THE SOCIAL UNREST
THE SOCIAL UNREST
STUDIES IN LABOR AND
SOCIALIST MOVEMENTS
BY
JOHN GRAHAM BROOKS
gorfe
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
LONDON: MACMILLAN & CO., LTD.
1907
All rights reserved
81
COPYRIGHT, 1903,
BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY.
Set up, electrotyped, and published January, 1903. Reprinted
March, May, July, 1903. Special edition April, 1904 ; April, July,
1905; April, 1906; June, 1907.
J. 8. Cashing & Co. Berwick & Smith Co.
Norwood, Mass., U.S.A.
go
HELEN LAWRENCE BROOKS
CONTENTS
FACE
PERSONAL AND INTRODUCTORY i
CHAPTER
I. SOME GENERALITIES 17
II. POLITICS AND BUSINESS 46
III. SOCIAL UNREST 68
IV. THE SOCIAL QUESTION AND ITS ECONOMIC SIG-
NIFICANCE 107
V. THE INEVITABLENESS OF THE SOCIAL QUESTION 144
VI. MAN AND SOCIETY versus MACHINERY . .169
VII. THE MASTER PASSION OF DEMOCRACY . . 222
VIII. SOCIALISM: HISTORY AND THEORY . " . . 258
IX. SOCIALISM IN THE MAKING 287
X. FROM REVOLUTION TO REFORM . . % . . 298
XI. SOCIALISM AT WORK 313
XII. NEXT STEPS 344
XIII. A FINAL QUESTION 373
APPENDIX 381
INDEX 385
THE SOCIAL UNREST
PERSONAL AND INTRODUCTORY
THE nature of a good deal of the evidence in this
volume is such as to require an explanation that is
more personal than I could wish. This evidence
may, perhaps, be less sharply criticised if a frank
statement about it is made. I began, as do most stu-
dents of social and economic questions, with a too
exclusive study of books. It was several years before
I learned that for one branch of economic and social
study, the " live questions," like strikes, trade unions,
the influence of machinery, etc., very few books
existed that had more than slight value. Their treat-
ment of the subject was too general. Much of the
literature is scarcely in print, before it is out of date
because of the extraordinary mobility and change of
our commercial order. The reaction of this swiftly
changing mechanism upon our entire life gives us a
series of problems but partially expressed in books
and differing in important ways from anything that
Europe offers.
For instance, we are always perplexed by the ques-
tion, why distributive cooperation should be so suc-
cessful in England but so dreary a failure here.
There are many reasons, but the main one is found
in the conditions that have been brought about by
2 THE SOCIAL UNREST
our material prosperity, accompanied by carelessly
extravagant habits, together with our system of rapid
transportation. We have not yet been forced to the
pettier economies. Our working classes are con-
temptuous of saving one cent or two cents. The
excursion train from a distance and the marvellous
development of the city and suburban trolley take the
crowd to the great stores where the customer is served
better, more cheaply, and more quickly than any co-
operative store has any present hope of doing. The
great store touches the imagination, especially of the
poorer people. I was for several years member of a
cooperative store. It failed, partly because the wives
of labor men among whom it originated would not
continue to patronize it. One of them told me: "Oh,
but it's no fun to go to that stuffy place. When I go
to R. H. White's, it's like going to a theatre, and my
fare in and out of the city costs me nothing, for I can
get things cheaper there." Here are cheapness, a
satisfied imagination, and an exhilarating ride all for
the same money. American invention has made it
possible, and not until an entirely new set of condi-
tions has been thrust upon us is there a breath of
hope for the English cooperation.
In la grande Industrie the same forces are produc-
ing a form of cooperation that is beyond anything that
Europe has reached. The democratization of indus-
try is slowly coming from the top into a forced
cooperation with organized labor. The "joint agree-
ment " between employer and employed has begun.
It compels a kind of partnership between capital and
labor. Every step in its development will destroy
the old individualistic and arbitrary doctrine of the
PERSONAL AND INTRODUCTORY 3
employer that is expressed in such terms as " This is
my business," " I will not arbitrate," " I will deal only
with individuals," etc. Every extension of the joint
agreement will bring the great business into closer
unity with the best ideals of our political life. Yet
no book begins to describe the mechanism that makes
these great changes possible. Only in trade and
technical journals does one find even a partial account
of them.
Again, of our trade unions, there is almost no litera-
ture. The close and exhaustive study of Mr. and
Mrs. Webb is admirable for the English trade-union
tradition. It but partially describes the organization
of labor in the United States. The mobility that ap-
plied invention has brought about has given us a
unionism distinct in important particulars from that
which any foreign country can show.
The effect of foreign leadership (especially of the
Irish) in our unions is one real difference, but the
mobility and the chances this offers to leave one's
position for a better, modifies our trade union in
many ways. No sooner is the labor leader trained for
his duties than he is likely to leave his union and " go
into business." I can count from memory thirteen
men in Massachusetts, who were in their time and place
leaders, who now occupy positions in politics or in busi-
ness. A friend who always defends the trade union
tells me that in Chicago he knows of more than thirty
men, formerly at the front in their respective unions,
who now hold political office in that city. " They are
always on the watch," he adds, " for better positions
in other occupations, after they have struggled some
years with the external, and more especially with the
4 THE SOCIAL UNREST
internal, difficulties of the unions." I asked one of the
prominent leaders how he stood the strain which I
knew was brought to bear upon him. " I can't stand
it long," he said ; " I shall keep my eye out for a busi-
ness position, and when I can leave my present place
honorably, I shall do it"
In Pittsburg, during the steel strike, I tried to find
some of the ex-presidents of that strong trade union.
The most important of the former officials had gone
into other occupations. That more solidified group
consciousness that constitutes a class feeling of which
radical socialism makes so much, is thus difficult to
maintain in this country. Such dangers as there are
in this fighting class-spirit in the unions is kept more
keenly alive by those employers who think it the
part of wisdom to defeat the real ends of organized
labor.
During six years of weekly economic lectures before
a trade-union audience, I learned that any trade-union
literature accessible was upon the whole misleading.
An academic student, who has read never so faithfully
all the books, has to learn his entire lesson over again
by contact with the actual concrete struggles of
unions among themselves and with their employers.
I had been taught to believe, for example, that the
limitation of the number of apprentices by the unions
was an inexcusable tyranny over American liberty.
In spite of the abuses of this limitation, one finds that
it is an integral part of a common effort characteriz-
ing our entire business system. It is in its nature in
no way peculiar to the trade union. I once saw the
establishment of a new union in a Massachusetts shoe
town. At first there was no thought of opposing any
PERSONAL AND INTRODUCTORY 5
number of young men who cared to come in, but in a
slackened period of work, it was found that eight and
nine per cent of their own trade-union members were
without work. At that time the rule was made limit-
ing the number of those learning the trade. " Why,"
I was asked, " should we let a lot of young fellows
come in to compete against our old members who
can't get work ? " There is often a steady average
of two, three, and four per cent of older members
thus out of work in half our unions. This explana-
tion does not meet all the difficulties in the limitation
of those permitted to learn the trade at a given time.
It does enable us to see the reasons why the attempt
is made and to see further that it is as natural as any
of those checks to lessen competition which fill our
commercial life. I have heard this reply from an in-
dignant agent of the union : " They ask us to put in
more apprentices when there is no shortage of work-
men; when we can furnish first-rate men who are
now out of work. That would mean that we were to
help train new men to compete with our own members
out of work." This action of the union to meet the
competing forces that endanger its common life is at
least as intelligent as the tariff, or the limitation of
output by a great corporation. This check upon
competition in the trade union is a superior morality
as compared with that large part of business which
uses the tariff to sell our products to foreign com-
petitors twenty per cent cheaper than to our own
people.
This limitation of apprentices is, however, a very
elementary difficulty. The attitude of the trade
union toward the new inventions presents a problem
6 THE SOCIAL UNREST
as delicate as it is fundamental in character. In
the chapter on machinery it is considered at length.
It is mentioned here solely for the purpose of show-
ing how helpless a student is who trusts to the cur-
rent economic books for light. The hackneyed
charge that trade unions " oppose new machinery "
carries an unhappy fact in it, but unless carefully
explained, it holds far more error than truth. If
exception be made of the more ignorant members,
the better unions in the United States do not fight
the machine as such. Their opposition is against the
way in which the machine may be made to readjust
the wage scale within the labor group whose interests
are immediately affected. In the conflict between
employer and employed, the " storm centre " is largely
at this point where science and invention are applied
to industry.
The hard lesson which the employer has to learn
is that he cannot alone and arbitrarily decide this
question of machinery. The instinct of the trade
union to have some " say " about this is a perfectly
sound instinct. Yet the union has also to learn its
lesson, that the new inventions must be put to their
tasks without any of the stupid hindrances which
discredit many of the English unions and which are
far too prevalent in certain American unions.
It seems again on its face very senseless for a union
to oppose piece-work. But when one sees that piece-
work may be used like a new invention, to change
the wage scale, keep down wages, and increase the
stint of work, the reason for this opposition appears.
There are shops in which piece-work results in chang-
ing the wage scale three times in a year. It so fre-
PERSONAL AND INTRODUCTORY 7
quently happens that the readjustment lowers the
wage that piece-work becomes an object of suspicion.
I have had the plainest admissions from employers
that the trade-union resistance to piece-work was
wholly justified if the resistance could be guarded
from abuses.
So also the " un-American way " of restricting the
ability of exceptional men, the " levelling down to
inferiority," and other confident charges made against
the unions are seen to have so much justification in
actual experience as to leave the student far more
tolerant even of the abuses connected with them.
These illustrations may make clear why I have
been led in the following chapters to use with so
much freedom purely personal opinions that have
been expressed to me during twenty years of inves-
tigation and lecturing upon the topics here con-
sidered. It has not, in most instances, seemed to me
fair to give names. The opinions were in many in-
stances given on the express condition that the name
be not used. That this is open to censure and may
be thought to constitute a weakness in the book, I
readily admit. The responsibilities for the weakness
I must accept. I trust that some corresponding
advantages may appear in the result, as I report
from responsible men on the labor side, from social-
ists, business managers, engineers, and capitalists
alike.
It was another inexcusably slow discovery that
most men do not put their deepest opinions into print,
or state them before the public. My first clear con-
ception of this was in listening during a semester to
a German professor. From these lectures and from
8 THE SOCIAL UNREST
a stiff volume that he had already published, I be-
lieved myself in possession of his most important
opinions. In later and more personal conversations
with him, I found another and very different man, of
whom no printed utterance would have given me a
glimpse. He was far more radical, far bolder in his
critical restrictions about the institutional life about
him, and far more willing to welcome great changes
in our social organization.
I do not impeach this man's sincerity. He was
giving to me the freer and more extemporaneous
opinions that are habitual in private intercourse. In
those moments he was unconcerned about the matu-
rity or coordination of his views. I yet believe there
was more of the real man in his conversations, more
even of his real thought, than in the elaborated and
guarded utterances as publicly expressed. In the
whole class of socially disturbing topics the freest
and deepest opinions are not usually printed in a
book, and, so far as this is true, one has to go else-
where for full evidence. 1
Many of the socialists who make the best litera-
ture for the propaganda, do not, any more than the
professor, put all their real opinions into their pub-
lications. Like the respectabilities among the bour-
geois, they have opinions for dress parade opinions
that are safe and orthodox for the cause they rep-
resent. They may publicly maintain with great
vehemence the essential integrity of Karl Marx's
1 Professor J. W. Jenks tells me that in his long and exhaustive
investigation of the "trust,"' by far the most important facts about the
purposes and methods of these combinations were only secured in
private conversation.
PERSONAL AND INTRODUCTORY 9
theory of socialism. In private they may admit to
you, as the best-trained French and German social-
ists have admitted to me, that Marx's fundamental
doctrine of surplus value is unsound. Another
may have philosophic training enough to challenge
Marx's fatalistic theory of history. I asked a culti-
vated Belgian socialist why he did not openly pro-
claim these doubts about the " master." " We
can't yet afford," he said, "to embarrass our cause
by displaying doubts about the theories on which
it is believed to rest." The value of these private
opinions is priceless because they point the way
along which the less enlightened mass of socialist
thought will follow. A collectivist editor in Paris
gave this reason why he should not expose these
doubts about the sacred traditions: "You must have,"
he said, " a certain unity and completeness of form in
your exposition, or it loses literary effectiveness. I
must have this, or I could get no scholars to read
what I write." It is precisely this vanity for what
will excite academic or conventional approval that
devitalizes so many books. To appear "scientific,"
" to display unity of treatment," to have showy classi-
fications in which new technical names are given to
very well-known and commonplace facts, is the subt-
lest form which temptation puts on for these ambi-
tions. This is not harmful among subjects where a
" synthesis " is possible, where " form and complete-
ness " are in any way attainable ; but in those studies
that have to do with the vastness and complexity of
human society and its reorganization, the craving for
these literary and scientific graces has left a great deal
of our printed sociology chillingly empty of result.
10 THE SOCIAL UNREST
For this very reason our need is the greater foi
genuine opinions and simple facts, even if the time is
not yet come for their more systematized exposition.
Not only socialists but many of our most influen-
tial trade-union leaders have grown into larger
opinions than they can yet enforce upon their fol-
lowers. They are as a unit upon the importance of
keeping every contract their unions sign with em-
ployers. They are as a unit against all violence
against non-union men. They are often helpless
before the impulsive action of some local union, but
their unquestioned policy is to strengthen their
organization at these weaker points. There are other
issues upon which they are forced to be as politic as
a "dynamic clergyman with a static congregation."
Too many of the workmen are not yet enlightened
enough to take the larger view. There are unions,
for example, in which the amount of work done is
deliberately restricted as a matter of principle. I
have talked at length recently with the head of such
an organization. He said to me, "I know perfectly
well that the policy is suicidal. I know that a smaller
output means, upon the whole, less comfort all round.
The men are under the illusion that there is only
about so much work to be done and they want to
'stretch it out,' or 'not use it up too quick.' I have
several times got a lot of men together and explained
to them why the policy is a bad one. But if I were
to be too strict I should lose my place, and a man
would be put in who wouldn't try to educate them
into better sense. In time we can teach them better.
When the employers lecture them about this they all
think he is simply trying to get more work for the
PERSONAL AND INTRODUCTORY II
same money. When I lecture them they at least
begin to talk it over and think about it."
Another source of penetrating criticism comes from
a certain contemplative type of successful business
man who can rarely be induced to put his strictures
in print. I have, for instance, never heard an abler
defence of Henry George's theory of the single tax
than from a man who had made a fortune in city
land speculation. He did not like to apply the
theory to the country at large, because he thought
that the practical difficulties would be too great ; but
for municipal areas he came to believe that we are
simply stupid not to turn the enormous land values
created by an increasing population into the public
treasury.
In gathering evidence for a report on German
workingmen's insurance, I found that the published
opinions of many business men in that country had
upon the whole a very different and certainly a far
lower value than opinions one could get from them in
conversation. One of our own trust organizers has
published valuable opinions on the subject of the trust.
In private, I heard him analyze the actual dangers of
the trust with a searching skill that I have not seen
equalled. I asked him why he put none of these
views into print. He replied : " Those are things a
wise man doesn't say in public. I am not advertising
the weakness of the trust."
Now it is the very things " the wise man does not
say in public " that I wish to get in as evidence. I
would not exclude the soberer and more cautious pub-
lic or printed view, but the further emphasis which
I venture to give to the open and unreserved opin-
12 THE SOCIAL UNREST
ions which men express when free from the shadow
of an audience, or when they are not expected to
stand by the temporary stock interests of their class,
may at least supplement other forms of testimony.
More than this I will not claim for it.
If this evidence seems like a too irresponsible sort
of gossip, I can only answer that the volume contains
no reference that is not the honest expression of
opinion by men whom the investigator would naturally
seek as most likely to throw light on his subject.
It is true that these critics are exceptions. The
prevailing commercial opinion is that which justifies
the methods under which one's wealth is gathered. It
is doubtful if any bias exists at the present day that
acts with more blinding power upon men than the
bias associated with their money income. There is
scarcely any rich source of pecuniary profit for which
the average citizen will not find ethical justification.
During my first visit to the anthracite coal fields, I
found a coal operator who was making large profits
from a private bar to which his miners were expected
to come for their drink, as they were expected to
patronize his company store. He had no difficulty in
defending this retailing of liquor on what he insisted
were moral grounds. The miners could be more
easily guarded against excesses. They would spend
less money than in the low groggeries of the town.
Certain miners' wives had expressed their gratitude
to him for these benefits. There was perhaps no
conscious humbuggery in this, but the profits on his
gin and whiskey were so alluring as to bias his judg-
ment. The proof of this came in abundance from
his fellow-employers who did not or would not keep
PERSONAL AND INTRODUCTORY 13
a bar. Free from the bias, they were unqualified
in their condemnation of this source of income for
one in this employer's position. In the same way
practically every business abuse against the miners is
condemned by those employers who have got rid of
the abuse. The " company store " began as a neces-
sity for the miners, but when the town grew and pri-
vate stores everywhere sprang up, the miners naturally
preferred to buy, as the rest of us do, where they
liked. The company store from this time on was a
reproach to the best business management. Yet I
never knew an operator, still maintaining one, who
did not argue with unction and fervor that they were
very beneficial to the miner and his family.
If one to-day go through those regions, asking right
and left among those who have discontinued the
company stores, he will hear the frankest admission
that it had long since come to be a nuisance and with-
out any justification. In 1900, when operators were
indignantly defending their method of selling powder
to their miners greatly above the market price, I
found that the operators who did not do this, had
only sarcasm for the ingenious reasons which the
other employers were giving. The president of a
company told me : " The miners are perfectly right
in their contention. It is true that the higher price
entered into an older agreement, but this clumsy
method of paying wages is one that any first-rate
business man ought to be ashamed of."
The miners in the recent strike (1902) asked among
other things, to have the coal weighed as it comes
from the mine, and to be paid by weight rather
than by car-load. They honestly believe that they are
14 THE SOCIAL UNREST
cheated out of a portion of their earnings. The em-
ployers, who still pay by this rough and elastic car
measurement, would make the inquirer believe that
the miners' demand is as ignorant as it is absurd.
Fortunately a small proportion of the coal now mined
is paid by weight. Among employers who have
adopted this method, I found the strongest convic-
tions that the miners were in the main right about
this issue.
Again, when one sees the conditions under which
the " pumpmen " work for twelve hours daily in the
mines, he is curious to hear what defence can be made
for such slavish toil. The first employer I asked,
said: "The pumpmen are not overworked. They
would be perfectly contented if the trade-union bullies
would let them alone." The mine boss and the super-
intendent know what the pumpman's life means.
When they were convinced that their names would
not be used, I got from them the most pronounced
opinions that eight hours a day is long enough for
pumpmen to work. The superintendent said, "The
man who denies the grievance of the pumpman
either does not know or does not care how men are
used."
There is no great business that does not thus open
to the investigator, from its own inner circles, the
most trustworthy evidence concerning abuses. From
evidence of this character, we may get invaluable hints
as to general industrial tendencies and to possible im-
provements. There is invariably a small minority of
men who in speculative discussion will freely take the
larger social point of view, even if against their
interests. A far larger class must first have thrown off
PERSONAL AND INTRODUCTORY 15
the abuse before unbiassed judgment becomes easy.
In most business communities may be found a type
of business man who has retired long enough from
active work to look with a certain largeness upon
these labor questions. They are among the best of
witnesses. A retired shoe manufacturer in Massa-
chusetts, who now ranks among the rich men in his
community, has told me that the whole problem had
entirely changed to him as he looked back upon the
thirty years of chronic struggle with the trade union.
" They make a good many stupid mistakes," he said,
" but an organization strong enough to fight the em-
ployer is a necessity to labor. Competition so forces
many of the best employers to copy the sharp tricks
of the worst employers in lowering wages, that the
trade union must be equipped to fight against these
reductions, or for a rise in wages when business is
more prosperous. I have fought the union in more
than twenty strikes, but I can now see that they were
at least as right and as reasonable as I was." It is
this kind of evidence of which I make very free use
in this volume. It has the competence wrought out
of long experience. It is dispassionate and disin-
terested. This man had been separated from the tug
and warfare of practical affairs long enough to see
them in their larger social relations. Any one who
had gone to him in earlier days, when he was in the
heat and turmoil of his occupation, would have got
simply a snap-shot judgment based upon the sup-
posed business interests of that moment. It would
have its value even then, but not the value of the
later and calmer mood.
There is in this volume very frequent reference to
1 6 THE SOCIAL UNREST
problems arising in the coal industry. This is done
partly because of many visits to the soft- and hard-
coal regions. It is further due to the fact that no
business presents a better point of view for study,
either of practice or of theory, in the labor question.
I have excluded the soft-coal interest from the pres-
ent discussion because the very immensity of area
covered leaves it still open to general competitive
influence. With the exception of the remarkable
common organization at this moment existing between
the federated trade union and the employers, it throws
far less light on the subjects herein treated. The
hard or anthracite coal is lodged by nature in so com-
pact a pocket; it has so much the character of a
monopoly, in spite of soft-coal rivalry, that it stands
out in admirable relief for investigation. During the
last eighteen years I have visited every important
strike in these regions. Nowhere can one see quite
so clearly the relation between business proper and
the various harassing problems that are more and
more to challenge our corporate good sense. This
business is on the competitive outskirts where the
merits or demerits of further state interference and
regulative legislation are likely to be forced upon us
at no distant day. The last strike marks an epoch
in the development of socialistic thought in this
country.
CHAPTER I
SOME GENERALITIES
THOUGH the tides of business prosperity are just
now at their height, a plague of embittered strikes
has fallen upon our industries. Especially have they
fallen upon interests that are partly of public charac-
ter or (what is fast becoming the same thing) upon
those that have grown great by combination. Over-
topping all others has been the prolonged and mo-
mentous strife in Pennsylvania. In the anthracite
coal regions the miners won in the struggle of 1900,
but the victory brought little contentment. It was
followed by more than a hundred local strikes, only
to break out at last into a strife that has stirred public
opinion as no other event in our labor history.
From the time when the government first began in
1 88 1 to make record of labor controversies, the list
swells to more than 3000 strikes in the coal industry.
Between 1881 and 1900 there were 2515.
This has led to the common assertion that labor
disturbances are in some way peculiar to coal mining.
Very special features attach to the extraction of coal,
but the unrest as marked by strikes is precisely what
one finds, for example, in the metal, clothing, and
building trades ; strikes in the building trade are in-
deed highest in the list. It is yet true that no industry
offers the student of social unrest a fitter field for study
c 17
1 8 THE SOCIAL UNREST
than that small patch of country in Eastern Pennsyl-
vania lying between the Delaware and Susquehanna
rivers. Nowhere can one get nearer to the heart of
the conflict. Every question that socialism will more
and more force upon the political stage can here be
read as upon an open page. Nowhere has competi-
tion among private owners worked more relentlessly
to its own final undoing. Not even from socialist
critics does one anywhere hear more fault-finding
with unrestricted competition than from the lips of
employing operators. Here are priceless "royalties"
for absentee owners. Here in recent years may be
seen that high capitalization which gives the hard-
pressed operator his excuse for paying low wages.
Here competition among the laborers is so unremit-
ting that the 147,000 workers are occupied hardly
190 days in the year. Including Sundays, this means
some 175 days of enforced average idleness. For the
masses of breaker boys, as well as for the less sturdy
among the adult miners and their helpers, this habit-
ual irregularity of employment breeds the habits that
make the excesses of the strike inevitable.
Among the employers the old chaos of competition
has been overcome by organization, but a forced chaos
remains among the miners. An absurd surplus of
some thirty thousand men hangs about the mines,
and every attempt that they have made to secure the
real advantages of organization among themselves
has been fought with obstinate ill will by the masters.
When individual and local unions were established,
the natural and necessary impulse was to federate
them into an organization strictly comparable to that
which capital had won at the top. The masters left
SOME GENERALITIES 19
no device unused to defeat this new step. At first
their formula ran thus, " I will deal with my men one
by one ; I will not deal with them as a union." Later
one heard, " I will deal with the union in my own
business; I will not recognize any one who comes
from another union."
In 1900, when the unions of the hard-coal region
were so strongly organized that the fact could not be
ignored, I heard a few employers grudgingly admit
that they should be compelled to do business with
this group of unions, but never would they at any
cost recognize the representative of the soft-coal
miners. In 1901 I heard the details of a plan by
capitalists to bring both the soft coal and the anthra-
cite together into one common organization. I asked
how it was possible to control the thousand loosely
scattered bituminous mines. He answered : " Simply
because we have got the railroads. Through rail-
road control we have got the anthracite where
no independent operator can trouble us a bit. To
control the soft coal is of course far more difficult,
but it is not difficult if we have, as we shall have,
proper control of transportation." I have seen
few more uncompromising enemies of trade unions
than this gentleman. Yet he had come to see that
some sort of general organization among the miners
must be tolerated among the hard-coal workers. I
submitted the question, " If you are, as you say, to
extend the principle of organization over both bitu-
minous and anthracite, why should you object to the
common union of labor in both regions ? " His reply
was that business could not be carried on under such
a tyranny as this would imply. Unified control was
20 THE SOCIAL UNREST
necessary for capital, otherwise, he said, " we shall
always be fighting our competitors in the soft-coal
business just as we used to fight each other in the
hard coal."
Like many another employer who urges the neces-
sity of capitalistic organization, he denies this corre-
sponding right to his miners. You ask if the reasons
for combination are less strong upon one side than
upon the other, if competition works less incessantly
among laborers than among employers ; the answer
is, " No, but the miners have come to be so bad a lot
that organization is unsafe in their hands ; the trade
union destroys all discipline in the mines." It is
true that the presence of sixteen nationalities, many
of them with the lowest standard of living, is an
extremely annoying fact, but the employing class has
its definite responsibilities for the present quality of
miners. Such as they are, they have been expressly
encouraged to come, in order to keep wages low.
Many of these facts are common to other indus-
tries. For the social investigator they get, however,
an added significance from the monopolistic char-
acter of this business made possible by the cen-
tralized control of tide-water facilities and railway
transportation. Ownership and control of this busi-
ness has been transformed. The determining factor is
now the railroad a semi-public corporation. When
the employer now says, " I will not arbitrate ; I shall
run this coal business as I like, because it is my prop-
erty," even the miner has come to see that this atti-
tude is incongruous and out of date.
During the strike of 1902, hundreds of papers of
both political parties met this refusal of arbitration
SOME GENERALITIES 21
with every degree of picturesque denunciation.
Those of the future will look upon this strike as a
landmark in the rapid crystallization of socialistic
opinion in this country. But the effect upon the
miner and his fellows has been just as marked. He
is receiving more socialistic instruction from his em-
ployer than from all the agitators combined.
It is this new consciousness of difference betweei.
a really private business, like a corner grocery store,
and one that has ceased to be private in that sense,
which so heightens the value of this type of industry
as a social study. If the socialistic spirit is to be
held in abeyance in this country, businesses of this
character must be handled with extraordinary cau-
tion. The attitude expressed by, " I refuse to arbi-
trate because this is alone my business," is foolhardy
in proportion as the business is obviously semi-public,
as the hard-coal business with its dependence on the
railroad now is.
The essence of arbitration in a business of this
character and magnitude is an acknowledgment that
the public is concerned in the dispute. With the
multitude of smaller industries freely open to com-
petition, we are not shocked that they should be
treated as strictly private, but in the exact measure
that their service to the public rests upon special
privileges granted by public authorities, shall we
rightly demand from them responsibilities that are
not merely private. If those who have this busi-
ness in charge are not strong and adroit enough to
hold these chronic disorders in check, the call for
some form of state control will steadily increase
among us. The public has learned that to run the
22 THE SOCIAL UNREST
railroads, together with the chief portion of the min-
ing area, is to get a monopolistic advantage under
which the consumer may be made to pay in higher
prices every penny that the strikes cost.
In Lattimer, when an awkward squad of Hazelton
citizens, hastily extemporized into constables, had
shot a score of miners, I asked an operator about
the probable cost of the strike. " But you don't
suppose," he answered, "that we coal men are to
pay the bill ? Anthracite coal is a luxury, more
and more in demand. The people must have it.
We mine forty million tons a year, and an addition
of even fifty cents a ton means money enough to
pay big bills ; but if we added a dollar a ton, the
coal would be used."
The difficulties of socialistic administration are seen
to be so great, that the business sense of the American
people will be careless of monopoly privilege in private
hands so long as it is free from conspicuous abuses.
As this coal business is now managed, abuses are in-
evitable. The railroads have a double business. They
mine coal, as well as transport it. A given road, at
one moment, may be apparently losing money as a
miner, but making rich profits as a carrier of coal.
I have known a man with special training for this
work to exhaust all his resources in efforts to dis-
cover how accounts in this double business are kept.
His conclusion was that this shifting relation not only
could be, but had been, used to keep wages down.
Even if untrue, it has become a source of angry sus-
picion which is felt, not only by the independent in-
vestigator, but has at last reached the miner himself.
At the strike in the summer of 1902, among the
SOME GENERALITIES 23
grievances which the miners enumerated, I heard for
the first time this common complaint : "The operators
told us in 1900 that the business couldn't possibly
afford the ten per cent advance, but they gave it to
us when they had to, and still made good money.
Prices have gone up so much since then, that this
ten per cent advance has been swallowed up. We
ask for more, and are told that profits are so low that
no higher wages can be paid, but we can see that the
railroad side of it is making plenty of money, and it
looks as if they were taking it out of us."
For the first time I heard among the miners the
talk of "overcapitalization." "They put so much
money and water in here, and then have to pay
dividends off the whole of it. That makes an
excuse for squeezing us. President Baer says he
must look out for the interests of his stockholders,
and so can't give us an advance. If they hadn't
put so much water in it, they could have treated us
decently." The miner is merely saying what half
our papers print, and what many competent business
men believe.
Here is the exact ground why, for business of this
character, the intelligent demand for " publicity " and
uniform and intelligible methods of bookkeeping, is
more and more insisted upon by the public, by stu-
dents, and even by some of our foremost business
men. The highest business administration cannot
afford to be carried on in an atmosphere of justi-
fied suspicion that angers the public and the laborers
alike. This atmosphere of justified suspicion is the
direct source of the most threatening unrest now in
our community. It is certain that a great deal of it
24 THE SOCIAL UNREST
can be removed by an open and fearless recognition
that these half-public corporations have become so far
" socialized," that the old rights of secrecy have lost
their warrant.
It is at this point that the first real difficulty ap-
pears. There is no way to make this principle of
" publicity " effective without an extension of legal
regulation.
The reasons for this extended activity of govern-
ment are not fewer in the United States than among
any other people, but the practical difficulties are far
greater here, because of the divided authority be-
tween the central government and the states. But
the practical embarrassments in which this divided
authority leaves us, constitute a very breeding ground
for the growth of socialistic sympathy. The ordeal
which we cannot escape is, that, in spite of these
added perplexities, the battle has to be fought out on
an area that is essentially an area of politics.
Yet powerful business interests will fight the pro-
visions that constitute this social politics wherever its
aim is to raise the standard of the workingman's
life. They will oppose them as they oppose the
really effective organization of labor ; as they oppose
the legislation that would eliminate the child from
industry, or give to those stricken by industrial acci-
dents a properly organized method of compensation.
In the long struggle before us to learn to use these
principles of regulation with unflinching fairness to
the weak as well as to the strong, we are beset by two
difficulties, one that has come to be temperamental,
the other economic and political.
No people was ever born so gayly and so confidently
SOME GENERALITIES 25
indifferent to history and experience as the people of
the United States. During the Civil War, Charles
Sumner was patronizingly assured at a London din-
ner table that the North could not conquer, "there
was no history extant to warrant such a hope." With
a humor he rarely showed, Mr. Sumner replied, "Thank
God, we do not know any history over there."
A foreign scholar, knowing the United States well,
himself equipped by large experience in English
colonial affairs, does his best in Washington to put
his knowledge at the service of those upon whom the
heavy burdens of our new dependencies had fallen.
Our lack of experience and consequent ignorance
were complete. Why should not the Congressional
committee having these things in charge delight to
listen ? England's long mastery of colonial policy
is known to all. A man ready to interpret this expe-
rience is at hand, but he finds that no soul in Wash-
ington has the slightest curiosity about this almost
greatest of English achievements. He says to a
friendly member of the Cabinet, " But you Americans
do not even want to know the experience that would
throw light on your own present problems." One of
the best and most skilled of our politicians tells him,
" You are right ; those that need the knowledge most
would not even cross the street to listen to your expo-
sition, or if they did they would not take you very
seriously. We shall blunder through it in our own
way."
There is much to be regretted in this unconcern,
but perhaps, for the special problems involved, some-
thing that we should approve. This good-natured
contempt of experience means sad waste in duplicated
26 THE SOCIAL UNREST
experiments ; it means costly delay in administrative
adjustments, but it also means a carelessness of pre-
cedent, as precedent, that is often the very condition
of brilliant accomplishment. An English engineer
said in this country, " Because a thing has been
done in a certain way in England is still reckoned
among the reasons why it should continue to be done
in something like the same manner, but with you
in the States it is reversed. To tell an American
machinist how a thing has been done, actually seems to
him a reason for not doing it in that way any longer."
Whatever of speedier advantage comes to us from
this adventurous spirit in the sphere of mechanical
contrivance, there is consequent loss and embarrass-
ment for the whole remedial side of the social ques-
tion. This experience has been dearly bought, and
much of it has failed, but that which has succeeded
is very precious as a model.
It is conceivable that impatience and unconcern
about past experience may be a gain to the inventor,
but they cannot be a gain in developing the kind of
legislation of which the English Factory and Truck
acts are an example. Uniform legal protection
against certain capitalistic abuses on the one side, and
against the exploitation of certain low-class labor on
the other, stands for the next step toward social
safety. We cannot skip the definite and successful
experience of other nations in dealing with a class of
evils of which industrial accidents and child labor
may be taken as examples.
The shrewdest foreign observers who have ever
visited us, like Herbert Spencer, have noted what
Lowell called the " divine patience of my fellow-
SOME GENERALITIES 2/
countrymen under abuses." This temper coupled
with a commanding material progress makes us
impatient with the fault-finder. Yet a promiscuous
optimism about everything in particular may be
just as harmful as a uniform pessimism. We have
to learn the full meaning of specific sources of social
weakness in the elimination of which legislation has
to play a part. This leads from the temperamental
to the business and political difficulty.
It will appear in the clearest light if seen through
an illustration about which every reader may easily
acquire trustworthy information.
In 1902, I saw in Georgia and Alabama troops of
children, many under twelve, working the entire night.
I had previously heard every detail of this ugly story,
in which northern capital is implicated as much as
southern, yet nothing but personal observation would
have made me believe the extent to which this
blunder goes on in our midst. Whether one finds
this evil in New Jersey industries, among Illinois
glass-blowers, on the Chicago streets at night, or
in the merciless sweating of the clothing trade, it
is an excuseless wrong for which no extenuating word
can be uttered. It is a source of disease, crime, and
social weakness. That it is not a purposed cruelty,
does not change the fatality of the result. A kindly
employer in Alabama tells me, " Yes, it is bad, but
the parents of these children will have it." Every
argument reproduces to the letter the excuses of
employers two generations ago, when Shaftesbury
began his great struggle against child labor in
England.
This stunting use of the child in industry is but a
28 THE SOCIAL UNREST
part of what is perhaps the most threatening fact of
the new century, the wider and more relentless use
of every known agency to keep wages (and therefore
the standard of life) as low as possible. This purpose
is not malicious or even quite conscious of its end.
It results from the enlarged world area on which a
fiercer competition now acts. The practical exigency
of this commercial struggle will appear to justify
every competitive use to which lower and cheaper
standards of living can be put. Women, children,
negroes, the inhabitants of our new dependencies
and every shade of immigrant, will one and all be
used like pawns in the great game of immediate
business advantage in the markets of the world.
I asked one of the largest employers of labor in
the South if he feared the coming of the trade union.
" No," he said, " it is one good result of race preju-
dice, that the negro will enable us in the long run to
weaken the trade union so that it cannot harm us.
We can keep wages down with the negro, and we
can prevent too much organization."
It is in this spirit that the lower standards are to
be used. If this purpose should succeed, it has but
one issue, the immense strengthening of a pluto-
cratic administration at the top, served by an army
of high-salaried helpers, with an elite of skilled and
well-paid workmen, but all resting on what would be
essentially a serf class of low-paid labor and this
mass kept in order by an increased use of military
force.
If there is any escape from this peril, it is in the
slow building up of that system of labor protection
known first as factory legislation. What is best in
SOME GENERALITIES 29
this legislation is not something standing apart from,
or in antagonism to, the forces of public opinion, but
the deliberate and express record of that opinion
about the hours and conditions under which it would
have a large part of society work and live. In
countries like England and Switzerland, no existing
agencies have done so much as this form of legisla-
tion to save the labor standard from sinking to lower
levels. In our own country the same legislation in
Massachusetts, incomplete as it is, has worked with
admirable results.
The precedent of experience is in all this the only
possible guide. Most of the horrors connected with
sweating in the making of clothes could be stopped
if other states had enforced a legislation as good as
that of Massachusetts. The law holds this special
evil in check in the city of Boston. The rivalry
among our states to attract business or to prevent its
escape makes a difficulty which no other nation feels
in giving shape to this legislation. A speaker before
a committee on child labor in Alabama says, "We
get a great advantage over the North, if we work
twelve hours and have child labor." For every im-
mediate business interest this appeal is dangerously
effective and will long constitute a baffling perplexity
in creating that body of regulative measures which
is now recognized to be as necessary for the " trust "
as for those conditions under which multitudes of
women and children work.
It was once believed that the strife of multitudi-
nous private interests, if freely followed, would lead
to the maximum of common gain. It was believed
that the essence of economic wisdom was merely to
3O THE SOCIAL UNREST
keep hands off. This position of the extreme indi-
vidualist, as of the philosophic anarchist, has a rare
intellectual fascination. For speculative enchant-
ment, it is easily supreme among social theories.
But the moment we touch the world of human
action, the moment we arrive where people are hard
at work, it appears that this policy of " let alone " is
as definitely discarded as the whale-oil lamp. Neither
tory nor liberal, republican nor democrat, pretends
any longer to "let things work themselves out."
Every government, democratic and monarchical as
well, deliberately adopts a policy of elaborate legal
regulation. Nor is there anywhere a hint that this
is to lessen. Communities differ as to the emphasis
that shall be placed on social regulations. New Zea-
land goes to greater lengths than Denmark ; Switzer-
land, in many things, further than England, but all
alike accept it as a practical working finality that
competitive forces cannot be trusted to work them-
selves out alone. They are brought under some meas-
ure of permanent social regulation. Among men with
responsibilities there is now no dispute except as to
the forms which this regulation shall assume and
the degree to which it shall be carried.
We need no longer call in the socialist to testify
against the uncurbed struggle in industry. The last
twenty years have taught the lesson so thoroughly to
our foremost business men that they are becoming
our instructors. Not alone with transportation, but
with iron, with textiles, with insurance, with banking,
and with many of the commonest products, the un-
restrained scramble of private interests is now seen
to be intolerable. Good business now sets the limit
SOME GENERALITIES 31
to competition by organizing cooperation. To check
and control the excesses of competition has become
the mark of first-class ability. A railroad president
has been dismissed because " he insists upon fighting
other roads instead of working with them." Accord-
ing to his own account, the head of another road owes
his appointment to the fact that (in his own words)
" I was known to have some aptitude for working with
rival interests." Yet the term " legal regulation," as
applied to industry, is still an offence to the Ameri-
can. He has not learned that this regulation is but
a factor in what we all now agree is the capital fact
of industry organization. The term "industrial
organization " carries no offence, but is seen to be
the next great step even in further material progress.
On the side of capital, organization began for the
sake of safer dividends. As business enlarged, and
came finally to touch the wide and permanent wants
of the consumer, organization from the public point
of view was also found to be necessary. This com-
pleted organization is impossible without the as-
sistance of legal regulation that is superior to every
separate interest.
What is now forced upon every critical observer is
the degree and extent of purely chaotic forces on the
industrial field. Competition as such has no ten-
dency to remove this mischief, rather indeed to
aggravate it when business has reached a given
stage of development. The great lesson that em-
ployers have to learn is that organization has done
but half its work when their own end alone is sys-
tematized. Organization has to pass straight through
from top to bottom, including labor as well. A part
32 THE SOCIAL UNREST
of this lesson for the employer is that the sym-
pathetic cooperation of the labor group is an absolute
necessity if industrial peace is to be won.
In the recent strike (1902) of the hard-coal mines,
an employer said to me, " I have been in this business
more than twenty-five years, and it seems to me I
have been in the strike business rather than the coal
business." I asked him if he and his friends had any
policy about the disorders ; he replied, " No, only to
smash 'em." For many years in these mining towns
I have heard this answer from employers. As long
as coal operators were fighting each other and fight-
ing the railroads, there was more excuse for this gue-
rilla warfare with the unions ; but now that combina-
tion has come, " smashing 'em " cannot conceivably
remain the method of directors competent to manage
the business as the public will demand. It is cheer-
ing to find younger men now prominent in these
affairs who see this.
After the miners had won their strike of 1900, some
of the companies began to put stockades about their
breakers. I asked why, in time of peace, this should be
done. " Oh, we shall soon enough have another fight,
and we propose to be ready for it. To make a conces-
sion to a trade union means a fight at the end." I later
spoke of this with one of the younger, but admittedly
one of the most competent, company presidents in
Pennsylvania. He said : " This whole policy with the
trade union is out of date. There must be an end to
a situation that breeds warfare as regularly as the
seasons come. The trade union is now here, and we
shall not get rid of it; I, for one, believe that we ought
not to get rid of it. It has got to be recognized in
SOME GENERALITIES 33
spite of all that this means. It will make our work
for a long time harder and more disagreeable, but the
truth is that we employers have got to learn the lesson
of working harmoniously with organized labor." I
asked him how this should be done. " We must do
it by a slow process of education, we must meet their
representatives in a systematic way, and teach them
about our business so far that they will learn to act
reasonably. That is the task before us." This gen-
tleman acknowledged that a good deal of publicity
would be necessary in this relationship with trade-
union committees. "We cannot educate them," he
added, " without letting them know more about our
business than they have ever known. They must
study the market conditions, freight rates, and the
great difficulties like irregularity which bother us as
much as it bothers them, and we must help them to
do this wisely and fairly."
Returning to New York, I took these words to
a railroad president upon whose opinion every stu-
dent sets high value. " I would not," he said,
" change a word in that statement. To assume
that we have got to go on spasmodically fighting
the unions, is tactless and unintelligent. The truth
is that the kind of man who is not strong enough
to work with organized labor has not the qualifica-
tion for his position. It is silly for powerful corpora-
tions to say, ' We will deal with individuals, not with
representatives of unions.' Organization of labor
has got to be recognized as such, and dealt with as
such, and the problem now is to get men with the
qualities and capacities to do this." On the other
hand, the unions have to learn their own lessons.
D
34 THE SOCIAL UNREST
The public is at present very free with advice. " Let
them incorporate and give proper guarantees that
contracts will be kept, then employers will know
where they stand." Somewhere in the future, incor-
poration may come, but, as I shall try to show later,
the employers and the public have certain duties to
perform before incorporation is safe for the union or
wise for society.
So ingrained has become the suspicion in the trade
union that it sets its face against incorporation. It
fears to trust its funds to ordinary court decisions.
Judge Jackson of West Virginia uses these words :
" A professional set of agitators, organizers, and walk-
ing delegates, who roam all over the country as
agents for some combination, who are vampires that
live and fatten on the honest labor of the coal miners
of the country, and who are busybodies, creating
dissatisfaction among a class of people who are quiet,
well disposed, and who do not want to be disturbed
by the unceasing agitation of this class of people."
The labor papers print these words with comments
like the following : " Can we trust ourselves and our
friends in the hands of a man who shows such tem-
per as this upon the bench ? " They say : " Incorpo-
ration in time of trouble involves legal penalties
which the courts must enforce. We do not trust
their fairness on such issues." Good lawyers are
very indignant at this, but no man who will look
through the labor press of the last three or four
years will doubt 'the fact, however silly the opinion
may appear to him.
I have heard a lawyer, often called the leader of
the bar in his state, say that he did not dare to quote
SOME GENERALITIES 35
the corporation law of Pennsylvania, because it bore
such marks of gross partiality to capitalistic inter-
ests. All that organized labor in the United States
does, is to enlarge the lawyer's judgment.
There are few unpleasanter facts than this honest
suspicion of organized labor that capitalistic organiza-
tion means to use against it every weapon that public
opinion will tolerate.
This suspicion appears inexcusable to those who
do not know the history of the union. In its long
struggle against the hard practices of certain employ-
ers, the trade union has been taught its worst abuses.
President Eliot justly puts down the boycott among
the sins of the union, but for a quarter of a century
in Massachusetts the employers used the boycott of
the "blacklist" so effectively, that the unions took
the hint. Labor leaders of such influence as Ira
Steward, George E. McNeil, and George Gunton were
trained in this school of the employers' blacklist. It
was this same spirit that made the necessity of the
walking delegate. A class of men like the paid secre-
tary had to be created in order to protect the union
in those early days when the agitation for an ele-
mentary factory legislation began. Scores of labor
men prominent in the ten-hour campaign were black-
listed. It is this long memory that now plagues us in
these problems. Behind the " restriction of output,"
behind the dislike of new machinery and piece-work,
is the memory of days when new inventions were so
freely and rapidly introduced that no check upon the
speed was possible. The union did not exist or was
too weak to protest. The " pace setter " flourished,
and piece-work, like the machine, could be used to
36 THE SOCIAL UNREST
quicken the step. I have heard older men tell of
these days, when every device was used to set the
standard by the fastest workmen in the room. Even
where the " pace setter " has wholly disappeared, the
recollection of this is vivid. Labor organizations are
not to be judged apart from those early struggles.
Side by side with errors and abuses is a story of hero-
ism and self-sacrifice.
People eager to know the truth are perplexed by
the evidence in the great coal strike, but that conflict
cannot be understood apart from its history. I asked
a pastor to give me a list of his older and best family
men out on strike. In a single parish, I talked with
eighteen of these law-abiding miners. As if one man
spoke for an experience common to all, it was the
memory of long years of hardship, of greater and
pettier wrongs, which nerved the striker in that strug-
gle. These memories may be very harmless in their
individual expression, but the trade union guides them
into a new channel where their force becomes serious
enough. A degree of strength and independence of
labor organization has now been reached in the United
States which makes a new danger. It cannot be
fought on the assumption that the union is to be de-
stroyed, without intensifying every bad quality in it.
The trade unionist knows that he has helped to raise
wages; that more than any other, he has brought
about the best of our labor legislation. He knows
that the main struggle now is to raise the standard of
living in his entire group. Every determined effort
to crush the union, therefore, appears to the members
an attack on their own aspiration for improved social
life. Yet it is the determination of many of the
SOME GENERALITIES 37
strongest business men in this country to cripple
these organizations if it can be done without the in-
dignant protests of public opinion.
It is customary to speak fair words about " the
right of labor to organize," about the usefulness of
the trade unions "when they keep to their proper
business," etc. Employers spoke very friendly words
of this kind before the recent industrial commission,
but the labor organization which most employers
approve is a docile, mutual-benefit association. It is
a trade union that makes no trouble for them. The
actual trade union which exists to maintain what it
believes to be its group rights, to make its bargains
collectively and struggle for every advantage it can
get, few employers would tolerate an instant if they
could avoid it. A great packer in Chicago is on
record as a friend to unions, but in that vast establish-
ment the union was ruthlessly crushed. Mr. Carnegie
writes thus in his "Gospel of Wealth," p. 114:
" The right of the workingmen to combine and to
form trade unions is no less sacred than the right of
the manufacturer to enter into associations and confer-
ences with his fellows, and it must sooner or later be
conceded. Indeed, it gives one but a poor opinion of
the American workman if he permits himself to be
deprived of a right which his fellow in England long
since conquered for himself. My experience has
been that trade unions, upon the whole, are bene-
ficial both to labor and to capital. They certainly
educate the workingmen and give them a truer con-
ception of the relations of capital and labor than they
could otherwise form. The ablest and best workmen
eventually come to the front in these organizations."
38 THE SOCIAL UNREST
This passage requires attention. Mr. Carnegie has
had long experience with unions. He here finds
them "beneficial both to labor and capital." He
says they educate labor and that the ablest and best
come to the front in them. This is the polar opposite
of what so many employers are now telling us. This
was written in the Forum in 1886, and reprinted in
1900. In spite of this fine tribute, the actual unions
in the great shops where he made his millions were
destroyed. I was told by one of the strongest men
in that company, "We would use every resource
within our reach rather than have a trace of unionism
in our shops."
Neither did Mr. Schwab (though practical conces-
sions have since been made) conceal his opinion about
the unions before the industrial commission. These
men know they may get an economic advantage over
England if they are free from the restraints of
unionism. Every one is now told that the English
union checks production ; that unions will not drive
at full speed. There is much truth in this, and the
inference we are expected to draw is that, if we had
no unions, a still hotter speed of production could be
maintained. It is beyond question that labor in
some sense interferes at this point
The employer objects to "interference," but a
strong labor union can scarcely exist without what
most employers would call interference. To apply
the collective principle in fixing the wage scale, low-
ering the labor time, improving sanitary or other
conditions for the whole body of men in any mill is
interference. When unions are federated, a member
is necessarily chosen to represent the combined labor
SOME GENERALITIES 39
interests. This is disliked by the employer more
cordially still, but it is a condition essential to feder-
ated labor. If there is added to these issues the most
burning of them all, the manner in which wages are
readjusted by the introduction of new inventions, we
shall see why employers set so high a price on free
dom from all these annoying inconveniences and de-
lays. With the exception of certain industries, these
vexations are inherent in the relations between feder-
ated trade unions and the employer. The signs are
many that our industrial managers will not brook the
hindrances incident to well-organized trade unionism.
The new attitude throughout the South reflects the
less outspoken feeling of the North. One among
many clippings may show the form which this oppo-
sition takes. 1
It is not probable that employers can destroy
unionism in the United States. Adroit and desper-
ate attempts will, however, be made, if we mean by
unionism the undisciplined and aggressive fact of
vigorous and determined organizations.
If capital should prove too strong in this struggle,
the result is easy to predict. The employers have
only to convince organized labor that it cannot hold
its own against the capitalist manager, and the whole
1 New Orleans, August 30. " In view of the numerous strikes here
and the still greater number threatened in the building trades, the archi-
tects, builders, and contractors have taken preliminary steps to protect
themselves against further disturbances by calling a mass meeting of
master builders and of employers in affiliated trades. It is openly an-
nounced that the purpose of the meeting is to declare war against the
unions, and to begin the war at once instead of waiting for the unions
to strengthen themselves and precipitate a strike when they get ready,
which it is understood is their plan."
4O THE SOCIAL UNREST
energy that now goes to the union will turn to an
aggressive political socialism. It will not be the
harmless sympathy with increased city and state
functions which trade unions already feel; it will
become a turbulent political force bent upon using
2very weapon of taxation against the rich.
Those who represent the interests of capital must
make the choice. With magnificent energy they have
created an industrial organization that no other na-
tion now matches. Will they use some fair portion
of this strength to complete this principle of organiza-
tion so that it includes those who help them do their
work ? or will they, in the fighting spirit of compe-
tition under which they were bred, insist upon an
unrestrained and unmodified mastery? No skill in
ornamental institutions of the Cash Register type
will suffice. It is conceivable that a genuine applica-
tion of profit-sharing, or a systematized distribution
of safe stock among the men, would go far to free
industry from much dangerous friction. Two of our
foremost business men have given special attention to
this last proposal. Neither is likely to try it from a
lurking fear of ugly reaction among the men in case
the stock should depreciate. Both think the scheme
of profit sharing too sentimental and too difficult to
put upon a secure business basis. They admit that
many experiments of this character are possible with
semi-public corporations like the railroads and street
cars, but with private industries subject to all manner
of unforeseen fluctuations on the market, together
with the suspicious opposition of the trade union to
all plans for binding the laborer to the employer's
business, the difficulties appear too great. One of
SOME GENERALITIES 4!
them said : " The truth is, modern business is a fight,
and is likely to remain so. At bottom it is a ques-
tion of strength and courage, with as much tact as
we can get into it." It has, alas ! to be added to this,
that the strain of the competitive struggle (now that
it has taken on an international character) is so inex-
orable that they have neither time nor strength for
projects that are not quite business, and the results of
which are at best uncertain.
The conduct of the employers in the recent coal
strike has gone far to convert thousands of hard-
headed men to the necessity of some form of com-
pulsory arbitration to supplement what voluntary
arbitration can effect. At the point where the help-
lessness of the voluntary principle grows clear, the
public, if once roused, turns to the state.
Yet, one by one, other communities are yielding to
New Zealand's example. Victoria adopts it after
most critical examination. Sir Edmund Barton, re-
cently in this country, says, " I think that we in Aus-
tralia are very much in advance of your country in
the matter of dealing with industrial conditions. By
the terms of our arbitration law great strikes are
made practically impossible. Arbitration is compul-
sory . . . and since the enactment of this compul-
sory arbitration law, strikes in New South Wales are
unknown."
Even if we are driven to this, the same perplexity
rises as in the case of trade-union incorporation;
the suspicion of the trade union already shows itself
in opposition.
The trade union in New Zealand is not afraid of
the government or of the courts. Our own trade
42 THE SOCIAL UNREST
unions are suspicious of the courts, and will not trust
their verdicts in arbitration cases. 1
If, then, it is " a fight and is likely to remain so " ;
if the great forces of capitalism are to be so used as
to defeat the complete organization of labor along
lines that capital is taking for its own protection ; if
the devices of applied profit sharing, stock distribu-
tion, and arbitration are to be narrowed to the excep-
tional and less important instances, must we in the
last resort trust to the educated magnanimity of the
rich ?
The Le Play societies in France, as well as the brill-
iant group of English positivists, have urged this
remedy for a generation, "the moralization of the
employer." The masses, they tell us, are too difficult
to manage, therefore concentrate upon the employer.
Teach him that he is a trustee of public as well as of
private interests. There is great nobility in this teach-
ing, and signs are everywhere that individual magnates
are responding to this public expectation. Hospitals,
colleges, libraries, largesses of all sorts, add rare dis-
tinction to our age.
Two observations must however be made, (i) If
one go to that list, which all have seen, of four thou-
sand multi-millionnaires whose combined possessions
are believed to be beyond sixteen thousand millions,
it will be found that a startlingly small minority has
apparently ever heard of this fair gospel of public
trusteeship. In many other cases of princely grants
to public objects, it is certain that, at most, but a part
1 In a copy of the National Labor Tribune I find these words,
" Compulsory arbitration is a dream of fools when it is not a pawn of
knaves."
SOME GENERALITIES 43
of the yearly income has been parted with. (2) The
other observation, weightier still, is that no possible
munificence in public donations affects or has any
relation to the sources of trouble in which the social
question has its origin. We suffer for want of a wise
and patient organization between employer and em-
ployed by means of which labor shall have the same
rights as capital. The managers tell us that free
competition is their ruin. They must have federated
organizations to protect them from capricious and un-
manageable cutting of prices. Economist and busi-
ness man alike admit upon the whole the justice of
the claim. But if the facts of the labor market are
really faced, the immensity of our immigration chok-
ing the avenues of unskilled labor, who can deny
that competition among laborers may be turned
against them with the same killing effect as that
under which capital suffers ? Labor's need of some
conscious control of competition is in every point as
true and as easily justified as that of capital. For
this the trade union stands. The man who defeats
this right with one hand, while he builds with the
other a public institution, does not render the service
for which our need is most urgent. We are glad of his
charity and good will; we should rejoice far more, if
he were to recognize among his helpers every right of
combination which he himself claims, and give of his
superior strength to make the complete organization
effective.
It is the writer's belief that, for reasons already
given, efficient and regulative legislation will be too
long defeated by competing local interests and by
consequent political timidities. If, then, we are to
44 THE SOCIAL UNREST
expect so little from the other remedies noted; if these
failures are likely to be the occasion, and even the
instigator, of an unceasing social unrest, to what hopes
can we look ? It is here assumed that the unrest will
become more consciously and more definitely social-
istic. Socialism will become an influence among us
that will compel much more than dilettante curiosity
and academic discussion. Whether its increase is to
bring us blessings or curses turns largely upon the
spirit in which it is met. No strong people will yield
to it without a long and desperate struggle. But with
what weapons shall the conflict be waged ? It is the
writer's chief hope in these studies to show that every
claim of socialism may be challenged and opposed
in ways that are not only free from danger, but are
in their very nature educational and fortifying at the
very points where our citizenship is weakest. For
the first time in history it is possible to subject so-
cialistic experiments to the tests of experience. To-
ward the close of the nineteenth century something
like a final judgment had been passed upon the
socialism of the Utopias. None more than the abler
socialists now condemn the "dream excursion " of the
separate colony.
During the last twenty years, experience has been
accumulating which enables one to reach another
and still more important judgment about collectivist
ideals. At least seven countries have now entered
upon a conflict with those whose propaganda is to
substitute the collective ownership of the means of
production for private ownership. In every instance
where socialists have been given or have won for
themselves specific and continuous responsibilities,
SOME GENERALITIES 45
some remarkable results are now clearly observable.
It is with these, and with conclusions based upon them,
that the final chapters on Socialism deal.
But every radical change that socialistic reorgani-
zation implies, cannot be understood apart from its
relation to certain questions of fact and of speculation.
These will therefore first claim our attention.
CHAPTER II
POLITICS AND BUSINESS
THERE are roughly three points of view in the social
question : that of the employer, that of the laborer,
and that of the public which includes them both.
" Social politics " takes for granted that the social
welfare is above either of these partial interests. It
is politics of the common good rather than that
of any class or party. Into it has entered all those
regulative measures which extend and adapt what
was first called factory legislation.
In no country of the first rank is this legislation
so weak as in the United States. Nowhere is there
such fatal lack of unity, and nowhere is it so easy to
discredit sound legislative proposals by the fear that
local business will suffer. This half paralysis of
legislation that is really social ; that guards labor as
carefully as it guards capital, is the more unhappy in
its results because large commercial interests never
used the government for its private ends with more
unconcealed audacity than among ourselves. Here,
too, the laborer is learning the uses to which govern-
ment and politics may be put. Looking to the city
and government for help has been taught to the com-
mon people by the most successful business men in
this country.
Our magnates of industry have not preached pater-
46
POLITICS AND BUSINESS 47
nalism, but, in season and out of season, they have
practised it. They have practised it so long and so
openly, and with such conspicuous profit to them-
selves, that it is grotesque drollery for them to cry
out against paternal legislation. They have not
merely looked to the government to assist their enter-
prises, they have taken possession of it. Hat in
hand, they have begged with such importunity that
the law-making power, federal, state, and municipal,
seems to have been looked upon as a private pre-
serve. Yet these who discovered paternalism and
reduced it to a political art and method, never fail to
raise the alarm when the humbler classes ask legis-
lative aid of city or state. No lackey was ever more
subservient to his master than Pennsylvania to its
railroads, or than the state of California to the South-
ern Pacific. These corporations have owned the
states, as the landlords in England owned the rotten
boroughs before the reform. Does it lack any ele-
ment of th'e comic to hear, a few years since, a presi-
dent of that California corporation censure the
"dangerous tendency of crying out to the govern-
ment for aid " ? What past master of the art of a
triumphant paternalism in the West could for a
moment match this gentleman ? The East and Mid-
dle West are filled with his peers, who have given
object lessons in paternalism to the masses, so con-
tinuous and so convincing that they would be dullards
if they did not at last profit by their drill-masters'
example.
A specific and whimsical illustration of this comes
again from the hard-coal region in which Pennsyl-
vania republicans have preached the doctrines of
48 THE SOCIAL UNREST
protection. " Give us the fenced security of the tariff,
shut off foreign competition with our own products,
and then will it be well with our workmen, then
shall they delight in steady work and high wages."
With this fair promise on the lips, what do they forth-
with proceed to do ? With their own manufacturing
products hedged about, with their own interests pro-
tected, they proceed, as if for the gayety of nations,
to open every flood-gate for low-class foreign immi-
gration to keep down the price of what the workmen
have to sell, their daily labor. This product of life
tissue shall forsooth have no protection. "We, the
masters, will have it for our wares, but our laborers
for their wares shall not have it."
In that unhappy anthracite country the employers
will tell you openly and with unconscious bravado,
that they must get in cheaper and cheaper labor to
keep wages down, else they could make no money.
These realists of paternalism are among the lead-
ing causes of populist and socialist books. The Bel-
lamys are at most a foot-note on their ampler page.
If paternalism is growing, we at least know where
thanks primarily are due.
The practical obverse of this paternalism is the
socialistic sentiment among the working classes, which
strengthens day by day for many reasons, but for no
reason just now more than this: the refusal of so
many quasi-public corporations to accept proper social
control. They refuse in spite of the fact that they
have received, direct from the hand of the public,
the chief strategic advantages which secure their best
business gains.
There are few sources of socialistic unrest so open
POLITICS AND BUSINESS 49
and prolific as the check which the commercially
powerful put upon legislation that is disinterested,
that is social in its proper sense. Interests that will
prevent an income tax and use a high tariff to aug-
ment the privileges, not of struggling industries,*but
of the most masterful business corporations in the
world, breed discontent, and then turn it straight
toward the most risky and premature forms of
socialism.
A single illustration may show what is meant by
the sure coming of these questions into the field of
politics, under the pressure of social unrest. We are
grossly behind most civilized people in our entire
treatment of industrial accidents. It is immediately
possible to remove the most flagrant of these in justices
by extending legal regulation based on the most defi-
nite practical experience of at least four other coun-
tries. These humane provisions are now defeated
among us by narrow business interests. The federal
government is powerless, and the separate states un-
willing to give an advantage to a competing state.
When the miners of Pennsylvania try to get the most
elementary Employers' Liability Act, they are told
before a legislative committee that it will harm local
industry. The recent attempts to improve the law in
New York were met by the objection that it would
drive business into New Jersey.
The penalty that we shall pay for these defeats and
delays is almost certain to be an unseasonable demand
in this country for types of socialistic legislation for
which we are not equipped. Our obdurate refusal to
organize proper compensation acts for the victims of
industrial injuries will soon raise the serious cry in
50 THE SOCIAL UNREST
our midst for state pensions. It is safe to predict that
the next considerable business depression will raise
the issue of " old age pensions." Two influences will
hasten this issue : (i) the unjust and bungling charac-
ter of our present laws for indemnifying accidents, and
(2) the rapidity with which men still in middle life are
set aside in favor of young men in many of the great-
est industries. (In the chapter on Machinery the fact
will be considered with proof and more detail.) The
man of fifty, if displaced in time of prosperity, may
find employment, but the moment the demand for
labor is arrested, these evils will show themselves in
every industrial city in the United States. No people
ever mismanaged government pensions with that head-
long and promiscuous wastefulness which has been the
humiliation of our system since the Civil War. Our
wealth has been such that the good-natured extrava-
gance has not despoiled us; but to arrange old age
pensions for workingmen, with a hundredth part of
the recklessness that has marked our pensioning of
soldiers, would bankrupt any workingmen's pension
scheme ever devised.
We have not yet won the administrative habits that
make this vast and delicate responsibility safe. Yet
the premature proposal will be thrust upon us all the
more impetuously, because we refuse to take the first
clear steps to do justly through more adequate com-
pensation acts. The best lesson England has to teach
us in the social question is the steadying and whole-
some reaction of her progressive factory legislation
upon her spirit of industrial unrest. This whole body
of regulative measures has saved her from a revolution ;
it has saved her from any violent form of socialism ;
POLITICS AND BUSINESS 5 1
tempering this sect so that socialist demands in that
country are merely the frontier requisitions of her
advanced politics. 1
A coal operator, at first friendly to the good work
of the Civic Federation, turned later into the most
sarcastic critic, because "the meddling of that body
of theorists brought politics into our business."
" No array of bigwigs," he said, " shall help us run
our business by the help of politics." He insisted
that the trade unions could have been beaten easily
enough but for the impertinence of this political
meddling.
It is true that the political situation of the moment
was used to win that miners' strike of 1900. It is as
true that business administration would be appallingly
embarrassed if, in every row between capital and
labor, hopeful appeal could be made to the politician.
Yet this formidable perplexity has at last been reached
in the United States. Politics, in its proper and larger
definition, will more and more interfere with certain
forms of business. When the public is disturbed enotigh
by strike disorders, it will interfere politically. The
1 For an illustration let the reader turn to Engels's powerful descrip-
tion, "The Condition of the Working Class in England in 1844." If
we except the lurid passages in Carlyle's " Past and Present " and
"Later-Day Pamphlets," and many of the notes in Marx's "Capital," there
is no such terrible arraignment of conditions among the laboring classes
as this book contains. It is a mass of documentary testimony of the
extensive and intensive misery of the laboring classes generally ; but a
misery which has been immeasurably lessened. Charles Kingsley's
stormy resentment against society had its kindling from just such
sources as these. Not twenty years after he had written " his problem
story," " Yeast," the improvement among the workingmen had been so
great that in the fourth edition of this volume the author states frankly
how hopeful a change has taken place.
52 THE SOCIAL UNREST
kind of organization which capital on the one side
and labor on the other has now taken on, renders this
inevitable. Capital is now centralized in producing
and distributing certain products that are in the wid-
est and most common use, like iron, steel, sugar,
meat, and coal. The very definiteness and magnitude
of the organization make it an easy mark for approval
or disapproval. If the consumer thinks himself
aggrieved, he sees clearly the source of his irritation.
There may be wholly legitimate economic causes for
the present rise of beef, but no authoritative and
disinterested statement of this has been made to
the public, and thus the cry rises in every part of
the country that the "government look into the
beef trust," that we have in a word political inter-
ference.
To this same end works the increasing organization
of labor. The very mass and extent of this organi-
zation makes the ignoring of it by the politician im-
possible, if it actively court such recognition. It is
not necessary that labor should try to form an inde-
pendent party. Its power may prove more effective
if its growing political strength is used to extort from
either Democrats or Republicans every advantage it
can gain. Within fifteen years, in countries like
Switzerland, Belgium, and France, labor organization
has compelled a kind of systematic mixing of govern-
ments in industrial affairs. It is but a few years since
a French premier contemptuously refused to entertain
the proposition of government interference with a
strike. He was forced to yield, and from that day to
this politics has played an increasing part in those
special labor contests that bring out the antagonisms
POLITICS AND BUSINESS 53
between political individualism and the ideals of
modern collectivism. 1
As late as 1882, when they were discussing in
France whether the liberty of association should be
granted to trade unions, Leon Say thought the social
question a fad upon which serious statesmen should
waste no time. The last prime minister, Waldeck
Rousseau, set high value upon Monsieur Say's opinion,
following it sedulously, until the socialist vote drove
him to a policy which he pronounced infamous as late
as 1894. In Roanne, in 1895, he told his hearers of
the social destruction threatened by collectivism, " les
ruines qu'il peut faire," 2 and finally before the repub-
lican club, after the fall of the Me"line ministry,
Waldeck-Rousseau warned the party forces against
the first step of compromise with socialists.
Is not this the mission of le Grand Cercle republi-
cain, it was asked, to prevent every affiliation with
collectivist despoilers, and to hold fast republican
principles in their integrity ? It has never ceased to
excite merriment among his enemies that, once in
power, this strong leader should so soon eat his own
words, hasten to the socialists for help, and appoint
one of their best-known leaders, Monsieur Millerand,
as his minister of commerce. No one believes that
the private opinions of Waldeck-Rousseau upon the
merits of the collectivist programme had been trans-
formed. His change of front was forced by the un-
expected rise of a new party in French politics. The
socialist trade union had a membership, in 1890, of
1 President Loubet was recently as busily engaged in trying to settle
a strike as President Roosevelt.
a Discours le 15 novembre.
54 THE SOCIAL UNREST
less than 140,000, in 1899 they numbered nearly
500,000. In 1884 there were not 100 of these asso-
ciations in all France, in 1890 there were 1006, in
1899, 268 5. l Forty of these unions have their own
periodicals, and nearly 600 have established libraries.
Although these unions represent but half the socialist
strength of the country, their clubs are so organized
in hundreds of French cities that they exercise an
influence which no party manager can now ignore.
The president of the Chamber of Deputies, Mon-
sieur Deschanel, is reported to have said, " I owe my
position chiefly to the fact that I had given a dozen
years' hard study to industrial and economic problems,
under the firm conviction that the social question is
the ruling issue of our time."
After two speeches 2 delivered in 1894, it appears
to have been admitted in the Deputies that he was
easily the most competent member to cope with the
new party. He openly admits that socialism repre-
sents a powerful, serious, and growing influence,
which politics must more and more take into account.
Monsieur Deschanel is, perhaps, more critical of
political laissez-faire than he is of collectivism. State
intervention in behalf of the laborer (not merely of
the woman and child, but of the man) he accepts as
a principle that is to have a far wider application.
He believes that such interference may become na-
tional on a far larger scale. He holds that la grande
Industrie has created a new form of pauperism : "a
engendr6 par les chomages une forme nouvelle de pau-
1 L'Annuaire des Syndicate Professionals pour iqoo.
2 " Replique \ Messieurs Millerand et Jaures " and " Le Systeme
Collectiviste."
POLITICS AND BUSINESS 55
p6risme." He recognizes, what his older colleagues
would not see, that the trade union has become a per-
manent part of our industrial life, and should be
welcomed. He calls it the " cellule de 1'organization
nouvelle du travail." He admits every abuse that is
laid at its doors, but insists that with a bold and gen-
erous treatment the trade union will become a power-
ful and conservative influence : " deviendra, entre
des mains plus excretes, un puissant levier de pro-
gres et de justice sociale." l
That socialism as curse or blessing might prove
to be the great fact of the twentieth century, has long
been felt by men of philosophic penetration who
wrote in the spirit of critical observers. I select
those only who looked at this oncoming event with
pronounced aversion, as their testimony will carry
more weight. Two French writers of such eminence
as Edmond Scherer and De Vogiie are both haunted
by the assurance that socialism is creeping upon us
like a great shadow. Nearly twenty years ago Sena-
tor Scherer expressed deep repugnance to socialism,
but wrote, " all signs point to the steady spread of
socialism within a future that we may all live to see." 2
In his acute though sombre study of race struggles
Professor Pearson, out of a singularly large experi-
ence in England and Australia, expresses a like
opinion. This same view appears in the more pre-
1 " La Question Sociale et Le Socialisme;" Discours prononce a
Carmaux le 27 decembre, 1896.
a " La Republique democratique, je ne puis m'empecher de le croire
tend au nivellement des fortunes, elle est condamnee a faire 1'epreuve
du communisme, et la seule chose que nous ayons a nous demander
c'est ce qu'il faut attendre de cette tentative." Edmond Scherer,
" La Democratic et La France," 1883, p. 63.
56 THE SOCIAL UNREST
tentious and widely read book of Benjamin Kidd, 1
and now Edward Dicey of Oxford, in a dirge at the
grave of his own liberal party, sees the gloomy appa-
rition of socialism rising on the horizon.
It is the politics of this party, which Professor Dicey
pronounces dead in England, that has been a scorn-
ful opponent of socialism. More than any other, it
came to be the party of modern capitalism. Yet while
the strength of capitalism is unabated, this party in
country after country has suffered crushing defeats.
In the two countries where socialism has won the
most signal victories, Belgium and Germany, this
party of the "politics of the great industries" has
almost ceased to exist. No modern event of greater
consequence has happened in Europe than the swift
decay of what is known as political liberalism. When
Professor Dicey connects the fall of his party with
the rise of socialism, he indicates the chief event
with which twentieth-century politics will be con-
cerned. This fact cannot be understood apart from
its relation to the industrial forces of our time.
The great market, banking, industrial, and factory
1 Mr. Kidd speaks of " the only social doctrines current in the ad-
vanced societies of to-day, which have the assent of reason, for the
masses are the doctrines of socialism." In his latest book, " Western
Civilization," Mr. Kidd brings the ideals of politics and economics into
one category: "As in politics the movement has been toward equal
political rights, so in economics it is now a movement toward equality
of economic opportunity." He quotes Professor Sidgwick's ethical
postulate, " that the distribution of wealth in a well-ordered state
should aim at realizing political justice." This conscious identifying
of political and industrial ideals is a dangerous ferment for certain
vested interests. Let it become familiar to the common thought, and
some of our sturdiest formulas on "liberty," "property," "rights,"
must be restated.
POLITICS AND BUSINESS 57
centres have created a politics which reflects what
was believed to be their interest. Every successive
industrial type has had its own political form. No
one doubts that the politics peculiar to the Southern
states before the Civil War was made chiefly by the
kind of business carried on there by slaves.
There was in England a landlord politics that car-
ried all before it until the midland manufacturing
cities grew powerful enough to force the landlords to
admit to Parliament those who represented the new
interests of the mill and factory towns. If a few
of the largest businesses of Pennsylvania transpor-
tation, iron, and mining were grouped together, and
then their history faithfully told, we should know the
origin and character of a large part of Pennsylvania
politics. The history of the Boston and Maine Rail-
road in New Hampshire would be at the same time
the mere record of much contemporary politics in that
state. Very nearly all that this railroad wanted has
been recorded politically as the will of the people.
Very little of what the people wanted has been so
recorded, if the demands were thought to run counter
to the interests of this corporation. The great busi-
ness thus not only sets its stamp on politics, it is to a
large extent its creator and controller.
To admit that political liberalism the distinctive
party of capitalism has been routed in the most
highly developed countries of Europe, is to admit
;hat capitalism itself, as hitherto managed, is under
criticism. This appears with still more significance as
we note the tendency of commercial interests to unite
those who have been heretofore in opposing political
parties. In Belgium, where the social question has
58 THE SOCIAL UNREST
become intense, thousands of business men, who were
formerly liberals, now vote with the conservatives
because business has been frightened by the rise of
socialism. Even in our country the half-conscious
socialism known as populism has so far developed as
to drive the conservative and well-to-do democrats of
the Cleveland, Whitney, and Olney type so close
to the republican party, that much ingenuity is re-
quired to prove any important and lasting difference
between the two traditional foes.
At the South, the banker, the manufacturer, the
railroad man, now tell you with no hesitation that
his democratic sympathies are gone, that his real
interests are with the republicans. In Norfolk,
Virginia, I was told by a man with generations of
democratic traditions in his blood, " Practically every
successful business man of my acquaintance would
leave the democratic party if it were not for the
abnormal situation which the negro question imposes
upon us. The socialistic nonsense in the democratic
party has shown thousands of men in the South that
they do not belong among the democrats." Every
mill and factory, every railroad and other large cor-
poration, established at the South, will increase this
political sympathy with "the party of great interests."
The analogy between our republican party and the
dying liberalism of Europe is extremely imperfect
unless the splendid origin of both parties is forgotten.
There is far more truth than error in the analogy, if
we have in view merely what these parties finally
came to be. The Belgian liberals, for instance, repre-
sented large capitalistic industries. They wanted to
be left alone. They were solemn in their protests
POLITICS AND BUSINESS 59
against " interference," whether of state or the trade
unions.
Only the ruins of this party are now left. Socialist
aggression has driven the vested property interests
into one common political alliance for self-defence.
We are now entering into this same experience.
To the extent that the republican party is notori-
ously affiliated with leading business enterprises,
banking, transportation, and the great production,
to the extent that these enterprises are uniting men
of both party traditions against a vague and fumbling
socialism, the comparison holds good.
Discontent with the actual industrial order is now
organized politically as it is in Europe, and every
force active among us will add to its strength. Its
beginnings are thus far very humble. Periods of
unusual prosperity will hold it in check, but at each
collapse of the business boom this new idea will but
fasten the more strongly upon the imagination and
the purposes of multitudes of the American people.
Mr. Gladstone is quoted as saying that the chief
event of his time was the increasing identification of
politics with social questions. Eight years ago Lord
Rosebery said, " I am certain that there is a party
in this country, unnamed as yet, that is disconnected
with any existing political organizations a party
that is inclined to say ' a plague on both your houses,
a plague on all your politics, a plague on all your
unending discussions that yield so little fruit.' " (St.
James's Hall, March 21, I8Q4.) 1
1 " Now, I dare say the time may come it may come sooner than
some think when the liberal party will be transformed or superseded
by some new party." John Morley, Newcastle, May 21, 1894.
60 THE SOCIAL UNREST
The party is not yet formed, but if we may believe
so acute and competent a scholar of world politics as
Mr. Dicey, " liberalism " is a thing of the past and
socialism a fatality of the future.
What is likely to strengthen this collectivist sym-
pathy is the advent of the "trust." The process
of consolidating large, separate concerns is easy to
justify in theory and by analogies from economic
development. It seems more than probable that
these giant enterprises will eventually adjust them-
selves to the needs of a world-commerce. But
meantime two eventful results cannot be averted.
The trust is destined (i) to arouse and intensify
socialistic sentiment among classes to which social-
ism has hitherto been an object of ridicule. Noth-
ing can now prevent the development of a new
habit of appealing to the state and government
to extend its authority over these colossal under-
takings.
The trust will (2) accustom the people to bring poli-
tics into the industrial field. The huge overcapitali-
zation, the taking and giving of social privileges, the
method of organization so exclusively from the stock
exchange point of view, with its excesses of specula-
tion, are all calculated to play, with disquieting effect,
on the popular imagination. The incidental evils
bound to follow these hurried aggregations of capital
cannot quickly enough be brought under control.
Long intervening years must pass before the trust
can prove safe for the humbler class of investors.
Popular approval will never be secured until these
open and obvious advantages are assured. Capital-
istic abuses have had one sure defence in the past
POLITICS AND BUSINESS 6 1
behind which the trust cannot hide itself. The pub-
lic eye is fastened upon it by its very bigness.
It has never yet been possible to concentrate the
critical discontent definitely enough upon commercial
abuses. There has been no end of railing against the
corporations, but the people have taken these charges
very closely at their proper value. As long as the
vilification of corporations is indiscriminate, the com-
mon sense of the people will discount it for the plain
reason that thousands of corporations (like our New
England mills and factories) are fairly law-abiding
and bring benefits to millions of our inhabitants.
They are known to be as free from evil practices as
any phase of our institutional life. To lump these
business organizations into one common object for
cursing is not merely unwise, it is dangerous in that
it muddles every issue upon which reform of real
evils must depend. As long as obloquy is put upon
corporations in general, the lawless ones are safe.
Their percentage of the contumely is lightly borne.
With the advent of the "trust" a new stage in
popular judgments has been reached. The old hesi-
tation about fixing responsibilities for evils, real and
supposed, will continue until business ills again beset
us. In that stress, scores of the weaker combinations
will collapse and even the strongest be hard driven
to meet the responsibilities incurred by their mon-
strous capitalization. These days will be the days of
reckoning for the capitalistic holders. There will be
much unfairness in this popular judgment. The
trust has come, upon the whole, as inevitably as the
partnership came in its time, or as the corporation
began to appear at the end of the eighteenth century.
62 THE SOCIAL UNREST
Yet all that can be said for the " naturalness " of
this trust evolution will not shield it from one outbreak
of hostile censure. Thus far there has been a holding
of the breath at the rapidity and magnitude of trust
formation. The stupendous scale of it has impressed
the imagination as no other event in our industrial
history : methods, salaries, managers, promoters, all
are thrust into such fierce light and prominence that
popular attention will become very embarrassing in
that less prosperous period when all the capitalized
expectations have to be fulfilled. This element of
conspicuousness ought, in theory, to sober those who
conduct these enterprises. The very rights under
which they do business are granted to them by the
state. In season and out of season, they have told
the public that the gathering of various firms and cor-
porations into one unified association enabled them
to make extraordinary economies by which the con-
sumer must profit. Can we think that intelligent
men will create these expectations and then anger
the people by higher prices ? If they prove unable
to make economies that the public can share, their
combination will be pronounced a failure ; if they
can make economies but refuse to share them in
cheapened products, the public will be more critical
still.
The most popular error, however, is to judge the
trust on its business side alone. It has to undergo
another ordeal before public opinion. The trust
comes into the industrial struggle with privileges and
powers greater than ever have been exercised in the
world's commerce. To use these powers with such
prudence and fairness as not to outrage the sentiment
POLITICS AND BUSINESS 63
of the community, will prove the severest test to
which these combinations must submit. It is too
soon to say what their influence is to be upon a great
multitude of small independent business concerns.
Is life to be made harder for these, or are they also
to have some part in " the higher stage of evolution "
which the trust is said to represent ? That the trust
will throw out of work armies of men, as we are
often told, is probably untrue, but will it slowly put
an army of the more modest independent men into
dependent clerical positions ? It may be said that
this is unavoidable, that it is progress and in the long
run socially best ; but that it would create a new class
of malcontents in American life is very certain.
The most concrete impulse that now favors social-
ism in this country is the inane purpose to deprive
labor organizations of the full and complete rights
that go with federated unionism. Capitalism claims
and gets what it refuses to labor. One of the gran-
dees in the business world, who has publicly insisted
upon "the rights of labor to organize," was asked in
my hearing if he were favorable to trade unionism.
" Yes," he said, " I have always been its friend,
but of course the union must be taught its proper
place. It has nothing to do with the employer's
business. If it dictates, it is out of its sphere. It
ought to confine itself to mutual helpfulness, burial
funds, and the like." Of this kind of good will to
organized labor employers have abundance, yet it may
conceal an absolute and settled aversion to every
real object for which the trade union stands. This
gentleman had an honest loathing for the actual
trade union when it gained strength enough to offer
64 THE SOCIAL UNREST
him the alternative of arbitration or of a strike. He
had an imagined affection for a ladylike association
which " knew its place," that is, which never ques-
tioned his own absolute dictatorship. He was fond
of saying: "There is no place for arbitration in my
works, because I pay all that the business will afford.
If they ask me to arbitrate, it is like taking me by
the throat. With a highwayman there can be no
arbitration."
This is upon the whole the attitude of the business
managers in four-fifths of our unionized industries.
From the point of view of capitalist supremacy this
attitude has one threatening feature.
This enmity of capital to the trade union is watched
with glee by every intelligent socialist in our midst.
Every union that is beaten or discouraged in its
struggle is ripening fruit for socialism. We have
pleased ourselves by repeating, parrotlike, "such
socialism as we have in the United States is wholly
of foreign origin." A few years ago this explanation
accounted fairly well for the facts. No close observer
can any longer consider it an explanation. The con-
ditions out of which socialism grows are working with
increasing power in our midst, and they do not con-
veniently select those only who speak broken English,
or were bred among "the tyrannies of the old world."
Let unionism receive from capital a severe and dam-
aging blow, and socialism will bear henceforth, not a
foreign but a distinctively American stamp.
This process has already begun. Strong trade-union
cities, like Brockton and Haverhill in Massachusetts,
to the general bewilderment, elect workingmen social-
ist mayors. Their hold is thus far slight. These
POLITICS AND BUSINESS 65
socialists were dropped after two years in office, but
in both cities the sentiment which elected them is far
stronger and more confident than in 1898-1899. In
other manufacturing towns like Rockland, it becomes
each year more aggressive. In 1902, it sends a third
representative to the State House, while manufactur-
ing cities in Plymouth County give an enormous vote
for a socialist state senator. 1 Among the causes
which have brought these changes is the purpose of
employers to cripple the trade unions. It may be by
forcing piece-work so that wages are kept low ; or by
introducing a new machine like the " laster " without
consulting or propitiating the union whose wage scale
is revolutionized by the new process. That which
teaches a union that it cannot succeed as a union
turns it toward socialism. In long strikes in towns
like Marlboro and Brookfield strong unions are de-
feated. Hundreds of men leave these towns for
shoe-centres like Brockton, where they are now voting
the socialist ticket. The socialist mayor of this city
tells me, " The men who come to us now from towns
where they have been thoroughly whipped ir. a strike
are among our most active working socialists" The
bitterness engendered by this sense of defeat turned
to politics, as it will throughout the whole country,
if organization of labor is deprived of its rights.
When the socialist Chase was made mayor of
Haverhill, the ablest local " capitalistic " paper made
this comment :
1 As this goes to press, December 4th, the returns from Brockion
show that with the reelection of the socialist mayor by a strong major-
ity, eight city councillors, three aldermen, and two members of the
school board, all socialists, are also elected.
F
66 THE SOCIAL UNREST
"Now that the municipal election of 1898 has
passed into history, those who profess horror of so-
cialistic teachings may with advantage to themselves
and benefit to the community study the election returns
with anxious solicitude. They will find therein food
for thought. The vote of yesterday means far more
than the bare figures indicate. It comes as a solemn
warning that the people are dissatisfied with conditions
which make for their political degradation ; that they
have grown impatient of low wages and lack of em-
ployment, ar.d may be counted upon in the future to
act independently of all political] parties unless there
be a change both of methods and of men in the legis-
lative chambers of nation, state, and city. Is it any
wonder these people have lost confidence in the hon-
esty of those chosen to direct their affairs when they
see piling up on every side immense aggregations
of wealth which is used to control the necessaries of
life, while their daily wage grows smaller ? "
These ire puny beginnings. Our social democracy
is still too much at sea to put before the people
a clear aid coherent statement of principles. These
are, however, slowly taking shape, while the plat-
form of our conventional politicians, like that of
European liberalism, drifts year by year into phrase-
making that shows upon its face the fatal lack of
great and positive purpose. The conventional poli-
tics has reached that first stage of decay the apolo-
getic and defensive attitude. The new politics of the
social democracy has, at least, the spirit of positive
and creative action.
As the attenuated difference between republican
and " Qeveland democrat " disappears, conservative
POLITICS AND BUSINESS 6/
and large property interests, careless of party tradi-
tions, will band together against this common foe.
Our first need is to know how to meet the new occa-
sions which this appeal to the state brings with it.
An attempt is made in the following chapters to
throw light on the most important phases of the strug
gle upon which we are entering. I believe that recent
developments of socialism and trade unionism in
this country furnish all the guidance we require
both as to temper and method of coping with them.
Before passing to this more definite investigation
of the socialist programme, certain preliminary in-
quiries must be made as to the nature of the " social
question," and the real purpose of those who attatk
the present industrial order. Our first inquiry shoul
be directed to the primary fact of discontent. No
age ever had a social question apart from some
deep undercurrent of exasperated sentiment against
the prevailing social order. There is in our age no
more " social question " than there is discontent with
the kind of society in which we live. The extent
and nature of this unrest is therefore our immediate
concern.
CHAPTER III
THE SOCIAL UNREST
WHAT we call rather loosely the social question has
its invariable origin in some form or degree of popu-
lar discontent. It is the purpose of this chapter to
analyze the nature of our own social unrest ; to mark
some of its more undeniable tendencies ; to ask if it
is growing, or, if not growing, is it taking on any
threatening peculiarity to justify alarm ? Can it be
maintained that ours is an unrest different in any
essential from the ferment which for centuries has
stirred the heart and the imagination of humanity ?
In the current literature on social and industrial ques-
tions nothing, even by economists of repute, is more
commonly asserted.
The interpretation of the unrest (does it bode good
or ill ?) varies with the mood of the writer. To one
it augurs the approach of swift-footed evils ; to another
each industrial struggle foretells the birth of a more
robust society. Whatever the interpretation, it is in
the interest of clearness to get first some light upon
the inquiry : Is the unrest now deeper than that which
has marked the aspiration of most Western races ?
There is much to' make us believe that primitive
peoples everywhere are fairly content. However
68
THE SOCIAL UNREST 69
hard and pinched their condition, it does not become
a source of chronic agitation for social progress.
Neither do we associate discontent with oriental
life and tradition. Religion and custom unite to
soothe these dreaming millions into acquiescence.
One country offers just now an exception. In Japan
the spell is broken. For her making or unmaking,
the current we call civilization has borne her from
her moorings. Her religion is now to imitate the
West. She is impatient for railroads, for the stock
exchange, for mills, for electric plants, for markets,
and alas ! for naval and military furnishings to further
and protect the new ventures. All this gets our
praise. We say : " Japan is at last waking from a
sleep. It is ' enterprise,' the beginning of great
things." At the very start observers are telling us
the price these people are to pay for their huckster-
ing in the world market. The very daintiest of her
gifts are being despoiled : the capacity to work and
live with a quiet spirit; a grace and gentleness of
manner that make our civilized behavior rude and
awkward in comparison ; and most grievous of all,
the quick decay of her exquisite art. The undis-
turbed leisure for loving and perfect workmanship
is already so blighted that the very hope of pre-
serving it is in peril. Some far-off compensation
for these losses will doubtless come, meantime the
message from Japan is that she presents an easy
object lesson of a people passing rapidly from the
relative content of the East to the hustling self-
assertion of the West. We shall henceforth in-
evitably associate Japan with the discontent of
progress.
70 THE SOCIAL UNREST
All progress thus carries with it its own disquie-
tude. Where the highest pace is set, there discontent
with actual achievement appears to be keenest. No
age, for instance, has ever poured out such wealth of
energy upon education as our own ; none has ever
tried so hard, or paid so lavishly, to carry to the
whole people every form of intellectual opportunity,
yet never in history was critical discontent with edu-
cation so captious and all-pervasive as at present.
A well-known English educator reading a mass of
recent books and articles by the more prominent of
our teachers, and attending several important edu-
cational meetings, has just said, " One would think by
the vehemence of the criticism that education in the
United States was in the last stages of deterioration."
Even if unrest has grown, it need not of course
imply discouragement. A period or a people wholly
free from the hungers which break into expressions
of discontent would be characterized as lacking the
first elements of vigorous and hardy life. Dates like
that of the English reform movement of 1832 recall
times of unusual agitation, nevertheless no one would
deny to these brave days the inspiration of immense
social development. The more general outbreak of
1 848 brought with it deeper turmoil still, yet many of
the most hopeful changes which we associate with
race improvement date from this revolutionary epoch.
Modern history is crowded with upheavals ; the Peas-
ants' Revolt of the fourteenth century ; the economic
disturbances in England in the sixteenth century ;
and again, what is known as the Industrial Revolu-
tion, that began in the latter part of the eighteenth
century and extended far into the nineteenth. Our
THE SOCIAL UNREST 71
own present uneasiness, thrown upon this intenser
background, appears tame and colorless. Compared
with the Reformation, our spirit of protest is fitful and
uncertain, while if comparison is made between our
own generation and the generation that closed the
eighteenth century in Europe, with its volcanic shocks
of revolution, we are stolid and well-behaved. In
current discussion upon religious, educational, and
political topics, no phrase is more certain to be used
than this, " Yes, but we are living in an age of tran-
sition," implying that the peculiar instability of things
at the present moment is exceptional. So far as the
phrase has any significance, it can mean only that
certain events, upon which the eye is fixed, are mov-
ing with quickened step. Yet who could select a
decade since the landing at Jamestown that was not
a " time of transition " ?
The claim is still insistent that our agitations are
exceptional and full of perils. It is therefore wiser to
challenge the facts ; to see if possible what truth the
claim contains. Far-off periods will be avoided.
They offer too many pitfalls for misleading analo-
gies. There is even danger in appeals to other coun-
tries, because too many differences of race and
circumstance are introduced.
We turn therefore to our own home records, select-
ing for comparison events and years enough to make
a basis for calculation. Discontent continuous in
intensity is found at no time and among no people.
From the earliest of our permanent settlements its
fevers are chronic, alternating with periods of con-
scious rest and well-being. Before the middle of the
72 THE SOCIAL UNREST
seventeenth century social life in America was too
new and too unstable to offer safe illustrations. A
better beginning may be made with the Virginia col-
ony after its destiny is so far fixed that there is no
thought of abandoning this country. To the extent
that it can be done with fairness, those special causes
of unrest that have much in common with our own
troubles will be chosen.
What signs are at hand to-day of more extreme
uneasiness than those observable in the South during
a large part of Berkeley's reign, from 1661, includ-
ing the outbreak known as Bacon's Rebellion ? The
cause of the poor against the rich had great part in
that picturesque hero's plucky fight. Theft and ex-
tortion by those in power were notorious. Those
in high places became rapidly rich, and the people
were cruelly overtaxed. There had been a period of
business depression more distressing than any known
in our time. There was political and business cor-
ruption that no Tammany brave would now dream of
venturing. Heady attacks on property were the or-
der of the day, and one charge against Bacon's fol-
lowers was that they were a " lawless rabble poisoned
by communistic notions." J
The years preceding the Rebellion were such as
are commonly called "hard times." People felt poor
and saw fortunes made by corrupt officials ; the fault
was with the Navigation Act and with the debauched
civil service of Charles II. and Berkeley. Besides
these troubles which were common to all, the poorer
people felt oppressed by taxation in regard to which
they seemed to get no service in return.
1 " Old Virginia and her Neighbors," p. 104.
THE SOCIAL UNREST 73
The worst of present-day monopolies are mild
when compared to those through which the English
merchants robbed the Virginians. To the economic
troubles must be added religious and educational com-
plaints. To their demands for schools and greater free-
dom in the pulpit, Berkeley replied : " The ministers
should pray oftener and preach less. But, I thank
God, there are no free schools nor printing; and I
hope we shall not have these hundred years; for
learning has brought disobedience and heresy and
sects into the world, and printing has divulged them,
and libels against the best government. God keep
us from both." Berkeley's own private monopoly
with the Indians was one of the causes that led to the
"rebellion." The monopoly of his successor, Cul-
peper, bore still more heavily on the people. The
falsifying of elections by the sheriffs against a free
white people was as flagrant as that of our own day
in Southern states against the negroes.
If we turn to the North, in 1686, when Sir Edmund
Andros came as governor to New England, the at-
mosphere is charged with the same distempers.
The rights of property were so invaded, according
to Increase Mather, that no man could call any-
thing his own. Danforth wrote, " Our condition is
little inferior to absolute slavery." When the people
pleaded for habeas corpus and the simple rights of
Magna Charta, Andros asked with a gibe, " Do you
believe Joe and Tom may tell the king what money
he may have ? " His secretary complains that little
money is to be got out of the country, because it has
been squeezed dry by those who preceded Sir Edmund.
With Dudley censor of the press, the general court
74 THE SOCIAL UNREST
abolished, the assembling of a town meeting made an
act of sedition, it is certain that to those then living,
the times seemed big with dangers.
The generation following this period brings us
well into the eighteenth century. A time of pros-
perity culminates about 1740. Bancroft speaks of
it as " marked by the unrivalled prosperity of the
colonies." It would be unfair to select illustrations
of special unrest during the disturbance of the colo-
nies by the French and English wars that immediately
follow. Before these confusions had passed, the tur-
moil of the struggle for independence had already
begun. The war spaces are too exceptional to offer
fair instances of comparative unrest. The Revolu-
tion of 1776 will therefore be omitted.
Of the ten years that precede the Revolution and
the ten that follow the peace of 1783 one may speak
with confidence. It is doubtful if in recent times we
have felt any such measure of anxiety.
McMaster writes : " The year 1786 in all the states
was one of unusual distress. The crops had indeed
been good. In many places the yield had been great.
Yet the farmers murmured, and not without cause,
that their wheat and their corn were of no more use
to them than so many bushels of stones, that produce
rotted on their hands. That while their barns were
overflowing, their pockets were empty. That when
they wanted clothes for their families, they were com-
pelled to run from village to village to find a cobbler
who would take wheat for shoes, and a trader who
would give everlasting in exchange for pumpkins.
Money became scarcer and scarcer every week. In
the great towns the lack of it was severely felt. Bui
THE SOCIAL UNREST 75
in the country places it was with difficulty that a few
pistareens and coppers could be scraped together
toward paying the state's quota of the interest on the
national debt.
" A few summed up their troubles in a general
way, and declared the times were hard. Others
protested that the times were well enough, but the
people were grown extravagant and luxurious. For
this, it was said, the merchants were to blame.
There were too many merchants. There were too
many attorneys. Money was scarce. Money was
plenty. Trade was languishing. Agriculture was
fallen into decay. Manufactures should be encour-
aged. Paper should be put out.
" One shrewd observer complained that his country-
men had fallen away sadly from those simple tastes
which were the life-blood of republics. It was dis-
tressing to see a thrifty farmer shaking his head and
muttering that taxes were ruining him at the very
moment his three daughters, who would have been
much better employed at the spinning-wheel, were
being taught to caper by a French dancing master.
It was pitiable to see a great lazy, lounging, lubberly
fellow sitting days and nights in a tippling house,
working perhaps two days in a week, receiving
double the wages he really earned, spending the rest
of his time in riot and debauch, and, when the tax-
collector came round, complaining of the hardness of
the times and the want of a circulating medium. Go
into any coffee-house of an evening, and you were
sure to overhear some fellow exclaiming, " Such
times ! no money to be had ! taxes high ! no business
doing ! we shall all be broken men." 1
1 " History of the United States," Vol. II., p. 180.
76 THE SOCIAL UNREST
Another form of discontent, that which appears in
times of recognized prosperity, asserts itself early in
Jefferson's administration at the opening of the cen-
tury, with an enduring venom and vindictiveness that
is difficult in these days to understand. In the last
letter that Hamilton ever wrote, are words that tell
what it was that filled the respectability of the time
with a kind of panic " our real disease, which is
democracy."
The analogy of this period with our own has many
startling points of likeness if the analogy is not over-
pressed. Professor Henry Adams says that men
with cool heads like Rufus King and Hamilton, men
like Judge Tracy, Cabot, Pickering, Ames, and Gris-
wold, were tormented with a sense of coming crisis
which " overhung these wise and virtuous men like
the gloom of death." " Scores of clergymen in the
pulpit, numberless politicians in Congress, had made
no other use of their leisure than to point out, step by
step, every succeeding stage of the coming decline.
The catastrophe was no longer far away, it was actu-
ally about them, they touched and felt it at every
moment of their lives. Society held together merely
because it knew not what else to do." 1
At present the fear has frequent expression that
a victory of the democratic party would be followed
by attacks upon the higher courts. A century ago
this anxiety was far keener than it now is. The
democratic attack upon the courts in Jefferson's day
as " creatures of the aristocrats," as " corrupt " and
" irresponsible to the people," surpasses in unquali-
fied virulence anything that Mr. Debs has ever ut-
1 " History of the United States," Vol. VII., p. 68.
THE SOCIAL UNREST 77
tered. Judge Chase of the Supreme Bench looked
upon these animosities against the judiciary as the
most threatening event in our history. Property, he
thought, would soon be without defence, and personal
liberty pass away before the reign of the mob. In
Baltimore, in 1803, he said:
"The independence of the national judiciary is
now shaken to its foundations. Our republican Con-
stitution will sink into a mobocracy the worst of
all possible governments. . . . The modern doctrines
of our late reformers, that all men, in a state of
society, are entitled to enjoy equal liberty and equal
rights, have brought this mischief upon us ; and I
fear it will rapidly progress until peace and order, free-
dom and property, shall be destroyed." *
In the eyes of Josiah Quincy, the strongest repre-
sentative in Congress from Massachusetts, " Jefferson
was a transparent fraud, his followers were dupes or
ruffians, and the nation was hastening to a fatal
crisis." 2
When he arrived in Washington, Mr. Quincy tells
us that his abhorrence of Jefferson was such that he
would not even accept the invitation that came to
him to dine at the White House. " I regarded him
as a snake in the grass, the more dangerous for the
oily, wily language with which he lubricated his
victims and applied his venom." 3
It is difficult to point out a single menace to our
political or industrial life that has not been an object
of dismay and pessimistic solicitude throughout our
1 Adams, " History of the United States," Vol. II., p. 149.
2 Vol. IV., p. 422.
8 " Life of Josiah Quincy," by Edmund Quincy, p. 88.
78 THE SOCIAL UNREST
earlier history. It is, for instance, widely believed
at present that the rage for speculation, stimulated
by the growth of trusts, carries with it dangers that
are new and peculiar in their gravity. There is much
truth in this, but the dangers of speculation are not
new. The volume of business has now reached such
magnitude, it has become so concentrated, and its
manipulations on the market are so advertised, that
the game is visible to every eye. In the earlier times
there was no such record, but speculation in its most
questionable sense appears to have seized about every
chance that offered in those days.
Large portions of charitable, religious, and educa-
tional funds were formerly raised by gambling in
lotteries. Is it likely that an age which gave such
sanction to this "race hunger" should be less apt
than we of the present to display the gambling in-
stinct in new business ventures ? We know what
a field for this gaming impulse our railroad building
has offered; but it may be seen just as vividly a
century ago in the making of common toll-roads.
After the success of the " turnpike " between Lan-
caster and Philadelphia, there was an outbreak of
reckless speculation in roads and canals precisely
similar to the wild work in railroad enterprises after
our war of 1861. The industrial betting field was
much narrower and stakes were smaller, but the
people were as eager for unearned gains then as
now. The Revolution of 1776 was followed by all
the gambling which new ventures at that time
afforded. Lotteries to build roads and bridges were
common. The general government was appealed
to on every hand to help out these local schemes.
THE SOCIAL UNREST 79
Chartered companies to deal in the stocks of turn-
pike corporations were started early in the century
by hundreds. Even Vermont had twenty-six and
New Hampshire twenty in 1810. A year later New
York had one hundred and eighty. The crying need
of that time was cheaper transportation. To haul
a single ton of freight from Pittsburg to Philadelphia
cost $125. What, at its best, was the spirit of enter-
prise, and at its worst the instinct of the gamester,
went into these various schemes. There was as
much gambling as there was opportunity to gamble,
and ruin followed its reckless indulgence then, as it
follows it now.
In 1896, when Mr. Bryan was presidential candi-
date, the majority of our "strong and safe men"
were everywhere telling us what calamities would
troop in upon us if he were elected. The hungry
mob that would follow at his heels were sure to work
ruin in every business interest in the country.
A century ago when Jefferson became president
the entire conclave of scholars, as well as the whole
business world of New England, was horrified at the
prospect of political control by the common people.
At a New York dinner, Hamilton's words were,
"Your people, sir, your people is a great beast."
The most brilliant spokesman of New England re-
spectability, Fisher Ames, said in 1803 that the coun-
try had become "too big for union, too sordid for
patriotism, too democratic for liberty." The gloom
had deepened in 1808, when he could say:
" Our days are made heavy with the pressure of
anxiety, and our nights restless with visions of hor-
ror. We listen to the clank of chains, and overhear
80 THE SOCIAL UNREST
the whispers of assassins. We mark the barbarous
dissonance of mingled rage and triumph in the yell
of an infuriated mob; we see the dismal glare of
their burnings, and scent the loathsome steam of
human victims offered in sacrifice." Few knew New
England as President Dwight of Yale College knew
it. Yet he could write, " We have a country gov-
erned by blockheads and knaves ; . . . can the im-
agination paint anything more dreadful on this side
hell?" 1 Every federal newspaper in 1803 had this
passage, which Professor Adams says was "one ex-
ample among a thousand neither more extravagant
nor more treasonable than the rest" :
" A democracy is scarcely tolerable at any period
of national history. Its omens are always sinister,
and its powers are unpropitious. It is on its trial
here, and the issue will be civil war, desolation, and
anarchy. No wise man but discerns its imperfections,
no good man but shudders at its miseries, no honest
man but proclaims its fraud, and no brave man but
draws his sword against its force. The institution
of a scheme of policy so radically contemptible and
vicious is a memorable example of what the villany
of some men can devise, the folly of others receive,
and both establish in spite of reason, reflection, and
sensation." 2
Even the saintly Channing, already preaching the
new hope for humanity, and breaking with religious
tradition, as Jefferson had broken with political tra-
dition, showed an alarm as if chaos were at hand.
In the Fast Day sermon of 1810, he says : "We live
1 Channing, "United States of America," p. 166.
2 " History of the United States," Vol. I., p. 85.
THE SOCIAL UNREST 8 1
in times which have no parallel in past ages ; in
times when the human character has almost assumed
a new form ; in times of peculiar calamity, of thick
darkness, and almost of despair. . . . The danger
is so vast, so awful, and so obvious, that the blind-
ness, the indifference, which prevail, argue infatua-
tion, and give room for apprehension that nothing
can rouse us to those efforts by which alone the
danger can be averted."
If the opinion of twenty of the wealthiest and best-
known of the citizens of New England had been asked
at any time during the two administrations of Jeffer-
son, and probably of Madison as well, it is safe to
say that eighteen of them would have thought the
country going to the dogs.
We should not lend a serious ear to any contem-
porary who gave expression to such hysterical fore-
bodings as these. Whatever the peril that lurks in
the trust, in plutocracy, in imperialism, we refuse to
go to the length of sheer consternation that these
dignified ancestors honestly felt.
One real difference between the misgivings of that
day and those of our own concerns religion. The
fears to-day are business fears. In 1800 they were
also religious. The only heresy that is now dreaded is
economic. Religious heresy is no longer an offence.
No one objects even to political heresy further than
it implies an attack on some cherished form of prop-
erty. In 1800, the anathema lay against the supposed
infidel and the Jacobin democrat. To-day it lies
against the socialist, the aim of whose politics is
radically to change the present forms of property
ownership.
82 THE SOCIAL UNREST
After the good times of 1815, the unrest again
changes its form. Extreme distress and consequent
bitterness are at hand, which we cannot match in
this generation.
The obdurate delusion that money can be printed
off " to meet the wants of the people " played havoc
then as it does still among us. The general fury
rose against the banks and against the " rich who
padded themselves about with luxury." The misery
extended "from New York and Pennsylvania westward
to the Mississippi and southward to Tennessee." In
Philadelphia, where 9672 men had been employed in
certain industries in 1816, 7500 had been discharged
in 1819. This city was not exceptional. From a
country town 27 properties in land were sold at
one time by the sheriff. "All over the North the
people were meeting, complaining, organizing, and
petitioning Congress and their state legislatures."
"The larger part of the people, even with the ut-
most economy, could hardly obtain the very neces-
saries of life ; debts were unpaid, creditors dissatisfied,
and the jails full of honest but unfortunate persons
whose wives and children thereby became a burden on
the township." After describing the evils in Ken-
tucky, McMaster adds, " In the newly made state of
Missouri the condition was, if possible, worse." In
New York and Philadelphia there was a series of
public meetings to devise means to cope with the
dangers. The fourth volume of McMaster devotes
an entire chapter to the " Pauperism and Crime " that
followed this period. " Never," he says, " in the his-
tory of our country had the sufferings of the depend-
ent and unfortunate classes been so forcibly and
THE SOCIAL UNREST 83
persistently brought to the attention of the public,
for never before had so many worthy citizens been
reduced to want.
" Hundreds were glad to work for 37 and even 25
cents a day in winter, who in spring and summer could
earn 62^ or perhaps 87^ cents by toiling fourteen hours.
On the canals and turnpikes $15 a month and found
in summer and one-third that sum in winter were
considered good pay. In truth, it was not uncommon
during the winter for men to work for their board.
Nothing but perfect health, steady work, sobriety,
the strictest economy, and the help of his wife could
enable a married man to live on such wages. But
the earnings of women were lower yet. Many trades
and occupations now open to them, either had no
existence or were then confined to men. They might
bind shoes, sew rags, fold and stitch books, become
spoolers, or make coarse shirts and duck pantaloons
at 8 or 10 cents apiece. Shirt-making was eagerly
sought after, because the garments could be made in
the lodgings of the seamstress, who was commonly
the mother of a little family and often a widow.
Yet the most expert could not finish more than nine
shirts a week, for which she would receive 72 or 90
cents. Fifty cents seems to have been the average.
" To the desperate poverty produced by such wages
many evils were attributed. Intemperance was en-
couraged, children were sent into the streets to beg
and pilfer, and young girls were driven to lives of
shame to an extent which, but for the report of the
Magdalene Society in New York and the action of
the people elsewhere, would be incredible."
Among the twelve demands made before 1830, the
84 THE SOCIAL UNREST
following have great prominence : " the right to the
soil," "down with monopolies," "no imprisonment
for debt," the " abolition of chattel slavery and wage
slavery."
The working hours per day in one Connecticut
mill were fifteen, and this was no exception. One in
Paterson, New Jersey, required women and children
to be at work at half-past four in the morning.
What would Lowell weavers say to-day if they were
forced by their employers to attend church on pen-
alty of dismissal, and be taxed, moreover, to support
religion ?
Once more let the comparison be made between
the present and a time still within living memory,
roughly, from 1830 to 1838. The fault-finding with
existing institutions was wide and bitter. At that
time, moreover, what we call " the labor question "
had come to very distinct consciousness. Discon-
tent among workingmen led to the formation of
a political party in New York as early as 1829. In
their resolutions, Henry George was anticipated in
the opening paragraph, "The appropriation of the
soil of the state to private and exclusive possession
was eminently and barbarously unjust." In Art. 3,
" the hereditary transmission of wealth " is considered
as one of the causes of the prevailing poverty and
distress. Or, in their own words, "a prime source
of all our calamities." They insist that all the evils
of the feudal system were upon them. The move-
ment was vigorous enough to establish newspapers
in at least four states. In 1832 a convention was
held in Boston, represented by delegates from six
different states. The " evils of monopoly " was a
THE SOCIAL UNREST 85
topic of discussion, and among the lectures organ-
ized by the trade unions a few years later, " Cor-
porations " is on the list of their subjects. The
contemporary records are so full and explicit that
one who has been taught that labor troubles have
arisen, for the most part, since the Civil War, has
utterly to shift his perspective. There were many
and bitter strikes. There was a labor party, a re-
form party, and an anti-monopolist party. There
were indictments for conspiracy against trade unions.
Two thousand men were " in line for agitation " in
Boston in 1834. The "scab" was then a terror to
the trade union and received, not infrequently, very
brutal treatment. In the same year, in Massachu-
setts, nearly three thousand women were on strike.
The still earlier agitation for ten hours was accom-
panied not only by strikes, but by such lawlessness
as to bring out the militia. Perhaps the most dis-
tinguished French economist of his time, Chevalier,
just then upon a visit to the United States, expresses
great surprise at these events.
If we turn from the general to the more special
grounds of dissatisfaction, it is difficult to select any
present symbol of irritation that cannot be mated in
the past. In Washington before a private committee
of the Senate I listened to a plea of trade-union rep-
resentatives that the " injunction " be prevented. The
chief spokesman said it was " new in our history '
and " had come with the recent domination of great
corporations." Yet the literature which workingmen
have themselves brought out shows how long they
have been harried by the courts in time of strikes.
The common English law, a century ago, held rigidly
86 THE SOCIAL UNREST
against " dangerous labor combinations " and " labor
conspiracies," nor was there the slightest hesitation
in its enforcement. This was, of course, not the " in-
junction " as we know it, but the conspiracy laws were
no less vexatious to organized labor.
The Philadelphia " cordwainers " were trained in
the tactics of the strike. They had raised their wages
until, in 1805, they were thought to be ruinous to the
employer. The strike in that year brought them
before the courts, where they received severe sentence
for conspiracy. The boycott was common in these
early conflicts. The New York shoemakers com-
pelled the journeyman coming to the city to join their
union. If he refused and took work in another shop,
a strike was ordered against that shop. If an em-
ployer had an apprentice not belonging to the union
(a scab), the union would forthwith order a strike. An
outbreak with every symptom of the "sympathetic
strike" in 1809 brought the union up for conspiracy.
To-day, if the employer fail, the laborer has a lien
upon the property to make his wages secure. The
struggle early in the century to obtain this right was
ridiculed as an attack upon social order. The laborer
might be paid (not weekly as now) but at utterly un-
known intervals, six weeks or three months, and even
then the sort of money he received was so often
subject to discount, as to constitute a very bitter
injustice.
One's first impulse is to question the gravity of
these offences against labor, but every accessible
record shows how real they were. This view will be
strengthened if we look in more detail at a single
grievance. It was not confined to labor, but such
THE SOCIAL UNREST 87
multitudes of workingmen felt its cruelties that we
find it very prominent in labor programmes. It was
imprisonment for debt.
No one reports these facts more carefully than
Charles Loring Brace. 1 He says, "As late as 1829,
it was estimated that there were as many as 3000 of
these unfortunate persons confined in prisons of Mas-
sachusetts ; 10,000 in New York; 7000 in Pennsyl-
vania; 3000 in Maryland; and a like proportion in
other states. In the Philadelphia prisons of that
year there were imprisoned for debts of less than $i,
32 persons ; and in thirty prisons of the state, 595
persons were imprisoned for debts of between $i and
$5. Many of these were honest debtors, who had
been unable to pay, solely through misfortune. The
proportion of debtors to other prisoners was as 5 to I."
The Report of the Boston Prison Discipline Soci-
ety, page 388, says : " We have known of a respect-
able mechanic imprisoned for a debt of five dollars,
contracted by his family at a grocer's while he was
very ill ; he was sent to jail, and he was not only
without a shilling, but his family was without bread,
because he was not able to work." The keeper of
the debtors' department of the Philadelphia prison
reported, in 1828, 1085 debtors imprisoned; their
debt amounting to $25,409, their expense to the com-
munity, $362,076 ; the amount of the debt recovered
in jail was $295. In 1831 the Gazette of that city
reported forty debtors imprisoned for debt amounting
to $23.40. One man was confined thirty days for a
debt of 72 cents ; another, two days for 2 cents ;
another, thirty-two days for 2 cents ; seven were con-
1 " First Century of the Republic," p. 458.
88 THE SOCIAL UNREST
fined 172 days for $2.84, and the only debt recovered
was one of 25 cents.
This is the period of which McMaster writes,
" Never in the history of our country had the suffer-
ings of the dependent and unfortunate classes been
so forcibly and persistently brought to the attention
of the public, for never before had so many worthy
citizens been reduced to want." J Thus it is evident
that so far as reasons for discontent are concerned,
labor in the good old times suffered many an ill that
we should not for a moment tolerate.
The reader, impatient of this dull rehearsal, has
already asked what good turn can be served by
lingering among these old-time ailments. These
glimpses of evil and disturbed days among our
ancestors do not lighten a single burden under which
the present suffers. No report of ancient ills can
lessen our own aches.
Historical retrospect does for us, nevertheless, one
inestimable service. It helps us to see the facts of
social growth and order in some due relation and
perspective. To keep this perspective is the hardest
test to which the student has to submit. Even a
little history may give sounder judgments upon the
large whole of our industrial and social existence.
To forget or to ignore this past, to concentrate
violent attention upon the disturbance of to-day, is
not to see things socially at all. I have heard wittier
and less labored definitions of a crank, but never a
1 Among the best sources of trustworthy information are the files
of the United States Gazette during this period. In the Congressional
Library at Washington may be seen under glass several examples of
" posters " showing the political efforts of the workingmen.
THE SOCIAL UNREST 89
truer one than this, "A man who sees one fact so
vividly that he is blind to all the other facts which
alone can explain the one he sees." Even criticism
has its responsibilities. It should select its object
with some degree of discrimination and deal with it
in its relation to other facts of which it may be a
part. The frenzy of miscellaneous abuse is perhaps
the cardinal vice of a whole mass of emotional
utterance and literature upon the social question.
There is no healing for these distempers of excessive
statement like that which historic experience affords.
II
In endeavoring to compare the spirit and grounds
of complaint in different eras, we are met by one
difficulty that should not pass unnoticed. The com-
mon people in earlier times had no easy way to
popularize their sense of injustice. A Roman strike
was followed by hanging six thousand strikers be.
tween Rome and Capua. The fact was chronicled
as we should chronicle an unusual frost, but the
plebeian multitude had no means to stir the whole
public opinion in its favor ; to get its wrongs talked
about, much less acted upon. The avenues for the
voicing of discontent have multiplied with popular
education to a degree so extraordinary that we may
now easily be deceived both as to its nature and
extent. In a commercial age (if all have been taught
to read) the thing that pays spreads. The scale on
which social fault-finding and restlessness could be
made to pay good dividends was not dreamed of by
our ancestors. This art is perfected in the modern
press. It has been said, " Blessed are the people
90 THE SOCIAL UNREST
whose records are dull." Yes, but such records are
not commercially profitable. Peace and contentment
have no dramatic quality. It pays to sound the
tragic, the morbid, the alarming note, because interest
and curiosity are stirred.
No sign is better than the cry of the newsboy upon
the street. He does not call out, " Most excellent
health through all the community ! " " Not a divorce
for the entire month ! " " No accident or scandal
since the last edition ! " This would be good news,
but he knows his customer. He knows that every-
day happiness, the common welfare, and the dulness
of good behavior do not sell his papers. The press
has also learned its lesson. It has learned that our
fault-findings and our agitations may be turned to a
money profit. " If I can find fault enough and state
it in the right phrases, no papers are left on my
hands," is a saying reported from one of the most
successful American journalists. The French press
has come to be, in this respect, as mischievous as
our own worst journals. Some of the most popular
of the Paris sheets have brought this art of exploiting
social dangers and dissatisfactions to the point of
last refinement. An editorial writer in London, well
known in this country, told me that the paying
element in first-rate alarmist writing had at last
come to be understood in England. "The young
fellow's fortune is made," he said, " who learns the
trick of phrasing criticism against the present social
order." If the people of any past century had
possessed our machinery for telling and spreading
their fears, their gossip, their corruptions, their
tragedies, they would appear to us like a people of
THE SOCIAL UNREST 91
whom we had never heard. This new facility for
the utterance of our complaints becomes also a cause
of the evil. To insist loudly and incessantly that
things are ill, is to help make them so, although
there is some hope that the sheer din of the caviller
may tend at last to beget insensibility and indiffer-
ence, as excessive advertising may sometime defeat
itself by its dreary universality. We shall learn
after a while that there is no relation between the
excellence of forty different kinds of shoes or soap
and the hideous disfigurement of pleasant landscapes.
Francis Walker was wont to make much of the
encouraging influences upon the mind of the laborer
of open and hopeful chances of work. As long as it
could be said, " I 'can go either to a factory or take
up a homestead from the government at a nominal
price," the mere alternative gave a sense of freedom
and independence, as well as a tendency to strengthen
wages. Now that the public domain has been dis-
posed of, this special avenue of possible chances is
shut. For the first time in our history, the popula-
tion turns back upon itself. Who would dare to
stand before an audience of workingmen and give
them to-day Horace Greeley's advice, " Go West " ?
It would be met with shouts of derision. This change
has already become a very vital part of our labor
problems. It has made large sections of the less
skilled among the workingmen honestly feel that it
is no longer possible for them to get beyond utter
dependence upon the employer. Until very recent
times all were encouraged to believe that they could
become independent as employer or as capitalist. This
had so substantial a basis of truth, that it gave rise to
92 THE SOCIAL UNREST
a kind of religion in which the saving practical virtue
was thrift, an'd the ideal, a fat bank account with its
heaven of "independence." Barring skill and un-
usual enterprise, the feeling has deepened and
widened among workingmen that these fine hopes
have so sadly dwindled that they exist as mere lottery
chances. One may put this to accurate test in many
of our industries. In my own city the conductors
and motormen upon the trolley cars are carefully
selected and well paid, but the question put to more
than forty of them, " Is there any chance in your
position of getting on very much ? " elicits usually
only good-natured surprise that such a question can
be asked. There is rather the dogged feeling that it
must be made the best of. One said to me, " I am
thankful to get this ; if I dropped out, a hundred men
would jump at my chance before supper. All I hope
for is to keep this job twelve years at most, at the
end of which I shall have what I am getting to-day,
two dollars and a quarter." I asked him if he were
married. "Yes, and I have three children, but I
have no business to have them. With city rents and
market prices about Boston, I can just keep even.
The best luck I expect is to stick here till I am forty,
then they will want a younger man. I left my coun-
try town because farming only keeps you alive.
Down here I just keep alive, too, but it ain't a grave-
yard, as it is up there in the hills." Some millions of
men in the United States are at the present moment
in the situation of that motorman, so far as expecta-
tions are concerned. For commonplace and average
abilities, in mill and factory, the cheering promise of
getting free from an " existence wage " scarcely ex-
THE SOCIAL UNREST 93
ists. For special gifts, the prizes never were so high
as now. For ordinary capacity in the common indus-
tries the old hopes are lessened.
A clear and conservative statement of this evil is
given by President Hadley : " Certain it is that the
prospect of becoming capitalists does not act as so
powerful a motive on the laborers of to-day as it did
on those of a generation ago. The opportunities to
save are as great or greater ; but the amount which
has to be saved before a man can hope to become his
own employer has increased enormously. When a
man who had accumulated a thousand dollars could
set up in business for himself, the prospect of inde-
pendence appealed to him most powerfully ; when he
can do nothing but lend it to some richer man, the
incentives and ambitions connected with saving
are far weaker too weak, in many cases, to lead
the men to save at all, except through the medium of
a friendly society or trades union. We thus have a
separation of the community into more and more
rigidly defined groups, different in industrial condi-
tion, distinct in ideals, and oftentimes antagonistic in
their ambitions and sympathies. This separation of
laborers and capitalists into distinct classes involves
serious dangers to society as a whole." l
Not wholly different from this is another source of
unrest. It has long been known that well-paid labor
is quicker to take offence than labor of a lower grade.
That men with higher wages should be the first to
strike, has vexed many an employer and filled many
polite persons with astonished disgust. It is neverthe-
less what the race, in its most progressive stages, has
1 " Economics," p. 371.
94 THE SOCIAL UNREST
always done. Higher earnings, ampler knowledge and
freedom, go with new ambitions and a keener sensi-
tiveness about all hindrances to progress. Every
improvement, every step in the enjoyment of new com-
forts which leisure and better pay afford, constitutes a
reason for new efforts. A higher standard of living
once gained, becomes of itself a sentiment so respon-
sive, that any act or event which seems to threaten
that standard arouses instant alarm and hostility.
The force of this is not seen unless we realize the
rapidity with which new wants, in our age and coun-
try, are formed. The higher standard of comfort,
food, clothing, housing, leisure, once established,
becomes a necessity so imperious, that men will put
forth their whole strength to maintain it. A shrewd
builder of workingmen's houses in a Massachusetts
shoe town says, " I don't dare to put up a house now
without a bathroom, so many of the shoe hands have
got a taste of it, that all demand it."
We know personally, or by observation among the
well-to-do citizens, that any serious lowering of in-
come as, for example, from $5000 to $3000 is
looked upon as a disaster. Do people of ampler
income lack imagination that they fail to see the
bearings of this fact upon the threatened income of
the wage earners ? A study has been made of an
Eastern town in which more than four thousand
American workmen receive a wage that does not
average $1.85. What must it mean for a family of
five persons to have this sum cut even 25 cents a day ?
The worst as it is the commonest cut of all is
the large average of days in the year when there is
BO work, and pay stops altogether. The simplest
THE SOCIAL UNREST 95
addition of cost for the invariable necessities food,
rent, clothing makes clear how narrow a margin
is left. I choose the employees in this town because
they rank distinctly above unskilled labor, and have
won a standard of life from which every loss is
dreaded, because the expenditure of respectability in
their group is endangered.
Every little sign of respectability which the higher
wage makes possible the parlor organ, the cheap lace
curtains, the beribboned furniture, the gaudily framed
family crayon soon becomes the basis of a sentiment
as powerful as it is salutary. Do we imagine that
their symbols of respectability mean less to them
than to the fops of the fashionable quarter ? I have
known a man grow gray with trouble in five years
because his income shrank just enough to force him
to move into a less distinguished part of the town.
He still had every possible comfort, but could not
have the private school, the doctor, the dentist of the
elite in his former neighborhood. Workingmen, and
more especially their wives, who have once gained
the income of modest comfort, have something to
lose, upon which great price is set, and therefore
organize, strike, and struggle, often in most regret-
table ways, to maintain that standard. The fear of
losing their standard acts upon them precisely as it
does on their "betters." Lowest paid labor revolts
less frequently, not only because it is duller and more
helpless, but because the sentiment which gathers and
strengthens about the newly won luxuries is still too
feeble. It is the sense of insecurity, lest these sym-
bols of getting on in the world may at any time be
lost, that is at present, as it is long likely to re-
96 THE SOCIAL UNREST
main, one of the deepest and most justifiable sources
of discontent. Nothing is so habitually ignored, in
attempts to understand industrial struggles, as the
force and prevalence of this sentiment.
It is a little tedious to refer to general education as
a cause of discontent, but its consequences are so
momentous that its omission would be unwise. Popu-
lar education and the spread of democratic ideas evi-
dently introduce influences calculated in their very
nature to stimulate the feelings out of which unrest
grows. It would puzzle one to conceive a more fer-
tile breeding-place of unsatisfied desires than that
which present educational facilities offer. It is the
essence of education to arouse mental activity, with
the sure result that thousand-fold new wants, cravings,
and ambitions are quickened into life. The number
and importunity of these wants have apparently no
limit, while upon their satisfaction there is a constant
check. The basis of this education has been a rising
material prosperity to the same end of awakening
still further wants. A retired Cape Cod captain once
gave me a list of things food, clothing, furniture,
reading matter, etc. which entered into the usual
family consumption in his community sixty years ago.
These were compared with the articles in present use
in the neighborhood. The difference in kind and
variety of things enjoyed in the two periods were, as
they were brought together, far more striking than
either of us had believed. After reflecting upon the
contrast, the old man said : " Yes, that's the trouble.
My father wanted fifteen things. He didn't get 'em
all. He got about ten, and worried considerable be-
cause he didn't get the other five. Now, I want forty
THE SOCIAL UNREST 97
things, and I get thirty, but I worry more about the
ten I can't get than the old man used to about the
five he couldn't get." Could any pedantry of lan-
guage or of statistics tell more truth or better truth
than this ? The sixty years had brought great
changes in the standard of life, but the old relation
between wants and their satisfaction remained.
Though in the coming sixty years the affluence of
wealth multiply our material prosperity an hundred-
fold, is it to be expected that the margin of un-
quenched desires will be narrower? Will the ratio of
cravings which we cannot appease be essentially
diminished ? To what race experience could one
point to justify this expectation ? Unless we assume
the hope of an education profoundly modified, an
education the supreme purpose of which shall not only
be to sharpen the edge of intellectual cunning, but,
at least, in equal degree, to strengthen the moral and
social sympathies, we seem likely to the end of time to
be whipped on by a multitude of wants that will over-
top every means to gratify them. 1
There is no end to the number and variety of illus-
trations to show the unrest that goes hand in hand
with education and material prosperity. None is
more familiar than the higher education of woman
that has been organized on so generous a scale dur-
ing the last generation. We do not doubt the large
advantage it brings to her and to the race. It has,
1 I have heard a learned Catholic say that it was one of the superi-
orities of his religion over Protestantism that the ratios of insanity and
suicide are so much lower in Catholic communities. He traced these
ugly phenomena chiefly " to the discontent which follows a restless
and successful materialism."
H
98 THE SOCIAL UNREST
however, helped create a restlessness which new\y
awakened faculty and enlarged opportunity inevita-
bly bring with them. There is already a literature of
the subject. For a dozen years English and American
Reviews have reflected these perturbations in scores
of articles: "The Revolt of the Daughters," "The
Passing of the Household Drudge," "The Unquiet
Sex," " The Cry of the Mothers," with variations in-
numerable. During this time we note two influences
working together : industrial development and the
higher education, both of which act to enlarge
woman's opportunity. It is claimed that twenty-five
years have widened woman's avenues for earning an
independent livelihood from some hundreds to as
many thousands. Industrial and intellectual oppor-
tunity alike have worked greatly for her economic
independence. We have, in a word, in so brief a
period, a ratio of progress of which previous history
has no hint. The feverish agitations of the " woman
question " have, however, been a very part of this
general uplifting, but the thousand new chances to
earn a livelihood, the thousand girls' schools and
scores of colleges, have only intensified the claims
which woman raises for a larger life. The " woman
question," with all its restlessness, is a natural fruit
of the new occasions.
Again, we think of the Germans as the most thor-
oughly educated people. Especially since the period
dominated by the fateful personality of Bismarck,
Germany stands out preeminent for what is generally
connoted by the word " progress." There is the high
tide of race vitality, as indicated by the enormous
annual surplus population. The rise in her material
THE SOCIAL UNREST 99
standard of living has been rapid and widespread.
Her commerce, stimulated by the most efficient com-
mercial training the world has seen, frightens every
European rival by the vigor of its growth. Yet with
the flush of great victory still warm upon her, this
nation, if we may believe many of her most eminent
writers, was never more lacking in contentment, never
more ill at ease than now : Von Oettingen specu-
lating gloomily upon the significance of increasing
suicide, rising highest at the very points where edu-
cation has done its completest work ; Von Treitschke,
before his death, telling his class in history, that he
looked with growing alarm upon the signs of discon-
tent among the masses ; Paulsen taking the strange
phenomenon for granted, as if not open to dispute,
and trying to account with much scholarly ingenuity
for the causes of the malady. 1
Just before his retirement the chancellor, Prince
rlohenlohe, used these words before the Royal
Academy of Science : " I have grown old in the
belief of the constant progress of humanity. But
within recent years my confidence has been badly
shaken. The indispensable battle of life has of late
assumed so fierce and coarse a form that we are
reminded of the wild and fantastic tales of animal life
in the antediluvian ages. Instead of progress, retro-
1 Many acute references to these pessimistic humors of the time may
be found in Professor Paulsen's volume " Die Ethik." It is a book
which is likely to have a higher value to later generations because
it mirrors with singular vividness the average educated thought of the
time upon a great variety of culture subjects. See, for example, the
passage, page 116, ending with the words, dass Steigerung der Kultur
nicht nur die Gliicksoligkeit nicht steigere, sondern vielmehr Schmer;;
und Enttaiischung vermehre.
100 THE SOCIAL UNREST
gression, rather, seems to mark the beginning of the
twentieth century."
Both illustrations indicate that the sense of ills is
not confined to the industrial field to the friction
between capital and labor. In every phase of life
where the " strife for things desired " goes on, the
same restless antagonisms, the same dissonance of
opinion appear. They appear among the different
schools of literature, in politics, in art, and in science.
In the very sphere of the harmonies, music, the
angry assertion of discordant judgments (as among
Wagnerites and their opponents) will easily match
the worst polemics of social and industrial disputes.
If we except religion, these are narrower fields than
those in which the industrial struggle goes on. Yet
the factions in art, in literature, in science, in reli-
gion, include those to whom civilization and culture
have brought their best gifts. We should have ex-
pected the amenities to prevail in these spheres, but
experience shows them to be rent by the same uneasy
spirit which animates human activity as a whole. It
is thus a point gained for clearer discussion to see
that it is all the unrest of human life, and not that of
some partial phase of it. Of religion, too, another
word should be added. 1
1 In that most thoughtful book, " The Theology of Civilization,"
Introduction, vi, Charles F. Dole says: "There is seething unrest;
there is doubt of the sanctions of religion; there is a sense of coming
change; there is suspicion that premises and foundations, once
unquestioned, are now perhaps undermined; there is challenging
of existing institutions social, economical, ecclesiastical. Are the
present institutions such as the world will continue to find use for?
There is dread mingled with hope. What possible revolutions may
not impend, setting the old order aside? "
THE SOCIAL UNREST IOI
One cannot omit from the causes of unrest the
slow decay of authority in religion. Even if what is
deepest in the religious spirit is, as many hold, un-
abated in its strength, the element of religious
authority has lost much of its power over men. If
this loss is seen as a part of other influences which
accompany it, few will doubt that for certain tem-
peraments, especially in the Protestant world, this
loss has brought its own deep disquietude. This is
not aside from the social question. Its literature
is filled with angry or sorrowful complaints that
religion, as actually embodied in the church, has
been systematically, even if unconsciously, used to
quiet the masses and reconcile them to their lot.
One of the most honest and intelligent labor men
I have ever known, told me that as long as he really
believed what he understood his pastor to preach, he
was fairly content. " The sermon," he said, " always
appeared to me to reconcile things I couldn't under-
stand. Mysterious religious authority was always
given which I accepted. When I talked to the min-
ister about definite cases of suffering in a hard strike,
where he and I both believed the men were not to
blame, he still insisted that somehow it was all right,
and somewhere in the future it would be set straight.
Now, my experience has taken that belief out of me,
or, at any rate, the kind of authority he gives for it, I
cannot any longer accept. Nor do I believe the Jesus
he talks so much about would have accepted it or acted
on it either. The successful classes, even if they didn't
know it, or mean it, have used religion and heaven to
keep the peace and to put off a lot of troublesome
duties. When I found this out, I threw it all over."
102 THE SOCIAL UNREST
That individual experience, without one shade of
heightened color, stands for the position of a great
multitude of the more intelligent workingmen in
every country. It is clear what this must mean.
The dissatisfactions that were felt, while religious
authority still held some sway over them, were
silenced, or spent in vague wonder on other worldly
speculations. If injustice was felt, there was no
thought of blaming God. " Now," as my friend
added, "when the ghosts are out of the way, we put
the blame where it belongs upon present human
society and upon those who control it." These feel-
ings, however poor a reason they can give for them-
selves, are far more embarrassing when they are
vented upon the actual social regime; when turned
from the other world straight upon this. The decays
of faith are, of course, in no way confined to a class,
nor does the illustration just given point to the most
serious fact, which I conceive to be this : the old
authorities are being abandoned at the very moment
when material successes and sensuous gratifications
multiply at a rate compared to which our ethical
advancement seems moving at the snail's pace.
It is not only the nature of education to create
more aspirations than can be realized ; it is also the
nature of all political agitation. That men , are
"politically equal" may remain long a harmless
proposition ; but when it has done its work, when
it has become so thoroughly accepted as to form a
common assumption of thought and discussion, new
and disturbing questions are sure to be asked. It
was once quite an amazing absurdity that man should
ask for religious equality, yet this has been attained.
THE SOCIAL UNREST 1 03
It was thought by the wisest of men, less than two
centuries ago, just as preposterous that men should
make claims to political equality, yet this, at least
theoretically, has been won. Is it probable that the
questioning will end here ?
Will a race, spurred on by an ever ampler and
more insistent cultivation of its faculties, halt, in its
inquiries about equality, on the confines of religion
or of politics ?
With the plain fact of economic inequality of very
extreme character staring us in the face, the question
is being raised here, too. It has grown clear that
when a certain stage of discipline and civilization has
been reached, religious and political inequalities are
felt to be socially mischievous. Nothing will hinder
the raising of the next query : Is the present indus-
trial inequality worthy of more respect than the other
inequalities? Philosophers have speculated about
this from early times. It is a different matter when
the masses learn to raise the question. The analogy
here, it must be admitted, is risky. A wholly differ-
ent order of questions is raised on the industrial field.
The reasons for our material inequalities are at so
many points different from the inequalities of the
religious or political field that the comparison may
easily mislead us. These are, however, distinctions
for which the general judgment may have scant
regard. It is so easy to prove that anything like a
literal economic equality is fatuous, or, at least, that
we stand in no practical relation to such a result, that
it may seem safely beyond range of sober discussion.
Careful observation shows, however, that it is not a
literal industrial equality that is meant by those who
104 THE SOCIAL UNREST
have opened and popularized this speculation. A
growing number of writers, and among them econo-
mists of the first rank, do not hesitate to put the aim
toward far greater economic equality on a par with
the two other equalities. Nor is the aim confined any
longer to books.
A distinguished Australian judge, the late Sir
William Windeyer, said while in this country : " We
have not learned to manage our social legislation
without most regrettable blunders. Our state rail-
ways have got into politics, there has been jobbery,
and the application of the best inventions has been
kept back by selfish interests. We have lived glut-
tonously on borrowed money, and piled up large city
debts. All this is true, but it is not all the truth. It
all came so fast that it ran away with us. We are
beginning to face the situation, and shall eventually
learn our lesson. Meantime, in spite of our blunder-
ing, nothing would induce the Australian people to
turn back. We have accepted the democratic prin-
ciple, and shall learn in good time to apply it indus-
trially to our monopolies, as we have learned to apply
it generally to politics."
Much of this legislation shows openly and directly
that it aims to make the massing of great private for-
tunes increasingly difficult. One of the foremost of
New Zealand legislators, Hon. W. P. Reeves, states
the purpose with great boldness, " It is the uncon-
cealed object of our social legislation to make democ-
racy consistent and possible to create conditions
out of which such threatening extremes of wealth-
ownership cannot grow." These attempts may fail.
Capital may take wings, and the daring of individual
THE SOCIAL UNREST IO5
enterprise may be dulled to the general loss ; but a
multitude of people are so incredulous about this that
legislators will be compelled to far wider experiment-
ing in the same general direction.
Thus, in the world of comparative politics, this
clearly conceived ideal of giving labor a new chance,
of using the powers of government expressly to this
end, has been openly accepted. It is conspicuously
under trial. Its story occupies increasing space in
the laborer's thought. Though failure follow in its
track, the heart of this great purpose is a noble one :
to use the full strength of public authority to raise
the standard of comfort, of leisure, and of culture
among those classes that have known far too little of
either. As this endeavor becomes known, it raises
hopes for the future and discontent with actual limi-
tations. Every ideal passion among the laboring sec-
tions now centres about this aspiration to raise this
life standard and to preserve it against all adversaries.
Thus far the actual proofs that popular govern-
ment can perform these prodigies in well-doing are
meagre enough, but the effort will be made, and it
will come through the avenues of politics.
It is thus the sum of these causes of unrest, reach-
ing new intensity in each succeeding period of busi-
ness depression, and assuming a more consciously
political character, that distinguishes the restlessness
of our age.
It is here that we reach such important difference
as there is between our unrest and that of the past.
The forces of discontent can now show themselves in
politics. Even if our dissatisfactions are no greater
than in other days ; even if they are fewer, they have
106 THE SOCIAL UNREST
found a more effective medium of expression. It is
not only discontent plus education ; not only discon-
tent plus the press to voice it ; it is discontent plus
the vote. The spirit of revolt can now make record
of itself in political activity. It can be turned to ac-
count by every demagogue. It can create legislation
and direct the machinery of government. The word
" socialism " stands for the new defiance. It embodies
the unrest and the disapproval of commercial society
as it now exists.
CHAPTER IV
THE SOCIAL QUESTION AND ITS ECONOMIC SIGNIFICANCE
ONE sees social questions innumerable, but what is
meant by "the social question," as if a single issue
dominated all others ; as if society were afflicted with
a single ailment ? Statesmen and economists of first
eminence can be quoted as speaking and writing
upon " the question " as if so simple a term covered
the facts. I have seen in a private library nearly one
hundred different volumes and pamphlets with the
title " The Social Question," or titles strictly synony-
mous, implying that some one all-inclusive issue had
arisen to vex the present generation.
It is first to be noted that those who speak of
"the social question" differ widely and often radi-
cally as to what the question is. There is a social
question to the ultra-individualist, Auberon Herbert,
but it has scarcely a single point in common with the
social question of that man of ponderous learning, Dr.
Schaeffie. Henry George had his question, but it dif-
fered fundamentally in two out of the three chief
points from the question of Sidney Webb and John
Burns. There is not one issue, nor the same issue,
for the single taxer and for the socialist. It is an
error well-nigh humorous to suppose that even social-
ists have anything like a single issue. Compare the
Marx tradition with that of the English Fabians, or
107
108 THE SOCIAL UNREST
with that of the able collectivist leaders of the Belgian
Parliament. Both in theory and in practical remedies
are differences not only of degree, but of kind. Even
a little study of the social literature shows that in
doctrine and in practice the writers are dealing with
a great variety of conflicting issues. I have made
from this literature, in the last fifteen years, a list of
eighty-four "remedies" for the social question, i.e.
remedies that were believed to be sovereign. The
causes of our ills, in these writings, were fewer than
the remedies, but the " root evils " were so many and
so various, that to speak of a question or the question
without explanation is open to confusion. Is it
" over-production " or " underconsumption " ? Is it
" adherence to the gold standard " or is it the " silver
craze " ? Is it " monopolies " or " speculation " or
" extravagance " or " over-saving " ? Is it the " three
rents " or the " private ownership of land " ? These
are a few of the most commonly assigned causes of
our troubles that are most nearly akin. But who
could create out of them a single issue ? Especially
if remedies are introduced, we face many questions,
and not one question. If the followers of Henry
George are right in holding that the present forms of
private land ownership constitute the supreme evil,
they are justified in insisting upon "the question"
and upon " the remedy." The socialist who adds to
the George evil the private control of the " means of
production " raises new complications for which a
simple formula is more difficult. If the socialist has
become confessedly " opportunist," the simple for-
mula, for theory and its application, is still more
inadequate. Shall the term " social question," then, be
THE SOCIAL QUESTION 1 09
left to the single taxer or to the socialist of the ultra-
doctrinaire type ?
It would be over-nice to put these limits upon a
phrase that has so passed into common thought and
discussion : it has the authoritative stamp of so many
leaders in economics, in politics, and in general litera-
ture that it seems unwise to reject it. To accept it
without discrimination is no less unwise. If the
term is taken neither too seriously nor too literally, its
use need not mislead us. Even the narrower term,
" the labor question," raises, if closely examined,
the same embarrassment, yet it would be pedantic to
refuse all use of it. Gladstone even gives a date to
the rise of the labor question, which he says " may be
said to have come into public view simultaneously
with the repeal of the Combination laws " (against
trade unions). Do we find fault because people say
there is a " servant question " ? It lacks definiteness,
but conveys a meaning that every one accepts. So
many household domestics have become restless,
independent, quick to take offence, asking many
favors and perhaps granting few, that we have placed
this experience among our abiding perplexities. We
call it " a problem." The illustration of the servant
throws light not only upon a phrase, but upon our
whole subject. There has never been a time in our
history when the relation between mistress and ser-
vant was free from a great deal of bickering and
unpleasantness. The entire colonial period is filled
with pathetic complaining about servants. Professor
Salmon's excellent study 1 will satisfy the most in-
1 " Domestic Service," Macmillan and Co. Especially Chapters III,
and IV.
1 10 THE SOCIAL UNREST
credulous reader on this point. Yet in spite of this
there is doubtless more of a " question " now than in
the past. Nor, as with the larger issues, is it any
less a question because of the astonishing improve-
ment in the pay and conditions of the servant's life.
I have known a woman still active in her eighty-third
year who tells me that at seventeen she did the
entire work of the household, including the cooking
and the care of the new baby, for $i a week.
This was the average pay of her neighborhood in
Massachusetts. Thirty years later, for fewer hours
and for far lighter work, her wages were $3.50 and
finally $4.50 a week. This does not exaggerate the
change for the better in the work and in the remuner-
ation of the domestic. Yet never was more restless-
ness nor the term of service shorter, nor the entire
sensitive relation between mistress and servant more
fragile. If we are intelligent enough to avoid the
vain attempt" to make the behavior of the employer
or of her helper perfectly rational, there is little diffi-
culty in accounting for the sentiment from which the
difficulty chiefly springs. The rise of wealth has
been so rapid that this service is always in demand.
There is, perhaps, no more telling proof of material
prosperity in the United States than the history
which domestic service affords. Nothing but great
material gains could have given domestics such op-
portunities within living memory. Their wages have
trebled with far easier tasks and increase of freedom.
To many disturbed persons this remarkable progress in
the lot of the servant is precisely what constitutes the
absurdity of the situation. " Do these creatures," it
is asked, " want the world ? " They want, like their
THE SOCIAL QUESTION m
betters, all they can get : all the comforts, all the
leisure, all the income they can command. Content-
ment and docile behavior are not a consequence of
enlarged income and increased well-being. These
new acquisitions, as we all observe, rarely quiet dis-
content ; oftener, indeed, augment it. Every addition
to wages, every opportunity opened to the imagina-
tion by easier travel, by the press and by education,
quickens the desire to change one's place, in the hunt
for a "better thing." A troubled New York mistress
says : " It is all the fault of the New York World.
My servants never bothered me much until they
got the habit of reading every day the ' ads ' and
' wants ' in that paper." But this lively journal
merely reflects modem life. All its agencies tend to
intensify the consciousness of what is undesirable
in our actual possessions. There is scarcely a device
of the new conveniences that does not plague us into
dissatisfaction with our actual place and belongings.
The objectionable self-direction of the domestic is full
of unpleasantness, but it is as futile to rail at it as to
abuse any other consequence of growing democracy.
I have seen a proud woman grow white with rage
because a servant, who had given references, dared to
ask for references. This astonished wrath is a symbol
of the conflict of ideals in this relationship as well as
of its probable duration. However imperfect this
illustration of the term " servant question," we see,
altogether apart from its rights or wrongs, that a
problem has arisen out of disturbed feelings as to
prerogatives. It is purely a sentiment, but it makes
all the riddle there is. The social question is but a
wider and more complex issue. Its perplexities are
112 THE SOCIAL UNREST
made from the same stuff of human ambitions to get
on and up.
We may now enlarge our inquiry and ask : Is
there a social consciousness of things industrially
wrong that has definiteness, volume, and persistence
enough to make a grave problem for our time ? It
would be fatal to take the measure of our unrest from
the prosperous periods alone. An average must be
taken which includes the crisis and times of depres-
sion. The answer, if it is to carry conviction, should
point first to those facts that are open to least dispute
and to least misunderstanding. I therefore begin with
an illustration that shows the problem in its very sim-
plest form. In a town recently agitated over the pri-
vate ownership of its waterworks, I was told by a large
owner in the company : " It is all very absurd. We have
put in a splendid plant with all the new inventions up
to date. We have good water and plenty of it. The
rates are not exorbitant, and this is admitted. Yet,
somehow, there has been growing up a feeling of hos-
tility against the private company for a dozen years."
Here, as in a child's primer, is the economic aspect
of the modern social question. It is created by this
local feeling of hostility. It presents, in this instance,
no difficulties for our analysis because of its sim-
plicity. Its value as an object lesson is all the greater.
Why, even with no very special abuses, should a town
be agitated from so slight a cause ? One of the owners
assured me it was all the work of two local dema-
gogues. "This nonsense of city ownership," he
said, " is in the air, and they make political capital out
of it." To few others in that town was this explana-
tion sufficient.
THE SOCIAL QUESTION 113
During some days spent in this community, I asked
many different people why so much feeling had
arisen. I went first to the leading merchant, then to
a lawyer, then to an editor. What they had to tell
was monotonously familiar to every student of these
questions. As in hundreds of other towns, the people
of an earlier generation had freely given the right to
distribute water to a private person. He was the most
enterprising man in the town. He was willing to take
the risks and did in his time an unquestioned service to
his neighbors. Incalculable millions' worth of fran-
chises for railroads, street cars, and lighting companies
have been given away in precisely the same manner.
Many an interest which may become finally a most ob-
jectionable monopoly begins and long continues to ren-
der indispensable service, just as the truck store is often
at first useful and necessary to workmen, but later may
become rank with abuses. Populist critics have been
very severe against the railroads because of the un-
earned increment secured from the alternate sections
of land given by the government. The Illinois Cen-
tral, for example, secured enormous land grants in
1850. This has been called "a colossal robbery of
the public domain," but no one will read the speeches
in the Thirty-first Congress on this grant, without see-
ing that it is very absurd to call it robbery. 1 The
ablest men of the time Seward, King, Douglas, Cass,
Benton, and Henry Clay believed the regions through
which the proposed roads were to run to be practically
worthless. They believed the risk of the enterprise
to be very great. Clay said : " There is nobody who
1 Proceedings of the First Session of the Thirty-first Congress
(p. 844), April 29, 1850.
114 THE SOCIAL UNREST
knows anything of that grand prairie who does not
know that the land in it is utterly worthless for any
present purpose, not because it is not fertile, but for
the want of wood and water, and from the fact that
it is inaccessible, wanting all facilities for reaching a
market or for transporting timber, so that nobody
will go there and settle while it is so destitute of all
the advantages of society and the conveniences which
arise from a social state. And now, by constructing
this road through the prairie, through the centre of
the state of Illinois, you will bring millions of acres
of land immediately into the market which will other-
wise remain for years and years entirely unsalable."
Seward thought the grant for "the best and highest
interests of the people of the United States." The
government, he adds, " owes to itself and to the states
to make liberal and at the same time judicious ap-
propriations, to extend its network of railroads and
canals over these new regions, where the people and
the government are unable to construct the work
themselves."
Benton's words were as follows : " The principle
of the bill before the Senate is to take the refuse
lands and appropriate them to a great object of in-
ternal improvement, which although it has its locality
in a particular state produces advantages which, we
all know, spread far and wide ; for a good road can-
not be made anywhere without being beneficial to the
whole United States. . . . Sir, you may travel a
hundred miles through a country of marshes and
uncultivated land, which is not only worthless, but far
worse ; it becomes a place where miasma is generated
and where beasts have their haunts. But this bill
THE SOCIAL QUESTION 115
proposes to make some beneficial disposition of these
lands. Of the general principle of the bill I cordially
approve."
Douglas said : " These lands have been in the
market from fifteen to thirty years ; the average time
is about twenty-three years ; but they will not sell at
the usual price of $1.25 per acre because they are
distant from any navigable stream or a market for
produce. A railroad will make the lands salable at
double the usual price, because the improvement made
by the state will make them valuable. It is an old
practice, long sanctioned by the government; we
propose now to give away half of it on condition
that the other half shall be rendered worth $2.50 per
acre."
King and Lewis Cass spoke strongly to the same
effect.
This was at the time honest opinion. It prevailed
because it was widely believed that this lavish gift of
land would result in progress for the common benefit.
In Dr. Robert's admirable " History of the Anthra-
cite Coal Industry," the reader may see how inevi-
tably those precious deposits passed into private
possessions. It is a story in which the great risks
taken are marked by hundreds of failures. It was
the exceptional man who made money. The com-
munity came to be grateful to any one who could
surmount the early difficulties and get coal to
market.
Until very recent years the only public opinion to
which appeal could be made would have ridiculed any
suggestion of state ownership. With that easy wis-
dom which comes after experience, we wish these
Il6 THE SOCIAL UNREST
deposits were public rather than private property.
We wish, in the days when it could have been profit-
ably done, that the government had set apart large
mining tracts just as New Zealand did, and as Can-
ada has done. We were not wise enough at the
proper time, but gave every legal sanction to the
private owner.
In a New England city where street franchises had
proved unexpectedly profitable to a private company,
I asked a citizen of genuine public spirit, who had
been most prominent in securing the franchise for
the company, what he now thought of the transac-
tion. He replied, " It has taken two or three millions
of money from the public and made a few men rich,
but I made an honest canvass of the town and
there was no man known to me in this city who was
not glad to have us take the streets and give the
public the benefit of our service." Upon the whole
this stands fairly for the origin of most of these prop-
erties. With the undreamed growth of cities and of
population, the fabulous value of many of these
franchises and of other monopoly privileges slowly
dawns upon us. Both privileges and abuses have
become so clear that the public rightly insists upon
coming into an entirely new relation with these
bodies. It insists first that the public shall have a
larger share in the monopoly gains, chiefly through
some form of taxation, and second, that the public
shall secure itself against specific abuses by an exten-
sion of legal control and regulation. There is no
more competent or conservative opinion in the United
States than that which makes these two demands.
The degree to which taxation and regulation shall be
THE SOCIAL QUESTION 1 1/
carried, will more and more divide candid opinion
along the lines that separate the individualist from
the socialist. If the socialistic sympathy is strong,
it will insist that no "regulation" can long repress
the evils of private ownership in any business that is
fairly termed monopolistic. The battle is now on
in this country between " regulation " and public
ownership for certain forms of monopoly.
In the instance above given of city waterworks,
the growth of a sentiment toward public ownership
may be seen in its very simplest form. A strong
man with his lawyer secured the water privilege. A
small number of influential people were allowed to
take stock, and ample dividends followed. Rank
abuses or gross corruption were never charged. The
editor admitted that " the private company could per-
haps give us water as cheaply as it could be given
under public ownership. "The trouble is," he added,
" that a great deal of suspicion has been roused
because of the secrecy connected with the whole busi-
ness. We have found out that a small set of citi-
zens have a high class investment. They give a
good many reasons to prove that their management
is excellent. It is not this so much that we doubt as
that we don't really know what they get or what the
public loses. Some ten years ago lectures on munic-
ipal ownership were given for the first time in this
community. That started the discussion in the local
papers. From that time the agitation has not ceased,
and it won't cease till we have the corporation in
public hands. I am convinced that those business
men and lawyers who control the corporation can
easily enough keep the plums for themselves. They
Il8 THE SOCIAL UNREST
are shrewd enough to understand that they must
serve us fairly well and have no scandal. They can
do that and still keep gains for themselves that ought
to go to all of us." The history of the ownership of
waterworks in the United States is told in this simple
testimony.
But a great deal more is told than this. When the
director of the water company said, " Somehow there
has been growing up a feeling of hostility against
the private company for a dozen years," he put
the general experience of a generation into a sen-
tence. It is not certain that upon strictly business
grounds this hostile judgment was sound. It is cer-
tainly possible that under private ownership water
may be distributed as well and as cheaply as under
public management ; but, in this instance, as in hun-
dreds of others, the people had come to have so
much doubt and suspicion that an issue was raised.
The slow growth of this town feeling against a nat-
ural monopoly is, upon its economic side, the essence of
the entire social question. It was in a large neighbor-
ing city that I was told, by a writer of national reputa-
tion, that his attention to socialistic problems was first
aroused by the solicitude of certain directors in a
private city gas company, that considerable blocks
of stock should be sold to picked citizens. One
director was frank in his statement. " There is a
good deal of crazy talk in the air about city control
of gas. It is so valuable a property that the possess-
ors of it are sure to oppose any movement to take
it over by the city, therefore we must see to it that
the really influential people, or those who might
cause us trouble, have the stock." Professor Rich-
THE SOCIAL QUESTION 1 19
ard T. Ely has told me of an amusingly similar experi-
ence. The machinery of the water supply, ministering
to the necessities of the whole population, was nar-
rowly owned. The business was extremely simple,
the demand for water constant and increasing, the
risks were few. Given this situation, the public is
sure, upon the slightest suspicion, to ask why the
machinery should not be owned by the town it serves.
If it is a good property for the few, why may it not
be profitable to the many ? To this it is said : " Ev-
erybody cannot manage expensive machinery as well
as the selected few in a private company. The few,
guided by self-interest, have superior ability." The
people have learned to make one troublesome inquiry
about this private superiority. They ask, even if
private control is more effective, do the people neces-
sarily get the advantage, or does it pass to private
pockets? Suspicion upon this point increases among
us every year. When the last century came in (with
one or two exceptions), all waterworks were private
property. To-day, certainly, more than one-half are
under public control, and the tendency is so strong in
this direction that the discussion may be said to be
practically final for public ownership in this one
department.
As we pass to the more complicated machinery,
that, for example, of city lighting, telegraph, and
transportation, opinion is not convinced as in the
case of waterworks, but he is a dull observer who
does not recognize that the tendency is as steadily in
that direction as the movement of a glacier among
the great peaks is toward the valleys below.
The contests over electric lighting, except in tech-
120 THE SOCIAL UNREST
nical respects, are still relatively simple, because
vested interests have not grown into baffling en-
tanglements. The risks are far greater than with
water because electrical mechanism is still in an
experimental stage, requiring rapid, constant, and ex-
pensive changes. This fact would, in theory, seem
to justify the city in throwing the risks of such ex-
pensive changes upon private companies. Some
German municipalities that have adopted the prin-
ciple of municipal ownership are careful to leave
a risky responsibility of this kind to private enter-
prise. Yet, in spite of these delicate risks, an increas-
ing number of our cities adopts public control for the
same reasons that have brought the changes in the
furnishing of water.
The machinery of street transportation brings new
complications because of the greater magnitude of
the problem, and because of older vested interests.
Yet, who that follows the history of popular feeling
on these subjects in our large cities doubts that the
same critical spirit is steadily growing against the
private management of the street-car service. With
a far greater machine railroad transportation and
large portions of our mining, that are inextricably a
part of the railroad the purely practical difficulties
of public control in our country become formidable
in the extreme. Yet no array of difficulties can hold
in abeyance the same sentiment that the railroad
machinery might in some way be used for a larger
common good.
I am not now arguing for collective ownership,
but trying to test the currents of opinion. Whether
the opinion is discreet or foolhardy, it is as a fact
THE SOCIAL QUESTION 121
growing more and more distrustful of exclusive
proprietorship over certain forms of industrial ma-
chinery that are conspicuously essential to wide
public interests. On its economic side, this distrust
is the irritating heart of our social problem. I have
seen a chart giving the growth of this sentiment
against all forms of the great machinery that is
loosely classed as semi-public corporations in nine
different countries. The result is practically every-
where the same, though with varying intensity. It
is found in free and democratic Switzerland, Aus-
tralia, New Zealand, and England, as well as in auto-
cratic Germany. Forms of government seem alike
indifferent to the process of socializing this machin-
ery. Given a certain degree of industrial develop-
ment, and the inevitable result follows of continuous
extension of the public function, railroad, telegraph,
telephone, gas, electric lights, street cars, and of
innumerable public works. If there is any authority
in the cumulative experience of industrial evolution
over so wide an area and under circumstances so
diverse, this would appear to furnish a trustworthy
instance. This fact of long and persistent experience
under a great variety of national and social conditions
has the weight and sanction which every consider-
able record of social growth must always carry
with it.
For proofs of this tendency we need not turn alone
to foreign peoples. The achieved result of public
management is in its infancy with us, but the first
great step of transformed opinion and tentative legis-
lation has already been taken. Dr. Whitten of the
State Library at Albany publishes bulletins which
122 THE SOCIAL UNREST
show how steady and strong the drift of public legis-
lation has become among us. 1 Commenting upon
this, a writer in the Nation observes, " If we define
socialism as the tendency to enlarge the functions of
government, we must admit that the general drift is
in that direction." One of the older of the Boston
lawyers, who had occasion to examine these statutes
in the different states, writes : " We seem to be giving
up all ideas of state functions that I was taught were
sound. My college instructors were very dogmatic
about the work which the city, state, and government
could undertake. Experience has, I think, turned
every one of their reasons topsy-turvy. Somewhere
in the world I see that the community is doing satis-
factorily what my teachers proved to us boys could
not possibly be done without confusion and catas-
trophe." Still wayward and uncertain of itself, the
general movement is now easily discernible.
If confined to its economic aspects, the dissatisfac-
tion out of which the social question springs has its
origin largely in the growing belief that mechanical
science and invention applied to industry are too
closely held by private interests. An enormous
private ownership of industrial mechanism, especially
if coupled with lands and mines, is now clearly seen
to carry with it powers and privileges that may
easily be turned against every promise of free and
democratic society. If it is true that dissatisfaction
has gained such headway as to disturb more and
more the currents of our social and political life,
that of itself makes the problem of our time.
Let us test this briefly, first, by reference to gen-
1 " The Trend of Legislation in the United States."
THE SOCIAL QUESTION 123
eral opinion, second to organized labor, third to cer-
tain farmers' associations.
General Opinion
In one of the largest business men's clubs in this
country I listened recently to a discussion upon Mu-
nicipal Ownership. At the close of the meeting the
president of the club said : " I would not have believed
that notions could change so rapidly on any subject
as they have upon this. Ten years ago this audi-
ence would have listened perhaps \o a plea for munic-
ipal control of street cars, lighting, etc., but not ten
men in the room would have believed a word of it.
To-night, a third of the members, whose interests are
not endangered, would vote for it, and most of the
others would go so far as to admit that the proposal
deserved very careful discussion." A lawyer promi-
nent enough to be president of the local Bar Associa-
tion added : " Even five years ago it was hard to find
any strong man in the club who felt interest enough
to talk about the topics two minutes. To-day few
topics are certain to excite livelier discussion." I
asked to what cause he attributed the change.
" Chiefly," he replied, " to the facts brought out by lo-
cal reform associations. They have proved to every-
body, what many of us knew and all suspected, that
the city council was as regularly debauched by these
corporations as the necessities of their business ex-
tension required. The directors always cry out, ' We
are under a perpetual blackmail, and therefore can't
help buying aldermen.' If they tell us the truth, if
regular corruption is a necessity of private manage-
124 THE SOCIAL UNREST
ment in this city, then it is too dangerous a power to
intrust to such a body. Though the city would, of
course, run the same risks of political abuse, it would
be better for the public to take the responsibilities
openly, and meet them as best it can."
This illustration possibly overstates the change of
general opinion throughout the country, but it indi-
cates fairly how great a change has been wrought.
To hear these views from the ablest practical men
is no longer a surprise. The tone of editorial dis-
cussion is just as marked. One of the most influen-
tial of Massachusetts dailies now boldly takes ground
in favor of public management, even of railroads, tele-
graph, and telephone. Two others are ready at all
times to discuss the municipal issue with that open-
ness of mind which assumes it to be an unsettled
question. The editor of one of these papers tells
me point blank, " Personally, I have no doubt we
are coming to city ownership, and ought to come
to it"
The current literature in favor of extending the
functions of the city has come to be so prolific that
it is hard, even for the special student, to follow it.
For some years I classified the articles upon this sub-
ject as they appeared in general magazine literature.
A dozen years ago the task was light, but a year
since, from sheer weariness at the amount of matter,
the task was discontinued. In one of our largest
libraries, the librarian, struggling with the difficul-
ties of a new catalogue, told me " our greatest nui-
sance is the increasing mass of literature on social
questions. Are people growing crazy on that sub-
ject?"
THE SOCIAL QUESTION 12$
Capitalists, and the agents who act for them, are
daily furnishing testimony to the same effect.
An able article in Municipal Engineering, by J. B.
Cahoon, warns capitalists not to oppose state regula-
tion. He fears and opposes city ownership, but says
to his business friends : " There lie open to us two
paths, municipal ownership or private ownership
under state regulation. We certainly do not want
municipal ownership, therefore let us prepare to ac-
cede gracefully to the other course ; and not only that,
but let us help it along. In that lies our salvation."
He then adds, " I doubt if there are in this whole as-
sociation a dozen members who realize fully the grav-
ity of the present situation for the private ownership
of public utilities." "The number of agitators that
are crying municipal ownership of public utilities is
constantly and rapidly increasing ; they are attack-
ing us in all parts of the country, even now, and the
attack will be stronger and stronger as time goes on." 1
Views of Organized Labor
It is dangerous to report class opinions. "What
labor thinks " has been the lying text of many a
demagogue. There is no uniformity of conviction
upon a single industrial topic among some twenty
millions who work for wages in the United States.
It is only in the case of labor organized that one may
1 1 am told by an official of a telephone company that the agitation
for municipal ownership has developed so far that the company has
quietly gathered from all sources every fragment of available evidence
bearing on the problem. " We propose," he said, " to be better
equipped than the cranks when the fight comes on."
126 THE SOCIAL UNREST
speak with the least degree of assurance. Though
this is but a small fraction, perhaps one in fourteen
or fifteen, its weight in terms of opinion is far more
important than is signified by numbers. This or-
ganized minority has scores of trade journals. It
has a literature and extensive agencies for propa-
ganda. It has a steady tendency to set the current
of beliefs among a far larger number than that under
the immediate control of the union. To treat these
convictions, therefore, as of slight account is the kind
of error for which no one seems to have so special a
talent as the so-called practical man.
The new step taken by organized labor in this
country during the last ten years is to learn the pos-
sibilities of political action. Twenty years ago those
who guided the movement were afraid of politics, to-
day they see in its skilful manoeuvring a new hope
and a new era.
The shrewdest trade-union leaders observed in the
great strikes of 1892 and 1894 that the chances of
favoring political influence (if the right moment for
the strike were chosen) were full of promise. The
brilliant victory of the strike of 1900, led by John
Mitchell, and deliberately aided by the most influen-
tial man then in Congress, so confirmed this impres-
sion that the great labor struggles of the future will
have a still closer and more calculated reference to
politics. As this conscious alliance strengthens, it
will become almost more dangerous to defeat the strike
than to help it toward victory. Increasingly, too, the
issues upon which strikes of the first magnitude will
turn are issues that bring us face to face with the
alternative of public control. The general interest
THE SOCIAL QUESTION 127
and attention are henceforth directed along socialistic
lines, not by books, but by stirring events. The influ-
ence of this close relation upon trade-union convic-
tions is already apparent.
The older trade-union faiths were oftener individu-
alistic than collectivism Year by year they have
been modified, until it may be said that they will
soon be, if they are not already, practically unani-
mous in demanding public control of the natural
monopolies, gas, electric light, street cars, as well
as railroads, telegraph, and mines. If it is asked
what has solidified their thought upon this subject,
the answer is found in a wide and very bitter experi-
ence. I shall not claim that their ordeals have been
undeserved. I shall not hold the unions guiltless of
many special acts of intolerable behavior. The aim
is now not to judge their conduct, but to know their
opinions and the changes they have undergone.
Their views vary, step by step, as certain forms of
machinery develop and react upon labor. As the
iron takes its shape between hammer and anvil, labor
organization has been made by the organization of
machine industry. But for the introduction of these
inventions, and the way in which they have been
applied to industry, the laborer never would have
submitted to the long and terrible sacrifices that
organization has cost him. For the cities where the
unions have won their strength, the most telling ob-
ject lesson has been the mechanism of street trans-
portation. This is the great machine of the city, as
the railroad is for the country at large. For a quar-
ter of a century the strikes upon street cars and rail-
roads have brought home to the trade union the most
128 THE SOCIAL UNREST
instructive lessons it has learned in this country. As
this labor has thrown itself against semi-public corpora-
tions it has been made to see the hard limits beyond
which mere unionism cannot go. It is thus with every
defeated strike that one sees the employees turning
with steadily growing conviction against private owner-
ship and in favor of public, in the hope that favors
can be forced from the public which the private cor-
poration refuses.
Especially in its conflict with natural monopolies
like street-car companies has labor learned its politics.
In the heat of more than six hundred such strikes
it has been taught how the powerful natural mo-
nopoly within the city is guarded by secret privileges
won in the lobbies. It is in part the knowledge of
this that so rouses the wide public sympathy which
we have seen with the strikers in so many of our
cities.
In Milwaukee, after the great strike, I found neither
doubt nor hesitation that the angry popular suspicion
of undue political influence was justified. The reign-
ing political party had its roots deep in city affairs.
Contracts were made to the direct end of strengthen-
ing this hold. The heat engendered by every such
strike brings these facts to light. I was told by a
citizen and stockholder, whose judgment was thought
to have special value, that it was well the people
knew so little. Their suspicions, he said, " are more
than justified. I hate all talk about socialism, but
this strike has taught me a lesson I never could have
learned from books. This form of city monopoly,
half private, half public, has got to be brought under
thorough and consistent municipal direction. Whether
THE SOCIAL QUESTION I2Q
we should lease it out or own and manage it, I do not
know, but we are near the end of all ownership that
is not far more responsible to the public than anything
we have known here." A leader among the work-
men said, " Nothing that has ever happened has
done so much to turn our men toward municipal
socialism as this strike." There is scarcely a limit to
the amount of testimony to be adduced from scores
of cities in the United States. In an economic study
which was pronounced "careful and judicious" by a
committee of the American Economic Association, 1
the reader has a glimpse of the entire street-car
problem in the United States. For magnitude of de-
moralization, the instance here given does not com-
pare with some of the railroad corporations, but its
narrowed area enables the investigator to report upon
it with much closer accuracy. As this Cleveland ma-
chinery of transportation slowly consolidates, offering
ever more glittering prizes to private ownership, the
author tells us the result.
" It has brought together a combination of men
whose commercial and political power is practically
unlimited. Representing as they do, with their
associates, the managers of both party ' machines,'
it makes little difference which party is in power, so
far as gaining their ends is concerned. And this
power extends beyond municipal into state matters
as well. Legislatures as well as councils are made
the tools of these corporations. The fifty-year fran-
chise bill was almost as much a party measure as the
election of the United States senator who championed
1 "The Street Railway Problem in Cleveland," Macmillan, 1896.
Especially pages 313, 315, 354.
K
130 THE SOCIAL UNREST
it. The same forces which made him senator made
this bill a law.
" When we approach the question of corruption in
the award of franchises, it must be admitted that the
system has thus far put an immense premium upon
all sorts of jobbery and corruption. The street rail-
way interest has been all-powerful in the control of
political machines. It has not only secured, appar-
ently for the mere asking, the most valuable privileges
which the city council could bestow, but it has also
escaped the performance of many obligations which
the state has compelled the council to make a con-
dition of its grants. It has prevented the enforce-
ment of nearly every law which it has not cared to
obey. And now it has an enormous inducement to
corrupt a majority of the council in order to obtain
the most valuable grant ever put into the hands of
that body to bestow. All this it has been enabled
and encouraged to do under the present system,
which offers to unscrupulous men both the motive
and the power to corrupt the city government."
With tiresome uniformity this is the story of other
cities. No body of citizens has shown a readier wit
to discover these facts than the trade unions. Their
journals show how early they were to appreciate the
drift of events and to understand their bearing upon
labor interests. With every new object lesson of suc-
cessful or defeated strike, this group opinion has grown
more confident and more definite ; that monopolized
machinery of city transportation, lighting, and tele-
phone should be taken over by the public authorities.
Twenty years ago opinion was formless and hesitating,
to-day it is clear and decisive.
THE SOCIAL QUESTION 131
TJie Farmers
As in the case of the industrial laborer, we have
to consider on the agricultural field only those among
the farmers who have established organizations. We
have even to omit certain granges whose purpose
is almost exclusively social and agricultural. Much
amazement is expressed at the massing of great capitals,
but if difficulties are taken into account, it is perhaps
no more an object of surprise than that millions of
farmers, since 1867, should have organized to such
extent for what they believe to be their own defence.
They were bound together neither by common tra-
dition nor common politics. Their resources were
scanty and they were separated by wide geographical
distances. The real beginnings are soon after the
Civil War, when invention, as applied to industry, was
organized for the first time in our history upon a
great scale. As if by some impulse common to them
all, business, trade unions, railroads, farmers, and even
charities are caught by this new spirit of organiza-
tion. Only two years after the close of the war the
" Patrons of Husbandry " was founded. This order
began with the vaguest statement as to aims, such as
" industrial benefits and the social improvement of its
members." Vigorous efforts were made, as with the
earlier trade unions, to exclude all discussion of
politics. This nervous solicitude to eschew politics is
full of significance. Protesting never so loudly that
they will shun politics, they have year by year yielded
more to its claims.
The deepest purpose in most great movements
comes tardily to consciousness and is openly admitted
132 THE SOCIAL UNREST
with extreme reluctance. Early in the Reformation,
Luther is vehement in asserting, " I will do nothing
against his Holiness, the Pope." Lincoln was sin-
cere in repeating that " he has no purpose, directly or
indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery
in the states where it exists," that he has " no lawful
right to do so." Yet the movement behind both these
strong men drove them to eat their own words. In
the first decade of the farmers' agitation there is
much honest and well-meant horror of questioning
the infallibility of party politics. The discontents
that gathered about the crisis of 1873 raised the
number of grangers to thirty thousand in 1875.
Then come internal jealousies, the inevitable conflict
of discordant aims, and the "dangerous effects of
prosperity." The strength of this organization as an
influence continued hardly more than ten years. Re-
viewing its history in 1891, leaders justified their work
by pointing to its influence in lessening the patent-
monopoly of sewing machines, "thus saving," as
they say, " millions to the people annually " ; in
directing a successful agitation against transportation
companies by helping on the interstate commerce law,
etc. They have also much to say about oleomar-
garine, agricultural stations, and arbor days. But
chiefly to be noticed is the unmistakable beginning
of opposition to the forms of monopolized machinery
that concerns the farmer's life. In 1880, a larger
organization takes the field in the South, the
Farmers' Alliance. This soon adopts six ethical
and educational generalities, in the first of which " a
strictly non-partisan spirit " is taken. It gradually
federates with other farmers' organizations, until a
THE SOCIAL QUESTION 133
"union platform" is adopted, including the aims of
the northern and western associations, as well as
those of the Knights of Labor. Politics now becomes
a conscious purpose, and a new and bolder position is
taken toward the currency and methods of exchange
and transportation. The National Farmers' Alliance
in the Middle West had, as early as 1877, brought
politics and " anti-monopolies " to the front. At the
Cincinnati convention in 1891 the full spirit of the
peoples party, with its political and economic ideals,
takes shape. The evils to be overcome are now far
more definite. Landownership by foreign syndi-
cates is opposed ; lands that have been taken by
railroads and other corporations, in excess of actual
working necessities, are to be reclaimed by govern-
ment; railroads and telegraphs are to be taken over
and operated by the state.
When it was said to the farmer, "Your produce
would rot in the field if it were not for the railroad
and this same money power," the usual answer was,
"We farmers understand our interests well enough
to know that, but we also know that it is only half of
the truth." From 1867 to the present, the conviction
has deepened that " some way must be found in which
these mighty agencies can be used more equitably
for the public good and less exclusively for fattening
the few." The whole movement is created by this
feeling.
The mere text of these programmes is, of course, not
sufficient to tell us what the most tenacious purpose
of the party is. Platforms are padded like those of
the republican and democratic parties. Beyond the
printed rhetoric is the real aim of the stronger spirits
134 THE SOCIAL UNREST
that cannot wholly display itself. During the cam-
paign of 1897 in Chicago, I asked three of the most
influential men then crying for free silver, if " 16 to
i " represented the most fundamental changes which
they desired. It appeared in each case that the " grip
of the money power " was the deeper problem. One,
whose writings had done much to inspire the party,
assured me that the actual issue was of course impor-
tant, but he added, " the evil that we are after is that
connected with the great monopolies." The leader
of this movement in Massachusetts says, " Practical
reasons forced us to bring the silver issue to the front,
but the great interest which unites us all is the danger-
ous business and political influence which the money
power has at last got in this country."
Here is the misfortune of this much-bewildered
party, that its grievances have such heterogeneous
character and are so difficult to formulate. The
stupendous organization of industrial and scientific
invention is now under the control of the strong and
successful. A thousand privileges, political and legal,
protect them in their possessions. The laws of inheri-
tance multiply every advantage. Many of our strong-
est papers are at the disposition of these interests,
often, indeed, their private property, and legislatures
and city councils are frequently moulded to their
wish. What can the invertebrate multitude, torn
by many conflicting interests, do before a power so
formidable ? Thus far it cannot even state its own
case. This it is which gives a merciless advantage
to every critic of the peoples party. The very
term "money power" has become a cant well-nigh
intolerable. There is scarcely a severer test to fair-
THE SOCIAL QUESTION 135
ness than that to which the student must submit, as
he passes judgment upon the thirty years' history of
the farmers' agitation. To hold it to the mere letter
of its complaint is unjust.
The most frequent critical judgment is that the
one thing all populists are after is fiat money. This
craze is said to be the one thing that unites them.
There is much truth in this, but it requires a most
important qualification. Views upon the currency
alone do not test this movement. A fairer reading
of populist opinion shows that money is conceived
of as an interlinked part of our commercial mecha-
nism. It is thought of as a medium through which
this mechanism is vitalized. The instinct which seeks
to change the monetary system is the same instinct
which seeks more power over the railroad, the bank,
the stock exchange, the telegraph, and the grain
elevator.
To see the movement as one against the too exclu-
sive use of this industrial machinery, is to see it in
a light that helps us interpret it, without violence to
what is deepest and most permanent in it. The
social question is forever an attack upon what, in
some form, is thought to be unfair privilege. Eco-
nomic privilege is now an inseparable part of the
machinery of modern production and distribution.
The farmer attacks railroads because they touch him
at so visible and sensitive a point. He strikes wildly
at "futures" on the stock exchange, at our banking
system, at the " single standard," because these are
to him the express tokens of industrial privilege.
It is this ultimate and determining impulse which
enables us to give this agitation its proper name.
136 THE SOCIAL UNREST
Stripped of its padding and accidents, it is a socialist
propaganda.
During eight yearly visits through Western towns,
covering a period of hard times and a period of
exceptionally good times, I tried to gather evidence
upon this question. There are two extreme condi-
tions to be kept in mind. There are first, vast
fertile areas on which the farmer is as prosperous
and contented as any class with which it is fair
to compare him. There are other wide areas, like
parts of Kansas and Nebraska, in which capricious
climate accounts chiefly for the chronic ills under
which the farmers suffer. Between these extremes
is found a very large class whose discontent is real
and whose feeling, year by year, grows more social-
istic. I tried in each community to find out the farmer
whose opinion upon such subjects was thought to be
of value. A fair summary of this testimony can be
put into the experience of a prosperous farmer whose
intelligence had general recognition in his city. I
give this, as nearly word for word, as note-book
memoranda permit. It is stated at length, because
the illustration is believed to carry more truth than
any mere analysis or general discussion.
" For seventeen years I lived on a farm out of
town. For nine years I have lived in the city and
rented my farm. I have got ahead a little, as three-
fourths of the farmers I know have done, if they
have worked hard and intelligently. If I had not
read two books, Henry George, in the early eighties,
and later Bellamy, I should have grubbed along and
never thought anything was wrong. Those books
set me thinking how the things we grow and make
THE SOCIAL QUESTION 137
are divided up. I have read ever since, and gone to
a good many lectures ; but what influenced me most
was watching and finding out how a few men got
very rich, and a large number amassed fortunes here
in town, by owning and running the street cars.
They were, many of them, high up in politics, and
got the streets for nothing, and then from year to
year bought up the most valuable pieces of land in
the city, because they knew where they were going
to put down the tracks. I was in a position to know
how the fat contracts building, paving, etc. were
put out so as to strengthen political control, which
these men needed. I have seen a contractor grow
wealthy in ten years, solely because he could manage
politics in one section of the city. The corporation
bought him in this way. No man can get on to the
city council if those men do not want him there.
The town has grown rapidly, and these men with
their friends have got all the cream while we've got
the skim milk. A man can't die on skim milk, but
you don't like to see a few at a side table take all the
cream. They tell us they have done big things for
the city. I admit it is true, but we have all found
out here how the clique got a great deal more out of
it than they ought to get, and the rest of the town
too little. At the start nobody knew what was being
given away in parting with the franchises. The
people are finding out their mistake, and they never
will be quiet till they have got them again. Now,
when I understood that problem in my town, I began
to reason about the railroad and telegraph system
in the whole country. If a few men could get the
cream in this town, it was easy to see how the Goulds
138 THE SOCIAL UNREST
and the Huntingtons could do it in a much bigger
field.
" I don't doubt they have helped the country in some
ways, just as the street cars have helped this town,
but in both cases they have got the cream and the
people the skim milk. Now, nothing will make me
believe that there isn't some way of doing this busi-
ness that is as much public business as it is private
so that the people shall get fairer treatment. It
is thinking about these things that made me join first
the local alliance and, later, the peoples party, be-
cause they are trying to do with the railroads and
certain other monopolies what we in this town pro-
pose to do with the street cars and the electric light."
I submit this case as fairly representative, enabling
us so far to account for the suspicion and restlessness
that make this phase of the social question. It is,
of course, legitimate to challenge his remedy of pub-
lic ownership. We cannot deny a certain justifica-
tion to his sense of wrong. As he felt it, millions of
others have come, or are coming, to feel it.
The form in which the farmer has stated his griev-
ance has often been so muddled that any economic
tyro could make easy jest of it. When the Irish
farmers began to agitate against landlords' rent, it
was just as easy to make those agitators appear very
absurd. All the economic commonplaces were turned
against them by the " highest authorities," as well as
by smart writers in the daily press.
As we now look upon these events it is clear that
those Irish farmers were far nearer right than their
patronizing opponents. The farmer was paying an
amount of tribute that the land could no longer
THE SOCIAL QUESTION 139
afford, and a whole body of the most socialistic legis-
lation in modern times was grudgingly enacted.
The heart of the protest among our own farmers
may in time look far more intelligent than the glib
complacencies which the " articulate classes " level
against them. As the blade of economic rent cut too
far into the loaf of the Irish farmer, it may prove
that the close organization of railroad, tide-water
facilities, the stock exchange, and the great banking
filches too freely from the farmers' earnings.
The present alliance of these business interests is
the most powerful industrial machine that the world
has seen. It is a mechanism that gathers to itself
every triumph of science and invention. Will the
financial kings, whose colossal ownership enables
them to control and direct this enginery, use it so
that its benefits become uniformly apparent to the
farming class ? It is not enough that the farmer is
kept loyal merely through the " curve of prosperity,"
his confidence must have sustaining enough to keep
his loyalty through curves of depression. The farm-
ers cannot be made to believe that the unhappy zig-
zag between fatness and leanness is wholly due to
fickle skies and occasional bad crops. They know
enough about the fatal rhythm of the crisis and its
connection with gambling distempers in the market,
to protect them against so na'fve an exposition. They
guess as giddily at the real source of crises as many
of the men who write books upon that subject. The
farmer may nevertheless be right in attributing one
leading cause of these disturbances to the way in
which these great commercial forces are used.
That the canting use of the term " money power "
140 THE SOCIAL UNREST
has become an offence, ought not to cozen us into
the belief that the term has no serious meaning.
The centralizing of banking and transportation with
many of the first and most necessary industries is
an event so momentous that the ablest men differ
utterly in their interpretation of it. Is this money
power, as now directed by private interest, a social
menace ?
I have put this question to many men of very large
experience. Most frequently the answers are opti-
mistic, but there are no more competent witnesses in
this country than a large number of men who look
upon this same "money power" with the gravest mis-
givings. They will state these doubts more freely in
private, not necessarily from cowardice, but from hon-
est intellectual perplexity before the practical difficul-
ties which the question involves.
I can condense these misgivings in the opinions of
two lawyers with princely incomes from corporation
practice. Both have university training and have
written books. They agreed that the next great issue
in this country was likely to be with the money power,
defined as an alliance of the great banking with vast
businesses which have, or can be given, the character
of monopolies.
I showed these opinions to two men, a banker and
a trust organizer. One has a national reputation,
the other is frequently quoted in conservative dis-
cussions of finance. Both are republicans and very
prosperous. I do no injustice to their views in say-
ing that they were still more pronounced in their
fears that centralizing financial control is a distinct
social danger.
THE SOCIAL QUESTION 141
The banker said : " No such power ever fell into
human hands as that which some twenty-five men
now hold. I do not believe they mean to abuse it,
but I do not see how they can continue to control
it so that it shall not get us into both business and
political difficulties."
The trust organizer said, "The next thing that
will be recognized, even by conservative men, is the
tyranny in this country of this money power."
I do not put upon this testimony any very ominous
interpretation. It may prove that the interests of
these captains of industry will coincide with the com-
mon good. My object in quoting the above views is
to show that at bottom these men agree with what is
the core of the farmers' discontent.
It would be fantastic to say that the farmers mean
what these lawyers and the bank president meant.
The latter expressed reasoned opinions, based upon
long and detailed experience with financial affairs.
They may be said to see as far as any one sees into
the problem of commercial organization. They have
at least some conception of the obscure relations in
which banking, transportation, and certain great in-
dustries stand to each other. Far less of this is
understood by the farmer. His error has been ex-
pressed in such ways as to cast suspicion or contempt
upon the party as a whole. The injustice of this
against the peoples party is flagrant. Beneath all
errors of conscious explanation may still be found an
instinct that is sound and right. Skilful dialectic and
literary good form may as easily win a bad case, as
ignorant handling may lose a good one. From this
cause the farmers' movement has suffered. Its most
142 THE SOCIAL UNREST
strident emphasis has too often been upon the wrong
issue. Many of its most hopeful proposals have been
obscured by irrelevancies, or so stated as to carry no
conviction.
What any fair critic may already see behind the
faulty presentation of populism, is that the moving pur-
pose of it is closely akin to that just considered under
"General Opinion" and under "Trade Unions." If
carefully studied, the doubts and suspicions of the
populist are seen to be strangely like the doubts
and suspicions of the two lawyers and the bank
president. The ignorant and the less ignorant agree
that the "money power" is full of threatening.
Both agree that some form and measure of strong
government or state control will be a necessity of the
future. They agree that these gathered forces have
grown too powerful to be left unregulated in private
hands. The farmer's feeling about this is no less
justified because he cannot give rational account of
it. The banker and lawyer could state more cogently
what they 'meant by the " money power," yet, if there
were any truth in their opinions, it is not at bottom
truer than the feeling of the populist.
As with general opinion, as with the opinion of
the trade union, so the feeling of discontent in this
farmers' movement is one against monopoly privilege.
It is being found out what the heart of this privilege
is. It inheres in certain forms of property owner-
ship. It is the holding in such unrestricted private
possession the very conditions and instruments of
wealth production.
To gain mastery over the very titbits of the earth,
in harbors, cities, highways, and mines, and then to
THE SOCIAL QUESTION 143
own enough of the great machinery of transportation
and production to decide the conditions under which
others shall do their work this is the power against
which a dangerously large number of people is crying
out. They do not see how power, in this degree and
kind, can continue to grow, without abandoning every
hope of a society in which equal privilege shall at last
reign among men.
The economic significance of the social question
is this deepening purpose to break the hold upon
monopoly privilege, as above defined. Rightly or
wrongly it has come to be believed, by numbers great
enough to become a social and political force, that the
most vital landholdings and the great machinery are
not now used for the greatest common good.
Yet the purely business elements are probably not
first in this rising tide of disapproval. There is a
growing conviction that private ownership may gather
to itself such strength and mastery as to control poli-
tics and defeat the very beginnings of democratic
government.
It has thus come to pass that the seeds of political
abuse which capitalism itself planted are bearing fruit.
Socialism and organized labor, imbued with the collec-
tivist spirit, have learned their lesson. There is in
future no divorcing of the greater labor disturbances
from politics.
CHAPTER V
THE INEVITABLENESS OF THE SOCIAL QUESTION
A VETERAN in the trade-union movement of Massa-
chusetts said at a dinner of the Twentieth Century
Club : "We have not got very far in understanding
the social question until we rise out of the atmosphere
of personal blaming. A man who thinks it is all the
fault of this or that capitalist, has not got very
far. Our real trouble is not with specific rich men,
but with the general system which makes possi-
ble the man of one hundred millions on one side, and
a mass of laborers struggling for the means of sub-
sistence on the other. It is not primarily the fault of
the magnates ; it is the fault of all of us who consent
to the conditions out of which these dangerous extremes
spring up."
A member of the London County Council, making
investigations in the United States, heard these words,
and added : " I have been interviewing your business
men ever since I landed, but not once have I heard
so impersonal a judgment. I have found the pick of
your labor leaders far better instructed upon all sides
of the labor controversy than business men. The
business man is cocksure about the trouble. It is
the labor agitator. If only he could be suppressed,
all would be well." His explanation was that men of
affairs were too busy to read. They were simply vexed
144
THE INEVITABLENESS OF THE SOCIAL QUESTION 145
by strikes and by trade-union interference, and out of
this immediate experience made their philosophy.
This is a very insufficient analysis. These large and
impersonal views are exceptions upon both sides, but
they are as frequently met amon g business men as among
those who represent labor. The perpetual astonishment
of the student is, however, that business men know so
little of those organs of opinion into which the wage
earner puts his most earnest and most honest thought.
It is droll that one should have to make this comment,
but I have never yet seen an employer who had given
the least serious attention to this literature. I have
known a manufacturer of machinery who had been
through repeated conflicts with his men over ques-
tions raised by the union. He did not treat these
disturbances as mere perversity. He had read much
general labor literature and showed some pride in
admitting that " great changes were certain to occur
between labor and capital during the next generation."
Yet among the men in his own business, a trade jour-
nal had been printed month by month for several
years. In the successive issues, every point of dif-
ference between his own views and those of his
men had been repeatedly discussed. All that his
men hoped for and were trying to attain, was here
set down, yet this employer had never thought it
worth his while to read a line of it. His intellectual
curiosity led him to much study of popular sociological
books, but schemes for improvements fermenting in
the minds of his own workers had interested him so
little that in his own words, " It never occurred to me
that there was anything worth reading in the journal
of these mechanics."
146 THE SOCIAL UNREST
I have known intelligent builders and scholarly
architects who had long fought trade unions among
their own workmen and yet had never even heard of
the trade journals in these crafts. These have con-
tained for many years the opinions of these workers
upon every issue that enters into their relation to the
employers. Cigar makers and garment workers are
thought to rank lower in the scale, yet no one can
look through a batch of their trade organs without a
wholly new conception of the movements there repre-
sented. As religious bodies, political parties, and
business interests have their own press for propa-
ganda, so that part of the labor world, from which
the chief industrial resistance comes, has created an
extensive periodical literature far abler than is com-
monly believed. In this literature they discuss not
only the conditions under which they work, hours,
wages, machinery, strikes, trade unions, they also
discuss every phase of the competitive regime under
which the industrial struggle for existence goes on.
From his employers and those who think with them,
the workman hears the defence of this competitive
struggle. He is told that under it men find their
place according to their merit. "Talent and efficiency
get their reward, mediocrity sinks to its proper level."
He is told that in all wealth-making three factors are
essential, land, labor, and capital, or, by more recent
refinement, ''natural opportunity, labor, and directing
intelligence." Each, according to the service it ren-
ders, receives its portion of the product : land its rent,
labor its wage, and organizing management its profits.
He is assured that this triune relation has something of
the sanctity of a divine decree, or at least the authority
THE INEVITABLENESS OF THE SOCIAL QUESTION 147
of a natural law. Given a reign of " free contract,"
and a proper regard for competition, and industrially
the best possible world is at hand, especially for the
wage earner. The forces of distribution give him an
ever increasing part of the product, while capital secures
a relatively diminishing portion. This is the cheerful
formula.
Meantime the victim of this instruction is busy with
his own observations. He notes that the capitalist
class enlarges its expenditure at a quite dizzying pace.
The home, the equipage, the club, the sports and rec-
reation, expand each year into more lavish and prod-
igal form. It is very apparent that dollar for dollar
the interest on capital has fallen from a high to a low
figure. It is apparent that dollar for dollar profits
have in the majority of businesses also fallen, but
the belectured wage earner sees that this jocund
formula is modified not a little by the simple fact
that the capitalist, during this fall in profits and
interest, may somehow have doubled and redoubled
his thrifty gains. If one possess four or five times
more capital, his income swells though the rate of
interest and profit falls. The laborer is not, how-
ever, left alone with his doubts. The world is full
of very wise people, who tell him with great frank-
ness that labor does not in any sense get its fair
share. They tell him that through the manipulating
of a thousand chartered privileges, labor is defrauded
of a formidable portion of its product. There are
no abler economists than dozens who make this
declaration.
As for the competitive wage system with its " free
contract," a troop of eminent men denounce it in
148 THE SOCIAL UNREST
unmeasured terms. They denounce it economically,
because of its wastefulness through unnecessary
duplication of rival plants, with the orgy of advertis-
ing which this rivalry occasions. They denounce it
morally with even more confident disapproval. They
see in it the teeming source of the self-seeking which
delights to take every advantage of another's weakness
or ignorance, to "best" him in the bargain. They
see in it the chief stimulator of the universal hunger
for quick riches which spreads among us the methods
and the spirit of the gambler. They charge it with
setting such a premium upon mere sharpness and
cunning that this type of success becomes the attrac-
tive idol for general worship.
It is easy to convict these charges of exaggeration
in the sense that they ignore the positive and service-
able side of competition. It is not easy to deny that
they carry with them a disquieting truth. It is upon
this, and not upon the shaded qualifications, that the
disaffected workmen seize. The speculative portions
of the labor press have become the receptacle of the
most accusing criticism against the business world as
now managed a criticism drawn not from the ranks
of labor, but from the ranks of those who possess as
much enlightenment as modern culture and opportu-
nity usually give.
Few events during recent years have more signifi-
cance than the growing popular sympathy with labor
unions in these struggles, especially their struggles
with semi-public corporations. This sympathy has
had an almost universal expression in the recent
anthracite coal strike. But for the unhappy fatalities
of personal violence that break out in the later despair-
THE IXEVITABLENESS OF THE SOCIAL QUESTION 149
ing days of the strike, this public sympathy would
become irresistible. The wholesome popular instinct
for law and order is swift to react against any excess
of ruffianly attack upon persons and property. The
strike breaks when this deviltry becomes unmanage-
able. At this point every strong current of general
sympathy deserts the strikers. Even for them it is
better that it should be so, for to win by lawlessness
would bring weakness and not strength to labor.
This fact carries in it, however, tragedy and pathos
alike. Labor leaders have learned that they cannot
and ought not to succeed by personal savagery against
property or persons. I have never heard more hon-
est and passionate pleading for law and order than
from trade-union officials addressing their own men
in time of strike. At such a moment John Mitchell
said to his miners : " If you want to spoil your own
cause and lose every sacrifice you have made for
yourselves and your families, give way to your tem-
per and commit some violence. Just a few outbreaks
like this and the public good-will, to which we must
look in last resort, will fail us and we shall deserve
to lose it." These words were not spoken for out-
side use, but to his own men in council. Nor are
they exceptional among the more disciplined leaders
in this country. Yet what, meantime, do these
leaders and their fellows also know ? They know
that many of these corporations against which their
fight is carried on have been more dangerously law-
less than can be any crude act which their own mem-
bers are likely to commit. They know this because
scores of the best-known men in the United States
have told them so. They have read it in half the
150 THE SOCIAL UNREST
great papers, in books, in economic studies, and hun-
dreds of times have laid these opinions before their
members in the labor press. Dr. Gladden, lecturing
this year before Yale students, speaks in these words
of the partnership between the politician and the con-
senting managers of certain corporations : J
" There is no man in any prison in this country who
has done a hundredth part as much to make society
impossible as has been done by any one of half a
dozen great political leaders. The man who by the
corrupt use of money manipulates caucuses and con-
ventions, and debauches candidates and voters, thus
poisoning at their sources the streams of political
power, is the most dangerous man in society to-day,
albeit his guilt is shared by those managers of great
corporations who furnish him with corruption funds.
If our notions of justice were clearer, such men would
not be abroad in society. Compared with the de-
structive influence of such men, how harmless are
most of the criminals shut up in our prisons."
Which is worse, to slug a fellow-workman or to
purchase some immunity for a corporation by paying
large sums to the local political "boss," knowing well
what this means for lawless and debasing effect at
the very heart of our political life? This is but a
single form that this corporate lawlessness takes on,
and it would be very inane to infer that this greater
wrong justifies the lesser wrong of the trade union.
The two wrongs are brought together to show the kind
of bitterness which thousands of the trade unionists
are coming to feel when they are held so rigidly to law
and order, while these greater fellow-criminals escape.
1 " Social Salvation," p. 105.
THE INEVITABLENESS OF THE SOCIAL QUESTION 151
Another form of unfairness that is still less ex-
cusable is the popular explanation of the cause and
continuance of many labor troubles. We are gravely
assured that it is the " labor agitator " the "walking-
delegate." In half the papers of the country this
sorry illusion gets repeated from year to year, until it
is believed.
I met a little girl much agitated, in Pullman, after
the great strike there. I asked her what the strike
was about. She answered, " Oh, the workmen wanted
to have their rents put up, and Mr. Pullman wouldn't
do it." There is nothing funnier in this child's ex-
position than in that generalization under which the
walking-delegate is naively written down as the cause
of strikes. For trade unionism at large in the United
States, the walking-delegate represents the opinion
and will of his union more closely than most con-
gressmen represent the opinion and will of their
constituents.
We are sufficiently reminded that our best men will
not go into the smaller politics. It is at least as true
that the best labor men do not always get prominent
positions in the unions, and essentially for the same
reason. The kind of gift that is indispensable
fluent speech, for example to active, stirring leader-
ship is oftener found among men of lighter weight.
On the other hand, there are no cooler or steadier
heads in the labor movement than many of those who
now control the unions in this country.
But the ends of capitalistic politics are in no way
more admirably served, than by fixing the cause of
these wasteful and annoying troubles definitely upon
obnoxious individuals. During one of our severest
152 THE SOCIAL UNREST
coal strikes, in which the public showed much sym-
pathy with the miners, an editorial appeared in one
of our best papers, saying that the causes were very
obscure, that more light was needed for fair judg-
ment I showed this to an operator in the thick of
the fight, urging that the public have a fuller account
of the issues in dispute. He replied that there were
no issues, " It's all the work of two or three labor
fakirs who want to live off our men." " What makes
me mad," he added, " is that I saw the manager of
that paper and gave him the facts, and now the
damned fool must talk about obscure causes and the
need of light."
The leisure of a few evenings spent with the files
of a dozen of our better labor papers will leave no
doubt in the mind of any candid reader that all these
unfair strictures against the unions produce most
regrettable effects. They are interpreted to mean
that the critics of the labor movement are wilfully
ignorant of its chief purposes, or deliberately mali-
cious in characterizing its efforts.
The labor movement rests on the assumption that
the production and distribution of wealth, as now
managed, ought to be and can be so far changed,
as to give the laborer more power in deciding the
terms under which he works. It is because increas-
ing numbers of the wage earners are becoming con-
vinced upon this point that society is afflicted with
an almost unbroken series of costly labor disputes.
This warfare excites caustic comments from the well-
to-do, as if it were the deliberate perversity of churlish
men.
Yet in a long and embittered strike no one bears so
THE INEVITABLENESS OF THE SOCIAL QUESTION 153
heavy a burden as the striker and his family. There
is no more poignant tragedy than the freely accepted
suffering which thousands of fathers and mothers
will undergo during the wasting months of a strike.
With children to feed, these parents know all that it
means to have every cent of income stopped for an
indefinite future. They know that the little luxuries
must disappear, that the petty saving must be quickly
spent, and a plague of debts at once begin. They
know all this, not as a curious observation, but as
grievous human experience. They know it, and yet
freely choose to suffer every sacrifice that the event
carries with it.
We are told by their critics that they would not
commit such follies but for the exercise of tyranny
and compulsion. Yes, the trade union exercises the
tyranny and compulsion of a majority vote as we do
generally in our form of government. The other
sagacious charge, that they are duped into the hard-
ships of a strike by their own officials, is generally so
far from the fact that the officials know better than all
others that their own pay is likely to stop in a prolonged
dispute, and if it fail, their prestige is at an end. It
is the clear knowledge of this fact which leads trade-
union officials every year to check hundreds of strikes,
of which the public knows nothing. What is brought
to the public ear is the most flagrant abuses of trade-
union activity. Especially in cities that are politically
corrupt, trade-union officials too often take on the
local color. They know and practise every trick
from which the common municipal life suffers.
The dishonest trade-union official, the mere talker,
the fakir proper these are all a part of the heavy
154 THE SOCIAL UNREST
burden that organized labor has to bear. It knows
these men better than the public knows them, knows
their weaknesses often better than the employer
knows them. I once thought myself doing a service
to a trade union, by telling some trustworthy members
that their leader was in the pay of an association of
employers. They had bought him for the purpose
of "keeping the union quiet." I found that the
strong men in the union were perfectly familiar with
the fact, but it was more than three years before
they could rid themselves of this man.
The " cause " yet means so much to them that
hard-worked men with meagre income will give time
and strength and money, not spasmodically, but year
after year, in order that their group welfare may not
suffer. The sacrifices are great, and they are unre-
mitting. The common fund which it has required
years to gather, is swept away in the strike of a few
weeks. Money that is destined for burial or sick
benefit often goes with the rest.
Do multitudes of men continue to load themselves
with these heavy encumbrances, except for reasons
that in their minds bear some relation to the sacrifices
involved ? The struggle is as widespread as it is
persistent. Without exception this struggle assumes
that the present competitive wage system does not
bring justice to labor. The revolt of the strike, the
friction, the angry pressure of organized labor, stand
for a protest against this system. The mass of
labor disturbances is the measure of dissatisfaction
with it.
Now it happens that our society is full of extremely
influential persons who say point-blank that labor's
THE INEVITABLENESS OF THE SOCIAL QUESTION 155
protest is in the main a righteous one that should
prevail. This sympathetic assent adds, y,ear by year,
new power to the labor and socialistic movement.
The workman no longer reads in his own papers
merely the opinions of his mates, he reads there the
opinions of so many of the world's intellectual leaders,
that he naturally comes to believe that the highest
and most disinterested talent is on his side in the
struggle. 1
My attention was first called to the real character
of this influence by the use to which German labor
papers put many of the leading writers in that coun-
try. The philosopher F. A. Lange wrote his epoch-
making book on the labor question in the days when
social democracy in Germany was in the first ferment
of political organization. The moral weakness of
the competitive system, the nature of the industrial
struggle for existence, the defeat of higher ideal values
in this scramble for private gain, never at that time
had been told with such searching power as by this
noble scholar. German workingmen were among
the first to welcome it. They lectured upon it, wrote
about it, and reproduced it in their literature. " Here,
at last," they said, " is a university teacher in great
vogue, who understands what our struggle means and
has the courage to utter it."
From this volume (" Die Arbeiter Frage ") the more
thoughtful socialists were led to Professor Lange's
greater work, " The History of Materialism," in which
they found a mine of critical material. The disci-
1 The mass of laborers even in trade unions are not habitual readers,
but these thoughts in the speeches of their fellows or in conversation
with those who do read, become a part of their life.
156 THE SOCIAL UNREST
plined interest which Lange always took in economic
studies, heightens his value for their uses. This
more academic study also bristles with barbed para-
graphs against the present industrial regime. In
the chapter on " Political Economy and Dogmatic
Egoism" the author analyzes the prevailing apol-
ogies for the struggle for existence as it appears
in modern business. He finds in it a deification of
self-interest that stands in deadly enmity with ethical
idealism.
He says : " We may show a hundred times that with
the success of speculation and great capitalists the
position of everybody else, step by step, improves;
but so long as it is true that with every step of this
improvement the difference in the position of indi-
viduals and in the means for further advancement
also grows, so long will each step of this movement
lead toward a turning-point where the wealth and
power of individuals break down all the barriers of
law and morals, and a degraded proletariat serves as
a football to the passions of the few, until at last every-
thing ends in a social earthquake which swallows
up the artificial edifice of one-sided and selfish inter-
ests. . . . The state becomes venal. The hope-
lessly poor will just as easily hate the law as the
over-rich despise it. Sparta perished when the
whole land of the country belonged to a hundred
families ; Rome when a proletariat of millions stood
opposed to a few thousands of proprietors, whose
resources were so enormous that Crassus considered
no one rich who could not maintain an army at his
own expense. ... In mediaeval Italy also popular
freedom was lost through a moneyed oligarchy and a
THE INEVITABLENESS OF THE SOCIAL QUESTION 157
proletariat. ... It is characteristic that in Florence
the richest banker finally became an unlimited despot,
and that contemporaneously in Genoa the Bank of
St. George in a measure absorbed the state. "
He opens his chapter on Christianity and En-
lightenment in these words : " The present state of
things has been frequently compared with that of the
ancient world before its dissolution, and it cannot be
denied that significant analogies present themselves.
We have the immoderate growth of riches, we have
the proletariat, we have the decay of morals and
religion ; the present forms of government all have
their existence threatened, and the belief in a coming
general and mighty revolution is widely spread and
deeply rooted."
As the name of the musician Wagner rose in distinc-
tion, the socialist did not forget to rifle his " Kunst
und die Revolution" for comforting opinions. "Art
and the Revolution " is one fierce anathema. That
the laborers should rise against commercialism is the
one sign to this " poet-musician " that they have self-
respect and intelligence. "This hatred," he says,
" springs from a noble instinct for a dignified joy in
life ; from the passion to rise from drudgery to art,
from slavery to free humanity." It is passages like
these that gave Wagner the title, "The Karl Marx
of poetry and music."
From the weighty books of Dr. Schaeffle they
took very early such utterances as these : " The un-
limited sway of capitalism offers a widespread and
fruitful field for the growth of immoral instincts,"
" The factory system has come with its merciless
exploitation of wage labor."
158 THE SOCIAL UNREST
During a later visit to Germany, I came to know a
socialist workingman with whom I often argued about
the rights and wrongs of the "present system." When
the discussion once turned upon a question of author-
ity and opinion, he took from his desk a scrap-book
filled with clippings from German labor papers. These
were passages condemning the industrial system as
it now exists. With every degree of vehemence, the
writers declared that labor was unjustly treated ; that
the wage system had much in it common with slavery ;
that capitalism was full of intolerable tyrannies. I
do not say these opinions were either wise or true.
I use them to show how surely they brought this
mechanic to feel that his own views were justified,
and had the approval of the masters of thought. His
authorities were not merely the mordant cynicism of
Heine or the rhymed hatred of Freiligrath. He
had the censure he wanted from half the German
economists. He had made excerpts from the first
of German historians, like the following from
Mommsen.
" Riches and misery in close league drove the
Italians out of Italy and filled the peninsula partly
with swarms of slaves, partly with awful silence. It
is a terrible picture, but not one peculiar to Italy;
whenever the government of capitalists in a slave
state has fully developed itself, it has desolated
God's fair world in the same way. . . . All the
arrant sins that capital has been guilty of against
nation and civilization in the modern world remain as
far inferior to the abomination of the ancient capital-
ist states as the free man, be he ever so poor, remains
superior to the slave ; and not until the dragon seed
THE INEV1TABLENESS OF THE SOCIAL QUESTION 159
of North America ripens will the world have again
similar fruits to reap." l
He had cut out the views of Tolstoi, of Ibsen, of
Ruskin, of Carlyle. He turned upon me in triumph,
saying: "If it is a question of opinion about our
cursed society, all the men who think great thoughts,
and dare to utter them, are with us. They all call it
rotten, they despise capitalism, the politicians, and the
lawyers that are its hirelings."
Few will be so unfair as to deny that this artisan
got his impressions as honestly as impressions come
to most of us. It will be admitted that his feelings
were stoutly reenforced by the conviction that these
men of learning were on his side. He was not likely
to make nice discrimination as to the relation of these
extracts to the author's completer thought. This
discrimination is rare even among the educated.
The poets, thinkers, scholars, clothed this saw-filer's
rougher thought in the purple of their own distinc-
tion. They brought to him the mysterious sanction
of those whom we all recognize as teachers. What
he and his kind could only feel or poorly utter, they
gave back to him in splendid or rugged phrases that
redoubled their force and made them sacred to his
imagination. If, then, this incident be multiplied
million-fold, we get new insight into one source of
unrest with the present social order.
My experience with this German workingman led
1 This man was proud of having learned French enough to read
Victor Hugo. He had taken from " Les Miserables " these radical words,
" Universaliser la propriete (ce qui est le contraire de 1'abolir) en sup-
primant le parasitisme social, c'est a dire arriver a ce but : tout homme
proprietaire et aucun homme maitre, voila pour moi la veritable Econo-
mic sociale et politique."
160 THE SOCIAL UNREST
me to collect several hundred copies of European
labor journals, popular pamphlets, and leaflets. They
present a kind of anthology rilled with telling quota-
tions against the economic organization of society.
A corresponding collection of our own labor literature
in 1890 showed less systematic use of such criticisms,
but this difference has now wholly disappeared. Even
our more special trade organs are not less alert to
welcome imposing authorities. Emerson, as in the
following passage, is put to constant use : " As long
as our civilization is one of property, of fences, of
exclusiveness, it will be mocked by delusions. Our
riches will leave us sick, there will be bitterness in
our laughter, and our wine will burn our mouth.
Only that good profits which we can taste with all
doors open and which serves all men." Matthew
Arnold's famous phrase does perpetual service,
" Our present social inequality materializes the upper
class, vulgarizes the middle class, and brutalizes the
lower class." Even from the elder Arnold, I find
these drastic words gleefully quoted : " It seems to
me that people are not aware of the monstrous state
of society, absolutely without a parallel in the history
of the world, with a population poor, miserable, and
degraded in body and mind, as if they were slaves,
and yet called freemen. And the hopes entertained
by many, of the effects to be wrought by new churches
and schools, while the social evils of their conditions
are left uncorrected, appear to me utterly wild." l
1 1 first saw in a French socialist paper this passage from that
delightful writer, Professor Secretan :
" La prolongation du regime actuel est impossible. Pour s'en con-
vaincre, il suffit de mettre en presence quelques-uns des elements qui le
THE INEVITABLENESS OF THE SOCIAL QUESTION l6l
To say that four of Ruskin's volumes have been
many times reprinted in labor journals is hardly too
strong a statement. The following is a favorite pas-
sage, " To call the confused wreck of social order
and life brought about by malicious collision and
competition an arrangement of Providence, is quite
one of the most insolent and wicked ways in which
it is possible to take the name of God in vain."
The more recent developments of economic litera-
ture have put terrible weapons into the hands of the
discontented. Thorold Rogers, former Oxford econo-
mist and a politician of large experience, tells the " dis-
possessed classes " why written political economy has
been so solicitous to defend the vested rights of actual
society. His two volumes of published lectures fur-
nish twenty instances like the following : " In a vague
way they (the laborers) are under the impression that
the greater part of the misery which they see is the
direct product of the laws, enacted and maintained in
the interest of particular classes. And on the whole
they are in the right" 1
This passage from the economist Professor Smart
of Glasgow furnishes food for very pungent com-
ments in a labor paper :
" But when machinery is replacing man and doing
the heavy work of industry, it is time to get rid of
constituent : les produits du travail devolus exclusivement a 1'entrepre-
neur capitaliste, 1'immense majorite des ouvriers depourvus de toute
garantie d'existence, de toute securite pour 1'avenir, vivant au jour le
jour d'un salaire juste suffisant pour ne pas mourir de faim; puis en
face de ce contraste economique, le suffrage universel charge d'en as-
surer 1'observation, enfin le salariat condamne dans la conscience des
salaries, et la guerre sociale en permanence." (Charles Secretan: La
Civilisation et la Croyance.) 1 The italics are my own.
M
1 62 THE SOCIAL UNREST
that ancient prejudice that man must work ten hours
a day to keep the world up to the level of the com-
fort it has attained. Possibly, if we clear our minds
of cant, we may see that the reason why we still wish
the laborer to work ten hours a day is that we, the
comfortable classes, may go on receiving the lion's
share of the wealth these machines, iron and human,
are turning out."
Professor Cairnes has a great name among econo-
mists for ability and for caution. What, then, are
thoughtful workingmen to think of words like these
from his " Leading Principles " ? I have seen them
quoted three times in labor papers. 1
" Unequal as is the distribution of wealth already
in this country, the tendency of industrial progress
on the supposition that the present separation be-
tween industrial classes is maintained is toward
an inequality greater still. The rich will be growing
richer; and the poor, at least relatively, poorer. It
seems to me, apart altogether from the question of
the laborer's interest, that these are not conditions
which furnish a solid basis for a progressive social
state ; but, having regard to that interest, I think the
considerations adduced show that the first and indis-
pensable step toward any serious amendment of the
laborer's lot is that he should be, in one way or other,
lifted out of the groove in which he at present works,
and placed in a position compatible with his becom-
ing a sharer in equal proportion with others in the
general advantages arising from industrial progress."
After Dr. Spahr published his volume on "The
1 American edition, p. 285. Let the reader curious to follow
Cairnes's opinion read the entire fifth chapter, Part II.
THE INEVITABLENESS OF THE SOCIAL QUESTION 163
Present Distribution of Wealth in the United States,"
I cut from the organ of the American Federation of
Labor the following table :
SPAHR'S TABLE OF THE DISTRIBUTION OF WEALTH IN
THE UNITED STATES
CLASS
FAMILIES
PER
CENT
AVERAGE
WEALTH
AGGREGATE
WEALTH
PER
CENT
Rich
125,000
I.O
$263,040
$32,88o,OOO,OOO
54.8
Middle
1,362,500
10.9
14,180
I9,32O,OOO,OOO
32.2
Poor
4,762,500
38.1
1,639
7,8oO,OOO,OOO
13-0
Very Poor
6,250,000
50.0
Total
13,500,000
IOO.O
$4,800
$6o,OOO,OOO,OOO
IOO.O
DIAGRAMS SHOWING, BY PERCENTAGES, THE POPULA-
TION AND WEALTH DISTRIBUTION IN THE UNITED
STATES ACCORDING TO SPAHR'S TABLES
Population
Middle, 10.9
Wealth
Poor, 38, t
Very
Poor, 50.
Rich, 54,8
Middle, 32.2
Poor, 13.
A little later, I listened to a popular exposition of
this table enlarged upon a blackboard before a labor
audience. " The thin dark line of population (one
per cent)," said the speaker, " own more wealth than
the remaining ninety-nine per cent of us. The poor,
1 64 THE SOCIAL UNREST
though they are eighty-eight per cent, own but
thirteen per cent of the wealth, and yet we are ex-
pected to approve a system which has so little to say
for itself as that."
I do not personally believe that trustworthy sta-
tistical sources exist that enable one to make tables
of this character that are more than guesses at the
fact. Yet if it were known what the possessions of
the one hundred and twenty-six thousand richest
families in the United States are, the result would be
all that any agitator need ask. I reproduce the table
here, to show how words like those of Professors
Cairnes, Rogers, and Smart can be used to give
authoritative support to extreme and indefensible
inequalities. In the instance of the speaker just
quoted, he held in his hand a trade-union sheet from
which he read the passage from Professor Cairnes.
J. S. Mill furnishes so many extracts dear to the agi-
tators that he appears to be still one of their constant
contributors. What is the dissatisfied wage earner
to think of this passage ?
" The form of association, however, which, if man-
kind continues to improve, must be expected in the
end to predominate, is not that which can exist be-
tween a capitalist as chief and work-people without a
voice in the management, but the association of the
laborers themselves on terms of equality, collectively
owning the capital with which they carry on their
operations, and working under managers selected
and removable by themselves." l
A man of splendid sobriety like Mill, with the
best economic training of his day, subjects the cur-
1 People's edition, p. 465.
THE INEVITABLENESS OF THE SOCIAL QUESTION 165
rent communistic schemes to minute and fearless
criticism. No weakness or danger in these collec-
tivist hopes escapes him. He sees that at bot-
tom it is all a question of securing and preserving
the maximum of individual liberty. He will have
nothing that puts this liberty in jeopardy, but he
objects to society as now constituted because this
real freedom of the individual for the majority of
men appears to him in imminent danger. He writes
his conclusion in these words, " Between communism
with all its chances, and the present state of society
with all its sufferings and injustices, ... all the dif-
ficulties great or small of communism would be but
as dust in the balance."
These words of Mill are a direct sanction to a very
large part of what socialists claim in the way of eco-
nomic reorganization. The illustrious author asks
no less than the upsetting of almost every separate
idol of the conventional business man's piety. What
proposal could be more radical than to make the
laborer an actual partner, to democratize industry,
in a word, as we are trying to democratize politics ?
Another passage from his autobiography has the
same frequent use :
" Our ideal of ultimate improvement went far be-
yond democracy, and would class us decidedly under
the general name of socialists. . . . The social prob-
lem of the future we considered to be how to unite
the greatest liberty of action with a common owner-
ship in the raw material of the globe, and an equal
participation of all the benefits of combined labor."
One would not expect to find John Fiske in such
company, but I have twice heard him quoted by
1 66 THE SOCIAL UNREST
socialist speakers, and once seen these words
printed : " Inherited predatory tendencies of men
to seize upon other people's labor is still very strong,
and while we have nothing more to fear from kings,
we may yet have trouble enough from commercial
monopolies and favored industries marching to the
polls their hosts of bribed retainers."
Lowell, Frederic Harrison, John Morley, William
Morris, Howells, each furnishes some stinging para-
graph against the present social order. One of our
foremost economists, Professor Henry C. Adams, is
gratefully referred to by a labor editor as writing the
following: "The laborer of to-day, as compared to
the non-laboring classes, holds a relatively inferior
position to that maintained in former times. The
laborer interprets this to mean that the principle of
distribution which modern society has adopted is
unfair to him."
The dignitaries of the church furnish many a text
for labor and socialist agitation. These words are
taken from Canon Barnett of Toynbee Hall :
"The policies which occupy the leaders' minds,
the interests of business, the theologies, the fashions,
are but webs woven in the trees while the storm is
rising in the distance. Sounds of the storm are
already in the air, a murmuring among those who
have not enough, puffs of boasting from those who
have too much, and a muttering from those who are
angry because while some are drunken others are
starving. The social question is rising for solution,
and, though for a moment it is forgotten, it will
sweep to the front and put aside as cobwebs the
' deep ' concerns of leaders and teachers."
THE INEVITABLENESS OF THE SOCIAL QUESTION 167
With one exception I have found, among the
clergy, the learned Bishop of Durham oftenest in
their sheets. The exception is Pope Leo XIII.
These words from the famous encyclical of 1891
have been used in hundreds of labor organs, and
repeated before innumerable labor audiences :
" The momentous seriousness of the present state of
things just now fills every mind with painful appre-
hensions ; wise men discuss it, practical men propose
schemes; popular meetings, legislatures, and sover-
eign princes all are occupied with it, and there is
nothing which has a deeper hold on public atten-
tion. . . . The concentration of so many branches
of trade in the hands of a few individuals, so that a
small number of very rich men have been able to lay
upon the masses a yoke little better than slavery."
We should make very paltry estimate of this new
energy added to the labor movement, if we tested this
sympathetic assent by its agreement upon mere matters
of material or administrative changes. Of incompa-
rably more power than this is the purely moral force
which these great names lend to the laborers' struggle. 1
These citations are literally not a tenth of those
1 Who among living writers has shown a subtler insight into the
tendencies of his time than De Vogue ? In a masterly essay, " L'heure
Presente," he quotes Prince Carolath as saying that in Germany " the
socialists have seduced innumerable idealists." Though this is to
De Vogu6 lafolie rationelle, he yet adds : " Je veux seulement marquer
le fait d'ou decoule tout entiere sa nouvelle puissance : le socialisme
a capte le courant d'idealisme qui se reformait partout durant ces
mSmes annees. Une conspiration tacite, inconsciente, s'est nouee
entre des gens que tout separe, depuis le proletaire qui se rue aveugle 1 -
ment centre la machine sociale jusqu'aux conducteurs patentes de
cette machine ; la conspiration commence a la haine d'en bas et finit
a la vague pitie d'en haut."
1 68 THE SOCIAL UNREST
which I have noted in the printed record of social
revolt. They are a scattered few taken from the
labor and socialist papers of five countries. They
represent opinions about present society which seem
to range these eminent authors on the side of the
agitators. No socialist recalcitrant uses more embit-
tered speech against the fenced mass of vested pre-
rogatives than these same teachers. Not only poets,
artists, and men of letters, but savants from every
field enter this list. They condemn a society that
breeds and maintains such universal and revolting
inequalities.
The question I wish to submit is this : what is the
probable, yes, inevitable effect, upon the mind of the
average wage earner who constantly reads or hears
such sustaining sentiments from our most inspiring
men ? Can it have any result except to deepen every
faith in him that his hope for social reconstruction
has the sanction of the best men of the time ? Their
testimony appears to him, first of all, free from the
bias of self-interest. It is the testimony of men of
genius and insight, it persuades him, therefore, with
redoubled force.
CHAPTER VI
MAN AND SOCIETY VERSUS MACHINERY
IF only the material elements of the problem are
considered, socialism is so largely a conflict over the
ownership of machinery that little headway can be
made until its difficulties have been faced. That
the world's inventions should have become a private
possession is to the socialist the tragedy of modern
industry.
In the exclusive power which this ownership gives,
the socialist sees the intensifying of every cruelty in
the industrial struggle for existence. Largely to this
ownership he attributes the slavish dependence of
the workman, the panting scramble of competition
with its chaotic production and waste of human life.
Let this ownership, together with the earth's area,
pass again to the people, and a swarm of evils under
which we now stagger shall fall from us. That these
" means of production " should be taken from the
control of the few and given into the control of all, is
to pass from slavery to a free and self-directed life.
It is of course true that socialism does not trust alone
to the mere material fact of this transfer of posses-
sion. It has its own ethical idealism and a very noble
appreciation of a more prolonged and thorough train-
169
170 THE SOCIAL UNREST
ing for every child. Socialism sees that these spiritual
values are to be counted in, if men are to enter into
its new brotherhood. The economic side of this
endeavor turns, however, on the machine and the
"footing on which it rests."
It is to be noted that there is in this view no objec-
tion to machinery as machinery. The objection is
against its individual ownership. Generations of
workmen have objected to the machine as such, while
other objectors, who cannot be classified, show a keen
antipathy because of its effects upon the man or upon
society.
Emerson says manhood has been shrunk and be-
littled by machinery. " The robust rural Saxon de-
generates in the mills to the Leicester stockinger, to
the imbecile Manchester spinner far on the way to
be spiders and needles. The incessant repetition of
the same hand-work dwarfs the man, robs him of his
strength, wit, and versatility, to make a pin-polisher,
a buckle-maker, or any other speciality ; " Ruskin, in
a style brilliant as fire, preached against the " wheels "
of progress for forty years. Morris begins the pro-
logue to the " Earthly Paradise " with the words :
Forget six counties overhung with smoke,
Forget the snorting steam and piston stroke,
Forget the spreading of the hideous town.
In one of his art lectures he speaks of machines that
" have been so used that they have driven all men
into mere frantic haste and hurry, thereby destroying
pleasure, that is life, on all hands ; they have, instead
of lightening the labor of the workmen, intensified it,
and thereby added more weariness yet to the burden
MAN AND SOCIETY VERSUS MACHINERY 17 1
which the poor have to carry." Nor is it alone the
poet and seer who see the ugly side of all this cunning
artifice. I once asked an engineer to whom great
honor has been given, why so many men of high
intelligence felt this disapproval. He replied : " Their
instinct is as right about it, as the suspicion of the
workman. I have grown up with machinery, have
watched its effect for years in shops of every descrip-
tion. I say Zola's phrase, ' La Bete Humaine,' is
an exact description. The great machine is a beast
and claims its victims as constantly as any monster
in the old fables." He had no illusions about " throw-
ing more men out than are set to work." His cen-
sure was because so much of this power has to be
worked in places and under conditions that slowly
dehumanize a great multitude of men, women, and
youth.
President Hadley, in a chapter on Machinery ad-
mirable for discrimination, admits that, " The charge
that the factory system tends to deprive the laborer
of independence, and reduce him to the position of a
machine, is not so easily set aside. The substitution
of mechanical for intelligent labor is often a very
serious evil in modern manufacturing, . . . large
classes of men who were most useful citizens in the
past are being driven out of existence by the stress
of modern competition."
John Stuart Mill was as severe in his upbraiding
as the poets when he expressed the conviction that
machinery has not even lightened the toil of the race.
The sewing-machine does twenty times the work of
the unaided needlewoman. As a consequence, cloaks,
with more than one hundred thousand stitches, are
1/2 THE SOCIAL UNREST
now made. Here is no lessening of toil, but only
heavy accumulation of useless and stuffy ornament.
At this point many of the artists cry out against
machinery. They insist that although it gives us
mountainous piles of objects ; gives us infinite quantity
of things, it deprives us of beauty and delicacy. The
nobler object of life is certainly not first quantity,
but quality. Quantity as such does not necessa-
rily represent any good whatsoever. The newspaper
is called the educator of the democracy. It is an
educator in a good sense to the extent that it has ex-
cellence of quality. But presses in a single office
may turn out half a million of yellow journals in a
day. They make a Sunday edition of thirty-two
pages, some of it good, some of it rubbish, and a part
merely despicable.
The opinions just quoted are a challenge to the
frisky optimism of this machine age. The engineer
spoke from experience, Mill from a singularly cool
judgment. Morris, printer, designer, weaver, dyer,
working half his life as a practical craftsman, yet like
his master, Ruskin, never lost his hatred of most ma-
chinery as now used. Even if these critics do not
exaggerate the evil side of machine influence, it is
evident from the extracts given that they ignore the
immense service of the thing they blame.
Mechanical invention represents in point of magni-
tude the all-dominating force of our time. It would
leave no human experience uncontradicted if an
energy so stupendous did not, like the whole world
of force, have its pain and shadow side.
James Nasmith, in his Autobiography, after rejoic-
ing in the triumph of his Bridgewater foundry,
MAN AND SOCIETY VERSUS MACHINERY 173
increasing the skilled workmen and raising their
wages, adds, that habits of steady application among
large numbers of men showed a tendency to lessen
as the machinery grew more perfect. This is the
spirit of a fairer attempt to balance evenly the gain
and loss.
Since Emerson's imprecation, we have learned to
connect some unexpected virtues with machinery. It
has become so interwoven with our entire social being
that it reflects our common character. If machinery
symbolizes greed, it also symbolizes many forms of
improved conduct and activity.
The requirements, especially of the great public
machinery like the railroad, make for better manners
as well as for temperance, promptness, and accuracy.
What railroad could to-day hold its own in competi-
tion, if it tolerated the brusque and boorish ways
common among its employees less than a generation
ago ? Whatever lack of civility remains, the change
on many lines has been prodigious. The neat uniform
that has replaced the slouchy and indistinguishable
dress, is a change no more marked than the deport-
ment toward passengers. The superintendent of the
Chicago Telephone Company told me : " Politeness,
of course, we will have, but we demand much more.
If we can't bring a girl to talk in pleasant tones, we
don't keep her. Neither is extreme discourtesy tol-
erated from those who hire our telephones. We take
them out of a man's house or office if he talks
brutally or coarsely to our employees."
The electric street car is now a part of the great
machinery. As the new improvements have come, a
far higher grade of men is employed upon it. Upon
1/4 THE SOCIAL UNREST
the old New York horse cars, a large proportion of
the drivers and conductors were so inferior in general
appearance, dress, and behavior that one seemed to
be in the presence of tramps. The slovenly and
lumbering car is disappearing before a clean and
luxurious vehicle. Yet this spacious carriage is not
more of an advance over the clumsy thing it dis-
places, than the men who serve it are superior in
grade to their predecessors.
It is the nature of the machine to test and to select
the sort of capacity fitted to operate it. That it
should require, where it touches the public, greater
sobriety and a more courteous bearing, is in part a
tribute to mechanism. The telephone so impinges
upon the public nerves that a pleasant voice adds
to its value. When the telephone is at last in every
home, and every operator is taught a proper intona-
tion, pleasant voice tones will become a commercial
asset. This invention will then be found to work as
effectively against the bad voice, which all foreigners
note, as the railroad is now working for temperance.
That the service of invention has not been confined
to material profit is seen in the aid rendered to our
political development. In 1800, few of the wiser
men believed that the country, as we know it, could
be held together. Whatever other causes have
contributed, the machinery of steam transportation
and the telegraph have perhaps alone been power-
ful enough to prevent disunion. The great property
interests have been both distributed and united, as
families have been scattered and yet bound together.
So, too, specific problems of dense city populations
are likely to have more help in their solving from
MAN AND SOCIETY VERSUS MACHINERY 175
electric and railroad facilities than from any other
source.
Our concern with machinery is here, however, rather
with the problems raised by labor and socialistic agi-
tation. As this, in the view of the writer, is the most
fundamental of the purely practical issues, it will be
considered at length.
That which glares at us on the surface is the
machine's capacity to multiply the product which
makes our wealth. This is kept to the front by all
who sing the praises of invention. Industrial history
nowhere furnishes so many brilliant illustrations as
this story of mechanical achievement adding to the
creature comforts. Where there was no tool or only
primitive ones, the race lived from hand to mouth,
and not even that continuously. Where machinery
is highly developed, wealth increases far more rapidly
than population. Even if its distribution is unfair,
the higher wages and fewer hours that follow are
traceable, first of all to the swelling product of the
machine. Many printers upon one of our great
papers receive six and seven dollars a day. If the
printing tools of a half century ago were still in use,
the wages would not be half this sum. With the old
tools they could not make that quantity of papers
which attracts the advertiser. The machine alone
makes possible the hundred thousand edition with
its world of readers. It is to reach these that the
advertiser so roundly pays. Here is the source that
makes the high wage a possibility.
A well-known conductor on one of our great roads,
who has lived thirty-three years of his life on moving
trains, tells me that the comfort of the trainmen has
1/6 THE SOCIAL UNREST
increased with all the most important mechanical im-
provements. " Every five years I can see the condi-
tions of work are a little easier, and I think safer.
When I began as a brakeman, the life was cruelly
hard, but now automatic devices do the heaviest
work. It is so much easier that about the only dif-
ference that I see between the brakeman and the
passenger is that the brakeman doesn't have to pay
for his ride." These improvements may be noted
on every decent railroad in the United States. This
improvement is quite as much moral as it is material.
The conductor was telling the story of a score of
roads when he added : " We used to have few men on
the road who did not drink to excess. They visited
saloons freely at the station during working hours,
and half of them carried whiskey openly in the train.
All that has been changed so entirely, that I do not
know a more temperate set of men than trainmen.
We simply can't keep our places and have it known
that we drink in working hours, or drink too much
off time. The risk is too great to allow a man in the
business who has any intemperate tendency." The
value of this evidence is great because it answers
conclusively one of the oldest arguments against
machinery, that it necessarily lowers the quality of
the man. As a generalized statement this is now seen
to be false.
*
The economic section of the committee of fifty
found this so true that it could substantiate Carroll
D. Wright's previous judgment, "The greatest single
influence in the United States, making for temperance,
is the railroad."
The cheapness and abundance of grain foods is
MAN AND SOCIETY VERSUS MACHINERY 177
explained when the story of machinery has been
told. Mr. Holmes of the Agricultural Department
has traced the history of the plough. One wonders
at the existence of any type of mind that would not
be fascinated in John Deere's works at Moline,
Illinois, where these marvels of human invention are
produced. Could Ruskin have been patient to watch
these processes, and still be satisfied to load the result
with abuse ? They are as strictly triumphs of imagi-
nation as any most brilliant page that he ever wrote.
The steam-gang plough, combined with a seeder and
a harrow, has reduced the time required for human
labor (in ploughing, sowing, and harrowing) to produce
a bushel of wheat, on an average, from 32.8 minutes
in 1830 to 2.2 minutes at the present time. It has
reduced the time of animal labor per bushel from
57 to ij minutes; at the same time it has reduced
the cost of human and animal labor in ploughing,
seeding, and harrowing per bushel of wheat from
4 cents to i cent.
As a boy I watched men shelling corn by hand
across the edge of a shovel, or grinding one ear
against another. One may now see a machine that
shells a bushel every minute, besides packing it into
a sack ready for delivery. This means abundance
and cheapness.
Before Whitney's invention it required the work of
one person ten hours to take the seeds from one and
a half pounds of cotton. The machine will now do,
in the same ten hours, more than four thousand times
as much. That ten million bales can be marketed in
a season, and that cloth is so cheap, is no longer a
wonder.
i;8 THE SOCIAL UNREST
A linen sheet that once cost thirty days' labor can
now be made in seven hours. A steam shovel will
do in eight minutes what one man can do with diffi-
culty in ten hours. The dirt may be unloaded from
a train of cars in six minutes, that would require, with
the shovel, a day's work of ten men. A stone-crusher
will perform the work of six hundred men. Few
material blessings bring more comfort to every class
in the community than good roads. To none is the
advantage greater than to large sections of the rela-
tively poor, as in country districts. Yet the rapid
growth of these highways is almost exclusively the
result of the machine. I choose this more striking
form of invention because it is largely against such
that labor has raised its most angry protest.
To comfortable people generally this cry of the
workman against machinery is a plain imbecility.
" Does he know his interest so little as to object to a
labor-saving contrivance ? Does it not heap up the
product out of which his wages and well-being come ?
There is of course great inconvenience now and then
to the individual, but it is merely incidental. You
laborers must trust to the ' long run.' The machinery
that throws you out, or cuts your wages, makes more
work here or elsewhere. The thing it makes falls in
price, which is but another way of raising your wages."
It was thought that labor should be docile after this
explanation of the distant and ultimate good which
machinery brings. But the race of hand-to-mouth
workmen that would be satisfied with such advice
is, happily, not yet born. Only a rare few, even
among business men, act upon the " long run "
motive. The average employer is concerned with
MAN AND SOCIETY VERSUS MACHINERY 179
the profits of the next six months, i.e. with " the short
run." The uncertainties about tariff changes, about
the permanence of good times, and, above all, about
the pressure of competition, often make this the only
practicable course to follow. The trade unions are
only copying the employers when they reply : " We
cannot postpone our share until years of time bring,
if they do bring, cheaper products. The employer
may be able aided by patent laws to keep all the
good to himself for years. We have a right to every
good that organization can give us at the time."
Better than all outside advisers, labor has known
the dangers which threatened it. It has watched the
troop of women and children pouring in as competi-
tors among the men. It saw that these were taken
solely because they would work for less. In this
country labor soon learned that machine industries
demand a " reserve army." Then, if business
presses, workmen are at hand ; when it slackens, they
can be turned off.
Where machinery has brought high and quick prof-
its, it has put a premium upon every form of cheaper
labor, woman, child, and immigrant. This it is which
has introduced among the laborers a competition as
merciless as any that employing capitalists bewail
among themselves. To press the " long run " view
upon the laborer, under these conditions, is to assume
an innocence that he did not possess even two gener-
ations ago. Labor's relation to machinery has been
darkened by dangerous economic illusions, yet the
tenacious instinct that the implements of toil should
be far more under his own control was sound from
the beginning. It is in this rooted faith that one
ISO THE SOCIAL UNREST
sees far off the hope of a genuinely democratic
society. When separate tools were joined and fitted
into more elaborate instruments, they slipped from
labor ownership because labor was weak from igno-
rance and poverty. It was in no way fitted for such
proprietorship. The modern social question has largely
risen out of the conflict between capitalistic ownership
and the workman's sense of lost mastery. In the earlier
stages, when inventions multiplied so rapidly, the la-
borer struck at them savagely, as at an enemy. He
saw his fellows constantly dropped, and customary
wage payment upset and readjusted. In his igno-
rance it appeared to him that his very hold upon
life was lost.
From the larger social point of view it is very
simple to show the error into which the workman fell. 1
If machinery were upon the whole robbing him of
work, then a relatively smaller part of our population
must, decade by decade, be occupied with machinery.
Every investigator knows that the exact opposite
of this is true. There is no decade since 1850, in
which it cannot be shown that machinery has set a
larger and larger proportion of people to work. The
proportion of those earning a livelihood directly by
the help of machinery was never so great as at the
present moment.
1 The dire conflicts in the cities of Midland England, in the first half
of the nineteenth century, have had, even by the novelists, most dramatic
recital. Boston trade unions had this subject under frequent discussion
about 1830. Five years later a New York publicist wrote, " It is well
known that many of the most violent and lawless proceedings have
been excited for the purpose of destroying newly invented machinery."
Albany printers struck against a machine to print Bibles, although the
book could thus be delivered " folded" for four cents a copy.
MAN AND SOCIETY VERSUS MACHINERY l8l
It is seen that hundreds are thrust aside, it is less
easily seen that masses are set to work. One has
only to analyze the indirect services which invention
creates to admit the force of this. Upon the old
handloom one could weave forty yards of shirting in
the week. To-day the weaver may produce in a
week sixteen hundred yards, or forty times as much.
If the making and delivery of the raw material and
the distribution of the finished product, forty times as
great be taken into account, no one will doubt that
the machine stimulates more activity than it displaces.
Printing machinery has been especially selected as
illustrating the displacement of labor. Yet it can be
proved to a certainty that far more men and women
are occupied in this industry than ever before. The
inventions have so cheapened processes as to make
possible innumerable products like the Munsey and
McClure magazines, in the making and distributing
of which a new army of persons has been set to work. 1
The Hoe press prints, folds, cuts, and pastes
seventy-two thousand eight-page journals in a single
hour. To gather the material, make and deliver the
raw paper, finally to distribute the printed sheets
daily in twenty states, must bring occupation to many
more than the machine dislodged.
1 I once listened to a discussion of this subject before a trade-union
gathering in which three printers began by maintaining that invention
was doing each year a larger part of the work and men a lessened
part. When a clear statement had been made of the numbers set to
work by more than twenty new periodicals, paper-making, machine-
making, distributing, and even printing, it was finally conceded by all
that the results of the new instruments had made occupation for many
more men than had been displaced. The concrete effects of a single
machine before the eyes had alone been taken into account.
1 82 THE SOCIAL UNREST
Invention has created hundreds of new industries.
The railroad alone employs more than a million.
The telegraph, telephone, bicycle, illustrate new voca-
tions made outright for millions of workers. The
railroad displaced the coach, but the express business,
affiliated with the railroad, has set to work many
men where the old coach employed one. The tele-
graph and telephone have made work for many times
more than can ever have been displaced. The mo-
ment that the indirect services which invention pro-
duces are estimated, the case appears stronger still.
These showy achievements have been thought to
be the final and crushing answer to labor's complaint.
The answer is not final. The workman has learned
the indirect, long-run advantage of much machinery,
but he is incontestably right in striving, with his full
associated strength, to get all possible immediate
advantages from the invention ; to lessen individual
and short-run evils. This half-blind instinct of labor
is at one with what we are all slowly learning ; namely,
that they who own much of the great mechanism, es-
pecially if it rest on a natural monopoly may get and
long keep to their excessive fattening, privileges and
resources that should be far more open to the general
enrichment. If we add political control to this private
control of machinery and natural opportunity, we have
that against which the whole storm of social discon-
tent will beat in the next generation. Labor's rela-
tion to some specific forms of industrial machinery,
as now owned and guarded, is precisely that of our
own wider relation to certain monopolized privileges.
The philosophic advisers of the workingman have
rarely been fair to him in this frantic contest with
MAN AND SOCIETY VERSUS MACHINERY 183
the new inventions. There was from the beginning
a heart of truth even in his wildest errors. It is often
the very nature of a successful new machine to dis-
turb the normal local wage in such way as to make it
seem an enemy to those affected by it. I can illus-
trate this by an experience once given me by one of
the most influential socialists in this country. " I
was trained in an English machine-shop, coming to
the States for better chances here offered. My
wages finally reached $4 a day, when a new invention
cut me down to $2.50. I again reached $3.50, when
another contrivance cut me to $3. I got a little above
this, only a third time to be docked to $2.50. When
I became convinced that with the best effort I could
make there was no chance to get beyond a certain
line, I quit trying, and have since done all I could to
further the cause of socialism among my fellows."
There are, of course, many varieties of machine work
in which this experience is untrue. There are proba-
bly more in which it accurately describes what is con-
tinually occurring.
It frequently happens that a foreman's personal
advancement depends upon the good showing he can
make to the employer in his own department. To
do this, he is often able to use new inventions (as in
the above case) to keep wages low among as many of
his men as he can force or induce to accept the situ-
ation. Special skill may at the same time be consid-
erably advanced, while others with only average
ability, but with some sort of disposition or qualities
that require prudent handling, may still receive the
old wage. I have heard these processes described
with no concealment by several foremen. In Pitts-
1 84 THE SOCIAL UNREST
burg one told me : " I must keep as many men down
as I can keep down (in their wages), or my report to
the boss would be against me. If I didn't do it, he
would find plenty of men who would."
It is in these almost infinitely varying details of the
actual workshop that one learns the limitations to all
buoyant generalizations about machinery. Let us
look at another very common case.
In an Illinois foundry I heard it said with some
indignation, " Talk about healthy men ; look at them
for yourself; there isn't a man who suffers from it."
The work was ten hours for six days in the week. It
was thought absurd that the men should want a
Saturday half-holiday. Here were several hundred
men living amidst hideous surroundings. Thirty
saloons were within ten minutes' walk. They were
the natural recreation places for the larger part of the
men when their work was done. It was the opinion
of a foreman that those who did not habitually go to
them and spend a larger part of their wages were in
the minority. " Most of us go, of course," said one ;
" what else is there to do ? The free lunch will give
us food and whiskey, too, for ten cents." I went
into one of the most popular saloons. It was filled
with these men between nine and ten o'clock. They
were reading the Police Gazette, playing cards and
pool, and throwing dice for drinks. If one could
have looked upon the entire picture, others would have
been seen, some at their homes, some at the library
a mile away, but these were the few against the many.
It would be as silly to blame these men, as to call the
employer hard names. The nature of the business,
the sharp rivalry of competing firms, left small margin
MAN AND SOCIETY VERSUS MACHINERY 185
for philanthropies. If work must be carried on under
those conditions so strenuously and with so little
relief, society must pay the price. " My machinery
is such," said the employer, " that it must be run fast
and continuously, or I should shut down and turn
them all off. It is not a pleasant place, but I am
forced to be close to the river and close to the freight
depots." This is a fair description of thousands of
mills and shops. The machine, in the large sense in
which the word must be used, including the railroad,
shipping lines, etc., seems too often to compel the se-
lection of working places that are beset by every un-
wholesome influence that can play upon the laborer's
life. Too often his family must be reared hard by, in
surroundings as loathsome as many of those, for
instance, that disgrace the neighborhood of the great
Chicago packing houses.
As long as the machinery practically requires so
beggarly and mean a setting as this, we cannot con-
sider the environment as an unrelated part of the
evil. Modern machine industry has gathered the
workers into towns and cities, or grouped them in
masses in mines and factories. It has set them to
work upon a mechanism so complicated that its
effects can only be truly imaged, when we think
of the railroad, telegraph, telephone, steamship,
power loom, and all other seemingly isolated ma-
chines, locked together into one stupendous enginery.
About this, in it, and through it the swarming mill-
ions are at work. The tides of commerce play upon
it sluggishly for a time, leaving a third or a fourth
of the attendants in chronic idleness, then, every belt
and axle are hot to meet the clamor for all the
1 86 THE SOCIAL UNREST
products that can be thrown upon the market. The
army of operatives has to do the bidding of this
monster feeder of human wants.
All that portion of machinery that is of necessity
overdriven and placed in extremes of dampness, heat,
or dust, as it often is, is not an unmixed blessing. I
asked an engineer on an ocean steamship about the
life of the stokers working in an atmosphere of one
hundred and ten degrees Fahrenheit. He said, " Oh,
it makes beasts of them, but we can't help it."
Whenever machinery cannot be used except in con-
ditions that brutalize life, we call it an evil, even if a
necessary one. If the speed is so great that the
average man or woman cannot stand the strain be-
yond a half of one's natural life, it is an evil, and
an evil far beyond its effect on the individual, for
it strikes at parenthood, producing a devitalized off-
spring that constitutes the chief horror of many in-
dustrial centres.
With the manager of one of the great iron indus-
tries in Pennsylvania, I watched several hundred men
working a full eleven-hour day in a deafening noise
and in an atmosphere murky with dust. A portion
of the work, which continued unremitting through the
twenty-four hours, was done by " double shift." This
required a twelve-hour day. The speed throughout
was as high as the men could be induced to take.
Unprompted, the manager said : " It is a pity that
men have to work like this, but there is no help for it.
The machinery drives us at a gallop as well as the
men. To clean the place up decently and run it eight
hours, would shut it up in a week. Our worst com-
petitor, in , drives harder than we do, and gets
MAN AND SOCIETY VEKSUS MACHINERY 187
more out of his men." I asked about the wages.
"The men with skill are well paid, $2.50 upwards
to $3.00, and even $4.00, but the mass of unskilled
get perhaps $1.50, just enough to exist. If they have
families, I don't see how they manage it." Let it be
admitted that machinery is, in general, a blessing ; but
what sort of a blessing does it bring to such as these ?
It is better than starvation, but what rational end of
life can be attained with eleven or twelve hours' daily
toil in these surroundings ? The manager made it clear
why nothing better could be done. "The boom has
come, and while it lasts our success depends upon
driving as if life was at stake." This description is
accurate, " While the boom is on, our success de-
pends upon driving as if life was at stake."
To such straits have these organized forces brought
us: first a hot race with competing rivals, then a
glutted market ; first the boom, then the depression ;
first long and crowded hours, then lack of work and
men adrift. This sorry see-saw in the industrial
world is the puzzle of the economist and the despair
of the practical man. This network of great inven-
tions cannot be put down as the exclusive cause of
the evil, but that the evil is enhanced by this cause
is certain. This means that we are half enslaved by
a great deal of our own mechanism. It means that
we honestly care more for the machine's output in
wealth, than we care for manhood, womanhood, and
wholesome family life. It means that we do not first
and profoundly care for citizenship and a reputable
society. If these workers can keep their animal
strength and tend the machine, is it not enough ?
The absolute requisitions of culture of any kind
1 88 THE SOCIAL UNREST
a minimum of unexhausted leisure, of real freshness
of body and mind would take at least two hours
off every working day. It affronts our intelligence
to say that the average man can do that kind of
work more than eight hours daily, and have left over
the leisure, the moral and intellectual surplus of
energy, for humanizing objects. The loss to good
citizenship, to social peace and safety, is an abiding
threat to social peace. If we were not the easy
victims of wont and usage, accepting the actual as
natural, we should one and all revolt against this
awful waste of human values. That the future will
class it as a form of slavery, seems to me assured.
A very large proportion of capitalistic investment
is now embodied in machinery of the most delicate
and costly character. When the complex enginery
is once started, it has to be " tended " precisely as
if it were the most frail human life or plant. It
is as safe to shut up and desert a hothouse of dainty
flowers, as to close up and desert modern machinery.
Every hostile element attacks it as if bent on instant
destruction. To prevent this devastation, mills are
often run at great loss, when trade is dull, thus piling
up the product of an overstocked market.
Another type of evil in the Western rural districts
that cannot be dissociated from machinery is de-
scribed in the following words by a competent local
observer :
"The influence of large farms on country life is
unquestionably deplorable. The summer population
of the big wheat farm is composed mainly of a drift-
ing class of laborers with no attachment to the soil
and with no interest in their work beyond getting
MAN AND SOCIETY VERSUS MACHINERY 189
their pay. In the winter they go to the pineries or
hang about the cities looking for odd jobs. The
winter population of the farm is reduced to a few
men who take care of the stock, and perhaps one
of the foremen who has a family. Usually the
manager and his family go to some town to pass
the dead season."
The Hon. C. A. Ficke of Iowa, speaking of ordi-
nary farms, tells me : " From an acquaintance with
every county in the state, I should say that the
drifting character of this hired farm help is an al-
most unqualified evil. Many of our farmers carry on
their work by the help of machinery in such way
that they can dispense with the ' hands ' except for
a few weeks in the year. These men are well paid
during this time, then they scatter in search of desul-
tory jobs, many of them seeking the large towns and
cities, where the uncertain nature of their employ-
ment ruins hundreds of them. Thousands of farmers
in these parts will not hire a man accompanied by
his family. The results of this are equally bad."
In all this the employer is often as much a victim
as the employed. His mill, too, is but a cog in a
vaster mechanism. It turns now swiftly, now lazily,
according to the throb of the great markets which
are its life. The individual employer takes the
breathless pace, because it is the pace of the army in
which he marches. It is partly because he is swept
on by forces greater than himself, that he must snatch
so eagerly at the little power within his grasp. The
inventions under his own hand, he can in some degree
appropriate as absolute property. " Trade secrets,"
royalties, and patents he can secure for a little space.
190 THE SOCIAL UNREST
In this scramble a new machine appears upon the
scene. If the employer can put it in, on his own
conditions, no questions asked, he may, if hard
pressed by a competitor, drive a very sharp bargain
with his workmen. Now he drops men, now he
introduces girls and boys, now he cuts wages. In
this moment of possible difference between the felt
interests of employer and workmen over the intro-
ducing of a new invention, a large part of the social-
ist problem springs into existence. The test question
often arises, who shall have the new increment of
gain which the machine brings ? Shall the employer
have all the good of it because the invention is his ?
Again and again I have heard it asserted, " I have
bought it, and all the advantage that comes with it is
my own." It is doubtful if this claim would be chal-
lenged, if in introducing the machine no disturbance
to labor were caused, but the more perfect the inven-
tion, the more likely is it to derange the labor group
that used the discarded machine. The new machine
is usually the death of the old one which it replaces.
The attempt of the union to divide the advantage of
the new invention with the employer has been the
heart of an immemorial strife. When ignorance
gives place to enlightenment, the union will not
" oppose machinery." This the intelligent ones have
long since learned. Neither will they yield the
pivotal point of doing all in their power to secure as
much immediate benefit as the organization can effect.
This point is so vital that it should have ample
illustration. An improved invention is perfected and
brought to the mill or factory for introduction. The
employer, especially if he is plagued by unionism,
MAN AND SOCIETY VERSUS MACHINERY 191
uses extreme caution in putting the new device to
work. In countless cases, he first selects the most
alert and vigorous among his workers and practises
them, to see how fast the new invention can be
run, and how large a product it can be made to
turn out. When the best it can do is discovered, the
employer tries to make the result the standard for all
the other workers. If he can do this unchecked, he
may secure all the immediate advantages, and leave
the inconveniences to the workers. From the very
beginning of the machine era, the trade union has
had to struggle against this tendency to force the
pace of the average workman, by the tested skill of
the most vigorous. I have seen in a New England
factory a machine working with such rapidity as
to excite wonder that any one could be induced to
follow it nine hours a day. Upon inquiry, the fore-
man told me how it had been managed. " This in-
vention," he said, " is hardly six months old ; we saw
that it would do so much more work that we had to
be very careful in introducing it. We picked the
man you see on it, because he is one of our fastest.
We found out just what it could do before we put
it into the room. Now they will all see what it
can turn out when it is properly run." " Properly
run " meant to him run at its very highest speed.
This was the standard pressure to which all who
worked it must submit. I have known a manu-
facturer to leave a strong trade-union shoe town
and go to the country because " the trade union try
to slow up my machine. If I attempt to get all the
good out of it, they are bound to put a check on me
somehow."
192 THE SOCIAL UNREST
When the New England shoe laster was perfected
a few years since, it was seen by employer and em-
ployed that if put to general use it would strike an
almost final blow to the strong union of the lasters.
The company owning the invention had it first tested
in its own rooms and then offered to put it into the
manufactory, sending its own man to run it. The
union in Brockton instantly struck. I asked a local
manufacturer his opinion. He answered : " I think
the union entirely justified in this strike. If I were
one of them, I would be at the front of it." There
was doubtless complete legal justification in selling
(or buying) this machine together with the lasting
company's man to run it. Why, then, should this
employer acknowledge that the strike, which worried
him, was just ? It was because he was large enough
and fair enough to see that it was asking far too
much of an old and established labor organization,
to see this new invention applied under conditions
which involved, not only its immediate dissolution as
a union, but a rapid displacement of many members
from the shops.
If it is to be assumed that men can be treated
exactly as machines are treated, this union had no
ground for complaint when its fate was decided.
Its members had merely to say : " Shoes can now
be lasted automatically ; we are out of the game.
Let us drop our tools and learn a new trade." This
would have given the entire benefit of the invention
at once to its owners, to the manufacturer, and to the
consumers. To the labor organization it would be
said : " You must take the whole sacrifice, distressing
as it is. It is deplorable that, after years of service,
MAN AND SOCIETY VEX S US MACHINERY 193
you have to look elsewhere for a livelihood; but
progress and the good of the greater number demand
it. However, shoes will eventually be somewhat
cheaper, and this compensation will be yours." If
the final and supreme end of the world's toil were
cheapness of product, the routed union and the dis-
placed laborers would have to take this counsel and
act upon it. They refuse to do this because they are
human beings with the rights which their humanity
implies. This is what the employer meant who
said the strike of the lasters' union was just.
He saw the human interests at stake and rightly
balanced them against certain business hindrances.
He thought it fairer and wiser in this instance to
sacrifice a part of the material benefit rather than the
human.
But no judgment as to the fairness or wisdom of
this employer's concession is quite possible until it is
explained what the union proposed to do. There is
a sense in which these men were " fighting the ma-
chine." They did not propose to stand out against
its introduction. They admitted that the machine
had come to stay. The struggle was not against the
machine, but wholly over the conditions of its use.
They asked that members of the union should be
chosen to run it. In other words, that the union
should then and there participate in the advantages
which the machine brought with it. The public
has been deceived as to the nature of the strife,
because the older unions did fight the machine as
machine. Now and then, new and ignorant unions
do this still. Often unions in the building trades
secure a local monopoly which they abuse to the
194 THE SOCIAL UNREST
point of absolutely preventing the use of some new
invention. 1
Grave as these exceptions are, they are exceptions,
and should not blind us to the main facts. Labor
organizations, as a whole, aim to get their share of
utility when the disturbing invention is applied.
They do not propose to abolish it, or even to hinder
it, if applied with due regard to labor interests.
I believe it to be simple justice to labor organiza-
tions to admit that the main purpose of their long
contention has been to free machinery from the abuses
of a too narrow capitalistic interest. It was of course
unavoidable that labor should work toward this great
end, through the earlier stages of unionism, ignorant
of its own goal. Its history and its literature are
nevertheless filled with proofs that its purpose, deep
and unalterable, has been to force machinery into its
proper place, where it should serve man rather than
enslave him.
It cannot be denied that weighty questions of in-
dustrial progress and of the rights of property are
raised by this attitude of the unions. Yet govern-
ments and municipalities without number have already
taken the trade-union ground, and many first-rate
business men act on the assumption that the union
contention (stripped of its abuses) is just. It is the
essence of this assumption that business management
should take on a more democratic character. Or to
1 The unions pay dearly for these rank abuses, since they go far to
justify the public in believing that labor organizations are merely mulish
in their opposition to industrial progress. The medieval attitude of
certain unions at the national capital in using their political influence
to retain clumsy and outworn devices has brought upon the cause of
labor much deserved contempt.
MAN AND SOCIETY VERSUS MACHINERY 195
give the statement another form, the contest of organ-
ized labor takes for granted what is essential to the
spirit of partnership in the business. The strident
tones in which the harassed employer announces,
" This is my business, and I propose to have no dicta-
tion how it is to be carried on," is itself a sign that
the unions claim a sort of partnership, however absurd
it may be. On the other hand, the grim and tenacious
purpose of the unions, in time of strike, to beat back
scab labor, has the same implication of group rights
in the business. Such an assertion on the part of
labor is now thought to be monstrous. I wish there-
fore to give the testimony of the president of one of
the best-known corporations in the United States.
His opinions are submitted, because they have the
authority of a conspicuously successful business man-
agement, as well as that of a singularly conscientious
student. For years he has been as eager for the best
literature on the social question as any economic in-
structor. The trade unions are strong, and frankly
recognized by the management. In many consulta-
tions with this gentleman he has told me how he
came to think the old term " my business " less true
than the term "our business." "We are a body of
directors, stockholders, and workmen. These latter
we encourage to come to us, buy homes, and settle
permanently about us. In a very real sense there is
a kind of partnership, though of course in no legal
sense. The rights are not all with me or with the in-
vestors. I shall fight for the control, because that
is a necessity. Our men could make the product,
but they could not market it. The buying and sell-
ing is at present beyond their capacity. If I should
196 THE SOCIAL UNREST
give them the business, they would go down before
our rivals in a year. A century later, when the work-
men are properly educated, I should probably be the
hired manager."
When I pressed the question about the nature of
the partnership which he recognized, he replied, " It
is a partnership in the sense that I do not hold them
off at arm's length. They have a right ' to dictate '
in many ways. When I put in a new machine, it
usually involves a change in the wage scale among a
portion of the men. We talk this over together and
see how the machine can be adjusted so as to do the
least possible injury to the group which is affected by
it. That is itself an acknowledgment that something
like a partnership exists among us. Some inventions
would enable me to break up the union. Most me-
chanical improvements of any importance involve
turning off men. It is my duty to talk all this over
with them and make them see it. It is also my duty,
when one set of relations is broken up by a new
machine, and wages and conditions changed, to do all
in my power to let them have just as much of the
advantage and as little of the harm as possible. I
have found thus far, that with proper sympathy from
my foreman, we can redistribute the workers in such
way as to keep the peace and make them feel that
they are fairly dealt with."
Here, obviously, is the temper and the method that
would save forthwith half the strikes in the United
States. I should like to hang beside this another
picture. It is that of an industry larger and not less
successful than the other.
Nowhere more than in this business does machinery
MAN AND SOCIETY VERSUS MACHINERY 197
play a greater part. Nowhere does one invention
follow another with more startling rapidity. As a
consequence, nowhere can one better mark the splen-
did achievements in augmenting the mass of products
and in lowering their price to the user. It was in part
this visible plethora of ever swelling profits that roused
discontent among the more intelligent and better paid
workmen. The strike that followed was ridiculed be-
cause started by the " labor aristocrats." After the
conflict had subsided, I heard the story on the spot
from several of the men who had suffered from it.
There were many regrets that it was unwisely begun
and unworthily handled. " The pay," said one, " was
good, and you could trust what they told you."
" Why, then, was the strike ? " From the most
thoughtful man among them I got this answer. " I
think now the strike was stupid, but I shall always
think there was cause of just complaint on our part.
We had sacrificed much to build up a strong labor
organization, but we were as helpless as any belt upon
the great wheels. Except the pick of the men, we
were liable to be dropped any moment without a word
of explanation. New contrivances are being put in so
fast, wages altered, and men turned off exactly as if
no union existed. I have seen, in a single section
of my union, one man in nine thrown out, exactly as
if they were screws and didn't fit. We are not fools
enough to object to the new inventions they put in,
but they have no business to put them in without the
slightest regard to us as human beings. They have
absolute control of the machinery and of every bit of
the new wealth which the inventions make for them.
Millions go into their pockets because they have the
198 THE SOCIAL UNREST
power to take it. The ordinary unskilled working,
does not get enough to make it safe to raise a family.
A dozen men have palaces' and money to burn, while
two-thirds of those they employ will not, if they are
wise, try to buy the most modest home. They must
live in cheap tenements, in order to be free to move at
a moment's notice. Hundreds of men, who have made
part payment on a house, have lived to regret it."
With the foremost active manager in this business
I talked over this complaint about machinery. " But
the inventions," he said, "belong to us. The chief
nuisance of a trade union is, that they want to haggle
and delay over every bit of old iron we throw out. It
is one great advantage we have over the foreigner, that
we can put in the invention instantly, and not fool with
a trade-union committee." Here again the heart of
the struggle is laid bare. " To fool with a trade-union
committee " meant to talk over the conditions of
readjustment brought about by the new appliance.
It was to acknowledge that the union had some right
to discuss the changes which concerned its very life
as an organization. The aims of the union seem
often to have nothing whatever to do with machinery,
as in its contention for an eight-hour day, yet
behind all is the one great purpose, to get the largest
possible share of the product which labor creates.
Now if mechanical invention is in the unrestricted
possession of the employer, labor feels itself baffled
in striving for all the wealth it creates, or believes it
creates. The constant putting in of new machines,
with every immediate utility passing to the owner,
seems to leave the laborer on the hopeless margin of
wage dependence.
MAN AND SOCIETY VERSUS MACHINERY 199
In the last business referred to, the masterful
director held that this dependence was justified. All
thought of a partnership in any sense was scouted.
In the instance first given the president held, on the
contrary, that labor was defrauded unless it were
frankly admitted to discuss the changes that always
follow successful and disturbing inventions. It is
possible that the uncompromising method of absolute
ownership, and not less absolute dependence, will pre-
vail, while the conception of a partnership will fail.
The formula, " This is my business," may prove vic-
torious in the struggle, while the fraternal, " Our
business," vanishes with that great company of ami-
able follies in which mammon worship has not been
the sole object.
If it prove true that we have too little good will and
intelligence to organize industrial affairs more and
more along the lines of "our business," the outlook
is not cheerful. It would mean, to a certainty, that
every turgid agitation which justifies a miserable dis-
content is fastened upon us for an unknown and
ominous future. It would mean a gloomy succession
of strikes, dragging in their train those fatal excesses
with which local authorities cannot cope. It would
mean a danger darker still in democratic society : the
soldier equipped with weapons of death led out
against a mass of his fellow-citizens.
II
Only the nature of the machine problem is pre-
sented in this and the previous chapter. The specific
solution which socialism offers will be considered
in the pages which are given to that subject. Mean-
200 THE SOCIAL UNREST
time, a more detailed illustration is necessary to
show that one of the most deadly results of machine
industry need not go without a remedy.
Economic phraseology is impotent to state the full
gravity of these misfortunes. Those that manage
the trade-union benefit fund, workers in the Associ-
ated Charities, and at College Settlements know what
it means for the family man to be thrust aside before
fifty. It is here among the weaker and older work-
ers that the completer measure of the ills can be
taken. It is a common answer that these ills may
be real, but that they are temporary. In the larger
curves of time, readjustments are made, and the indi-
vidual hurt is lost in the general good. I have tried
to show that this sleek optimism is misleading. The
"long run" is no more real than the "short run."
With only the " long run " in view, the most serious
charges against machinery are still unanswered.
These charges are concerned with the perpetual suc-
cession of " short run " and individual hardships,
whose gathered atoms constitute a very massive and
persistent fact. It is with this that the future of
voluntary association and social legislation will have
to do, in the attempt to modify the struggle for exist-
ence on the industrial field. 1
But first let us see in a given instance what these
short run phenomena are. I was allowed recently to
1 " The most conspicuous, if not the most serious distress connected
with hard times is found in those lines where there has been great
duplication of machinery; lines where the machines and the laborers
together are far more able to supply the popular demand for products
and devices at rates which will keep the workman and his family alive."
" The suffering from this source is terribly severe." President Ha<ttey t
" Political Economy," p. 344.
MAN AND SOCIETY VERSUS MACHINERY 2OI
attend a sitting of heads of departments in one of the
larger industries of the United States. There was
one hour and fifty minutes of rapid and concise dis-
cussion upon the possible economies to be effected in
the different branches of the business. At least one-
fourth of the discussion turned upon the practica-
bility of discharging unnecessary labor. Every
superintendent was put under fire of general criticism.
He must show that he was producing the highest re-
sults with the least expenditure of means. "You,"
said the chairman, " have thirteen men on such a job,
F suggests that ten men could do it as well, what
do you say ? " The superintendent appealed to made
his defence or admitted that two or three men could
be discharged.
These superintendents represented several thousand
workmen. The kindness and consideration on the
part of the employers were a model of good will. So
far as convenient, other positions were found for those
displaced, but no year passed in which " several hun-
dred " men were not dismissed. I asked an owner
active in the business what became of the discharged
men. He answered : " Of course we can know noth-
ing about that. Our affairs are too large to admit of
any considerable personal supervision. When a man
begins to look shaky, we have to let him go." If
large numbers of men are worked weekly six full
days of ten and eleven hours, if made " shaky " by
long and special service at minute processes, they are
replaced at forty or forty-five years of age by young
men ; there may be in all this a great cruelty to the
individual, and mischief to society. Let us look at
this last evil. Not alone the quickened speed of
202 THE SOCIAL UNREST
machinery, but its costlier and more delicate nature
calls for an operator with every nerve and muscle at
their best. The work upon much of the swiftest
machinery can be rapidly learned, so that youth is
naturally selected. An Eastern shoe manufacturer,
visiting Western shoe shops, told me that competition
with the East had so increased that he determined to
know the reasons. The chief thing that had struck
him was the general appearance of the workman as
he looked through the Western shops. " It often
seemed to me," he said, " as if I were in a high
school. The older hands are hard to keep with us,
but they have disappeared altogether out here." I
have a series of photographs representing large num-
bers working in hat, shoe, and garment industries.
The group effect is that of a boy's school with here and
there a man in middle life. I have heard a manufac-
turer of machines say that among the greatest changes
he had known in forty years of business was this elimi-
nation of men who showed the least sign of age.
Another employer told me : " It isn't so much that
we turn off men when we see the gray hair and spec-
tacles, but we don't any longer, as we used to, take
on men of forty. The fellow of eighteen or twenty,
even if pretty green, can be quickly taught, and then
he is good for twenty years. Where the older men
have special skill, or some quality that we want, they
are kept, but not the average men." It is these
average men in the forties and early fifties that are
thrown out by thousands each year in the great indus-
tries. Many take lighter routine work as watchmen
and gatekeepers. Many turn to odd jobs. Many are
supported by their children. In most of the older
MAN AND SOCIETY VERSUS MACHINERY 203
businesses there is honest and kindly effort made by
the employer to find work about the premises. This
sense of responsibility is now seen to disappear en-
tirely in the case of certain trusts that have replaced
smaller corporations. A Boston man who sold an old
family business to the trust tells me, " I got a good
price, and was willing to stop, but I have one un-
pleasant regret, the kindly personal ties I always had
with my men and their families are simply wiped out
by the big organization."
The separation between the owners of fixed capital
and the laborer has long been noted ; but with vast
federated plants, managed by hired intermediaries,
it is unavoidable. There will be brave attempts to
meet the difficulty by alluring philanthropies, by
" doing something for the workingmen." If merely
philanthropic, these will fail as they deserve. Be-
nevolent schemes that bear the slightest taint of
charity have at last got the contempt of the intelli-
gent wage-earners.
Importunate and never again to be silenced, their
demand is that they get their benefits, not as gifts or
favors, but as recognized rights. Philanthropies are
a dangerous substitute for honest wage payment,
shorter working time, and increased influence over
the conditions of the labor contract. What may be
called the Great Bluff of our time is to put gratui-
ties and benefactions in the place of justice. There
is no donation, however gaudy, that can fill the place
of justice. The attempt of the ruling class to do
this is the oldest trick in history. It was the opin-
ion of a Roman emperor, " Magnificence in gifts
may deceive even the gods." The crowd could then
2O4 THE SOOAL UNREST
be quieted by the brutalities of a pageant, the butch-
eries in the arena, by fleets of stolen grain scat-
tered among the people, as a Tammany heeler
scatters gifts and personal kindnesses before the elec-
tion. We are at least civilized so far that we demand
more decorum, and a certain humanizing of our lar-
gesses. They must bear the image of charity and
good-will to men. They must be educational, artis-
tic, and in all ways incentives to good morals and
religion.
Now it would be both untrue and offensive to deny
that these later bounties are vast improvements upon
the free circus of Caligula. No wise man would
check a generous instinct of any multi-millionnaire.
The books, pictures, churches, and schools take their
places among the welfare institutions of our time.
They are influences which deserve the honest and
grateful approval of the public.
Yet when this tribute to good motive and good
result has been paid, the story is not finished. We
are hoodwinked, unless we see that there ought to
be, and possibly may be, a still better way than this
to acquire individual and social morality. The sturdy
self-respect in any community that should build its own
church, school, library, dispensary, paying every
honest bill as it goes, would show an exhilarating
superiority before which every one of us would hasten
to pay respect. We must be grateful to our princely
givers, but the mistake would be fatal to accept this
method of splendid subsidies as a finality. What we
really want is the ability and the instructed will to
pay our own bills, even if the pace of our civilization
halts a little. I know a group of Flemish socialist
MAN AND SOCIETY VERSUS MACHINERY 2O5
working men and women who slowly bought with
hard-earned money two thousand well-selected vol-
umes for their common library. Not ten in the
entire membership ever got $2 a day in wages.
What comparison is there between the educational
value of that sacrifice and the easy acceptance of a
building choked with gift books ?
The unspoiled instinct in the labor and socialist
movement is to do precisely this thing, to gain com-
petence and leisure, to win these luxuries for itself.
The flair of this instinct is unerring when it scents
danger in benefactions. In spite of noble exceptions
among employers, labor knows that these bounties
may confuse the relation in which it hopes to stand
toward the employer. There will be much mockery
at this by well-bred people. It will be easy to mock,
because the claim is so obscure. The labor phrase
has become very familiar, "We will have justice, not
charity."
The public, critics and students alike, all find fault
with this use of the word because of its vagueness, yet
it can be made perfectly clear what "justice" here
means. Last year I visited a mill to which many
pretty additions had been made, a library, resting
room, gymnasium, etc. The manager said, "This
ought to make them contented, hadn't it ? " I asked
a friend, who is a stockholder in the mill, to find out
for me just what the men and women working there
thought of these new sources of contentment. The
answer I got was this : " The most intelligent ones
tell me they should much prefer to have the expense
of these things added to their wages. They take it
good-naturedly enough, and think the employer is a
206 THE SOCIAL UNREST
good man, but they seem to believe he will in the
long run get his labor a little cheaper, and can at-
tract a certain class of labor in these ways." This is
fast coming everywhere to be the feeling. It is some-
times bitter, but oftener merely cynical.
Let us further examine this claim, in what is per-
haps the most tragic element connected with machine
industry. It should enable us to see first what labor
means by "justice " in a definite instance; second, a
special form of evil connected with machinery ; third,
the general direction of more immediate and conser-
vative remedial action.
I select an industry which has reached the very
highest point in mechanical evolution, the Carnegie
Steel Company. Nowhere have I seen more lordly
and generous provision for those who are maimed at
their work. I found instances in which the recom-
pense was four times as high as the greatest amount
ever given under the German State Insurance. In
my surprise at these amounts I asked Mr. Schwab,
then president of the company, for more information
about their method. He replied, "We have no
method except to see to it that our own injured men
are generously dealt with." In a letter received later
from Mr. Schwab, he says : " If a man is injured at
our works, we send him to a hospital at once, where
he has the best possible medical attention, all of
which we pay for. If he has a family to be taken
care of during his enforced idleness, his wages, or
part of them, is given to his family in weekly instal-
ments until his recovery, and until he is able to resume
his duties. In case such injury makes the person
unfit for his usual occupation, something suiting
MAN AND SOCIETY VERSUS MACHINERY 2O/
his physical condition is found for him. Many of
our workmen who are injured are foreigners, and
one peculiar feature is that the great majority of in-
juries is to workmen of foreign nationality. In such
cases they usually want to return to their own coun-
try, if their injury is a serious one. When this is the
case, we provide transportation for them to their
homes and allow them sufficient money to either start
them in some small business, or provide a place for
them in some institution. Where the accident results
fatally, the family is always taken care of financially.
If there are children, provision is made for their
education. If we cannot provide means by which
the wife can take care of herself, we allow her a
pension, or house to live in, or something of that
description. If they have grown-up children, we
provide them with work. In brief, each case must
be treated independently. We have no fixed rules."
Here is benevolence open-handed and in its least
objectionable form. That it was done honorably and
in good faith I do not question.
It is to instances of this character that those point
who would convince us that voluntary good will is a
surer friend to labor than anything which the law can
effect in the form of legally applied justice.
Some of the best Southern mill-owners show much
indignation at those* who ask for legislation to check
the desecration of child life in their mills. They urge,
instead, that voluntary agreement and personal good
will can meet the evil better than legislation. That
ancient query, " Can you make people moral by
legislation ? " has in it so much truth for a whole
class of social evils that there is little difficulty in
208 THE SOCIAL UNREST
throwing doubt upon all law as an aid to industrial
betterment. There is nothing, however, that is now
better known than the power of legislative enact-
ment to help mightily in the case of definite industrial
evils. Child labor is one of these. Uniform law in-
cludes the weak employer and the bad one. The
difficulty is rarely with the best and strongest em-
ployers. They can afford to be fair, but the hard-
pressed employer and the meaner ones will take
every petty advantage which public indifference and
the necessities of the poor throw in their way. It is
for these that the law is a necessity.
No more can industrial accidents be left to the
generosity of exceptional corporations. Only the
rare few can afford to imitate the Carnegie Company.
The average business now insures against accidents
in some private company, whose skilled lawyer knows
every device to beat the injured workman in the
courts. On the other hand, when the workman's hurt
is known, he may be visited by some attorney who
spurs him on to beat the company. It has come to
be mainly a blind hunt to fix personal responsibilities
under industrial conditions which make this impossible.
An injury that deprives a man of half his working
power should be recompensed in like proportion.
The " capitalizing of accidents," in proportion to their
disabling results, is a discovery to which the future
will give far higher rank than we now accord to it.
It has passed the stage of theory, and is now put
to practice on a scale that leaves no doubt as to its
possibilities, among persons willing to inform them-
selves of the facts. The principle on which it rests
is that of insurance insurance under which the mass
MAN AND SOCIETY VERSUS MACHINERY 2CK)
of unmerited misfortunes is distributed among those
who can, and who in justice ought to bear it. As it
comes to be understood in its application to the ap-
palling average of industrial casualties, it will be
found to satisfy, more perhaps than any other remedy,
the growing ethical sense of society.
In the anthracite coal fields one would like to begin
reform by applying this systematized insurance to
that frightful list of stricken laborers that are now
thrown back upon themselves or their families with
recompense so uncertain and niggardly as to shock
the most primitive sense of social justice.
Let us now see in a given case what the workman
means by asking for justice. In the matter of indus-
trial accident he asks to have legal rights so system-
atized that he shall receive definite and calculable
compensation for injuries.
The relation of industrial accidents to machinery is
direct and obvious, yet neither their number nor their
treatment has been in the least realized in any com-
munity until a long and arduous propaganda has
been made. Previous to the accident insurance in
Germany it was thought that there might be thirty
or forty thousand injuries due to machinery that
would be covered by the insurance. The first inves-
tigation showed three times this number ; when the
investigation became more complete, six times the
number. It was found that in many dangerous call-
ings the accidents were concealed from the outside
world. But for the forced public regulation of rail-
roads, we should have no hint of the full tragedy that
goes on, day by day, in the United States. The
authoritative statement of the Commission for 1901
210 THE SOCIAL UNREST
reads as follows : " The total number of casualties to
persons on account of railway accidents, as shown
for the year ending June 30, 1901, was 61,794, the
number of persons killed having been 8455 and the
number injured 53,339. Of railway employees, 2675
were killed and 41,142 were injured." 1
From railway machinery alone, 8455 killed and
53)339 injured in a single year. 2 One has to read and
reread these figures before their grewsome significance
is in the least clear. If we add the mining, iron, and
lumbering industries, portions of which are more dan-
gerous than the railroad, some conception is possible
of the mutilated life due to machinery as it is now run.
Yet if all the cunning and sympathy of the race
were exhausted in the attempt, this slaughter could
not be stopped. It can be greatly curtailed by im-
provements like the automatic car coupler, and by
throwing pecuniary responsibility upon the owners.
Wherever the slaughter is sudden and dramatic
enough to shock the public, as in the machinery of
mining and transportation, it has become possible
to compel the ownership to pay heavily for its ac-
cidents. In countless lesser and private industries,
1 Commenting on this report, the New York Evening Post says :
"In reverting to their figures, it will be interesting to compare them
with the last report of casualties in the British army in South Africa
during the recent war, which, it will be remembered, lasted nearly
three years :
Killed on American railways, three years ending June 30,
1900 21,847
Killed (British forces) during South African war (including
deaths from disease 22,000"
2 Fairness requires that discrimination should be made between the
casualties of employees and the casualties to others called by the rail-
road " trespassers."
MAN AND SOCIETY VERSUS MACHINERY 211
where the blows fall singly and silently, as deaths in
a hospital, though the numbers may be as 10 to I
greater, there is thus far in the United States only
the crudest attempt at fair dealing with the victims or
their families.
From a group of several hundred cases, of the type
collected in the Bulletins of the New York Depart-
ment of Labor, I give a commonplace instance. A
Swede working with a derrick, while removing an
old building in Chicago, was struck by a falling beam,
which broke his arm in three places. He settled for
the sum of $80. His son, a waiter in the Union
League Club, told me a year later that of this amount
$68 went to the doctors. He was still unable to work,
and never again could have free use of his arm. It
is the commonest case of taking advantage of the
laborer's ignorance. He could have secured counsel
to fight the case in court. But for this he was too ill
informed.
In most of our states our method of indemnifying
industrial accidents is as crude as it is abnormal.
Justice requires some approach to equality of proced-
ure, but a crushed hand may bring nothing to the
sufferer, it may bring $50, it may bring $500.
Whether it bring anything, much or little, depends, for
the great majority of workmen in this country, upon
the most incalculable chances.
We still act as if in an age of primitive tools. When
every man controlled a simple tool, like hammer and
plane; when it did not move except when he willed
and as he willed, it was not unnatural to hold him
responsible for incidental hurts. It was not unnatu-
ral that if one workman injured another it should be
212 THE SOCIAL UNREST
held to be the fault of that workman and not of the
employer. There was then some sense in the for-
mula, "The responsibility of the fellow-servant."
From the older and simpler conditions, rules like
"common employment" have come down into the
age of huge instruments driven by the powers of
steam and electricity. The difference is as great
as that of breaking boulders by fire or vinegar and
blasting with dynamite. During the long experi-
mental struggle to harness electricity, workmen in
the United States daily fall to the street, withered by
the touch of a live wire. What in common has this
manner of death with the older accidents when labor
moved and controlled the simple tools ?
That the corporation and every stockholder in it
should escape responsibility, by allowing a lawyer to
plead ancient saws, shows that the strong and suc-
cessful of our age have as little taste for justice as
their ancestors. It is the scale and complexity of
modern machine industry that has made the old rules,
like the " common employment," " contributory negli-
gence," grotesque in their unfitness to present facts.
What the French fitly call the " accident anonyme,"
the accident over which the victim has no control, has
come to be a terrible reality in machine industry.
In "common employment," under this rule, the
laborer was said to contract with his employer to take
all the usual risks that were incident to the business.
Thus the employer so far escaped responsibility. One
of the commonest of these risks was an accident
brought about by the carelessness of a fellow-laborer.
Early in the century, when machinery was of the
simplest sort ; when the employer was the owner and
MAN AND SOCIETY VERSUS MACHINERY 213
lived among his workmen, the doctrines of " common
employment " and " contributory negligence " were
intelligible. In a modern mill, factory, mine, or in
railroad service, they are as much out of date as a
distaff, or as bleeding for miscellaneous diseases.
The cause of accidents in these days of great ma-
chinery and of the army of subcontractors, becomes
so obscure that the law, many years since, became
charged with a casuistry as subtle as that of the
scholastics. The cases are filled with metaphysical
terms like the following : "causa causans" " principal
cause," " determining cause," "proximate cause," and
"cause directly contributory" to the accident. I
have^ heard the dean of one of our law schools call
this common legal casuistry " rubbish of the worst
sort," as applied to the facts and exigencies of the
present-day industry. Most civilized communities
outside of America have already made the same
acknowledgment by framing new laws that mark an
era in a juster social legislation.
Switzerland came first in 1881, Germany in 1884,
Austria in 1887, Norway in 1894, and England,
France, Italy, and Denmark in 1898. One and all
have taken the first definite steps toward the organiza-
tion of justice in this matter of industrial accidents.
In an entire day's discussion of this subject in 1901,
before the American Social Science Association in
Washington, the judgment was practically unanimous
that our methods of recompensing accidents by ma-
chinery are as clumsy as they are unjust. There is
in the United States no well-informed student of this
question known to me who has in general a different
opinion.
214 THE SOCIAL UNREST
The justification which a layman feels in using
strong language about this inhumanity, is that wher-
ever the facts have had thorough discussion, both
lawyers and politicians of highest eminence agree in
condemning conditions like those now existing in the
United States. It was of these that Sir Frederick
Pollock said, " I think the doctrine of the American
and English courts is bad law as well as bad policy."
Of these same conditions (the English act of 1880)
Mr. Asquith used the words, " a scandal and a re-
proach to the legislature, an elaborate series of traps
and pitfalls for the unwary litigant, and producing
litigation which, in proportion to its difficulty and
cost, is absolutely barren of result." Lord Salis-
bury and Mr. Chamberlain have both used language
scarcely less severe. When the discussion began in
the House of Commons, twenty years ago, scores of
able men hotly defended these laws. It is now said
that no first-rate man in the house will even attempt a
defence. At the international congresses for the dis-
cussion of accident insurance, the part which " com-
mon employment " has played in our legislature has
invariably elicited surprise and disapproval.
Mr. Willoughby, in his admirable book on " Work-
ingmen's Insurance," at the end of the chapter on this
subject in the United States, puts the case of our own
backwardness in these words : " It would be difficult
to think of another field of social or legal reform in
which the United States is so far behind other nations.
The most depressing feature of the situation lies in
the fact that the very principles involved in this
gradual evolution from the limited liability of em-
ployers to that of the compulsory indemnification by
MAN AND SOCIETY VERSUS MACHINERY 215
them of practically all injured employees, are as yet
not even comprehended in the United States."
Nowhere can the ethics of social responsibility be
studied to such advantage as among these accidents
and deaths due to the manner and places in which
complicated machinery is now used.
The United States stands preeminent for its inven-
tive faculty. Nowhere has the great machinery de-
veloped so swiftly or taken such perfect and effective
form. Nowhere has a race profited so greatly and so
continuously by the cheapened product due to me-
chanical devices. It would be a very elementary
form of justice for a public so enriched to say : " We
get the good of it ; our incomes and our luxuries in-
crease with every new embodiment of the inventor's
cunning. We, who are loaded with extra gifts, come
off unscathed, yet the vast processes which work for
our comfort are followed by a fatal train of blighting
injuries. Ought not we who get the good, to see to it
that the inevitable death or mutilation should be
decently recompensed ? " Yet we as the nation which
receives most from the machines make the most nig-
gardly return to the victims. Semi-public corpora-
tions have been compelled, in a degree, to do their
duty. Here and there private corporations act hon-
orably toward their injured workmen, but the general
mass of crippled life in our country is indemnified, if
at all, with a meanness, with a fickleness and uncer-
tainty that is a reproach to our civilization. No civ-
ilized nation can match our hot pace and our careless
disregard of human life. We insist that the hurry is
but a name for enterprise and progress, and that it is
unavoidable if we would lead the world in industrial
2l6 THE SOCIAL UNREST
achievement. If this be so, let justice be done to the
victims of all this greatness.
The principle through which, at least, a beginning
of justice is possible, is now clearly worked out for
our instruction. It has been developed from the
same causes in Switzerland, France, England, and
Germany. The facts of industrial accidents were
first exhaustively studied with a view to uniform and
equitable procedure. The illustration from Germany
is best only because the investigation of their acci-
dents has been most systematic and thorough. When
Germany had our " Employers' Liability "as it now
exists in most of our states, she had what we have,
endless and expensive haggling in the courts with
every extreme of uncertainty to employer and em-
ployed, as to amount of indemnity. It was found
there, as with us, that perpetual injustice resulted
because of the laborer's ignorance in using the com-
mon law. The first German authority upon this sub-
ject, Dr. Zacher, says : " The heavy burden of proof
laid on the party seeking redress almost frustrated
the beneficent intentions of the measure. The limita-
tion of responsibility to cases, in which the blame
rested with managers or overseers, left uncovered not
only cases originating from personal fault or neglect,
but likewise that large class of injuries caused by
chance or fellow-workmen. The inability of the re-
sponsible parties to pay an indemnity, often compelled
the applicant to fall back upon public charity, and
the increasing number of lawsuits seriously embit-
tered the relations between employers and employed."
Twenty years' experience under the German act has
made it clear that more than half of the industrial ac
MAN AND SOCIETY VERSUS MACHINERY 217
cidents are neither the fault of the employer nor of
the employed. They come with the regularity of the
tides, and can be dealt with by exact actuarial methods.
This evidence had a powerful influence in England in
their decision to stop this hunt for impossible personal
blames, and put this whole matter where it belongs,
upon a basis of carefully regulated insurance. The
long and searching discussion of this problem in eight
countries is practically a unit upon this point. The
expense of accidents (barring cases of gross negli-
gence) should, like insurance, be thrown upon the
costs of the business. The general body of consumers
must then, in the long run, when readjustments are
made, pay the bill for the disabilities incident to pro-
duction. This ends, once for all, a world of petty
personal bickering that is wasteful from every point
of view.
One of the first results of the study was to show
how easily the employer escaped responsibility under
the rules which came down from primitive industry.
A group of 15,970 "grave accidents," published by
the Imperial Bureau in 1887, reads as follows:
3156 due to fault of employer, or 19%
4094 due to fault of victim, or 25 %
711 due to fault of both, or 4%
524 due to fault of fellow-workmen, or 3%
6931 due to risks which were incident to the employment, or 43%
554 due to unknown cause, or 3%
Here about three-quarters of the employers would
escape under the old rules as they are frequently
interpreted in the United States. These figures are
not exceptional. The Swiss tables showed that less
than eighteen per cent of accidents could be proved
2l8 THE SOCIAL UNREST
against the employer. In Belgium it was shown that
the old law (like our own) left three-fifths of the
injured workmen without legal rights of indemnity.
Just as clearly do these preliminary studies in
social justice bring out other startling phases of
cruelty on the one hand and of immediate possible
improvement on the other.
To see that one kind of work has a per capita
risk of accident or death, eleven times greater than
another, in which the wages are quite as high, shows
what unfair burdens we are willing to thrust upon
the weak and ignorant. The insurance of the Ger-
man type now compels the business with extra risks
to pay an insurance proportioned to the peril. If
unusual casualties attend any business, it should bear
the burden. The old theory that hazardous toil
receives higher pay, is now seen to have no general
truth whatever. It is like the conjured objection to
the ten-hour day in the English mills, that the profits
were made in the last half hour and " therefore the
working day could not be shortened."
Again it appears in many industries, where the
nervous strain is great, that the ratio of accidents
rises in the tired hour before the work is stopped.
There are industries in which the accidents are twice
as numerous in the last hour of the day as they are in
the hour following dinner. The bearing of this upon
a shortened day in these industries is obvious.
These illustrations of the danger and loss side by
no means exhaust the account, but they fairly show
that if the service of machinery is great, the maiming
effects of it are also great.
No sane person, however, suggests that machinery
MAN AND SOCIETY VERSUS MACHINERY 2 19
be either destroyed or discontinued, not even the
wrathful Ruskin, if he is carefully read. Machinery
is with us doing our work, and it is here to stay.
It is strictly the creature of man's devising brain.
Not a cog, a lever, or a wheel that was not a thought
before it was a thing. There is no enginery how-
ever vast that is not thus a creature of man's mind.
The first of all questions about machinery is how
far we shall allow this by-product of our thinking
to become our master.
No one will claim that the evil is primarily in the
machine. Such evils as there are, must be in the
ways in which we allow it to be used. We permit
it often to be badly placed, recklessly run, too irre-
sponsibly owned or put to specialized uses that dwarf
the operator.
These are the evils with which the coming time
has to cope. The most obstinate of them will be
met only by a uniform, well-ordered extension of
factory and social legislation of the types illustrated
by child labor and industrial accidents.
It is now pretty safe to say one thing to those
who assert that this uniformity cannot be reached
because separate states will stand out in order to
secure every competitive advantage. Monopolized
privilege in the United States will almost certainly
engender abuses which public opinion will not con-
tinue to endure. Almost certainly we shall have
(as in the great strike of 1894 and the coal strike
of 1902) trouble profound enough to create a new
habit of mind in the American people. Through
these extreme disorders and inconveniences the public
will learn its hard lesson of demanding those activi-
220 THE SOCIAL UNREST
ties of government that will at last give us a body of
uniform, industrial, and social legislation that will
stand in some real relation to the actual facts of an in-
dustrial life that is no longer an affair of state boun-
daries, but of one common national area. Not to do
this, means a still more rapid development of socialism.
Meantime the questions raised by machinery have to
be faced, one by one, until they are better understood.
No single illustration can better bring out these facts
as they bear upon the social question than the tragedy
of industrial accidents and the whimsical incongruities
of our present legal methods. The average of inju-
ries is appalling in extent, but possibly one-half of
them are due to avoidable causes. Those that cannot
be avoided, can be honestly and humanely recom-
pensed. It is not destiny that the casualties from
coupling cars in 1889 should have been 5235. If
quarrying stone is fifteen times as hazardous to life
and limb as making paper or cloth, it is not fate that
the extra peril should be borne by the quarrymen with-
out some corresponding compensation. It has been
proved in theory and in practice that a rough money
equivalent can be given. It is not fixed by nature
that men should operate machinery so many hours
and in conditions so unwholesome that the springs of
life are exhausted before life is half lived out.
For these and kindred evils, traceable to machin-
ery, as now owned and operated, socialism appears
upon the scene with proposals of its own.
It is a fundamental assumption of the socialists,
and more and more of organized labor, that if the
" means of production " were controlled by the com-
munity, rather than by private persons and corpora-
MAN AND SOCIETY VERSUS MACHINERY 221
tions, the evils now connected with machinery would
pass away. It is thus implied that the evils are
inherent not in the machinery, but in the nature of
its ownership and control. The collectivist therefore
asks that the state take over the niines and the
machinery necessary to work them. Let it give a
minimum living wage to every worker, with hours
not exceeding eight; in a word, the people have
power to use machinery as it will. First, enlarge the
public possession of this machinery, then the com-
munity shall have the profits, and what is perhaps a
greater good, it shall use the machinery for the com-
mon weal. It has yet to be proved whether or not
socialism can make this promise good. New Zealand
and Australia have adopted this policy of using rail-
roads, telegraph, telephone, etc., first for social service.
Strictly business and dividend reasons are consciously
subordinated to this higher interest. We watch this
daring venture anxious to know if the new principle
will work. Can they work this machinery through
politics first for the public good, without loss of
efficiency and a too heavy burden of costs? If this
can be done, it will mark an era in social improvement.
While we await results, our task with the correspond-
ing machinery is chiefly that of " regulation " ; to
subject these forces to such control that human and
social interests shall not be too much endangered.
In many countries the proof is now complete that uni-
form legal control can work incalculable social bene-
fits. The limits of this control and its efficiency as
compared with the collectivist principle can be known
only through that further experience that is now
rapidly accumulating for our guidance.
CHAPTER VII
THE MASTER PASSION OF DEMOCRACY
I
Illusions
THE story of the social unrest cannot be told with-
out reference to those motives which underlie its
practical methods. At the heart of all socialistic
aspiration is some conception of equality. At the
heart of the larger labor movement is the race long-
ing for a society in which at least the spirit of equal-
ity shall be realized. Most radical remedies are only
means to this end. Beyond, and deeper than all
the machinery of social reconstruction, is this master
passion of democracy.
Henry George did not give his life for a system of
taxation. He worked for thirty years with rare and
high devotion to convert the world to his " single
tax," but wholly beyond this was the thing he cared
for ; the larger equality which he believed the single
tax would usher in, There is no sect of socialists of
which this is not likewise true. Their several
schemes stand only as means to this larger end of
a more equal life. Is this dream, as so many tell us,
a discredited absurdity ?
Those who have written most persuasively in favor
of equality have been moved to expression by the
222
THE MASTER PASSION OF DEMOCRACY 223
violent and flaunting inequalities amidst which they
lived. Rousseau and Godwin, the aristocratic St.
Simon and the democratic Fourier, down to recent
writers, like Zola and Tolstoi, are sore and angry
before the fact that those who have too little and
those who have too much so jostle each other along
the highway of a common life. Almost more is it
a source of irritation that those who are not in want
are prone to excuse these extremes as natural, un-
avoidable, and even desirable. Godwin wrote this
sentence, "The human mind is incredibly subtle in
inventing an apology for that to which its inclination
leads."
The prejudice of interest and of temperament
rarely shows itself with more complacent confidence
than in most discussions on that world-old dream
of the democracy, equality. In the days when the
tory hatred of Gladstone was so acrid that it was
thought to be bad form to mention his name at
a dinner table, I asked a wise Englishman what
reason could be given for a bitterness so excessive.
"Those who hate him," he answered, " cannot give
reasons, or if they do, there is no consistency among
them. You will notice that vituperation takes the
place of argument. When Gladstone is gone, it will
be seen by all that his rank is without dispute among
the half dozen of the greatest statesmen England has
produced. My own interpretation of the abhorrence
in which the well-bred world professes to hold him,
is that it sees in him a very terrible enemy to those
property rights on which our social inequality rests.
Not that Gladstone means this, or is conscious of
it, but his enemies see in him a most redoubtable
224 THE SOCIAL UNREST
champion of the coming democracy, and hate him
accordingly." This exposition may be defective, but
it illustrates the unreasoning passions that are kin-
dled when interests for which men most care are put
in danger.
No subject is more beset by disturbing bias or
class jealousy than equality. Much of the literature
that extenuates inequalities exhibits a certain irri-
tation, as if the author were arguing against one
who had affronted him. This perversity of misun-
derstanding is epitomized in the Lincoln-Douglas
debates. Lincoln came again and again to the famous
equality clause of the Declaration, " All men are
created equal," etc. From the astute Douglas to the
pettiest demagogue of proslavery politics, Lincoln
was harassed because of his defence of equality.
With his incomparable lucidity of statement, he tells
the public what he means. He does not mean equal
in all respects ; color, stature, moral and intellectual
gifts, are indefinitely variable, but deeper than this
difference lies a basis of equality, absolute and im-
pregnable. "There is," said Lincoln, "no reason in
the world why the negro is not entitled to all the
natural rights enumerated in the Declaration of
Independence ; the right to life, liberty, and the
pursuit of happiness. I hold that he is as much
entitled to these as the white man. I agree with
Judge Douglas that he is not my equal in many
respects certainly not in color, perhaps not in
moral or intellectual endowment But in the right to
eat the bread, without the leave of anybody else,
which his own hand earns, he is my equal, and the
equal of Judge Douglas, and the equal of every living
THE MASTER PASSION OF DEMOCRACY 22$
man." In passages like this, it is made fearlessly clear
that the great democrat is not arguing for impossible
equalities; clear, that he understands, as well as his
opponent, what a gamut of superior and inferior quali-
ties inhere in the race, and forever will inhere. But
these repeated explanations of Lincoln, except to far-
off and disinterested readers of the speeches, were
fruitless. Once insisting upon the great principle of
equality, no qualifications that he could make before
an audience weighed in the balance against the inso-
lent substitute for argument, " Will you marry a nig-
ger?" "Will you invite 'em to dinner?" Stung
by the persistent unfairness, Lincoln replied, " Any-
thing that argues me into his (Douglas's) idea of per-
fect social and political equality with the negro is but
a specious and fantastic arrangement of words by
which a man can prove a horse-chestnut to be a
chestnut horse."
This sentence summarizes the interminable at-
tempts that have been made to prove that the dream
of the democracy is mere fatuity. The explanation
of this is easier, because few subjects, if interpreted
with any literalness, are so open to attack and to
raillery. If there is one fact about which human ex-
perience can have an absolute opinion, it is the fact
of diversity and inequality of gifts. Nor is there a
sign that this diversity and inequality are being ex-
tinguished. There are signs that they tend uniformly
to deepen with each new stage of progress. Certain it
is that nature loves variety no less than unity, and
greets each new difference in her unfolding life with
delight and approval.
It is a measure of our culture to shrink from
226 THE SOCIAL UNREST
monotony and rejoice in variation. I read a vapid
imitation of Bellamy, in which none were to be
physically more beautiful than others. The very
sense and source of beauty would thus expire. A
world in which at a given moment none are better,
braver, more gracious, more eloquent or more master-
ful than others, presents a sorry spectacle to the
imagination. It is open to doubt, but I fancy that a
society which insisted upon apportioning exact prop-
erty equivalents would affront the common sense of
any well-developed race. A race that has become
both strong and kind, would be eager that property
should go according to needs and to gifts. As these
varied, the use of property would vary.
If, then, our discussion is to begin with these admis-
sions of inevitable inequality, what remains for argu-
ment? The whole practical question is, I believe,
untouched by any of these concessions. Lincoln's
phrase, "specious and fantastic arrangement of
words," as applied to equality, was never more in
fashion than now. Many an uncompromising de-
fender of society, as now organized, is quick to make
merry over every suggestion of equality.
There is some excuse for this, if the word be taken
narrowly, or if many of the past interpretations of
equality be accepted. If, on the contrary, we are
willing to take the word at its best, take it as it is
now used even by the broader-minded of the socialist
writers, the notion of equality presents no paralyzing
difficulty whatever. The better to establish this fact,
let us look first at the narrower meaning and at the
illusions with which the word has been associated.
So many graphic efforts have been made in this
THE MASTER PASSION OF DEMOCRACY 227
country to force an artificial uniformity, that the
attention has been diverted from the essential spirit
of equal privilege. Perhaps the history of no peo-
ple offers so great a variety of picturesque attempts
to realize social equality as the United States during
the nineteenth century. The century opens with the
election of a chief magistrate consecrated to this end.
No sooner was Jefferson in office than he began to
practise la vie Jgalitaire, the ideals of which so fasci-
nated him in France. In 1801, he proclaimed his
purpose to efface, at his receptions and at his table,
every form of class distinction. All rules of prece-
dence, hitherto customary, were to be set aside.
This was the famous pele-mle that so enraged the
British minister. The general dismay was at its
height in 1804, when Jefferson wrote privately to
Monroe, "We have told him (the English minister)
that the principle of society as well as of govern-
ment with us is the equality of the individuals com-
posing it ; that no man here would come to a dinner
where he was to be marked with inferiority to any
other; that we might as well attempt to force our
principle of equality at St. James's as he his princi-
ple of precedence here." The British minister wrote
home that the foreign representatives and their wives
"are now placed here in a situation so degrading to
the countries they represent, and so personally dis-
agreeable to themselves, as to become almost intoler-
able." The French minister wrote to Talleyrand
that " all Washington was turned upside down." It
is not probable that an abler or a more sincere and
honest trial of " the equal life " among the functions
at the Capitol, could ever be made than that which
228 THE SOCIAL UNREST
was made by Jefferson under his " Canons of Eti-
quette," that had the formal approval of his Cabinet.
The experiment, however, left as little trace as any
of the hundred Utopias that have been tried in our
country. The failure came, not because foreign am-
bassadors treated it with ridicule and disdain, but be-
cause our own people did not continue to like it, more
than the foreigners liked it. To see why any one of
the Utopias miscarries, is to see why Jefferson's hope
came to nought. It matters little which experiment
we select. One of the ablest and most practical
business men in England, Robert Owen, started one
in Indiana in 1826. The thirty thousand acres of
land, the mills and houses, cost him $150,000 a
large fortune for those days. It excited much in-
terest, and the Hall of Representatives in Wash-
ington was opened to him and crowded with
distinguished hearers two long evenings, to hear the
story of the "changed circumstances that should
make for equality." Several men of note were
among the members of this colony in Indiana : Vigo,
the painter; Maclure, a rich geologist of note,
attracted by the Pestalozzian system of education ;
and a well-known naturalist, Alexander le Seur. In
1824, all hopes were high.
The first signs of mutiny come with the endeavor
to enforce the details of the equal life. If the mem-
bers are to be sincere in discarding the tokens of
artificial superiority, what better beginning than with
personal dress ? It was therefore decreed that the
dress should be uniform. The men should be clothed
in a jacket without marked color, the trousers at-
tached to the jacket by buttons. It was early noted
THE MASTER PASSION OF DEMOCRACY 22Q
that while many men submitted, they were not the
most desirable members of the " Community of
Equality." Many of the best male members openly
sulked beneath this colorless jacket. As for the
women, the disapproval was instant and unmistaka-
ble. They were to be garmented in an unadorned
frock extending a little below the knee. The rest of
the raiment was to consist of pantalets. The sulky
protests of the men were very subdued compared to
the unconcealed displeasure of the women. There
could be no reasonable check on the expression of
their vexation, because, in the final constitution, abso-
lute freedom of speech was made not only a privilege
but a duty. The women were quick to avail them-
selves of this fundamental right. They not only flatly
refused to wear the vestments of equality, but formed,
forthwith, a sort of sympathetic strike against any
and all women members who dared to appear in
them. To Mr. Owen this behavior seemed unworthy,
but it caused him no misgivings. He said it was
natural that people brought up in the long tradition
of frivolous personal distinctions should be slow to
free themselves from its influence. If the right be-
ginning were made with the young, these foibles would
pass away with other perversities of human nature.
The splendid optimism of Robert Owen was a part
of his genius. The history of social reform has few
names to which the future will give superior rank.
I believe that the practical economic achievements of
the English democracy owe more to him than to any
other man. It is very plain, however, that many of
his special methods of reaching equality were humor-
ously ill chosen.
230 THE SOCIAL UNREST
In all that Thomas Jefferson did in Virginia to
abolish primogeniture, the entail of property, and to
insure religious liberty, his contributions to equality
were great. If he bad done what he wished to
do, establish popular education and abolish slavery,
no name in our history would have been so illus-
trious, but the details of the pele-mele are of the
same order as the colorless jacket and the pantalets.
If there is a single lesson to be read from the long
list of insolvent Utopias, it is that the thing we call
human nature will not submit to have thrust upon it
the externals of a literal equality.
The literary Utopias are unabashed by these per-
plexities. In Bellamy's world, each person has an
extremely liberal credit card. This lordly provision
is possible, because a fine imagination has spirited
away a host of awkward difficulties. Wealth has
been multiplied by the author at least a dozen times ;
the wealth enjoyed in common, indefinitely increased,
and what is of greater importance than both of these
items, the whole population has somehow become
prudent and self-controlled and delicately consider-
ate of others. If one does not exhaust his credit
card, he cannot save for himself what remains. It
passes to the common treasury, and he begins the
new year with a new credit symbol.
Industrial changes that should give us, in the year
2000, ten or twelve times more wealth each year
than we now have, are perhaps among the pos-
sibilities of the coming century. It would not be
more startling than the changes that have become the
commonplaces of the century just closing. A far
tougher strain upon our credulity is the transforma-
THE MASTER PASSION OF DEMOCRACY 231
tion in the race of men and women. The unfailing
trait in every Utopia is this assumed change in race
qualities. There is no difficulty that cannot be
evaded, if one sets out with the right kind of hu-
manity, or imagines one that has reached far higher
development. Certainly the chief sources of our
social troubles are old-fashioned ignorance and self-
ishness. If one choose to conceive a race that is
without ignorance and without selfishness, the new
society is at hand. Bellamy is not unaware of this
fact, and therefore finds it necessary to introduce a
religious revival a revival such as the world has
never seen for universality and thoroughness. Other
worldly motives do not enter into it. A sublime
enthusiasm for the good of all in this present world
lifted the multitude into an ecstasy of well-doing.
The revival did not cause the economic changes, but
was rather caused by them. As we are told, it "made
a short story of the later stages of the great upturn-
ing." Many believed that the industrial revolution
would require decades, but Dr. Leite says to Julian,
while they wait for the play :
" Those who held this opinion failed to take account
of the popular enthusiasm which would certainly
take possession of the movement and drive it irre-
sistibly forward from the moment that the prospect
of its success became fairly clear to the masses."
Giving the history of this enthusiasm, he further
adds : " An impassioned eagerness seized upon the
multitude to enter into the delectable land, so that
they found every day's, every hour's delay intoler-
able. The young said, ' Let us make haste, and go
into the promised land while we are young, that we
232 THE SOCIAL UNREST
may know what living is.' And the old said, ' Let
us go in ere we die, that we may close our eyes in
peace, knowing that it will be well with our children
after us.' The leaders and pioneers of the Revolu-
tion, after having for so many years exhorted and
appealed to a people for the most part indifferent or
incredulous, now found themselves caught up and
borne onward by a mighty wave of enthusiasm which
it was impossible for them to check and difficult for
them to guide, had not the way been so plain."
Then to cap the climax, as if the popular mind
were not already in a sufficiently exalted frame, came
the Great Revival, touching this enthusiasm with
religious emotion. This quotation is not presented as
a target for gibes, but to show the magician's skill in
overcoming difficulties. The author knew that his
scheme could not work, even in the imagination of the
reader, unless the inexorable selfishness of man was
dislodged. If equality were temporarily won, the old
devil of self-seeking would destroy it again. The
revival is made equal to the occasion. Even of the
capitalists who fare ill in the book, it is said :
" They were not persons of a more depraved disposi-
tion than other people, but merely like other classes,
what the economic system had made them. Having
like passions and sensibilities with other men, they
were as incapable of standing out against the con-
tagion of the enthusiasm of humanity, the passion of
pity, and the compulsion of humane tenderness which
the Great Revival had aroused, as any other class of
people."
With an influence so irresistible at one's disposal,
no millennium need be postponed. The communist
THE MASTER PASSION OF DEMOCRACY 233
carries the division of property still further than the
socialist ; but if self-seeking is expunged, the extremer
equality is as easy as the other. The philosophic
anarchist has a splendid ideal ; a society in which no
prison, police, court, or law is necessary. If a revival
or any other agency could make all people behave
so well that no external constraint was necessary; if
there were absolute generosity, forbearance, and good
will, this ideal, too, could be realized. The Sphinx
riddle is how to get such behavior. At present the
Utopias monopolize it. The world, as known to us,
is moved by other and far more complex motives.
To the cynical, the Utopias have ever been the
easy mark of satire; and when they failed, the
crushed hopes met from the outside only general
hilarity and I-told-you-so complacency. The lack
of sympathy with heroic and unselfish attempts to
realize equality is itself evidence of the common dis-
like of equality. One of the later experiments, at
Ruskin, Tennessee, for which great hopes had been
felt, has met disaster. I have gathered many opin-
ions from the press, but among them all no kindly
note of appreciation. Has the world, at heart, a
fixed, unconscious hatred of equality ?
The history of these hardy enterprises is very
chilling. For most it is a question of months, of
years for a few. A small fraction is held in some
permanence if only the binding power of religion is
there. Religious sects can get little comfort from
this, because it seems not to matter much what kind
of religion holds them ; that of the Mormon and the
Shaker appear to be among the best for the purpose.
If these communities are destitute of sturdy faith
234 THE SOCIAL UNREST
or superstition, if you will, that subdues them into
habits of obedience, they fall to pieces. They start
radiant with high and noble purpose. In the begin-
ning no sacrifice is wanting to realize the equal life.
But a few moons come and go, and then a subtle
poison begins its work.
Here again the explanation is seen in our most
common observation of ourselves and of the men and
women about us. A few years ago the American
papers were very jocular at the expense of a rich
American in London, because of his published claims
to a distinguished family lineage. Yet that is what
half one's acquaintances are everywhere doing to the
extent of their ingenuity. Heraldry now is a charmed
word for multitudes of very humble people. Libra-
rians are suddenly plagued by the importunity for
genealogical evidence of distinguished ancestry.
Daughters of this and daughters of that ; clubs,
coteries, everywhere springing into life, bound to
discover proof that they are not quite like other
people. I saw a Colonial Dame flushed with de-
light because on a great occasion in another city
her badge had given her showy precedence over cer-
tain Daughters of the Revolution, who at home never
failed to let her feel her social inferiority. She said,
" In all my life, no minute ever gave me a joy like
that." The women need have no shame, they can-
not outdo the men in this pursuit. Scarcely a town
that is not gay with embellished orders stamped with
every display of royal and knightly nomenclature.
Read the list of officers from the Sublime Grand
Master down, and ask what aristocracy in history ever
went farther in its hunt for feathers. Two or three
THE MASTER PASSION OF DEMOCRACY 235
years ago there was a gathering of three or four
orders in Boston. From a single copy of the Herald
I take the following modest titles, Grand Dictator,
Grand Chancellor, Supreme President, Grand Vice
Dictator, Supreme Warden. 1 This outbreak is a droll
commentary upon a society that has found so much
to ridicule in the " haughty infirmities " of the old
world. It has sprung, however, straight from human
nature. We have won wealth and some leisure that
have brought us into contact with foreign sources of
distinction that we lack. No people ever displayed
the passion for inequality more greedily than we.
One builds a yacht, and if he can dine an English
prince at the Cowes races, or entice the German Em-
peror on board at Kiel, this single breath of royal
atmosphere at once endows the enterprising host with
the rarest social privileges at home. Every circle
breaks at the touch of the king's hand.
This craving to index oneself off from others, by
any mark that can be hit upon, is not very vicious,
perhaps not always bad, but it is the essence of
inequality and shows how rooted an instinct it is
within us. I asked the head of a fashionable city
school about the parents that brought their daughters
to her. " It is," she said, " so unusual as to surprise
me when a parent shows any other real anxiety than
to secure for her child certain social connections.
Education has no meaning except as it furthers this
end." If this is snobbish, what is it for working
girls' clubs to exclude household domestics ? I have
known Boston shop-girls at their dances to put up
a placard marked, " No servants admitted." No
1 Sunday Herald, October 7, 1900.
236 THE SOCIAL UNREST
social group that ca^o^^iamed is free from this
itching. gnia <
It is only when facts like these are faced without
flinching or evasion, that the failure of most Utopian
schemes is 'seen to be inevitable until far more radi-
cal work has been done upon race habits. It has
often been said that these failures have been caused
by unwillingness to work. The records give the lie
to this explanation in scores of cases. The shirking
of tasks is but a partial and secondary difficulty.
Deeper than this, and far more uniform and perma-
nent, is the depressing fact that the members do not
continue to love each other. On the first high tide
of generous ardor, they rejoice in each other's com-
pany at all hours. They are eager to sit at a com-
mon table, and to share the products of a common
toil, but this love-feast rarely continues. The most
saintly among them are often the least manageable
of all. A single passage from a private letter of one
who had seen much of this community life throws
an almost pitiless light on the entire history : " We
all liked each other at first, as brothers and sisters
should. But a very devil of ill will and suspicion
began to show itself in the second month between
Brother H. and Brother F. It began in a way so
contemptible that I am ashamed to tell it. Brother
H. had an ailing stomach and could not eat a certain
sweet pudding served once a week. Brother F.'s
great fondness for this dish so worked upon the feel-
ings of Brother H. that he could not refrain from
un-Christian remarks to those about him." This nar-
rative continues in the same rare vein, but it needs
no further quoting. Though only a sweet pudding, it
THE MASTER PASSION OF DEMOCRACY 237
resulted in the sourest ferment for several others to
whom it gave opportunity to vent their own ill humors.
The incident is less frivolous than it appears, for it
was merely an occasion to express feelings that in
default of pudding would have seized upon the soup or
the cut of the beard. Sometimes it is the manner of
eating, sometimes it is too much or too loud talking,
sometimes too little. Silence irritates as well as
garrulity. Gossip, jokes ill-timed, low vitality in one,
and buoyant health in another, humor here and lack
of it there, romantic fervor in this member, and in
another only gray matter of fact.
The result is the more easily understood because the
personnel of these communities is naturally composed
of those who had already become extremely critical
of the old society which they found so faulty. They
bring to the new society the same qualities that could
not tolerate former associations. In the letter
quoted, it is said, " We expected to attract queer people,
but that there were so many kinds of queerness and
that they could be so unreasonable, we had to learn
by most disheartening experience."
These are but the oldest platitudes of race experi-
ence. The members of these Utopias were thrown
too closely and too constantly together. If people
like each other, they also dislike each other ; if they
are held together by attractions, they are also driven
apart by repulsions, and space must be given for the
selective process of both impulses for antipathies
as well as for affections. Unless the Buddhist and
Catholic monasteries are thought to be satisfactory
ideals of the equal life, there is no sign in the history
of more than four hundred experiments, that a vigor-
238 THE SOCIAL UNREST
ous humanity will long resign itself to any separate
colony scheme that the wit of the reformer has thus
far devised. People are driven together under condi-
tions so narrow, with so much sameness, that the
limits become unbearable after the first enthusiasm
subsides. The test which every colony must meet,
that sets itself apart from the great world, is to make
the conditions of the community life so rich in variety,
that the various temperaments can find room for
activity. Not to do this, is soon to let loose every
imp of petty jealousy and bickering that possesses the
human creature. The commonest lessons from every
almshouse and old ladies' home should have taught
us this. That which now keeps these defects some-
what in abeyance is that competitive society, bad as
it is, gives man leeway for his energy. The stronger
the personality, the more room and variety is needed
for self-expression. No one can look upon the Shakers
without feeling that their community has merely
selected from the outside millions a certain type of
man and woman, kindly and docile, but for the most
part destitute of virility. Men and women rich in
strong personal character cannot be so cabined.
I have heard a kindly and intelligent sea captain,
half his life spent in long voyages, say that the
severest test to morals that he ever faced was with
his own crew and passengers after two months
at sea. " We became touchy, sour, and disagreeable
for the most ridiculous reasons. I have been surly
the entire day, because the mate said good morning,
and surly another day, because he did not. On a
four months' voyage, I* have seen passengers act for
days as if they loathed each other. When we had
THE MASTER PASSION OF DEMOCRACY 239
escaped from the ship, and had been two days on
land, we treated each other like human beings."
The saintly F. D. Maurice, riding in a London
omnibus, over the jolting pavement, imagines the
effect of smooth pavements (just being introduced)
upon the friendly good-nature of the passengers.
When the rattling ceases, Maurice fancies that stran-
gers will catch eagerly at the opportunity of holding
sweet converse with each other. The pavement has
come, and one may ride a hundred miles upon it
without observing the slightest general tendency to
embrace the chance of neighborly intercourse.
When the passengers rush to fill our railway trains,
do they try to get together ? Unless with a friend
or with one of their family, they apparently desire
nothing so much as to keep apart in a separate seat,
or in two seats if they can monopolize them. There is
not the least eagerness to entice strangers to occupy
the place beside them. The apart-instinct is as
powerful as the together-instinct, and it does not
become less so as society develops. The proprietor
of one of the older Boston hotels told me that when
he worked in a hotel for his father, a generation ago,
men who had never seen each other made no objec-
tion to taking the same bed, or sleeping three beds in
a room. "Now," he added, "half my customers
would leave for another hotel, rather than submit
to have their bed in the same room with another.
Everybody wants to keep as far away from others as
he can get." This does not mean that there is less
good will among men than in more promiscuous
times. The gay knights and ladies of the Rhine
castles who ate with their fingers out of the same dish
240 THE SOCIAL UNREST
and knew no napkins, were not more unselfish than
the modern, who insists upon a separate plate. Sep-
arateness and apartness increase with every step in
the social growth. Upon one side common functions,
common wealth, common privileges, are enlarged.
Parks, libraries, museums, vast educational facilities,
are everywhere increasing at the same time that purely
individual functions increase. The together-instincts
do not develop more rapidly than the apart-instincts.
No social scheme that fails to reckon with the ever
widening variety of race energies has a moment's
chance of success. The literary Utopias often avoid
these stubborn realities by first destroying society in
order to have the ground cleared for their own build-
ing, or they begin on an island or in some realm of
nowhere, unplagued by complicated traditions.
Bellamy is unusual in this, that he pluckily takes
up society as it is. Syndicates, trusts, department
stores, furnish him with his best material. Develop
them far enough and universally enough and petty
individual enterprises will be wiped out, or gathered
into these colossal undertakings that only the state can
manage. But Bellamy's own material is dangerous
in his hands, for the reason that it hardens in spite
of him into a huge mechanism that fills many of his
own persuasion with repugnance. The most pictu-
resque incident, as well as one of the most significant,
in modern socialistic thought, occurs for our instruc-
tion almost as soon as Bellamy's dream was fairly
before the world. It came from a brother socialist,
but one of far richer and more varied power than
Bellamy possessed, the English poet and artist, Will-
iam Morris. He, too, has the divine rage against the
THE MASTER PASSION OF DEMOCRACY 24!
competitive system. He, too, will destroy it, root and
branch, but he is first of all poet and artist craftsman,
vitalizing every hour with more intense and diverse
life energy than any one of the famed group of which
he was a part. Morris catches greedily at " Looking
Backward," reads and rereads it, but is choked in its
atmosphere. If one who called Bellamy comrade,
who called himself a socialist, feels such acute aver-
sion, as if cramped and stifled when he has to inhabit
Bellamy's social fabric merely in imagination, what
would happen to a nation with pulsing activity an
hundred-fold more multiform than in any single
individual, however gifted ? 1
It would be without excuse to linger at such length
over the Utopias if they did not present both a theory
and a practice of equality. In their literary form, as
in their varied experimenting, they furnish inestimable
material for judgment. They show us what men and
women think about a certain kind of equality before
they try it, and what they think after the trial is made.
These experiments have gone on through many
centuries and among many nationalities. They have
taken widely different forms. At least twenty are
struggling at the present time with the same hopes
and the same embarrassments. I have seen the
records of fourteen attempts made in Australian
colonies. The three or four that now seem least
likely to fail are so greatly modified by securing
private property rights that they appear to set slight
value on equality in its Utopian sense. The literal
interpretation of equality has no logical completeness
except in communism. Communism captivates at
1 Both Bebel and Kautsky had the same feeling as Morris.
R
242 THE SOCIAL UNREST
the same time the saint and the loafer. It offers to
the imagination what the heroic are glad to give, and
to the dead-beat what he is greedy to take.
As the socialist dialectic will always embarrass the
advocate of the single tax, so the logic of the com-
munist will harass the socialist, because he leaves
certain forms of property still in private possession.
To the communist, one form is as nefarious as an-
other. I knew an apostle of unflinching equality, a
French tgalitaire, who was dedicated absolutely to his
principles. The coat on his back, his writing-desk
and books, the wife with whom he lived, belonged, he
claimed, as strictly to another as to himself. " The
principle," he added, " loses its greatness and its power
over men if it is not harmonious and complete." The
socialists, more than all others, roused his wrath,
"because they pick and choose," he said, "like the
stupid bourgeois, this or that fragment of equality,
according to their taste."
In the extraordinary success of the great foundry
{familisthe) at Guise, in North France, Godin carried
equality to the farthest limits consistent with the
management of a great and paying business. His
youth was fired with communistic ideals. Though
rich, he lived in the same building with his workmen ;
but in their common theatre his family seat was some-
what apart and better than the others. In showing me
this a workman said, " Godin was true to the great prin-
ciple up to a certain point, but we never liked it that
he did not watch the play from the same seat as the
rest of us." This workman was in the theoretic stage.
Godin was sorely plagued by the importunity of this
type of workman, as those who have to apply theory
THE MASTER PASSION OF DEMOCRACY 243
will always be worried by the unhampered critic.
This is the chastening ordeal which socialism must
undergo in the coming century, as it tries to bring us
nearer the " reign of equal rights."
II
Realities
It was my endeavor in the last chapter to state
fully and fairly the ineffaceable limits which experi-
ence has already drawn about the pettier conceptions
of equality. The origin of many of the most star-
tling inequalities is biolo ^cal. To get born with cer-
tain qualities is to have many chances to one against
the man who came into life without them. We all
see that the sources of superiority are in the gifts that
cannot be made equal. The mysteries of tempera-
ment, buoyancy, vivid imagination, prudence, charms
of personality, tact, inflexible purpose, steadiness of
self-control, and even physical gifts, like good diges-
tion and ability to sleep, are qualities that lead men
beyond the average of their fellows. To put the least
check upon these distinctions (or inequalities) would
bring a common and a grievous loss.
We have thus far neither the wisdom nor the moral
courage to raise the questions on which these con-
genital superiorities depend. For a very indefinite
future these deep sources of inequality will remain
practically beyond our influence. These are difficul-
ties, however, that in no way conflict with a larger and
truer interpretation of equality. Because absurd
claims to literal equality have been made, we need
not spoil the discussion by continuing to repeat them.
244 THE SOCIAL UNREST
Helvetius is still quoted as maintaining that one man's
gifts (all privileges removed) are equal to another's.
This is now known to be so wide of the truth that it
is a poor shift for an opponent of equality to make
much of such exaggerations, and thus divert attention
from claims that may be rational.
The abler socialist writers the Webbs, Vander-
welde, Kautsky, Malon know the limitations of
equality indicated in the last chapter quite as well as
smart casuists like Mr. Mallock. They do not now
ask for fantastic identities of gift or possession.
They ask for a social and economic reconstruction
that shall give new freedom for race development.
Our real problem, therefore, is to know how far
opportunity to develop every gift is open to all ; how
far do artificial privileges restrict these opportuni-
ties to the few; how far does an imperfect social
and industrial system handicap a portion of the
people; above all, how does an unregulated com-
petition select, stimulate, and strengthen individual
qualities and social ideals that thwart a genuine
equality ?
When Mr. Webb says, " We want to bring about
the condition in which every member of society shall
have a fair chance to use and to develop the gifts
with which he happens to be born," he is not putting
in claim to an absurdity. When he asks for a democ-
racy so broadly educated that it appreciates compe-
tence and its relation to the infinitely varied tasks of
society, he only asks for what that very prince of
democrats, Jefferson, called the " natural aristocracy."
In writing to Adams (October 28, 1813), he says,
" May we not even say that that form of government
THE MASTER PASSION OF DEMOCRACY 245
is best which provides the most effectually for a
pure selection of these aristoi into the offices of
government ? "
If the purpose is to try merely to see what heart
truth there is in this dream, we shall admit that all
external signs of equality, like dress, apartments,
working hours, are not of primary, not even of sec-
ondary, importance. Indeed, as the discussion has
developed, less and less stress is laid upon them, and
that which has taken their place is indicated by vague
commonplace phrases such as " equality of oppor-
tunity." It has no ultimate purpose that all receive
the same material gifts. These, equal or unequal,
exist for an end beyond themselves ; that end is the
largest, freest, and richest life of which the individual
is capable. But who would claim that equal material
gifts are necessary to this ideal ? If the goal is a
society in which all can live out openly and health-
fully every faculty they possess, then " equality of
chance " is as good a phrase as any to express
the conditions that would make such life possi-
ble. Both of these phrases have become wearisome.
Yet it seems impossible to fix upon better ones, if
the purpose is to show what the ideal of equality
must be.
For a great multitude in our midst, equality of
chance is choked by all manner of obstacles. Here
is the test to our honesty in the discussion. On the
one side it is maintained that the average man always
has his equal chance ; upon the other, this is madly
denied. To get at such truth as there is between
these extremes of opinion is to see all that the prob-
lem can give.
246 THE SOCIAL UNREST
Let us state again what is deepest in this unabating
purpose of the demos. It is not for absolute or exter-
nal equalities. It is not for any equality that will
submit to nice measurement. It is for far more
equality than exists. It is for as much equality as
each is capable of seizing and using to his own and
others' good. All will admit that justice halts until
men and women in general do have essential equality
in using their powers.
The Utopian stage has made it plain that external
uniformities in every kind and degree are discredited.
These are but the poor letter of social justice. Its
spirit will not be without external tokens, but these
will be lightly regarded. The spirit of equality
will appeal to another order of evidence. It will
claim as the imperishable right of every child
born among us to have, as far as possible, the full
and free occasions to live its best life. A society
which should give this chance to all, would make
the nearest approach to justice. In the light of this
conception, we should straightway test our evils and
our remedies. In its light we should ask what
is now being done to bring these fairer results a
little nearer. In its light we should seek to know
what class now has this opportunity to make the
most of life, and through what agencies so great
a good has been attained. In its light we should
inquire what class is hindered and why it is hin-
dered from putting life to its best uses. Unerringly
one can point to large sections of the toiling world
whose first steps toward an ampler life are hopelessly
barred.
Let us test this by the very simplest illustrations,
THE MASTER PASSION OF DEMOCRACY 247
which show us a very fountain-head of quite unneces-
sary inequalities.
It is not yet twenty years since a careful investi-
gation in Berlin showed that more than seventy thou-
sand of her population were living in single rooms. It
was found that the death-rate for this group rose to
the appalling figure of 163.5 P er thousand in the
year. On the other hand, when families had three
or four rooms, the death-rate fell below 20 in the
thousand. This would excite only incredulity if we
had not the same history in English and Scotch cities
less than a generation ago. But the sociological
significance of this ghastly difference is not in the
mere fact of such a death record ; it is as nothing
compared with what that mortality implies. Colonel
Waring believed that every one of these abnormal
deaths stood for more than ten times as many serious
and corrupting illnesses. A death-rate so unnatural
implies degeneracy in the entire group. A mortality
rate of 18 per thousand may mean a healthy com-
munity, but a community devastated to the extent
of 163.5 P er thousand is not only itself diseased, but
a source of general social disorder, intemperance,
crime, prostitution, and special forms of lawlessness. 1
Another illustration that finds its counterpart in
every community shows how the first essentials of
1 Professor Marshall says,* "The extent of the infant mortality that
arises from preventable causes may be inferred from the fact that
while the annual death-rate of children under five years of age is only
about two per cent in the families of peers, and is less than three per
cent for the whole of the upper classes, it is between six and seven per
cent for the whole of England, f
* " Principles of Economics," first edition, p. 257.
t The terrible effects upon the family when crowded into small space may b
seen in the first chapter of Graham Wallace's " Life of Francis Place."
248 THE SOCIAL UNREST
equality are snatched from the weak, under our very
eyes. It was noted at the Cambridge Associated
Charities that a succession of destitute " cases " were
traceable to a crushing indebtedness, under which the
victim was staggering. An investigation begun in
January, 1896, showed that in a few months over
seven hundred loans had been placed among the poor,
at rates of interest varying from 50 per cent to 120
per cent. The existing law was easily evaded by
frequent transfers of the mortgage, the victim pay-
ing from $3 to $5 for every transfer. Of over one
hundred cases carefully traced, a few examples will
lay bare the enormity of the wrong : (i) "Twenty
dollars were borrowed, from which $5 were at
once deducted for ' expenses ' ; interest charged
$1.50 a month (i.e. 90 per cent on $20) or 120 per
cent on the $15 actually received. Paid $73.50 in
interest, after which mortgage was foreclosed, and
furniture costing $150 was seized and sold, the
family being left Saturday night with nothing but a
stove and rug." (2) " Thirty-two dollars borrowed.
Interest $2.50 a month. When the case was taken
in hand at the office, $54.25 had already been paid
to the lender, who was still demanding $18.50." (3)
"Thirty dollars borrowed. Interest $2 per month.
This had dragged on until the wretched debtor had
paid $106, with $29 more to pay."
Who can assert that these people had equality of
opportunity, or that the heavy burden of their un-
equal struggle was a decree of fate ?
These cases are very bad, but they are not the
most extreme ones. If Cambridge is exceptional, it
is in being freer from cruelties like these than the
THE MASTER PASSION OF DEMOCRACY 249
average large town. The great city offers a spectacle
of helpless entanglements of which the illustrations
give but the slightest hint. Do these snared thou-
sands have equality of opportunity ? The first step
toward it is barred from them by their ignorance,
their poverty, and the habits which these have bred.
The instance is the fitter for our use, because, like so
many sources of social inequality, it is for the most
part unnecessary. It is among the most hopeful of
sociological discoveries that the larger part of these
crippling conditions that make for inequality, is merely
a social blunder. The child in industry, the truck
store, a large part of the system of fining and " over-
time," the sweatshop, the tenement-house evil, are
one and all departures from the highest business
standard. An honored Boston physician said at a
gathering interested in day nurseries : " We used to
think that almost any treatment was good enough for
the babies of the poor. We know now that the best
which science affords is even the cheapest for society."
The vast material gathered in Germany, under the
Sickness and Accident Insurance, proves that in final
cash reckoning it pays to have the best appliances
for the sick and the injured, the best medicines, the
best physicians, and the best nursing. It is found that
no extravagance is so wasteful as a skinflint economy.
As a result of this splendid information, the whole
standard of ministering to misfortune among the poor
is being raised throughout the entire empire. The
head of a great business in Elgin, Illinois, told me, " I
have learned that almost all over-time work is bad
management; all work beyond nine hours before
long we shall say eight is a mistaken policy."
2$O THE SOCIAL UNREST
Among these evils from which inequalities spring,
some can be stopped altogether, and all can be
diminished. The hiring of money at seven or eight
times the current rates cannot be totally extinguished.
There is no way given to men of protecting all
degrees of carelessness and ignorance from the con-
sequences of their folly. No more evidence is want-
ing, however, to show that loan associations and
municipal pawnshops may meet these needs among
the poor, at less than a third of the average pawn-
shop burden, and with far greater safety and con-
sideration for the borrower. The way has been
made clear for an immense decrease in this special
source of unequal opportunities.
What shall be said of equal opportunity for boys
who begin their careers as described by the ablest
factory inspector that Illinois ever had ? " In many
factories it is customary for the youngest lad to go
to the nearest saloon, carrying a long pole with
pegs in its side, and a tin can hanging from every
peg. On the return trip the pole lies across the lad's
shoulder, and the cans containing beer swing as he
walks. He is paid for his trouble in sips of beer.
The ' beer boy ' is a part of the equipment in all
large smithies, and, indeed, wherever work is done at
an excessive temperature. The workmen, full-grown
and able-bodied, and engaged at steady work, take
their beer as food or refreshment. But they have no
realizing sense of the effect on the little lad's growing
body and mind of the sips which they give him.
" A far larger number of children form the habit of
drinking from exhaustion. They work out of all pro-
portion to their strength, endure the same extremes
THE MASTER PASSION OF DEMOCRACY 251
of heat, cold, noise, dirt, discomfort, and exhaustion
as the men among whom they work, and feel the need
of something they do not know what. The most
accessible and instantaneous means of comfort is a
drink, and the habit is easily and quickly formed. Even
where boys are restrained from drinking by the for-
tunate habit of carrying home all their earnings, a
practice widespread and beneficent, the exhaustion of
the long working-day, heavy and indigestible lunch,
and long journey to and from work, in all weathers,
ultimately bring a craving for stimulants. And when
a raise in wages comes, when the lad is fifteen or six-
teen, it often happens that the old wage is carried
home and the difference spent in drink. The example
of the older men counts for much in this, but physical
exhaustion counts for more."
I have already referred to thirty thousand homes,
at least, in and about New York City alone, in which
the sweated work of the clothing trade is done. The
Tenement-house Commission, with the help of the
most competent physicians in New York, has passed
judgment on this type of home.
Dr. John H. Pryor said (November 16, 1900) :
" So far as I can learn there are in the tenement
houses of New York City alone not in Greater New
York, but in New York City alone there are con-
stantly 20,000 consumptives ; that is, considering all
the stages of the disease. Nor does this show the
prevalence of the disease in the tenement houses ;
because it is found by post-mortem examination of
those dying from other diseases that very many of
them have forms of tuberculosis also. So that I
think the statement is perfectly safe that a majority
252 THE SOCIAL UNREST
of the tenement-house dwellers in New York City
have tuberculosis in some form. It is a disease quite
distinctive of tenement-house life at the present time."
This is the situation which the consumer of these
goods has to face. The Consumers' League long
hesitated to lay great stress upon these aspects of
filth and disease, because of their alarmist and sen-
sational nature. The sober and authoritative testi-
mony, before such a body as the Tenement-house
Commission, of physicians and trained nurses of the
highest standing makes it impossible for the League
to withhold this evidence from the public. The men-
ace to the great multitude of innocent buyers is so im-
mediate and so grave that agitation should not rest
until every buyer can have at the retail store an
absolute guarantee that the purchased garment is not
from a sweatshop or a tenement, but is made under
conditions so open to proper inspection as to insure
to the worker a tolerable existence, and to the home
where the garments are worn immunity from disease.
Here is a kind of cheapness that means an early
and decrepit age, an unfit parenthood with offspring
that are to be mere vehicles of that stunted and
wretched lineage which is the shame and peril of our
common Me. If the sweatshop spread diphtheria
and typhus, there is the hue and cry before personal
danger. But these diseases are the very slightest
elements of the real risk to the general good. It is
the spoiled human life with its deadly legacy of
enfeebled mind and body that reacts directly and
indirectly on the social whole.
Look again at the problem of child labor which the
new economic conditions of the South have rapidly
developed.
THE MASTER PASSION OF DEMOCRACY 253
A perfectly competent committee has published a
report upon this subject from which I quote a single
page :
"From 1870 to 1880, of those employed in the
cotton factories, the number of men over sixteen
years of age increased 92.8 per cent, the women over
sixteen years of age increased 77 per cent, and the
children under sixteen years of age increased 140.9
per cent.
"From 1880 to 1890 the number of men over six-
teen years of age increased 21.8 per cent, the women
over sixteen years of age increased 269 per cent, and
the children under sixteen years of age increased
106.5 per cent
"From 1890 to 1900 the number of men over six-
teen years of age increased 79 per cent, the women
over sixteen years of age 158.3 per cent, and the
children under sixteen years of age increased 270.7
per cent !
"According to the official report for 1899 from the
Labor Bureau of North Carolina, the state, represented
by Colonel D. A. Tompkins, and the only state of the
South presenting an official report upon labor statis-
tics, less than 10 per cent of the operatives in the
textile mills of that state were under fourteen years
of age. But, according to the report of 1901, those
under fourteen constituted nearly 18 per cent of
the whole number. Of the total of 45,044 textile
operatives, 7996 (shall we say 8000 ?) are under four-
teen years, and the average wage of the child has de-
creased from 32 cents to 29 cents per day. (See page
212 of the North Carolina Report of Department of
Labor and Printing for 1899, and page 187 of Report
254 THE SOCIAL UNREST
of same department for 1901.) The daily wage of
the factory children of the South is often as low as 1 5
cents ; it is sometimes as low as 9 cents. The North
Carolina figures also indicate that there, as elsewhere
throughout the South, the number of little girls
among the employees far exceeds the number of
boys." !
I have heard some disputing about the literal ac-
curacy of some of these figures. It is claimed both
that they are overstated and that they are understated.
But no greater exactness of statement will modify
the ugly meaning of the page. One has here,
besides the manufacture of cotton, the manufacture
of future inequalities on an immense scale in ten
years an increase of children in these factories, 270.7
per cent !
More than twenty thousand children are at work
in these mills at the present moment. It is the
opinion of some Southern investigators that one-third
of these are under ten years of age. This means a
heavy legacy of future inequalities. It is of course
natural that from the poorer farming districts, fami-
lies should flock to the factories for the higher wage
that the entire family can earn. With no legislative
protection, the deadliest form of the "family wage"
is substituted for the wage of the natural bread-
winner. If he have dead-beat instincts, he can lounge
1 " The Case against Child Labor," an argument by Edgar Gardner
Murphy of Montgomery, chairman of the executive committee on
Child Labor in Alabama. The other members of the committee are
Ex-Governor Thomas G. Jones, Judge J. B. Gaston, and Gordon Mac-
donald of Montgomery ; John Craft of Mobile ; A. J. Reilly of
Birmingham, and Dr. J. H. Phillips, superintendent of schools of
Birmingham.
THE MASTER PASSION OF DEMOCRACY 255
at the saloon upon the money which his wife and
children earn. One finds them in every Southern
mill-town. It is under these conditions that every
variety of a vicious truck system of wage payment
springs into existence. One wanders about in some
of these communities in a kind of dream, as if he had
been spirited back into an English factory town of
two generations ago.
A common argument to justify this great wrong
is that as England had to pass through this stage so
must the South pass through it. This is an excuse,
it is not an argument. The very meaning of social
politics is that it gathers experience for practical use
in just such issues as child labor. There is no need
that we should pass through all the desolating stages
of that former experience. In the England of 1825
there was no precedent. Aside from the splendid
achievements of the English acts and preventive
legislation coupled with popular education, our own
states, like Connecticut, Minnesota, and Massachu-
setts, have legal limitation as to age and compul-
sory school attendance which check these evils at
their source. A competitor of Robert Owen, who
pronounced legal interference with child labor the
" maudlin sentimentalism of those who knew neither
business nor human nature," had been making in
the cotton business, according to his own admission,
two hundred per cent in yearly profits. Yet he
and his fellows held that they could not afford to
dispense with child labor because that would drive
business out of England. The Southern mills do not
make such profits, but some of them make thirty per
cent, and use the same argument that they cannot
256 THE SOCIAL UNREST
afford to do away with the child's help, because of
Northern competition. Northern capitalists have
more humiliation in this wickedness than Southern,
because the main issue has been long under discus-
sion in the North. 1 Compulsory school attendance
during the period in which employment is prohibited
is now required in seven states. In every instance
where this has been enforced, as in Massachusetts,
there has been no difficulty in keeping children out
of industries.
In Pennsylvania, in an atmosphere thick with black
dust and vibrating with the roar of the crushers, one
may see an army of breaker boys sorting the coal
and picking slate. Hundreds of these children can-
not be above ten and eleven years of age. The
parents sanction a lying certificate of age, and the
employers are indifferent. After three or four years
at the breaker, they pass to the mine proper. Equal-
ity of opportunity in no conceivable sense belongs to
these boys. If they had been born crippled or
stupid, that inequality would be out of our control,
but much of the handicap under which they now
struggle can be removed. Three or four years of
school at this age multiplies life's chances for every
one of these youths.
Especial emphasis is here given to those instances
that have to do with the child defrauded of its educa-
tional rights, because education in its best and larg-
est sense carries the deepest hope of all ultimate
attainable equalities. Careful training for one's
1 The absurd differences in the standard of industrial regulation in
our various states has this advantage for the student, that it enabks
him to bring into vivid comparison a score of conflicting policies.
THE MASTER PASSION OF DEMOCRACY 257
tasks is two or three times more necessary than it
was in times that old men still remember. Excep-
tional force will overcome these barriers with little or
no schooling, but commonplace and average capacity,
that has to-day scant and slovenly training, is disad-
vantaged as never before in history.
If we bring the least disposition toward fair inter-
pretation, we may now see what the best spokesmen
in the labor and socialist movement ask. As they
frankly recognize the final passing away of the
Utopian stage, as they recognize the uselessness of
isolated colony schemes, their conception of social
equality is no longer a visionary freak, but has as
much soberness as most of our saner social ideals.
The " passion of the democracy " has the perfectly
rational aim that is expressed in the term " multiply
life's chances." It is a quantitative expression. No
influence that society has at command could give
complete equality to these breaker boys or to the
child victims in Southern mills. Yet we can give a
great deal more equality. If the reader wonders
why so poor a platitude requires statement, the
answer is that these simple facts are necessary to
show that the best of our socialist critics are asking
merely for these further steps toward the more equal
life. They are asking for what all fair men admit to
be a just and rational aim in social bettering. 1
1 The question of equality could of course have no complete discus-
sion without including the first practical purpose of a militant collec-
tivism, to socialize the means of production and to use the resources
of a fairer system of taxation to strike at the present roots of economic
privilege. These sources of inequality are, however, a part of the dis-
cussion in the entire volume.
CHAPTER VIII
SOCIALISM : HISTORY AND THEORY
THERE is no audience before which it is safe to
speak upon this subject without careful definition of
terms. The stock definition is the appropriation by
society of the means of production. But if socialism
is taken at its highest point of development, general
definitions will gain in clearness if they are preceded
by some reference to history, and especially if experi-
ments now under trial are carefully considered.
Some one has collected " ten thousand definitions
of religion." One could gather as many of socialism.
The propelling thought behind it has so changed
during the last century that one seems to be dealing
not with one thing, but with many.
The explanation is that from the point of view of
history, socialism has been a growth, reflecting upon
one side social and trade conditions of the time ;
upon the other the ideals of the writer. These have
changed, just as ideals have changed in education,
in politics, and in religion. The socialism of the
French Revolution differs from that of our day as
the science and the politics of that day differ from
our own. It is well to know something of this his-
tory, but to define socialism in the terms of these
earlier dreams is misleading. Communism is as old
as human society ; socialism is essentially modern and
258
SOCIALISM: HISTORY AND THEORY 259
is hardly conceivable apart from the capitalism which
created it.
Socialism is often defined as a philosophy, and so
limited, it is legitimate to use large abstractions about
equality, fraternity, and justice. These abstractions,
however, fail us at the point where our need of light
is greatest. That society should be just, free, and
fraternal wins ready assent, but how is this splendid
goal to be reached ? Campanella, Bacon, and St.
Simon, as Plato before them, tell us we have only to
make the wisest and best men our political officials.
This would be our plan also, but we are poor bunglers
in carrying it into practical effect. We are now and
then very eloquent about the good man's political re-
sponsibility, but are vexed to death to know the ways
and means through which the wisest and best can be
selected to govern us, and kept in their places. The
difficulty has not been with the statement of prin-
ciples, but in their everyday application. Thus
socialism, in its merely philosophic aspects, leaves
our hardest questions still unanswered.
Again socialism is treated as a religion. Poetic
license here reaches its climax. We are told that
socialism is "a life," that it is a "religion," that
it is an " aspiration." l The difficulty with this phras-
ing is that it fails to distinguish its object from
twenty others. If socialism is a life, a religion, an
aspiration, so are Buddhism and Christianity ; so is
the Faith-cure ; so are the Ethical Societies. These
vague uses of the term are not more objectionable
than it is to make socialism merely an affair of
1 Proudhon said in 1848, " Le Socialisme c'est toute aspiration vers
Pamelioration de la Societe."
26O THE SOCIAL UNREST
economic and business reorganization. It has its
philosophy, it is a religion. To forget this is to deal
not with a whole, but with a fragment. The truth
still remains that for purposes of definition the eco-
nomic and political aspects require special emphasis,
because only through them do we learn how the
blessings of a more equal life are to be secured. We
need to know about questions of method and of
practical procedure. For this purpose, at least a
little history is indispensable.
History
For fervor of influence, French speculation is of
the highest consequence. Napoleon said of Rous-
seau, that without him there would have been no
revolution. The " later revolution of July " was
directly influenced in its social aspects by the writ-
ings of St. Simon. Great business organizers like
Leclaire, Boucicaut, and Godin were stirred to very
brilliant practical achievement by the poets of social
reorganization. It is yet true that these dreamers
throw less light on our subject than the soberer
thinking of English writers. Among French Uto-
pias, that of Fourier is perhaps the noblest of all.
No one ever saw the evils of competition with a
keener eye or described them with a livelier wit. He
sees that association must replace the coarse struggle
of self-seeking. But the main part of his philosophy
is a hopeless and discredited metaphysic. It is based
on a theory of human passions. His " Theory of the
Four Movements" attempts to explain how Deity
SOCIALISM: HISTORY AND THEORY 261
manipulates the social mechanism ; how He divides
the passions ; how He classifies forms, substances,
properties, and colors. To understand these systems,
his disciples were to master impossible geometric
theorems, " impassioned attractions and unitary im-
passioned series." No one outside an asylum would,
I think, pretend to see the causal connection between
this theosophy and any existing practical reform. No
socialist now has anything to do with his phalan-
stery with its clock tower, one garret, one kitchen,
and one cellar. We know that men and women
generally do not like to live in that way.
There is that in Fourier's character for which the
word " sublime " is hardly too strong. His power to
sacrifice for an idea, his self-devotion, his tenacity
of purpose, dying of sheer heartache because the
world would not listen to him, all heighten our
admiration of the man. His speculative plan was
nevertheless fantastic. With the exception of Louis
Blanc, this has to be said of all the French Utopians.
The unfailing characteristic of these dreams is that
they ignore the facts of industrial history. The im-
agination runs riot without a check from the stern
facts of economic evolution. There is plenty of this
visionary quality in Fourier's contemporary, Robert
Owen, but this Welchman was trained from child-
hood under the severest business responsibilities.
He dreams dreams ; but no man in England was his
master in managing a great mill. Owen was born
into the kind of business organization which has
created modern socialism. His own business tri-
umphs were the triumphs of English capitalism ; its
life was his life. He is very dull reading beside
262 THE SOCIAL UNREST
Fourier or St. Simon, but he is far closer to the com-
petitive struggle which has forced socialism to leave
the thin air of Utopia for the humbler ground of
common experience. It is through this same expe-
rience that every form of continental socialism will
be compelled to pass. Where business is still car-
ried on under eighteenth-century methods, in Sicily,
South Italy, and much of Spain, the programmes of
socialism are as much in the clouds as Cabet's " Voy-
ages en Icarie " or Morelly's " Code de la Nature."
There is the same taste for resonant phrase, the
same faith in abstractions, the same hatred of slow
and toilsome preparation. As capitalism has rapidly
developed in the larger towns of Northern Italy, it has
stimulated socialism, but has made it already a differ-
ent thing from the socialism of the more primitive
Southern towns.
As modern industrialism has taken root in Ger-
many, and as its methods have been reflected in
politics, socialists during the last twenty years have
approached, step by step, the policy of the English
Fabians, just as Fabians themselves have changed
into almost commonplace politicians with a more radi-
cal, industrial and social programme.
Another reason why English tradition has excep-
tional value is that in no other European country do
business and commerce so obviously determine poli-
tics. Parliament is a mirror in which one sees the
clash of interests among landowners, manufacturers,
and traders. Her wars are to open or preserve mar-
kets. Probably in no country have economists from
Adam Smith down had so direct an influence upon
political leaders. In the United States we have long
SOCIALISM: HISTORY AND THEORY 263
since learned that politics is mainly a struggle over
these same competitive interests. Economic doctrine
has, however, no considerable influence upon our lead-
ing politicians. The business pressure acts upon them
directly and simply. The nineteenth century in Eng-
land is invaluable for the student of socialism because
this intimate association of business policy with poli-
tics throws light upon socialist proposals. Much
of the earlier socialism was contemptuous of poli-
tics. All socialism that is becoming effective now
enters the political arena with a very grim purpose to
fight out its issues at the polls. Very important is this
last century in England, because the most powerful
of all socialist literary influences had its impulse and
training there. Unless an exception is made of the
" Wealth of Nations," no single work upon econom-
ics ever had greater influence than Marx's study of
capitalism. In spite of all perversities, this " Bible
of Socialism " has aroused and directed revolutionary
socialist thought during the last quarter of a cen-
tury that has been its transition from capricious
speculation to a great and threatening political force.
This study was made in England. Marx drew his
material from parliamentary records and from dis-
cussions that centred about the rising factory legisla-
tion. The most telling of those principles that are
used to carry war into the capitalist camp were
taken boldly from English economists of the first
rank. Every essential of the famous theory of " sur-
plus value " is of English origin. The conception
that "labor produces all wealth," was an economic
commonplace of the earlier English school. The
socialist takes the economist at his word. " If labor
264 THE SOCIAL UNREST
does create all wealth, why should not labor have it
all?" No formula has ever been used with more
deadly effect in the field of popular agitation. Marx
modifies it by his doctrine of average social labor ;
but for purposes of propaganda it still goes down in
many of the most recent socialist programmes in its
simplest form, " labor alone produces wealth, labor
alone should have it." It detracts little from this
author's original power to say that he found his best
material and his most striking formulas in England.
The skilled dialectic with which he puts his material
to use, leaves him without a peer in his own field.
His method is so applied to history that all social
development appears as inexorable necessity before
which the doom of capitalism is but an affair of the
calendar. No religious fatalism ever worked upon
the uncritical imagination with more irresistible effect.
As one listens to the familiar phrases before an
average workingman's audience, it is evident that if
this " scientific socialism " is not a religion, it acts
with the same mysterious power.
The reason why England best interprets our present
problem is that the capitalistic system first develops
on her soil. In the very years when France was
seething with the unrest of the great Revolution, the
English were inventing and applying those mechanical
processes through which capitalism was to become
triumphant. It is at this time that the loom, puddling,
and the steam-engine work their revolution. As they
develop, industries are driven from the private home
the factory town emerges, and the tools, once owned
by the laborer, pass finally into the possession of the
capitalistic employer. What modern socialism is
SOCIALISM: HISTORY AND THEORY 265
fighting is the system which rests on the capitalisfs
ownership of this machinery. This evolution in its
entirety is spread before us in England during the
nineteenth century. The hunger for equality which
is the real object at which all socialism aims is deeper
among the French. They have put these demands
into more brilliant form, but for instruction as to the
way through which this equality may be won they help
us less than the English.
When Marx begins to write down his interpreta-
tion of English experience in mills, workshops, and
markets, we are introduced into a new world. From
this period the transformation of socialism has gone
on until its working programme is as clearly intelligi-
ble, as that of any political party in the world. It is
at the present moment far more definite than the pro-
gramme either of our republican or democratic party
in the United States. Neither liberal nor tory in
England shows a political purpose so concrete as that
of the socialists. Their aims may be wild or danger-
ous, they are not vague and indefinite.
II
Illustrations of Theory
If modern socialism is fighting the system which
rests on private ownership of the means of production
(land and machinery), upon what theory is the attack
justified ? Why should it be thought that because
land, banks, railways, telegraph, and mills are owned
and carried on for private profit that therefore the
labor world is robbed of a portion of its earnings ?
The completest theory is that of Marx, but many of
266 THE SOCIAL UNREST
the clearest headed among the socialists have come
to disbelieve the forms in which he expressed it.
They admit that labor does not produce all wealth
(even as modified by Marx), they admit that labor is
not held to the " mere subsistence line, " but may
get increased wages and added comforts. They are
learning that Marx's conception of concentrating
capital is more than doubtful in agriculture and is
sharply limited in many other industries. His whole
materialistic view of history is denied outright by
many of the best-equipped socialists. But socialism
has not been discredited because of this passing of the
master. Nowhere do socialists, who have lost faith
in the special theoretic forms of Marx, show less
loyalty to the cause or less hatred to capitalism. They
still believe that labor is exploited, and that the wage
system is vicious. Behind this belief is still a theory
a theory which may easily be stated in copy-book form,
but for the purposes here in view, a variety of il-
lustrations that are happily at hand from a dozen
different fields, will throw more light even on the
theory.
Perhaps the most persistent and universal demand
of socialism is that labor should receive the entire
product, not of course the manual laborer alone, but
all those as well who organize, direct, and invent.
This does not, as popularly supposed, include the
capitalist. The capital as capitalist is money lender
and not worker. The working employer so often at
the same time furnishes capital that worker and
capitalist are confused. Socialists object, not to the
worker, but to the money lender buying and control-
ling machinery and land for his personal profit.
SOCIALISM: HISTORY AND THEORY 267
Competent critics of socialism like Dr. Menger hold
that this claim of labor to the total product is, not
only the most fundamental principle in socialism, but the
most revolutionary force of the present age. Even if
true, so abstract a statement as the laborer's claim to
the total product leaves our most important questions
unanswered. What theoretic justification exists for
this claim ?
It is that as industry is now organized it gives back
to the worker far less than his labor has produced.
The reason of this is that an enormous unearned
increment is perpetually abstracted in the form of
interest, rent, and profits. Those who depend solely
upon interest, rent, or profits from their machinery
are, according to this view, living upon income that is
earned by others. Henry George and his followers
have popularized this view, so far as it concerns the
rent of land. George held that rent derived from
land was income that the owner did not earn. Rent,
he said, arises from the growth of the community,
not from anything the private owner does. Rent is
wholly a social product, and should therefore go to
its creator, the community. George was not a social-
ist, because he did not apply this theory of rent to
interest and profits. These he would leave as pri-
vate possessions. The socialist believes that not
only rent, but interest and profits on goods made for
the market are also a social product. Quite as much
as rent they represent an unearned increment.
They, too, are social rather than individual products,
and should therefore pass to their owner society.
But what theoretical defence can be offered for the
social origin of wealth as distinct from the individual
268 THE SOCIAL UNREST
origin ? In what sense can it be said that the com-
munity helps the millionnaire to create his fortune and
possibly the larger portion of it ? The answer of the
collectivist is that an analysis of practically all the
great fortunes will show that the possessors earned,
by personal service, only a trifling part of their mill-
ions. Ground rents heap up the treasures of the
New York Astors. The elder Vanderbilt lays the
great railway into the West; but the social additions-
lands, city terminals, and crowding population enrich
it with values far beyond any service that any one
person can render. It may be oil, gold, copper, iron,
coal, coupled with special transportation privileges
cunningly secured through the politician ; it may be
a privilege like rebates wrung from a corporation
like the railroad which is semi-public and social in
character. The collectivist insists that every one of
these dazzling incomes can be traced to an origin
that is far more social than individual. To keep and
to restore this social increment in all its forms is the
aim of economic socialism.
The department stores also offer a good illustra-
tion. As in Chicago, Boston, and New York, these
stores are geographically so related to the machinery
of transportation that the multitude is deposited at
their very doors. Of a great Chicago firm, I have
heard it said, " It seems as if the trolley cars were
made for that store." It and a dozen others are so
grouped that every form of transportation is to their
immediate gain. If more trains run, if they run
more rapidly, if fares are lowered, the advantage
goes automatically to these emporiums of trade.
Every extra franchise that the city grants adds to
SOCIALISM: HISTORY AND THEORY 269
their possessions. It is the dawning realization of
this that begins now to create dislike of these cara-
vansaries. When a lower street-car fare was pro-
posed in Chicago, an unexpected opposition developed
among thousands of people who said, " Cheaper
fares and then just so many more people will ride to
the State Street stores. Towns near Chicago oppose
excursion trains because they see that those who
return, are loaded down with things bought at the
great stores. Some one has called steam and electric
transportation "the most revolutionary fact in the
last century." It makes the New England farmer
poor, but fills the department store to overflowing. I
heard an attorney, who does the business for one of
the largest of these institutions, say, that when the
people came clearly to understand that every improve-
ment in streets, sidewalks, and traffic was a free gift
to the department store, they would subject them to
heavy special taxation.
The socialist theory is that the prosperity of these
stores is in large degree owing to this network of
improved inventions which brings customers so easily
to the counters ; it is owing to the growing popula-
tion which steam and electricity have gathered to-
gether. This view carries George's theory of rent on
to profits as it also extends it to interest.
This theory of the three rents is expressed in many
forms, as when SchaefHe writes, " The Alpha and
Omega of socialism is the transformation of private
and competing capitals into a united collective capi-
tal." Or the English Fabians, "Socialism means the
organization and conduct of the necessary industries
of the country, and the appropriation of all forms of
2/O THE SOCIAL UNREST
economic rent of land and capital, by the nation as a
whole, through the most suitable public authorities,
parochial, municipal, provincial, or central."
Whatever form the definition takes, there is to-day
no clearly conceived socialism that does not aim first
of all at the socializing of the "three rents." If
socialism were to triumph and be carried to logical
completeness, no individual could draw a penny's in-
come from interest, rent, or profits. These would pass
to the community. That they may pass to the many,
rather than to the few, is the reason why in all these
programmes the same demands are made. The state
must take the railroad and the telegraph, as eventually
it must take the mill and the factory. The city must
take the lighting and the street-car lines in order to
divert earnings from the private to the public pocket.
The socialist would have the community carry on
these enterprises so that accruing interest and profits
may become the property of all, or managed (as we
were recently told by a high official from New Zea-
land) strictly for the use of the people with no
thought of making profits. "We hope," he said,
"to manage our railroads, our mines, our insurance
companies as you manage your post-office, solely to
serve the whole people and not chiefly as profit-mak-
ing machines in which a small minority of the people
can invest their surplus in order to become coupon-
mongers." 1
So to organize industry that the coupon-monger in
every form shall be suppressed is the raison d'etre of
socialism. It stamps this occupation as that of the
1 Chief Justice Clark of Tasmania now in this country (Nov. loxtf)
gives unqualified approval to this general policy.
SOCIALISM: HISTORY AND THEORY 2/1
parasite, or, in rougher terms, the real dead beat of
modern society is to the socialist, not the tramp and
petty sponger, but those who live upon rent and inter-
est-bearing property.
Only a part of the socialists now hold to the logical
consequences of this theory. If forced to the letter,
no woman could use her sewing-machine to make an
apron or shirt for sale on the market. She would
become, with the rest of the parasites, a profit mon-
ger. A Massachusetts socialist, twenty years ago,
was cocksure that he should live to see the big stores
in Boston swallow up practically all the little ones.
Since then every variety of small local store has so in-
creased that it is doubtful if (per thousand of the popu-
lation) there was ever so large a number in the
history of the city. The tenacity with which small,
freely competing businesses retain their hold has
made it clear that an enormous part of profit-mak-
ing services is here to stay for such an indefinite
future that all opinions about their duration have as
much value as most fanciful guessing about the
unknown.
Thus the cannier socialists direct attention to those
fields upon which competition has given place to
combination. Here especially, if monopoly character
is shown, is the harvest white for the socialist sickle.
At this point many economists, refusing the socialist
creed, are in heartiest agreement with :: in one
respect. They admit that these monopolistic com-
binations may draw away from the people in form of
profits far more wealth than is their due. This may
be done by business chicane as through overcapitali-
zation ; it may be done through political influence that
2/2 THE SOCIAL UNREST
secures special privileges, like rebates that weaker
competitors cannot secure. It is for this whole class
of large enterprises, based on privilege and monopoly
of some kind, businesses in which competition has
passed into the stage requiring control in the public
interest, that many socialists now ask public in the
place of private ownership. As other industries one
by one reach this stage, they too are to be taken from
private hands.
That so many collectivists now confine their claims
to this part of the industrial field raises a nice point
for speculative discussion. Does the term " socialist "
necessarily apply to one who believes that only that
part of industry is to be " socialized " which reaches
the stage just indicated? If one believe that the
larger part of the world's work is to pass into "com-
bines " that cannot long be trusted in private hands,
the word " socialist " properly belongs to him. If the
greater portion of industry the "pace setting"
part of it is to be publicly controlled, the word
" socialism " would fitly characterize such a society. If,
on the other hand, it should prove that ponderous
organization can cover but a portion of the field ; if
it prove that a still larger portion of industry still re-
mains in open competition, " socialism " as a blanket
term cannot be applied to that society. It will have
large and vigorous socialistic functions, but others,
larger and more vigorous, that are individualistic. If
competitive and relatively small industries are to re-
main the " pace setters," individualism fairly describes
that condition. If again it turn out, as is not unlikely,
that the industrial world reach a kind of equilibrium
under which competitive and individualistic energies
SOCIALISM: HISTORY AND THEORY 273
stand in some counter-weight and balanced relation
to collectivist functions, what then becomes of either
name ?
An older German socialist worker and author once
said to me, with much indignation : " Your new op-
portunists, like the English Fabians and our Vollmar,
are confusing every principle on which our fight is to
be made. No one is a socialist who does not believe
that all interest, rent, and profits are to be socialized.
A half-and-half industry is more contemptible as an
ideal than the present organized robbery of competi-
tion." This view has probably had its day because
so much evidence is at hand that both art and science
in their larger sense must inevitably develop individ-
ually as well as through organization. There is that
in organization which has the tendency to blight the
art spirit just where we most need its newest and
most original expression. One of our best American
wood carvers was thrown into a rage by an invitation
to join a trade union. Does any genuine artist doubt
that art suffers under the commercial organizations
and companies that exploit it for profit ? It is true
that many artists call themselves socialists in their hot
reaction against this same commercialized tyranny;
but I have rarely seen one who was not in his ideal,
anarchist, like William Morris, and not properly so-
cialist. They were hungering for the extreme indi-
vidualism and freedom of the anarchist's dream.
The interminable discussion that continues over the
metaphysics of anarchism and collectivism furnishes
curious proofs that the race sets no such value upon
anything as upon freedom and individuality. What-
ever name we apply to a society which secures these
2/4 THE SOCIAL UNREST
gifts, it will surely be one unless the race deterio-
rates in which liberty, variety, and individuality
shall have progressively freer scope.
Whatever may be said of the " new socialism " with
its opportunist yielding to larger experience, the
socialist with a formula will neither get nor deserve
in the future very serious attention. A universal
formula, like that of " the three rents," will fare no
better than the others. As the dialectic of the artistic
passion destroys every distinguishing phrase between
socialism and individualism, so science, in its enlarging
applications, may extend the regime of private prop-
erty holdings in which interest, rent, and profits in a
thousand small industries may prove more fruitful to
society than if they are socialized. It is no longer a
mere hope that power may soon be so widely and
cheaply distributed as to give distinct economic ad-
vantage to a large variety of small industries. When
a better manual and art training has become a part of
our entire education, so that no child shall escape its
influence, artistic industries, experimental and indi-
vidualized, are not unlikely to spring into luxuriant
existence. The probability is exceedingly slight that
this movement will carry with it an elimination of
private ownership in the individualistic sense. Nor
will it be different with the whole inspiring promise
of agriculture when science has really vitalized it.
Then will work in the fields and upon the soil have
the fascination of the studio and the laboratory.
A former member of the New Zealand government
said in this country, "We mean to organize all our
great industries more and more so that they shall not
be used to make individuals rich, but every advantage
SOCIALISM: HISTORY AND THEORY 2/5
of cheaper service or cheaper products shall go at
once to the whole body of the people." I know of no
completer definition of socialism than to say that any
country in which all the important industries were
carried on upon this principle would be a strictly
socialistic society.
No source for illustration of this theory is fairer
than that which New Zealand and the Australian
colonies offer. Here is a people with self-help tradi-
tions like our own. The country is relatively new,
has exhaustless natural resources, has won a great
prosperity, yet the state invades, one by one, the fields
where private enterprise has been supreme. Not
only are railroad, telegraph, and street car under
community ownership, but also a very different order
of undertakings, state banking, life insurance, loan
funds for farmers worked through the agency of the
post-office. Cooperative sugar mills, cold storage,
irrigation, the exportation of products, cooperative
use of workmen with the avowed purpose of eliminat-
ing the contractor, are instances of government enter-
ing the field of private enterprise, organizing and
carrying on business, not first to make money, but to
serve the people by managing these various agencies
directly for their benefit. I do not maintain that it is
done with signal success. A good deal of it appears
to me to be poorly done; but the object is socialistic,
showing us by illustration how the collectivist word
becomes flesh. It is, moreover, very conscious of its
aim : to narrow the margin of enterprises in which
rents and profits go to private persons. By so far
as the government acts in these affairs, the field for
private money making is diminished. A responsible
2/6 THE SOCIAL UNREST
minister of the government says, "We propose to
use the full power of the state to lessen the sway of
the private capitalist."
The prime minister of New Zealand is taunted
with frightening private capital out of the coal busi-
ness. He replies, that the government will before
long work its own mines. The minister of railways
points to the advantage of having no stockholders
to whom dividends must be paid. Another official
glories in the fact that the abuses of the Stock
Exchange are diminished in direct ratio as govern-
ment does business for the people.
From the socialist point of view it is an irreparable
debauching of the people, so to organize industry,
that dividend-bearing stocks shall be listed by the
thousands upon the Stock Exchange of every city
and town. This is a necessity of a dividend and
profit-making regime. The "dead-beat hunger" of
the race to get something for nothing is thus aroused
and a pernicious speculating fever spreads among
the people. Honest investments, it is maintained,
play but an insignificant role in this vast gambler's
game. I asked a New York stock broker what dif-
ference it would make in his business if he did business
only with those who came to invest. He said, " I should
perhaps do one-tenth of the business I now do." Mr.
Carnegie's opinion ought to be very valuable on this
subject. He has just used these words : " All pure
coins have their counterfeits ; the counterfeit of busi-
ness is speculation. A man in business always gives
value in return for his revenue, and thus performs a
useful function ; his services are necessary and benefit
the community ; besides, he labors steadily in develop-
SOCIALISM: HISTORY AND THEORY
ing the resources of the country, and thus contributes
to the advancement of the race. This is genuine
coin. Speculation, on the contrary, is a parasite
fastened upon the labor of business men. It creates
nothing and supplies no want. When the speculator
wins, he takes money without rendering service or
giving value therefor ; and when he loses, his fellow-
speculator takes the money from him. It is a pure
gambling operation between them, degrading to both."
All that is true in these charges, the socialist holds
to be now inevitable. If these natural treasures are
open to every adventurer to be fenced off as a field
for private exploitation, they will be made an agency
to play upon the fortune-hunting instinct of the
people. For every honest company, a score of bogus
ones will be put upon the market and tempt the
anwary by lying prospectuses in the press. The
remedy wanted is state ownership with such regula-
tion as shall secure these riches to the public, and
so order this industry as to prevent its becoming the
most perverted of lotteries.
The socialist sees again the swift and sickening
waste of our forests. The private profit maker, eager
for quick gains, lays the great hills bare, with no
concern for flood or drought. The socialist insists
that the public welfare is too much endangered by
the dividend and profit hunter in this field. When
the state owns the forest or subjects private owner-
ship to the strictest regulation, the devastation ceases.
Forest culture is then like the growing of any other
crop, only with slower returns.
In the mining of precious metals and with the
forests, according to this view, one only sees a little
2/8 THE SOCIAL UNREST
more clearly the damage* incurred through the indi-
vidual appropriation of the "three rents."
English Fabians now ask for the municipalization
of the drink traffic. There are moral dangers con-
nected with this trade which distinguish it practically
from ordinary industries, yet it illustrates admirably
the socialist theory. In Norway and Sweden it long
since came to be believed that individual profit-mak-
ing in the retail liquor trade was socially dangerous.
Legislation based upon the principle of local option
now turns profits, formerly made by the individual
saloon keeper, into the public treasury. Under the
" Application of Socialism to Particular Problems," 1
English socialists now advocate this principle in
their own country. As they would municipalize
water, gas, tramways, docks, pawnshops, slaughter-
houses, and bakeries, so they would turn the dividends
now made by the private venders of intoxicants into
the town treasury.
These instances of drink, forests, and mines differ
only in degree from other industries that constitute
a source from which the individual may draw income
in the form of rents. Evil inheres in every transac-
tion that bears this unearned income of private divi-
dends. There is no completion of the socialist theory
until industry is so managed by the community that
interest, rent, and profit are " socialized " are turned
from private into public possessions. It is the social-
ist's faith that until this is done, a portion of what
labor earns will go to those who have given no equiv-
alent for it. To restore his unearned income to the
whole people, the means of production land and
1 Tracts 85 and 86.
SOCIALISM: HISTORY AND THEORY 2/9
machinery must pass to social ownership. The
conservative cry against all this is that " it destroys
private property." If it were charged that certain
forms of private property would be destroyed, the
criticism is just. There is in theory no destruction
of private property further than that involved in
these "three rents." A hundred forms of property
(slaves, highways, toll-bridges) have changed and
must change with advancing civilization. Commu-
nism in all its extremes destroys private property
outright. Socialism safeguards it to the extent of
giving absolute rights to the individual over all
products that he can hold for consumption. It is
legitimate for the critic to urge the practical objec-
tion that social control of land and capital would
dull the working ardor of the race, and thus create
a product so diminished that both private and public
income would suffer. This as a practical result might
prove true. The socialist theory on the other hand
assumes that the industrial product would increase
when " the tools were again in the hands of the
people." Up to date there is alarmingly little proof
of this, but it is a strictly practical issue and can alone
be determined by long and severe tests in adminis-
trative work. Before dealing with the collective
principle at work in its most advanced form, two ques-
tions should be asked, neither of which admits of a
too final and confident answer.
(i) Are the economic and political forces now at
work bringing to the broad mass of the people such
wages that they will feel themselves gaining abso-
lutely and relatively in the varying prosperity of the
age ? A strong case can be made out in nine-tenths
280 THE SOCIAL UNREST
of our industries to show that the wage earners'
yearly income purchases an increasing share of life's
comforts. But relatively do the masses gain in any
such ratio as the more favored classes ? There are
many statistical attempts to prove this, but I have
nowhere seen a sign that it carried convincing proof
to the laborer. There is a very general admission
among them that they do gain in nominal and in
real wages. Among those who make this admission,
there is an absolute scepticism about a progress that
stands in any fair relation to the acquisitions of the
well-to-do. I have heard the best statistical authority
known to me in the United States deny that rela-
tively the masses get anything like their fair share.
If, then, it should slowly become clear that a widen-
ing gap is opening between the " rich and the poor,"
most of the points I have tried to make against the
older revolutionary socialism lose their force. I do
not believe this to be true, but if it should prove so ;
if the gulf is deepening between the " haves " and the
" have nots," we are upon the dizzy edges of a class
struggle and a consequent revolution. It is blankly
inconceivable that we can rapidly democratize educa-
tion, as we are now doing, and at the same time have
it visibly appear that, in any real sense, the rich are
growing richer and the poor poorer, without a des-
perate social struggle. A social system that made
such a result possible would stand self -condemned
before all fair men. To destroy it or remodel it
would become the most sacred of duties.
(2) It must also be admitted that if the principles
of " regulation " prove too weak to curb the power
of the corporations, the socialistic propaganda will
SOCIALISM: HISTORY AND THEORY 28 1
take on bolder and more ominous forms. There are
very unhappy indications that many of our commis-
sions, whose function it is to " regulate " corpora-
tions in the public interest, either have no real and
commanding control, or they merely protect the
investor.
The Interstate Commerce Commission has done its
best for years to " regulate " the railways ; to check
the manipulated special privileges upon which colos-
sal private fortunes have been built in this country.
Year after year the reports of this Commission betray
its helplessness either to get right information or to
get adequate power to produce results for which the
Commission was established. Will the grant of fur-
ther powers so fortify this body that it can do any-
thing which the railroads are unitedly determined
shall not be done ? The picked skill and talent in
the law is theirs ; national and state legislatures are
filled with able men to do their bidding.
Other corporations, according to their strength,
have the same weapons of defence. If the thing to
be regulated prove more adroit and masterful than
the regulator, the alternative of government owner-
ship will appear natural and inevitable. It will be
said that, with railways in the hands of the govern-
ment, the highest legal skill and ability may there be
used to defend the public. I once heard a German
economist ask the question, " How can you in the
States help having great difficulties as long as private
interests are so overwhelming that they command
nine-tenths of the best lawyers ? You ought," he said,
" at least to have such a balance of public business
(like railroads, telegraphs, etc.) that you would have
282 THE SOCIAL UNREST
as many strong lawyers to fight for the public as
there are to fight against it."
Whatever is thought of the merits of this argument,
it will carry weight in proportion as the inefficiency of
the regulative principle becomes clear. On the other
hand, the possibilities of " regulation " have had thus
far no real test. Only half-hearted beginnings have
been made. As its need becomes a life-and-death
matter, we may meet it with requisite seriousness and
strength. We get much comfort by repeating, " If the
emergency is startling and grave enough, the Ameri-
can rises to the occasion." This has been so true in
the three or four greatest crises of our history, that
our resources may not fail us in this last trial of our
good sense. Before we topple over into a socialistic
community, the principles of regulation will be put
to full trial, nor can their promise and adequacy be
determined, apart from the possible cooperation of
our strongest business men. Within ten years many
of them have learned that affairs of great magnitude
are to be henceforth carried on in an entirely differ-
ent atmosphere of public opinion. They know that
they are to be held to a new accountability.
I have heard this opinion from a man, not quite to
be classed with the half-dozen giants, yet commonly
associated with them : " Whether we want to or not,
we shall be forced to do business in a new way. I
think we do it now in the public interest, but so
many people do not think so, that we shall have to
take that into account. With this socialistic spirit of
discontent everywhere growing, we have got the hard
task of proving to the public that we can manage
things better than the government or the city. If we
SOCIALISM: HISTORY AND THEORY 283
can't do that, our day is done." Given enough of that
feeling with the purpose to act upon it, and the regu-
lative principle has many added chances of success.
The great issues are thus seen to depend in larger
degree upon the moral and intellectual character of
our most masterful business men. No " regulation "
can hinder them if they are bent alone on personal
gain.
There is no conclusion that does not halt before
this inquiry as to the future conduct of our business
leaders. If social responsibility is flouted, nothing
can stay the progress of a turgid and dangerous po-
litical socialism.
Yet it can be shown that socialism may develop so
safely as to become simply the advanced political
radicalism of the time a radicalism that must stand
before the people on its merits as a social servant.
If it can bake our bread, weave our cloth, mine our
coal, and manage transportation with more efficiency
and less corruption than under the private profit-mak-
ing system, the public will be the gainer ; but we shall
not take the promises of socialism without perform-
ance. We shall watch its attempts to light a city
until we are convinced that it can do it, without leav-
ing a burden of taxation on the public to eke out
slovenly management and a depreciated plant. Nine-
tenths of city and state business is so imperfectly done
that the public is right in demanding proofs and strict
accounts from this new stewardship.
Its tasks are of incomparably greater difficulty than
the book-makers would have us believe. In our own
case, for example, if the government take the railroads,
it will have the quite appalling duty of fixing rates for
284 THE SOCIAL UNREST
competing industries in different sections. It will
have to do this in politics. Those in Congress who
represent the fruit industry of the South and the fruit
of the far West, must struggle before committees in
Congress to get advantages, or prevent competitors
from getting them. This has plagued the German
government more seriously than the public has been
allowed to know. These political difficulties are a
profound weakness in Australia, as they would prove
with us. It is fair to reply, " But the railroads are in
politics already, and that in the most secret and
irresponsible ways ; the state would have to control
them politically, but at least all the chicane and blun-
dering would come out before the public."
The answer is not without force. I have known
two citizens, with large private interests in their re-
spective cities, take their place in the "irv council.
After two years both refused reelection. One said :
" It's not worth while ; most of the time is taken up
with petty contests and political trading. There is
so little relation between anything that I can do and
the larger public concerns, that I shall never advise
any one with important affairs on his hands to waste
his time as I have done."
The other said : " I gave it up because I found why
the strongest men in the city are indifferent to city
politics. It serves their private interests to have a
poor and purchasable city council. They know that
it is poor and wasteful ; but directly and indirectly
they make more money by using politics to defend
their private interests."
Students of socialism have long said that this
" apathy of the eminent " would continue until those
SOCIALISM : HISTORY AND THEORY 285
larger businesses based on franchises passed into the
hands of the city. " When the whole business of
managing the things that touch us to the quick
gas, electric lights, water, street cars, etc. has to be
done at .the City Hall," then, urge the socialists,
" every imperfection and dishonesty will so strike at
the pockets of the citizens, that they must perforce
see to it that able and honest men alone are intrusted
with city affairs."
I have heard this opinion from a German mayor
in a town that owned meat markets, gas, telephone,
water, and street service, "The citizens cannot help
attending to their political duties, because bad manage-
ment would cost them too much and subject them to
such inconvenience."
It is considerations of this character, together with
the broadening experience of European cities, that
make it impossible to shirk the ordeal of thorough
comparative tests. It is to these tests that we must
henceforth trust rather than to any d priori pretence
of speculation as to what the city and state can do or
cannot do. No trial of these different administrative
experiments could be fairly made until within very
recent years. Both trade unionism and socialism had
to pass through stages of the severest discipline and
experience before any adequate comparison between
socialistic and private-profit methods were possible.
These changes have now come. It is my conten-
tion that they offer to us, as a people, a perfectly fair
chance, (a) to use the stupendous force at work
through the aggregations of labor in ways that shall
make these bodies more and more conservative of
every social value consistent with a growing democ-
286 THE SOCIAL UNREST
racy, and (6) to prepare ourselves for an oncoming
socialism, so that it, too, shall become an aid rather
than a hindrance to a more decent human society.
As socialism has been commonly conceived, I do
not believe it brings an answer to a single one of
our deepest life questions, but on the outposts of its
development it is undergoing extraordinary transfor-
mations which we shall see at their best in France.
CHAPTER IX
SOCIALISM IN THE MAKING
EXCEPT for many unhappy experiments of Utopian
character, socialism until recent years has shown no
trace of positive and constructive workmanship. It
has been the critic of the existing industrial order.
If it had rendered no other service, this activity of
relentless censorship would justify it. Much of the
best social legislation on the continent of Europe is
traceable directly to social agitation. Bismarck was
blamed for making the admission, " If there were
no social democracy, and if many were not afraid of
it, even the moderate progress which we have hith-
erto made in social reform would not have been
brought about." The greater part of socialist ener-
gies is still critical, and in this sense negative. The
days of the mere fault-finder are, however, numbered.
This change marks an epoch in the history of the
movement. So long as it played the part of caviller,
it took no responsibilities, nor could its pretensions
be tested.
Within the brief period of five or six years it has
become possible to apply a new and far more search-
ing criticism to socialism. So long as it was a mere
dream, so long as men felt it only as a hope, so long
as it remained in the realm of theory and speculation,
the only weapons that could be turned against i*
287
288 THE SOCIAL UNREST
were as unsubstantial as any that socialists them-
selves used. The patronizing strictures of the
practical man were as airy and doctrinaire as any
claims put forth by Marx, Jules Guesde, or William
Morris. A library of books and pamphlets has been
written to show the limits of human nature, the
limits of corporate capacity, the limits of what the
city or the state may legitimately undertake. Time
and events have not dealt kindly with these opinions.
Corporations now perform hundreds of services that
earlier writers thought altogether beyond their scope.
States and cities organize and carry on enterprises so
various that the older theories, " what the state can
do and what it cannot do," are very queer reading.
As long as social innovators were making fancy
sketches of a perfect society, criticism was scarcely
less fanciful. When the dream period passes into
experiment, the possibilities of critical observation
first appear. A stage of socialistic development has
now been reached, concerning which one may form
as distinct a judgment as upon the results of the
weather bureau or the sloyd system of education.
Socialism now enters upon the formidable task of
social reconstruction. One may roughly mark four
stages in its growth. It was long Utopian, then under
Lassalle's guidance it became political, passing thence
into state and municipal activities that are strictly
socialistic. This third stage is strangely enough no-
where the work of socialists, but of tories, political
liberals, or military governments. Its final form is
to unite politics with cooperative business, as in
Belgian cities.
At the point where socialism begins to show itself
SOCIALISM IN THE MAKING 289
a force to reckon with in politics, its positive influence
begins. We can measure it by the compromises and
concessions wrung from the party in power. The
years immediately following the Franco-Prussian war
mark the rise of its political influence in Germany.
The law of 1884, which permits the trade unions to
unite, marks it in France. In Belgium its extraordi-
nary career had an even later beginning. Socialists
now sit upon the councils of more than a hundred
towns in France, and many of the communes are polit-
ically controlled by socialists, subject to the veto
of the prefect. This veto represents the grip which
an extremely centralized government has upon local
administration. Although the suffrage is practically
as free as in the United States, the limits are very
narrow within which a town council can introduce a
change of policy. I have tried in many cities to see
what socialistic steps have actually been taken. With
wo socialists in the government and nearly a million
votes, actual performance is singularly lacking. Here
one finds a drug store taken by the city, " to be run not
for the enrichment of the petit bourgeois, but for all
the inhabitants." There it is the city printing, the
elimination of the private contractor, or a pawnshop
in exact imitation of those long existing in most of
the French towns. Again, the city is bread maker or
the supplier of milk.
Grenoble owns a restaurant which furnishes daily
more than twelve hundred meals. The city owns
the land and the nine buildings upon it. That
the competition may not be unfair against private
eating-houses, rent is paid to the city, but the element
of profit to any individual is eliminated. If at the
290 THE SOCIAL UNREST
year's close a profit has been made, it goes to the city
treasury as a reserve fund to be used when the price
of foods is exceptionally high. It is thus run strictly
upon socialistic principles for social use and not for
private profit. With the exception of the restaurant
at Grenoble, all this is the result of socialist activity
during the last fifteen years.
The first surprise is to find how different the expe-
rience has been in large towns, like Roubaix and
Lille, from the calculated municipalization of German
and English cities. A score of these show an exten-
sion of city functions far beyond all that has been
done in French towns that have for years had social-
ist mayors and a socialist majority upon the town
council. The government veto accounts for much
of this backwardness ; but the bourbon character
of the French socialism, its abstract and uncom-
promising quality, accounts for more. The haughty
disdain of the Latin collectivists to work for modest
social improvements with any human being who is
not of the true faith, still confines their activity
to fields that bear at best a stunted fruit.
The most sober and restrained statement one could
give of the party activity down to the last congress,
would be largely the description of feuds and brawls
of almost incredible character. The party led by
Jaures and Millerand, a member of the cabinet, has
reached some steadiness of constructive purpose. It
has learned that cooperation with other social agencies
is a necessity. In this spirit, Millerand entered the
Ministry of Waldeck-Rousseau. The storm at once
broke over the cas Millerand. In this consent of a
collectivist to work with a bourgeois government, the
SOCIALISM IN THE MAKING 29 1
other socialist parties see only a sinister attack upon
the sacred principle of the class struggle. The dis-
cipline of events and the increasing influence of men
like Jaures will in time cure this doctrinaire folly ;
meanwhile we have to look to the humbler work
within the commune to see the completed picture of
socialism in the making.
In most towns I asked the mayor or his secretary
what had been done to realize the socialist ideal.
Many communities have had from eight to ten years'
experience with collectivist administrators. The first
and often the paramount occupation has been to vote
larger budgets in favor of the poor. Sometimes the
aged poor in almshouses are given new freedom with an
extra stipend for pin money. Sometimes it is to build
a new creche or enlarge the older ones. If mothers
had previously paid small sums, this indignity is
omitted. Often a large sum is voted to feed school
children. I never could find an instance in which
it was even claimed that any considerable thought or
care had been given to distinguish between those who
could pay and those who could not. It appeared to
be assumed that every workman who could pay for
his children's food, would do it from native self-
respect. It was invariably with an air of triumph
that you were told, " The bourgeois spent only 50,000
francs on the poor, but we spent 1 50,000." In Roubaix
the secretary said, " We have given ten times as many
pieces of clothing to the poor as the bourgeois ever
gave." This was considered final proof that the
socialists were introducing a superior administration.
The same pride was shown in raising the pensions of
" socialist soldiers" ; in paying the car fares of certain
292 THE SOCIAL UNREST
city officials; in voting grants to the theatres and
free medical attendance to a larger proportion of the
poor. It was thought a disgrace that the needy should
have to go themselves for their free bread. It was
therefore voted to deliver the bread at the door.
These are strictly fair illustrations of what has been
attempted in a large number of communes. It is for
the most part an extremely loose and promiscuous
form of out-door relief.
The visitor is allowed to take copies of the weekly
Bulletin Municipal Officiel, in which the acts ana
deliberations at the City Hall are given to the public.
At St. Denis I was permitted to take an entire file of
copies from the first issue on April 5, 1891. The
single impression which these bulletins make upon
the reader is that of a very raw attempt to catch the
working-class vote by giving away the public money.
If " Citoyen Oudin " has died, the vote of the
city council, giving the widow 100 francs and a
monthly pension, is printed. It is added : " Nothing
of the old secrecy is now tolerated. In a democratic
society all things must be open to the public eye."
In two instances the socialists had organized a ser-
vice for widows with small children that is a model
of humane good sense. It was wisely assumed, unless
the family was to be broken up, that all the mother's
strength was due to the care of her little ones. She
was thus allowed a monthly pension, which she could
supplement by home work. It was distinctly under-
stood that the widow was in no way classed with
objects of charity, but received her pension as the
soldier receives his, without loss of self-respect. " For
cases of this kind," said my socialist informant, " we
SOCIALISM IN THE MAKING 293
do not propose to spoil the whole family by putting
upon them the stigma of pauperism."
These rather startling attempts to cast out the
whole charity tradition do not exhaust all that the
French collectivists are undertaking, but they are by
far the most important. Their rawness and imper-
fection are not to be concealed. It is for this reason
that in many communes the socialists have been dis-
lodged. No severer test of administrative ability could
possibly be chosen than the care of the dependent
poor. If human experience has proved one thing
more clearly than another, it is that the whole class
of those who need and claim assistance cannot be
really helped without extreme caution and discrimina-
tion. If the mayor says, " We collectivists propose
to aid all the poor and ask no questions," he begins
forthwith to debauch the community, but far more
to debauch those who are to receive his aid. The
record of bourgeois society in dealing with the needy
lacks dignity, as it miserably lacks effectiveness. It
has shown a petty moral provincialism in its divisions
between the " worthy " and the " unworthy " poor.
It has nevertheless worked out, however clumsily,
certain tests of great value. The work before us is
to develop these so far that every community can
satisfy itself whether those asking aid have (a) the
ability to do any useful work, (ft) whether they have
the will to do it. If, being able, they refuse after
fair chances are given them, they should straightway
be put under prison constraint, preferably upon farm
colonies.
One of the strong men among the collectivists
who had struggled long with the dead beats among
294 THE SOCIAL UNREST
the poor, told me : " We have got to go a good deal
farther than the bourgeois dared to go. If a man
can work and won't, we shall put him in the com-
pulsory workshop where he can be taught, or, refus-
ing that, he shall not be allowed to escape." I
asked why his constituents made such bad work of it.
" Oh, you know everybody is crazy, one way or the
other, on that subject of caring for the poor ; we have
all got our lesson still to learn."
This chief effort in the collectivist communes has,
thus far, been to reorganize " public assistance." Its
lack of success is explained by the theoretic stage
which still holds a large part of the French socialism
They approach this hardest of practical problems
with sonorous sentences from Rousseau. Before the
election they placard the town with sentences like
these :
La faim, c'est le crime public,
C'est Timmense assassin qui sort de nos tdn&bres.
They announce that "girl mothers" shall be freed
from all disgrace; that every badge and stigma of
misfortune shall be removed; that "we do not care
to know how the misfortune came, but only if it has
come."
One need not deny that much nobility of motive
is expressed in these sentences, but they should not mis-
lead us into thinking that the actual work of social and
individual reformation is even begun by such reso-
nant paragraphs. Real performance is still before
them. The socialists complain bitterly, and with much
justification, that the veto power of the government is
so used against them, that they are left with this hard-
SOCIALISM IN THE MAKING 295
est of all problems, as if the purpose were to discredit
their work before public opinion. But the real weak-
ness is in their own lack of political and business
discipline. The spell of abstractions is still upon
them to such extent that personal wrangling over
" great and sacred principles " makes it almost im-
possible to get through a congress that brings the
five parties together. A Belgian socialist, as success-
ful in business as he was in parliament, once gave
me letters of introduction to some of his friends in
France. He added : " Our socialist brothers over
there are still in the primary school. They are talk-
ing about the universe, when they have got to learn
to manage a shop and a small town. They abuse us
because we are at work at the small end with small
things."
This brief account would lack both truth and
justice, if it failed to note another high quality that is
perhaps at present more useful to the cause in France
than the best " municipal housekeeping." This is the
socialist appeal to the national conscience to begin
disarmament. Under the magnetic leadership of the
scholarly Jaures, thousands of Frenchmen are for the
first time admitting the vast stupidity of the increas-
ing military burdens of that people. In the name of
the working classes, Jaures cries halt to this criminal
policy. With a sustained moral passion that reminds
one of Mazzini, he calls upon his countrymen to rise
above the petty provincialism "marked off by the
surveyor's line," and " enter upon the ways that lead
toward self-respect and brotherhood." His stinging
utterances against the slowness and inactivity of the
Church, in this effort toward an international morality,
296 THE SOCIAL UNREST
has stirred multitudes of people in that country. " Is
the work," he asks, " which the professed followers
of Christ have so infamously neglected, to be done by
socialists ? "
In a great hall packed with students, I once heard
a three hours' debate on this subject, between a priest
and a socialist. It was the heavy task of the priest
to argue, throughout, for the necessity of the army,
" human nature being as it is." Every popular catch-
word about the flag and patriotism was brought into
skilful use, in his apology for Christian nations in
their elaborate preparations to carry slaughter and
death among their fellow-Christians. Was not a
great army and navy forsooth the best safeguard of
peace ?
The plea of the socialist was for a policy, every
practical aim of which should lead toward fraternity,
by throwing off the express signs and symbols of
enmity. For a long future, he admitted the neces-
sity of a " home militia " for possible self-defence, but
asked that every youth be taught ethically that all
preparation for offensive war is a crime against
humanity and the last insult to the Christ tradition
which stands (if it stands for anything) for peace and
good will among men.
I came away from this debate with a professor in
the local university. He said with much feeling,
"To have that debate here once more, would un-
church every student in the university and make him
a socialist, if it has not already done so."
It is in this spirit that socialists are uniting in a
very noble attempt to sting Christian nations into
some sense of moral shame because of this great
SOCIALISM IN THE MAKING 297
iniquity. In this holiest of all crusades Jaures and
his followers are at the front.
This "socialism in the making" will substitute work
for phrases as heavier and more definite responsibili-
ties are thrown upon it. The process which brings
this safer and saner mind is seen at its best in the
recent history of the German movement, to which we
now turn.
CHAPTER X
FROM REVOLUTION TO REFORM
I SHALL consider the German and Belgian expe-
rience in much detail, because it offers us the best
possible criticism upon the socialist movement as a
whole. It represents it in its later and riper stages.
I deliberately substitute this experience for speculative
discussion, confident that this actual history of failure
and success throws far more light upon the issues than
volumes of subtle theorizing. We do not know what
the socialistic principle can do, or what it can not do.
It has now made two extraordinary records ; one politi-
cal, the other political and economic. It is to these
records I now refer the reader. They furnish lessons
of such obvious significance that there would be little
hope for any people who refused to heed them.
So far as political duties alone can steady men, the
German social democrats have been at last forced to
take step with the great army of those who do the
ordinary work of carrying on the empire. Within
my own personal experience with some of the leaders
of this party, the change of attitude on very vital
points has been so radical, that one hesitates to state
it except in their own words. Socialists are extremely
sensitive about these changes of opinion within their
own ranks, and I shall not therefore trust to notes
taken during three years' residence in that country
and during four visits at more recent periods.
298
FROM REVOLUTION TO REFORM 299
Even if it somewhat overload the text, the most
authoritative proofs should be given. These changes
have been brought about by the bearing of specific
responsibilities. In Germany these are almost ex-
clusively political. Bamberger, who with the eye of
an enemy watched the growth of social democracy
in Parliament, told me that what had interested him
most was to see the effect of parliamentary life upon
the outward behavior, the manners and dress, of
these representatives of the labor classes. " Even
those who are most persistent in marking themselves
off by external peculiarities, gradually get subdued
by their surroundings, so that in dress and bearing
strangers are bothered to know where the socialists
sit."
It is of much more weight that this subduing pro-
cess does not affect the outside only, but thought and
opinion as well. Let us take one by one the leading
revolutionary principles which had the sacredness of
a religion to the older German socialist.
(a) After their parliamentary life began, men who
guided the opinion of the party held, as Bellamy
came to believe, that the social revolution was to hap-
pen at a date so near, that one was safe in stating it
as twenty-five years at the utmost. The great struggle
was just ahead and was to come abruptly to an end.
The words of their leader, Bebel, were : " For it
is the last social struggle. The nineteenth century
will hardly be at an end before this struggle shall be
practically ended." 1 He even held that the entire
lM Die Frau," p. 352. (Denn es ist der letzte sociale Kampf. Das
19. Jahrhundert wird schwerlich zu Ende gehen, ohne dass dieser
Kampf so gut wie entschieden ist.)
300 THE SOCIAL UNREST
plan of the new society should be worked out before-
hand to the last detail.
The Protokoll of the party, as late as that at
Erfurt, contains the sentence, " I am convinced that
the fulfilment of our hopes is so near that there are
few in this hall that will not live to see the day."
(b) It was held and taught that this triumph of the
social democracy could not come peaceably, but only
through violence and bloodshed. In 1874, as the
strength of the party began to show itself, Liebknecht
was its chief and most instructed popularizer. He
writes in his "Volkstaat" these words, "Those who
wish a new society must work directly for the destruc-
tion of the old one." " It is solely a question of force
eine Machtfrage which is not to be fought out
politically, but on the battlefield," die in keinem
Parlament, die nur auf der Strasse, auf dem Schlacht-
feld zu losen ist. His "Zu Schutz und Trutz" is also
filled with kindred expressions.
At the Congress of 1883 the words are, " A change
in our industrial system through peaceable means is
unthinkable." At St. Gallen, in 1887, it is laid down
that one who teaches that the social democratic ideal
can be reached by constitutional and parliamentary
means is a humbug " er sei ein Betriiger."
These are not garbled citations but the deliberate
opinions of the intellectual leaders of the party. The
proceedings at the Congress of Wyden bear the same
stamp of violent purpose. Dietzgen's " Religion der
Socialdemokratie " is filled with it. The period, he
says, in which he wrote was quiet, but only because
forces were gathering for a catastrophe, "weil sie
Kraft sammelt zu eiper grossen Katastrophe." In
FROM REVOLUTION TO REFORM 301
1875 Marx described the transition between the capi-
talistic and the final communistic society. Between
these two, he says, comes "die revolutionare Dictatur
des Proletariats." In 1891 his life-long friend and
ablest colleague explained this sentence thus : " You
wish, gentlemen, to know what this dictatorship of
the proletariat means? Look, then, at the Paris
Commune! "
(c) The struggle was sharply defined the poor
against the rich. It was to be the war of the prole-
tariat against the well-to-do. In their one scientific
journal it is written down, in iSgi, 1 that no people as
a whole is to bring in the new era. The whole bur-
den of the fight falls to the workman, "eine bestimmte
Klasse, namlich das Proletariat innerhalb aller civilis-
irten Volker."
(d) As capitalism advances, wages lessen, and the
masses sink into deeper want and misery in Marx's
words, " wachst die Masse des Elends, des Drucks
clcr Knechtschaft, der Entartung, der Ausbeutung."
(e) The teaching of the great autocrat, Marx, that
industries would fall as by nature into fewer and
fewer hands, was accepted so implicitly, that when,
a few years since, the first doubt was raised concern-
ing this teaching, as applied to the peasant farmers, it
was met by a storm of resentment. When Marx said
that the accumulation of riches at one pole was at the
same time the accumulation of wretchedness, slavery,
ignorance, brutalization, and moral degradation at the
other pole, 2 he included the farming class. The keen-
est and most faithful summarizer of Marx in England,
1 " Die Neue Zeit," 1891-1892, Heft 9.
2 "Das Kapital," p. 6ll.
302 THE SOCIAL UNREST
Dr. Aveling, says the farmer is to be extinguished
because the revolution is even more intense in agri-
culture than among factories. In Germany, Bebel
popularizes this opinion, and Kautsky taught that the
hopelessness of the farmer was inherent in the capi-
talistic development of society. 1
(f) Nor can one omit the question of religion from
this list. Twenty-five years ago the tone against re-
ligion was that of an acrid dogmatic atheism. A sin-
gle passage from Liebknecht's paper (" Volkstaat") in
1875 stands fairly for opinions that may be quoted
from twenty authoritative sources : " It is our duty as
socialists to root out the faith in God with all our
zeal, nor is any one worthy the name who does not
consecrate himself to the spread of atheism."
This is not merely Engels's word, " Mit Gott sind
wir einfach fertig " ; it is the " Zwangs-Atheismus "
of that period. In his " Christenthum und Socialis-
mus " Bebel says of the Christian religion, that it
stands over against socialism as fire and water.
Dietzgen claimed in his "Streifziige " that being other
than man was not possible. The Stuttgart leader
Schall was applauded when, in 1871, he said, "We
open war upon God because He is the greatest evil
in the world."
I do not give this array of opinions to find fault
with them. I give them solely to show that the
ablest social democrats have changed their attitude.
Some of these opinions have been cast out altogether,
and are now freely spoken of as an exhibition of
intellectual rawness that shows itself in the beginnings
of a new movement. Other points, like the last one
1 See Protokoll, 1895.
FROM REVOLUTION TO REFORM 303
regarding religion, have not been discarded, but so
entirely modified as scarcely to be recognized.
What has occurred that so vital a change should
have taken place? The general answer is that the
strenuous experience of twenty years of political
agitation has given what is freely admitted a
larger outlook.
Let us begin with the last point (/), on religion.
As early as 1889, it had become clear to many of the
shrewdest in the party that religion had a much
deeper hold upon large classes, especially in the
farming district, than these jaunty critics in the seven-
ties ever dreamed. They learned that religion was
a larger fact than what they saw embodied in any
church, catholic or protestant. They learned that
even if it were a superstition, generations must pass
before its victims could be disillusionized. This had
become so manifest that the Protokoll of the part}
at Halle declares that religion must be left to the
private judgment of the individual. This is a long
step from Liebknecht's positive duty of the socialists
to root out religion and (mit allem Eifer) to spread
atheism. It is easy, moreover, to account historically
for the hilarity with which, at that time, men like
Liebknecht, Bebel, Stern, and Dietzgen mocked the
religious sentiment. The " intellectuals " of social
democracy were caught by the prevailing scientific
current of the time. About 1870 a crude materialism
was at its height. Skilful popularizers like Buchner
were read with eager zest by those whose joy it was
to discredit the faiths of the ruling classes. "Wis-
senchaft" was a word to conjure with. Liebknecht
writes, " Our party is a scientific party." Before
304 THE SOCIAL UNREST
1885, it was a dull mind that could not see that this
kind of materialism was repudiated by all the first-
rate scientific minds in Europe. 1 In 1884 I heard a
university professor of philosophy, in strongest sym-
pathy with the social democrats, say, "It is a great
pity that the leaders of the party do not see that they
are discrediting their own cause by repeating what
every instructed person knows to be nonsense."
Many of their leaders now recognize this. Malon,
before his death, wrote pathetic appeals to the party
in Europe to "spiritualize the movement," at least
"to bring it up to the level of the reigning science."
In his final work, " Le Socialisme Integral," he
pronounces the economic materialism of Marx wholly
untrue to the facts of life. 2
In all that was said at the Congress in Halle
(1891) about the relation of the party to religion,
the effects of this great change are clear. Even if
policy alone dictated the altered tone, the proof is
just as convincing that the party guides have learned
their lesson. When a member says, especially of the
country districts, " We get on best when we leave
this subject (religion) entirely alone," 3 and finds his
words approved, it is evident that religion is recog-
nized as a force with which social democrats have to
work. The Marxian Woltman has recently written
a book upon historical materialism in which he
teaches that religion is an abiding fact in the life of
1 A brilliant account of this change may be found in Lange's
"History of Materialism."
2 See also Gustave Rouanet, " Revue Socialiste," 15 decembre 1887.
* Auf dem Lande kommen wir mit der Religion am besten fort, wenn
wir sie ganz aus dem Spiel lassen. Protokoll zu Halle, p. 190.
FROM REVOLUTION TO REFORM 305
the race. Socialism in his view has no more sacred
task than to add deeper spiritual purpose to all its
aims. 1 This is the key to the change in every point
we are considering. At first the arch sin is compro-
mise with existing society. Its God, its government,
its family, its cherished forms of property, are to be
broken in pieces. It is treachery to every sacred prin-
ciple to recognize legal and parliamentary methods,
since these involve some sort of working partnership
with capitalistic society. Yet that which at first was
a perfidy, has slowly become a virtue, even if one of
necessity. Step by step the inflexible antagonisms
have yielded to the same influences that have disci-
plined the race from its beginnings.
The point (e) illustrates this better still. The
Marxian abstraction, that the big fish of industry
are gradually destroying the little ones, has also been
"found out, " i.e. the infallibility of the generalization,
applied to all industry, is now known to have limitations
undreamed of by the master. As early as the Inter-
national Congress of 1868, through Marx's influence,
it was laid down that land was to be made common
property. This was repeated until the International
was scattered by the incessant bickering of its mem-
bers. In 1870 the German party at its Congress at
Stuttgart accepted this principle of the International
because " economic development made it a necessity
to convert land into common property." This was
to be worked collectively by labor associations. The
Congress at Gotha, in 1875, holds firmly to this plank
of its platform. Nearly twenty years were still to pass
before any one raises the question whether the great
1 L. Woltman, " Der Historische Materialismus."
306 THE SOCIAL UNREST
farming was as a fact generally swallowing up small
proprietors. As late as 1895 a very frequent and
impressive illustration, which one often heard from
the speakers, was the resistless march of the colossal
farm in the United States. It was assumed that this
added further proof of the infallibility of Marx's
insight. Before the dispute upon this point arose, a
purely tactical issue appeared, like that which showed
itself at Halle in regard to religion.
The South German socialist, Von Vollmar, knew
well the life and the economic condition of the small
farmer. He first saw that whether or not the great
farming was to replace the small, nothing was surer
than that the owner of few acres would straightway
pronounce every man an enemy and a blockhead who
proposed to take away this ownership and merge it
in a collective proprietorship. Would it not therefore
be better to recognize this fact and adjust the party
policy to it ? So universally was this reprobated, that
three years passed before the slightest real impression
was made on the party action. In 1894, Von Vollmar
was able to make his challenge felt. He first showed
it to be the worst of tactics to outrage the traditional
land hunger of the peasant. In this same year, he
challenged the evidence that the little farmer was
generally being despoiled by the great one. At this
date it was possible to get news from America. From
letters and agricultural reports it was learned that the
" big farm illustration " was premature. There was
too little good evidence to show that the economic
fatalities were strengthening the thesis of the prophet.
The testimony was that for large portions of this in-
dustry, the future was possibly for smaller rather than
FROM REVOLUTION TO REFORM 307
for larger farming. I remember the surprise of a
socialist scholar and writer who told me, with some-
thing like consternation, that he had received trust-
worthy information that the " big farm " was upon
the whole a failure, that the tide seemed to be setting
in many districts in the direction of more scientific
methods on small areas.
This news was very disturbing to men who had
committed themselves with irrevocable emphasis to
a proposition so open to doubt. An independent
investigation of their own in Germany confirmed the
case against them. For years their speakers had
been telling the peasants that their future was hope-
less. The campaigners had used big words before
these agricultural hearers. " Evolution " and " science "
were always on their lips. It was thus very chilling
to hear from this same science that, as it came to be
applied to farming, a large part of the cultivators were
to find new hope and security in few acres rather
than in many. Few social democrats were so obtuse
as not to see that, at least for this section of the
farming class, it was the last folly to ask that their
holdings pass into a common possession. There
have been ten years of very bitter contention over
this agrarian issue. The social democrats have had
to pay the penalty which every political party that
fights with infallible abstractions must pay. The
abstraction in this instance was at best a poor sort
of half truth. When this was discovered, the dilemma
of the social democrats was serious. Their political
future made it impossible to drop the farming class,
but on what basis could the propaganda now be carried
on ? They could propose certain improvements in the
308 THE SOCIAL UNREST
peasant's lot, lightened taxation, easier and safer
credit, and the like ; but to do this, the social demo-
crats must commit the deadly sin of cooperating with
agencies already in hand by government and bourgeois
associations. This compromise with existing society
had upon all hands been pronounced the one disloyalty
against their principles that was never to be pardoned.
If one wished to raise a riot in a socialist gathering,
one had only to suggest some modification of doctrines
that would enable the party to cooperate with any
recognized state or social policy. Twenty years' ex-
perience with the farmer, and the inquiries which this
agitation has involved have compelled a change of
tactics that bears this party still further from revo-
lution toward the ordinary methods of an advanced
party politics. It is a crisis in the history of the
movement, because the fall of one infallible abstrac-
tion raises quick doubts about others. When it was
once felt that Marx's thesis was more than doubtful
as regards agriculture, the bolder minds began to ask
if it was true of other industries. The development
of social politics under the government (of which
workingmen's insurance is a type) has produced a
body of statistics about wages and conditions which
the social democrats know they can trust. Many
questions can now be tested for which there was
neither proof nor disproof twenty-five years ago.
From these and kindred sources of information, so-
cialists now see that the assertion that "the big
business is growing bigger and the small business
smaller," is not true, except with qualifications that
are very vital.
As middle-class incomes are increasing, so also
FROM REVOLUTION TO REFORM 309
many types of middle-class industries were never in
a stronger and healthier state than at the present
time in Germany. The proof of this, which the
scholarly Bernstein has forced his German comrades
to face, marks all the change there is between the
revolutionary method of the " class struggle " and the
humbler method of social reform in which all men of
good will may unite. This change marks an end of
the man with a formula ; it means a victory for prac-
tical political opportunism in its best sense. A single
line from Bernstein's book reads as if Mr. Giffen or
Edward Atkinson had written it, " The number of the
possessing classes grows absolutely and relatively." l
No sentence more revolutionary than this could
have been written by a socialist pen. Nothing more
revolutionary could happen than that its significance
and its consequences should have patient hearing at
the last Congress. It means no less than a reversal
of political procedure. Liebknecht, in 1893, says,
" Compromise gives up every principle for which we
stand." Four years later he admits that compromise
has become a necessity of party action. This Nestor
of the party said at Hamburg, " If I can gain an
advantage from another party by compromise, I will
seize it."
Bebel also yields, and accepts what in 1893 he had
hotly condemned a working alliance with parlia-
mentary forces.
1 The whole sentence is so epoch-making in the history of socialism
that it should be given in full : " Nicht mehr oder minder, sondern
schlechtweg mehr, d. h. absolut und relativ wa'chst die Zahl der Besit-
zenden. Ware die Thatigkeit und die Aussichten der Sozialdemokratie
davon abhangig, dass die Zahl der Besitzenden zuriickgeht, dann konnte
sie sich in der That ' schlafen legen.' "
310 THE SOCIAL UNREST
(d) That the wages of labor, as Lassalle held, must
remain under capitalism on the line of bare subsist-
ence, auf den nothwendigsten Lebensunterhalt,
is likewise acknowledged to be a mistake. It was
first held to be a " law of nature," then qualified, and
finally in the form first stated frankly given up.
(c) That the great struggle was to be one of clearly
defined classes " proletariat against dividend-re-
ceiver " has been fundamental with socialists since
the Revolution of 1848. It was the alarm note with
which Marx and Engels opened their long campaign.
Upon none of the six points just now in view have the
social democrats insisted with more untiring importu-
nity than upon the fact that the wage-earning class
was separated in all its interests, as by a gulf, from
its foe the capitalistic class. From the first bugle
note of the International, " proletarians of all coun-
tries unite ! " down to the obscure programmes printed
at this day in American cities, the call is to organize
" on class lines." For no object have the German
leaders striven harder, than to deepen this sense of
antagonism among the workingmen, Liebknecht,
to the end, clung to his policy of class strife. One
of his last appeals was that the "class fight" be
maintained, "the sharper the struggle the better for
our party."
Yet when the veteran of the party spoke these
words at Hamburg in 1897, his friends knew that the
lash fell upon a dead horse. From the day when
the party turned its back on the absolutism of the
Marx programme, and entered on the way of legal
and parliamentary processes, the magic of the Klas-
senkampf was gone. As long as it was said, "We
FROM REVOLUTION TO REFORM 311
will work with no political party, zu verwerfen ist
jeder Pakt mit einer andern Partei, we will fight the
state's attempt to win us by its workingmen's insur-
ance or by any other palliative, so long was there life
and meaning in the shibboleth of class antagonism.
It is now resolved to go to the polls with any party
that can give them temporary help. They must give
and take. It must in the same spirit welcome every
" palliative," even if it mark but an inch toward their
distant goal. All this is now being done by the social
democrats in Germany with a heartiness that marks
the greatest change in the practice and theory of the
movement.
It is to be observed that these lessons have been
learned through the experience gathered in political
agitation of thirty years. Until the fall of Bismarck,
the government did all in its power to tighten the
hold of the social democrats upon every revolutionary
conception they held. As long as the iron hand of
the chancellor was felt in drastic laws that made
socialist opinion criminal, the counter policy was one
of " Macht und Gewalt." The first important utter-
ance that I have seen from any socialist, in favor of
conciliatory and parliamentary measures, was after
these laws were revoked and the present emperor
had admitted that the social question was of momen-
tous consequence and should have every attention
that the government could give it.
A dozen years ago, I heard the bitterest denuncia-
tion of the state labor insurance, by socialists who now
defend it in public speeches. " It is not enough,"
they urge, "but all there is of it is good." Steps in
factory legislation that were once jeered at are now
312 THE SOCIAL UNREST
approved. Whether for the Reichstag, Landtag, or
the common council of the city, socialists now cooper-
ate, not alone in elections, but in the general policy
of social and industrial improvement.
Last year in the province of Brandenburg, socialist
municipal representatives met for deliberation. It
perplexes one to find a proper term of comparison
between the present discussion and those that filled
the air at such gatherings ten years ago. The ques-
tions are now about the introduction of direct employ-
ment by the city, of extending the franchise, of a better
tenement-house bill, of the hours of labor, of extend-
ing municipal control over the street cars, etc. When
party tactics are chiefly directed to agitation of this
kind, the Klassenkampf in its former sense, if not
quite dead, is no longer alive.
To have struck at its roots this vicious growth
of the class fight is the chief moral triumph in the
changes here noted. As these sectional hatreds are
overcome, the ground is first reached on which the
longed-for social reorganization can begin. The con-
ditions that shall make such reorganization possible
can spring neither from hate nor suspicion. They
can come only from a completer sense of a common
and not a divided social destiny.
If we look once more at socialism in which the
ideals of business and of politics really unite, we shall
have the final illustration of the collectivist theory at
work with results more remarkable still.
The German and Belgian experience offers society
its chance of wise and generous cooperation.
CHAPTER XI
SOCIALISM AT WORK
SOCIALISM in its advanced stage is seen at its best
just now in Belgium. A small country, sore pressed
in its industrial struggle by its great neighbors, Eng-
land, France, and Germany, its capitalists have been
driven to the closest cutting of the wage scale. They
have used new mechanical inventions to weaken the
trade union, in order to employ women and young
apprentices more freely. Constant recourse has been
had to the law against coalitions in the same spirit
that we now use injunctions. Especially among the
mining and iron industries, t strikes were frequent,
prolonged, and bitter. Behind the formation of this
party were the long, riotous strikes in that great in-
dustry of the country, coal mining. There were the
same traditional abuses that have been the shame of
our own coal region, systematized pilfering from
the miners in the loading and weighing of coal,
in deductions by sale of powder and through the
truck stores, and a vicious use of credit. The final
result of all this was to throw these masses into a
sullen and determined political opposition. Social-
istic organization began with the appearance of the
International in 1866. At the first Congress in
Ghent, 1877, the Marxian policy was adopted. There
was an instant revolt of the autonomists, or anar-
314 THE SOCIAL UNREST
chist sections. There was the same bitter internal
strife that everywhere appears during the period of
abstractions.
Two years after this first Congress, a movement
began which for twenty years has added increasing
strength to the cause. In 1879 a socialist working-
man in Ghent, Edouard Anseele, angry at the inces-
sant bickering over phrases and programmes, began
an experiment with a cooperative bakery. In 1898
I went about this city with M. Anseele to see the
stores, the bakery, and splendid club-house with its
great garden. He said : " The plan of bombarding
capitalism with loaves of bread has succeeded beyond
any dream I ever had. I knew that the wage system
was doomed, and that competition must yield to coop-
eration, but I did not expect to see, while I am still
young, six thousand loyal members in this small city.
They tell us we are atheists and without a religion ;
but without a religion these poor families would not
sacrifice all they have to build up our cooperative in
Ghent. It is our religion to found a society in which
the poor shall have just as many chances for leisure,
good homes, and the best education that their talent
deserves. We believe we can do this only by train-
ing the common people to create more and more
wealth themselves without the parasites. We there-
fore begin by shaking off as many middlemen as we
can drive to productive work, by doing better our-
selves what they did. We began with bread, because
it is the great necessity of us all. All who buy our
bread are fighting the sweater who works his laborers
in mean dens fourteen and fifteen hours. Every loaf
that we make stands for a clean shop, three and
SOCIALISM AT WORK 315
four hours' less work per day, and the principle of the
minimum wage. To buy of us means brotherhood
instead of war. To make this better method succeed
in the teeth of capitalism requires of our members
great sacrifices at the start. They are making them
because of their enthusiasm for the freedom of the
cooperative state."
I went later with M. Anseele to see the " Home of
the People " the centre of social and educational
life. I expressed surprise that a body of working-
men could have bought a building and grounds of
such pretensions. "Ah, but we got it cheap," he
answered ; " it was the club-house of the capitalist
politicians (the liberals). They are now so near a
wreck that they could not afford to keep it. They
were furious when they found that their political
social rendezvous had become a possession of the
socialists."
The incident is not without significance. It is as
if the socialists in Chicago or New York should buy
the Union League clubs. Since the founding of the
Parti-Ouvrier, political liberalism with its laissez-faire
traditions has so far perished that all sorts of con-
servative and property interests have joined hands to
fight the common foe socialism. Until 1879 there
was obstinate resistance by workingmen against all
proposals to take their party into politics, just as our
own farmers' and trade-union organizations have so
often set themselves against political affiliations, but
may like their Belgian fellows be driven solidly into
politics.
In 1880, definite and systematized political agitation
began. I had pointed out to me in Brussels the saloon-
316 THE SOCIAL UNREST
in which the policy of 1885 was framed. As English
trade unions in earlier days were forced to meet in
drinking places, because no hall could be hired, the
workingmen here meet in saloons. My companion,
M.Van Loo, actuary of the company, who told me this,
was showing me the veritable " Palace of the People,"
just rising on the heights and overlooking Brussels.
" Now," he said, " a strong party among us is making
for temperance, and we mean to put a ban on all
gatherings where the passion for drink can be used
to pay for our meeting places."
Trying once to find the mayor in a socialist com-
mune in France, I was told by a catholic gentleman :
"The mayor? Oh, you will find him in the saloon."
He was in the estaminet, but the scornful comment
was not quite fair. Hundreds of saloons are kept by
men who have been blacklisted because they were too
active in the cause of labor. They became saloon-
keepers both as a means of sustenance and because
the agitation could in this way be best carried on.
These men were found everywhere in Belgium. Sym-
pathy naturally led the laborers to patronize this type
of drinking place. The principal organ of the party,
Le Peuple, was first printed in a saloon. A Brussels
lawyer told me that one great good of the Maison du
Peuple in the different towns was that the displaced
laborer found a natural home there. He thought the
cause of temperance among the working classes had
been distinctly furthered by the socialist institutions.
On a fete day, one may see hundreds of families in
and about their clubs, taking their pleasure far more
safely than in private saloons. Several of the social-
ist centres have voted to exclude altogether the sale
SOCIALISM AT WORK 317
of strong alcoholic drinks, in spite of the pecuniary
loss and the driving away of many comrades. In the
widely circulated almanacs of the cooperators one
may find crisp and telling extracts upon the evils of
alcohol. At one of the first sittings of the council
when the Maison du Peuple was opened in Brussels,
it was voted to organize a campaign against the liquor
abuse. 1
This quite magnificent building, which cost work-
ingmen a million francs, is to Brussels what the
" Vooruit " is to Ghent and " Progres " is to Joliment.
These are the three leading centres of socialist work
and agitation. I went first in Brussels to see the
great bakeries, where no employer or middleman has
any footing. In 1897 they were producing in this
city alone ten million kilos of bread. Nearly one
hundred thousand francs were, in six months of the
year, credited to the purchasers in benefices. Five
thousand francs were set apart to extinguish the debt
on their great club-house, and about thirteen thou-
sand for the propaganda. The membership, in 1899,
reached eighteen thousand heads of families, repre-
senting nearly one hundred thousand people. Bread
was made in such quantities that three centimes' re-
bate per loaf gave back to the buyers one hundred
and fifty thousand francs. Since the beginnings in
Ghent more than fourteen hundred cooperative soci-
eties have been established. These include credit
associations, creameries, and groups of farmers for
the common buying and selling. Many of these are
1 In a collectivist hall in a mining district near Charleroi, I saw tem-
perance placards of a kind that one would expect to see in a hall of the
Women's Christian Temperance Union.
3l8 THE SOCIAL UNREST
purely business enterprises, but are greeted by collec-
tivists as further stages in the extinction of the middle-
man. This whole movement is economic, but at the
same time political. The English cooperation, from
the store to the wholesale departments, thence to the
cooperative wholesale workshops, is socialistic in that
it extinguishes thousands of profit-making middlemen.
The business gains go automatically to the sixteen hun-
dred thousand purchasers. The Belgian cooperatives
are all this and more. They use their profits for the
express purpose of spreading socialism. Their thirty-
three members of parliament, their schools and lec-
tures, their press and pamphlet literature, make heavy
drafts upon their resources. Literally, millions of
small pamphlets have a free distribution among work-
ingmen not yet in sympathy with socialism. They
believe that capitalism and the wage system are the
root and perpetuation of social inequalities. They
believe that the reigning politics is but a reflex of
these private business interests. They therefore use
for then- weapons, cooperation and political agitation ;
the shareholders en masse hold the political opinions
of the party. I asked a member of parliament which
was considered the more important, politics or busi-
ness. " I cannot tell," he answered; "we go to the
polls and the workshop for the same end, to make
a decent human society possible."
The economic and business basis of this cult already
includes drug stores, creameries, breweries, shoe and
furniture making, groceries, coal depots, and markets.
In addition, they now have old-age insurance, which
gives pensions at sixty years of age to those who have
been twenty years members.
SOCIALISM AT WORK 319
At Ghent the doctor is free, as well as medicines
from the socialist pharmacy. In centres like Charle-
roi and Joliment where the labor troubles have been
at their worst, the growth of these cooperatives has
been rapid. I saw one at Roux in its very beginnings ;
Four years later, its property had an official valuation
of above two hundred thousand francs. At Joliment
the membership has reached twelve thousand. Bak-
eries, meat markets, pharmacies, were prosperous; but
the brewery was the source of even more pride. Its
profits in 1899 were ten thousand francs. My guide
insisted that the brewery was even a moral institution ;
" We go much less to the saloon, on boit cette excel-
lente biere cooperative maintenant en famille." The
enemies of this collectivist propaganda tell you that
it is coarsely materialistic, not only destitute of reli-
gion, but destitute of intellectual and aesthetic ideals.
I looked with some care at their libraries, which rep-
resent several thousand volumes. These had been
gathered by members whose daily wage does not, I
think, average one dollar and a quarter. Would hard-
working men and women, with this income, pay for
such luxuries if lower motives alone moved them ?
There were hundreds of volumes which any scholar
would gladly possess. The selection was both serious
and intelligent. Bibliothtques populaires everywhere
abound in Belgium and are freely patronized by the
working class. As for art, one of the first sections
at the Maison du Peuple, in Brussels, was founded in
order to further aesthetic interests. While I was in
Belgium, two lectures were given on the relation be-
tween economics and art. Lectures were announced
on Wagner and William Morris and one "On the
320 THE SOCIAL UNREST
Evolution of Art," by one of Belgium's most eminent
lawyers, Senator Picard.
A socialist character in one of Henry James's
stories goes to Italy. As the great masters work
upon his imagination, the disturbing thought first
comes to him that socialism would cut these noble
canvases into tiny bits for common distribution.
This awful suggestion appears to bring him back into
the beaten path of respectable opinion. This concep-
tion of socialist views about art is extremely popular,
but it is even more naively untrue than that other
current philistinism that " socialists want to make
everybody equal." Whether a collectivist society
would, as many artists believe, give the world again a
great art, cannot now be told, but the effort to create
the impulse and the conditions under which such an
art would have its inspiration, is very real. The most
important party paper, Le Peuple, contains articles
upon aesthetics from the best-known names in Bel-
gium. It was a socialist deputy that led the dis-
cussion in Parliament in favor of a subsidy to restore
the Abbaye d'Aulne. It was this party that urged the
ministry to have some policy of making the govern-
ment railroad stations beautiful, from an artistic point
of view, and to extend the instruction in the museums
and art schools, so that people should benefit more
freely from these institutions. Nor has any one done
more in Belgium to extend what we should call uni-
versity extension than many members of the Parti-
Ouvrier. These efforts to enrich the life of labor,
together with the attempts to lessen the evils of drink,
indicate that the term " a coarse materialism " carries
with it more prejudice than truth.
SOCIALISM AT WORK 321
Federation and its Hopes
The work of federating all the socialist societies has
begun. The delegates of sixty-six cooperatives met
in Brussels in 1898. A centre for registration was
established, and the first wholesale purchases for the
smaller groups have since been made. Above one
hundred associations have already united in this
federation. The workingmen hope that the eco-
nomic advantage of this large organization buying
and producing for the smaller societies will compel
outside cooperators to affiliate with them. The cream-
eries have already federated, having in Brussels a
central market for the sale of butter and cheese. The
Moniteur Officiel gives a list of above four hundred
cooperative societies founded from 1898 to 1900.
The purely productive cooperative is, as everywhere,
in the minority, but fifteen new ones are recorded in
the year 1899.
The statement of a socialist deputy shows us very
clearly what his party is trying to do, and why a bitter
resistance comes now upon the scene. "We have,"
he says, "proved once for all that in an increasing
number of industries the employer and middleman
can be dispensed with. Nearly two thousand coopera-
tives exist now in Belgium. They are upon the farm,
in the workshop, in hundreds of loan and credit as-
sociations. In more than twenty different kinds of
businesses, distributive and productive, cooperation
has come to stay. We ask for freedom to extend
this method throughout the country. In the fields
where cooperation could work, we can show that three
millions of francs a year can be turned from the
322 THE SOCIAL UNREST
pockets of useless middlemen into the pockets of all
the purchasers of these products. If in any industry
we make cooperation a success, that of itself proves
that the middleman was a parasite ; that he has been
living upon the labor of others and not upon his own
producing power."
This outspoken purpose together with the steady
march of cooperative business has aroused the activity
of a powerful opposition. It is busy in city councils
and with parliamentary leaders. It is perhaps busi-
est of all in the catholic church, where a virulent hos-
tility has developed, although it is not primarily
economic, but moral and religious. Many noble men
among the priests agree with the economic policy of
the socialists, as do many of the Christian Socialists
among the protestants ; but religiously and morally
the catholics hold the socialist influence in abhorrence.
It is believed to subvert all organized worship and to un-
dermine the monogamic family. A mass of popular
catholic literature is now spread through the country
filled with quotations of socialist opinion on the
church and on the family. The immediate fear of the
church is that socialists are turning the workingmen
into enemies to all religious authority. A catholic
professor told me that this fear had a terrible justifica-
tion through all the large industrial centres. To save
the workingmen, the catholics have also started, both
in distribution and production, scores of cooperative
associations. They have opened halls, reading rooms,
and lecture courses. At their congresses upon the
social question, clubs of wage earners troop in under
gay banners, and much of the programme has to do
expressly with the material interests of labor.
SOCIALISM AT WORK 323
Another kind of opposition has yet more interest.
It is the cry of alarm raised by thousands of small
traders. There is here no question of morals or
religion, but of business. Their occupation as profit
makers is put in such peril that a clamorous appeal
goes up to the political authorities to save them from
the cooperator. There has even been an International
Congress at Antwerp 1 in the interests of small traders.
It was under the patronage of the Chief of the Cabinet
and of the Ministers of Industry and Justice. To
this Congress the association of business men made
their appeal. A few lines from their spokesman
are worth reproducing : " It is indisputable that the
cooperatives are bringing confusion into the field of
the small traders. In the districts where the most
powerful of the socialist societies are found, innumer-
able wagons carry bread to the home, but carry also
other articles, like drugs and syrups, which are sold
below the prices of other pharmacies." It is admitted
in the address that prices generally are lower at the
socialist counter. The appeal closes with the request
that cooperators be allowed to sell only to their own
members. If this is granted, " la misere du petit
commerce serait moins grande." The fact that
private business suffered seems nowhere to be ques-
tioned. A professor in the University of Ghent, Oscar
Pyfferoen, closes a pamphlet on " The Small Busi-
ness Man " with the words, " The middle classes are
at the present moment being driven to the wall by
the deadly blows they have received in the struggle."
Powerful friends have taken up the question before
1 A bulky report of 729 pages, La Petite Bourgeoisie, has been pub-
lished by Schleppens in Brussels, 16 rue Treuenberg, 1900.
324 THE SOCIAL UNREST
government. M. Gilliaux, a deputy from Brussels,
asks " if the authorities are to stand idle while thou-
sands of business men are extinguished." The social-
ists admit this to be their purpose, and they are more-
over accomplishing it.
The president of the Federation of National Inde-
pendents, L^on Theodor, began his speech in Parlia-
ment with the words, " It is time to act ; small merchants
and employers are menaced with destruction, if prompt
and energetic remedies are not forthcoming. From
an economic point of view, their disappearance would
be an evil ; from the point of view of the nation, a
calamity."
At Ghent, a commission has been taking evidence
against cooperatives during 1900. The charges are
humorously like the bill of particulars brought in this
country against the department stores. It is seen
that cooperation cannot be stopped, but may it not
be made harmless ? Cannot la petite bourgeoisie be
saved from destruction ? The proposals made to the
government are that distributive and productive socie-
ties shall not be allowed to combine, that they shall
sell to no one except their own members, that they
shall be prohibited from all political activities, that
no one shall be hired from the outside to fill any
administrative position, etc. They would have the
trade unions, as such, engage in no commercial busi-
ness. The greatest of objections is the intensity of
competition which the cooperative has raised against
" honest business."
As the German government has adopted a " Mittel-
stands Politik " to strengthen the middle class, that it
may act as a buffer against socialism and be protected
SOCIALISM AT WORK 325
against the Grossindustrie, so the Belgian government
now votes its first subsidy to encourage counter-
organization in the middle-class commerce. A sec-
ond congress was held last year in Switzerland to
give an international character to the whole move-
ment.
The government has thus done what socialists long
since urged. When middle-class business raised its
first complaints, the socialist reply was, " Associate
yourselves, if you are ground by the great industry
on one side and by our cooperatives on the other,
band together as we have done, and reap the same
advantages."
This advice was jocose, as the socialists hold that
these middle-class associations, as they develop, will
be forced at length to affiliate more and more with
the cooperatives, " They will be forced to do business
with us on the cooperative method, and thus be edu-
cated away from the spent individualism which is now
their weakness." It is also believed that middle-
class organization will offer an easier field for propa-
ganda. When the farmers began to learn the
advantages of cooperation in creameries and mutual
credit associations, the socialists began a new cam-
paign to convince them that cooperative business was
fraternal and democratic, and that the meaning of
this was democracy in politics. The Brussels group
has bought a large farm, and already counts one
farmers' association as a convert.
This brief history carries with it a better explana-
tion of socialism than any formal proposition embodied
in programmes. It is better because, step by step, we
see the theoretic policy moulded and determined by
326 THE SOCIAL UNREST
its actual struggle to do business in open competition
with its enemy, the capitalist employer. Steadied by
these heavy, yet delicate responsibilities, the socialist
politics has been so chastened by its fifteen years'
experience that one of the strongest men of the party
told me : " We have learned that to run the affairs of
a town or of the government is immensely more diffi-
cult than any of us supposed. If we had the chance
to assume government responsibility, we should refuse
it, because we are not yet ready for it."
Even the more ideal expression of what they hope
to bring about is now stated in different language. A
noble scholar, Hector Denis, who has dedicated his
life to this party, and is now socialist member from
Liege, gives an invaluable statement of the changes
observable in the hopes and purposes of the party.
The period dominated by Robert Owen's influence,
he calls that of 1'altruisme ide"aliste. Its disinterested
devotion was heroic, but men and women were asked
to respond by qualities that were not yet developed in
them. The greed and jealousies, created by ages of
competitive conflict, were too slightly modified to meet
Owen's feverish expectations. His hope that men
would work for a common capital as faithfully as for
private gains, was generous but unwise.
The reaction comes with the Rochdale pioneers of
1844. The cooperative ideal remains, but the self-
regarding instincts are not lost sight of. The in-
crement of gain goes no longer to a middleman, neither
does it go communistically into a general fund, but
very definitely to individual purchasers. The heavy
race egotism has to be long disciplined by this form of
cooperation. We may still be cheered by that far-
SOCIALISM AT WORK 327
off ideal in which " all for each and each for all " shall
have, even in the processes of the world's wealth get-
ting, a higher fulfilment.
This truce of the idealist, with the stubborn reali-
ties of human nature, appears throughout this Belgian
movement in ways so significant that they furnish, I
believe, the most luminous hints that modern social-
ism anywhere offers.
Though far younger than the German party, this
Belgian contingent began by stating its economic
programme, with that doctrinaire exactness which is
easy where there has been no experience. There
is no difficulty in writing unanimous and sounding
resolutions that "the laborer shall have the whole
product," that "none should work longer than eight
hours," that "work by the day should replace piece
work," that "the taking of interest is theft," that
"all should be paid according to their needs." Such
opinions were religiously held by thousands of Belgian
collectivists less than twenty years ago. They are the
current formulas of propaganda until they undergo
the tests of practical experiment. These experiments
have been made in Belgium. They have been made
long enough and in such variety, that the results can-
not be mistaken.
In 1898 I visited a large number of businesses car-
ried on by workingmen socialists; bakeries, pharmacies,
breweries, clothing and furniture and boot making, to-
gether with many distributive stores. I had learned
from socialist statements that a few years of hard
work in the drudgery of managing men and women
workers, so well as to make the business succeed, had
refashioned several articles of the creed. I will give
328 THE SOCIAL UNREST
as faithfully as I can report them, the reasons that
the socialist managers and members assigned for these
compromises, (a) I had been to a private bakery to
see if machinery of later and better type was there used
than in the socialist bakeries. I found in this in-
stance that the socialists had the newer and more per-
fect machines. I asked the manager if the men did
not object to these inventions because they would
displace labor. " Yes," he answered, " we had to fight
that out, but it never caused us much trouble, because
it was easy to show that if we own the machines, the
better they are, the better it is for us." But do they
not as a fact displace the men ? I urged. " Yes, of
course, but they make more work somewhere else
which some of our men must do. Besides, we know that
the more bread we can turn out with the best machin-
ery, the better wages we can pay and the shorter hours
we can give." It was, of course, never held by
any sane socialists that machinery was other thar
good if owned by the community ; but here these men,
out of a very brief experience, had learned all that any
economist or business man could teach them as to the
reasons why machinery is good. They had, moreover,
learned one lesson, about which the bourgeois world
is still in a very muddled state ; namely, that in those
instances in which new machinery really displaces
men at such time of life as to leave them in want, the
plainest duties were left undone, until work was found
or some form of insurance had brought relief. This
was one of the reasons for the insurance system of
the Vooruit in Ghent. They had rationally connected
cause and event, building up a system of " benefits,"
under which some clear conception of social justice
SOCIALISM AT WORK 329
was realized. The injured or the aged had his burden
lightened by a systematized and logical plan. The
family is not helped as a matter of charity, but as a
conceded right.
() I next found women working ten hours and men
hard by, nine hours. In my collectivist catechism, I
pointed to the opinion that eight hours should be the
maximum for all ; that five or six would probably
suffice. " Yes," he said, " we have been disappointed ;
we thought that we could make that rule universal, but
it would not work. A great deal of our business can
be managed with eight hours, and sometime we shall
do all of it so ; but at present, much of the simpler
work would lose so heavily under eight hours that
we could not carry it on. We shall push on toward
shorter hours just as fast as conditions will allow."
I asked if a compulsory eight-hour law would help.
" No," he replied, " not for the kind of work in which
we have found that nine and ten hours will produce
more than eight. If France, England, and Germany
could be held to eight hours in these special indus-
tries, we could stand it ; but that is not yet possible.
We have got to work it out ourselves and lower the
time by continual tests, to see where we can do it
without loss." The entire literature of the eight-
hour movement has not developed one line beyond
the good sense of this socialist workingman who was
receiving, when I saw him, one dollar and twenty
cents a day.
(c) Closely analogous to this, are the altered con-
ceptions about the minimum wage and piece-work.
It was fundamental that all workers in the collectivist
regime should be paid the minimum wage, a sum
330 THE SOCIAL UNREST
below which the daily earnings should not fall. This
principle still holds, but modified so ingeniously as to
increase our respect for their practical intelligence.
When it was found that the sewing girls in Ghent
often produced so little, that the minimum wage
took all the profit or even left a loss, it was decided
and rigidly enforced that a minimum product should
be a condition of the minimum wage, i.e. work
enough should first be done before this wage prin-
ciple should be applied. My first amazement at this
tribute to common industrial experience gave place
to admiration when the reasons appeared. " We could
not," it was said, " allow a given wage in all kinds of
work and with all sorts of workmen. Some will
trifle, gossip, waste their own time and that of others.
Some men care more for the saloon, and some girls
more for flirting and prinking than for their work.
We are still too imperfect to apply such a rule without
modification and exceptions." Ingenuity in manag-
ing the doctrine reached its climax as he added,
" Mais vous savez qu'il faut exiger un minimum de
production puisqu'il y aura un minimum de besoins
a satisfaire," we must require a minimum product
because they all have a minimum of wants to be
satisfied. Was ever more admirable agility shown
in doing effectively what had to be done, and then
furnishing a theory for it ? The three Massachusetts
towns in which I have seen the minimum wage ap-
plied to laborers, were sorry bunglers compared to
these workingmen of Ghent. One of these said to me,
" I think it very likely that men will always have to do
a given stint of work before they can be given any
set reward." This is evidently near akin to piece-
SOCIALISM AT WORK 331
work. Collectivists, as well as many trade unions, have
long and obstinately objected to working by the piece,
because it is a method by which the employer can set
a too rapid pace for the whole group of laborers.
Time-work was given a thorough trial in Ghent and
elsewhere. A great deal of the cooperative work
can be done by those receiving day wages, but much
of it cannot be so done for reasons that are as old as
the history of human toil. The loafer will shirk his
responsibility under a time wage. Pointing to work-
ers of both sexes in a shoeshop, my informant said :
" Many here could be paid by the day and would not
shirk, but many of them have been tried, and will not
earn what is paid them. That young fellow worked
here for months for four francs a day; when his prod-
uct was measured, I found that he had earned much
less than this. He was then put on piece-work, in
company with others, when it soon appeared that he
was doing from a third to twice as much work, with-
out any injury to him." These tests (with the same
results) are the commonest experience throughout
ordinary industry. The collectivists, once seriously at
work, learn quickly what the race has learned, and
learn moreover to defend their practice by the same
reasons that any private manufacturer would give.
The dead beat is indeed more objectionable in a coop-
erative t because all see that his sloth or shabby work
hurts every member of the group. An article in Le
Peuple gives this reason, as it urges a careful consid-
eration of the best methods of wage payment, s'il
ne serait pas possible de perfectionner les modes de
remuneration usitees dans les cooperatives.
Once familiar with these facts, it brought no sur-
332 THE SOCIAL UNREST
prise to find in the same workshop an elastic scale
of wages. Whether by the day or by the piece, the
variations were as great as would be found in some
private factories. In a small shop, filled with sewing
girls, one small group was paid by the piece at a rate
that could not have given more than two francs a day.
When I asked about this, it was said, " Those shirts sell
on the market as low as forty cents, so we can't pay
very much." The great lesson that wages are condi-
tioned by the amount of product and by competitive
prices on the market, had been thoroughly learned.
Price lists were studied in the central office, and the
amount of foreign competition carefully estimated.
The impression deepened upon the visitor, that
these men had learned the limitations under which
practical business is done as thoroughly as those
bred in the outside world. They maintain earnestly
that the socialistic principle, under which the laborer
is to have the total product, is in no way violated.
" Our one aim is to make wages just as near the sell-
ing value of the product as possible. They can't, of
course, have all they make, because of so many inci-
dental expenses. We have interest charges, rent, and
our managers to pay." He admitted that all collec-
tivists were against interest and rent, but pleaded
very sanely in excuse that they must have capital to
buy machinery, horses, wagons, etc. " Men won't let
us have their money without interest," he said ; " we
must, too, have land and buildings, and owners must
be paid for these as they are paid for their capital."
He told me they even borrowed money at current
rates from their own members. Sometime, he added,
the community will own all this machinery and capi-
SOCIALISM AT WORK 333
tal, and then rent and interest will be at an end.
Then we shall sell our products as close to cost as
possible and profits, too, will disappear.
Here was the doctrinaire socialist, but in his most
harmless form. He saw as well as another why in-
terest and rent were at present necessary and must
long remain so. He and his fellows had learned this
in the only way in which the race ever learns any-
thing, by exercising those industrial functions out of
which interest and rent naturally arise. In their fort-
nightly discussions at the Maison du Peuple all these
things were from time to time discussed. In no
assembly does a mere theorist have so hard a time.
They are doing the kind of work which furnishes all
the reasons that are needed for the argument. The
members that loan their own savings to the coopera-
tive know why they take interest. They all know
from day to day the difficulties that arise; why one
set of workers can work in three shifts of eight hours
each ; why another set must work nine hours, and
another nine and a half ; why three and a half francs
is as just for one man as seven francs a day for
another. It is with this sure knowledge susceptible
of tests in every shop that the cranks are subdued.
They have the same proportion of them as society in
general, and they can manage them much better.
Another fascinating subtlety in socialist discussion
has been that which concerns the extra payment of
ability. There is no commoner charge against the
further democratized administration of business than
that it would not pay for the talent requisite to suc-
cess. Can common laborers ever be made to under-
stand that the ability to organize and direct a great
334 THE SOCIAL UNREST
business must be paid enormous salaries? Is not
capacity to direct, to buy, and to sell in great quanti-
ties as rare and as precious as genius ? Is not labor
the beast, as Mr. Mallock assures us, and the em-
ployer the man upon his back ? What horse can
fitly estimate the reward due to its rider ? There is
doubtless much hard truth in this objection to a more
democratic ordering of business, but even less doubt
is there that the argument in favor of huge salaries
has been a good deal overworked. I have heard one
of the ablest insurance men in the country admit that
it had been ridiculously overvalued in his own busi-
ness. " There has been," he said, " a world of
favoritism in these great salaries." Germany, Aus-
tria, New Zealand, manage different forms of in-
surance on a very large scale, but do not find it
necessary to pay salaries that remind us in the
least of many paid in the United States.
It was long said that English cooperation would
fail, except within very narrow limits, because the
ordinary members would never consent to pay really
strong men as managers. This has proved to be
one of the least of its difficulties. I once asked a
man who is at the head of a business, whose transac-
tions represent more than thirty millions of dollars
a year, if managers could be found (in case of his
death) at a salary of three or four thousand dollars a
year. "That bugbear does not trouble us any more,"
he answered. "We train them within the coopera-
tive ranks as fast as we can use them. I have five
men near me now, any one of whom is as capable as
I am." This illustration is necessary because the
socialist answer loses its force unless the educational
SOCIALISM AT WORK 335
scheme is kept in mind. He knows that as long as
the masses are ignorant, they will set slight value on
mental gifts. It is for this reason that so much prom-
inence is given, in many of the socialist platforms,
to compulsory education of a far more comprehensive
character than now exists. They are incontestably
right in asking that during the entire formative
period of growth all children should be kept at school.
Let these schools be enriched by the best that manual
art and industrial training can offer, then the appre-
ciation of ability will be assured. It is one of the
reasons why the collectivist brotherhood, the world
over, is so at one against the desolating waste of
militarism in all its forms. It would use these thou-
sands of millions yearly to train citizens. To the
children of the poorer classes it would give an
education as complete and thorough as that which the
rich can command. Collectivists urge that a genera-
tion, in which every boy and girl is trained to the
verge of manhood and womanhood, will know ability
and value it after its qualities.
These are their hopes ; meanwhile the great mem-
bership in the cooperatives is now learning to dis-
tinguish very sharply between the dolt and the man
of gifts. I asked in Brussels, why a certain man
was paid a little more than five times as much as the
lowest laborer. " Because he is worth it," was the
reply. " As our works enlarge, we shall have to pay
still higher salaries. The great rewards of the com-
petitive business we shall not pay, because other
motives will enable us to secure first-rate capacity,
just as the manager of the Vooruit gives us his best
strength, but has never received twelve hundred
336 THE SOCIAL UNREST
dollars a year. He has been asked many times to
take charge of private concerns for a high salary, but
he is not even tempted. He is in parliament, he has
great influence, his leadership is recognized, and these
things are more to him than to imitate the bourgeois.
The greatest service we are doing is to educate
many men just like him."
I once asked the English cooperator, Mitchell,
why he gave his services as manager for so small a
salary. I had been told that he had many times
been offered much higher compensation. He re-
plied : " I think I have the respect of my Rochdale
cooperators. I have a good deal of power, I have
great faith in the cooperative ideal, and these things
satisfy me." This is the contention of the collectivist,
that when business is done from a deeper sense of
common interests tous pour un et un pour tous
other than purely money motives will move strong
men to work hard in business for far smaller rewards,
precisely as they now so work in science, in art, in
armies, and in the best of our politics.
That these Belgian workingmen so quickly learned
that the rarer gifts should be more amply recom-
pensed and could give rational grounds why this is
done, indicates that further difficulties of the kind
that may arise in the future will be met with the
same practical wisdom.
Thus, what have been thought by individualistic
critics to be the craziest notions in the collectivist
programmes, are found to be tempered to moderation
by some fifteen years of continuous routine work in
bearing common business burdens. It has been
learned that the methods of remuneration, hours of
SOCIALISM AT WORK 337
labor, piece-work, the uses of interest and rent and
extra compensation of ability, are facts to be dealt
with in the same practical spirit as they are dealt
with under the old wage system. When I said to a
manager in Charleroi, " Except that you get rid of
middlemen and thoroughly democratize your busi-
ness, your actual work is done much as it is done
elsewhere." " Yes," he said, " only we make it plain
that all forms of rent and undertaker's profit are like
so many weights hung about the neck of labor.
We are to get rid of them as fast as we can throw
them off. The capitalists propose to keep them and
get up all sorts of reasons to show that they are a
blessing. Our method of association has already
proved that thousands of profit makers are unneces-
sary. We prove it, because we serve the consumer
better without the middlemen, and thus force him
to produce things instead of living by cutting off an
unnecessary profit. We mean to carry this work on
until all the workers are so well educated that they
can do business together, with their own machinery
and capital, producing things and distributing them
as nearly at cost as we can, and lowering the hours
as far as we are able to." To my suggestion that
this was not a very revolutionary programme, he
replied, " When we talk about revolution, all we mean
is evolution hurried up."
When large bodies of workingmen are educated
to the point that they are willing to pit their work-
ing methods openly and fearlessly against competitive
industry, asking only that the trial be a fair one, I
submit that no more conservative and hopeful influ-
ence could be introduced into modern society. Not
338 THE SOCIAL UNREST
a single cooperative centre has been made a success
without disciplining the members into a spirit of cau-
tion and prudence in the application of business
principles. Every added business burden will in-
crease the care and responsibility that steadies their
politics, as it steadies their industrial management
The aim of socialist politics is invariably to transform
industry. But this politics will never be freed from
the delirium and the dangers of unreal hopes and
tipsy schemes, until it is disciplined by the weight of
business duties and obligations. Political duties alone
have precious lessons for the German social democ-
racy. Belgian collectivists are learning both together.
They have added to their obligations in politics the
severe accountabilities of industrial management.
As the story of this hard won experience has
lengthened ; as it has been repeated and discussed
in every detail among the workers for a dozen years,
another change has taken place : the statement of
principles grows painstaking and judicious. It is
admitted that the great questions are more complex
and difficult than had been supposed. The bumptious
and cocksure tone is tempered by wholesome doubts.
Big and sanguine generalizations do not pass without
challenge. Within the very camp of the socialists
arises a new criticism of almost every sonorous affir-
mation upon which the older collectivism was built.
For example, the state was " to absorb all means of
production." One may now hear this chaffed at by
the most loyal members of the party. It is seen that
innumerable lesser forms of machinery may be left
to private ownership. The straight logic of collec-
tivism would permit no woman to own her loom,
SOCIALISM AT WORK 339
if she made upon it articles for sale. The same
logic would cry thief to the petty landowner if
he sent his vegetables to market. All private ap-
propriation of land and machinery for profit-mak-
ing purposes, is high crime before the severe con-
sistencies of this theory. The small sponger may
be less harmful than the great one, but he is a
sponger still. The socialist humor has begun to
work freely upon this subject. I have been told:
" We do not wish to make the theory ridiculous by
forcing it to its last consequences. We shall not dis-
turb the small man in la petite Industrie, whether on
the land or in the little shop. It is the great industry
that we attack." This position has, moreover, even
in the collectivist doctrine, this justification : many
of the ablest writers have held that only when the
great industry has driven the small industry to the
wall has the time for socialist action arrived.
With this qualification the strongest exponents of
Belgian collectivism still maintain the integrity of
their theory. Therefore, the plot of ground, the
small shop and mill with a few helpers, may be left
in private possession until they are brought to ruin
by their great competitors. 1
The most vigorous exponent of this party, M. Vander-
velde, objects to Dr. Schaffle's famous definition, "the
collective appropriation of all the means of production
and circulation." " We do not," says this writer, " want
all the means of production, but the great and leading
industries." He admits that collectivism is but partial
until the small employers also disappear. But mean-
1 See " Le Socialisme en Belgique," pp. 259, 261, by Destree et
Vandervelde.
340 THE SOCIAL UNREST
while the lesser industries are to be left free to develop
as they will.
The practical consequences of this attitude are as
noteworthy for this party as they are for society in
general. Socialist writers before audiences and in
their printed appeals will still protest solemnly and
indignantly that these changes are free from incon-
sistencies and of slight significance. My reply to
this is that the man who made these qualifications
and obvious compromises a dozen years ago, was in
every continental country pronounced a renegade.
Long after English Fabians had settled to the hum-
bler tasks of political and industrial opportunism, it
was common to hear continental socialists speak of the
Fabians as a group of bourgeois imitators that would
only bring disgrace upon the cause by betraying its
fundamental principles. When the Belgian coopera-
tives began to develop so far as to hold the collec-
tivist politics in some restraint, many of the brother-
hood in France classed them contemptuously with
the Fabians, as " mere reformers."
Those who believed in a flawless economic dogma,
and in revolutionary and heroic remedies, were right
to count these reformers as enemies. From the
moment the ways of practical compromise were
opened, every step has led to affiliation with the
ordinary methods of social improvement. The full
force and significance of this show at once in the
practical growth of the cooperative. In the country
it must have capital and therefore a system of saving.
The pest of the Jewish usurer is the first obstacle to
overcome. One weapon against the usurer has proved
so effective that no practical man can ignore it the
SOCIALISM AT WORK 341
Raiffeisen Bank or some form of Mutual Credit Asso-
ciation. Instead of the usurer's twelve to fifteen per
cent, four and five per cent, on better and easier terms,
may be secured. Therefore the collectivists adopt
these agencies, the very purpose of which is to widen
and strengthen private property in the very forms
that socialism has pronounced parasitic. In the last
statement I have received, which records the works
and purposes of the party, the socialists are urged
to make all possible use of Raiffeisen credit banks.
There is even praise of the catholic Abb6 Mellaerts
who introduced them into Belgium. These banks,
says the socialist deput from Liege, " rendent de r^els
services" "don't go to the great banks, but save
your own money. Lend and borrow for four per cent,
and win for yourselves economic independence." J
1 The contrast between the sobriety of the Belgian socialism that
has had fifteen years' business experience and the socialism in the
neighboring French towns is full of lessons.
The red flag is a sacred symbol, and one of the most popular gayeties
is to insult the national emblem le drapeau tricolore.
Citizen Dormoy is applauded when he points to the national flag at
the Congress at Montlucon and says, " Sous les plis duquel le bour-
geois a commis toutes les trahisons envers la patrie."
This is the grim and bitter emphasis which is still put upon the
determined apartness of the class struggle. One form which this
tenacious illusion takes is the uproarious approval of the " universal
strike." At every congress since that at Calais, 1890, to that at
Rennes, in 1898, this tumultuous resolution is passed, " Let the world's
workers lay down their tools; let the millions in every land who pro-
duce the wealth stop all toil, and the infamous parasite of capital will
soon capitulate." Some talk like this is still tolerated among the
Belgian collectivists, but the comrades who guide the movement have
learned that it is nonsense. They have come to know first, that the
workers will not unite in any such insane escapade, and second, that
if they did, it would work chiefly to their 9wn undoing.
342 THE SOCIAL UNREST
For dramatic interest there is even a more startling
recommendation. If the great Lassalle had one
enemy upon whom he poured more scorn than upon
any other, that man was Schultze-Delitzsch. All that
was scathing and venomous in the German tongue
was showered upon this founder of credit banks for
town populations. They were to serve the small
needs in the town as Reiffeisen met them in the coun-
try. What would this high priest of socialism have
said, to find in authoritative socialist sources, a single
generation after his death, a cordial recommendation
of Schultze-Delitzsch's banking scheme ? To Las-
salle, every use that the workingman made of these
credit banks " added a link to the chain that bound
him." The very gospel of "self-help" for which
Schultze stood is now advocated simply and directly
in the catechisms for popular socialist instruction.
(Almanack des Cooperateurs Beiges y 1900.) The
truth is that the cooperatives have done their work
so well that the members see the necessity of saving,
borrowing, lending, even if in forms that violate every
theoretic principle of socialism. They have learned
that the very principle of association, on which their
whole structure must be built, gets its strength
through the encouragement of private ownership, not
only of " property for consumption " which the theory
allows, but of property that creates personal rent and
profits. Precisely that has come about which the old
guard of revolutionaries predicted : " Once begin to
compromise," they said, " with the reform which city,
state, or bourgeois has sanctioned, and we are lost.
Our glory and our strength is in fighting the existing
order, not in preserving and improving it." Whether
SOCIALISM AT WORK 343
for loss or gain, the irrevocable step has been taken.
The party is once for all committed to the slower and
humbler ways of industrial and political reforms sanc-
tioned by an experience far wider than that which
any socialist party can claim.
All that is best in socialism will gain by this change.
It need abate no jot or tittle of its purpose to win for
society every increment of gain that proves to be
" unearned." The transformation that we have fol-
lowed now forces it, however, to use means and
methods that are educational ; that furnish, as they
are applied, their own tests of success or failure ; that
tend steadily to unite men as friends, and not to divide
them as enemies. 1
1 The very essence of " self-help " as applied to the work of these
cooperatives is seen in the following question and answer in a catechism
of 1899.
D. Que peuvent done faire les travailleurs?
R. Profiler de leurs moments de loisir pour s'instruire, apprendre
& se diriger eux-mmes au lieu de remettre le soin a d'autres d'agir
pour eux, et enfin tacher de comprendre et d'utiliser la force qui reside
dans la Cooperation, p. 17.
CHAPTER XII
NEXT STEPS
THESE changes of temper, of method, and of pur-
pose open to society every chance that could be
asked for the industrial and social renovation that
in some way must come. The real peril which we
now face is the threat of a class conflict. If capital-
ism insists upon the policy of outraging the saving
aspiration of the American workman to raise his stand-
ard of comfort and of leisure, every element of class
conflict will strengthen among us. When a despatch
is sent to a Southern state, asking for a car-load of
negroes to break a strike, we see in concrete form
what this use of subject and lower races may mean.
Every added cable, wire, ship, and railway which
destroy space, make it easier for capital to turn the
lower labor standard against the higher. The com-
ing of these cheaper immigrants will be a help, if
they are not used to break the power of the unions.
Labor organization, in spite of every unhappy fault
that can be laid to its charge, stands for the higher
standard of living. To break it means longer hours,
lower wages, and a bitterer competition among the
workers.
A New York builder, angered by delays upon his
structure, tells me : "If it were not for the union, I
could finish it in two-thirds of the time. I could get
344
NEXT STEPS 345
ten hours a day out of them, and I could get them
one dollar and a half cheaper. I could bring in
young fellows from the country, and everything
would hum." Yes, that is precisely what he could
do. He could have great speed, cheaper product, and
fewer annoyances ; but it would all be at the expense
of that higher standard of labor for which the unions
are making their desperate struggle. The cause of
labor is, upon the whole, their cause. The harassing
annoyance under which builders and architects, for
example, now suffer, is the price we have to pay for
a more democratized form of industry that some-
where in the future must come. Unless every ideal
of a more equal life is to be given up, this passion
should be welcomed for the uses to which it can be
put. The way of safety is to educate it, the way of
danger is to deride and defeat it.
We have only to humiliate what is best in the as-
piration of the trade union, and then every worst fea-
ture of socialism is fastened upon us. There is no
danger in socialism that for a moment compares
with that part of its working propaganda, dear to the
extremists the class struggle. To make men believe
in the fatalities of this social warfare is the dead-
liest work in which any human being can engage.
To make men disbelieve it, by organizing agencies
through which the luminous proof appears that men
can do their work together, with good-will, rather
than hatred in their hearts, is as noble a service as
falls to us in this world. To show the possibilities of
this more fraternal and peace-bringing process, I have
laid much stress upon the changes in the German and
Belgian socialism. There could be no better news
346 THE SOCIAL UNREST
from Germany, for instance, than the new chances
which these changes offer for the socialists and trade
unions to work together rather than in enmity.
In 1890, there were perhaps two hundred and fifty
thousand trade-union members. In 1899 there were
nearly six hundred thousand. These can now frater-
nize politically with socialists in the common aim of
securing legislative and industrial improvements.
Middle-class sympathizers of every sort can also
join hands with social democrats for the same re-
forms. As the feeling of a purely class conflict fades
out, the real unity will be seen to be, not one of voca-
tions, but of opinion and purpose. The party has
from the first owed its impulse and guidance largely
to those who never were workingmen. Liebknecht,
Marx, Engels, Lassalle, Guesde, Jaures, Hyndman,
Brousse, Ferri, Vandervelde, Kautsky, Denis, are
but a few of the many to show what the party has
gained from those who were in no sense proleta-
rians. Indeed, no darker illusion has ever troubled
the whole labor question than the assumption that
there is an identity of interests in the entire body of
wage earners as against some other class. The
Klassenkampf rests on this illusion. This was one
of the weaknesses of the Knights of Labor. General
interests came into speedy conflict with special trade-
union interests. The strength of the Federation of
Labor is that it has thus far shown skill to avoid this
error. It is admitted that the interests of separate
unions, glass-blowers, stone-cutters, locomotive engi-
neers, may at any time be much closer to that of the
employers than to that of the miners, shoemakers, or
printers. Large leeway is therefore given for the
NEXT STEPS 347
play of special, as against general, interests. Every
sympathetic strike brings this fact at once into
evidence, so that some of the wisest labor leaders now
unite in condemning the sympathetic strike.
Nearly one-half of the strikes in the last quarter of
a century in this country are put down by Colonel
Wright as " successful," but the sympathetic strike
proper is an almost uninterrupted story of defeat.
In warning the soft-coal miners not to engage in this
kind of strike (1902) John Mitchell told his hearers
he had never known a sympathetic strike to succeed.
Trade unionism at its best has so far discovered the
great fact of the solidarity of interests that it may
easily be led to cooperate rather than to antagonize.
If we are moved by reason and fairness, its whole
massive strength can be turned against our greatest
danger the class struggle, as it may be saved from
the worst error of the English unions, the limitation
of output.
This is possible, of course, only through measures
that are educational ; that act slowly upon the habits
of thought and action. But the word " education"
leaves us in the air, until we know, with some pre-
cision, what it is to be, and how it is to work. This
must first be made clear. At the Remuneration
Conference, in London, I886, 1 there was gathered
perhaps as able a group of men for the discussion of
the social question as has ever met for this purpose :
statesmen, economists, business men, and artisans.
In an informal gathering, I heard an evening's
dispute in which practically every point of view was
represented : the individualist of every shade, the
1 Report of Industrial Remuneration Conference.
348 THE SOCIAL UNREST
single taxer, the positivist, socialist, and the business
man, who was, as so often happens, by common con-
sent, the gayest theorizer present. The result of the
long symposium was what has often been noted
practical agreement as to the social ideal toward
which effort should be directed. All alike wanted a
society in which opportunity should be organized so
fully and so fairly that each could have every chance
which his character and ability, industry and good-will,
made possible. There was general consent that
society, as now organized, does not offer equal
chances except to a small minority. The brilliant
publicist, Frederic Harrison, after thirty years of
hard work upon English social problems, said at the
morning session, that the need of social reorganiza-
tion had come to be so urgent that unless it could
be brought about, we were to be left in a condition
"which is hardly an advance on slavery or serfdom."
There was also agreement that society, through
individuals, or associations, or laws, has power to re-
move much of this injustice. With one exception the
agreement here came to an end. The causes of so
much injustice, and above all the means for its re-
moval, excited dissensions. The thing to be aimed at,
the far ideal of social relationships, awoke no dis-
cords among the disputers. A society in which each
may live out generously and gladly his largest and
freest life ; a society in which each capability may
have free play, with the infinite social variety which
that implies, was the Utopia in which all believed.
Then came bickering and dissent of opinion over
ways and means of reaching so fair a goal, and finally,
to the common surprise, agreement again agree-
NEXT STEPS 349
ment that whatever changes befall or measures are
adopted, the race must have a training and a discipline
it has not yet received. Education, to which all alike
looked forward, was thus the panacea and harmonizer.
Happily, for the evening's peace, no one raised the
question as to the kind of education necessary for
this high service, and we went our ways pleased with
the illusion which a stately platitude often gives.
That education must at least go hand in hand with
social betterment, will be disputed by none. When,
however, education is used as a stop-gap to every
proposal, we shall, if we are intelligent, make objec-
tion. The hoariest commonplace ever used against
reforms has the same character, " You can't do any-
thing until you have changed human nature." What
service this ancient saw has done from age to age
against every hint of abuse to be overcome ! That
" golden conduct will not come from leaden instinct,"
has been thoroughly drilled into us.
We accept the admonition, but shall reply, if we
are wise, that it does not greatly help us, unless
something very definite is added about methods and
details. A community that is civilized enough to tax
itself for an education under which the bookish
tradition should be accompanied by several years of
first-rate art and manual training, under which the
science, begun in the school garden, would make the
farm as interesting as the laboratory or the artist's
studio, would go far to wipe out a whole class of social
dangers and inequalities. It would take a quarter of
a million children from maiming industries and from
street avocations, keeping them at habit-making
processes until they were seventeen years of age.
350 THE SOCIAL UNREST
This elimination of the child from bread-winning
occupations would lighten the crushing weight of
competition upon the very class that now staggers
most heavily under it.
Clear and immense as the gain of this better edu-
cation would be, it does not meet all our difficulties.
There are in the meantime other duties to be met, and
another sort of education for which our need is at
least as great.
From an educational point of view, what is the
most unanswerable charge that can be brought
against our current industrial system ? It is that,
as a large part of this system now works it creates
suspicion, aversion, or stolid indifference which may
be worse. Great portions of our competitive business
have come to act upon the wage earner in ways that
train him neither toward sympathy with his employer
nor toward a sense of social responsibility. The
" great business," managed by agents under direction
of absentee proprietors, has intensified this evil. A
mine operator living on the spot said to me : " Our
mining population has been getting worse and worse
each year. They do not trust us nor we them, and
I think one reason is that the direction of the business
has so largely fallen into the hands of men who live
in the big cities, and have therefore little knowledge
of the workmen and little real sympathy with them.
They have to trust to bosses and agents who, in order
to make a good showing, have to take it out of the
men."
But of far more than this special kind of industry,
is the main fact true. I once showed to a manager
of one of our largest department stores a summa-
NEXT STEPS 351
rized plan of the cooperative method in the famous
Bon Marche" in Paris. By the very nature of its busi-
ness organization it binds an army of clerks to the
store and its interests. The American manager said,
" I know the Paris store well ; we can beat it in many
ways, but in one way it beats us : their organization
educates and ours doesn't." He was proud of the
trained clerical efficiency in his own store, but by
education under the cooperative influence he meant
a discipline that brought an ever enlarging sympathy
with the business in its entire social relations. If
then, we are to use the word " education " as a remedy
for industrial weaknesses, we should understand that
all that is outside and apart from the interior active
business processes cannot make in the workman
those habits of thought and of action which society
most needs. Neither our business nor our politics
is any longer safe unless education means at least
as much as this, the sum of influences which act
upon the laborer continuously in his daily craft. Much
of our industry educates in the sense of producing
every degree of skilled performance. It may do
nothing to educate socially or fraternally. It has
come very widely to do the exact opposite of this.
There can be no " remedy " deserving the name that
does not recognize the necessity of so modifying the
relations of employer and employed that the daily
work shall instruct both parties in those things that
bind together, rather than antagonize. It is the
obvious curse of a great part of competitive work
that it now induces antagonism between manager
and helper. It does this in an increasing number of
industries not accidentally, but in the very nature of
352 THE SOCIAL UNREST
the working relation between them. This autumn,
in Milwaukee, Chicago, Detroit, Grand Rapids, Cleve-
land, Columbus, and Cincinnati, I heard the testi-
mony of business managers of affairs into which
strong unions had come, but with no organized rec-
ognition by employers. The testimony was almost
a unit upon this point. " The relations with our men
are getting to be so strained and so delicate that they
cannot go on without some change that is more than
mere patchwork." The man standing at the head of
his business in Chicago said, " It has been getting
gradually worse and now is so nearly intolerable
that I wonder why we do not all quit business."
While blaming trade unions for this, every one of
these gentlemen had come to recognize that the
trade union could not be got rid of.
This situation has then to be faced, organized capi-
tal and organized labor side by side, both alike grow-
ing in strength. For a quite indefinite future these
must work together. In what spirit and through what
methods is this inevitable fellowship to be carried on ?
I have just put this exact question to the second
largest coal operator known to me. He answers thus,
" It is my deliberate opinion that we must continue to
fight the unions with all the strength we possess, it
will be safer than any hopeless attempt to educate
them into common sense."
I have tried to show that if he, and those who
think with him. should do this and succeed, we should
have an increase of stormy political socialism. Bui
the attempt will be difficult. Public opinion will more
and more demand that labor shall have every right
of organization (with federation and representation)
NEXT STEPS 353
to which capital lays claim. Late in the recent strike
I found in a town of the middle West, the leading
business men (in no way interested in bituminous
coal) generous subscribers to the striking miners.
Judges, bankers, editors, and even the president of
a corporation were among the subscribers. One of
the richest and most active business men told me,
" I and most of my friends would have subscribed
every month until those miners got their claims be-
fore a fair arbitration board."
This is the new force of public opinion with which
the old dictatorial and arbitrary method of the em-
ployer (especially in semi-public corporations) will
henceforth have to deal. In this surly fellowship be-
tween organized capital and organized labor, both par-
ties have to be educated. The lesson for the employer
is, that some way has to be found in which work can
be carried on with complete recognition of associated
labor. This will involve such modification of the famil-
iar, arbitrary, and individualistic method as to admit
what in most of the great business, is essentially the
spirit of a partnership. In letter and in law this is still
far in the future, but the spirit of it will have to be
admitted and acted upon. I have given the consenting
testimony of first-rate men of affairs upon this point.
The coal operator, just quoted, said to me, " What I
hate is, that we can't really recognize organized labor
without getting into a box ; our men would soon think
they were in some way partners with us."
A soft-coal operator in Illinois, who has definitely
recognized the miners' association, said, " It gives me
the chills sometimes to hear my men talk as if they,
too, were actually in the business." The process
2A
354 THE SOCIAL UNREST
may add fever to the chills, but it is the way through
which the unwilling parties have to pass. We can-
not encourage millions of low-class laborers to come
to us without incurring responsibilities. From the
first act of Congress at the close of the Civil War " to
encourage immigration," to the action of companies
to " assist in carrying out the intention of Congress,"
the class which makes much of our trouble has been
encouraged to come. Anthracite operators welcomed
the " Slav " because he could keep wages down and
break strikes, as was done in 1887-1888. Those who
have profited by these luxuries of " wage depressors "
and " strike breakers " should no longer shirk corre-
sponding responsibilities. 1
Moreover, once getting this polyglot multitude here,
what has been done to civilize them by those who have
grown rich from the miners' toil? In many journeys
I have found two paltry gifts in all those blackened
districts, calculated to civilize and soften conditions.
In one of the richest of the towns, washed by a
noble river running too swiftly for safe bathing,
I asked a citizen why, in such a place, there were no
public baths. The evening had brought to the pretty
banks hundreds of miners and their wives. I got
this answer : " I live among the swells myself. We
have a lot of them. They are sometimes here, some-
times in Europe. All their riches came from
royalties, or in some way from the mines. I made a
canvass for baths because the miners and their
families have to live in such dirt and because the
luxury could be given to thousands of these men and
women at so reasonable an outlay. No influence
1 House Reports, 5Oth Congress, 4147, 2d session.
NEXT STEPS 355
that I possess can produce the slightest effect. We
have some nobly charitable women and a few men
who will give to the local hospital, but as for any
sense of responsibility for these thousands of miners,
it has no existence." Careful search might show some
startling exception to this charge ; but this gentleman's
opinion is that of every investigator of this region. I
have looked at scores of great industries at home and
abroad, but nowhere have I ever seen a blacker con-
trast between great private gains and any sense of
civic responsibility for the masses who wear out their
lives in and about the mines. My object in calling
attention to this ungracious fact is to show where ulti-
mate responsibility must also be fixed for lawlessness
and disorder that break out in time of great excitement.
That kind of population, so long and so dangerously
neglected, will develop some brutal types, as naturally
as the miner's occupation tattoos him with scars. 1
In this industry as in many others, the time is now
passed when patriarchal benignities, mere "doing
something for the laborers," will meet the need. Less
and less will labor be deceived by any dole of pat-
ronage. In the class of industries here considered,
organization of employer and employed must now find
a working relation that educates, because of the very
nature of the affiliation in which they stand to each
other. A common education must replace a one-sided
benevolence.
Before reaching the details of this relationship, the
frailties and offences of labor organization have to be
1 For a vivid contrast in method and result, see Annual Report of
the Sociological Department of the Colorado Fuel and Iron Company,
1901-1902.
356 THE SOCIAL UNREST
stated. They are as real as any upon the side of
capital, even if there is more excuse for them. The sin
and the weakness of the trade union has been (i) in
its attitude toward the non-union man ; (2) in its sullen
aversion to new inventions ; (3) in its too willing as-
sent to check the output of work ; (4) in its tendency
to discourage the best endeavor among the better and
stronger workers ; (5) in its too free use of the
sympathetic strike; (6) in a far too reckless use
of the boycott. 1 The worst of our unions are
guilty of every one of these counts against them.
The average union is guilty in the case of part of
them, but the best and strongest unions have already
risen pretty clearly and cleanly above them all.
Enemies of the unions are fond of telling us that " if
all unions were like the locomotive engineers, business
interests would be safe." Yes, but that is what this
body of workmen has slowly reached. Its earlier his-
tory is black enough. Other unions have grown safe
only through experience and responsibilities. The
advance guard of unionism is at the present moment
in the United States one of the most conservative in-
fluences active among us. After life-long familiar-
ity with the trade union, Commissioner C. D. Wright
states that "as a rule trade unions oppose strikes";
that they "are growing more and more conservative."
" As a rule they are friendly to machinery." z
1 That the boycott is not in itself an evil is seen in the fact that most
decent people boycott something. It may be the saloon, the brothel,
and the gambling den, or a vicious play at the theatre. In a proved
case of injustice or indecency this " organized disapprobation " has its
moral justification. The trade union abuse of this lies in the fact of
the too frequent, reckless, and indiscriminate use of the boycott.
* See Contemporary Review, November, 1902.
NEXT STEPS 357
It has been shown that our trade unions have be-
come socialistic, but it is a socialism that is safe,
if we do our duty. It is safe because it asks for a
tentative extension of city or state functions. It asks
this, knowing that if a city cannot manage electric
lighting, for example, better than a private company,
the people are not in the least likely to continue that
sort of socialism. If it prove that city management
is more wasteful, less alert to apply new inventions,
more reckless of the peoples' interest, they will not
continue this inferior policy.
The kind of training which strong trade unionism
(like the Federation of Labor) brings to the workers,
leads them to understand how slowly and how experi-
mentally these changes must be made. I have sat
through a week's session of the Federation of Labor,
learning there that nowhere is the socialist who makes
silly or wild proposals so instantly and so summarily
disposed of. Nowhere does a crank have a harder time
of it. If we omit certain unions in the more corrupt
cities, where the leaders learn bad habits by imitation
and are too frequently bought and sold, there is at the
present moment in this country no more powerful in-
fluence to train men for citizenship than the influences
at work in the best and strongest labor organizations.
This is true of the Federation ; it is true of separate
unions like the printers, trainmen, iron moulders;
many of the longshoremen, and cigar-makers.
But especially do these older and stronger unions
learn to check dangerous and revolutionary opinions.
If there is any considerable threatening socialism of
the latter sort in our midst, it has no such enemy as
the trade union. As the trade union strengthens, its
358 THE SOCIAL UNREST
influence against turbulent and revolutionary projects
steadily increases. The only agency that will prevent
the spread of this conservatism is the fatuous obstinacy
which insists upon defeating completer labor organi-
zation.
No one can study the growth of the trade union
in every country, where capitalistic organization within
ten years has made its great strides, without seeing
that the new ambitions and successes of unionism are
probably as great an event socially and industrially
as the " trust." The least astute must now see that
the trade union has already won a strength that is
neither to be ignored nor too much affronted. The
puerile cry to " down " the trust is only matched
for inanity by the cry to down the trade union.
Both are attempts, through organization, to check
certain evils which an unreined competition at last
produces. Both equally must be accepted for their
uses.
In the case of both, we have to learn that oldest
and hardest lesson to distinguish between uses and
abuses. Has federated capital fewer abuses than
federated labor ? The abuses of the trade union are
far more open and ill-mannered ; they appear on the
surface to violate more impudently social usages by
which we set great store. But if both trust and
union could have impartial analysis, there is no
social good (like freedom and human rights) that
would not be found to suffer in deeper and more
dangerous ways from the abuses of certain capital-
istic organizations than from those of labor. The
problem is to check and eliminate the abuses of both.
Legal procedure will play an indispensable part in
NEXT STEPS 359
this, but education will play a part weightier still.
Most of the stronger labor leaders in the United
States are now ready to use their combined influence
in favor of an organization that shall be strong
enough and intelligent enough to put no undue check
upon new machinery or upon the output of labor.
They are more and more against a reckless use of
the sympathetic strike. The best of them say openly,
that the whole policy shall be to train their men into
fairness toward non-union men. The head of the
garment workers tells me, "You may say without
qualification that this is our aim, and that we shall
work steadily toward such an education of our men
as finally to bring it about." The head of the loco-
motive engineers says expressly that they will in no
way intimidate non-union men. Mr. Sargent of the
firemen's union writes : " When strikes are declared,
the men should go home and stay there. If any men
can be secured to take their places, let them take
them. In the past there has been too much coercion
and too little instruction and education along these
lines."
Mr. Gompers, John Mitchell, Harry White, give in
the same strong testimony as to the purpose of edu-
cating their followers up to broader and sounder prin-
ciples. In The Garment Worker, November 22, 1902,
an editorial dealing with the unions contains these
words : " Browbeating or violence on their part can-
not be defended. Where that is resorted to, the ethi-
cal purpose of the movement becomes obscure, and
hatreds are engendered that offset the brotherly spirit
upon which it is founded. No matter how serious the
evils to be combated, barbarism cannot be overcome
360 THE SOCIAL UNREST
by more barbarism. If the benefits of the union can-
not be made apparent to the non-member, and if the
influence which they can exert collectively is insuffi-
cient to induce him to join, then their cause has little
strength."
Aroused at last upon these questions, let the public
take these men at their word ; hold them to the re-
sponsibilities implied, and try to aid them in seeing
that they are fulfilled. Merely to fight the trade
union is to get back from it all that is worst in it and
nothing that is best ; merely to fight it, intensifies the
very ills we most condemn. To help it educationally
is to work in sympathy with its general purpose,
while showing no quarter to abuses which the leaders
themselves admit. Those who now direct labor or-
ganization have learned, within ten years, the almost
resistless power of public opinion to determine the
issues of a quarrel when that opinion is once
awakened.
What the fighting class of employers has been slow
to learn, is that they are losing their power of disciplin-
ing their own workmen. In industries where union-
ism is inevitable, the arbitrary rule of the employer
has seen its day. The man who has power to
discipline the workmen is more and more their own
trade-union leader. In the work of education and of
discipline, the employer must now actually have the
help of his workmen's representative. There is hap-
pily nothing to invent or create anew in the modus
operandi. The mechanism is already in use and the
education has begun. It is among the printers, the
longshoremen, the soft-coal miners, the iron moulders,
and the Boston carpenters. It is the "joint agree-
NEXT STEPS 361
ment" between employer and employed which in-
volves complete recognition of labor organization.
Contracts have to be made periodically between dele-
gated committees as to wages and all important con-
ditions under which the work is done. It involves
systematized arbitration not from without but from
within. It puts every natural difficulty in the way of
the strike. It involves organized discussion between
masters and men on every interest that concerns their
common occupation.
In Chicago, that squally home of rough and undis-
ciplined trade unionism, I was told by the able lawyer,
A. F. Hatch, who some thirteen years ago drew the
agreement between the printers and the Daily Press
Association, that " it has worked upon the whole with
the best of results. It has been put once to the great-
est possible strain, but the men stood by their con-
tract in spite of extreme provocation." The manager
of one of the two or three largest stove manufactories
in the United States told me : " We have tried it a
dozen years and it has settled all questions on this
subject for us. Its best trait is that, as it works, it
trains the men to see the limits within which they
can get advantages. It makes the men more conser-
vative and it makes us more considerate."
The joint-agreement has had its severest tests
among the low-class miners of the soft-coal regions.
In much criticism that has been given me in Illinois
from employers, the worst was that it made the miners
" too aggressive for what they considered their rights."
" They want to take too much of the business into
their own hands, as if they were part owners." That
the agreement should have worked so long among
362 THE SOCIAL UNREST
these rough and untrained nationalities, is perhaps
the greatest tribute to its future promise. The real
irritation of these employers is that their old power
of absolute decision is now called in question. In the
long period that is now coming to an end, the em-
ployer has been dictator not only of his own business,
but of interests which concerned his workmen as well.
The laborer has now entered the fight to divide this
authority. He insists upon taking his part in the
discussions (as to hours, wages, conditions), which are
strictly his business also.
The employer will long continue to fight for the
whole power. The only limit he likes is implied in
the phrase, " Take this work at a given wage or leave
it." A thoughtful and law-abiding miner in Spring
Valley told me in time of a strike : " I was brought
here and urged to buy a home for my family ; I have
half-paid for it ; we have a grievance which they will
not arbitrate, but they tell me if I don't like the work
to leave it. I cannot leave without sacrificing the
savings of twelve years. They tie me to this spot
and then tell me to submit or get out." This man
was fighting for a chance to help decide the conditions
under which he worked and lived.
This is what the employer now calls "interfering
with my business." He expects sympathy when he
asks, " Shall I manage my own business or not ? "
Yes, he shall manage his own business, but precisely
what his own business is, calls for new definitions. It
is here organized labor is carrying on its struggle.
It is trying to determine what, in the business,
should be decided by labor and what by employer.
Where the trade union has become fair, it knows
NEXT STEPS 363
and admits that the employer must have absolute
and instant control over all that strictly concerns him
as managing director.
This contest over ultimate decisions between em-
ployer and employed is so at the heart of the whole
issue that I submit an actual instance, every detail of
which is very recent history. An employer complains
that the trade union objects to his discharging two
incompetent workmen. If it were a fact, the union
would deserve every rebuking condemnation that
could be given to it. Scores of unions are constantly
exercising these small tyrannies, but the employers
have so long had the habit of making a charge of
incompetence in order to get rid of trade-union men,
that unions strike back in self-defence. In this in-
stance, however, I give a letter which the secretary
of a great group of trade unions writes to a local
labor agent on this subject of what is the workman's
business and what is not.
" Mr. - , foreman of - , informs me that your
only reason for calling out the men was that he
refused to continue in his employ two men laid off
for incompetent work, and that even your business
agent admitted that the work of the men was imper-
fect. If such is the case, your action in withdrawing
the men was not justified. This office, as well as the
National Union, is opposed to forcing upon an em-
ployer men whose work is not suitable. It is just
that sort of thing that creates needless opposition to
the union, and causes no end of trouble. Your union
is the only one that would make such a demand.
Where members are made to believe that they cannot
be discharged, no matter what they do, they become
364 THE SOCIAL UNREST
careless, and the poor workman falls back upon the
protection of the union. The employer has got to
sell the goods, and he assumes the risk, consequently
he alone can be the judge as to the quality of work.
As long as he pays the union scale and does not dis-
criminate against active members, that is all you can
expect of him.
" Now I trust you will not place us in a position
where the General Executive Board will have to
decide against you.
"Yours Fraternally,
" HENRY WHITE, General Secretary''
This is in no way an exception. It is a frequent
decision of the chief officers affiliated with the Fed-
eration of Labor. What a critical public is slow to
understand is that this is a powerful and increas-
ing influence in most of our stronger trade unions.
Under the joint-agreement, it will increase still more.
I have known the head of a labor organization, after
seeing that the employer was right, to force one of
his own unions back to work by sending non-union
men (scabs) to bring his men to reason. The worst
and most dangerous forces of ignorance in the unions
can be disciplined far more effectively by those who
direct the unions than by the employers. Directors
of those affairs into which unionism has come, must
use this influence of labor leaders to preserve order,
efficiency, and good behavior among the men. The
cynical observers of the union have not learned the
kind of power that the best leaders can exercise over
their men. In a formidable strike I asked an em-
ployer why he refused to treat with the union. He
NEXT STEPS 365
said, "The men have become bumptious and surly,
and we had to fight it out." I then put this question
to the trade-union official, " Would you make a defi-
nite public statement, and promise that if you were
' recognized ' and the responsibility thrown sharply
upon you of keeping your men peaceably at work,
giving absolute power to the employer to discharge
every incompetent and unmanageable workman,
could you and would you take that responsibility ? "
His instant reply was : " That is precisely what we
want. If the employer will not use these excuses to
break our union, but will discharge only the men who
are impudent, or disobedient, or do bad work, he shall
have every assistance we can give him to clear out
such men. We can make it hotter for those men
than he can. They are afraid of our power, they
are not afraid of his. Give us the responsibility with
an adequate contract, and I will promise before the
public to keep our men at work. I should like to
have the full glare of public opinion thrown on us.
We would promise publicly that if we cannot disci-
pline our own men, and let the employer discharge
every man fairly proved to be troublesome, lazy, or
incompetent, we will confess as publicly that trade
unions are a failure."
Now if we care for the thing called education,
responsibility of this character must be given.
" Fighting it out " is one resource, but it is stupid
and objectless. The joint-agreement, practically
adapted to each business after its nature and condi-
tions, is not free from perplexities, but every step in
its application and enforcement educates in the only
possible direction in which industry must move, if it
366 THE SOCIAL UNREST
moves in the way of progress. There is no ray of
hope except in some method that forces the two par-
ties to work more and more together, instead of more
ana more apart. There is nowhere a substitute for
this compelling common action that teaches the
employer what is just, possible, and right in the new
claims of labor, and teaches labor the difficulties and
the limitations within which modern business can be
made a success.
Let the disciplinary influence of the joint-agree-
ment do its work for some years, and " incorporation "
will at least get the hearing which is now impossible.
To reach this incorporation by the help and sympathy
of the union is far safer than to imitate England's
recent step of forcing incorporation. Force will
merely increase the socialistic temper of the unions.
To win them by the slower processes of education
through added responsibilities is a far safer policy.
Toward this, the joint-agreement will help. I do
not make the absurd claim that this systematized
understanding between the two parties is a panacea.
Because the word "panacea" is rejected, it does not
follow that the more modest proposal may not have
what is relatively a very supreme importance. The
evidence is overwhelming that this importance may
be fairly attributed to the joint-agreement if only
employers will bring to it something of their real
strength and sympathy. It gives us arbitration in
its very highest form ; that is, from within. It gives
it in the one way to secure every enlightening educa-
tional advantage. It is to the joint-agreement that
we must look for our best answer to all premature
calls for trade-union incorporation. At present the
NEXT STEPS 367
unions are right in rejecting it. Multitudes of men,
especially among the newer immigrants, would see in
this power of the court a reason for not joining the
unions. Until they have reached a greater strength
and stability, incorporation would hamper them in
the best work they are now doing. But the point
I urge is, that the joint-agreement does a far better
educational work. To keep agreements voluntarily,
is a much higher discipline than to do it under force.
For many years unions have actually kept con-
tracts when employers have genuinely and heartily
cooperated with the joint-agreement.
There is no such convincing proof of this as the
fifteen years' trial between masters and men in the
Boston Building Trades. The agent of the em-
ployers, W. H. Sayward, who brought about this
agreement, conducting it with growing success for
eighteen years, allows me to say that under it scores
of strikes have been prevented, millions of money
saved, and the most delicate questions, like the limi-
tation of output and apprentices, the use of the boy-
cott, the conflicts between different unions, and the
sympathetic strike, are now so far understood as a re-
sult of this education that they are no longer feared.
Speaking from the side of the employers, Mr.
Sayward says : " My experience has convinced me
that labor thoroughly organized and honestly recog-
nized is even more important for the employer than for
the workmen. It makes possible a working method
between the two parties which removes one by one
the most dangerous elements of conflict and misunder-
standing."
It is from these building trade unions, in cities like
368 THE SOCIAL UNREST
Chicago and New York, that many of our worst abuses
have come. It is here that the architect, as between
the devil and the deep sea, has his most tormenting
experience. It is here that the bribing and buying
of walking-delegates have done their pernicious work.
Mr. Sayward says, " Not one of these evils is neces-
sary, they can be educated out of the way." Where
the union has been openly recognized under this joint-
agreement, and the representatives of employer and
employed have learned the habit of meeting difficulties
as they arise, the terrors of the walking-delegate and
the "scab" begin to disappear. The name "walking-
delegate" is replaced by "business agent." Mr. Say-
ward says : " I no longer either fear or object to the
walking-delegate. I see that he is a necessity to
the best work of the union." In an address before
the National Association of Builders, 1 Mr. Sayward
criticises the employers for saying that they will not
treat with the unions until they are improved. " This,"
he says, " is like asking the child to swim but not go
near the water." The employer must take part in
this educational work as a very condition of its success.
In closing this address, Mr. Sayward said, " that either
for the building trades or other lines of work, these
intricate and involved matters will not take care of
themselves ; they cannot safely be intrusted to one of
the interested parties alone; both parties must have
equal concern, must act jointly, not only in their own
interests, but, in effect, in the interests of the com-
munity." 2
1 Held in Washington D.C., October 28, 1902. Printed in the
American Architect for November 22, 1902.
2 See Appendix, p. 381.
NEXT STEPS 369
For that trouble-breeding portion of industry here
discussed, the joint-agreement is all that any " solution"
can be; namely, the next best practical step toward
a rational industrial method. These agreements are
not of universal application. They apply at points
where unionism is inevitable ; where the wage sys-
tem is under such strain as to require modification
in the direction of a more democratized manage-
ment. Every scheme that is not inherently educa-
tional is worthless, because the clash of the trust and
the trade union is raising new issues for which an
enlarged social morality is necessary.
I have seen an extremely decorous group of per-
sons listening unshocked to the story of a corporation
which had for years systematically debauched the
local legislature and with cool deliberation brought
small independent firms to ruin. It was said, " Oh,
but the corporations must do it to avoid blackmail ;
and as for ruining other people's business, that is
only the law of progress." When this same company
heard an architect tell of the slugging of a non-union
man, there was an instant spasm of moral exaspera-
tion. For a perversity of unfairness like this, the
one need is light and larger experience. The embit-
tered workman is often as fantastic in his unfairness.
The story of a " heaved brick " at the scab shocks
him as little as these prosperous diners were shocked
by the greater sins of the corporation. There is
little hope save in educational processes that enlarge
the perspective of both.
Among educated folk generally, there is thus far
apparently no hint of what the word "scab" symbolizes
to the unionist. I write no word of defence for a
370 THE SOCIAL UNREST
single abuse connected with it, but the time has come
when some honest attempt should be made to under-
stand a force of such extraordinary persistence and
prevalence. Without such understanding, we can-
not even conceive an educational plan, to free this
feeling from its abuses.
A concrete instance will give more light than an
argument.
During one of the strikes I had a guide through
the collieries below Wilkesbarre. I found him in a
modest cottage for which he had paid, in nineteen
years, all but three hundred and seventy-five dollars.
He and his wife had made a garden. Flowers were
abundant, and vines had been trained into a pretty
arbor. Here six children had been born. Here
three of them had died. If associations that knit
into sensitive tissue every deeper human experience
influence any of us, they are not likely to have left
unmoved the owners of this simple home.
This man and his mates had struck. They asked
that their grievances be considered before some fair
tribunal. The employers refused to arbitrate, but
began forthwith to bring in outside labor to take the
place of the strikers. I give this miner's view of the
situation, not as a final answer to the hard question
involved ; I give it, confident that no answer is worth
stating which does not carefully take his view into
account. " We asked for months," he said, " that
certain conditions under which we work be changed.
The employers would not listen to us, and we struck.
Now while we are simply waiting to have our dispute
fairly settled, they bring in outside men and take
away our work. I was brought here by the last
NEXT STEPS 371
foreman and urged by the company to buy our home.
It cost us years of saving. Now they tell me to get
out if I don't like the work here. I can't get out.
This is my home, with all my friends, my church, my
union. There is no other industry here except the
railroads, and they won't look at a man fifty-four
years old."
No fair person, with the imagination to put himself
in another's place, will believe that the letter of legal
justice meets all that there is in this case. Neither
will such person fail to understand why this miner
was bitter against the outside workman who was
willing to come in to take the miner's place during
the dispute.
In this special strike, who was this outside non-
union man (the scab) ? Hundreds of them were men
in other industries steadily at work. It was the time
when republican orators were saying with much
truth, " Every man is at work." These men were
hired for a better wage to leave their work, to take
the job of another who was for a time asking to have
his demands considered. There are now men in our
cities whose business it is to hire themselves out as
"strike breakers." Asking no questions as to the
right or wrong of the strike, they are ready to go
hither and yon to take the places of other men. I
have seen miners who had learned from those inside
the mine that those who had taken their places were
brought from a city outside the coal region where
they were regularly employed. It is a terrible strain
upon average human nature to look upon this with
the coolness and self-restraint of the disinterested ob-
server. In spite of the provocation, personal vio-
3/2 THE SOCIAL UNREST
lence should be met with the swiftest stroke consistent
with justice. Scarcely a value of our civilization equals
that of law and order. But the real rights of these
miners are not settled in this instance, after the law
has done its work.
A question remains which is not yet settled.
Morally, and on grounds of good policy, we have
still to meet this issue of the non-union man in
time of strike. No generalization is yet possible, but
in cases like the above, when troops of men have
been expressly encouraged by the company to buy
their houses, non-union men should not be brought in
to break the strike until every fair resource of arbi-
tration has been exhausted, even if it drives us to
compulsory arbitration. To refuse arbitration, and
then hire private retainers of the Pinkerton type,
will not long be tolerated by a fair public. The
irritants and the dangers are not only too great,
they are not necessary. The joint-agreement avoids
them. Under its provisions, work is not stopped
until the forces of arbitration have done their work.
We repeat the phrase, "Oh, if the trade unions
only had really competent leaders." Let us learn
another phrase that is quite as apt, " Oh, if the great
business had leaders competent enough to avoid the
unnecessary sources of suspicion and bitterness
among their workmen."
A wise use of the joint-agreement, made elastic
and practically adapted to varying conditions, is one
long, sure step toward such leadership, and toward
the common educated good will upon which industrial
peace depends.
CHAPTER XIII
A FINAL QUESTION
IT has been shown what is possible with labor or-
ganization when, with intelligence and open-minded-
ness, masters and men unite under orderly methods.
We have finally to ask in what spirit another dis-
quieting presence rising in our midst is to be met
We may save ourselves a world of trouble by trying,
first of all, to bring to bear upon socialism enough
intellectual sympathy to understand it. Only in rare
instances have our business men, or the public gen-
erally, honestly tried to know what the immense
sacrifices behind the trade union really mean. At
this late day, because of compulsion and incon-
venience, we are putting forth some effort to under-
stand the industrial struggle for existence from the
point of view of labor organization. It is now seen
that a little of this tardy wisdom could have saved
the vast waste of the coal strike by doing in the
beginning what public opinion compels us to do
many months afterward. The joint-agreement of the
Boston Building Trades would not only have saved
New York and Chicago inconceivable sums, but
would meantime have educated both parties to the
contract so that a sea of future ills could be avoided.
The opportunity is given us to be wiser with the
coming socialism than we have proved ourselves with
373
374 THE SOCIAL UNREST
trade unions. The German and much more the
Belgian experience which has been given, show us
that socialism has now developed so that an educa-
tional cooperation with it is possible. We cannot at
present have the Belgian cooperative. For a con-
siderable future our battle will be in cities and with
public-service corporations. For the highest educa-
tional purposes this gives us every advantage that we
need. Thus the final question, as distinctly moral
as it is one of self-interest, I conceive to be this :
Are we as a people willing to put in practice those
methods which increase this educational cooperation ?
I have given much evidence to show that the trade
union, socialism, and business management, taken
at their best, are now so far in touch, that a common
working basis of industrial and administrative experi-
ment is at least possible. It is through these
experiments that our best discipline is to come.
There are splendid hopes for a well-ordered industrial
society if we are brave enough and generous enough
to recognize these possibilities of agreement and to
use them educationally.
On the need of industrial reconstruction ; on the de-
fects of the wage system ; on the abuses of the trade
union as well as of the trust ; on the need of extend-
ing legal regulation, there is now a very remarkable
consensus of opinion among able writers, economists,
business men, labor leaders, and socialists trained
by experience. This general acquiescence does not,
of course, extend to details or to methods. It gives
us, nevertheless, so broad a ground of common sym-
pathy and understanding, that it should be made the
basis of a new educational and experimental activity.
A FINAL QUESTION 375
When one of the strongest of the coal operators
admits (see p. 32) that there is no hope except in a
frank recognition of the unions and the consequent
common education that would follow, that kind of
employer should be brought into relation with labor
men who, for the same reason, are asking recognition.
Employer and employed here speak the language of
a common experience.
When a first-rate railroad president of large ex-
perience with labor says (see p. 33) that in these
days a man who is not strong enough to work with
labor organizations is not strong enough for his posi-
tion, we wish to add him to the group. When the
head of a very successful corporation (see p. 195)
says that in large concerns like his own, not only
the trade union but the spirit of partnership should
be recognized, we add him to this new fellowship.
It is very common to hear this type of business man
admit that in large affairs the arbitrary, traditional
expressions, "my business," "take it or leave it," "I
will manage it as I like," are soon likely to be classed
properly with the elder Vanderbilt's " the public be
damned." These business men of larger outlook are
increasing precisely as a safer and more conservative
type of labor leader is increasing. Every device
which brings these and those like them together, has
in it the binding and educational influence that alone
makes for social safety.
As the socialist makes his appearance as he soon
enough will among our mayors and town council-
lors, he should be met in the same spirit. As in the
case of the trade union, we should welcome the joint-
agreement for the teaching power that is in it, so
3/6 THE SOCIAL UNREST
socialism should be taken at its word. Once in office,
it should have safe tether for practical experiment.
The socialist asks for a profound social reconstruc-
tion to the end that a new justice and a new brother-
hood may obtain among men. The admissions that
much of this criticism is just; that much of this
organization is necessary and right, are from success-
ful men of affairs who have the gift and the courage
to take the social point of view rather than judge so
vast a question from the ground of immediate private
interest.
As we bring these disinterested admissions face to
face with socialist criticism, when it also has learned
to take the social point of view, we stand not in
sharply divided and hostile camps, but on a common
ground where men of good will can work together.
For example, between the older socialist, who be-
lieved that the wage system held the whole labor
world on the margin of bare subsistence, depriving
him of every hope of advance, and the individualist
who has nothing but praise for the wage system, there
is no ground for reconciliation. But if the individ-
ualist has come to see the imperfections of this rela-
tion between employer and employed, and the socialist
has come to recognize what the wage system has
actually accomplished, there is at once room for sym-
pathy and cooperation. My claim is that precisely this
is being brought about. Such a possible sympathetic
understanding already exists upon the most essential
points in dispute, if we select in each of the opposing
groups the most socially developed intelligence.
A man who has managed with brilliant success,
for many years, from one to five thousand men,
A FINAL QUESTION 377
tells me that the day is near at hand when the
present methods of wage payment must undergo
very radical changes ; that it is too inelastic to meet
the new conditions of industry ; that it results in
enormous waste through strikes ; that the old idea
of contract needs modification. He does not profess
to know how these changes are to be brought about,
but thinks it is likely that the spread of industrial
training will more and more make it possible to admit
groups of workmen into a practical partnership in the
business. He affirms that a good deal of business, that
is most vital to the whole public, has already reached
a stage in which the business ideas upon which he
was brought up seem to have no place. Now I am
certain that if this man were to spend an evening
with socialists like Von Vollmar, Bernstein, Miller-
and, Anseele, and Professor Hector Denis, he would
find so much in common that he would not think of
them, or they of him, as separated by an impassable
gulf. He would not think of them as moving east
while he was moving west. His own admission about
the defects of the wage system would bring them
near enough, not only to understand each other, but
to see that some measure of practical cooperation
would be easily possible. These socialists have
learned as much that is favorable to a long-continued
use of the wage system as this business man has
learned of its defects.
A Belgian socialist, after some years' experience
in managing a cooperative bakery, told me : " I was
taught to believe that payment by wages was the
deadly economic sin, but I don't see how we can ever
do anything but modify it a good deal. If business
378 THE SOCIAL UNREST
is highly organized, we shall continue to pay some-
thing very like wages. We shall continue to employ
a class of middlemen that I used to think unpro-
ductive, because they did not actually make things.
But to get products where people want them is just
as necessary as to make them, and those who do this
have to be paid." I should go far to listen to a dis-
cussion between this socialist and the business man
just quoted on the changes in the wage system, which
both admitted to be desirable. Each would have
understood the other's speech ; each appreciated the
other's difficulties.
Twenty years of hard work under responsibilities
has brought socialism to the point where it may be
cooperated with in ways that educate and at
the same time furnish the very evidence we need
as to the superiority or inferiority of its meth-
ods. The first demand of the socialist mayor or
town council is to set aside the contractor and build
the schoolhouse or the sewer directly by the city
employees. This represents in theory a step in the
socializing of profits. If they should succeed in this,
the community gains. If, by doing poorer or costlier
work, they fail, the failure goes down at once to
their discredit.
A people as fearless and as careless of tradition as
we claim to be, should welcome the occasion to say :
"You socialists condemn our private profit-making
regime. It is true we have made poor work in
managing our cities. There has been extravagance
and corruption. You come with promises to improve
upon this. You shall have a perfectly fair chance
to put your methods on trial before the community.
A FINAL QUESTION 379
You shall do enough city work without the profit
maker to furnish your own evidence. If, in expense
or in excellence, you can serve the city better, the
credit shall be yours. To prove that the contractor
is a useless burden to the taxpayer, will bring you
new votes.
From a confidence like this, no social interest could
suffer. It throws upon the collectivist innovators a
burden of work so serious that its educational influ-
ence acts with automatic directness. Under this
responsibility of doing things, they learn the sound-
est lessons upon the very points where ignorance is a
social and industrial danger. Day by day, made ac-
countable for results, they learn the value and place of
new machinery ; they learn prudence in lowering the
hours of labor ; they learn the risks of limiting their
output, and the necessity of applying the minimum
wage with business caution ; they learn why the "uni-
versal strike " is a folly and why the wage system is
still of service ; they learn that cooperative substitutes
must come gradually and prove their superiority step
by step. Best of all, they learn that the Mecca of
the cooperative commonwealth is not to be reached
by setting class against class, but by bearing common
burdens through toilsome stages, along which all who
wish well to their fellows can journey together.
The noblest word that I have ever heard from any
cooperator was this : " You cannot make this more
democratic business work, without calling on more
and more people to help you. If it should ever
conquer the hand-to-hand fight of competition, then
everybody, whether they wanted to or not, would
have to help everybody else."
380 THE SOCIAL UNREST
The habits which gain strength from this conscious-
ness of mutual aid would give to labor the serenity
and delight which it has too rarely known.
This dream of a day when life's work even the
drudgery and the routine may be done with the
ennobling sense that every energy of hand and brain
helps the many as it helps the doer, has in it the most
sustaining of all enthusiasms.
To work slowly and painfully toward this end is a
possibility that need not be deferred. The sacrifices
that it requires are the surrender of many things that
are now our vexation and our curse. Some aban-
donment there would have to be of a stiff and con-
temptible class pride ; much yielding of domineering
temper; some shattering of idols where doting wor-
shippers pay homage to the meanest symbols of
social inequality. We shall survive even these depri-
vations. They are losses which make no man poorer,
but rather add to the riches of us all
APPENDIX
APPENDIX
A SJNGLE illustration of a trade-agreement is here
given to show its exact character in one industry.
It is this type of joint organization which was con-
sidered in great detail by employer and employed at
the recent meeting of the Civic Federation in New
York, December 8, 9, and 10.
From seven different industries the testimony by
masters and men was overwhelming as to its ef-
fectiveness.
The following is the last joint agreement of THE
JOINT COMMITTEE of THE MASTER CARPENTERS' ASSO-
CIATION OF THE CITY OF BOSTON and THE UNITED
CARPENTERS' COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF BOSTON AND
VICINITY, created under agreement of the two bodies
to settle all questions of mutual concern to employers
and workmen in that trade, without strikes or lock-
outs, and have decided upon the following
WORKING RULES
to govern employers and workmen in that trade for
the term ending May I, 1904, acting under the fol-
lowing
DECLARATION OF PRINCIPLES
In carrying out these rules the parties thereto, that
is to say the members of the Master Carpenters' Asso-
ciation of the City of Boston and the members of the
381
382 APPENDIX
United Carpenters' Council of the City of Boston and
Vicinity, are to sustain the principle that absolute per-
sonal independence of the individual to work or not to
work, to employ or not to employ, is fundamental,
and should never be questioned or assailed, for upon
that independence the security of our whole social
fabric and business prosperity rests, and employers
and workmen should be equally interested in its
defence and preservation. Inasmuch as the United
Carpenters' Council is now being recognized as a
proper body to cooperate with in settling all matters
of mutual concern between employers and workmen
in this trade, it shall be understood that the policy of
The Master Carpenters' Association shall be to assist
the said Council and its constituent Unions to make
their bodies as thoroughly representative as possible.
WORKING RULES
1. Hours of Labor.
From May I, 1903, to May I, 1904, not more
than eight hours' labor shall be required in the
limits of the day, except it be as over-time, with
payment for same as herein provided, except in
shops, where the time shall be nine hours.
2. Working Hours.
The working hours to be from 8 A.M. to 12 M.,
and from i P.M. to 5 P.M., with one hour for dinner,
during the months of February, March, April, May,
June, July, August, September, October. During
the months of November, December, and January
each employer and his employees shall be free to
APPENDIX 383
decide as to the hours of beginning and quitting
work, always with the understanding that not more
than eight hours shall be required, except as over-
time, as herein provided for.
3. Night Work.
Eight hours to constitute a night's labor. When
two gangs are employed, working hours to be from
8 P.M. to 12 M., and from i A.M. to 5 A.M.
4. Over-time.
Over-time to be paid for as time and one-half.
5. Double Time.
Work done on Sundays, Fourth of July, Labor
Day, Thanksgiving and Christmas days to be paid
for as double time.
6. Wages.
From date of this agreement to May i, 1903,
the minimum rate of wages to be 35 cents per
hour. From May i, 1903, to May i, 1904, the
minimum rate of wages to be 37^- cents per hour.
7. Pay Day.
Wages to be paid weekly at or before 5 P.M. of
the established pay day of each employer.
8. Waiting Time.
If any workman is discharged, he shall be entitled
to receive his wages at once, and failing to so
receive them, he shall be entitled to payment at
regular rate of wages, for every working hour of
waiting time which he may suffer by default of the
employer. If any workman is laid off on account
384 APPENDIX
of unfavorable weather, he shall not be entitled to
waiting time. If any workman is laid off on
account of lack of materials, he shall be entitled to
receive pay for every working hour at the regular
rate of wages until notified that work must be tem-
porarily suspended, and in that event he shall be
entitled, on demand, to receive his wages at once,
the same as in case of discharge. Should an office
order be issued to a workman in payment of his
wages, the workman shall be entitled to additional
time sufficient to enable him to reach the office to
receive payment.
9. Business Agent.
The Business Agent of the Carpenters' Union
shall be allowed to visit all jobs during working
hours to interview the Steward of the job, and for
this purpose only. Nothing in this Rule shall be
construed as giving such Agents any authority to
issue orders controlling the work of workmen, or to
interfere with the conduct of the work, and any
infringement of this Rule shall make the Agent so
infringing liable to discipline after investigation.
INDEX
Ability, restriction of, by trade unions,
7 ; question of extra payment of,
333-337-
Accidents, indemnification for indus-
trial, 49-50, 208-221 ; relation of,
to machinery, 209-213.
Adams, Henry C., quoted, 76, 77, 80,
166.
Age of workmen in factories, 201-202.
Agriculture, failure of Marx's thesis
as applied to, 306-308.
Alabama, child labor in, 27, 29, 254.
Ames, Fisher, 76, 79.
Anarchists, artists posing as social-
ists really are, 273.
Andros, Sir Edmund, 73.
Anseele, Edouard, 314-315, 377.
Antwerp, International Congress at,
in interests of small traders, 323.
"Application of Socialism to Par-
ticular Problems," cited, 278.
Apprentices, limitation of, 4-5.
"Arbeiter Frage, Die," Lange's, 155.
Arbitration, necessity for, shown by
coal strike of 1902, 20-21.
Aristocracy, Jefferson's natural, 244-
245-
Arnold, Matthew, on social inequal-
ity, 160.
Arnold, Thomas, quoted, 160.
Art, for working people in Belgium,
319; socialistic views about, 320.
Asquith, Herbert, on laws concern-
ing industrial accidents, 214.
Atheism, of older German socialists,
302; later modification of views
concerning, 303-305.
Australia, compulsory arbitration in,
41 ; social legislation in, 104 ; pol-
icy in, of using railroads, tele-
graphs, etc., first for social service,
221, 275-276; social colonies in,
241.
Austria, legislation concerning in
dustrial accidents in, 213.
Aveling, Dr., 302.
B
Bacon, Francis, 259.
Bacon's Rebellion, an example of
early discontent, 72.
Bakeries, cooperative, in Belgium,
3I4-3IS, 3I7-3I8, 328.
Barnett, Canon, on the social ques-
tion, 166.
Bars, private, in coal fields, 12-13.
Barton, Sir Edmund, quoted, 41.
Bebel, 241 n., 299, 302, 303, 309.
Beer boys, 250.
Belgium, government interference in
industrial affairs in, 52 ; socialism
in, 5 6 . 57-59, 289, 313-343.
Bellamy, Edward, 136, 230-232, 240-
241,299.
Benton, Thomas H., on land grants
to railroads, 114-115.
Berkeley, Governor, 72-73.
Berlin, high death-rate in, due to
overcrowding, 247.
Bernstein, 309, 377.
Bishop of Durham quoted by labor
editors, 167.
Bismarck, Prince, on social democ-
racy, 287; effect of fall of, on
social democracy, 311.
Blacklist, the, 35.
Bon Marche, cooperative method in
the, 350-351.
Boston, legal checks on sweating in,
2C
385
386
INDEX
29; early labor discussions in, 84-
8s-
Boston and Maine Railroad and New
Hampshire politics, 57.
Boston Building Trades, working of
joint-agreement in the, 367-368.
Boycott, the, 35; use of, in early
strikes, 86 ; one weakness of trade
unions, 356.
Brace, Charles Loring, quoted, 87.
Breaker boys, 18, 256.
Brewery, a cooperative, at Joliment,
3!9-
Brockton, socialism in, 64-65 ; strike
of lasters' union at, 192.
Brousse, 346.
Brussels, cooperative bakeries in,
317.
Bryan, W.J., 79.
Burns, John, 107.
Cabot, George, 76.
Cahoon, J. B., on state regulation of
semi-public industries, 125.
Cairns, Professor, quoted, 162.
California, subserviency of, to rail-
roads, 47.
Campanella, Tommaso, 259.
" Canons of Etiquette," Jefferson's,
228.
Carlyle, Thomas, 51 n., 159.
Carnegie, Andrew, quoted on trade
unions, 37 ; on speculation versus
legitimate business, 276-277.
" Case against Child Labor, The,"
Murphy's, 254.
Cass, Lewis, 115.
Catholics, lower ratios of insanity
and suicide among, than among
protestants, 97 n.; opposition of,
to socialists in Belgium, 322.
Chamberlain, Joseph, 214.
Chance, the demand for equality of,
24+7245.
Channing, W. E., sermon by, quoted,
80-81.
Charity, socialism and, in France,
291-294.
Chase, Mayor, of Haverhill, 65-66.
Chase, Salmon P., quoted, 77.
Chevalier, Michel, 85.
Chicago, characteristics of trade
unionism in, 361.
Child labor, 27-28, 29, 207-208, 252-
256.
Civic Federation, the, 51.
Clark, Chief Justice (of Tasmania),
270 n.
Clay, Henry, on land grants to rail-
roads, 113-114.
Club-houses for working people in
Belgium, 316-317.
Coal mining in Belgium, 313.
Colonies, experiments in social, 228-
234, 236-237 ; in Australia, 241 ;
uselessness of, recognized, 257.
Combinations of coal-mine operators,
19-20.
Communism, J. S. Mill on, 165 ; the
literal interpretation of equality,
241-243; private property de-
stroyed outright by, 279.
Community of Equality, Owen's,
228-229.
" Condition of the Working Class in
England in 1844," Engles's, 51 n.
Consumers' League, the, 252.
Consumptives in New York tenement
houses, 251-252.
Cooperation in America, causes of
failure of, 2-3.
Cooperatives, Belgian, 317-319; oppo-
sition of small traders to, 323;
commission for taking evidence
against, 324.
Cordwainers, strike of, in Philadel-
phia (1805), 86.
Cotton gin as illustrating benefits of
machinery, 177-178.
Courts, trade-union suspicion of, 34-
35, 41-42.
Craft, John, 254 n.
Crank, one definition of, 89.
Creameries, federation of Belgian
cooperative, 321.
Debate between priest and socialist
on disarmament, 296.
INDEX
387
Debt, imprisonment for, 86-87 ; cases
of destitution traceable to, 248.
Denis, Hector, 346, 377 ; concerning
Belgian socialist party, 326.
Denmark, legislation concerning in-
dustrial accidents in, 213.
Department stores, 268-269.
Deschanel, 54.
De Vogue, 55 ; quoted, 167 n.
Dicey, Edward, 56, 60.
" Die Frau," Bebel's, quoted, 299.
Dietzgen, 300, 302, 303.
Disarmament urged by French so-
cialists, 295-296.
Discontent, the origin of the social
question, 68-69; early examples
of, 72-85 ; rise in standard of liv-
ing a cause of, 93-96 ; education
as a cause of, 96-97 ; in Germany,
98-100; politics as an outlet for
modern, 105-106.
Dole, Charles F., quoted, 100 n.
" Domestic Service," Salmon's, 109-
no.
Douglas, Stephen A., on land grants
to railroads, 115.
Drink traffic, municipalization of,
278.
Drinking, formation of habits of,
250-251.
Dwight, President Timothy, 80.
" Earthly Paradise," Morris's, quoted,
170.
Education, critical discontent with,
at present, 70 ; as a cause of dis-
content, 96-97 ; necessity of, for
social betterment, 347-349; the
kind of, needed, 350-352.
Eliot, President, 35.
Ely, Richard T., 118-119.
Emerson, Ralph Waldo, use of, in
labor literature, 160; on ma-
chinery, 170, 172.
England, trade unionism in, 3; fac-
tory legislation in, 27, 29, 30, 50-
51, 255 ; legislation in, concerning
industrial accidents, 213, 216.
Engels, 51 n., 302, 310, 346.
Equality, the desire for, 222-225 ; Jef-
ferson's effort for social, 227-228 ;
Owen's experiment in, 228-229;
communism the literal interpreta-
tion of, 241-243; of opportunity
real object of socialists, 244-245.
Experience, American disregard for
lessons of, 24-25.
Fabians, the English, 269, 273, 340;
municipalization of drink traffic
demanded by, 278.
Factory legislation, 28-29, 4^, 207-
208; in England, 255; approved
by social democrats, 311-312.
Farm, argument by German socialists
over " the big," 306-307.
Farmers, feeling among, concerning
the " money power," 133-140; dis-
content of, really due to monopoly
privilege, 142-143; German so-
cialists and the, 306-308.
Farmers' Alliance, the, 132-133.
Farmers' organizations, 131 ; politics
in, 131-133; errors of, due to
ignorance of real issues, 141-142.
Farms, deplorable influence of large
Western, on country life, 188-189 '
cooperative, in Belgium, 317, 321,
3 2 5-
Federation of Labor, the, 346, 357.
Ferri, 346.
Fiske, John, quoted by socialist
speakers, 165-166.
Foreigners, in trade unions, 3 ; lead-
ership of, in trade unions, 3 ; as coal
miners, 20; effect of, on wages,
48, 344 ; encouragement given, to
come to the United States, 354;
responsibilities incurred by en-
couraging, 354-355-
Forests, socialist views of, 277.
Fourier, the Utopian conception of,
260-261.
France, Le Play societies in, 42 ; gov-
ernment interference in industrial
affairs in, 52-55 ; legislation con-
cerning industrial accidents in,
213, 216 ; political rise of socialism
388
INDEX
in, 289; socialist experience in
municipalities of, 291-294; so-
cialism in, contrasted with that in
Belgium, 341 n.
Gaston, Judge J. B., 254 n.
George, Henry, 84, 107, 108, 136, 222,
267.
Georgia, child labor in, 27.
Germany, social discontent in, 98-
ico ; use of literature by industrial
leaders in, 155-159; legislation
concerning industrial accidents
in, 213, 216-217; sickness and
accident insurance statistics in,
249 ; socialism in, 289, 298-312.
Ghent, cooperative bakery in, 314-
315.
Gladden, Dr., on partnership be-
tween politicians and corporation
managers, 150.
Gladstone, W. E., 59, 109 ; cause of
tory hatred of, 223.
Godin, 242, 260.
Godwin, William, 223.
Gompers, Samuel, 359.
" Gospel of Wealth," Carnegie's,
37-
Greeley, Horace, advice of, now out
of date, 91.
Grenoble, socialist restaurant at, 289.
Griswold, Roger, 76.
Guesde, Jules, 288, 346.
Guise, Godin's foundry at, 242.
Gunton, George, 35.
H
Hadley, President, quoted concern-
ing separation of laborers and
capitalists, 93; concerning ma-
chinery, 171 ; on machinery and
labor, 200 n.
Hamilton, Alexander, 76, 79.
Harrison, Frederic, 166, 348.
Hatch, A. F., on the joint-agree-
ment, 361.
Haverhill, socialism in, 64-65.
Helvetius, 244.
Herbert, Auberon, 107.
History, indifference of Americans
to lessons of, 24-25.
" History of the Anthracite Coal In-
dustry," Dr. Robert's, 115.
" History of Materialism," Lange's,
155-157, 3<H n,
" History of the United States,"
Adams's, quoted, 75, 76, 77.
Hohenlohe, Prince, quoted, 99-100.
Home of the People, Ghent, 315.
Howells, W. D., 166.
Hugo, Victor, quoted, 159 n.
Hyndman, 346.
Illinois Central Railroad, land grants
to, 113-115.
Imprisonment for debt, 86-88.
Incorporation of trade unions, 34,
366-367.
Increment, the unearned, 267.
Indebtedness, destitution traceable
to, 248.
Individual, J. S. Mill on liberty of
the, 165.
Individuals, wrong in ownership of
machinery by, 169-170.
Inequality, American passion for,
234-235 ; biological origin of, 243.
Injunction, the, not a modern in-
vention, 85-86.
Injuries, treatment of victims of in-
dustrial, in the United States, 49-
50; question of indemnification
for, 208-221.
Insurance, accident, 208-221 ; sick-
ness and accident, in Germany,
249; present-day views of Ger-
man socialists concerning state
labor, 311; old-age, in Belgium,
318 ; Vooruit system of, in Ghent,
328.
Interference, so-called, of trade
unions, 38-39.
Interstate Commerce Commission,
comparative helplessness of, 281.
Inventions, attitude of trade unions
toward, 5-6; unexpected benefits
derived from, 173-174.
Irish, leadership of, in trade unions, 3.
INDEX
389
Italy, legislation concerning indus-
trial accidents in, 213.
J
Jackson, Judge, on labor unions, 34.
James, Henry, misrepresentation of
socialist character by, 320.
Japan, the so-called awakening of,
69.
Jaures, 290, 295, 296, 297, 346.
Jefferson, Thomas, 76, 79-80; effort
of, after social equality, 227-228 ;
on the " natural aristocracy," 244-
245-
Jenks, J. W., 8 n.
Joint-agreement, the, between em-
ployer and employed, 2-3, 360-
372; operation of, in Boston
Building Trades, 367-368; text
of a, 381-384.
Jones, Thomas G., 254 n.
Journals, labor, use of writings of
recognized authorities in, 160-
168.
Justice, not charity, sought by
laborers, 205-207.
K
Kautsky, 241 n., 244, 302, 346.
Kidd, Benjamin, 56.
King, Horatio, on land grants to
railroads, 115.
King, Rufus, 76.
Kingsley, Charles, 51 n.
Klassenkampf in Germany, end of,
310-312.
Knights of Labor, 133 ; one weak-
ness of, 346.
" Kunst und die Revolution," Wag-
ner's, 157.
Land, grants of, to railroads, 113-
"5-
Lange, F. A., 155 ; quoted, 156-157.
Lassalle, 288, 310, 342, 346.
Lasters, strike of, at Brockton, 192.
Law, necessity of, for governing some
employers, 208.
Legislation, industrial, 41, 43-44 ;
factory, 28-29, 4^, 207-208, 255,
311-312; on drink traffic, 278.
Leo III., Pope, on the present social
state, 167.
Le Peuple, organ of Belgian social-
ists, 316, 320, 331.
Le Seur, Alexander, 228.
Liberalism, decay of political, in
Europe, 56-60.
Libraries, working people's, in Bel-
gium, 319.
Liebknecht, 300, 303, 309, 310, 346.
" Life of Francis Place," Wallace's,
247 n.
Lighting, public control of, 119-120,
270.
Lille, socialist experiment at, 290.
Lincoln, Abraham, on the equality
of man, 224-225.
Literature, on social questions, great
increase of, 124 ; ignorance of
business men of trade-union, 144-
147 ; socialist, in Germany, 155-
159 ; European, on social matters,
160-168.
" Looking Backward," Bellamy's,
230-232, 240-241.
Loubet, President, 53 n.
Lowell, James Russell, 26, 166.
M
Macdonald, Gordon, 254 n.
Machinery, trade unions and, 6, 35-
36, 190-199; Professor Smart on
results of invention of, 161-162;
ownership of, should be by the
people according to socialists,
169-170 ; various writers concern-
ing, 170-172; virtues connected
with, 173-178 ; no displacement of
labor by, but the contrary, 179-
182; effect of, on wages, 182-184;
sometimes an evil, 186-188 ; effect
of use of, on Western farms, 188-
189; indemnification for injuries
due to, 208-221 ; proposals of
socialism concerning evils due to,
220-221 ; as viewed by Belgian
socialists, 328 ; trade unions grow-
ing more friendly to, 356.
390
INDEX
Maclure, William, 228.
McMaster, John Bach, quoted, 74-
75, 82-84, 8S -
McNeil, George E., 35.
Maison du Peuple, the, 315-317.
Mallock, W. H., 244, 334,
Malon, 244, 304.
Marshall, Professor, 247 n.
Marx, Karl, 8-9, 51 n., 263, 288, 301,
304, 305, 308, 310, 346.
Massachusetts, factory legislation in,
29; socialist mayors in, 64-65;
strikes in (1834), 85; the mini-
mum wage applied in, 330.
Mather, Increase, 73.
Maurice, F. D., 239.
Mellaerts, Abbe, credit banks intro-
duced into Belgium by, 341.
Middlemen, elimination of, by Bel-
gian socialists, 314, 318, 321-322;
a class of, admitted by Belgian
socialist to be necessary, 378.
Mill, J. S., extracts from, used by
labor agitators, 164-165 ; convic-
tion of, that machinery has not
lightened labor, 171-172.
Millerand, 53, 377; in Waldeck-
Rousseau ministry, 290-291.
Miners, working of joint-agreement
among, 361-362.
Mitchell, John, 126 ; plea of, for law
and order in strikes, 149 ; on sym-
pathetic strikes, 347; on educa-
tion of trade unions up to broader
principles, 359.
Mommsen, Tneodor, quoted, 158-
159.
Money power, feeling against the,
133-135; importance of popular
hostility to, 139-142.
Morley, John, 59, 166.
Mormons, the, 233-234.
Morris, William, 166, 288; on ma-
chinery, 170-171, 172; aversion
of, to Bellamy's scheme, 241;
more anarchist than socialist,
273-
Murphy, Edgar Gardner, 254 n.
Mutual credit associations, Belgian,
341-
N
Nasmith, James, on effect of intro-
duction of machinery, 172-173.
Negro, effect of employment of, on
wages, 28, 344.
New Hampshire, connection between
railroads and politics in, 57.
New Orleans, opposition in, to trade
unions, 39 n.
Newspapers, limitations of benefits
of, 172.
New Zealand, social regulations in,
30, 41, 104, 116, 221, 270, 274-275.
North Carolina, labor statistics in,
253-254-
Norway, legislation concerning in-
dustrial accidents in, 213 ; legis-
lation concerning the drink traffic
in, 278.
O
Opportunity, demand for equality of,
244-245; lack of, due to over-
crowding, 247; lack of, due to
indebtedness, 248 ; lack of, due to
tenement-house conditions, 251-
252.
Organization of business interests
and of labor, present-day neces-
sity for, 30-32.
Overcapitalization, of coal com-
panies, 23 ; in trusts, 60-61.
Overcrowding, degeneracy resulting
from, 247.
Owen, Robert, 255, 261-262, 326;
Utopian experiment of, 228-229.
Pace setting in factories, 35, 36, 191-
193-
Partnership between employer and
laborer, recognition of, 195-106 ;
non-recognition of, 197-199.
Paternalism practised by capitalists,
46-47.
Patrons of Husbandry, founding of,
131-
Paulsen, Professor, 99 n.
Pawnshops, municipal, 250.
Pearson, Professor, 55.
INDEX
391
Peasants' Revolt, the, 70.
Pennsylvania, subserviency of, to
railroads, 47.
Pensions, old-age, 50.
Peoples party, the, 133, 141.
Petite Bourgeoisie, La, 323 n.
Philadelphia, strike of cordwainers in
(1805). 86.
Philanthropy, dislike of wage earners
for, 203-205.
Phillips, Dr. J. H., 254 n.
Picard, Senator, 320.
Pickering, Timothy, 76.
Piece-work, trade unions and, 6-7,
35-36; versus time-work, among
Belgian socialists, 330-331.
Ploughs as illustrating benefits of
machinery, 177.
Politics, railroads and, 47, 57 ; modern
social unrest finds an outlet in,
105-106; in farmers' organiza-
tions, 131, 133 ; in England de-
termined by business and com-
merce, 262-265.
Pollock, Sir Frederick, on laws con-
cerning industrial accidents, 214.
Poor, socialist help of the, in France,
291-294.
Populism in the United States, 58.
Powder, sale of, by operators to coal
miners, 13, 313.
Press, the, as a means of expressing
discontent, 90-91.
" Principles of Economics," Mar-
shall's, quoted, 247 n.
Printing machinery, no displacement
of labor by, 181.
Profit sharing, 40.
Proudhon, socialism defined by,
259 n.
Pryor, Dr. John H., quoted, 251-
252.
Publicity, demand for, in semi-public
businesses, 23-24.
Pumpmen in coal mines, 14.
Pyfferoen, Oscar, 323.
Question, the woman, 97-98; the
social, 107-109, 112-125, X 43! I 44~
168 (see Socialism) ; the servant,
108-112.
Quincy, Josiah, on Thomas Jeffer-
son, 77.
Railroads, effect of control of, by
coal-mine operators, 19, 20-22;
subserviency of Pennsylvania and
California to, 47 ; politics and, in
New Hampshire, 57 ; government
land grants to, 113-115; farmers'
organizations and, 133 ; influence
of, on quality of men, 176 ; acci-
dents to employees on, 209-210;
Interstate Commerce Commis-
sion does not regulate, 281.
Reeves, W. P., 104.
Reform, the Great, in England, 70.
Regulation, futile efforts at, by gov-
ernment commissions, 281-283.
Raiffeisen Bank, the, 341.
Reilly, A. J., 254.
Religion, as a factor in former peri-
ods of unrest, 81; decay of author-
ity in, a source of unrest, 101-102 ;
power of, in Utopian experiments,
233-234 ; " ten thousand defini-
tions " of, 258 ; and German social
democracy, 302-305 ; socialists
and, 322.
" Religion der Socialdemokratie,"
Dietzgen's, 300.
Remuneration Conference in Lon-
don, 347-349-
Rent, George's theory of, 267. See
George, Henry.
Restaurants, socialist, 289.
Rogers, Thorold, quoted, 161.
Roosevelt, President, 53.
Rosebery, Lord, quoted, 59.
Rouanet, Gustave, 304 n.
Roubaix, slow work of socialism at,
290.
Rousseau, Jean Jacques, 223, 260.
Ruskin, John, use of, in labor jour-
nals, 161 ; on machinery, 170, 172,
219.
Ruskin, Tennessee, Utopian experi-
ment at, 233.
392
INDEX
S
St. Simon, 223, 259, 260.
Salaries, question of, in proportion to
ability, 333-334.
Salisbury, Lord, 214.
Salmon, Professor, 109.
Saloons as meeting places of social
agitators, 315-316.
Say, Leon, 53.
Sayward, W. H., 367-368.
Scab, the, in early labor troubles,
85; terrors of, disappear under
use of the joint-agreement, 368;
significance of the, to unionists,
369-372.
Schaeffle, Dr., 107, 157, 269, 339.
Schall, atheistic statement of, 302.
Scherer, Edmond, 55.
School attendance, compulsory, 255,
256.
Schultze-Delitzsch, the town credit
banks founded by, 342.
Schwab, Charles M., and trade
unions, 38; concerning care of
injured employees, 206-207.
Secretan, Charles, quoted, 160 n.
Servant question, the, 109-112.
Seward, William H., on land grants
to railroads, 114.
Shakers, the, 233-234.
Sicily, socialism impossible in, 262.
"Small Business Man, The," Pyf-
feroen's, 323.
Smart, Professor, quoted, 161-162.
Snobs, examples of American, 234-
235-
Social democrats, Bismarck on, 287 ;
rise of, 299 ; leading principles of,
299-302; and religion, 302-305;
consideration of principles of,
3S~37; modification of views
of, 308-312.
Social question, what is meant by,
107-109; cause of increase of
interest in, 112-125; economic
significance of, 143; inevitable-
ness of, 144-168.
Socialism, education in, by strike of
1902, 20-21 ; in France, 53-55,
289-297, 341 n. ; effect of trusts
on, 60-61; effect of enmity be-
tween capital and labor on, 64-
65; in Massachusetts cities, 65;
the embodiment of present-day
unrest, 106; as displayed in the
farmers' organizations, 133-136;
proposals of, concerning evils due
to machinery, 220-221 ; of present
day is not communism, 242, 278-
279 ; definition of, 258-259 ; history
of, 260-265 1 illustrations of theory
of, 265-286 ; in Germany, 298-312 ;
in Belgium, 313-341 ; in France
and in Belgium contrasted, 341 n.
" Socialisme en Belgique, Le," 339.
" Socialisme Integral, Le," Malon's,
304-
Socialists, opposition of catholics to,
322.
"Social Salvation," Dr. Gladden's,
quoted, 150.
Sociology, private and public theories
in, 7-9.
Southern Pacific, California and the,
47-
Spahr, Dr., tables by, showing dis-
tribution of wealth, 163.
Spain, socialism impossible in, 262.
Speculation, dangers of rage for, 78 ;
early, 78-79; versus legitimate
business, 276-277.
Spencer, Herbert, 26.
Standard of living, rise in, in United
States, 93-96 ; in Germany, 98-99.
Steward, Ira, 35.
Stocks, trade in, 276-277.
Stores, cooperative, in America, 2-3
(see Cooperatives) \ company, in
coal fields, 13, 313.
Stove manufactories, working of joint-
agreement in, 361.
Street railway franchises, private
ownership of, 116, 120.
"Street Railway Problem in Cleve-
land, The," 129.
Street railways, growth of opinion
among employees in favor of
public ownership of, 127-130;
and department stores, 268-269;
public control of, 270.
INDEX
393
Strike, of Philadelphia cordwainers,
86; an early Roman, 89; of
lasters' union at Brockton, 192.
Strikes, in coal industry, 17 ; cost of,
paid by public, 22 ; from 1830 to
1838, 85; growing popular sym-
pathy in, 148-149 ; sympathetic,
condemned, 347, 359; as a rule
trade unions oppose, 356.
Sumner, Charles, 25.
Sweating, legal checks on, in Boston,
29.
Sweatshops, dangers in clothing from,
251-252.
Sweden, legislation on drink traffic
in, 278.
Switzerland, factory legislation in, 29,
30; government interference in
industrial affairs in, 52; legisla-
tion concerning industrial acci-
dents in, 213, 216.
Sympathy with strikers, growth of
popular, 148-149.
Telephones, public ownership of,
125 n., 221, 275-276.
Temperance, influence of railroads
on, 176; advocated by Belgian
socialists, 316-317.
Fh6odor, Leon, 324.
"Theology of Civilization," Dole's,
quoted, 100.
" Theory of the Four Movements,"
Fourier's, 260.
Three rents, theory of the, 269-270.
Tolstoi, 223.
Tompkins, Colonel D. A., labor statis-
tics by, 253.
Tracy, Judge, 76.
Trade unionism, distinctive features
of American, 3-4.
Trade unions, limitation of appren-
tices by, 4-5 ; and new machinery,
5-6. 35-3. 190-199; and piece-
work, 6-7, 35-36 ; a retired capi-
talist quoted concerning, 15; in
the South, 28 ; folly of not recog-
nizing, 32-33; functions of, ac-
cording to employers, 37 ; social-
ist, in France, 53-55; capitalists'
attitude toward, 63-64; growth
among, of desire lor municipal
ownership of street railways, 127-
130; literature of, 145-147; best
men not leaders in, 151 ; unjust
judgments passed on, 151-153;
and socialists, 345-346; enemies
to revolutionary opinions, 357-
358.
Trainmen as illustrating benefits of
machinery, 175-176.
Trusts, a capitalist on dangers of,
ii ; effect of, on politics, 60-61;
responsibilities of, 62-63.
Tuberculosis, the distinctive disease
of tenement-house life, 251-252.
U
Unearned increment, the, 267.
Unions. See Trade unions.
" United States of America," Chan-
ning's, quoted, 80.
Unrest, social, early examples of,
72-85; in Germany, 98-100; de-
cay of authority in religion a
cause of, 101-102; politics as an
outlet for modern, 105-106.
Usury, modern cases of, 248 ; Belgian
socialists' methods of overcom-
ing, 340-341.
Utopias, uselessness of, recognized,
20, 257 ; socialism of the, 44, 246 ;
various social and literary, 228-
234, 236-237 ; French, 260-261.
Vanderwelde, 244, 339, 346.
Victoria, industrial regulations in,
41.
Vigo, 228.
Violence toward non-unionists, 10,
369-372.
Volkstaat, Die, quoted, 302.
Von Oettingen, 99.
Von Treitschke, 99.
Von Vollmar, 306-307, 377.
Vooruit system of insurance in
Ghent, 328.
394
INDEX
W
Wage, the minimum, working out
of system of, in Belgium, 329-330.
Wages, effect of foreigners on, 20,
344; effect of the negro on, 28,
344 ; foreigners imported to keep
down, 48; in early hard-time
period, 83 ; effect of inventions
on, 182-184; f children in the
South, 254; necessity for, admit-
ted by Belgian socialist, 377-378.
Wagner, Richard, socialistic opinions
by, 157-
Waldeck-Rousseau, 53.
Walker, Francis, 91.
Walking-delegates, 34, 35; as sup-
posed cause of labor troubles,
151; disappearance of terrors of,
by use of joint-agreement, 368.
Wallace, Graham, 247 n.
Waring, Colonel, 247.
Waterworks, public ownership of,
112, 117-119.
Wealth, distribution of, in United
States, 163.
" Wealth of Nations," Adam Smith's,
263.
Webb, Sidney, 3, 107, 244.
"Western Civilization," Kidd's,56n.
White, Harry, 359.
Whitten, Dr., 121-123.
Windeyer, Sir William, quoted, 104.
Woltman, L., 304-305.
Woman question, the, 97-98. ,
Women, strikes by, in Massachu-
setts (1834), 85; higher education
of, as a source of social unrest,
97-98 ; in Southern factories, 253.
Work, restriction of, by trade unions,
10.
" Workingmen's Insurance," Wil-
loughby's, quoted, 214-215.
Wright, Carroll D., on railroads and
temperance, 176 ; figures of suc-
cessful strikes, 347; statement
that trade unions oppose strikes,
356.
Y
" Yeast," Kingsley's, 51 n.
Youth of workmen in Western shops,
Zacher, Dr., quoted concerning in-
demnification for accidents, 216.
Zola, 171, 223.
"Zu Schutz und Trutz," Laebknecht's,
300.
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