? Think 
 
 1 "Socialism and Christianity" (Behrends), p. 157. 
 
458 WHAT OUGHT TO BK DONE ABOUT IT 
 
 for a moment of the mental suffering, the poignancy of the 
 grief, that drives one to the act of madness ! A hundred 
 men may die of starvation and their aggregate of suffering 
 not equal the agony of the man who seeks relief in suicide. 
 But this daily record of suicide and mu.rder, due to the 
 system of capitalism, furnishes but a hint of the sufferings 
 of capitalists. Nine-tenths of all who engage in business 
 fail. PoUow the average business man through the dis- 
 mal swamp of failure. He begins to be anxious about his 
 affairs; bills come in that he cannot meet; he becomes 
 nervous and sleepless ; lie racks his brain in seeking to 
 reduce expenses ; suggests curtailment at home which is 
 met with loud complaint ; asks his banker for larger accom- 
 modations and is cut to the quick at his manifest hesita- 
 tion if not refusal. Meanwhile things daily get worse ; in 
 his distress he seeks loans from his friends and pledges his 
 honor as security ; creditors torture him with importunity ; 
 he resorts to all conceivable devices and shifts to keep 
 things going ; he inwardly groans because his time is all 
 taken up, not in attending to business, but in financiering 
 and in keeping up false appearances which he despises. 
 Now letters begin to come limiting further delay and 
 threatening legal proceedings ; his situation becomes des- 
 perate as bankruptcy stares him in the face. The strain 
 begins to tell on his mind and health ; he. is nervous, irri- 
 table, sleepless, and has no appetite. Still the poor man 
 hopes; he cannot, he must not give up. The forfeiture of 
 the confidence and respect of his aseociates and neighbors 
 and the community is worse than death to a noble spirit- 
 His wife and children, would they not rather die than suf- 
 fer the disgrace that threatens ? But the end is not yet ; 
 the final, fatal day is put off from week to week because he 
 cannot, he positively cannot muster courage to face his 
 creditors. Do not censure him, for he is a brave man. He 
 would march up to the cannon's mouth in lionorable battle 
 without the emotion of fear, but to encounter the surprise 
 and disgust, the taunts, the threats, and probable charge of 
 dishonesty, to say nothing of the loss of esteem of his 
 creditors, is more than he can endure. A merciful provi- 
 
CAPITALISTS OUGHT TO REGARD IT WITH FAVOR 459 
 
 * 
 
 dence puts an end to this mental torture either by insanity, 
 suicide, or insolvency. In either case the suffering is 
 indescribable. We say without hesitation that the pro- 
 tracted agony endured by men on the brink of financial 
 ruin is the most terrible of all human woes. The loss of 
 kindred, disease and death itself, are mild in comparison. 
 We have followed only one man through the ordeal of fail- 
 ure. Multiply his sufferings as we have outlined them by 
 ninety out of every hundred business men and you get a 
 faint idea of what they are called upon to suffer under the 
 present order. 
 
 We venture the assertion that during this painful experi- 
 ence every business man would have hailed the regime of 
 Socialism as gladly as the shipwrecked mariner hails an 
 approaching sail or welcomes a sheltering harbor. Mr. J. 
 H. Walker thus " discusses the fate of business men. He 
 tells us that in 1840 there were four firms in Worcester 
 engaged in . . . the manufacture of boots and shoes. They 
 comprised seven individuals, and only one of these manu- 
 facturers died in comfortable circumstances in advanced age. 
 Two of them were at work for Mr. Walker as journeymen 
 when prostrated by their final sickness. In 1860 there 
 were twenty-one firms manufacturing boots and shoes in 
 Worcester comprising twenty-four members. All but four 
 of these failed in business, and only two retired with any 
 capital. In 1860 there were twenty-three firms engaged in 
 the same business in Worcester, comprising thirty individu- 
 als. Of these twenty-three firms twelve have failed ; and 
 of the individuals who comprised the firms only eight are 
 now manufacturing, and only two have gone out of business 
 with any capital." ' 
 
 The failures in the United States and Canada for 1891, 
 according to Bradstreet, figure up $189,000,000 total liabili- 
 ties. Tor every failure reported, however, there were prob- 
 ably five others in which the struggle to " pay up " was so 
 successful as not to be the subject of report. 
 
 Let capitalists once be assured that Socialism would 
 bring relief from this needless wear and tear upon body 
 
 1 " Labor " (Cook), pp. 258, 259. 
 
460 WHAT OUGHT TO BE DONE ABOUT IT 
 
 and mind, that they, possessing as they generally do judi- 
 cial and executive ability, would be as highly respected 
 in the new order as under capitalism, and they will cer- 
 tainly regard Socialism with less prejudice if not with open 
 favor. 
 
 No success, no accumulation of capital, can yield happi- 
 ness enough to offset the suffering and misery experienced 
 in the struggle to acquire it. 
 
 3. Another reason why rich men should regard Socialism 
 with favor is the personal danger and annoyance to which 
 they are exposed on account of their possessions. 
 
 In monarchical or aristocratic governments, Dives may 
 dwell in security beside Lazarus, but recent developments 
 suggest the question whether under free institutions where 
 Lazarus haS the ballot and is guaranteed the right to the 
 pursuit of happiness, he will consent to subsist on crumbs 
 and allow Dives the unmolested enjoyment of his wealth. 
 It is getting fashionable of late for the poor man to call on 
 his rich neighbor and present his card for a few thousands, 
 backed by threats of personal violence in case of refusal. 
 There is not a rich man in the country who has not at 
 times felt his life in danger from a tramp or crank or poor 
 man on account his money. 
 
 The persons of the rich are also in danger from the in- 
 trigues and plots of covetous and wicked persons who, 
 though not poor, want money. That the number of such 
 persons is greater than ever before, and is sure to increase 
 under the present system, cannot be doubted. Not a day 
 passes that does not record the murder of the rich for their 
 money. Thousands of rich men and women in this land 
 live in. constant fear of their lives. They lie down and rise 
 up with trembling. Distrust, suspicion, and dread haunt 
 them continually. Dionysius was a rich and powerful king. 
 Damocles congratulated him on his happiness ; whereupon 
 Dionysius prepared a splendid banquet, at which he placed 
 Damocles with a naked sword suspended by a single hair 
 above his head in order to show him the kind of happiness 
 his riches gave him. It is needless to say that under So-, 
 cialism the fear and suffering experienced by the rich 
 would disappear. 
 
CAPITALISTS OUGHT TO REGARD IT WITH FAVOR 461 
 
 The rich are also subjected to great annoyance from so- 
 licitation and begging. We touch upon a subject here that 
 is assuming serious proportions. Besides his regular chari- 
 ties, the rich man is besieged by an army of solicitors for 
 all conceivable objects, good, bad, and indifferent. He must 
 give respectful attention to each, which eats up a large 
 portion of his time. If he refuses to consider any object he 
 is discourteous if not unkind. If he declines to give he is 
 stingy ; if he gives he ought to have given more a,nd has got 
 to the next time. He cannot escape these solicitors ; their 
 name is legion and they are ubiquitous. If he flies from 
 home for relief, he finds on reaching his destination a 
 bushel of letters, papers, circulars, pamphlets, and perhaps 
 several people who have anticipated his arrival, waiting to 
 welcome him. He begins to ask himself if a rich man's life 
 is worth living. Now, this annoyance is a burden of the 
 magnitude of which the average citizen does not dream. 
 Socialism would do away with this excrescence of capitalism. 
 
 4. Riches when secured do not afford the happiness they 
 promise. Such is the uniform testimony of rich men, and 
 the truth is founded upon reason and nature. 
 
 Eiches enable their possessors to gratify their vanity and 
 thus stir the envy of their fellow-men. But the happiness 
 thus afforded is not worthy the name. It is transient, 
 selfish, and uiisatisfying ; it leaves the soul made in the 
 image of God hungry and naked. What is called fashion- 
 able society cannot satisfy any earnest, noble soul. No 
 class save the extremely poor are more to be pitied than 
 those whom fortune has made its victims. Emerson says, 
 " Fashionable society in our great towns is babyish. Wealth 
 is made a toy." It is this failure of wealth to fulfil its 
 flattering promises that led Christ to speak of " the deceit- 
 fulness of riches." Eiches often bring a burden greater 
 than they remove. Seneca said, " A great fortune is a great 
 slavery." " Next to the hell of having nothing is the mis- 
 ery of having too much." 
 
 An American recently deceased, and reputed to have been 
 the richest man in the world, said as he sat with his wife 
 in their palatial home, " Well, mother, I don't believe we 
 
462 WHAT OUGHT TO BE DONE ABOUT IT 
 
 are so happy with all these fixings as we used to be on the 
 farm where we began life." But why multiply words to 
 show that riches cannot satisfy ? Shakespeare voices the 
 experience of all mankind, when he says, — 
 
 " If thou art rich, thou art but poor; 
 For like an ass whose back with ingots bows, 
 Thou bear'st tliy riches but a journey, 
 And death unloads thee." 
 
 There is another piece of testimony bearing on this sub- 
 ject to which we shall not appeal in vain. It is contained 
 in the oracles of God. " But they that will be rich fall 
 into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and 
 hurtful lusts which drown men in destruction and perdi- 
 tion." ^ " Labor not to be rich." ^ " Go to now, ye rich 
 men, weep and howl over the miseries that shall come upon 
 you." ' "A man's life consisteth not in the abundance of 
 the things which he possesseth." * 
 
 The Great Teacher spoke a parable wherein a certain 
 rich man, the prototype of most rich men to-day, denied 
 this truth ;' " but God said unto him. Thou fooL" 
 
 Against these declarations of God capitalism swears 
 eternal enmity. On the other hand. Socialism is in perfect 
 accord with divine truth. It looks upon the corrupting, 
 heart-hardening, dehumanizing, and soul-destroying power 
 of riches precisely as does the Bible, and says with the 
 Almighty, " How hardly shall they that have riches enter 
 into the kingdom of heaven ! " * No candid man will deny 
 that of all social reforms ever proposed Socialism is the 
 only one that renders it probable or even possible that 
 the divine law respecting riches can be realized on earth. 
 
 1 1 Tim. vi. 9. 2 Prov. xxiii. 4. 
 
 3 James v. 1. * Luke xii. 15. 
 
 s Mark x. 23. 
 
THE ACCUMULATIOX OF WEALTH 463 
 
 III. — Our Country should make haste slowly in the Accu- 
 mulation of Wealth. 
 
 "The danger which threatens the uprooting of society, the demoli- 
 tion of civil institutions, the destruction of liberty, and the desolation of 
 all, is that which comes from the rich and powerful classes in the com- 
 munity." — Chancellor Howard Crosby. 
 
 We are $60,000,000,000 strong with a daily increase of 
 $7,000,000. Our country has only to continue this rate of 
 accumulating national wealth to render its downfall cer- 
 tain. All history, philosophy, and religion teach that 
 wealth breeds luxury, luxury breeds vice, vice breeds politi- 
 cal corruption, and political corruption breeds national 
 death. 
 
 Such is the disastrous influence of wealth under indi- 
 vidualism, or where it is in the hands of the few. Is it 
 not time therefore for the richest nation on earth either 
 to distribute its wealth more equally, or to call a halt in 
 its mad pursuit of riches ? 
 
 At the commencement of this century we were few and 
 poor. Our fathers adopted the policy of encouraging im- 
 migration. The need for it has ceased; but immigration 
 with but little restriction continues. Our material re- 
 sources, well-nigh unlimited, have had a prodigious develop- 
 ment. The whole country, like a thriving Western town, 
 has been booming for a century until Ave are to-day one 
 of the biggest, richest, shoddiest, most boastful, hoggish, 
 and mammon-crazed countries of the civilized world. We 
 have also brains, muscle, Christianity, and moral and physi- 
 cal potentialities unsurpassed by any other country. But 
 our mushroom growth is not a healthy sign ; our rate of 
 speed is dangerous. 
 
 When the mariner perceives a storm approaching he 
 takes in sail. What this nation needs to do is to take in 
 sail. We have received 5,250,000 foreigners in the last 
 ten years. We ought to practically prohibit immigration 
 for the next ten years. Not numbers, but character, not 
 money, but manhood, are facts that need the emphasis of 
 
464 WHAT OUGHT TO BE DONE ABOUT IT 
 
 dynamite. National strength and greatness depend on the 
 quality fully as much as on the quantity of citizens. The 
 Spartans were invincible in war because every man was a 
 hero. Greece produced more illustrious men in two hun- 
 dred years than all Europe in the last two thousand, 
 because ~her institutions made her citizens intelligent.' 
 England is greater than India because one Englishman 
 will do as much work iu a day as thirty-two East Indians.^ 
 Puritans made New England great. Not more but better 
 men is what America needs to perpetuate her institutions. 
 
 Let us stop the glorification of railroads, mines, mills, 
 and foundries ; let us cease from the mad and maddening 
 rush for material aggrandizement, as if riches rather than 
 righteousness exalted a nation, and gold rather than Jeho- 
 vah was G-od over all. With a millionnaire Congress, and 
 more than one-half of our national wealth owned by one 
 per cent of the population, who pay less than twenty-five 
 per cent of the taxes, democracy may give way to a plu- 
 tocracy, and instead of a government of the people, by the 
 people, and for the people, we may have a government of 
 gold,' by gold, and for gold. 
 
 A conspiracy more dangerous than that of Catiline 
 against Rome is being formed against our repxiblic. It is 
 the conspiracy of Plutns, against which we cry as did 
 Cicero, " How long is that madness of yours still to mock 
 us ? " This conspiracy is receiving powerful support from 
 principles which, though popular, are treasonable to free 
 government. Our current philosophy of progress and 
 civilization is opposed to reason, religion, and common 
 sense. Take, for example, the theory that social prog- 
 ress depends upon the increasing of human wants. Hear 
 this argument advanced in the name of political econ- 
 omy; give the laborer leisure, for leisure will increase 
 social opportunity; social opportunity will increase eco- 
 nomic wants; wants will increase demand; and demand 
 will multiply mills, mines, machinery, railroads, in a word, 
 wealth ; and this constitutes social progress ! Was there 
 
 1 "Heredity " (Cook), pp. 13, 14. 
 
 2 As quoted in " The Wages Question " (Walker), p. 42. 
 
THE ACCUMULATION OF WEALTH 465 
 
 ever an age or a philosophy so grossly and disgustingly 
 materialistic ? If the moral virtues and the precepts of 
 the Christian religion are thus to be ignored in social 
 progress, let us go back to paganism and listea to Stilpon, 
 who, when asked by Demetrius if he had lost anything in 
 the plundering of Megara, replied, " Nothing at all, for I 
 carry all my effects about me ; " "meaning his justice, prob- 
 ity, temperance, and wisdom." ^ All progress not meas- 
 ured by these virtues is progress backwards. 
 
 A false idea of civilization is another ally of Plutus. 
 Burke declared that civilization depended upon two prin- 
 ciples, " The spirit of a gentleman, and the spirit of reli- 
 gion." Our day declares that civilization depends on 
 steam, electricity, and other physical forces successfully 
 applied to the development of material resources, with 
 religion and education as secondary considerations. Burke 
 was right. We protest against any conception of civiliza- 
 tion that would exclude Washington and Pranklin, William 
 of Orange, the Pilgrim Fathers, Shakespeare, Milton, Eras- 
 mus, Luther, Paul, Socrates, or Jesus Christ from its fold. 
 Inventions, machinery, and money are the last and lowest 
 factors, if not a positive hindrance in civilization ; while 
 education, humanity, and religion are of • supreme im- 
 portance. 
 
 Everywhere the corrupting influence of wealth is mani- 
 fest in the increase of luxury. No one denies its deadly 
 effect upon society. All agree with Panin that "our 
 virtues spring from our needs, our vices from our luxuries." 
 Abolish luxury and we abolish poverty as well as vice. 
 There are people who justify luxury on the ground that it 
 furnishes employment for the poor ; the same principle 
 would make bonfires of dwelling-houses. Waste and want 
 are wicked. Use the money spent in luxury in building 
 houses for the homeless, which would also give employ- 
 ment to the poor and a better conscience to the builders. 
 
 Private luxury already menaces the republic. Livy 
 said, "Avarice and luxury have been the ruin of every 
 great state." Historians, philosophers, moralists, and 
 
 1 "Rollin-s Hlstoi-y," Book XVI. Sec. 7. 
 
466 WHAT OUGHT TO BB DONE ABOUT IT 
 
 statesmen all agree that luxury leads to national decay 
 and death. We had better dwell in the rude and humble 
 homes of our fathers than in palaces with marble walls, 
 frescoed ceilings, inlaid floors, and doors of costly wood 
 hung on golden hinges. Will this passion for luxury abate 
 under the capitalistic system ? . Never so long as effect 
 follows cause, or men reap as they sow. Gibbon's " Eome " 
 contains this passage, pregnant with truth, " It might 
 perhaps be more conducive to the virtue as well as happi- 
 ness of mankind if all possessed the necessaries and none 
 the superfluities of life. But in the present imperfect con- 
 dition of society, luxury, though it may proceed from vice 
 or folly, seems to he the only means that can correct the 
 unequal distribution of property." -^ Here, then, is the 
 hard, relentless, terrible fact, luxury sure to destroy the 
 republic but necessary under the present regime. Can an 
 honest man believe this and oppose a wise, conservative. 
 Christian Socialism ? 
 
 IV. — The Christian Church ought to espouse the cause of 
 Socialism. 
 
 " Civilization witliout Cliristianity is veneered brutality." — Db. Wil- 
 liam M. Tavlok. 
 
 "The Christian moralist is therefore bound to admonish the Chris- 
 tian employer that the wage-system, when it rests on competition as its 
 sole basis, is anti-Christian." — Dr. Washington Gladden. 
 
 We have seen in the last chapter that Christian ministers 
 of all denominations are lending a listening ear to the 
 claims of Socialism, and large numbers have already openly 
 avowed themselves in its favor. 
 
 All representatives of the church agree in one thing, 
 namely, that Christianity alone can solve the social question, 
 and should at once set itself to the task. 
 
 Now, the social question is like an aching tooth, sensitive 
 and painful on the surface, but the ache is at the roots, 
 and when insupportable extraction becomes necessary. 
 The roots of the social question are capital, contract, and 
 
 1 Giblmn's " Rome," Chap. II. p. 67. 
 
THE CHURCH OUGHT TO ESPOUSE SOCIALISM 467 
 
 competition individual and free. Any attempt to solve the 
 social question and leave untouched these diseased prongs 
 of its cajime teeth is only to continue the religious quackery 
 that has alienated the masses from the church and mocked 
 the Christianity of Christ. Christ and his disciples, the 
 first Christian Socialists, laid down the fundamental assump- 
 tions of constructive Socialism, and warned mankind to flee 
 from the evils that have ripened on the tree of capitalism 
 as from the wrath to come. These assumptions of Social- 
 ism are brotherly love, social justice, industrial and politi- 
 cal equality, and civil liberty. The first two indeed are 
 generic and philosophically equivalent. These are the 
 basal principles of all sound political economy. They must 
 regulate all production, distribution, exchange, and con- 
 sumption of economic goods. 
 
 The New Testament condemns the assumptions of the 
 present order, the first of vrh.ich is private capital. The 
 New Testament tells the rich man to sell all and give to the 
 poor. . God says to him, " Thou fool." He is told to " weep 
 and howl over the miseries" that shall come upon him. 
 That the gospel opposes private riches cannot be denied. 
 
 Freedom of contract is the second principle. Freedom 
 of contract betvi^een unequals is freedom for the strong to 
 oppress the Aveak, which is the law of capitalism ; but 
 Christianity says, " Bear ye one another's burdens, and so 
 fulfil the law of Christ.'' 
 
 The third principle of capitalism is competition. Com- 
 petition is strife based on self-interest, but Christianity 
 says, "Let nothing be done through strife." " Love seeketh 
 not her own." 
 
 Now, what attitude should the Christian church take 
 toward these assumptions of Socialism on the one hand 
 and of capitalism on the other ? Shall she continue her 
 capitalistic apologetics, or become the champion of the 
 second great commandment, " Thou shalt love thy neighbor 
 as thyself," which is Socialism ? Will the Christian min- 
 ister continue to approve a system that produces private 
 riches when the New Testament everywhere condemns 
 them ? Will he continue to justify competition, which is 
 
468 WHAT OUGHT TO BE DONE ABOUT IT 
 
 strife based on self-interest or self-seeking as against an- 
 other, when the New Testament condemns strife and says, 
 "Let no man seek his own but each his neighbor's goods " ? 
 Will he continue to uphold freedom of contract, which en- 
 ables the strong to oppress the weak, which enabled Judas 
 to betray Jesus, which has filled the world with Judases 
 ever since, which tempts men everywhere to deceive, cheat, 
 lie, steal, and kill ? It is astonishing how any disciple of 
 Christ can defend competition. A writer before us boldly 
 says, " Competition is in itself a clean thing, . . . that to 
 which rising up toward the cross Paul appeals in his en- 
 deavor. ... to stir up the laggard Corinthians." ' Shades 
 of the Apostles ! Paul himself seeking by the cruel war 
 of competition to magnify the cross on which hung the 
 Prince of peace ! 
 
 Socialism, however, has nothing to fear from such oppo- 
 nents ; they are too far behind either to catch up or be con- 
 sidered in the controversy. It is rather a church that 
 admits and deplores the evils connected with the assump- 
 tions of capitalism, but seeks some modification of these 
 principles, hoping thereby to get rid of the evils while pre- 
 serving the system, that Socialism opposes. Were this 
 possible. Socialism would have no reason to exist. It is the 
 system itself that must give way to a newer and better 
 order, as Judaism gave way to Chi'istianity. The Judaiz- 
 ing Christians, however, clung tenaciously to the ancient 
 regime ; they sought to Christianize it as the church has 
 sought to Christianize capitalism, but in vain ; they only 
 hindered the truth and ruined themselves. 
 
 The time has come when the church must take sides. 
 She is now confronted with the well-defined constructive 
 principles of Socialism. These principles if economic and 
 political are also distinctively ethical and religious, hence 
 the church cannot evade or deny them; they are brotherly 
 love, social justice, economic SLud political equality, and civil 
 liberty. The way, and the only way that gives hope of 
 
 1 Rev. James Macgregor, D.D., in " The Bibliotheca Sacra," January, 
 1892, pp. 37, 38. 
 
THE CHURCH OUGHT TO ESPOUSE SOCIALISM 469 
 
 realizing these great principles, is by the nationalization of 
 i7idustry, so far at least as may be necessary to secure the 
 result. 
 
 There can be no question as to the relation of Christ to 
 these principles on the one hand or to the evils of capital- 
 ism on the other. The National Baptist says, " If Christ 
 should enter a modern prayer meeting, and once more 
 utter his woes against the covetous, against the makers of 
 corners, railroad wreckers, respectable brewers and distil- 
 lers, he might possibly be endured as an unbalanced fanatic, 
 but would probably be denounced as a Socialist." ' Most 
 assuredly He would, and the denunciation might be loudest 
 in the prayer meeting if the speculator or railroad wrecker 
 was present or was a contributing pillar in the church. 
 Were Christ to appear on earth, his first demand would be 
 that the current quasi Christianity be immediately social- 
 ized. As a Socialist he is saying to his church, " Follow 
 me." It must either obey, or another church will arise 
 which will represent not the capitalized, hypnotized, and 
 esoteric churches of to-day, but the religion of Jesus Christ. 
 Let us not be understood as characterizing thus all Christian 
 churches. We have no sympathy with any wholesale denun- 
 ciation of the church from any quarter ; on the contrary, we 
 believe the Christian church was ordained of God, and is to- 
 day the grandest institution in the world. We love and 
 honor her for her magnificent charities, her loyalty to the 
 faith, and her conservative, scholarly, and self-sacrificing 
 ministry. She is the divinely appointed guardian of the 
 Scriptures and of all virtue, and the conservator of all 
 the good there is in the world. 
 
 And yet when we look about us and realize that the 
 world which she was commanded to save and might save 
 is still a lost world, that the multitudes stand without her 
 gates hungry and thirsty, or if the poor enter they have 
 only the Gospel adulterated with capitalism preached to 
 them ; when I read that " the population grows faster 
 than the churches," and that in New York City "the 
 
 1 As quoted in "The CoDgregationalist," Feb. 4, 1892. 
 
470 WHAT OUGHT TO BE DONE ABOUT IT 
 
 Methodist church, the church whose glory has been its 
 power over the people, has in two decades lost sixty-six 
 per cent — a most startling and alarming statement ; " 
 that "the Reformed and the Presbyterian bodies have 
 lost respectively ten and eight per cent in their rate of 
 growth ; " ^ and when I see the suffering, injustice, and crime 
 the church might prevent, and the good that is waiting to 
 be done and that she might do, I am constrained to cry out 
 against that unrighteous fellowship with mammon which 
 has to so large an extent converted the church into bour- 
 geois clubs whose membership is not " clothed with hu- 
 mility," but with gold rings and gay clothing, and where 
 pride and vanity, caste and luxury, sensuality and selfish- 
 ness, and other normal growths of capitalism, are not and 
 must not be disturbed. Can we wonder that the masses 
 are unchurched ? Was Jerome a prophet when he wrote 
 fifteen hundred years ago, " Our walls and our ceilings are 
 resplendent with gold, but Christ is without naked and 
 starving at our gates " ? 
 
 No Christian minister can deny that the church is crip- 
 pled, yea, bound and gagged, because of her alliance with 
 wealth. Every Christian church and minister so anxiously 
 asking how to reach the masses, already knows exactly hoiu 
 to reach them were they ivilling to employ the meaws, which 
 would involve the substitution of the Christianity of Christ 
 for the current exclusive and capitalistic Christianity. 
 
 No individual or church or decade, however, is responsi- 
 ble for the current lamentable adulteration of the gospel. 
 The church is the unwilling victim of a social system the 
 evils of which have gradually developed, but which have 
 now become so hostile to her spirit and purpose that she 
 can no longer be neutral. No amount of culture and re- 
 spectability will enable her longer to sit astride the fence ; 
 stereotyped platitudes of which the following are samples 
 will not suffice: "The church must teach all to be just, 
 to be generous, to be upright." "The organizations in 
 their management must be made unselfish." This sort of 
 
 1 " Public Opinion," Deo. 26, 1891. 
 
THE CHURCH OUGHT TO ESPOUSE SOCIALISM 471 
 
 grandmotherly advice with which some good ministers 
 hope to restore peace will not avail. The advice is good, 
 but about as effective as an exhortation to contending armies 
 to be kind to each other and to remember that a soft an- 
 swer turneth away wrath. Such twaddle only brings the 
 church into deserved contempt. 
 
 The simple question presented to the church for im- 
 mediate decision is pro-capitalism or aw^i-capitalism. Not 
 that the existing order should be hastily disturbed. Social- 
 ism should come gradually, tentatively, and only so far as 
 may be necessary ; but the principle confronts the church 
 and demands acceptance. She cannot longer serve two 
 masters : she must openly espouse caste or equality ; 
 riches or righteousness ; competition or co-operation ; self- 
 interest or self-denial; "bitter envyings and strife" or 
 neighborly love ; anarchistic laissez-faire or mutual pro- 
 tection ; plutocracy or theocracy ; in a word, individualism 
 or Socialism. The church is becoming alive to the fact 
 that she cannot consistently preach against the sin of hav- 
 ing respect of persons (caste) and uphold a system that 
 creates caste ; or against the vice of luxury, the curse of 
 pauperism, drunkenness, and crime, and uphold a system 
 that is the prolific mother of these evils. The church must 
 abandon her temporizing and Pharisaical attitude respect- 
 ing riches. The spirit of the Master and of his gospel is 
 uncompromisingly against the possession of riches amid 
 want and suffering. 
 
 On what authority does the theory rest that it is right 
 to seek riches but wrong to keep them ? Nothing is more 
 common to-day than the dictum that the gospel of Christ 
 requires that riches be held as a sacred trust. The gospel 
 of Christ requires no such thing ; it does not require that 
 riches be held at all, but the exact opposite. The idea is 
 an attempt on the part of the church to accommodate her- 
 self to the mammon of unrighteousness. It is, however, a 
 significant concession and an immense gain over the theory 
 of the absolute right of private riches which has hereto- 
 fore practically prevailed. 
 
 The rich man, however, who, protected in the sole pos- 
 
472 WHAT OUGHT TO BE DONE ABOUT IT 
 
 session and enjoyment of his wealth by law, by tradition, 
 and custom, and who knows that under this wicked social 
 and industrial system a single turn in the wheel of fortune 
 may reduce him to poverty, and yet voluntarily bestows 
 his wealth upon men or institutions socially worthy and 
 needy, is a Christian and a hero. The number of such men 
 is constantly increasing; and it is one of the most hopeful 
 signs of the times, showing how the leaven of Socialism is 
 working and preparing the way for its coming. Into the 
 consciousness of men is being burned as with a hot iron 
 the fact that in the social organism each individual, with 
 all that he possesses, belongs first to society and last and 
 least to himself. The time has at length come when the 
 basic and regal principle, hitherto hardly recognized in 
 human society, that " 710 man liveth to himself" must be 
 crowned king and enthroned in the industrial and social 
 relations of mankind. 
 
 There is one piece of capitalistic luggage that the church 
 has carried quite long enough ; and that is the doctrine that 
 poverty is a social necessity as indicated in the declaration 
 of the Saviour, " Ye have the poor always with you." This 
 is a monstrous perversion of the truth ; it represents Christ 
 as justifying poverty as an institution ordained of God 
 and nature, whereas the whole tenor of Christ's teaching 
 regards poverty as an evil, and, approves that order of 
 society in which it may be possible for every individual to 
 obey the command of the Saviour, "Be not anxious for 
 your life, what ye shall eat or what ye shall drink, nor yet 
 for your body what ye shall put on." Over against these 
 words an eminent capitalistic divine says, "The ''fear of 
 want ' is not an evil ; it is the main incentive to industry 
 and thrift. A policy that relieves men of ' worry,' and con- 
 verts them into ' lilies of the field,' only degrades, pauper- 
 izes, and brutalizes them."' Here the issue i§ sharply and 
 concisely drawn. Christ declares the " fear of want " to be 
 an evil, forbids men to " worry " and to be " anxious," 
 while this capitalistic divine denies that "the fear of 
 
 1 " Socialism and Christianity " (Behrends), p. 236. 
 
THE CHURCH OUGHT TO ESPOUSE SOCIALISM 473 
 
 want " is an evil, and declares that men ought to " worry " 
 and be " anxious." 
 
 When the existing order can only be defended by a cate- 
 gorical denial of the teachings of Christ both in letter and 
 spirit its death-knell is sounded. It is worthy of note 
 that when the virus of capitalism once enters a Christian 
 minister's soul he must perforce cling to a capitalistic 
 creed, a capitalistic church, and a capitalistic Christ. Thus 
 it is that much capitalism makes even the Christian mad. 
 
 It is by thus sharply defining the issue between God and 
 mammon that the Christian Church will the sooner see 
 her way to espouse the truth of Socialism. Christianity 
 has liberated the slave, destroyed serfdom, emancipated 
 women, procured liberty, established equality in law, edu- 
 cation, and religion, and it will not now retreat before capi- 
 talism. That some of her leaders should attempt to pour 
 the new wine of Christian Socialism into the old worn-out 
 bottles of an obsolescent capitalism is to be expected ; but 
 we are optimistic enough to believe that the church will 
 yet rise in her might, and, endued with power from on 
 high, clad in the armor of God, under the lead of her 
 stable-born, labor-bred, and thorn-crowned King, proclaim 
 liberty to all the people. The Christian Church is the only 
 power on earth, her Head the only name among men, that 
 can purify politics, suppress crime, substitute love for 
 strife in industry, insure equality, establish social justice, 
 and direct the progressive civilization of the race. 
 
 The first requisite for the church is a clear and distinct 
 recognition of the fact too long obscured that men have 
 bodies as well as souls. If the chief end of man is to glo- 
 rify God and enjoy him forever, that enjoyment is not to 
 be deferred till the next world, but is to begin here. Flesh 
 and blood cannot enter into heaven, but something of 
 heaven should enter flesh and blood. Men hunger after 
 bread, even before they hunger after righteousness. Christ 
 recognized this truth, but the church has too often ignored 
 it. Let the church address herself to the correction and 
 direction of the two mightiest factors in industrial society, 
 the struggle for bread and the struggle for gold ; let it 
 
474 WHAT OUGHT TO BE DONE ABOUT IT 
 
 once be uDderstood that what is vicious in men is inflamed 
 by not having enough on the one hand and having too 
 much on the other, that is, by poverty and riches, and we 
 shall find that Socialism, which is the prayer of Agur, 
 " Give me neither poverty nor riches," is the truest and 
 gladdest philosophy the world has ever seen. 
 
INDEX 
 
 Abbott, Lyman, on the wages sys- 
 tem, 445; 451. 
 
 Adams, Henry Carter, 92. 
 
 Adaptation, want of, by Itiborers, 
 311. 
 
 Adulteration, waste from, 295 ; of 
 food, ibid.; of drugs, 296. 
 
 Advantages of the socialistic 
 state, 244-319; of profit shar- 
 ing, 183. 
 
 Advertising, waste from, 289-290. 
 
 ^sop's wolf, 388. 
 
 Agur, prayer of, 474. 
 
 AUodialism, 454. 
 
 " Alton Locke," 326. 
 
 Ambrose, St., on riches, 83. 
 
 American federation of labor, 217. 
 
 Anabaptists of Miinster, 147. 
 
 Anarchism, 3; opposed by Social- 
 ism, 325; distinguished from So- 
 cialism and communism, 326, 
 327. 
 
 Andover Theological Seminary, 
 450. 
 
 Apprenticeship, 228. 
 
 Arbitration, 197-201; in France, 
 197; nature of, 197; inadequacy 
 of, 199, 200; advantage of, 199. 
 
 Aristotle, 180; 245; 447, 
 
 Arkwright, Richard, 389. 
 
 Armory, United States at Spring- 
 field, Mass., 288. 
 
 Arnold, Thomas, on political econ- 
 omy as the parent of crime, 
 272. 
 
 Association of capital, 426-429; 
 of labor, 429-432. 
 
 " Associated Ownership," 1-55. 
 
 4 
 
 Assumptions of capitalism, op- 
 posed to the New Testament, 
 467; of political economy, 238. 
 
 Attic culture, 375. 
 
 Atkinson, Edward, on the capacity 
 of machinery, 30. 
 
 Atheism among German laborers, 
 162; not a feature of Socialism, 
 320; caused by capitalism, 322, 
 823; French Socialists and 
 Christ, 323. 
 
 Australia and an eight-hour day, 
 216. 
 
 Austria, 216; land monopoly in, 
 81. 
 
 Authority of the State, 251. 
 
 B 
 
 BabcEuf, 139; 147; 335. 
 
 Babylon, 373. 
 
 Bacon, 268. 
 
 Banking and banks, waste from, 
 314; reserve funds in, ibid.; 
 number and expense of national 
 banks, ibid. 
 
 Bankruptcy, 458. 
 
 Bare subsistence, the wages of la- 
 bor, 119-138; meaning of, 121. • 
 
 Basil, St., on riches, 82. 
 
 Bass, J. D., 276. 
 
 Bastiat and laissez-faire, 57. 
 
 Batt, W. J., 273. 
 
 Bebel, Herr, 327. 
 
 Begging and the rich, 461. 
 
 Behrerids, A. J. F. , on labor as the 
 source of all value, 65; his fatal 
 admission as to the riglits of the 
 land-owner, 71; his attempted 
 
476 
 
 INDEX 
 
 refutation of Henry George, 72; 
 unscriptural position of, 73; on 
 property as a part of its posses- 
 sor, 77; 84; 105, 106; on liberty, 
 176; on industry and thrift, 230, 
 231, 238; his criticism of Gron- 
 lund on the family, 350; his in- 
 consistency, 351, 352 ; on despot- 
 ism under Socialism, 377; on 
 class rule by laborers, 382; at 
 variance with the teachings of 
 Christ, 472. 
 
 Bellamy, Edward, 244, 290, 441, 
 443. 
 
 Bemis, Edward W., on profit-shar- 
 ing, 186, 187; on co-operation in 
 United States, 191; on luxury, 
 303. 
 
 Berlin, 321, 324. 
 
 Bernhardi, 438. 
 
 Bethel, George P., 449. 
 
 Bible, solves the social problem, 
 1; 78; on common property in 
 land, 83; and private property, 
 86; and Socialism,- 162; and the 
 State, 172; 448; on riches, 461. 
 
 Bibliotheca Sacra, on capital and 
 labor, 55. 
 
 Bishop, Governor, on arbitration, 
 200. 
 
 Bismarck, on land monopoly, 85; 
 
 ' 157. 
 
 "Bitter cry of outcast London," 
 98. 
 
 Blanc, Louis, on the right to labor, 
 .35; and State Socialism, 151, 
 370. 
 
 Blackstone, 173, 211. 
 
 Blair, Senator, 217. 
 
 Bliss, W. D. P., 217, 450. 
 
 Bluntschli, 167, 171. 
 
 Book-keeping, under Socialism, 
 248. 
 
 Boot and Shoe manufactures of 
 Worcester, 459. 
 
 Bossuet, on riches, 82. 
 
 Bourgeoise, 141, 156. 
 
 Bo wen, D. V., 450. 
 
 Bradford, Amory H., on pauper- 
 ism, 308. 
 
 Bradshaw, H. H.,449. 
 
 Bradstreet's record of failures, 459. 
 
 Brassey, Thomas, 194. 
 
 Brentano, 438, 
 
 Brewster & Co., 187. 
 
 Bright, John, on inequality, 65, 
 
 Brook Farm, 149. 
 
 Brotherhood of man, 446. 
 
 Brown, H. H., 449. 
 
 Brussels, 328. 
 
 Bryant, 146. 
 
 Buckley, J. M., on land tenure, 80. 
 
 Buddhist monks, 147. 
 
 Bureaus of Labor Statistics, 424. 
 
 Burke, Edtnund, laborers the sole 
 supporters of society, 50; on the 
 nature of the State, 175, 465. 
 
 Burns, Robert, 261. 
 
 Byrnes, Tliomas, 275. 
 
 Cabet, fitienne, a French reformer, 
 150. 
 
 Caird, on housing of laborers, 102. 
 
 Cairnes, J. E., 92, 122; on the in- 
 justice of capitalism, 143, 227. 
 
 Callan, M. J., 449. 
 
 Cameron, A.. S. & Co., 187. 
 
 Campanula, Thomas, 347. 
 
 Campbell, Helen, 451. 
 
 Cannon, George, 449. 
 
 Capeland, W. E., 449. 
 
 Capital, its concentration a cause 
 of Socialism, 14, 15; its nature, 
 54; not a source of value, 55; 
 used in producing value, 55, 56 ; 
 produced by labor, 56; private, 
 a social crime, 66, 79, 165; op- 
 posed to the New Testament, 
 467; in land, 213; 203; aboli- 
 tion of, not proposed by Social- 
 ists, 332; increased under So- 
 cialism, 333; association of, 426- 
 429; and labor, 444. 
 
INDEX 
 
 477 
 
 Capitalism, nature of, 2; hostile 
 to the family, 8; essential fea- 
 tures of, 90; oppresses laboi', 
 IIS; and low wages, 122; mer- 
 ciless, 142 ; 226 ; cannot be 
 Christianized, 236-243, 468; hos- 
 tile to education, 266; the cause 
 of pauperism, 307, 308; denies 
 choice of work, 311; inconsist- 
 encies of, 313; relation of, to 
 waste, 319; the cause of athe- 
 ism and materialism, 323; in- 
 vades the home, 341, 350, 351, 
 352; hinders marriage, 343; prin- 
 ciples of, 467; its anti-Christian 
 assumptions, 467. 
 
 Capitalistic system, identical with 
 individualism, 2 ; injustice of, 
 104; 176. 
 
 Capitalists, their, metliod of ex- 
 ploiting the laborer, 67; should 
 favor Socialism, 456-462; un- 
 justly blamed, 97. 
 
 Carlyle, on enforced idleness, 34; 
 on the injustice of capitalism, 
 77; 85; 132; 143; 277; 433. 
 
 Caste, 258; in the United States, 
 422. 
 
 Cataline, 464. 
 
 Chadwick, 231. 
 
 Chance, equality of, 176. 
 
 Channing, 149. 
 
 Charles V., 374. 
 
 Character and national strength, 
 463, 464. 
 
 Chartism, 326. 
 
 Charity, waste from, 305 ; wrong 
 methods of, ibid ; evil effects of, 
 306 ; organized, 307. 
 
 Cheating, 280. 
 
 Cheerfulness in labor, 437. 
 
 Chicago Advance, 265. 
 
 Children, employment of, 100, 
 101; under Socialism, 339, 343, 
 351. 
 
 Chipman, Congressman, 217. 
 
 Choice, freedom of, 379, 380. 
 
 Christ, mission of, 164, 323; the 
 first Socialist, 448 ; and the prin- 
 ciples of Socialism, 469; his 
 teaching as to poverty, 472. 
 
 Christian communists of Jeru- 
 salem, 147. 
 
 Christian law of wages, 138. 
 
 Christian Socialism, 158-164; 473. 
 
 Christian Socialist Society, 406. 
 
 Christianity, agreement of, with 
 Socialism, 6, 452 ; and private 
 property, 82; demands State 
 ownei'ship, 145, 146; perversion 
 of, 147; socialistic, 162; 237, 240; 
 and the masses, 452; and the 
 social question, 466. 
 
 Christianization of capitalism, not 
 possible, 236-243. 
 
 Christian Union, newspaper, 451. 
 
 Chrysostom, St., on the crime of 
 riches, 48, 83. 
 
 Church, its relation to the social 
 question, 10 ; regarded by work- 
 ing men as mocking them, 46; 
 censured by its friends, 47 ; ex- 
 clusivenessof, 93; handicapped, 
 158; 162; its two standards of 
 justice, 258; and poverty, 269; 
 alliance with wealth, ibid., 324; 
 should espouse Socialism, 466- 
 473; mission of, 469; 473; de- 
 cline of, in New York, 470; 
 bourgeoise clubs, ibid. ; and the 
 masses, 470; victim of capital- 
 ism, ibid. ; must now take sides, 
 471; relation to riches, ibid.; to 
 poverty, 472 ; the hope of civili- 
 zation, 473. 
 
 Churchill, Lord Randolph, 257. 
 
 Cicero, 272. 
 
 Cities, wealth and poverty in, 94, 
 97. 
 
 Citizens, American, 422. 
 
 "City of the Sun," 347. 
 
 Civilization, false idea of, 465. 
 
 Civil Service Reform, 264. 
 
 Civil Service, under Socialism,386. 
 
478 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Clark, J. B., on business deprav- 
 ity, 25 ; 437. 
 
 Classes, separation of industrial, a 
 cause of Socialism, 17-20; dan- 
 ger from, 19; the evil increasing, 
 92; social, 141; the oppressed, 
 437. 
 
 Class legislation, a cause of Social- 
 ism, 36-39; against labor, ibid. ; 
 unhappy effects of, 37, 38; in 
 America, 38. 
 
 Class rule, impossible under So- 
 cialism, 382. 
 
 Clement, St., on private property, 
 66, 83. ' 
 
 Clubs, nationalist, 441, 449. 
 
 Cohn, 438. 
 
 Colleges, socialistic tendency in, 
 438-440. 
 
 Collieries, loss of life in, 99. 
 
 Collins, P. A., 217. 
 
 Colonies, American, 220. 
 
 Columbus, 236. 
 
 Commonwealth, opposed to in- 
 dividual wealth, 4.56. 
 
 Communism, distinguished from 
 Socialism, 3; 151; 326; 394; 
 points of agreement with So- 
 cialism, 146; distinguislied from 
 anarchism, 326; and equality, 
 331. 
 
 Communists, 151. 
 
 Community, of wives, 339, 347; 
 the Oneida, 150; of Jfauvoo, 
 ibid. 
 
 Compensation, for land, 346; ex- 
 tremes of, 362. 
 
 Competition, a cause of Socialism, 
 20-26; nature of, 20; its unethi- 
 cal character, 22; its false as- 
 sumptions, ibid. ; its evil effects, 
 24; restriction of, 26; 123; 
 among laborers, 125, 128; es- 
 sentially barbarous, 1.30; 165; 
 186; 229; anti-christian, 242, 
 267; 273; 340; 394; 4.55. 
 
 Concentration of capital, social ef- 
 
 fects of, 14; of wealth in the 
 United States, 91; in Great 
 Britain, ibid. 
 
 Conciliation and arbitration, 197, 
 201; courts of, in France, 197; 
 inadequacy of, 199-200. 
 
 Condition of labor, relative, 
 233. 
 
 Confiscation, its vicious character, 
 214; not a doctrine of Socialism, 
 334, 336. 
 
 Conflict between labor and capi- 
 tal, 140, 429, 457. 
 
 Conger, 276. 
 
 Congress and millionnaires, 464. 
 
 Connell, H. D., 449. 
 
 Conservatism, tendency of, op- 
 posed to progress, 236 ; of 
 American political economists, 
 435. 
 
 Conspiracy of Plutus, 464. 
 
 Constitution of the United States, 
 171. 
 
 Contract, freedom of, a principle 
 of capitalism, 165; 428, 437. 
 
 Cook, Joseph, on division of labor, 
 15 ; on private capital in land, 79, 
 80; on wages, 133; on "Loolcing 
 Backward," 250; 260; 261; 263; 
 on the equal division of property, 
 332; on confiscation, 334; on 
 State help, 371 ; on co-operation, 
 ibid. ; on political corruption, 
 384, 385 ; on self-help, 420. 
 
 Co-operation, its ethical character, 
 7; 188, 197; defined, 188, 189; 
 in production, 190; in Great 
 Britain, 190; in the United 
 States, 191 ; partial and inte- 
 gral, 192; Insufficiency of, 192, 
 193; integral, 237; .369; 371. 
 
 Co-operative societies, 159. 
 
 Co-operative commonwealth, 181; 
 398. 
 
 Corn, value of, 208, 209. 
 
 Corners of the market, 240. 
 
 Corporations, 179. 
 
479 
 
 Cosmopolitanism, a characteristic 
 of Socialism, 6. 
 
 Cost of producing labor, the 
 measure of wages, 133, 134, 135; 
 objections to this theory, 133. 
 
 Cotton mills, 30. 
 
 Councils of conciliation and 
 arbitration in France, 198; cost 
 of, 200. 
 
 Credit, commercial, 246. 
 
 Cressy, C. A., 449. 
 
 Crime, decreased under Socialism, 
 272,284; nature of , 272 ; its rela- 
 tion to the State, ibid. ; society 
 responsible for, 274; against 
 property, 299; and the State, 
 447. 
 
 Criminals, produced by the State, 
 273-280; increase of, 299. 
 
 Crises, commercial, a cause of 
 Socialism, 31-33; their regular- 
 ity, 31; causes of, 31, 294; in- 
 herent in capitalism, 32; mis- 
 chievous effects of, ibid. ; waste 
 from, 293. 
 
 Crosby, Howard, 463. 
 
 Cruelty of capitalism, 142. 
 
 " Cry of the Children," 260. 
 
 Culture of laborers, 215. 
 
 Curtis, George, 149. 
 
 Cyrus, 373. 
 
 D 
 
 Dalmations and common land, 84. 
 Damacles, 460. 
 Dana, Charles A., 149. 
 Danger, personal, of the rich, 460. 
 Darwin, 126; theory of, 322, 330. 
 "Das Kapital " (Capital), 156. 
 Davidson, Thomas, 217. 
 Death rate in England, 118. 
 De Costa, 448. 
 Defalcation, 280. 
 Degradation of labor, 118. 
 De Leon, Daniel, 448. 
 Democracy, a cause of Socialism, 
 39-42 ; in Russia, 39 ; in Ger- 
 
 many, 40 ; in England, ibid. ; 
 in the United . States, ibid. ; 88. 
 
 Democratic federation, 336, 337. 
 
 Dependence of laborers, 94. 
 
 Depravity, 283. 
 
 Details of socialistic state not es- 
 sential, 165; 395. 
 
 De Tocqueville, on democracy in 
 industry, 39 ; democracy aiul re- 
 ligion, 48. 
 
 Depew, Chauncey M., 227; on rail- 
 roads, 427. 
 
 Deuster, P. V., 255. 
 
 Devil, 346. 
 
 Dexterity in work, 234. 
 
 Dillon, Sidney, 96. 
 
 Dionysius, 460. 
 
 Distribution of wealth unequal, 
 92 ; injustice of, 14.S. 
 
 Division of labor a cause of Social- 
 ism, 15-17 ; degrades the laborer, 
 16 ; of property, 332. 
 
 Divorce, cause of, 308, 340; 350. 
 
 Domestic life, 352. 
 
 Drexel, Anthony J., 227. 
 
 Drummers, waste from, 290 ; num- 
 ber and cost of, in the United 
 States, ibid. 
 
 Drunkards in the United States, 
 301. 
 
 Duffy, Patrick G., 276. 
 
 Duhring, 438. 
 
 Dunning, A. E., 447. 
 
 Duties, new, 445, 446. 
 
 Dwight, Timothy, 324. 
 
 E 
 
 Earle, 193. 
 
 Economic assumptions, 219. 
 
 Economic harmonies, 21. 
 
 Edison, 389. 
 
 Education and Socialism, 6 ; com- 
 pulsory, 266 ; socialistic ten- 
 dency in, 432-445. 
 
 Edwards, Jonathan, 324. 
 
 Eight-hour-day, 214-226 ; reasons 
 for, 215 ; how far adopted, 217 ; 
 
480 
 
 its gradual adoption, ibid. ; its 
 economic effects, 218 ; on wages, 
 220 ; on profits, 222 ; historical 
 precedents, 219 ; its inadequacy, 
 218 ; not applicable to all indus- 
 tries, or laborers, 223, 224. 
 
 Egyptian Therapeutse, 147. 
 
 Ely, E. T., on over-production, 
 29 ; on child labor, 37 ; on the 
 apostasy of the church, 47, 79 ; 
 on land monopoly, 84, 85; 91, 
 105 ; on St. Simon, 148; 150; 205, 
 207 ; on money, 248 ; on waste, 
 285 ; on public management of 
 business, 288, 308 ; on insurance, 
 316, 320 ; on an equal division of 
 property, 331,332, 333, 339, 374; 
 on monopolies, 426, 435, 436. 
 
 Election, presidential, 262. 
 
 Ellison, 159. 
 
 Emmerson, Ralph Waldo, 461. 
 
 Embezzlement, 280 ; waste from, 
 299 ; e-xtent of, 300. 
 
 Employers, relation of to employ- 
 ees, 18 ; attitude toward employ- 
 ees, 445. 
 
 Employees, 183. 
 
 Encyclical, papal, on the misery 
 of the poor, 456. 
 
 Encyclopaedia Britannica, 442. 
 
 Enforced idleness, 34 ; waste from, 
 291-293 ; in England, iUd. ; in 
 Massachusetts, ibid. ; inherent 
 in capitalism, 293 ; removed by 
 Socialism, ibid. 
 
 Engel, 438.' 
 
 England, poor law of, 109. 
 
 Englishmen, capacity for labor, 
 464. 
 
 Entrepreneur function, 194, 195. 
 
 Environment, social, 273, 308. 
 
 Equality, and Socialism, 6; 19; 82; 
 119; 151; 165; 166; 328, 468 ; of 
 chances, 329 ; of rights, ibid. ; 
 of conditions, ibid. ; required by 
 Christianity, 330; of property, 
 331 ; in the United States, 422. 
 
 Equity and state ownership, 140- 
 145. 
 
 Ericsson, John, 51. 
 
 Ethics and Socialism, 157, 166; 
 Christian, 438 ; the new and 
 Socialism, 445-453 ; progress of, 
 ibid. 
 
 Evolution of society, 86, 88; 139 ; 
 industrial, 243; 440 ; social, ibid., 
 456. 
 
 Exchange of com-modities, 245. 
 
 Exertion, impairment of motives 
 to, 365; 368. 
 
 Expediency, nature of, 166; rela- 
 tion of, to justice, 388. 
 
 Exploitation, 89 ; of labor, 123, 
 139, 156, 157; 238 ; of laborers, 
 by money-wages, 251, 252. 
 
 Fabian society, 486. 
 
 Factory acts, 432. 
 
 Factories, unhealthy, 99. 
 
 Failures, 185, 459. 
 
 Faith, 282 ; in France and Ger- 
 many, 322, 325. 
 
 Families, number of, in England 
 115. 
 
 Family, under Socialism, 340 ; as 
 affected by inheritance, 342 ; af- 
 fection of, 345, 346, 349 ; not 
 the unit of society, 352. 
 
 Farmer's Alliance, 431. 
 
 Fashion, waste from, 301 ; change 
 in, 302 ; distresses labor, ibid. ; 
 391. 
 
 Fatalism, 283. 
 
 Fatherhood of God, 446. 
 
 Fawcett, Henry, on value of land 
 in England, 80 ; on food of la- 
 borers, 101 ; 331 ; on the growth 
 of Socialism, 425. 
 
 Feudalism, 2; 73 ; laborers under, 
 93; 454. 
 
 Fichtd, 154 ; his Socialism, ibid. 
 
 Folwell, William W., 252. 
 
 Food, poor, of laborers, 101. 
 
INDEX 
 
 481 
 
 Franklin, Benjamin, 215, 315. 
 
 Fraternity, 119 ; in government, 
 140; 150 ; of the State, 163; 446 ; 
 new conception of, 447. 
 
 Free competition, 90. 
 
 Freedom, 172 ; of worlc denied 
 laborers, 311, 312 ; under Social- 
 ism, 375, 376, 379, 380 ; natural, 
 380. 
 
 Freedom of contract, failure of, 
 28 ; 90 ; Anti-Christian, 239 ; a 
 misnomer, ibid., 241 ; opposed by 
 the "New Testament, 467. 
 
 French revolution, 152 ; 457. 
 
 Freuder, Samuel, 449. 
 
 Frugality of laborers, 230. 
 
 Fourier, Charles, 149, 277. 
 
 Fulton, Robert, 389. 
 
 G 
 
 Gambling, 240, 280. 
 
 Gamaliel, 457. 
 
 Gannett, W. C, 449. 
 
 Garfield, James A., 264. 
 
 Gas works, 288. 
 
 Gates, Merrill E., 249. 
 
 Geoi'ge, Henry, on crises, 31 ; on 
 pauperism, 33; 84; 107; 117; on 
 Malthusianism, 127 ; on nation- 
 alization of land, 201; his posi- 
 tion examined, 204; 269 ; 337 ; 443. 
 
 Gentlemen and the price of corn, 
 209. 
 
 Germany, Christian Socialism in, 
 161. 
 
 Gibbon, on monopoly, 27; 374 ; 
 on luxury, 466. 
 
 Giddings, F. H. 193, 195. 
 
 Gifford, O. P. 450. 
 
 Gildersleeve, Henry A., 274. 
 
 Gilman, N. P., 183, 184 ; on indif- 
 ference of ■ employees, 310; on 
 motives to exertion, 369. 
 
 Gladden, Washington, on compe- 
 tition, 20 ; on " Christian rule" 
 of property, 87; 1.29 ; his theory 
 on cbristianization of capitalism 
 
 examined, 236 ; on charities, 
 305; on competition, 394; laia- 
 sez-faire, 425; 451; 466. 
 
 Gladstone, 90, 91 ; on machinery, 
 136 ; on the liquor traflSc, 255 ; 
 456. 
 
 Godin, M. 149. 
 
 Golden Rule, 79; 238. 
 
 Gold, 246, 247. 
 
 Gompers, Samuel, 218. 
 
 Gospel, adulteration of, 469. 
 
 Gould, Jay, 96; 97; 240. 
 
 Government, relation of, to the 
 State, 168 ; increased expendi- 
 tures of, 419, 423. 
 
 Greece, 373; 464. 
 
 Greeley, Horace, 149. 
 
 Gridlestone, Canon, on housing 
 of laborers, 102. 
 
 Gronlund, Laurence, on crises, 31 ; 
 on disproportionate increase of 
 wages and products in the 
 United States, 124 ; in England, 
 ibid., 294; 831; 334, 336; on 
 the home under Socialism, 349, 
 350, 351 ; 443. 
 
 Guizot, on feudalism, 73. 
 
 Gunton, George, on an eight-hour- 
 day, 214, 218 ; his position ex- 
 amined, ibid. ; 251 ; his erro- 
 neous assumptions, 224 ; on 
 wages and standard of living, 
 225. 
 
 H 
 
 Hadley, Arthur T., on railroads, 
 285. 
 
 Hale, Edward Everett, 451. 
 
 Hale, Nathan, 174. 
 
 Hamilton, on justice, the end of 
 government, 171. 
 
 Happiness, relation of, to land, 85 ; 
 as affected by riches, 461, 462. 
 
 Harcourt, Sir William, 419. 
 
 Hardships of laborers, 90. 
 
 Harmonies, economic, 432, 437. 
 
 Harrison, Frederick, on classes, 
 382. 
 
482 
 
 Hawthorne and the Brook Farm 
 
 movement, 129. 
 Hayes, Rutherford B., on business 
 
 as the cause of crime, 272, 276. 
 Hearn, William H., on liberty and 
 
 property, 177. 
 Hegel, his philosophy, 322. 
 Hermann, 438. 
 Hildebrand, 438. 
 Hinkley, Frederick A., 449. 
 History, on land and liberty, 82. 
 Hoar, George F., favors an eigbt- 
 
 hour-day, 217. 
 Holyoake, on co-operation, 189, 
 
 193. 
 Home, under Socialism, 339, 343, 
 
 348. 
 Hopkins, W. J. 450. 
 Howell, George, on conciliation 
 
 and arbitration, 198, 199. 
 Hughes, Thomas. 159. 
 Humboldt, Wilhelm von, on nature 
 
 of the state, 175. 
 Huntington, James, 450. 
 Huxley, 180. 
 Hyndman, H. H.,on confiscation, 
 
 336. 
 
 Icaria, 150. 
 
 Ideality, 89 ; charge of, against 
 Socialism, 399. 
 
 Idleness, 368; 396. 
 
 Ignorance of laborers, 309. 
 
 Illiteracy, removed under Social- 
 ism, 265-268 ; increase of, in 
 the United States, 265 ; in T>rew 
 York, 266 ; and pauperism, 308. 
 
 Immigration, 463. 
 
 Impracticability, charge of, against 
 Socialism, 388-403. 
 
 Inadequacy of means proposed for 
 social reform, 182-243. 
 
 Incentive to labor, not diminished 
 under Socialism, 250, 365-375. 
 
 Indifference of laborers, 309. 
 
 Individuals and the state, 168. 
 
 Individualism, 2; 119; 139; against 
 the gospel, 145 ; contrasted 
 with Socialism, ibid. ; and lib- 
 erty, 173 ; and Christianity, 237; 
 identity with anarchism, 327 ; 
 effects of, on the family and 
 children, 357 ; in America, 434, 
 447 ; maxims of, 274. 
 
 Industrial justice, 390. 
 
 Industrial partnerships, 183. 
 
 Industrial schools, 227-230 ; in 
 America, 227 ; cannot solve the 
 social question, 227-280; 439. 
 
 Industrial systems, 2. 
 
 Industrialism, 352. 
 
 InefBcieney of labor from igno- 
 rance, indifference, want of adap- 
 tation, waste from, 309-811. 
 
 Inequality, between laborers and 
 capitalists, 96, 104 ; of endow- 
 ment, 97; 143, 144; 234 ; of con- 
 ditions, unjust, 258, 427. 
 
 Infidelity, cannot be charged 
 against Socialism, 824 ; in the 
 United States, ibid. 
 
 Inheritance, 69; 340; 344 ; effect of 
 its abolition, 342 ; limitetion of, 
 under capitalism, iftjd. ,• relation 
 of, to family life, ibid. ; to family 
 affection, 345 ; evils of, ibid. ; 
 under Socialism, 346. 
 
 Inhumanity, of political economy, 
 157. 
 
 Insurance, waste from, 315 ; char- 
 acter of, ibid. ; fraudulent fires 
 and losses in 1891, ibid. ; rela- 
 tion of, to crime, ibid. ; of chil- 
 dren, 316 ; capital stock of com- 
 panies, 317. 
 
 Intelligence of laborers, 230 ; 
 
 enemy of capitalism, 231. 
 Intempei-ance, waste from, 300, 
 .301 ; number engaged in the 
 liquor traffic, 300 ; capital in- 
 vested, 301 ; consumption of 
 liquors, ibid. ; and pauperism, 
 308. 
 
483 
 
 Interest on money, 202, 203, 204, 
 212, 246 ; history and evils of, 
 ibid. 
 
 Interest, economic, maintained 
 under Socialism, 367; 369, 370. 
 
 International Society, 324. 
 
 International Workingmen's As- 
 sociation on monopoly, 27 ; on 
 pauperism, 34; 139; 336; 410; 411. 
 
 International Socialist Congress, 
 328. 
 
 Inventions, 11. 
 
 Irish, loyalty of, to marriage, 346. 
 
 Israelites, 83; 373. 
 
 Italy, land monopoly in, 81, 84. 
 
 J 
 
 Janson, Kristofer, 449. 
 
 Jefferson, Thomas, on govern- 
 ment, 175. 
 
 Jerome, St., on riches, 83, 470. 
 
 Jevons, W. Stanley, on class le- 
 gislation, 36 ; on the rights of 
 property, 138; 433. 
 
 Jewish Essenes, 147. 
 
 Jews, 446. 
 
 Joint stock enterprise, 427. 
 
 Joubert, Joseph, on tlie duty of 
 society to diminish inequalities, 
 328. 
 
 Jubilee, year of, 83. 
 
 Judaism, 468. 
 
 Jukes, pauper family of, 306. 
 
 Justice, social, a demand of So- 
 cialism, 7, 141, 151, 165, 166 ; 
 relation of, to freedom of con- 
 tract, 240; 455; as a principle of 
 Socialism, 468 ; the end of gov- 
 ernment, 171; 196. 
 
 K 
 Kant, on the nature of the State, 
 
 175. 
 Keene, James R., 96. 
 Kent, Alexander, 450. 
 Ketteler, Bishop, on the labor 
 
 question, 161. 
 Kettle, Rupert, on arbitration, 198. 
 
 Kingsley, Charles, 159; on free- 
 dom, 375. 
 
 Knies, 4:;8. 
 
 Knights of Labor, 216. 
 
 Knowledge, the dissemination of, 
 a cause of Socialism, 42-45 ; in 
 Russia, Italy, and Germany, 42 ; 
 in France, Great Britain, Spain, 
 and the United States, 43. 
 
 Labor, the duty of all, 7 ; long 
 hours of, 25; the source of all 
 value, 50-66; includes manual, 
 mental, and moral exertion, 50; 
 manua;! labor oppressed, 52 ; 
 abstract or social labor distin- 
 guished from concrete, 59; quan- 
 tity of social labor the measure 
 of value, 60; quantity of labor 
 determined by time, 61; reduc- 
 tion of concrete labor to abstract 
 labor time, 61 ; its value in use 
 greater than its exchange value, 
 67; as a commodity, 94; produc- 
 tion of, and wages, 1-33; by the 
 hour, 216; aversion to, 227; the 
 fortune of all, 249-251 ; honora- 
 ble under Sociahsm, 249; dispar- 
 agement of, 288, 259; of differ- 
 ent values, 356 ; its exchange and 
 use values, 251; socially neces- 
 sary, the measure of value, 361 ; 
 dignity of, 431. 
 
 Laborers, regard capitalism as un- 
 just, 92; condition in England, 
 93; dependence of, 94; loss of 
 life of, 100; do not own their 
 homes, 132; and public office, 
 263; organized, 431. 
 
 Labor Unions, 429, 430. 
 
 Laissez-faire, 20, 141, 142, 143, 
 157, 179, 327, 412, 432. 
 
 Land, monopoly of, 79-82, 88; 
 value of, in England, 80; rela- 
 tion to liberty, 82; common prop- 
 erty, 83; danger from monopoly 
 
484 
 
 INDEX 
 
 in United States, 87; public, in 
 the United States nearly ex- 
 hausted, 81 ; nationalization of, 
 201-214; value of, 209; a form 
 of capital, 213. 
 Lassalle, Ferdinand, 86; on the 
 iron law of wages, 120, 155, 156, 
 157; 332; 335. 
 Laveleye, Emile de, on the iden- 
 tity of Socialism with Christian- 
 ity, 1; 4; on the oppression of 
 labor, 11; on the effect of edu- 
 cation, 42; 81; 83; on Lassalle, 
 156; 230; on Socialism and 
 equality, 322; 354; 404; 438; 454. 
 Lawler, Frank, 217. 
 Lawsuits, 297. 
 
 Lawyers in the United States, 297; 
 in France and Germany, ibid. 
 Lee, Ann, 150. 
 Leeds, laborers in, 132. 
 Legislation, against labor, 37; cor- 
 rupt, 179; 390; socialistic ten- 
 dency, 419. 
 Legislature of California, 261. 
 Leisure, 215; necessary for labor- 
 ers, 224; 350. 
 Length of day's labor, 215; in the 
 United States, England, France, 
 Germany, ibid. 
 Lester Brothers, 187. 
 Levy, Leone, statistician of Eng- 
 land, 215. 
 Lewis, Carleton T., of Prison As- 
 sociation of New York, 274. 
 Liberty, and land, 82; 119; 165; 
 166; individual, 169, 170, 172; 
 abuses of, 177; not impaired un- 
 der Socialism, 375; and choice 
 of work, 380; industrial, need 
 of restraint, ibid.; civil, a prin- 
 ciple of Socialism, 468. 
 Libraries, increase of, 44. 
 Life, human, 114. 
 Lighting, electric, 288. 
 Lincoln, Abraham, on office seek- 
 ing, 264. 
 
 Liquor traffic, 243; under Social- 
 ism, 254-258; its present mag- 
 nitude, 255; capital in, ibid.; 
 source of corruption, 256. 
 
 List, 4.38. 
 
 Litigation, waste from, 297. 
 
 Livermore, Mary A., 451. 
 
 Living, standard of, among labor- 
 ers, 112. 
 
 Livy, on luxui'y, 465. 
 
 Lobby, corrupting influence of, 
 263. 
 
 Lock-outs, 199, 318; waste from, 
 ibid.; loss from, ibid. 
 
 London, density of population, 95. 
 
 Longden, Samuel, 449. 
 
 "Looking Backward," 244, 250, 
 396, 442, 443, 444. 
 
 Lorenzstein, 438. 
 
 Lottery, the Louisiana, 280. 
 
 Love, a principle of Socialism, 
 468. 
 
 Lowe, Seth, on the mammonism 
 of the church, 47. 
 
 Ludlow, 159. 
 
 Lueder, 438. 
 
 Luther, 252. 
 
 Luxury, waste from, 303-305; de- 
 fined, 303; relation of, to utility, 
 304; a menace, 465. 
 
 Lying, 280. 
 
 Lycurgus, 84. 
 
 M 
 
 Machinery, a cause of Socialism, 
 11-14; capacity of, 11, 12; de- 
 plorable effect on laborers, 12, 
 13; does not lighten labor, 13; 
 not a source of value, 55; 130; 
 speed of, 215. 
 
 Madison, on public good as su- 
 preme object of State, 171; on 
 ursurpations, 172. 
 
 Malthus, Thomas R., on principle 
 of population, 125 ; on the weak, 
 128; 302. 
 
 Malthusianism, 125, 126, 127, 432. 
 
INDEX 
 
 485 
 
 Mammon, its creed, 99; dethroned, 
 245-249; 473. 
 
 Man, degraded by capitalism, 134; 
 relation of, to his possessions, 
 339. 
 
 Management, capitalistic and bu- 
 reaucratic, 287. 
 
 Manchester School of Economists, 
 its relation to competition, 20; 
 to laissez-faire, ibid.; to the 
 economic harmonies, 21. 
 
 Manhood, 231. 
 
 Manning, Cardinal, on the right 
 to work or to steal, 35. 
 
 Mansfield, 159. 
 
 Manufactories, superfluous, a 
 source of waste, 286. 
 
 Margin of cultivation, 203, 210, 
 212. 
 
 Mario (Professor Winkelbleck), 
 155. 
 
 Marriage, under Socialism, 339, 
 343; under capitalism, 352,354. 
 
 Marstin, Francis E., 450. 
 
 Marx, Karl, on monopoly 27; on 
 labor as the measure of value, 
 60; on private capital, 66; on 
 exploitation of the laborer, 67; 
 90; 105; on wages, 119; 155; 
 156; 321; 332; 333; 335; on skilled 
 and unskilled labor, 355 ; 3.58; pn 
 ^a,lue, ibid., 3.57; 359. 
 
 Mass. bureau of statistics,; 187. 
 
 Masses, saciifioed, 155; how to 
 reach, 470. 
 
 Materialism, 320; of certain lead- 
 ers not representative, 321. 
 
 Maurice, Frederick, 159, 160. 
 
 McCulloch, on value, 53; value 
 equals quantity of labor, 54. 
 
 McDaniel, B. F., 449. 
 
 BIcGurk, D., 449. 
 
 McKinley, Congressman, 217. 
 
 McPherson, Simon J., the church 
 and Pharisaism, 47. 
 
 Men, number of unmarried, 35-3. 
 
 Middle Ages and laborers, 93. 
 
 Middle men, 428. 
 
 Mill, John Stuart, on the effect 
 of invention, 13; on the origin 
 of capital, 56; on the object of 
 political economy, 70; on injus- 
 tice of land monopoly, 84; on 
 wages, 94; 121; on the object of 
 the State, 169 ; 173 ; 182 ; 349 ; 365. 
 
 Millennium, 401. 
 
 Miller, Lewis, 223. 
 
 Mills of Great Britain, 136. 
 
 Milton, 246. 
 
 Mines, unhealthy, 99. 
 
 Ministers, Christian, 351; and 
 Socialism, 448. 
 
 Mobility of labor, 129. 
 
 " Modern Socialism," 443, 444. 
 
 Money, not properly capital, 55; 
 wages, 137; is blood, 157; 245; 
 under Socialism, ibid. ; love of, 
 248; abolition of, ibid., 325; cor- 
 rupting influence of, 387. 
 
 Monopoly, a cause of Socialism, 
 27-29; nature of, 27; effect on 
 industry, 27; in land. 28,71, 72; 
 natural and artificial, 28, 435; of 
 land, tyrannous, 79-85; and the 
 people, 85, 180; 202; 428, 429. 
 
 Moore, Thomas, 150. 
 
 Moors, 247. 
 
 Morris, William, 195. 
 
 Motives, to effort, 250, 365-375. 
 
 Miiller, 438, 447. 
 
 Mulhall, 105. 
 
 Munro, Professor, 223. 
 
 Municipalization, extent of, in in- 
 dustry, 417, 418, 420. 
 
 Municipal Socialism in England 
 416. 
 
 N 
 
 National Baptist, newspaper, 469. 
 
 Nationalist, the magazine, 441. 
 
 Nationalization of land, 201-214; 
 justice of, 201; inadequacy of, 
 202, 213, 214; extent of, in Indus- 
 
486 
 
 try, 417, 418, 423; of railroads, 
 424, 427; of so-called natural 
 monopolies, 455. 
 
 Nasse, 438. 
 
 Xatui-al liberty, 2. 
 
 Nanvoo, communistic settlement 
 of, 150. 
 
 Neal, E. V., 159. 
 
 Netherlands, industrial schools of, 
 abandoned, 229. 
 
 New Haven Wire Company, 187. 
 
 "New Nation," 441. 
 
 Newspapers, their increase in the 
 United States and Canada, 44; 
 and laborers, 444. 
 
 New Testament, on exclusiveness 
 and mammon, 343. 
 
 Newton, Heber, 450. 
 
 New York, 94; density of popula- 
 tion, 95; poverty in, ibid. ; wealth 
 in, 96. 
 
 New York Herald, 177. 
 
 New Yorker Volkszeitung, circu- 
 lation of, 441. 
 
 Nihilism, 3; in Russia, 407, 408; 
 440. 
 
 Noah and progress, 375. 
 
 Nobility of England, 454. 
 
 Noyes, John Humphrey, 150. 
 
 O 
 
 Objections to Socialism, shown to 
 be unfounded, 322-402; as to 
 atheism, 320-325; as to anarch- 
 ism, 32.5-328; as to equality, 328- 
 332; as to the abolition of capi- 
 tal, 332-334; as to confiscation, 
 334-339; as to marriage and the 
 home, 339-355; as to equal value 
 of labor, 355-365; as to impair- 
 ment of motive to exertion, 365- 
 375; as to destruction of liberty, 
 375-384; as to political corrup- 
 tion, 384-388; as to impracti- 
 bility, 388-402. 
 
 Occupations, under Socialism, .349. 
 
 Offices, in the socialistic state, 387. 
 
 Oneida, community, 150. 
 
 Opium habit, 301. 
 
 Organization of capitalists, 430; 
 of laborers, ibid. 
 
 Outlook of Socialism, 403-453. 
 
 Over-crowding, 94, 95; and pau- 
 perism, 308. 
 
 Over-govei'nment, 382. 
 
 Over-production, a cause of Social- 
 ism, 29-81 ; cause of, 29. 
 
 Overworked, relief of, 258-261. 
 
 Owen, Robert, founder of Social- 
 ism in England, 188. 
 
 Paine, Thomas, 324. 
 
 Panin, on luxury, 465. 
 
 Paris, 323. 
 
 Parker, Theodore, 149. 
 
 Parochial settlement, law of, 110. 
 
 Participation, 183. 
 
 Patrons of Imsbandry, 191. 
 
 Pauperism, a cause of Socialism, 
 33-36; its causes, 34; its extent, 
 36, 105; in England, 109; its re- 
 lation to labor, 110. 
 
 Paupers in the United States, 306; 
 causes of, 308. 
 
 Peasants' war, 457. 
 
 People are the State, 381, 385. 
 
 Personality of the State, 169. 
 
 Peter, apostle, 326. 
 
 Pinkerton men, 430. 
 
 Pitt, on competition, 24. 
 
 Plato, on community of property 
 and wives, 347; 374; 447. 
 
 Pliny, 84. 
 
 Plutarch, 320. 
 
 Police, waste from, 298. 
 
 Political economy and man, 70; 
 its false assumptions, 74; and 
 wages, 134, 137; pagan, 155; clas- 
 sical, 157; and Cliristianity, 158, 
 208, 210; 285; relation of, to 
 waste, 304; socialistic tendency 
 in, 432, 433, 440; 434; in schools 
 and colleges, 439. 
 
INDEX 
 
 487 
 
 Politics, corruption of, 261, impos- 
 sible under Socialism, 384r-38S; 
 capitalistic, 385. 
 
 Political Socialism, gains of, 412; 
 in Germany, ibid. 
 
 Poor growing poorer, 90-119. 
 
 Population and subsistence, 125. 
 
 Postulates of Socialism, labor the 
 source of value, 50 ; private cap- 
 ital a crime, 66; rich growing 
 richer, and poor poorer, 90; 
 wages furnish a bare subsistence, 
 119; public ownership of capital, 
 138. 
 
 Post-offices, 288. 
 
 Poverty, punished in England, 36; 
 increasing with riches, 90-119; 
 in cities, 94; relative, 113; abol- 
 ished under Socialism, 269-272 ; 
 defined, 269; an evil, ibid., 270; 
 and crime, 281, 456; and the 
 church, 472. 
 
 Precepts of Christianity and 
 Socialism, 147-164. 
 
 Press and Socialism, 443. 
 
 Prevention of waste, 284-319. 
 
 Prices, 428. 
 
 Prince of Wales, 419. 
 
 Principles, of capitalism, 467 ; of 
 Socialism, 468 ; of political 
 economy, 238. 
 
 Printers' Association, 224. 
 
 Prison Association of New York, 
 274. 
 
 Prisons, waste from, 298 ; popu- 
 lations of, 299 ; cost of, ibid. 
 
 Privation of laborers, 99-109, 117, 
 131. 
 
 Private capital, a social crime, 66- 
 89; inimical to fraternity, 74; 
 90; anti-Christian, 238. 
 
 Private enterprise, 325. 
 
 Private property, distinguished 
 from private capital, 68 ; and 
 Christianity, 82 ; in land, 80 ; 
 relation of, to family life, 346. 
 
 Production and prices, 134, 135 ; 
 
 factors in, 202 ; lack of system 
 in, 295; 369. 
 
 Productivity of labor, 123, 136. 
 
 Professorial Socialists, 157. 
 
 Profits, of millionnaires compared 
 with wages, 96; 135, 155 ; on 
 skilled labor, 232 ; derived from 
 labor alone, 252. 
 
 Profit-sharing, 182-188 ; forms of, 
 182 ; insufficiency of, 184-188. 
 
 "Progress and Poverty," on land 
 tenure, 84; 214; 443. 
 
 Progress, industrial, of Socialism, 
 426-432; material, of the United 
 States too rapid, 464. 
 
 Progress of State control, 145. 
 
 Progress unequal between social 
 classes, 108 ; under Socialism, 
 366 ; teaching of history as to 
 material progress of nations, 
 373-375. 
 
 l^roletariat, 141, 156. 
 
 Propaganda, socialistic, 161. 
 
 Property, the Roman and Chris- 
 tian ideas of, 69 ; the Roman 
 idea no longer tenable, 70 ; not 
 a part of the possessor, 78 ; title 
 to, not absolute but relative, 
 ibid. ; private, and Christianity, 
 82 ; in land common, 83, 85 ; 
 right of, 88; 432. 
 
 Proudhon, Joseph Pierre, his sub- 
 lime appeal to God, 153; 333; 
 335. 
 
 Proverbs of individualism, 274. 
 
 Prussia, land monopoly in, 81. 
 
 Publications, socialistic, 441-443. 
 
 Public functionaries under capi- 
 talism, 368. 
 
 Public good, required by social 
 justice, 171 ; end of the State, 
 178. 
 
 Public office, a prize, 262. 
 Public ownership of capital, 138- 
 
 164. 
 Purification of politics under So- 
 cialism, 261-265. 
 
488 
 
 E 
 
 Rae, John, his criticism of Marx's 
 theory of value, 55 ; his theory 
 of " social utility " as a measure 
 of value examined, 62 ; on land 
 tenure, 85 ; fallacy and false 
 assumptions of his argument 
 against tlie postulate that the 
 rich are growing riclier and the 
 poor poorer, 107-116; on wages, 
 136; 201; li is criticism of Henry 
 George's theory of rent, 205-214; 
 284; on capitalistic and bureau- 
 cratic management, 287, 288, 
 354; his misconception of Marx 
 on the value of different kinds 
 of labor, 355, 356; on motives to 
 exertion, 365, 366, 370; on prog- 
 ress, 866; on liberty under So- 
 cialism, 376. 
 
 Railroads, grants of land to, by 
 Congress, 81; and employees in 
 the United States, 241; waste 
 from, 285 ; capital and employees 
 of, 427. 
 
 Raymond, S. G., 448. 
 
 Raymond, J. E., 450. 
 
 Recapitulation, 453, 454. 
 
 Reform and Socialism, 419. 
 
 Reformers, social, 151. 
 
 Reformation of the sixteenth cen- 
 tury, 326. 
 
 Reichstag, ,327. 
 
 Religion, the decay of, a cause of 
 Socialism, 45-49; 446. 
 
 Renschenbusch, Walter, 450. 
 
 Rent, 202; law of, 203; 211; 225. 
 
 Republic, stability of, 216. 
 
 Republic, the United States, 392. 
 
 Republicanism, 8. 
 
 Returns of capital and labor, 203. 
 
 Revelation of Socialism, 403-452; 
 453. 
 
 Reyband, originator of the term. 
 Socialism, 3. 
 
 Ricardo, on value as determined 
 by quantity of labor, 60; differ- 
 
 ent qualities of labor compared 
 and adjusted in tlie market, 63; 
 133 ; the law of rent, 202. 
 
 Rich, growing richer, 90, 91 ; not to 
 be blamed, 97. 
 
 Riches increasing with poverty, 
 90-119; 461, in United States, 
 463. 
 
 Ridgeway, James W., 275. 
 
 Riglit, new idea of, 233; power of, 
 388, 389. 
 
 Rights, equality of, 88; absolute, 
 178; relative, 179; political, 196; 
 of the State, 337. 
 
 Ripon, Lord, 159. 
 
 Rodbertus, his theory of crises, 31 
 labor the source of all value, 50 
 90; 105; on poverty, 113; 122 
 139; 155; 333; on the distribu 
 tion of goods under Socialism, 
 362, 363. 
 
 Roesler, 438. 
 
 Rogers, Thorold, on the effects of 
 machinery, 12; on class legisla- 
 tion, 36; 93; on condition of 
 labor, 104, 105 ; on pauperism 
 and degradation of labor, 109 ; 
 on wages, a bare subsistence, 
 122; on the English laborer, 132; 
 136. 
 
 Rome, republican, small estates 
 in, 84; 250. 
 
 Roscher, on the separation of in- 
 dustrial classes, 17; on the decay 
 of religion, 45; 158; 437, 438. 
 
 Rothschilds, 332. 
 
 Ruskin, John, 338. 
 
 Sabbath and Socialism, 7 ; desecra- 
 tion of, 325. 
 Sage, Russell, 96. 
 Salaries of employers, 19; 317. 
 Salem, 238. 
 Sampter, 438. 
 Salt Lake, 243. 
 Sohaefflp. his definition of Social- 
 
INDEX 
 
 489 
 
 ism, 3; on property, 77; on in- 
 terest in labor, 367; 403; 438. 
 
 Schmoler, 438. 
 
 Sclioenberg, 438. 
 
 Schools, industrial, 227-230, 439; 
 graduates of liigh schools-averse 
 to manual labor, 228 ; socialistic 
 tendency in, 438-440. 
 
 Scriptures. See Bible. 
 
 Seelye, Julius H., 262. 
 
 Self-help, 420, 421. 
 
 Self-interest, corner-stone of capi- 
 talism, 146; vicious cliaracterof, 
 ibid. ; 163, 369, 467. 
 
 Selfishness, .348, 394, 401. 
 
 Seneca, oa riches, 461. 
 
 Senators, United States, wealth of, 
 262. . 
 
 Serfdom, 452. 
 
 Shalsers, 150. 
 
 Shakspeare, 375. 
 
 Shetland, 210. 
 
 Shoe-shops in New England, 18. 
 
 Shoe ribbons, 302. 
 
 Sifri, book of, 447. 
 
 Silcox, John B., 449. 
 
 Sillence, W. E., 449. 
 
 Simpson, Stephen, 430. 
 
 Skill, in labor, 228, 229, 232, 234. 
 
 Skirts,- hoop, 302. 
 
 Slavery, 2, 452. 
 
 Smalley, 152. 
 
 Smartness, 363. 
 
 Smith, Adam, on class legisla- 
 tion, 38 ; on labor as measure of 
 value, 53 ; on the law of wages, 
 120 ; on natural wages, 1.38 ; on 
 ignorance under capitalism, 267; 
 on motives to exertion, 366; 
 433. 
 
 Smith College, 332. 
 
 Socialism, critical and construc- 
 tive, 2 ; nature of, ibid. ; dis- 
 tinguished from individualism, 
 2, 3; origin of, 3; its five fingers : 
 economic, social, moral, politi- 
 cal, religious, 4-6 ; its points ! 
 
 of resemblance to Christianity, 
 6-8 ; opposed to violence, 9 ; 
 prejudice against, ibid. ; its 
 causes, 11-49 ; its relation to 
 democracy, 41 ; is applied Chris- 
 tianity, 49 ; opposed not to capi- 
 tal or capitalists, but to capital- 
 ism, 68, 69 ; other causes of, 86, 
 88 ; constructive, 1.38-164 ; a 
 new political economy, 139, 157 ; 
 quintessence of, 143; agrees with 
 the gospel, 145; contrasted with 
 individualism, ibid. ; and the 
 precepts of religion, 146-164 ; of 
 to-day, 151 ; distinguished from 
 comnmnism, 146, 151, 326; rests 
 on ethical principles, 166, 468 , 
 and co'operation, 196; 234; 237; 
 241; 244 ; and the liquor traffic, 
 254-258; 301 ; relieves the over- 
 worked, 258-261 ; favorable to 
 education, 267, 268 ; relieves 
 povej-ty, 270 ; and crime, 272- 
 284 ; saving of waste under, 
 284-319; would systematize pro- 
 duction, 295 ; its relation to 
 fashion, 303 ; to luxury, 305 ; to 
 charity and pauperism, 306 ; 
 to choice of labor, 312, 313 ; to 
 banking, 314; to insurance, 315; 
 would prevent waste from rail- 
 roads, 286 ; from superfluous 
 stores and manufactories, ibid. ; 
 from advertising, 289 ; from 
 drummers, 290 ; from enforced 
 idleness, 291 ; from crises, 293 ; 
 from adulterations and imita- 
 tions, 295 ; from litigation, 297 ; 
 from police and prisons, 288 ; 
 from theft and embezzlement 
 299 ; from Intemperance, 300 ; 
 from fashions, 301 ; f?-om luxury, 
 .303 ; from charity, 305 ; from in- 
 efficiency of labor, from igno- 
 rance, indifference, and want of 
 adaptation, 309-314; from bank- 
 ing, 314 ; from insurance, 315 ; 
 
490 
 
 from strikes and lockouts, 318; 
 spread of, 320 ; principles of, 
 ibid. ; not atheistic, ibid. ; not 
 anarchistic, 325 ; as to equality, 
 828 ; as to capital, 332 ; as to 
 confiscation, 334 ; as to mai-riage 
 and the home, 339 ; as to equal 
 value of labor, 355,; as to motives 
 to exertion, 365 ; as to liberty, 
 375 ; as to class rule by laborers, 
 382-384 ; as to corruption of 
 politics, 384 ; as to practicabil- 
 ity, 388 ; distinguished from 
 anarchism, 326 ; favorable to 
 the family, 343 ; its care of the 
 helpless, ibid. ; misrepresented, 
 302 ; relation of, to the gospel, 
 363 ; stimulates self-lrelp, 372 ; 
 demands work of all, 384 ; not 
 impracticable, 388-402 ; peace- 
 ful, 391 ; gradual introduction 
 of, 454-456 ; private life under, 
 397 ; ideality of, 399 ; its realiza- 
 tion, 403 ; numerical strength 
 of, 404 ; in Germany, England, 
 405, in France, Russia, 407, 
 408, in the U.S., 410, 422 ; 
 political progress of, in Ger- 
 many, 412, in France, 415, 421, 
 in England, 415, 419 ; its reve- 
 lation and outlook, 403-4.52 ; a 
 trust, 426 ; its publications, 441- 
 443; 453 ; Christian, 473. 
 
 "Socialist," circulation of, 441. 
 
 Socialists, not bound to furnish 
 details, 165 ; of Germany, 154 ; 
 their relation to State owner- 
 ship, ibid. 
 
 Socialists of the Chair, 438. 
 
 Socialistic state, nature of, 165- 
 ISl ; care of its citizens, 270 ; 
 no historical precedent of, 
 392. 
 
 Social democrats, 336. 
 
 Social Democratic Federation, 336. 
 
 Socialistic Labor Party, 139, 411, 
 431. 
 
 Social Democratic Workingmen' s 
 
 Party, 265. 
 Societies, co-operative, 159. 
 Society, evolution of, 86 ; crime 
 
 of, 259 ; responsible for crime, 
 
 274 ; changed condition of, 446. 
 Sociology, 438. 
 Soden, Count, 438. 
 Solidarity, tendency toward, 392, 
 
 393; 446. 
 
 Solon, 448. 
 
 Sparta, 259, 373. 
 
 Spartans, 84. 
 
 Speculation, 240. 
 
 Speculators, 96. 
 
 Spencer, Herbert, on land monop- 
 oly, 79; 142 ; on individual 
 liberty, 172; 180 ; on the State 
 as an organism, 202; 273; 420. 
 
 Spice of life not dependent on 
 crime, 282. 
 
 Spindles, speed of, 215. 
 
 Spinning, 250. 
 
 Spoils system, 265, 386. 
 
 Sprague, Philo W., 449. 
 
 Springfleld Daily Union, 240. 
 
 Springfield Republican, 227, 235. 
 
 Spring Valley Coal Company, 
 177. 
 
 Stahl, on Socialism and democ- 
 racy, 41. 
 
 Stamp Act, 220. 
 
 Standard of living, relation of, to 
 ■wages, 224, 225. 
 
 Standard Oil Trust, 242, 435. 
 
 State, right of, 88 ; should own- 
 land and other capital, 139 ; 
 functions of, 140 ; industrially 
 organized, ibid. ; obligations of, 
 163 ; socialistic nature of, 165- 
 181 ; nature of, examined, 167- 
 181 ; defined, 167, 168 ; object 
 of, 169 ; socialistic, 249 ; author- 
 ity of, 251 ; able to support its 
 citizens, 271-327; 333; relation 
 of, to private property, 337 ; its 
 
INDEX 
 
 491 
 
 sovereignty, 338 ; as separate 
 from the people, 385; 432. 
 
 State help, under Socialism, 370, 
 371. 
 
 State, supervision of industry by, 
 418, 423, 424; gradual, 425; and 
 crime, 447 ; and Socialism ; 455. 
 
 Statistics of wages, 123. 
 
 Stealing, 280. 
 
 Steam, effect on industry, 14, 446. 
 
 Stem, H. J., 450. 
 
 Stewart, Senator, 217. 
 
 Stewart, Charles, 273. 
 
 Stilpon, 465. 
 
 Stoc]£ Exchange, 240. 
 
 Stocker, 162. 
 
 Stores, under Socialism, 248 ; 
 superfluous, a source of waste, 
 286. 
 
 Strabo, on the distribution of land, 
 84. 
 
 Straw plaiters, 302. 
 
 Strilces, 199 ; and stilled labor, 
 232 ; waste from, 318 ; loss 
 from, ibid. ; number and in- 
 crease of, ibid. ; social effects 
 of, 319. 
 Strong, Josiah, on tlie concentra- 
 tion of wealtli, 14 ; on tlie re- 
 lation of man to Ijis possessions, 
 70 ; on monopoly of land, 82; 
 92; 97; 113. 
 
 St. Simon, 147. 
 
 Students, college, 368, 369. 
 
 Sufferings of the poor, 95, 98 ; of 
 laborers, 99-109, 117, 131 ; of 
 the aged, 259 ; permanent under 
 capitalism, 132 ; of capitalists, 
 457, 458. 
 
 Suicides of capitalists, 457. 
 
 Sumner, Charles, 88, 152. 
 
 Sumner, William G., his vicious 
 definition of civil liberty, 173, 
 174, 175, 176; 447. 
 
 Support of the laborer under 
 
 slavery, 142. 
 Surplus value, 156. 
 
 Swift, Morrison J., 4.50. 
 
 Sykes, Colonel, on housing of 
 
 laborers, 102. 
 Sympathy with laborers, 437. 
 
 T 
 
 Talents, parable of, 864. 
 
 Talleyrand, on classes, 141. 
 
 Taylor, Graham, 450. 
 
 Taylor, William M., 466. 
 
 Taxation, justice in, an advantage 
 of Socialism, 252-254; principle 
 of, 252; injustice of present sys- 
 tem, 253; of land, 338; extent 
 of, determined by thf public 
 good, 338. 
 
 Telegraplis, 288, 455. 
 
 Tenement houses, 94. 
 
 Telephones. 4.55. 
 
 Temperance, 230. 
 
 Temptation, 277. 
 
 Tenure in land, 84. 
 
 The co-operative Commonwealth, 
 348. 
 
 Theft, waste from, 299. 
 
 Theological seminaries and soci- 
 ology, 439, 450. 
 
 Thompson, Robert Ellis, 217. 
 
 Thrift of laborers, 230-235; will 
 not solve the labor problem, 231- 
 235; relation to inheritance, 344. 
 
 Tompkins, Floyd, 449. 
 
 Toynbee Hall Settlement, 440. 
 
 Trades Union (congress, 224. 
 
 Trusts, nature of, 242; 426; 427, 
 455. 
 
 U 
 
 Under-consumption, 30. 
 
 United States, land monopoly in, 
 81, 87; employees of, 423; should 
 proceed slowly in the accumula- 
 tion of wealth, 463-466. 
 
 Unit of society, not the family, 
 but the individual, 352. 
 
 Unchastity, 340. 
 
 Usui-y, 252. 
 
492 
 
 Utility, 304. 
 
 Utopia, 150; not applicable to So- 
 cialism, 390. 
 
 Value defined, 52; determined by 
 quantity of labor, 60; of concrete 
 labor time not equal, 355. 
 
 Vanderbilt, 96, 97, 240. 
 
 Vassalage, 4.52. 
 
 Vebben, T. B., on the practicabil- 
 ity of Socialism, 388. 
 
 Violence not socialistic, 391, 455. 
 
 Virtues, personal, and tiie labor 
 question, 230-234. 
 
 Von Scheel, 438. j^ 
 
 Von Tliiinen, 438. 
 
 Vrooman, H. C, 450. 
 
 W 
 
 Wages, 94; relatively decreased, 
 105, 106; less than cost of living, 
 107, 115; furnish a bare subsist- 
 ence, 119-138; natural rate of, 
 186; the iron law of, 120, 157; 
 wages fund theory, 136; 202, 203, 
 212; do not depend on standard 
 of living, 225; natural, 219, 220, 
 226; higli, and discontent, 231; 
 the Christian law of, 363, 364. 
 
 Wages, system, 119, 132, 133, 137, 
 157. 
 
 Wagner, on State control of indus- 
 tiy, 425;4:_;8. 
 
 Wakeman, Thaddeus W., 448. 
 
 Walker, Amos G., on co-operation 
 in the West, 191, 188, 
 
 Walker, Francis A., on the hard- 
 ships and sufferings of laborers, 
 99; on the evil tendency of eco- 
 nomic forces and the degrada- 
 tion of labor, 118; on insufficient 
 wages, 119; on competition, 129, 
 130, 394; on wages, 136; on co- 
 operation, 194; 213; on intelli- 
 gence and frugality of laborers, 
 230, 231; 270; on v'asln, 284; on 
 
 fasliion, 302; on free labor, 312; 
 on strikes, 318, 393. 
 
 Walker, J. H.,'459. 
 
 Wallingford community, 150. 
 
 Wants, danger of increasing, 224. 
 
 War of the Kebellion, 261. 
 
 Waste, prevention of, 284-319; re- 
 lation of, to competition, 284; de- 
 fined, 285; causes of, ibid. ; from 
 needless railroads, 285; from 
 needless stores and manufacto- 
 ries, 286; from advertising, 289; 
 from drummers, 290, 291 ; f lom 
 enforced idleness, 201 ; from cri- 
 ses, 293 ; from adulterations, 295 ; 
 from litigation, 297; from police 
 and prisons, 298; from tlieft and 
 embezzlement, 299; from intem- 
 perance, 300; from fashions, 301 ; 
 from luxury, 303; from charities, 
 305; from inefficiency of labor, 
 from ignorance, 309, from in- 
 difference, ibid., from want of 
 adaptation, 311 ; from banking, 
 314; from iiisiu'ance, 315; from 
 striltes and lockouts, 318. 
 
 Washington, George, 375. 
 
 Watch-making, 2.34, ;;35. 
 
 Water, impure, drank by laborers, 
 103; 210. 
 
 Wealth, relation of Socialism to, 
 7; concentration of, 91, 96; tyr- 
 anny of , 249; evils of, 456; and 
 commonwealth, ibid.; of the 
 United States, 463. 
 
 Webb, Sidney, on Socialism in 
 England, 416, 421, 427, 432, 434, 
 439; on socialistic publications 
 in England, 442; 452. 
 
 Webster, R. M., 449. 
 
 Weitling, on private property, 66; 
 154. 
 
 Wendte, 450. 
 
 Whitney, Eli, 389. 
 
 Wilberforce, Canon, on the apos- 
 tasy of the church, 47. 
 
 Williams, Leighton, 450. 
 
493 
 
 ■William II., 412, 413. 
 Williams, Alexander S., 275. 
 Wilson, 169. 
 Women, employment of, 100, 101 ; 
 
 tmder Socialism, 349; number of 
 
 unmarried, 353. 
 Woollen mills, diminished number 
 
 of, 16. 
 Woolsey, Theodore D., on the 
 
 power of Socialism, 10; 86; 117; 
 
 on inequality between capitalists 
 
 and laborers, 144; on Socialism, 
 
 ibid., 281; 322, 323; on Socialism 
 
 and the family, 340; his argu- 
 ment examined, 341; on the abo- 
 lition of inheritance, 342; his 
 unwarrantable assumptions, 344, 
 355; his chapter on the theory 
 of Marx examined, 257-362 ; 366 ; 
 on the loss of liberty under So- 
 cialism, 375; on Socialism as a 
 Utopia, 390. 
 
 Yale College, 324. 
 Teams, James, 449. 
 
 THE END. 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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