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 .<A 
 
 THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 The LAND of 
 LIVING MEN 
 
 By RALPH WALDO TRINE 
 
 DODGE PUBLISHING COMPANY 
 
 220 EAST 23rd STREET NEW YORK
 
 Copyright, igTO, 
 By Ralph Waldo Trine
 
 
 A FOREWORD 
 
 There are certain forces and certain problems of our 
 common human life that are of interest to practically 
 every reader — the attaining; to an habitually happy 
 or peaceful state of mind ; the development of personal 
 power or attractiveness^ of feature or of form, of phy- 
 sical or of spiritual attractiveness ; the gaining; or the 
 regaining: and the enjoyment of sound bodily health 
 and vigour ; the attaining to a state of independence, 
 that the old debt may be paid or the old favour repaid, 
 or that the long-desired, and, as we believe, well-de- 
 served good, may be had; or even of being sure of 
 sufficient food and clothing and shelter, that we may 
 be free from want or the uncertainty or the fear of 
 want — that the bill may be paid, and promptly, when 
 the pay-day returns — and after all, the bread and 
 butter problem is the problem of ninety-nine out of 
 every hundred during this our common journey. . 
 
 Now it is said that people are interested in matters, 
 and in books that deal with matters, that pertain to 
 their individual or personal good or gain, or, in books 
 that afford amusement or entertainment — fiction, etc. 
 They are not, it is said, interested, except to a very 
 limited extent, in books that deal with our common 
 relations, social, economic, governmental, in matters of 
 community, village, city, state and nation. There is 
 truth in this statement ; and it is quite natural that we 
 
 7v59206
 
 vi A Forczvord 
 
 be interested primarily^ at least in our present state of 
 development^ in matters that pertain to our own per- 
 sonal good or gfain. 
 
 We do not seem to realize^ or fully, yet, tiowever, the 
 great individual loss we sustain by our folly in allow- 
 ing others to do our governing for us, or presumably 
 for us, instead of being long-headed and practical 
 enough to attend to our own affairs along these lines, 
 thereby keeping in our own possession the untold loealth 
 that, through our own negligence or short sightedness 
 or weakness, now goes annually into the possession of 
 the few who make matters of government, or the 
 manipulation of the agencies and various agents of 
 government, their business — the men who belong to 
 the class, as has been aptly said, find it highly profitable, 
 not to farm the farms, but to farm the farmers. 
 
 That there is corruption, or mismanagement and 
 gross waste and consequent loss to us all under our 
 present methods and in our present conditions, that 
 there are high charges with a minimum of service, that 
 the cost of living is growing always higher and in far 
 greater proportion than is our increasing means to meet 
 these costs, is now profoundly, and in many cases, 
 pinchingly, evident to all. The fault however lies in 
 ourselves, and the remedy for this state of affairs is 
 completely and absolutely in our own hands. 
 
 It is after all a matter that comes home to every 
 individual in a very personal and practical manner as 
 to whether or not he takes an intelligent and active 
 interest in matters of government. The time has come 
 when it is the imperative duty of every man and every
 
 A Foreivord vii 
 
 woman to become quickly conversant with and to take 
 an active personal interest and part in these affairs^ and 
 any life is but half a life that neglects or that fails in 
 this. 
 
 Agfain, the complaint is sometimes entered that so 
 many times books dealing with matters along these 
 lines deal with them in a manner so abstract, so in- 
 volved, or so academic, that they are not of sufficient 
 interest to draw the average reader to them ; and again 
 it is said that some books, most excellent and most 
 valuable in themselves, deal with such limited phases 
 of these matters that scarcely a reader out of a thousand, 
 or one out of ten thousand, has the time to become 
 conversant with them, that while they are undoubtedly 
 of great value to the special student or worker, they 
 are practically valueless to the average reader — and it 
 is the average reader that in the aggregate determines 
 the conditions and the destinies of all governments 
 such as ours. 
 
 Realizing the large degree of truth in the foregoing 
 statements, and the great need that calls at the door 
 of each of us, it is the aim in this volume to present in 
 as concrete and as clear-cut — and it must be confessed, 
 as interesting a manner as possible — a survey of the 
 conditions that exist amongst us, some of which are 
 causing us tremendous loss and that are undermining 
 the very foundations of free and efficient government; 
 also the chief causes of these conditions coming among 
 us, and the agencies still at work quietly and subtly 
 increasing and aiming to perpetuate them; and also 
 methods — some of which have proven abundantly
 
 viii A Foreword 
 
 effective in their workings elsewhere, whereby it will be 
 possible to bring an end to these conditions, and to give 
 us those that will serve far better the welfare of the 
 rank and file of our citizenship. In brief — to present in 
 a single volume for the ordinary busy reader, both 
 young and old, certain matters that would not be 
 available in very many cases otherwise. 
 
 And by way of anticipating a certain type of criticism, 
 let it be said that there of necessity has been no attempt 
 at any exhaustive treatment of any of the matters 
 dealt with. There has also been no attempt at scholar- 
 liness — though it is always somewhat of a question as 
 to what scholarlincss really is. The concluding chapt-r 
 of the book — " The Life of the Higher Beauty and 
 Power ^ — may be questioned as to its having a place 
 in a book of this nature. It may be a question, 
 though the reader himself will, in the end, be the best 
 judge of this. j^_ ^_ ^ 
 
 Sunnybrae Farm 
 Croton-on-the-Hudson 
 New York
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 Page 
 
 I. A Dream of Things as they are — A Vision of 
 
 Things to be i 
 
 II. The Conditions, Good and Bad — but never In- 
 different — that prevail among Us .'.... 15 
 
 III. A Certain Inevitable Law^ that deals with Na- 
 
 tions and with their People 64 
 
 IV. As to Government — Something that can never 
 
 BE Apart from the People except to their 
 Great Personal Loss, and their Ultimate 
 
 Destruction 71 
 
 V. In a Great " People's Movement " lies the 
 People's Greater Welfare and the Safety of 
 
 ALL THEIR INSTITUTIONS — It IS DUE NoW ... 79 
 
 VI. Natural Resources and Public Utilities for the 
 
 Public Welfare 94 
 
 VII. Labor and its Uniting Power — Its Strength — 
 
 its Weakness — Its Greater Strength .... 143 
 VIII. Agencies through which we shall secure the 
 Return of an Efficient People's Government 
 
 — AND the Return of their Rights 186 
 
 IX. The Great Nation — Its People, its Powers, its 
 
 Possibilities — The Greater Nation 235 
 
 X. The Life of the Higher Beauty and Power — 
 
 Individual — National 269 
 
 Supplementary i-xiv
 
 The LAND of 
 LIVING MEN 
 
 A DREAM OF THINGS AS THEY 
 ARE — A VISION OF THINGS TO BE 
 
 DREAM, or a vision, or fancy, I know 
 not ; but it seemed to be amid surround- 
 ings unknown before and yet it seemed 
 very like this world. But there was a dif- 
 ference — to travel one had in thought but to see one's 
 self in a desired locality, or in the presence of the 
 desired person, and he was there.* 
 
 It seemed to be where one could look for a long dis- 
 tance, yet it was not a hill and men and women were 
 coming and going. It seemed to be neither day nor 
 night, for one could discern no sun nor moon, neither 
 were there stars, and yet it was light. 
 
 And I heard heavy trampings as of men clad in 
 coarse nailed boots. I looked and presently I beheld 
 the form of a man, but bent, and he looked closely to 
 
 * It is the teaching of Swedenborg that in the heavenly 
 world, to travel to any desired place we see ourselves in 
 thought in that place, and immediately we are there ; to con- 
 verse with any desired person we see ourselves in thought in 
 his or her presence, and immediately we are there. 
 
 I
 
 2 TJic Loud of Living Men 
 
 the ground before him as he walked. Though he 
 seemed tired, weary, and as if he would be glad to lie 
 down and sleep for a thousand years, yet he seemed to 
 be hurrying along as if he might be late to something. 
 In his hand he carried a pail. 
 
 And as I looked I saw others, and still others. 
 Some were coming, some were going. All seemed 
 encased in the same coarse garments, many were 
 weary, and all seemed bent toward the ground, and all 
 were hurrying along. 
 
 And as I wondered pityingly — for pity seemed to 
 pervade all things then — there appeared before me one 
 who seemed to come to satisfy my questionings. He 
 was not one of those I was looking upon although it 
 seemed as if at one time he might have been. His 
 face was as if it some time had known great suffering, 
 but there was now a look of strength and compassion, 
 there was such beauty in his face that I wondered at it 
 all. Moreover he seemed to know all things and my 
 thoughts as quickly as I knew them myself. I was 
 about to make inquiry of him when he approached 
 nearer and said : 
 
 " These are of a company numbering many millions 
 upon the earth who do its heaviest and most necessary 
 work. Were they not to go to their work daily the 
 industries of the world would stop, and great suffering 
 and privation would result." Why do they seem so 
 eager I thought and why are they bent so to the 
 ground ? 
 
 " Their work is heavy. Their hours are long. 
 They have but very little time with their families, for
 
 The Land of Living Men 3 
 
 they must work diligently and faithfully while work 
 lasts, for later on work stops and for some, for weeks, 
 and for some, for months, there is no work, and their 
 pay were they to work every day in the year is not 
 enough to keep them in comfort. " 
 
 But why, I thought, and I contemplated the vast mil- 
 lions made from industry even in my country every 
 year, is their pay so small ? 
 
 He smiled ; but he did not answer my thought, and I 
 knew not at the time why he smiled and said nothing. 
 
 While I was meditating upon all this I heard a great 
 commotion as if outside of great gates, and I heard 
 voices and the cries of excited men by the score. My 
 companion said, " They are men out of work. A few 
 are to be taken to-day, though it will be scarcely one 
 from a score, and the others will tramp on as they have 
 for many weary days to other works." 
 
 Scarcely had the noise subsided and the eager multi- 
 tude of men gone on its way when I heard excited 
 and angry shouts. I looked and beheld a man not yet 
 in the prime of life. His face was haggard and white 
 and as he ran he was followed by a crowd of shouting 
 and excited men and boys. I heard a dull sound and 
 then I saw a stone fall to the ground and one corner of 
 it was wet and very red. I saw the man stagger and 
 fall forward, and from the back of his head blood 
 flowed. A woman rushed from the crowd. " It 's 
 John, I feared the look in his eyes this morning." She 
 kissed the white face and with her lower skirt wiped 
 the bruised and bleeding head. And the child she car- 
 ried in her arms looked on in wonder.
 
 4 The Land of Living Men 
 
 Then I heard the clang of a gong- and horses' hoofs 
 striking the hard pavement and as the rapidly gather- 
 ing crowd separated I noticed that the man's form was 
 very thin. My companion said : " Long out of work 
 and with hungry mouths to haunt him, he has stolen 
 bread. It 's common." 
 
 And I saw — I knew not whence they came or 
 whither they went — a large company that seemed to be 
 neither men nor w^omen for they were not grown, nor 
 were they erect. They did not seem to be children, for 
 they had neither children's faces nor movements. 
 " These were children," said m}^ companion, " put to 
 work before their time. Some are old and broken now, 
 and though still young, are scarcely able to keep up in 
 the race, and from them a brood still worse will come. " 
 " But there are not so many," I ventured. " In your 
 country alone there are at this moment nearly two 
 million." 
 
 "God, Heaven and Hell," I cried, "if" — 
 
 " Wait, " he said, and before he had spoken I heard 
 a commotion as of doors breaking open, and under lurid 
 lights and amid strains of coarse quick music I saw 
 bedraggled and flushed faced and harsh voiced women 
 that were pushing and pulling one another, and when 
 one fell others seemed even with vile w-ords to kick and 
 strike her. With a sense of horror, I thought, What 
 is this ? 
 
 " This is a low dance hall. They are fighting for a 
 brute of a man. " I heard the same music and the same 
 noise and revel from other places. I looked and saw 
 place after place of the same type. " So many," I said,
 
 The Land of Living Men 5 
 
 " and how came they here?" " In this section are over a 
 thousand to-night and there will be to-morrow ; the 
 ranks are always full. They start in different ways 
 and from many different places." I looked at a 
 group with whom were still traces of refinement. The 
 faces were somewhat marred, but the hair of some had 
 great beauty in its colour. " These," he said, " were 
 employed in large and well-known stores and establish- 
 ments at wages so small that when food was gotten, all 
 was gone. They struggled for a while, many bravely, 
 but they grew weary when they could make no head- 
 way, for the grace, the attraction, the fire and the 
 dreams of youth were with them. Men were ready to 
 give them money. For a while they found the way 
 less hard and dreary. They never dreamed of these 
 places; but all find their way here in time." " All?" 
 I said. 
 
 " Sometimes a rough black wagon carries a rudely 
 stained box out through a long street and through a 
 gateway edged with drooping trees, and some are 
 spared these resorts. " Then I became conscious again 
 of the sights and sounds about me. 
 
 So horrible it all seemed, that I said, "cursed be greed 
 and those that" — "Lightly," he said, " a wealthy owner 
 of one of the large establishments in which some of 
 these were at one time employed, has built a most 
 beautiful chapel in one of our large churches and it has 
 just been dedicated to Christ. In all charity he is most 
 liberal." 
 
 I sat musing but I could not comprehend. Then 
 anger seemed to vie with reason, when I was brought
 
 6 The Land of Living Men 
 
 again to myself by the sound of horses' hoofs hurrying' 
 by. They drew a strange looking wagon. It was fol- 
 lowed by two rattling carriages that were drawn by 
 poorer looking horses. In the first was a gentle looking 
 woman and with her were three children. In the sec- 
 ond were women who looked something like those that 
 were in the places about us, but they seemed to be of a 
 more gentle type. 
 
 " I said,'' vokuiteered my companion, " that some- 
 times a rudely stained box is carried out through a 
 long street, and some are spared these resorts. She 
 was so gentle and beautiful and was filled with such 
 compassion and kindness. So young, only in the 
 early twenties. The care of the family fell largely 
 upon her, but she fvas never strong and by and 
 by she fell weary. Then kind gentlemen helped her, 
 though they received more than they gave. She went 
 away for a time, but her help never failed to reach the 
 little home. By and by she returned, but all hands 
 were raised against her, and her fine sensitive spirit 
 could not stand before it. Again she went away and 
 soon the White Plague came to be her companion, but 
 it did not stay with her long. She seemed not to care, 
 nor had she any fear. From her savings a letter car- 
 ried each fortnight the same old help to the little home, 
 until two days ago, from a public institution, where 
 even with a sad and sweet smile she left it, her body 
 with a little envelope containing enough to bury it, w^as 
 sent back to her mother's home." 
 
 And as I thought of her bravery, her goodness, and 
 her youth, then " All hands were raised against her "
 
 The Land of Lii'iug Men 7 
 
 rang in my ears and anger seemed to seize me. " It 
 is the way of the world," he said, " but few are wise 
 enough or themselves stainless enough to under- 
 stand." "But we all have our failings and none are 
 perfect," I volunteered. I wept and found relief, then 
 involuntarily I cried, " Jesus and Mary Magdalene " 
 — " Jesus was wise and full of compassion, and more, 
 his ozvii life icas zvitJioiit error." 
 
 And as I pondered and repeated to myself his words, 
 my companion seemed to be forgetful of my presence 
 and stood looking out into the space before us, while a 
 strange expression covered his face. I looked at him 
 but said nothing. Presently and without any other 
 movement, even of the head, he placed his hand upon 
 my forehead and said, " Yonder ! " My surroundings 
 seemed changed and it was not as on the earth. I 
 looked and beheld a company in very white garments 
 and in their midst was one who seemed as if she had 
 come a long distance, for she walked as if weary, and 
 as she turned her face I saw that it was sad, and yet 
 not sad, for joy was in it. 
 
 And two were leading her by the hand and they 
 went along a path that was very bright and that be- 
 came brighter as they went. And there walked beside 
 them one whose form was not that of a woman and 
 He was clothed with a greater light. I wondered upon 
 it all and when I perceived again I saw that some 
 were seated and others were reclining as on a bank. 
 Then He whose form was not that of a woman bent 
 over and kissed the forehead of the one ; and I saw 
 Him no more.
 
 8 The Land of Living Men 
 
 Looking again I could no longer distinguish from 
 the others the one that had been led. And I thought 
 — she must be rested now. And immediately they 
 seemed to be joined by hosts of others, and among them 
 were little children and young men and maidens, but 
 I saw no aged there. I must have slept, for when I re- 
 called my surroundings my companion had taken his 
 hand from my forehead and as he did so I heard him 
 say, " They are returning." I looked and saw the 
 strange looking wagon and the two rattling carriages 
 as they retraced their course along the road. " And her 
 mother never knew it," said my companion. " And 
 may she not until she is welcomed and cared for by 
 the one who was welcomed and cared for to-day, and 
 then to know will not hurt her." 
 
 " I am grateful for this revelation," I said. " Would 
 that all could have witnessed it." " All," he replied, 
 " who, imperfect themselves are prone to judge or 
 condemn another. Henceforth you shall be a better 
 man." " Amen and amen," I shouted, and so loudly it 
 seemed as the whole city must hear. Then I thought, 
 but I did not feel ashamed. 
 
 I heard a low rumble, the grinding as of iron upon 
 iron, a sudden jerking sound. A crowd quickly gath- 
 ered. A woman rushed through it and bore something 
 from the track. There was blood upon the track. The 
 form was limp and blood trickled down upon her dress. 
 Pale and trembling, she bore it through a door, the 
 entrance to a long dark passageway. My companion 
 said : " To-morrow they will cart it away to the Pot- 
 ter's Field, He was such a bright lad, and of great
 
 The Land of Living Men g 
 
 promise." " But the father? " I said. " He is away at 
 his work." " But the father's work? " " You do not 
 understand,' he said, and again he smiled. " But 
 surely," I persisted, "there should be no Potter's Field 
 in a country such as this." " In your own great city," 
 he said, '' one in every ten is buried in the Potter's 
 Field. This year many thousands will be hauled there. 
 It is the last indignity the poor fight against, but the 
 living must have bread, and they cannot help it." The 
 crowd still looked at the blood upon the track, but the 
 car had moved on. 
 
 What a place, I thought, for a child to play, for the 
 street was not wide, and it seemed to be very dirty and 
 it was very hot, and many teams were going and com- 
 ing, and through them cars that seemed never to end 
 their clanging, were threading their way. The noise 
 and now and then the smells were something frightful. 
 " Look about you," he said. I looked and in the one 
 block there were over a hundred children at play. 
 " Why do they play here? Why do they not go to the 
 parks, and to the prairies about the city, and out into 
 the country? " And again he smiled and said nothing. 
 The air was close and it seemed as if we were in some 
 strange place underground where there was no light 
 nor air, only noise and commotion and smells in- 
 describable. 
 
 And I saw a little cortege similar to the one we had 
 seen before but it was longer as it threaded its way 
 along. " Another victim of the plague." " The plague?" 
 " The White Plague. This time it is a mother. She 
 worked until a few days ago. Last year the father
 
 10 The Land of Living Men 
 
 went with it and two children. Three are left. In the 
 same tenement over a dozen have gone with it in a 
 third as many years. This is its home. These houses, 
 these rooms were built for it. From here it spreads 
 itself throughout the city. Three times as many take 
 it here as in other parts." I said, " Why have they not 
 houses with more light, more air, more open space ? " 
 And again he smiled, and said nothing. It seemed as 
 if my brain were on fire and I longed for full breaths 
 of pure air. " We must change," said my companion, 
 and turning he led the way. 
 
 There was the mingling of sounds as if pieces of fine 
 metal were striking one another in the air; and out 
 from under the shade of wide-spreading trees and 
 along a smoothly paved road a low hanging carriage 
 rolled, almost without noise. In it were four men. 
 All looked so comfortable, so big, and so well-to-do. 
 Hope seemed to seize me and I said, if only these men 
 knew of the conditions we have been witnessing, they 
 would go to their relief. My companion listened, but 
 he did not seem to share in my enthusiasm, and at the 
 time I knew not why. " One," he said, " is owner of 
 the mills from which you saw the coarsely booted and 
 clothed men with pails in their hands coming and go- 
 ing, the men whose wages enable them to live only in 
 the most meagre comfort if they work every day in 
 the year which they never do. Very large sums are 
 saved by closing the mills for a portion of each year 
 and even when they are running, some work always 
 on part time only. 
 
 '• His companion on the seat with him is owner of
 
 The Land of Living Men il 
 
 works where many hundreds of children and many 
 women are employed. Though others manage the 
 works for him, they have machinery which children 
 can tend that saves a million a year over what adult 
 labour would cost. It is very hard and exacting work 
 for the little ones and many come out of the works 
 crippled or stunted and deformed for life, but it is a 
 great saving for the owner! 
 
 " The other is very rich and prominent, the owner of 
 many apartment houses as he calls them, in the portion 
 of the city we have just been visiting. Tenements 
 and lung-blocks those who live in or near them call 
 them. The Honourable Joseph, his friends and chari- 
 table institutions know him as. Slimy Joe his ten- 
 ants and those who have close dealings with him 
 call him ! 
 
 " The fourth is a man who has never worked at all. 
 He inherited, properties worth many millions. Man- 
 agers attend to these and collect his incomes. Among 
 them are many extensive railroad properties. His 
 father was known as the great corruptionist. His 
 managers follow in his father's practices. He is a 
 lavish spender and loves sport. Though large and 
 strong looking, he is never well." 
 
 But all the rich are not like these, I volunteered. 
 " By no means," he replied. " These are only the par- 
 asitic, the little minded rich, those whose God, whose 
 religion, whose life is greed, and who know no more. 
 But their name is legion, though they are never happy, 
 never at peace. But remember always that there is 
 that large company of the splendid rich, to whose mas-
 
 12 The Laud of Living Men 
 
 terly ability and to whose devotion to the good of their 
 kind and of the nation's welfare, and many times in a 
 manner so quiet and unobtrusive that it is scarcely 
 known by the public at large, great debts of admira- 
 tion and gratitude are due. To condemn, or to judge 
 indiscriminately, is a mark always of the little mind." 
 
 " The people, the people," I cried, musing on the great 
 inequality that seemed to haunt me. " The people at 
 present are the fools of the nation. They do not 
 think. They have little imagination, scarcely enough 
 to know their power. Though they are ninety out of 
 every hundred, they stand like idiots raving at the con- 
 ditions that they, through their own lack of initiative, or 
 too selfish devotion to their own affairs, have allowed 
 to come about. Until the people rule in their own af- 
 fairs they will be ruled by the few cunning ones who 
 will do so always to their own selfish personal gain. 
 It is a part of human nature that those who know 
 aught of the world's history should know full well by 
 this time. With the people rests the redemption as 
 well as the future welfare of all, and some day " — and 
 a strange light passed over his face and he seemed 
 filled with great emotion, but did not finish his thought. 
 
 Presently he continued, " A large hospital that many 
 of tlie rich help support was destroyed some days ago, 
 and a great charity ball is being given to help rebuild 
 it. They are on their way to it now. A little later as 
 you look in upon it you will see women, wives and 
 daughters of these, and others, clad in garments cost- 
 ing almost fabulous prices, and decked with jewels 
 and gems sufficient in value to feed and clothe the por-
 
 The Land of Living Men 13 
 
 tions of the city we have just been in for years. I will 
 point out to you a young- man who has recently come 
 into possession of over thirty millions, who has never 
 done a useful day's work in his life and who perhaps 
 never will. I will point out to you a lad of but twelve 
 years who upon his father's demise will fall heir to 
 properties worth over a hundred million, all made from 
 values created by the people of the city where his 
 properties lie. 
 
 Among those whom you will see to-night you will 
 notice many most vulgar in their excessive display, 
 and others gross and vulgar in their appearance, for 
 excessive wealth makes gluttons and abnormals of 
 many. And when you see the haughty, self-important 
 air on the part of many, remember it is merely one of 
 the weaknesses of human nature to which the exces- 
 sively rich are easy victims, and that it will be more 
 than balanced by the presence of many admirable and 
 sensible people, who will be there to-night. There are 
 few of the very rich and none of the excessively rich 
 that do not pay heavy penalties for their abnormal 
 hold on life, the same as the excessively poor. In 
 this they are alike. Rejoice that you are of neither 
 and use the knowledge you have gained for the 
 good of both. With the common people their re- 
 demption lies." 
 
 I thought on the times when to my questions he 
 smiled and said nothing, and then I seemed to under- 
 stand clearly. 
 
 " With the people," repeated my companion, as he 
 placed his hand lightly upon my head. I seemed for
 
 14 The Land of Living Men 
 
 a while to be absorbed, yet not in thought, and certain 
 things seemed evident to me then that I had not under- 
 stood before. Presently I perceived that I was alone, 
 when a strange fascination took possession of me, and 
 it holds me still.
 
 II 
 
 TEE CONDITIONS, GOOD AND BAD— BUT NEVER 
 INDIFFERENT —THAT PREVAIL AMONG US 
 
 ,E are accustomed to looking upon our- 
 selves as a great and a very prosperous 
 people. The people of other nations 
 are accustomed to looking upon us in 
 much the same light. We should be a very great 
 and uniformly prosperous people, and the reasons 
 indeed are many. As a nation we have had advan- 
 tages and opportunities that have never been equalled, 
 perhaps, in the world's history. We have been free 
 from the caste systems and certain progress-strangling 
 customs of the old world countries ; we have enjoyed 
 from the beginning practically full civil and religious 
 liberty ; we started free from that dreary, grinding, 
 hopeless, drink-impelling poverty, that is the bane and 
 the curse of so many of the old world countries ; we 
 have had almost universal free educational opportuni- 
 ties for our boys and our girls, for our young men 
 and our young women, and even for the older when 
 they have so chosen. Our natural products from soil, 
 and stream, and mine have been almost fabulous in 
 their returns. 
 
 We should be a uniformly free and happy and pros- 
 perous people. But we are not uniformly free, happy, 
 
 15
 
 i6 The Land of Living Men 
 
 nor prosperous. For all practical purposes, we do in- 
 dividually as well as collectively, enjoy civil freedom. 
 But he who is not economically free, is in a slavery 
 of the most haunting and endeavor-crushing type. 
 
 And several — around ten — millions of our people 
 are in a state of chronic poverty at this very hour — 
 almost one out of every eight, or, to make full allow- 
 ance, one out of every ten of all our people are in 
 the condition where they have not sufficient food, and 
 clothing, and shelter to keep them in a state of phys- 
 ical and mental efficiency. And the sad part of it is 
 that large additional numbers, — numbers most ap- 
 palling for such a country as this, are each year, and 
 through no fault of their own, dropping into this 
 same condition. 
 
 And a still sadder feature of it is, that each year in- 
 creasingly large numbers of this vast army of people, 
 our fellow-beings, are, unwillingly on their part and in 
 the face of almost superhuman efforts to keep out of it 
 till the last moment, dropping into the pauper class, — 
 those who are compelled to seek or to receive aid from 
 a public, or from private charity, in order to exist at 
 all — already in numbers about four million, while in- 
 creasing numbers of this class, the pauper, sink each 
 year, and so naturally, into the vicious, the criminal, 
 the inebriate class. In other words we have gradually 
 allowed to be built around us a social and economic sys- 
 tem which yearly drives vast numbers of hitherto fairly 
 well-to-do, strong, honest, earnest, willing and ad- 
 mirable men with their families into the condition of 
 poverty, and under its weary, endeavor-strangling in-
 
 The Land of Living Men VJ 
 
 fluences many of these in time, hoping against 
 hope, strugghng to the last moment in their semi- 
 incapacitated and pathetic manner to keep out of it, 
 are forced to seek or to accept pubHc or private charity, 
 and thus sink into the pauper class. 
 
 It is a well authenticated fact that strong men, now 
 weakened by poverty, will avoid it to the last before 
 they will take this step. Many after parting with 
 everything they have first, break down and cry like 
 babes when the final moment comes, and they can avoid 
 it no longer. Numbers at this time take their own 
 lives rather than pass through the ordeal, and still 
 larger numbers desert their families for whom they 
 have struggled so valiantly, — it is almost invariably 
 the woman who makes her way to the charity agencies. 
 The public and private charities cost the country dur- 
 ing the past year as nearly as can be conservatively 
 arrived at, considerably over $200,000,000. 
 
 Moreover, a strange law seems to work with an 
 accuracy that seems almost marvellous. It is this. 
 Notwithstanding the brave and almost superhuman 
 struggles that are gone through with, on the part of 
 these, before they can take themselves to the public or 
 private charity for aid, when the step is once taken, 
 they gradually sink into the condition where all initia- 
 tive and all sense of self-reliance seems to be stifled or 
 lost, and it is only a rare case now and then that they 
 ever cease to be dependent, but remain content with 
 the alms that are doled out to them, — practically never 
 do they rise out of that condition again. Talk with 
 practically any charity agent or worker, one with a
 
 i8 The Land of Living Men 
 
 sufficiently extended experience and you will find that- 
 there is scarcely more than one type of testimony con- 
 cerning this. And as this condition gradually becomes 
 chronic and endeavor and initiative and self-respect are 
 lost, a certain proportion then sink into the condition 
 of the criminal, the diseased, the chronically drunk, 
 the inebriate, from which reclamation is still more 
 difficult. 
 
 There are reasons for these conditions coming about, 
 and one reason chief among them all, that we shall 
 consider most fully in its proper place. First, however, 
 let us look still more minutely into the conditions of the 
 type we have been considering that we may have be- 
 fore us facts sufficient in number and in power to 
 impel us to an examination of the causes which have 
 brought about these conditions. 
 
 As has been stated, there are at the present time 
 around ten millions of our fellow-beings living in a 
 state of poverty, that is, without sufficient food and 
 clothing and shelter to keep them in a first-class con- 
 dition even as animals are kept, — to keep them in a 
 state of efficiency to compete in the struggle for work ; 
 and when at work, the rush and the strain in many 
 centres has become so great and the competition for 
 even a mere livelihood so keen, that no one can afford 
 to be even for the shortest period in anything but a 
 state of full and complete efficiency. 
 
 The above estimate is based, among others, upon the 
 careful estimates made by Mr. Robert Hunter, in that 
 admirable book, " Poverty," * and has been formulated 
 
 * McMillan & Company, New York and London.
 
 The Land of Living Men 19 
 
 from a very wide range of statistics and facts and 
 observations. Moreover, as this estimate has been 
 made only on the basis of the distress which manifests 
 itself, such as pauper burials, yearly evictions, the 
 numbers applying for public charity, the vast armies out 
 of employment for some portion of the year, it must 
 be most clearly evident that there is a very large ad- 
 ditional number who are in great need, many in dire 
 distress, who suffer keenly but bear it bravely, and 
 suffer and struggle on, without its ever becoming evi- 
 dent to the world. 
 
 After stating that in 1903, 20 per cent of the people 
 of Boston were in distress ; in 1899, 18 per cent of the 
 people of the New York State; in 1903, 14 per cent 
 of the families of Manhattan were evicted ; and every 
 year 10 per cent (about) of those who die in Man- 
 hattan have pauper burials, — facts taken directly from 
 city and state statistics, and the pathos and tragedy 
 and suffering they stand for so plainly evident, Mr. 
 Hunter goes on to say : " These figures furthermore, 
 represent only the distress which manifests itself. 
 There is no question but that only part of those in 
 poverty, in any community, apply for charity. I think 
 anyone living in a Settlement will support me in saying 
 that many families who are obviously poor — that is, 
 underfed, underclothed, or badly housed — never ask 
 for aid or suffer the social disgrace of eviction. Of 
 course, no one could estimate the proportion of those 
 who are evicted or of those who ask assistance to the 
 total number in poverty ; for whatever opinion one 
 may have formed is based, not on actual knowledge,
 
 20 The Land of Living Men 
 
 gained by inquiry, but on impressions, gained through 
 friendly intercourse. My own opinion is that prob- 
 ably "not over half of those in poverty ever apply for 
 charity, and certainly not more than that proportion 
 are evicted from their homes. However, I should not 
 wish an opinion of this sort to be used in estimating 
 from the figures of distress, etc., the number of those 
 in poverty. And yet from the facts of distress, as 
 given, and from' opinions formed, both as a charity 
 agent and as a Settlement worker, I should not be at 
 all surprised if the number of those in poverty in New 
 York, as well as in other large cities and industrial 
 centres, rarely fell below 25 per cent of all the people." 
 Speaking of unemployment,* and when one's wage is 
 about a " living wage," that is, sufficient to keep him 
 and his family in fair condition, providing he loses no 
 time whatever, we can easily see what unemployment 
 even for a very short period must necessarily mean, 
 Mr. Hunter says : " The figures of unemployment, 
 although very imperfect, show that the evil is wide- 
 spread, even in times of prosperity. ... In the last 
 census the number found to be unemployed at some- 
 time during the year was 6,468,964, or 22.3 per cent 
 
 * At this present time — a period of unusual commercial 
 and industrial activity — less than the average number are out 
 of employment. But with our present methods, this dreaded 
 and hard condition, that has in the aggregate affected millions 
 among us, is liable to repeat itself at any time. Any fair deal- 
 ing, therefore, with the economic conditions of the nation 
 cannot omit a consideration, or at least a mention, of these 
 conditions.
 
 The Land of Living Men 21 
 
 of all the workers over ten years of age, engaged in 
 gainful occupations. Thirty-nine per cent of the male 
 workers unemployed, or 2,069,546 persons, were idle 
 from' four to six months of the year. These figures 
 are for the country as a whole, for all industries in- 
 cluding agriculture. In manufacturing alone the un- 
 employment rose to 27.2 per cent of all the workers. In 
 the industrial states of the East and North the per- 
 centage of unemployment is larger than for the country 
 as a whole. 
 
 That very large number of workers, heads of fam- 
 ilies, receive for their work an insufficient amount to 
 keep themselves and their families in comfort as well 
 as in a state of efficiency, is a well-ascertained fact. 
 Very large numbers are not receiving what is known 
 as a " living wage." That there are those who do re- 
 ceive enough to keep themselves and their families in 
 comfort, but who fail to do so, either on account of 
 intemperance, or bad management, or misfortune of 
 some kind, or through lack of good management, or 
 by reason of some other cause or causes, is undoubt- 
 edly true, and to deny it would be entirely useless. 
 That, on the other hand, there are vast numbers who 
 are receiving a wage insufficient even by the utmost 
 economy, good management and self-denial, to keep 
 themselves in a state of comfort and efficiency is most 
 abundantly true. Were this number very small instead 
 of being of such enormous proportions, it would be a 
 menace to the highest welfare of the country as well as 
 a disgrace so great as to demand that its causes be 
 ascertained and eradicated.
 
 22 The Land of Living Men 
 
 It would be a very hard matter, as can readily be 
 seen, to establish a necessary or " living wage " that 
 would be such for all portions of the country, because 
 living expenses in some sections are necessarily con- 
 siderably higher than in others. We can approach, 
 however, to an average necessary wage by ascertaining 
 what good authorities, as well as careful investigators, 
 have practically decreed as a necessary wage in various 
 employments as well as sections of the country. John 
 Mitchell has said, in his book on " Organized Labor " : 
 " For the great mass of unskilled workingmen, ... re- 
 siding in towns and cities with a population of from 
 five thousand to one hundred thousand, a fair wage, a 
 wage consistent with American standards of living, 
 should not be less than $600 a year. Less than this 
 would, in my judgment, be insufhcient to give to the 
 workingman those necessaries and comforts and those 
 small luxuries which are now considered essential." 
 
 It has been shown by the Massachusetts Bureau of 
 Statistics of Labor ( 1901 ) that $754 a year is required 
 for a family of five persons to live on. An able official 
 of one of the largest New York City charities states 
 that as a result of his observations two dollars a day, 
 or about $624 a year, is necessary for a family of five 
 in New York City. Without going farther into the 
 matter this would establish an average necessary wage 
 of about $659 a year ; though coming along a little 
 later, the Russell Sage Foundation Report on the 
 standard of living for 1907 says: "It requires no 
 statistics to bring proof that $600 and $700 is wholly 
 inadequate to maintain a proper standard of living,
 
 The Land of Living Men 23 
 
 and no self-respecting family should be asked or ex- 
 pected to live on such an income. The committee be- 
 lieves that with an income of between $700 and $800 
 a family can barely support itself, provided it is sub- 
 ject to no extraordinary expenditure." 
 
 In the light of this it will be interesting as well as 
 valuable to see what in various localities, as well as 
 lines of work, the actual wages received are. The cen- 
 sus of 1900 shows, that the average yearly earnings of 
 each of 5,308,406 persons engaged in manufacturing 
 was $437.96. The previous census, that of 1890, 
 showed that it was $444.83 per worker. This slight 
 difference, the census bureau says : " was only an 
 apparent one, due partly to the exclusion of high- 
 salaried foremen and managers from the returns of 
 the census of 1900, partly due also to the more com- 
 plete returns of the lower-paid labor in the south." 
 
 The following table (the census of 1900) subdivides 
 the census compilation for a number of cities as follows : 
 
 In the 10 largest cities the average number of wage- 
 earners was 1,412,831, and the average yearly wages 
 was $489; in the 154 next largest cities, 1,599,033, and 
 its average yearly wages $445 ; outside these cities, 
 2,294,279, and the average yearly wages $400. For 
 this number of wage-earners, a little over five million, 
 the average wage therefore, was in round numbers, 
 
 $445- 
 
 Dr. Peter Roberts says that the average yearly wage 
 
 in the anthracite coal district is less than $500, and that 
 
 about 60 per cent of the workers receive less than $450. 
 
 The Federal census for 1900 states that 11 per cent of
 
 24 The Land of Living Men 
 
 the male workers over i6 years of age employed in the 
 New England cotton mills, received a rate of pay 
 amounting to less than $6 a week, — about $300 a 
 year. This, it must be noted, was their rate of pay, 
 that is, what they would have earned had they 
 worked every day in the year, hence not the actual 
 wage received. 
 
 In the Middle States nearly a third of all the workers 
 are receiving a rate of wages less than $300 per year, 
 and in the Southern States, considerably over half — 
 59 per cent — are receiving less than this amount. 
 When the time that they cannot work is taken out, we 
 can readily see what this amount means. In many 
 cases it means at least one fourth less in actual wages 
 received. 
 
 From this we are able to get some idea of what the 
 needs of some millions in the country are compared to 
 what they are able actually to receive to meet these 
 needs. And then when sickness comes, or death, or 
 accident, or misfortune of any type as well as being 
 temporarily thrown out of employment, which is many 
 times a misfortune of the gravest moment, we can 
 readily see what distress and uncertainty must result. 
 Certainly we need brought about in the nation a con- 
 dition that gives an economic and industrial state 
 which guarantees at least a fairly decent living wage 
 and a regularity of employment to the great hosts who 
 to-day are denied them. This, indeed, is fundamental. 
 I can scarcely resist here the impulse to quote an- 
 other paragraph or two from Mr. Hunter's admirable 
 work ;
 
 The Land of Living Men 25 
 
 ''Among the many inexplicable things in life, there 
 is probably nothing more out of reason than our dis- 
 regard for preventive measures and our apparent will- 
 ingness to provide almshouses, prisons, asylums, hos- 
 pitals, homes, etc., for the victims of our neglect. 
 Poverty is a culture bed for criminals, paupers, 
 vagrants, and for such diseases as inebriety, insanity, 
 and imbecility ; and yet we endlessly go on in our un- 
 concern, or in our blindness, heedless of its sources, 
 believing all the time that we are merciful in adminis- 
 tering to its unfortunate results. Those in poverty are 
 fighting a losing struggle, because of unnecessary bur- 
 dens which we might lift from their shoulders ; but 
 not until they go to pieces and become drunken, va- 
 grant, criminal, diseased, and suppliant, do we con- 
 sider mercy necessary. But in that day reclamation is 
 almost impossible, the degeneracy of the adults infects 
 the children, and the foulest of our social miseries is 
 thus perpetuated from generation to generation. From 
 the millions struggling with poverty come the millions 
 who have lost all self-respect and ambition, who 
 hardly, if ever, work, who are aimless and drifting, 
 who like drink, who have no thought for their chil- 
 dren, and who live contentedly on rubbish and alms. 
 But a short time before many of them were of that 
 great, splendid mass of producers upon which the 
 material welfare of the nation rests. They were in 
 poverty, but they were self-respecting; they were 
 hard-pressed, but they were ambitious, determined, 
 and hard working. They were also underfed, under- 
 clothed, and miserably housed^ — the fe^ir and dr^ad
 
 26 The Land of Living Men 
 
 of want possessed them, they worked sore, but g-ained 
 nothing, they were isolated, heart-worn and weary." 
 
 It is true, as can be readily established, that during 
 the past few years there has been on the whole an in- 
 crease of wages, — though by no means in all cases, — 
 but at the same time through various other combina- 
 tions of economic causes there has been an increase in 
 the prices of the various commodities as well as actual 
 necessities of life, many of which have been enormous 
 and out of all keeping with whatever advance there 
 has been in wages. According to the Dun Mercantile 
 Agency report on March i, 1906, the cost of living 
 for the entire country was then the highest it had been 
 during the thirty years it has kept a record, and since 
 that time it has gone forward by leaps and bounds. 
 This coupled with the uncertainty of employment in 
 so many lines of work, that is, the necessary non- 
 employment during a certain number of weeks in the 
 year, works in many cases, as we can readily see, 
 almost untold hardships. 
 
 We are still considering this vast army of several 
 millions in our country who are living in poverty in 
 the face of our great apparent prosperity, much of 
 which is indeed apparent when the facts are carefully 
 looked into. There has been of late years a great pros- 
 perity, but confined so generally to such a small group, 
 or to such small groups of people, that its force is to 
 a great measure lost when considered in connection 
 with the great mass of the people. 
 
 The number of propertyless persons, that is, tenants, 
 in a state or country, is many times a good criterion of
 
 The Land of Living Men 27 
 
 the real standard, or rather the diffusion of its pros- 
 perity. The census returns for 1900 show that 
 8,365,739 families, or 54 per cent do not own the 
 homes in which they live, that is, they are continually 
 paying rent. Those owning and occupying mortgaged 
 homes were 2,196,375; while those living in homes 
 that were wholly and actually their own were 
 4,761,211, or but 31 per cent of the total number of 
 families in the country. Of course, the number of 
 families owning their own homes is much smaller in 
 the cities than in the smaller towns. In several of our 
 larger cities, probably 99 per cent of the wage-earners 
 do not own the homes in which they live, but are each 
 year paying out, sometimes as much as 40 per cent of 
 their earnings, in rent. I have seen it estimated that 
 the amount paid in rent and in interest on mortgaged 
 homes is at least two billion dollars per year, — less 
 the amount paid in taxes, — and this vast amount is 
 annually transferred into the pockets of 10 per cent of 
 the population, the rent paid for property used as 
 homes only. 
 
 The last Federal census shows the following percent- 
 age of homes rented in the various cities enumerated : 
 
 Boston 81. 1 
 
 Chicago 74-9 
 
 Cincinnati 79- 1 
 
 Fall River 82.0 
 
 Holyoke 80.6 
 
 New York (Manhattan ) 94.1 
 
 Philadelphia 77-9
 
 28 The Land of Living Men 
 
 In i6o cities, of at least 25,000 inhabitants each, the 
 average number of tenants is seventy-four in every 
 hundred. 
 
 When we consider the great number of families 
 whose wages or incomes are scarcely sufficient to keep 
 them above continual want, or in other words, above 
 the poverty line, and then only when they are working 
 every work-day of the year we can see what havoc is 
 wrought when any extra calls are made or burdens 
 thrown upon them, when sickness or accident comes, 
 or death takes place, either on the part of the bread- 
 winner or in his family. When one is receiving just 
 a living wage, or as in so many cases, less than a living 
 wage, it means untold hardship when any of these 
 come. This undoubtedly is one of the great agencies 
 that keeps a large number of this great army in 
 poverty. 
 
 The frightful killings and maimings that are con- 
 tinually going on in connection with our railroads and 
 various other large industries, — and we are the most 
 backward country in the world in our gross neglect in 
 compelling greater safety and care, — is also respon- 
 sible for untold hardship and suffering. To show how 
 dangerous and uncertain the work of a railway em- 
 ployee is, the following facts will indicate. The Inter- 
 state Commerce Commission for the year 1902 re- 
 ported among employees 53,493 injured or killed, 
 among passengers 7,028, other persons, 12,729, with a 
 total of 73,250. These figures are indeed, scarcely be- 
 lievable. And in the previous year, out of every 399 
 employees, one was killed, and one out of every 26 was
 
 The Land of Living Men 29 
 
 injured. The trainmen, — engineers, firemen, con- 
 ductors, brakemen, etc., are the greatest sufferers. 
 Among these one was killed for every 137 employed, 
 and one was injured for every eleven employed. It 
 is indeed difficult to believe that in this day and age 
 such slaughter, and much of it so unnecessary, is per- 
 mitted to go on year after year : and strange as it 
 may seem the railroad owners or managers resist, and 
 resist most powerfully, practically every attempt that 
 is made to compel them to adopt various, and many 
 times well known safety devices. 
 
 The Accident Bulletin issued by the Commission for 
 the three months ending March 31, 1906, shows the 
 total number of casualties to passengers and employees 
 to be 18,296 (1,126 killed and 17,170 injured).* In 
 closing the Bulletin says : 
 
 " The most disastrous accident reported in the pres- 
 ent bulletin — a collision, causing thirty-four deaths 
 and injuring twenty-four — was due to the striking 
 failure of the train-despatching system. A telegraph 
 operator at a small and lonely station, who had been 
 on duty all day and more than half the night, fell 
 asleep, and on awakening misinformed the train de- 
 spatcher as to what had occurred while he was asleep. 
 It is pertinent to observe that the block system re- 
 peatedly advocated by the Commission, is the true 
 means that ought to be adopted for such distressing 
 disasters as that reported in Accident Bulletin No. 19, 
 just made public." 
 
 * The last Bulletin contains a report better than has ever 
 been made before.
 
 30 The La)id of Liz'i]ig Men 
 
 " These injuries to railway workmen are more 
 serious than at first appears, for very few of the men 
 who are injured are over thirty-five, and most of them 
 are in the twenties. This period — between twenty 
 and thirty-five — is the most important period of a 
 workman's Hfc. It is the time when he is of utmost 
 value to his family, since the children are still too 
 young to take up the support of the family. 
 
 " The responsibility of the railroads for poverty, re- 
 sulting from injuries or casualties, is of three kinds at 
 least. First : In many cases they overwork their em- 
 ployees. Dr. Samuel McCune Lindsay says : ' Emer- 
 gencies frequently occur due to accidents or condition 
 of weather when men may be required to work contin- 
 uously from twenty to thirty hours, and, in exceptional 
 cases, men have been continuously at work in train 
 service for thirty-six hours.' Second: Many railroad 
 systems have resisted and violated the law compelling 
 them to put on automatic couplers, and they are now 
 fighting the introduction of the block system, both of 
 which improvements are designed to prevent accidents 
 and injuries. Third: In case of accidents, 'company' 
 physicians and lawyers hasten immediately to the 
 place of the accident, and, if possible, persuade the 
 workmen to sign contracts by which they agree, for 
 some small immediate compensation, to release the 
 company from any further liability. I have known 
 many, many cases where workmen have, for a few dol- 
 lars signed away their rights to sue when their in- 
 juries have been as serious as the loss of a leg or arm. 
 In the seventeen years ending June 30, 1902, 103,320
 
 The Land of Living Men 31 
 
 persons were killed, and 587,028 injured by the rail- 
 way industry." * 
 
 Of the anthracite regions, Dr. Peter Roberts, who 
 has made a very careful study of the industrial and 
 social conditions there, says : " Nearly half the em- 
 ployees have no provision for either the incapacitated 
 through accident or for the maintenance of widows 
 and orphans when death befalls fliose who provide for 
 them in this hazardous calling. Many operators dis- 
 play generosity worthy of emulation ; others manifest 
 criminal indifiference to the sufferings of employees 
 and their families because of accident. ... To leave 
 these men to the mercy of overbearing operators in 
 case of injury and death is unworthy of the civilization 
 of the century in which we live." 
 
 From these facts and figures we can see what a 
 large number of semi-incapacitated, and in case of the 
 death of the breadwinner what a la'rge number of 
 practically dependent people are thrown each year 
 upon the public for support, or who have to accept the 
 condition of the pauper. We have much to learn from 
 the German system in this respect. As a result of 
 statistics gathered in connection with its splendidly 
 growing insurance systems, — for old age, accident, 
 sickness, infirmity,— it has made an efifort to find out 
 who is responsible for the suffering, and to demand 
 accordingly compensation for the injured. In other 
 words it has fixed not upon the individual, who is 
 many times entirely helpless in regard to the matter, 
 
 *" Poverty."— Robert Hunter, p. 38.
 
 32 The Land of Living Men 
 
 but upon industry and upon society the responsibility 
 for much of its poverty and attendant suffering. It 
 found that 80 per cent of all accidents in industrial 
 lines were due to the " professional risks " of industry 
 itself, and as a consequence the industries of that 
 nation must bear the cost of these accidents/^ and not 
 the workingmen themselves. How different from our 
 almost barbarous conditions in this respect. 
 
 Certainly the criminal negligence of the railroads 
 as well as other great lines of industry in this terrible 
 and to a large extent preventable slaughter, — at the 
 cost of slightly reduced dividends only, is indeed ap- 
 palling, and is equalled only by the stupid negligence 
 of the public in allowing it to continue. A change will 
 come, however. 
 
 Sickness means far more to the wage-earner than to 
 any other class, and for two, if not indeed for more, 
 reasons. In the'first place the loss of the wage if it be 
 the wage-earner, or the increased expenses if it be one 
 of his family, means immediate hardship where there 
 is no reserve power, as in such large numbers of cases 
 where one is receiving just a living wage there cannot 
 be ; and in the second place, the care and attention that 
 can be secured are not at all equal to those that can be 
 had by the more well-to-do. Especially is this true 
 when so many hundreds of thousands are compelled to 
 live in the types of tenements landlords are permitted 
 to extract their rent from. But this is again the re- 
 
 * " Workman's Insurance Abroad," by Dr. Zacher, 1898, 
 Berlin.
 
 The Land of Living Men 33 
 
 suit of our general economic condition, for people 
 would not live in these, — some would, but very, very 
 few, — if their incomes or wages permitted them to 
 live in quarters any better. 
 
 These conditions to a great extent are responsible 
 for that slowly devouring, subtle, but most deadly 
 modern plague among us, — tuberculosis, sometimes 
 called the " Great White Plague." It will in this 
 twelve-month claim in New York City alone not less 
 than fifteen thousand of its people, in the United States 
 not less than one hundred and fifty thousand, in the 
 world over a million. And yet it to a very great ex- 
 tent is an entirely preventable disease. Social and 
 economic conditions far below what they might be are 
 to a very great extent responsible for its never dimin- 
 ishing prevalence.* 
 
 One could dwell at length upon this great " White 
 Plague " — consumption — because its prevalence and 
 its non-abatement are so directly caused by social and 
 industrial conditions that the individual himself is 
 powerless to escape, and which only a united public ac- 
 tion can end. There are public spirited and earnest 
 people in some of our states, however, who are already 
 aroused to the importance of this great, and, to a large 
 extent, unnecessary evil, and who are already begin- 
 ning to put into operation agencies that promise much 
 for its amelioration. Much, however, must be done ; 
 and a great part must be along the lines of better social 
 and industrial conditions under which so many millions 
 of our people live. 
 
 * Supplementary, I.
 
 34 The Land of Lk'ing Men 
 
 Did space permit we could also consider at length 
 the diseases resulting- to workmen from various types 
 of employment, for some are in time inevitably health- 
 breaking, and some are invariably most deadly. But 
 generally for those who are stricken through these em- 
 ployments, no provisions of any type are made, and 
 when no longer strong or capable the worker is thrown 
 out upon himself. Unable in his weakened or diseased 
 condition to find other employment, he many times be- 
 comes a- public charge. " Parasitic " employments, 
 with no further responsibilities for those whose health 
 they undermine, are all too common in this day of en- 
 lightenment. The public must demand greater protection 
 from and responsibility on the part of these. Mr. John 
 Graham Brooks, in his admirable work, " The . Social 
 Unrest," * has spoken most strongly of that frightful 
 list of striken laborers that are now thrown back upon 
 themselves or their families with recompense so un- 
 certain and niggardly as to shock the most primitive 
 sense of social justice. Speaking of what comes under 
 the head of accident injuries in connection with the 
 progress of German insurance, ]\Ir. Brooks further 
 says : " 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 investigation 
 showed three times this* number ; when the investiga- 
 tion became more complete, six times the number. . . . 
 Most civilized communities outside of America have 
 
 * Macmillan and Companj', New York and London.
 
 The Land of Living Men 35 
 
 already made the same ackno\vledgm,ent by framing 
 new laws that mark an era m a juster social 
 legislation." 
 
 Undoubtedly lack of regular employment, sickness 
 or weakness, combined with the receiving of a mere 
 living wage, which leaves no opportunity to meet any 
 emergency successfully, is responsible for the great 
 proportion of the poverty and resultant pauperism that 
 is in existence in our own as well as in so many other 
 countries to-day. The uncertainty and darkness that 
 the combination brings into the lives of millions of 
 otherwise strong, honest, hard-working, and withal de- 
 serving, people, is almost indescribable. We make it 
 hard for many a man to be honest and independent and 
 self-respecting, and when with all his magnificent 
 struggles he eventually goes under, we throw the role 
 of the criminal or the pauper upon him and those de- 
 pendent on him. 
 
 We have the rush and strain in so many lines of 
 work, the boom and then depression, men rushed and 
 driven and then no work. There is no time for culture 
 and advancement while the rush and strain is on, and 
 the uncertainty of existence — to meet one's honest ob- 
 ligations, and many times the search for work when 
 unemployment comes, leaves no time for culture or ad- 
 vancement, or even for the normal enjoyment of life, 
 which should be in any enlightened country at least 
 the portion of every endeavor. 
 
 I think one of the saddest and most unjust features 
 of our present day life is the contemplation of the 
 thousands of thousands who are working from early
 
 36 The Land of Living Men 
 
 to late year after year merely to get bread and clothing' 
 and shelter for the next day's work — nothing more, 
 lives void of all art, learning, rest, or hope. Think 
 what a loss it means to even an average standard of 
 citizenship. Think what it means for the future. 
 Think what a thing human life on this basis has be- 
 come, compared to what it might and should be. 
 
 I have an infinite respect for that great body of labor 
 striving in the face of such great odds to remain dili- 
 gent, honest, self-sustaining, fighting continually to 
 retain their places as self-supporting members of the 
 community, and to give whatever opportunities they 
 are capable of giving to their children — this vast 
 army of heroes, heroes in the common life, the highest 
 type there is. Many of them, however, on account of 
 sometimes shabby clothes and a less prosperous ap- 
 pearance, are looked down upon by many more well- 
 to-do and better kept, but who in a similar test would 
 fall far below them in the measure of heroism. 
 
 There is a very direct connectioii between uncer- 
 tainty of employment and increased vagrancy and in- 
 creased crime, especially theft and those things per- 
 taining thereto. This is always noted in connection 
 with any unusual industrial depression, and also in 
 lesser degree in connection with the closing down of 
 any particular work or works. We allow to be built 
 up an economic and industrial system that makes it 
 hard and next to impossible for a man to be honest, 
 self-supporting, and therefore self-respecting, and then 
 ])unish him for it. 
 
 iDCveral years ago, the case of a workman and his
 
 The Land of Living Men 37 
 
 connection with the Associated Charities in Boston 
 came under my observation. He was a strong, splen- 
 did type of man, driver of a team in connection with 
 one of the large lumber firms. One day in handling a 
 load of heavy timbers, through some mischance, his 
 shoulder was dislocated and he was laid up for some 
 weeks. His family consisted of a wife and three 
 children, one of them a babe. They lived in three 
 neatly kept small rooms in a section of low-priced tene- 
 ments. As soon as his little reserve power was ex- 
 hausted, in order to keep above want, they had to 
 apply for aid to the Charity Organization. When he 
 was finally capable of resuming work, it was found 
 that his place had been filled by another. I have known 
 this man to get up and be out of his house long before 
 light, and with practically nothing for breakfast, reg- 
 ularly day after day for several weeks, in his vain 
 endeavor to find work. Wherever he could get track 
 of any possibility of work, he was there early among 
 those seeking the same. He was not a shiftless man, 
 caring little whether he had work or not, but a strong, 
 sober, earnest man, who felt the responsibility of the 
 family dependent upon him. This weary, fruitless 
 search for work, is a tale that is repeated over and 
 over every day in any large centre. 
 
 Sometime ago it was my privilege to sit with a 
 friend, a Municipal Judge in the Borough of Brooklyn, 
 as he despatched his daily round of cases. There were 
 numbers whose troubles could be traced directly to a lack 
 of regular employment. Among them was an unusually 
 Strong, splendid looking man, of about middle age, a
 
 38 The Land of Living Men 
 
 blacksmith by trade. His work had been chiefly in 
 connection with the handUng the large forge pieces 
 that form part of the work of various machine-shops. 
 Through some shifting of forces — he was not a man 
 who drank — he was thrown out of work. The weary, 
 fruitless search for work and the increasing want — 
 notwithstanding his splendid physical build he was a 
 sensitive man — enabled depression finally to take 
 strong hold of him, and after struggling with this for 
 some days he finally one evening got his bottle of 
 poison and quietly lay down on the kitchen floor to end 
 it all. He was found before the end came, was resus- 
 citated, and the next day was taken before the Munic- 
 ipal Judge on the charge of attempted suicide. It was 
 indeed pathetic to see this splendid looking man, de- 
 jection and quiet written in every movement and on 
 every feature, careless now as to what disposition 
 would be made of him, having no choice now as to 
 whether it was confinement or freedom. Fortunately 
 he was before a Justice of unusual type, one who used 
 his office primarily for the good he could do to that 
 weary and never ending round of fellow creatures that 
 came before him daily. That same day agencies were 
 put into operation to help the man find work — the 
 only thing needed — and thus restore him as nearly 
 as possible to his family and to his former independent 
 position. 
 
 How frequently men drop on the streets of the cities 
 of this, in many respects, great nation, from hunger, 
 in addition to that greater number of men and women 
 who suffer quietly and unknown to the world, in a
 
 The Land of Living Men 39 
 
 country where there is plenty for all a thousand times 
 over. They prefer hunger and starvation to theft or 
 begging, and thousands upon thousands prefer it to 
 becoming a pauper. Such are indeed heroes of the 
 highest mould. 
 
 We must learn that the duty of our industries is not 
 done with the payment of just a living wage. Com- 
 pensation must be adequate to enable something to be 
 laid by for the emergency that comes to every in- 
 dividual and to every family. 
 
 There is a necessary and there is an unnecessary 
 poverty. The former is that that comes about through 
 intemperance, shiftlessness, laziness, depravity. This 
 I suppose will always be with us. There is no power 
 that can shield men or women from the penalties or 
 the inevitable results of the violation of natural and 
 moral laws. There is on the other hand, and it is un- 
 happily the very great portion of it all, an unnecessary 
 poverty. The great bulk of the vast amount of poverty 
 in the country to-day, as well as that in every other 
 country is of this unnecessary type. It results through 
 no fault of the individual, in fact through agencies 
 that the individual as such cannot cope with and can- 
 not escape. It is due to certain social and industrial 
 evils and wrongs that a truly great or even self- 
 respecting nation cannot continue to permit. We must 
 find and put an end to the causes that deliberately make 
 paupers out of the citizens of a great and free nation, 
 and then turn around and take care of them out of the 
 public funds. 
 
 An industrial system that takes out of a man all the
 
 40 The Land of Lii'iiii^ Men 
 
 vitality and energy and good there is in him and then 
 throws him out and onto the pubHc as a pubHc charge, 
 is not of a high order, and as it is not necessary it cer- 
 tainly cannot much longer be permitted. We must 
 make provisions for old age. When vast numbers are 
 receiving merely, and still other vast numbers not even, 
 a living wage, and can scarcely keep even with the 
 daily demands of life, how then, broken and helpless — 
 many long before their time — can they expect to live, 
 self-supporting, and in even the crudest form of com- 
 fort, in their later years. We must learn from Ger- 
 many and other countries, and take up the matter of 
 old age pensions. We must make provisions for old 
 age and for the helpless outside of pauperism, this in 
 addition to a fairer living wage. A noted writer has 
 recently said that the whole matter resolves itself into 
 the matter of fair wages and regular employment. 
 
 Then too we must stop killing as well as injuring the 
 breadwinners in such wholesale numbers, or if not, 
 then industry must be compelled to make just and full 
 and quick recompense to those that through this agency 
 become dependents. Prof. Edward D. Jones, speaking 
 of the fairer wage, says : " The necessity for higher 
 wages is based upon the observation that, in the pur- 
 chase and sale of labor upon the market, all the nec- 
 essary and legitimate costs of producing labor are not 
 provided for in the wages received. Such transactions 
 are not complete economically, and do not meet the 
 claims of social justice. Fair wages must include more 
 than enough to support the laborer while working, and 
 must cover compensation for seasons of idleness due
 
 The Land of Living Men 41 
 
 to sickness, old age, youth, lack of work, or other 
 causes beyond the control of the laborer." 
 
 We are still considering the actual conditions that 
 exist in a country supposed very great and uniformly 
 prosperous. In the United States to-day there are over 
 four million paupers. 
 
 The Charity Organization Society in New York 
 finds that from 43 to 52 per cent of all applications for 
 aid need work rather than relief. The United Hebrew 
 Charities in the same city say the distress and poverty 
 among their people is due mainly to the inability to 
 find opportunities to become self-supporting. This 
 applies not only to New York, but equally well to 
 Chicago and to various other cities. There is then a 
 direct connection between irregularity or lack of em- 
 ployment and pauperism, the same as there is a very 
 direct connection between irregularity or lack of work 
 and vagrancy. If so large a proportion of those ap- 
 plying for aid need work rather than relief, nearly or 
 practically one half, then it certainly is incumbent 
 upon society to provide a solution of the problem. 
 Want and a lack of regular employment precede both 
 l)overty and vagrancy more often than they follow it. 
 
 There is also a very direct connection between want 
 and an adequate means to supply it and drunkenness. 
 It is the cheerless, dreary condition in men's lives, in 
 the lives of both men and women, that is responsible 
 for the great bulk of intemperance that we find. Under- 
 fed, underclothed, cold without sufficient heat, no hope, 
 despondency, this is the chief road to intemperance and 
 degeneracy. Were we to know all the facts we would
 
 42 The Land of Living Men 
 
 find that drink precedes but rarely. Poverty precedes 
 more often than it follows. The great evil of intem- 
 perance which is the bane in the lives of such vast 
 numbers of working people in this country, as in Eng- 
 land, and every country where it has reached similar 
 proportions, is to a vast extent due to the dreary and 
 hard and underfed and hopeless conditions in so many 
 hundreds of thousands of lives. Cold without sufifi- 
 cient heat, a desire to get away from, to forget the 
 dull, weary hopelessness. Wise, indeed, was the 
 Bishop of the English Church when he said, " If I 
 lived in the slums I should be a drunkard, too." 
 
 Dr. Henry van Dyke, preaching the baccalaureate 
 sermon at one of our leading universities some time 
 ago, gave utterance to this same great truth when he 
 said : " There are monstrous evils and vices in society. 
 Let intemperance be for us the type of all, because so 
 many of the others are its children. Drunkenness ruins 
 more homes and wrecks more lives than war. How 
 shall we oppose it? I do not say that we shall not 
 Dass resolutions and make laws against it. But I do 
 say that we can never really conquer the evil in this 
 way. The stronghold of intemperance lies in the 
 vacancy and despair of men's minds. The way to at- 
 tack it is to make the sober life beautiful and happy 
 and full of interest." But the lives of this vast army 
 of men and women that we are considering, those con- 
 tinually in or continually face to face with want, are 
 not beautiful, neither are they happy nor full of in- 
 terest. They should be ; they could be. 
 
 Mr. Arthur W. Milbury, Secretary of the Industrial
 
 The Land of Living Men 43 
 
 Christian Alliance, has said: " I have had a long and 
 intimate personal experience with the class of men re- 
 ferred to, and I give it unhesitatingly as my testimony 
 that not many men are ' lazy ' in the sense in which this 
 word is commonly used. I have dealt with thousands 
 of such men and have almost invariably found them 
 willing and anxious to work. I know that a great 
 many people engaged in charitable enterprises have 
 much to say about lazy people, but I am inclined to 
 think that it is not so much laziness that is at fault as 
 the efforts so many of us make to put square pegs in 
 round holes. All men are not born with the same 
 energy and the same intelligence, and what might be 
 called laziness in me might be called superhuman en- 
 ergy in other men. In this institution, we do not put 
 at chopping wood or shovelling coal, if we can possibly 
 help it, the man whose only occupation in life has been 
 that of bookkeeper or clerk and who has never had 
 any hard physical labor. We endeavor, as far as pos- 
 sible, to put men at the work they are best fitted for. 
 Perhaps this is one reason why our experience leads 
 us not to consider laziness as prevalent a vice as some 
 other people." 
 
 The conditions that surround the lives of the children 
 of any country, especially the play-life,* constitute a 
 very great factor in determining the immediate future 
 conditions of that country. In the early days of the 
 American nation the fields, and all that this conveys, 
 were the playgrounds of the children. As the city be- 
 
 * Supplementary, II.
 
 44 The Land of Living Men 
 
 gan and i^rew the Common was given them in place of 
 the fields ; this was succeeded many times by the 
 small yard of the home. But as the cities have grown 
 and land has become more valuable, and population 
 denser and continually denser, the children have been 
 gradually pushed out into the streets, until in Greater 
 New York for example, the street and all that that 
 means is the chief playground for not less than half a 
 million children. This is also true, to a greater or less 
 extent, of certain portions of every great city in the 
 country, — the street with its noises and all of its 
 dangers, its dust and its dirt, and many times its stifling 
 atmosphere, as well as all of its moral dangers, is the 
 playground of at least seven million of our children 
 to-day. After saying that " The younger criminals 
 seem to come almost exclusively from the worst tene- 
 ment-house districts," an eminent authority even many 
 years ago gave before a New York Legislative Com- 
 mittee, testimony as follows : " By far the largest 
 part, 80 per cent at least, of crimes against property 
 and against the person are perpetrated by individuals 
 who have either lost connection with home life, or 
 never had any, or whose homes have ceased to be suf- 
 ficiently separate, decent, and desirable to afford what 
 was regarded as ordinary wholesome influences of 
 home and family." 
 
 It is the life in the streets of the large city where the 
 needs of the children seem to have been so generally 
 forgotten, that develops as Mr. Jacob A. Riis has so 
 authoritatively said, " dislike of regular work, physical 
 incapability of sustained effort, misdirected love of
 
 The Land of Living Men 45 
 
 adventure, gambling propensities, absence of energy, 
 and untrained will, carelessness of the happiness of 
 others." 
 
 Such are the baneful influences that surround the 
 lives of these almost unbelievably large numbers of 
 our quickly coming men and women, a number so 
 large as soon to constitute the determining factor in 
 the nation's life. 
 
 The number of children not in our schools is per- 
 haps much larger than the average person has the 
 slightest conception of. Our modern life is becoming 
 so intense, and the struggle for existence is becoming, 
 especially in some centres, so keen and so sharp, that 
 no one growing into manhood and womanhood can 
 afiford to enter upon the stage of activity in anything 
 but a thoroughly first-class and sound condition, both 
 mentally and physically. Each should have an equip- 
 ment of only the very best in a country supposed to be 
 among the best. Nevertheless there are at this present 
 hour between a million and a half and two million 
 boys and girls under fifteen years of age at work in 
 our mills and our mines and various industrial estab- 
 lishments and works of all types. At this point space 
 does not permit of any enumeration of the conditions 
 under which vast numbers of these children of from 
 five to fifteen years of age are working, nor any de- 
 tailed enumeration of the broken condition of so many 
 of them so long before their time, sometimes even 
 before they have entered upon young manhood and 
 womanhood. 
 
 The cotton mills of the South, many owned or con-
 
 46 The Land of Lk'ing Men 
 
 trolled by wealthy Northern capitalists, have of recent 
 years brought about a condition of child slavery that 
 was scarcely surpassed by a similar condition in Eng- 
 land during its darkest period of child labor so many, 
 many years ago. The greed for gain when it once 
 takes possession of a man is never satisfied, and the 
 only way many times to protect the helpless from the 
 brute is for society itself to stretch forth its strong 
 mandatory arm. 
 
 In addition to the almost unspeakable evils resulting 
 to the child himself and later to the man and woman, 
 is the competition that this army of child workers 
 throws out against adult labor, and especially is this 
 a matter of no small import when there are con- 
 tinually such large numbers of men and women out 
 of employment as we have already noted. Greater 
 profits is the one and practically absolute cause, for 
 in this age of modern machinery the children can 
 many times be hired for a third of the man's normal 
 wage. 
 
 In view of the facts presented in that much dis- 
 cussed and very suggestive and valuable book, " The 
 Present Distribution of Wealth in the United States," 
 published sometime ago, by Mr. Charles B. Spahr, we 
 can scarcely cease wondering that our Federal Bureaus 
 have not even before this made an effort to find the 
 present drift of matters in this respect in the country. 
 Mr. Spahr's findings revealed the fact that even so far 
 back as 1890, considerably over one-third of the fam- 
 ilies in the United States, or 41 per cent, are entirely 
 propertyless : that seven-eights of the families hold
 
 The Land of Living Men 47 
 
 but one-eighth of the national wealth : and that on the 
 other hand, one per cent of the families own more 
 than the entire remaining 99 per cent. 
 
 Other estimates including those of Mr. George K. 
 Holmes, an expert statistician employed on the census, 
 r.evealed facts of a very similar nature. 
 
 These are indeed not only significant but most por- 
 tentous facts, and if the above are the facts as far 
 back as 1890, they have undoubtedly been accentuated 
 with great force since then, for there has been no 
 period in our entire history in which so many great 
 private fortunes have been built up or have been added 
 so powerfully to as that between 1890 and the present 
 time. A well-known man in the financial world in re- 
 viewing some of our present day conditions has re- 
 cently made a statement to the effect that it is only a 
 matter of simple mathematics to ascertain the day, and 
 that only a few years away, when ten men will be prac- 
 tically owners of the United States. He has indeed 
 much basis, in view of present conditions and the 
 present trend of matters, for this statement. 
 
 The fact of the matter is that in face of the great and 
 unprecedented growth of wealth in the United States, 
 resulting in large measure from its youth and won- 
 derful natural resources and opportunities, the increase 
 has been so unequal that the vast millions have flowed 
 into the pockets of the few, while the few millions have 
 gone to the lot of the many. The rich have grown 
 richer at a rate and to a degree that is almost astound- 
 ing, and while it is not true that the poor have on the 
 whole grown poorer, it is true that the increase going
 
 48 The Land of Living Men 
 
 to their lot has been so exceecUngly small in comparison 
 — in some cases not even sufficient to be noted at all — 
 that practically the same effect has come about. In 
 other words the increase in general prosperity and. of 
 those at the upper end has been out of all proportion 
 to that of the great laboring and middle class. The 
 masses of the people are not getting their just relative 
 increase. Were it not at the risk of dealing too much 
 with statistics and figures, it would be most interesting 
 to calculate and consider the total amount of wealth 
 created each year or each decade, and the amount of it 
 that actually goes to the great mass of the producers of 
 that wealth. 
 
 A Fabian Tract says that there are about one million 
 rich men in England who do nothing, hence live on the 
 labor of others. The vast tracts of land that in great 
 estates, sometimes even in large cities (over 600 acres 
 within the limits of London is held by a single in- 
 dividual), that are held by rich or titled families, and 
 thus kept away from the people to whom the land 
 should rightly belong or for v^^hose benefit it should be 
 used, is undoubtedly one of the great causes of the 
 great inequality of conditions in Great Britain. I have 
 passed partly by one estate in North Britain, eighteen 
 miles wide and some forty miles long. There are 
 numerous estates of vast numbers of square miles each, 
 even comprising whole villages where no single 
 dweller owns the house in which he lives, nor can he 
 even drive a nail in it without permission,* 
 
 * Supplementary, III.
 
 The Land of Living Men 49 
 
 The poverty and wretched conditions in London and 
 other large centres in Great Britain is indeed very 
 great in its proportions, but we in the United States are 
 rapidly approaching it in many centres, and in some, 
 according to all available facts and statistics, we have 
 reached it already. Sometime ago a well-known Eng- 
 lish philanthropist and sociologist, who was travelling 
 in this country studying the conditions of the working 
 classes, publicly declared while in Washington, as the 
 result of his investigations that there are worse places 
 in that city than the worst quarters of London. 
 
 The luxury on the one hand and the poverty on the 
 other, — and it has been the history of the world that 
 where the former has grown great the latter has grown 
 great also and as a consequence, — which we find in the 
 American nation to-day, and within a period so com- 
 paratively short, is simply enormous in its proportions. 
 
 While in this country we are not laboring under the 
 caste system that exists in England, and has there be- 
 come almost as fixed and pronounced as it has been for 
 untold generations in India for example, we are already 
 feeling a similar bearing and power on the part of many 
 of the very rich, both as families and as individuals, 
 and some such state is now as for some time past it has 
 been, in process of rapid formation in this country. 
 
 Sometime ago I noticed the definition that an emi- 
 nent writer gave to the word loafer, and as nearly as I 
 can recall — a loafer — one who works not himself 
 but lives on the work of others, either as a gentleman, 
 or as a tramp or a beggar or a pauper — both classes 
 are kept through the support of others.
 
 50 The Land of Living Men 
 
 The upper and lower ends are borne by the great 
 middle classes, — and the growth and increase of the 
 upper tends continually to increase the number of the 
 lower. These great extremes result primarily from 
 the unequal distribution of the profits resulting from 
 the handling of earth's products. This is the reason of 
 the one per cent of the families owning already more 
 than the remaining 99 per cent. 
 
 It is from this that the " smart " set comes, some- 
 times called the " brainless " set, sometimes the 
 " thoughtless." The maker of the fortune, the father 
 or the grandfather, many times made from the most 
 ordinary mould, but with an ability in manipulating, 
 in accumulating, sometimes with a working knowledge 
 of scarcely one of the ten commandments, was the 
 one who did the work ; and the descendants became 
 dwellers in idleness, and worse than idleness, for the 
 old gentleman has helped them on to the backs of other 
 people and from this position they refuse politely to 
 descend, and will remain there imtil the people bring 
 about a different set of conditions on the one hand, or 
 until idleness and luxury, so many times descending 
 into vice, have sapped the vitality and the common level 
 is found again. It was John Stuart Mill who pointed 
 out the following facts : 
 
 " When men talk of the ancient wealth of a country, 
 of riches inherited from ancestors, and similar expres- 
 sions, the idea suggested is, that the riches so trans- 
 mitted were produced long ago, at the time when they 
 are said to have been first acquired, and that no portion 
 of the capital of a country was produced this year ex-
 
 The Land of Living Men 51 
 
 cept so much as may have been this year added to the 
 total amount. The fact is far otherwise. 
 
 " The greater part in vahie of the wealth now exist- 
 ing- in England has been produced by human hands 
 within the last twelve months. A very small proportion 
 indeed of that large aggregate was in existence ten 
 years ago ; of the present productive capital of the 
 country scarcely any part, except farmhouses and fac- 
 tories, and a few ships and machines, and even these 
 would not in most cases have survived so long, if fresh 
 labor had not been employed within that period in put- 
 ting them into repair. 
 
 " The land subsists, and the land is almost the only 
 thing that subsists. Everything which is produced per- 
 ishes, and most things very quickly. 
 
 " Capital is kept in existence from age to age, not by 
 preservation, but by perpetual reproduction." 
 
 A great deal of very bad sense and a lack of discrim- 
 inating thought is shown at the present day in an in- 
 discriminate vituperation of the rich, as if all were of 
 the same class. It is by no means true. They cannot 
 be indiscriminately classed together nor spoken of in 
 the same category any more than various types of 
 business enterprises, those that though large are 
 straightforward and honorable, and those that seem 
 to be the very epitome of hell in their methods. 
 
 Among the rich are some of the finest and noblest of 
 our citizenship, and most valuable in the social 
 structure. Moreover, it seems to me that there should 
 be not only no indiscriminate vituperation, hut none 
 at all. Whatever blame there is should rightly rest
 
 52 The Land of Living Men 
 
 upon those sitting quietly by — ourselves — and al- 
 lowing a system of social and economic injustice and 
 inequality to be built up that enables a few to become 
 so enormously and so drunkenly rich that even they 
 themselves and their descendants suffer from the ef- 
 fects of it, and on the other hand millions of men, 
 women, and children are reduced to a life of continual 
 poverty and misery through this very inequality that 
 zi'c permit. This in face of the fact that the demands 
 of the people could be made for an economic and in- 
 dustrial justice in a manner so convincing and so com- 
 pelling that no bodies or groups of men or families, 
 however powerful they may be, however drunk with 
 gain and influence, or however skilled in methods of 
 manipulation, could do anything other than listen to 
 and heed these demands. 
 
 Not hostility to the rich, a foolish as well as dan- 
 gerous proceeding, but a fully prepared and determined 
 and never-ending hostility to a political and industrial 
 system that permits a few to become so excessively 
 rich, and hence such unequal and such rapidly growing 
 dangerous conditions. It is not their fault but ours 
 if we permit these conditions to continue. They are 
 doing only what large numbers of those who condemn 
 them would do under similar circumstances. 
 
 It is a beautiful little village of 3,000 people. The 
 public Common was a joy and a pleasure to all ; rich 
 in flowers, in grass, in trees, in birds and song. Some- 
 time ago several influential families turned and now 
 pasture their cows in it. The people through negli- 
 gence permitted it. The owners of the cows are now
 
 The Land of Living Men 53 , 
 
 using a great abundance of very rich cream. But for 
 the people the joy of the Common is gone. Sometime 
 the people will awake and the cows will be driven from 
 the Common and forever. Their owners will never 
 take them out of their own accord. They havt grown 
 to love cream dearly. 
 
 The system is now at fault, and must be changed 
 even for the safety and perpetuity of the nation, as 
 well as the welfare of the great mass of the people. 
 As it is now, the great proportion is simply a grist for 
 the few. 
 
 We make poverty and then bountifully supply, or 
 attempt to supply, relief for it to the sad, sad numbers 
 who despite their most diligent and heroic efforts are 
 cast into it. It is indeed a sort of " benevolent feudal- 
 ism." It has been said, and so truthfully, that the 
 rich and powerful will do anything for the poor but 
 get off their backs. 
 
 The munificence of our charities and relief works is 
 in one sense a most beautiful feature of our country's 
 civilization. In another sense it is one of the most 
 horrible shames, in that it registers, and still counte- 
 nances the great mass of the poverty among us, only a 
 small fraction of which is necessary. We spend an- 
 nually in charity and relief — public and private — 
 over two hundred million dollars, and the demands are 
 continually in advance of the ways of meeting them. 
 The demand for relief always keeps considerable in 
 advance of the supply — such is the testimony of Prof. 
 Amos G. Warner in his able book " American 
 Charities." But with it all we have not yet fully
 
 54 The Laud of Living Men 
 
 learned the far greater economy of prevention over 
 cure, or attempted cure, in addition to the frightful 
 amount of suffering and misery and degradation that 
 such a system brings to such vast numbers. The fol- 
 lowing l^artial illustration may be suggestive. 
 
 i\ few years ago in Glasgow there existed a frightful 
 death rate among the people of a certain portion of the 
 city. The municipal authorities, more quick to act for 
 the people than in similar cases among us, examined 
 into the conditions, found the causes, and demolished 
 the houses in that immediate section and erected new 
 tenements to take their places. The death rate was re- 
 duced from fifty-five per thousand to a little over four- 
 teen per thousand. A slum immediately adjoining 
 still had a death rate of fifty-three per thousand. Here 
 stood two groups of dwellings housing practically the 
 same class of people, one having a death rate of a little 
 over fourteen to every thousand and the other a death 
 rate almost four times as great. But for this common- 
 sense action, this frightful and unnecessary death rate 
 would have kept up year after year, and charity and 
 relief would have been taxed both in money and in 
 energy to a far greater extent than the amounts of 
 money and energy that were required to make the sur- 
 roundings of these people decent, and as becomes a 
 civilized community. 
 
 The following paragraphs are filled with truth con- 
 cerning this matter of charity and relief : " In its ori- 
 gin charity sprang from the noblest feeling — that 
 sympathy with others which prompts us to relieve suf- 
 fering. The im])ulse to feed the hungry, clothe the
 
 The Land of Living Men 55 
 
 naked and shelter the homeless, is wholly creditable. 
 But the modern machinery of public and private 
 charities, supported by taxation or by private funds 
 given out of a sense of obligation, is abominable. 
 
 " All statistics of charitable organizations show that 
 the real trouble with the great majority of the people 
 who seek relief, is lack of work. At least 75 per cent 
 of those who are assisted by private charity or public 
 institutions are able and willing to work, if only they 
 could find employment. And the remaining 25 per 
 cent, including the children, the sick, etc., is indirectly 
 the result of the same conditions of lack of work or 
 low wages. Because of inability on the part of parents 
 to make provision for their children, the orphan 
 asylums and industrial homes are overflowing. Be- 
 cause of distress brought on by insufficient nourish- 
 ment, or by living in unhealthy tenements, the hospitals 
 are crowded. Because the sick are poor they must look 
 for free medical attendance instead of employing a 
 physician. So with practically all the objects of 
 charity. Directly or indirectly the need for help arises 
 from the fact that workers are not able to support 
 themselves by their labor. . . . Those who have 
 worked the hardest at charities know how hopelessly 
 inefficient and insufficient they are. Charity fails, and 
 always must fail to accomplish its aims, because it 
 concerns itself with surface symptoms and not with 
 fundamental causes. 
 
 "Since charity cannot stop anyone from shutting 
 people out of work, it cannot do anything to alleviate 
 or abolish the evils arising from want of work. When
 
 56 The Land of Living Men 
 
 it pretends to do so. it is a fraud used to soothe the 
 victims of partisan laws into silence. 
 
 " The rich are generally well aware of all this — so 
 they charge their own indifference to their God, and 
 say that Jesus said, ' Tlie poor ye shall have always 
 with you.' Jesus never said anything of the sort. He 
 said, * The poor ye have with you always and when- 
 soever ye will ye may do them good' (Mark 14, 7) ; 
 that is, may abolish their poverty and the causes of it, 
 too. I commend to those religious persons the last 
 four verses of Revelation." * 
 
 And while I think the author of these paragraphs 
 is in the main right, I think he speaks somewhat too 
 generally in regard to the motives that actuate many 
 rich people who give to charity, for many we know are 
 animated by motives of the highest and noblest type. 
 And until they can see their way to spend a larger 
 portion of their means and energy in a far wiser and 
 more effective way — in an endeavor to bring about 
 more just and equitable conditions in the social and 
 industrial life of the country, may they not cease the 
 good work they are doing. 
 
 Then as to the practical effects of charity upon 
 those who are its recipients, the following testimony 
 of Mrs. Josephine Shaw Lowell, is quite thoroughly 
 in keeping with the testimony of practically all exper- 
 ienced workers and observers in this field of charity. 
 Mrs. Lowell says, " Whatever exception you may have 
 encountered, you know that the rule is that those who 
 
 * From " Free America," by Bolton Hall.
 
 The Land of Living' Men 57 
 
 receive relief are or soon become idle, intemperate, 
 untruthful, vicious, or at least quite shiftless and im- 
 provident. You know that the more relief they have 
 as a rule, the more they need. You know that it is de- 
 structive to energy and industry, and that the taint 
 passes from generation to generation, and that a pauper 
 family is more hopeless to reform than a criminal 
 family." 
 
 Our efforts must be to deal not so much with charity 
 and relief, as with the causes that make such vast 
 amounts of charity and relief necessary. It is simply 
 astounding, our willingness to let things go on as they 
 are and then care for the unfortunate millions who 
 fall in their struggles against such tremendous odds. 
 
 We allow our municipal and state representatives. — 
 who thereby become representatives of the great 
 moneyed and corporate interests — to give over fran- 
 chises for the use of great public utilities that should be 
 used for the people and with millions upon millions 
 in value, to the personal and private uses of little 
 groups of men, without asking in most cases even a 
 dollar in compensation and then we tamely accept poor 
 service, high charges, many times disgusting and al- 
 most inhuman treatment. They give it. We accept 
 it. W'e accept it even as if we did not know better and 
 as if it were something we had to submit to, rather 
 than because we choose to. Thus we make them in- 
 creasingly rich and daring and unscrupulous, so that 
 out of their enormous profits, wrung from the con- 
 stantly increasing needs of the people, they are enabled 
 to build up great corruption funds, to maintain strong
 
 58 The Land of Living Men 
 
 and powerful lobbies to influence all legislation in their 
 favor, to kill all that may be adverse, in other words 
 all that may be for the interests of the people. In this 
 way they have gone on and on, getting many times by 
 direct purchase of the votes of the members of our city 
 councils and of legislators, additional properties that 
 by .all laws of common-sense as well as the most crude 
 laws of justice, should belong to, should be managed 
 by and for the people. Some day, and before long 
 now, we will wonder at the asinine qualities that we 
 American people have displayed in this respect. 
 
 Little wonder then that certain business and prop- 
 ertied classes have grabbed and are still grabbing 
 everything in sight, as well as appropriating to them- 
 selves the machinery of government. They will con- 
 tinue to do this as long as the people permit it. 
 
 These agencies, eminently " respectable," though 
 many times rheumatic and gouty, whence spring the 
 greatest forces of corruption in the country, are al- 
 ready gnawing at the very vitals of the nation's wel- 
 fare, as well as at its safety and perpetuity. The nation 
 of freemen is already in danger. The mutterings of 
 the great discontent are clearly audible even to the 
 most indifferent and unconcerned. Of these all think- 
 ing men and women are most keenly aware. The 
 nation cannot remain in safety, but must retrograde 
 and this splendid example of free institutions and free 
 men and women must be counted abortive unless a 
 movement and a very pronounced and determined and 
 unceasing movement is quickly made to beat back the 
 advance of the sleek, cunning, conscienceless bands,
 
 The Land of Living Men 59 
 
 whose motto is greed and whose method is corruption. 
 It is carrying a bhght, withering and deadening to free 
 institutions, into every quarter that it touches. 
 
 " If the King of Mexico has any gold," said Cortez, 
 as he and his followers stood clamoring at the gates of 
 Montezuma, " let him send it out to us. For I and 
 my companions have a disease of the heart which is 
 cured by gold." 
 
 Sometime ago that very keen observer, matchless 
 thinker, and great lover of justice and of men, hence, 
 of his country's welfare, Henry George, gave utterance 
 to the following most significant words : * 
 
 " The evils arising from the unjust and unequal dis- 
 tribution of wealth, which are becoming more and 
 more apparent as modern civilization goes on, are not 
 incidents of progress, but tendencies which must bring 
 progress to a halt. . . . 
 
 " The poverty which in the midst of abundance 
 pinches and imbrutes men, and all the manifold evils 
 which flow from it, spring from a denial of justice. 
 In permitting the monopolization of the opportunities 
 which nature freely offers to all, we have ignored the 
 fundamental law of justice — for, so far as we can see, 
 when we view things upon a large scale, justice seems 
 to be the supreme law of the universe. But by sweep- 
 ing away this injustice and asserting the rights of all 
 men to natural opportunities, we shall conform our- 
 selves to the law — we shall remove the cause of un- 
 natural inequality in the distribution of wealth and 
 
 *" Progress and Poverty," p. 541 (1900),
 
 6o The Land of Living Men 
 
 power, . . . substitute political strength for political 
 weakness ; and make tyranny and anarchy impossible. 
 . . . Our primary social adjustment is a denial of 
 justice. ... It is this that turns the blessings of 
 material progress into a curse. It is this that crowds 
 human beings into noisome cellars and squalid tene- 
 ment-houses ; that fills prisons and brothels ; that 
 goads men with want and consumes them with greed ; 
 that robs women of the grace and beauty of perfect 
 womanhood ; that takes from little children the joy 
 and innocence of life's morning. 
 
 " Civilization so based cannot continue. The eternal 
 laws of the universe forbid it. Ruins of dead empires 
 testify, and the witness that is in every soul answers, 
 that it cannot be. It is something grander than Benev- 
 olence, something more august than Charity — it is 
 Justice herself that demands of us to right this wrong. 
 Justice that will not be denied ; that cannot be put off 
 — Justice that with the scales carries the sword." 
 
 The following is a type of recent independent pulpit 
 utterance. Speaking first of the enormous sums ex- 
 pended annually in charity in the United States it 
 continues : 
 
 " This colossal sum is alx)ut equally divided among 
 public relief, private giving and the charities of the 
 churches. How much good does it do? Is it merely 
 an anaesthetic to benumb the poor, lest they cry too 
 loud ? Can wisdom and virtue eliminate the conditions 
 that make charity necessary? 
 
 "The true philanthropist is the good steward — the 
 man who labors, plans, executes the honorable business
 
 The Land of Living Men 6l 
 
 enterprises of this world. He who opens the doors 
 of steady employment, pays an honest, living wage, by 
 his foresight and skill frustrates ' panics,' * depres- 
 sions ' — this is the true philanthropist. His business 
 enterprises are a blessing to the community. 
 
 " Then, again, there are those whom Jesus lashes 
 like scorpions — men who lay burdens on men's 
 shoulders grievous to be borne, and do not as much as 
 touch them with their little finger ! There are those 
 who, having a giant's strength, are using it like a 
 tyrant — promoting monopolies that oppress the peo- 
 ple, controlling the necessities of life — beef, sugar, 
 oil, coal — and thus use their business positions as did 
 the old barons their castles — places for plunder. This 
 kind of social wrong makes poverty and prepares for 
 social revolution. Jesus commends justice to all such. 
 If parasites and plunderers were abolished, there 
 would be very little need of philanthropy." 
 
 Said a well-known Bishop at a Chamber of Com- 
 merce dinner recently, at which many prominent mil- 
 lionaires were seated : " The people, the great com- 
 mon people, are suspicious that some great corporations 
 and masses of wealth are protected, or their interests 
 advanced in ways that are inconsistent with the rights 
 of the people. 
 
 " They may have no material grounds for their 
 suspicions, but they are suspicious, and so are many 
 of you. 
 
 " I am not so afraid of the rich man in politics as I 
 am of the poor and weak man in politics, and the rich 
 man outside.
 
 62 The Laud of Lii'ing Men 
 
 " Civilization cannot go on where there is mutual 
 suspicion, and prosperity cannot go on long while the 
 people feel or think that the reverence for law by 
 which property is safeguarded is not upheld. 
 
 " The massing of great wealth in corporations has 
 come to stay, but neither our sympathies, nor the risk 
 to great properties, nor the curtailment or loss of our 
 properties can reconcile us to any dallying with the 
 rights and liberties of the people." 
 
 We have dwelt at great length upon the dark side of 
 the picture, because it is so essential that we see this 
 side fully and that we see it at once. But there is an- 
 other side, and that not without a great deal of bright- 
 ness. Were we in the condition of the people of Rus- 
 sia up to the present time for example — with scarcely 
 a voice in the afifairs of government — then we should 
 indeed be in a bad way. With the forces we have been 
 considering already so fully intrenched and so skilled 
 in their methods, there would indeed be no hope. But 
 the battles for ]:)olitical emancipation were waged and 
 won, as King John and others, were they living, would 
 so vividly recall, many years ago. We are a body of 
 freemen with ])olitical rights, and the final deciders of 
 what the conditions in the nation shall be. This gives 
 us our hope, and our power. With this we can gain 
 and we shall gain, industrial and ccououiic freedom, 
 justice, and equality. This is the power with which we 
 shall drive to the background, the forces that have 
 licen making a byword of freedom, equality and 
 justice. 
 
 We have cause to be grateful by virtue of the new-
 
 The Land of Living Men 63 
 
 ness and power of the country. What has been almost 
 the cause of our undoing shall yet be the means by 
 which we shall be saved. We have political freedom. 
 We have full religious freedom, full independence of 
 Church and State. We are free from the caste systems 
 that constitute the bane of so many old world countries. 
 We have it growing among us, but it is not fixed and 
 can yet be broken by an aroused and determined peo- 
 ple. Our reputation is somewhat sullied but in the 
 main yet good. Labor is uniting, learning, growing ; 
 self-seeking and unscrupulous leaders are being dis- 
 covered and thrown out. We have an educational sys- 
 tem that is splendid in its quality, and that can yet be 
 made even of more value and to include all, even those 
 that need it most, within its scope. 
 
 The masses of the people of all types are becoming 
 profoundly dissatisfied with present conditions. They 
 are inquiring into their causes, and where this is, there 
 is hope. It tells also much of the future outcome. 
 
 And just as soon as sufficient numbers of our people 
 take enough interest in the public welfare, — which 
 means always their own welfare to a far greater degree 
 than many are given to realize, and thereby become 
 conversant with the actual conditions that are fast crys- 
 tallizing about us and the agencies that are at work 
 in their sly and subtle manner bringing them about, 
 then the forces will be engendered that will take the 
 Republic to that eminent and true position, that by the 
 grace of God and the awakened common-sense of the 
 people, we believe it shall yet attain.
 
 Ill 
 
 A CERTAIN INEVITABLE LAW THAT DEALS 
 WITH NATIONS AND WITH THEIR PEOPLE 
 
 fv^j^M ^^^^ ^^^^ ^ strange way of dealing with 
 '' •'-■-^^~* nations and with men. Its great clock 
 ticks unerringly on. It seems, in a sense, 
 %, to be merely the sentinel of a great and 
 immutable system of Law. 
 
 When the nation gets sufficiently sick and diseased 
 it dies as does the individual. Its hour is struck oflf 
 with an unerring precision. From that instant the pro- 
 cess of disintegration sets in to crumble and consume 
 the body, the structure that so shortly before held the 
 spirit. 
 
 It would be useless and indeed foolish to say that 
 there seem to be great immutable laws that govern and 
 that determine the life, the ways, the fate of nations. 
 If history means anything it means this, and he who 
 will may read. These same laws exist to-day and as 
 has occurred will occur again under like or similar 
 conditions. 
 
 So clearly has history written her pages that he who 
 will may go at once to her oft repeated forms, and read 
 with a quickness and clearness that no man can mis- 
 understand. It is always in substance — that great 
 privilege and wealth and oppression have been the 
 
 64
 
 The Land of Living Men 65 
 
 cause of the gradual undermining and the final fall 
 and disintegration of all the earlier states that have 
 flourished and that have passed. They failed to realize 
 the immutability and the precision of the laws that 
 govern men and nations. Moreover, no nation or no 
 man has ever been rich enough or powerful enough to 
 change or to escape the accuracy of their workings. 
 There are those who thought it, and for a time their 
 efforts have seemed to be successful, but at the right 
 moment they have been crushed and powdered, even 
 as the rock has crushed and has powdered the shell of 
 the egg; and as long as time endures this story will 
 be repeated in the life of every nation and every in- 
 dividual that does not stop to learn the writing. 
 
 " Every civilization," said the late Henry George, 
 " that has been overwhelmed by barbarians has really 
 perished from internal decay." Elaborating upon this, 
 he has said : " He would have been a rash man who, 
 when Augustus was changing the Rome of brick to 
 the Rome of marble, when wealth was augmenting and 
 magnificence increasing, when victorious legions were 
 extending the frontier, when manners were becoming 
 more refined, language more polished, and literature 
 rising to higher splendors — he would have been a 
 rash man who then would have said that Rome was 
 entering her decline. Yet such was the case. 
 
 " And whoever will look may see that, though our 
 civilization is apparently advancing with greater rap- 
 idity than ever, the same cause which turned Roman 
 progress into retrogression is operating now. 
 
 " What has destroyed every previous civilization
 
 66 The Land of Lwing Men 
 
 has been the tendency to the unequal distribution of 
 wealth and power. This same tendency, operating 
 with increasing force, is observable in our cilivization 
 to-day. . . . 
 
 " To turn a republican government into a despotism 
 the basest and most brutal, it is not necessary formally 
 to change its constitution or abandon popular elec- 
 tions. It was centuries after Csesar, before the ab- 
 solute master of the Roman world pretended to rule 
 other than by authority of a Senate, that trembled be- 
 fore him. . . . 
 
 " Whence shall come the new barbarians ? Go 
 through the squalid quarters of great cities, and you 
 may see, even now, their gathering hordes ! How shall 
 learning perish? Men will cease to read, and books 
 will kindle fires and be turned into cartridges! 
 
 " Everywhere the increasing intensity of the strug- 
 gle to live, the increasing necessity for straining every 
 nerve to prevent being thrown down and trodden under 
 foot in the scramble for wealth, is draining the forces 
 which gain and maintain improvements. . . . 
 
 " But as sure as the turning tide must soon run full 
 ebb ; as sure as the declining sun must bring darkness, 
 so sure is it, that though knowledge yet increases and 
 invention marches on, and new states are being settled, 
 and cities still expand, yet civilization has begun to 
 wane when, in proportion to population, we must 
 build more and more prisons, more and more alms- 
 houses, more and more insane asylums. It is not from 
 top to bottom that societies die ; it is from bottom to 
 top.
 
 The Land of Living Men 67 
 
 " But there are evidences far more palpable than any 
 that can be given by statistics, of tendencies to the ebb 
 of civilization. There is a vague but general feeling of 
 disappointment ; an increased bitterness among the 
 working classes ; a wide-spread feeling of unrest and 
 brooding revolution. . . . What change may come, 
 no mortal man can tell, but that some great change 
 must come, thoughtful men begin to feel. The civ- 
 ilized world is trembling on the verge of a great move- 
 ment. Either it must be a leap upward, which will 
 open the way to advances yet undreamed of, or it must 
 be a plunge downward, which will carry us back to- 
 wards barbarism." 
 
 That very careful and able philosopher and econ- 
 omist. Professor Lange, has said : " 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 individuals and in the means for further advance- 
 ment also grows, so long will each step of this move- 
 riient lead towards 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 interests. 
 . . -. The state becomes venal. The hopelessly 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 pro-
 
 68 The Laud of Lwing Men 
 
 letariat 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 mediseval Italy 
 also popular freedom was lost through a moneyed ol- 
 igarchy and a proletariat. ... It is characteristic 
 that in Florence the richest banker finally becomes an 
 unlimited despot, and that contemporaneously in Genoa 
 the Bank of St. George in a measure absorbed the 
 state." 
 
 Again he says : " 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 pro- 
 letariat, we have the decay of morals and religion; 
 the present forms of government all have their ex- 
 istence threatened, and the belief in a coming general 
 and mighty revolution is widely spread and deeply 
 rooted." 
 
 Said Emerson : " 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." 
 
 The eminent economist. Professor Smart, of Glas- 
 gow, makes a most suggestive statement in the fol- 
 lowing : " But when machinery is replacing man and 
 doing the heavy work of industry, it is time to get rid
 
 The Land of Living Men 69 
 
 of that ancient prejudice that man must work ten hours 
 a day to keep the world up to the level of the comfort 
 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 com- 
 fortable classes, may go on receiving the lion's share 
 of the wealth these machines, iron and human, are 
 turning out." 
 
 It is the great common people that has made and 
 that has been the backbone of every nation, and as 
 long as its interests are guarded and as long as the 
 tendency is towards an ever greater equality of oppor- 
 tunities for all, so long is a nation safe. But as soon 
 as extremes of wealth and poverty begin to manifest 
 themselves, and privilege grows, resulting in still 
 greater inequality in the distribution of wealth and 
 power, that moment the destructive force begins its 
 work — a force that grows by what it feeds upon, an 
 evil that will never correct itself, and that, unless it 
 be checked by the great common people, will carry 
 the nation to destruction. Oppression and evil is its 
 own destroyer. 
 
 It is the laborer with his vine-clad cottage, and suf- 
 ficient of those things that make for peace and happi- 
 ness and content in the life of a normal human being, 
 it is a uniformly prosperous common people, that con- 
 stitutes the really great nation, and not a few castles 
 with their hordes of hirelings about them. 
 
 In addition to those nations that have been men- 
 tioned that have flourished, that have grown great 
 and that have declined, we might mention still nation
 
 70 The Land of Lwing Men 
 
 after nation. We mig-ht go back to Egypt, to Assyria, 
 to Babvlon, and to tlie other earlier civilizations, but 
 we find the same cause in all. The law is immutable 
 in its workings. .Absolute, seems to be the word. The 
 larger Justice will not be denied. She may seem to 
 delay, she may seem even at times to take no account, 
 but in her own good way and time she strikes, and 
 when she strikes it is with a terrible vengeance. As she 
 is with nations, so is she also with men. 
 
 How can we hope then that this civilization, this 
 nation shall escape, any more than those that in their 
 day were as great, as proud and apparently enduring, 
 if by common consent the same forces are at work 
 that in time spelled destruction to those that have pre- 
 ceded us?
 
 IV 
 
 AS TO GOVERNMENT — SOMETHING THAT CAN 
 NEVER BE APART FROM THE PEOPLE EXCEPT 
 TO THEIR GREAT PERSONAL LOSS, AND THEIR 
 ULTIMATE DESTRUCTION 
 
 (^^^■/^^-^ HERE have been many able disquisitions 
 I ^ib^tif °" ^^^ theory and the functions of Gov- 
 '^^l^-^;' ernment, and it would be interesting^ did 
 ^«Ai;i4fe space permit, to examine in detail nito 
 some of the best of these. Much, however, that has 
 been said, though it might have pertained to a greater 
 or less extent to the time or times in which it was said, 
 does not pertain to our present time. It is the same 
 with this as with a great deal of the earlier theological 
 discussions, vast amounts of which have proved to be 
 so inconsequential that we pay no attention to them 
 at present and find that they have been of value only 
 in a single respect — in that they have helped lead 
 the way to the few real things that we are finding 
 to-day constitute the basis of the true religion. 
 
 It is also evident that a theory of government that 
 pertained to us Saxon people, say two hundred or 
 three hundred years ago, and fitted the degree of evo- 
 lution and life we had attained to then, is not a theory 
 that would pertain to us, or that we would even for an 
 instant think of accepting in total at the present time. 
 
 71
 
 ^2 The Land of Living Men 
 
 It can also be truthfully said that for a thinking, 
 growing, aspiring people, some of the methods and 
 principles in vogue in our own nation even fifty years 
 ago we cannot, we should not, and as evidences on 
 every hand indicate, we no longer honour nor do we 
 countenance in the year 1910. A growing, progressive 
 life demands that we keep ourselves up to the mark 
 that is the truth of to-day, and that we be careful that 
 old forms do not crystallize about us either in religion 
 or in government, forms that will tend to make us sat- 
 isfied with anything but the vivid, vital truth that will 
 reveal itself to us to-day and to-morrow and to- 
 morrow, if we are always on the alert to recognize it. 
 
 It is so easy to hold on to the old shells, thinking 
 that there is in them something of value, long after 
 the life has departed from them and truth with all its 
 goodly train has moved on, giving joy and blessings to 
 those that are keeping pace with her, while we fondly 
 cling to the worthless thing. 
 
 The crying error of the time is that zve stand in azve 
 of government and forget that, in a sense, zve are 
 government. Everything that is enacted in the nation, 
 or in any of at all similar constitution, is enacted by 
 the people through their chosen representatives acting 
 for their interests ; or by the consent of the people, 
 in that these representatives act for corporate and 
 moneyed interests through party machines and plat- 
 forms and manipulators. Where the people should be 
 supreme, manipulators and moneyed interests working 
 through parties and through city councils and leg- 
 islatures are supreme. Lobbies and manipulators and
 
 The Land of Living Men 73 
 
 bribed or directly bought councilmen and legislators 
 are only the tools of the moneyed interests. This is 
 at the bottom, it is safe to say, of at least nine-tenths 
 of all our present political corruption ; for the man- 
 ipulator, the ward-heeler, the lobbyist, the saloon 
 keeping councilman, the venal state legislator, are only 
 the tools of these " interests." The latter are the 
 principals, the former merely the agents through which 
 they work to obtain the privileges — the natural rights 
 and properties of the people — through which they 
 make their royal millions. 
 
 It is a well-known fact that at those periods when 
 corporations and private business have been most 
 venal, political corruption, either municipal or state, 
 has been the most open and brazen and black. Yet the 
 principals have been our respectable business men, 
 founders sometimes of our wealthiest and later on aris- 
 tocratic and exclusive families. They, I repeat, have 
 been the big thieves working through these agencies. 
 
 Lately the political corruption of some of our large 
 cities has been traced and exposed by Lincoln Steffens 
 in a series of articles in one of our leading magazines, 
 and later republished in book form under the title, 
 " The Shame of the Cities." In one of his articles en- 
 titled " Enemies of the Republic," Mr. Steffens has 
 this to say : 
 
 " Every time I attempted to trace to its source the 
 political corruption of a city ring, the stream of pol- 
 lution branched off in the most unexpected directions. 
 ... It flowed out of the majority party into the 
 minority ; out of politics into vice and crime, out of
 
 74 The Land of Liz'ing Men 
 
 business into politics, and back into business. . . . 
 We are all of us on the wrong track. You can't re- 
 form a city by reforming a part of it. You can't 
 reform a city alone. You can't reform politics alone. 
 . . . The corruption of our American politics is our 
 American corruption, political, but financial and in- 
 dustrial too. 
 
 " Our political corruption is a system, a regularly 
 established custom of the country, by which our polit- 
 ical leaders are hired by bribery, by the license to loot, 
 and by quiet moral support, to conduct the government 
 of city, state, and nation, not for the common good, 
 but for the special interests of private business. Not 
 the politician, then, not the bribe taker, but the bribe 
 giver, the man we are so proud of, our successful 
 business man, he is the source and the sustenance of 
 our bad government. The captain of industry is the 
 man to catch. His is the trail to follow." 
 
 We as a nation would hold up our hands in horror 
 even at the thought — we are so intensely democratic 
 — of any titled person, and through such right, even 
 though he be of the highest type and one imbued with 
 the highest sense of public welfare and justice, ruling 
 over us even for a limited time. But the large moneyed 
 interests have gotten us so used to it that we seem to 
 think nothing of having large and important portions 
 of our public afifairs in the hands of the lowest type of 
 our citizenship, and allowing them to do most im- 
 portant ])ortions of our governing for us. We seem 
 to be fully satisfied that they be our rulers, for in some 
 centres and at limes it amounts to this. It is through
 
 The Land of Living Men 75 
 
 them that we pass over annually the vast millions of 
 wealth that go to their principals, and accept in re- 
 turn, meagre and many times disgraceful and disgust- 
 ing types of public service that so often, or to speak- 
 more accurately, they generally, give to the public. 
 
 Such has been the origin of the wealth of many of 
 our enormously rich and well-known families, and 
 they are now becoming so intrenched as to be a very 
 distinct menace to the public welfare. It is only by 
 a socialized people that their power can now be broken. 
 
 Of corruption in the government of our municipali- 
 ties, Andrew D. White as far back as 1890 had this to 
 say : " Without the slightest exaggeration, we may 
 assert that, with few exceptions, the city governments 
 of the United States are the worst in Christendom, the 
 most expensive, the most inefficient, and the most cor- 
 rupt. No one who has any considerable knowledge 
 of our own country and of other countries can deny 
 this. 
 
 " The city halls of these larger towns are the ac- 
 knowledged centres of the vilest corruption. They 
 are absolutely demoralizing, not merely to those who 
 live under their sway, but to the country at large. 
 Such cities, like the decaying spots on ripe fruit, tend 
 to corrupt the whole body politic. As a rule, the men 
 who sit in the councils of our larger cities, dispensing 
 comfort or discomfort, justice or injustice, beauty or 
 deformity, health or disease, to this and to future 
 generations, are men who in no other country would 
 think of aspiring to such positions. Some of them, 
 indeed, would think themselves lucky in keeping out-
 
 76 The Land of Living Men 
 
 side the prisons. Officials entrusted with the expen- 
 diture of the vast wealth of our citizens are frequently 
 men whom no one would think of entrusting with the 
 management of his private affairs, or, indeed, of em- 
 ploying in any capacity. Few have gained their posi- 
 tions by fitness or by public service ; many have gained 
 them by scoundrelism ; some by crime." * 
 
 The same can be said of various members of our 
 state legislatures. These are the types of men that 
 most of our great corporate interests work through. 
 Some are put there deliberately and directly for this 
 purpose. Should anyone have any doubt of this, let 
 him become thoroughly acquainted among other things 
 with the history of the principal railroad in the states, 
 say, Michigan, Pennsylvania, New York, Connecticut, 
 Massachusetts, California. 
 
 The great common people have everything in their 
 hands when they once fully realize it. They must 
 come forward and make politicians and the moneyed 
 interests know their power. They must take over and 
 back to themselves the power that they have gradually 
 allowed to be usurped by the politician, the political 
 leader, for these enormously fat and gorged concerns 
 and individuals. 
 
 A people with that great weapon of freedom — tJie 
 franchise — are invincible in the expression of their 
 preferences and their demands when they present an 
 intelligent and united interest, if it be done before 
 special privilege with its great accumulations of wealth 
 
 * The forum, December, 1890.
 
 The Land of Living Men yy 
 
 and power has grown too great and too cunning and 
 too corrupting. When we take into consideration how 
 vastly the great common working people out-number 
 the privileged classes, something over a hundred to 
 one, then we must wonder that greed and graft and 
 vast and unscrupulous wealth have been able to attain 
 to the proportions they have already attained in our 
 midst. But the reason abounds; and later we shall 
 consider it fully. 
 
 Certainly one of the great central facts of govern- 
 ment, one of the greatest fundamental principles of a 
 government of freedom and intelligence, is the insur- 
 ing of equal privileges for all and special priznlegcs for 
 none. This we had nominally, at least, in the nation, 
 but in reality a very small fraction of this proposition 
 is true to-day, and we are witnessing its departure 
 from among us to-day more rapidly than ever before. 
 If this continues at the rate it has been going on 
 during the past twenty years or so, and at the rate it 
 is going on at present it will be but a short time, and 
 within the experience of many now living, until it will 
 be that the " equal privileges and opportunities for 
 all " will have been swallowed up completely by the 
 special privileges and the consequent vast accumula- 
 tions of the few. 
 
 Life in no country can be happy or prosperous or at 
 all satisfying where special privilege reigns and one 
 great class is produced that becomes simply a grist for 
 another class. The loss to citizenship is so enormous, 
 and its influences are so deadly that the entire nation 
 becomes so thoroughly diseased politically and socially
 
 78 The Land of Living Men 
 
 and its foundations are so quietly undermined, that 
 before it is realized the nation is already in its decline, 
 under the workings of the same mighty compelling 
 laws that have never yet faltered nor delayed in de- 
 creeing the fate of nations. Each for all and all for 
 each was the mandate that was written in the beginning 
 and as long even as time endures, it will brook no 
 change nor will it permit the slightest modification.
 
 V 
 
 IN A GREAT "PEOPLE'S MOVEMENT" LIES THE 
 PEOPLE'S GREATER WELFARE AND THE SAFETY 
 OF ALL THEIR INSTITUTIONS — IT IS DUE 
 NOW 
 
 f^y~\>^^-^-^ greater part of really important legis- 
 1 '' /^l^^''i l^t^on up to the present time has been for 
 I') I^Y'I ^^^ benefit of the great corporate and 
 |^siiiTri| moneyed interests. Henceforth the greater 
 part of it must be for the people — the great common 
 people that has made this, and every country, and 
 upon whose welfare ultimately all depends. We shall 
 have the management of the nation's affairs in our own 
 hands just as securely and just as quickly as we really 
 so elect. There must be more of the people's men in 
 our municipal, our state, and our national assemblies. 
 A rich operator in Robert Owen's time, held, in con- 
 nection with his fellows, that they could not afford to 
 dispense with child labor because that would drive 
 business out of England. The " maudlin sentimental- 
 ism of those who knew neither business nor human 
 nature," they pronounced all legal interference with 
 child labor. Yet he, according to his own admission, 
 had been making in the cotton business 200 per cent 
 in yearly profits. So the cries will go tip to-day when 
 
 79
 
 8o The Land of Living Men 
 
 the people begin to redeem the country and its re- 
 sources for their own common use. The shghtest 
 movement that aims at checking the enormous profits 
 that are being reaped from the resources that should 
 belong to the people in common, is even now being met 
 with that same cry. The number of labor disturbances 
 during the past few years and to-day is in part, and 
 among other things, the measure of dissatisfaction 
 with the present monopolistic system. It does not 
 bring justice to labor. This, all thinking and right- 
 feeling men are realizing, and realizing all too keenly. 
 
 It was a great people's movement in connection with 
 the " Corn Laws " in England, in Cobden's time, that 
 brought about a peaceable revolution, in place of what 
 would have easily been a revolution of another type. 
 
 IV c are to have among us a revolution, a great and a 
 very clear-cut revolution, but a great people's move- 
 ment insures that it will be an evolutionary revolution, 
 a peaceable revolution, but no less marked and telling, 
 in fact, far more telling than any blood revolution can 
 possibly be. 
 
 In an intelligent and a determined political action on 
 the part of the common people lies our safety ; it is 
 along this path that we must move. 
 
 Money as a force in legislation, used as it is, some- 
 times almost like water by the great capitalistic con- 
 cerns in their carefully studied direct and indirect 
 ways, in the bribery and debauchery of public officials, 
 is an evil of such a wide-spread nature that it must be 
 corrected by the people. The complaint is now so 
 frequently heard, that the people do not get a fair
 
 The Laud of Living Men ■ 8l 
 
 show. It is true ; but it is also true that it is our own 
 fault that we do not. If we look as carefully to elec- 
 tions and appointments as the great moneyed interests 
 do, then that complaint will forever lose its force. 
 This is a most vital fact for our great farming com- 
 munities to learn, almost as much or even more, than 
 any other portion of our people, because in some re- 
 spects and in some sections conditions with them have 
 at times become well-nigh intolerable. We must rec- 
 ognize once and for all the fact that government is 
 always as good as the people demand it should be. 
 " No King, no veriest tyrant ever ruled except by the 
 will of the people. Because the popular will has been 
 ignorant and evil, states have been evil." 
 
 I think in the following paragraphs that clear-think- 
 ing and far-seeing statesman, the late Ex-Governor 
 Altgeld of Illinois, has given us some wonderfully clear 
 and thought-compelling statements along this line. In 
 an address before the American Railway Trainmen, at 
 Galesburg, Illinois, he said : " If our institutions are 
 to undergo great change, it is vital that the men of 
 America, and not the money, should direct the change. 
 Money may be a blessing as a servant, but it is a curse 
 as a master. Money never established republican in- 
 stitutions in the world. It has no natural affinity with 
 them, and does not understand them. Money has 
 neither soul nor sentiment. It does not know the 
 meaning of liberty, and it sneers at the rights of man. 
 It never bled on the battlefield in time of war, and it 
 never voluntarily sought the public treasury in time 
 of peace. . . . Men in time acquire the nature of
 
 82 The Laud of Living Men 
 
 those things which absorb their Hves. Unconsciously 
 and invisibly they undergo a change until those things 
 which occupy their daily thoughts seem actually to 
 circulate in their veins. Consequently in all countries, 
 in all ages, and among all peoples, it has been found 
 that as a rule the possessors of great wealth were not 
 the patriots. On the contrary, they seemed to care 
 little what flag floated over them, provided it was a 
 flag that would give them a bayonet with which to 
 protect their gold. The men who in the late war left 
 their millions of hoarded treasure and shouldered a 
 musket to fight for the Union were as scarce as the 
 camels that have passed through the eye of the needle. 
 The soldiers' cemeteries of patriotic dead are filled 
 with men who when alive had to struggle for a living. 
 It is the great masses of the people who defend the 
 government in time of war, and who bear its burdens 
 in time of peace, and these alone know the full value 
 of free institutions. It is therefore important that the 
 destinies of our government should be shaped by this 
 class, and they can be relied upon to do justice to 
 cai)ital. They appreciate the fact that capital is not 
 only a convenience, but may be of the greatest possible 
 use to man when properly directed. While money may 
 have done a great injustice to the masses, the masses 
 have never done an injustice to money. 
 
 " Now, how will you meet these problems? Standing 
 as individuals in the presence of mighty combinations 
 you will be crushed and there will be no hope for you 
 or your children. I can see no other course for you 
 than to stand together, shoulder to shoulder, intelli-
 
 The Land of Living Men 83 
 
 g-ently and patriotically. A great force never holds 
 itself in check, whether in the phenomena of nature, 
 in politics, in government, or in religion. Only a 
 counter or resisting force will check it. If concen- 
 trated capital shall meet with no checking influence, or 
 force, then republican institutions must come to an 
 end, and we will have but two classes in this country, 
 an exceedingly wealthy class on one hand, and a spirit- 
 less, crushed, poverty-stricken laboring class on the 
 other. The hope of the country depends upon having 
 a number of forces that will counterbalance or check 
 each other. And in this connection let me suggest to 
 you that the world has progressed to a point where 
 intelligence will always defeat brute force, and any 
 method of contest that involves violence belongs to a 
 bygone age. The modern methods of warfare in 
 society are of an entirely different character. 
 
 You complain sometimes that you do not get a fair 
 show, that capital controls legislation, that by selecting 
 the candidates for the judicial offices, it in many cases 
 controls the courts and that the same is true in the ex- 
 ecution of the laws. But you have yourselves largely 
 to blame. ... It has happened frequently in the 
 past in this State and in other States that you wanted 
 legislation which you thought was necessary and just, 
 and you supported men for the legislature whom you 
 believed were honest, but who, as soon as they received 
 their certificate of election, crept up the rear stairway 
 to the office of some corporation and tendered their 
 services in the hope of obtaining some financial or 
 other advantage. Did you afterwards spot those men
 
 84 The Land of Living Men 
 
 as being- unworthy of your confidence? Not at all. 
 Their chances for public preferment were just as good 
 thereafter as they were before. Again, corporations 
 have for many years looked after the matter of select- 
 ing judges, especially of the federal courts. They 
 realized the fact that the construction of the laws is 
 even more important than the making of laws, and to 
 have a friend on the bench is much more important 
 than to have a lawmaker at the capitol. It is asserted 
 that for a quarter of a century no man has been ap- 
 pointed to the federal bench unless he was either a 
 corporation lawyer or was known to hold views which 
 made him satisfactory to those interests, and when 
 these judges afterward distorted the law and usurped 
 powers to assist corporations and smite you, they were 
 not necessarily corrupt. They were simply giving 
 force to prejudices which they had imbibed during 
 their former association with corporate influences. 
 
 It has never happened in this country that you or any 
 other organization of labor men or of farmers sent a 
 delegation to wait upon the President in reference to 
 the appointment or rejection of any particular man to 
 any judicial office. You have not looked after your 
 interests and you have no right to complain if you are 
 discriminated against under these circumstances. 
 Every man who seeks office in this country will need 
 your support, and once let him understand that you are 
 capable of acting intelligently and standing together, 
 and that you insist on being honestly dealt with, and 
 you will see a great change. Fall in with what is the 
 spirit of the times. Practice intelligent coml)ination.
 
 The Land of Living Men 85 
 
 Move along the lines of law and of justice and practice 
 foresight and you will be able to right almost any 
 grievance." 
 
 A nation such as this depends solely, for its welfare 
 as well as for its perpetuity, upon the hearts and minds 
 and ambitions of its people. With these crushed and 
 traduced by monopoly and the despoiler, the nation is 
 doomed and even the corporate interests themselves 
 will in time be torn to pieces. 
 
 To trace the long fight for political freedom which 
 those before us had to undergo, shows us how hopeful 
 and how advantageous our position is. Had we not 
 political freedom and the right of the ballot in face of 
 these rapidly growing concentrations of evil among us, 
 our position would be well-nigh hopeless. As it is we 
 cannot be other than masters of this critical situation 
 if we come but speedily to a realization of the great 
 forces that lie within our reach, and if we use them as 
 intelligent freemen. The great battle that must now 
 be waged is the battle for economic freedom, for equal 
 opportunities, for justice in working conditions, for 
 justice in legislation and administration. 
 
 He who owns or controls that upon which others 
 depend owns and controls them. The fundamental 
 issue at stake is justice and equal opportunities, a more 
 equal justice in the distribution of the results of labor, 
 and a using for all the people of those great natural 
 common resources that are now being grabbed and 
 monopolized and used for the enrichment of the few. 
 
 How strange our position is, could be revealed by an 
 estimate of the millions upon millions in the form of
 
 86 The Land of Living Men 
 
 natural franchises that we allow to be taken from us 
 each year, and that are making so enormously rich the 
 few men and families that have become so self- 
 conceited as they roll in this wealth. And then make 
 a comparison of the immense preponderance of the 
 voting power of the people over this relatively small 
 number — millions compared to the thousands. But 
 they have been making this their business. Very 
 quietly, while the masses of the people have been 
 going about their own private affairs, they have been 
 getting possession of and diverting to their own coffers 
 these immensely valuable concessions, and which have 
 grown more enormous in their profits as the country 
 has grown in population and the needs of the people 
 have increased. While the people have been farming 
 the farms, this small privileged class, as an able writer 
 has recently put it, has been " farming the farmers." 
 They have acted upon the principle that he enunciates 
 in speaking of their methods as follows — do not fool 
 yourself while there are other people to fool. The 
 way to succeed is not to work, but to work the work- 
 ers ; not to farm the farms, but to farm the farmers. 
 
 And how even now money is trying to blind the 
 eyes of the people to prevent them from seeing clearly 
 and taking back to themselves these great resources, 
 can be seen on every hand. But the hour has struck 
 and we are on the move. The day to hesitate or to 
 delay is passed. Revelations have been coming so 
 rapidly of late, and facts so momentous in their im- 
 port are becoming so clear, that we could not turn 
 back even if we would. Every law of human nature
 
 The Land of Living Men 87 
 
 and human development cries out against it. And al- 
 though concentrated wealth and power may exert every 
 influence to climb and to stifle the idea of greater 
 equality and justice, the thoughts and the voices of 
 men of genius and insight are up, and the great com- 
 mon people are hearing them over and over again 
 giving voice and sanction to their own thoughts and 
 rapidly forming conclusions. 
 
 Attempts to do something for men by philanthropy 
 to take the place of what is taken away from or what 
 is denied them, will fail. And they ought to fail. No 
 manipulations of this sort will ever take the place of 
 justice. Justice is the absolute law, and it will compel 
 obedience to itself sooner or later. The enlightened 
 people — the people of the great nation want and will 
 demand conditions of such a nature that they can 
 build with the builder's satisfaction and pleasure their 
 own art museums and libraries and institutions of 
 learning. Not benefactions, but what by right belongs 
 to one. What belongs to labor and the citizen by moral 
 right shall be made so in fact by legal right. Nothing 
 short of this in the end will satisfy. 
 
 " Social service," and schemes for " social better- 
 ment " are good, and praisew^orthy in their place, but 
 they will never be accepted as taking the place of those 
 more essential things that are the rightful inherit- 
 ance of the people, nor should they. 
 
 " 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
 
 88 TIic Loud of Living Men 
 
 the difficulty by alluring philanthropies, by ' doing 
 something for the workingmen.' If merely philan- 
 thropic, these will fail as they deserve. Benevolent 
 schemes that bear the slightest taint of charity have 
 at last got the contempt of the intelligent 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 con- 
 ditions of the labor contract. What may be called the 
 Great Bluff of our time is to put gratuities and bene- 
 factions 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 opinion of a Roman emperor, 
 ' Magnificence in gifts may deceive even the gods.' 
 The crowd could then be quieted by the brutalities 
 of a pageant, the butcheries in the arena, by fleets of 
 stolen grain scattered among the people, as a Tam- 
 many heeler scatters gifts and personal kindnesses be- 
 fore the election. We are at least civilized so far that 
 we demand more decorum, and a certain humanizing 
 of our largesses. They must bear the image of charity 
 and good-will to men. They must be educational, ar- 
 tistic, 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-millionaire. The
 
 The Land of Living Men 89 
 
 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 re- 
 sult 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 ever3'one of us would hasten to pay re- 
 spect. 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." * 
 Excellent, and nothing in the quotation more suggest- 
 ive so to speak, than the last phrase — " even if the 
 pace of our civilization halts a little." Why should we 
 be proud of mere largeness and rapidity? especially 
 as it does not benefit the great masses of the people, 
 but only the few, the very small fraction. But upon 
 closer examination the fact will reveal itself, that ex- 
 cessive wealth is of real value to no man, and especially 
 when gotten by means so manifestly unfair and so 
 morally unjustifiable, as the great portion of excessive 
 zvealth is gotten to-day. Give me neither riches — 
 
 * " The Social Unrest," by John Graham Brooks, p. 203.
 
 go The Land of Living Men 
 
 great wealth — nor poverty, will ever be the desire of 
 the trulv wise, but give me that comfortable amount 
 that is conducive to the highest, the noblest, the most 
 useful, and consequently, the most happy life. 
 
 Justice, not gifts, not charity. 
 
 There is a spirit in the American people, in all Saxon 
 people, that rebels against the proffer of gifts and 
 charity as an equivalent for what rightly belongs to 
 them. This spirit can be neither changed nor broken 
 until at least the present unequal distribution of wealth 
 grows to such an extent, that it results in the concen- 
 tration of the greater portion of the wealth and re- 
 sources of the nation in so few hands, that the poverty 
 of the people becomes so great, that the spirit of free- 
 men is so broken that they sink to the position of 
 paupers and public wards. 
 
 Said Mr. Lecky, while speaking of the prosper- 
 itv of nations and their causes as indicated by his- 
 tory : " Its foundation is laid in pure domestic life, in 
 commercial integrity, in a high standard of moral 
 worth, and of public spirit, in simple habits, in courage, 
 uprightness, and a certain soundness and moderation 
 of judgment which spring quite as much from char- 
 acter as from intellect. If you would form a wise 
 judgment of the future of a nation, observe carefully 
 whether these qualities are increasing or decaying. Ob- 
 serve especially what qualities count for most in public 
 life. Is character becoming of greater or less im- 
 portance? Are the men who obtain the highest posts 
 in the nation, men of w'hom in private life, and irre- 
 spective of party, competent judges speak with genuine
 
 The Land of Living Men 91 
 
 respect? x\re they of sincere convictions, consistent 
 lives, indisputable integrity? . . . It is by observing 
 this moral current that you can best cast the horoscope 
 of a nation." * 
 
 This social unrest that has been vaguely witnessed 
 during the past few years, increasing yearly, has grad- 
 ually brought the people to a definite point of view and 
 to a definite knowledge of facts. Evolution indeed has 
 been doing its work in spite of the rapid aggressions 
 of the immensely rich, over against which has been set 
 the slowly moving discernment of the people. For a 
 long time there was unrest coupled with a sort of 
 groping in the dark, a failure to understand the full 
 significance, let alone the causes of this great unrest. 
 Back of it all, however, has been thonglit, in addition to 
 feeling, on the part of the people, quickened and in- 
 tensified at times by most bitter experiences, until now 
 a new mental activity is born, and it is being quickened 
 by the possession of some clear-cut and wonderfully 
 significant facts. 
 
 Says Benjamin Kidd, in the closing pages of liis 
 very able work, "Social Evolution:" "We see that, 
 under all the complex appearances our western civil- 
 ization presents, the central process working itself out 
 in our midst is one which is ever tending to bring, for 
 the first time in the history of the race, all the people 
 into the competition of life on a footing of equahty of 
 opportunity. In this process the problem, with which 
 society and legislators will be concerned for long into 
 
 * " The Political Value of History," by W. E. H. Lecky.
 
 92 The Land of Lhitig Men 
 
 the future, will be how to secure to the fullest deg-riL 
 these conditions of equality, while at the same time re- 
 taining that degree of inequality which must resuli 
 from offering prizes sufficiently attractive to keep U| 
 within the community that state of stress and exertion, 
 without which no people can long continue in a high 
 state of social efficiency. For in the vast process of 
 change in progress it is always the conditions of social 
 efficiency, and not those which individuals or classes 
 may desire for themselves, that the unseen evolutionary 
 forces at work amongst us are engaged in devel- 
 oping. . . . 
 
 " The fact of our time which overshadows all others 
 is the arrival of Democracy. But the perception of the 
 fact is of relatively little importance if we do not also 
 realize that it is a new Democracy. There are many 
 who speak of the new ruler of nations as if he were 
 the same idle Demos whose ears the dishonest cour- 
 tiers have tickled from time immemorial. It is not so. 
 Even those who attempt to lead him do not yet quite 
 understand him. Those who think that he is about to 
 bring chaos instead of order, do not rightly apprehend 
 the nature of his strength. They do not perceive that 
 the arrival is the crowning result of an ethical move- 
 ment in which qualities and attributes, which we have 
 been all taught to regard as the very highest of which 
 human nature is capable, find the completest expres- 
 sion they have ever reached in the history of the race." 
 
 Such indeed is the opinion of many other clear and 
 disinterested thinkers in addition to that of the able 
 author of " Social Evolution." A great people's move-
 
 The Land of Living Men 93 
 
 ment to bring- back to the people the immense belong- 
 iiigs that have been taken away from them, and to 
 prevent a continuance of this from now on, is the 
 supreme need of the time. Slowly and almost grop- 
 ingly we have been leading up to it, but the incentive 
 is on, the knowledge underlying its cause is increasing 
 and never so rapidly as of late. There is no power 
 now that can stop it or even materially hinder it any 
 more than human power can hinder or prevent the 
 workings of any of nature's great laws. It is indeed 
 most interesting to be alive, to witness and to have 
 a hand in the culmination of this new order of life 
 that all the centuries have been leading up to.
 
 VI 
 
 NATURAL RESOURCES AND PUBLIC UTILITIES 
 FOR THE PUBLIC WELFARE 
 
 i .y^T is strange how long and how heavily we 
 :;!|, allow ourselves to be fleeced, or robbed, 
 'M'f ^^y custom. Because we commence a thing 
 in a certain way, is many times the reason 
 we continue it in that way long after it could be 
 changed to our great advantage. Because we began 
 that way we are still living and acting under the de- 
 lusion that great public utilities, the value of which is 
 caused by all the people in common, instead of being 
 managed by, and for the benefit of the people, should 
 be managed for the private benefit and the enrichment 
 of an individual or little groups of individuals called 
 companies or corporations. 
 
 It is a delusion something akin to the belief, which, 
 according to Charles Lamb, so long held sway among 
 the Chinese when the savor of roast pork had been 
 accidentally discovered through the burning down of 
 Ho-ti's hut, that, in order to cook a pig it was neces- 
 sary to set fire to a house. By and by, however, they 
 found that that method was not only crude and waste- 
 ful, but also uncertain in its results. But until a 
 Chinese sage came forward and invented a rude type 
 
 94
 
 The Land of Living Men 95 
 
 of gridiron which, according to Lamb's interesting dis- 
 sertation, was the forerunner of the spit and the oven, 
 no one had ever thought of a pig being roasted without 
 the burning down of a hut, or were it for one better 
 circumstanced, a house. They, therefore, had to fol- 
 low the only method they knew. With us, however, 
 in connection with the supplying of certain great com- 
 mon needs it is different; for there are' other methods 
 of which we already know, that indeed have been 
 known and have been in successful operation in other 
 countries far more progressive in this regard than we, 
 for more than a score and in some cases, for more than 
 two score of years. The only excuse I can see is that 
 in having begun in a very crude and thoughtless and 
 expensive way, we have not been bright enough, or 
 energetic enough as yet, to find and adopt a more 
 common-sense and satisfactory way. 
 
 At one period in the development of our national 
 and municipal life there may have been a reason for 
 allowing these common necessities to be dealt with 
 entirely by private individuals or private companies. 
 There may have been a good or at least a satisfactory 
 reason for this method when our proportions were 
 small and our needs were not so great and not so 
 complex, when it meant giving over to individuals not 
 such vast amounts that should be used for the advan- 
 tage of all the people, and when the opportunities for 
 getting these great advantages away from the people 
 through political corruption and debauchery were not 
 so great as they are to-day. So there may have been 
 a reason in the beginning, but the basis for that reason
 
 96 TJic Land of Living Men 
 
 has now passed. This method may have been even 
 rig;ht at one time — though this in common with many 
 I question — it is no longer right now. And the fact 
 that we are beginning now to think so rapidly along 
 the lines of a saner and a better way indicates that the 
 method in vogue so long has nearly seen its day< 
 Nevertheless, although our awakening has been tardy, 
 our advance will be rapid. 
 
 It is the people — the people in common — that 
 make valuable those enormously rich franchises that 
 have been given over to individuals for their private 
 enrichment, in the form, to deal first with the city — 
 of light and heat and transportation and telephone 
 privileges, not to mention the various other ones at 
 present. It is not only the people, but to state it still 
 more concretely, it is the very needs of the people that 
 give them their enormous values, and it is through 
 these that their enormous profits are secured. If this 
 be true, why then should not these great interests be 
 conducted by and for the benefit of the people, instead 
 of by and for the enrichment of a few private in- 
 dividuals ? Especially as under our system of enor- 
 mously rich gifts to these individuals or groups of 
 individuals, and their conducting these enterprises with 
 no thought of the public welfare but with the one 
 thought of the greatest amount of profit for them- 
 selves, first, last, and all the time, we have been having 
 for years and are still having along these lines, with 
 an occasional exception, as poor a service with the 
 highest costs, and the greatest amount of evil and 
 abuses, as any country in the entire world.
 
 The Land of Living Men 97 
 
 As long, moreover, as any of the utilities that 
 are public necessities and that from their very 
 nature should be conducted by and in the inter- 
 ests of the people, are allowed to be run purely for 
 private gain, this condition of affairs will continue to 
 exist. 
 
 With all our progress along other lines, it is almost 
 universally understood that the conduct of our muni- 
 cipal affairs in the United States has been among the 
 most backward and costly and degraded and unsat- 
 isfactory of any in the entire civilized world. 
 
 In the conduct of these affairs we are far behind all 
 such countries as Germany, England, France, Norway, 
 Sweden, Belgium, not to go through almost the entire 
 list of civilized and progressive nations. It seems to 
 me clearly evident that from the very nature of the 
 case we cannot do violence to the principle — " That 
 which the people collectively create they should col- 
 lectively own," without suffering this as a result. 
 Moreover, we shall never reach the highest state in 
 municipal or even in state or national administration, 
 until we recognize and act upon the principle — what 
 the people can do best for themselves, that, through 
 their agent, the government, they should do. They 
 f^hould not, therefore, permit such governmental func- 
 tions to be seized and to be exploited by individuals 
 and corporations. 
 
 There must, therefore, not only be blows struck that 
 will forever put an end to the giving over to individ- 
 uals of these great common properties of the people, 
 but there must also be, to use the words of one of our
 
 98 The Land of Living Men 
 
 foremost American editors, * " The recovery to the 
 people of all franchises belonging to the people, but 
 diverted from public to private uses, by the purchase 
 of corporations and individuals, corruptly working 
 through state and municipal legislatures." 
 
 To our present method is to be attributed the almost 
 unbelievable amount of graft and bribery and corrup- 
 tion that has become so rampant among us of late and 
 that has been steadily swelling in its volume during 
 the passing of the years. " Nothing," says one editor 
 of another of our foremost papers, " has conduced so 
 greatly to graft and bribery in municipal and state 
 affairs as the fact that franchises of enormous value 
 for i)ublic utilities are to be obtained by favor of cer- 
 tain officials. Give the streets back to the city and this 
 element of corruption is at once eliminated." 
 
 If we take away from private gain those great 
 public service utilities, then we at once strike the axe 
 at the roots of the larger share of the source of our 
 political corruption and debauchery for which, espec- 
 ially in municipal matters, we stand as the most 
 notorious nation in the entire world. As lovers of 
 free institutions and of ordinary public honesty and 
 decency, this end alone, is of sufficient importance to 
 demand of us such a course, to say nothing of the 
 enormous gains otherwise. The fact that both city and 
 state legislation is so dominated by great accumulated 
 wealth and by corporations, especially public service 
 corporations, indicates that our prevailing methods are 
 
 * Henry Watterson — The Louisville Courier Journal.
 
 The Land of Living Men 99 
 
 not healthy, and that this great menace to free insti- 
 tutions, and to -a government for and by the people, 
 should be speedily removed. 
 
 A matter of such vital importance to the national and 
 individual welfare as the public ownership and control 
 of all public utilities is worthy of a most detailed con- 
 sideration, more than we shall be able to give it in so 
 limited a space. It is to become, as it is so rapidly be- 
 ginning now, one of the paramount questions in the 
 policies of the American nation. 
 
 I think there is perhaps no better way of proceeding 
 to a consideration of the argument in favor of such a 
 mehod of supplying our needs and necessities than by 
 considering first, what has been accomplished in this 
 line in the municipalities of other countries, ajid zvith 
 li'hat results. Many times a long and detailed argu- 
 ment that a certain thing cannot be done, is best met by 
 showing that it already has been or is being done, and 
 most successfully. 
 
 On account of the general characteristics and con- 
 ditions there being probably more nearly akin to our 
 own, we shall look in the direction of Great Britain 
 first. 
 
 I think we cannot do better at this point .than con- 
 sider some facts as presented by Mr. John Martin,* 
 whose statistics in connection with Great Britain are 
 
 * Mr. Martin was formerly a member of the Hackney- 
 Borough Council, London. He is now a resident of New 
 York, where he is well-known as a writer and an authority on 
 Municipal Problems, and as an effective worker along the 
 lines of clean politics, •
 
 icx) The Land of Living Men 
 
 vouched for by the British Imperial Board of Trade. 
 These facts and figures I shall give exactly as they 
 were presented by Mr. Martin himself.* After speak- 
 ing of the various small beginnings along these lines 
 that we have made here, he continues, " Driven to 
 desperation by the cobra-like voracity of the lighting 
 trust. New York is erecting a plant to light its streets 
 and public buildings (nothing for private consumers 
 yet), and so is beginning to toddle like a babe in those 
 paths of business thrift in which we shall see that 
 European cities have been running like athletes for 
 decades. 
 
 " How different has been the record abroad ! We 
 are thirty years behind the cities of Great Britain and 
 Germany. And from the beginning they were more 
 business-like than we are even now. To them it would 
 seem the height of economic folly to forbid a city to 
 supply electric light to householders and to allow a 
 private monopoly to retain its extortionate prices for 
 them while the municipality sought relief by multi- 
 plying wires and dynamos for itself. The 355 localities 
 of the United Kingdom and the numerous German 
 cities which own and run electric lighting plants, hold 
 the monopoly in their districts. Competition being, 
 in the nature of the case, impossible, the city holds the 
 field. 
 
 " Tlic same with the gas-works in the two countries. 
 Thrifty business management requires that somebody 
 
 * Proceedings of the Annual Conference on Good City 
 Government, held by the National Municipal League at New 
 York, 1905.
 
 The Land of Living Men loi 
 
 shall hold a monopoly, and political sense requires that 
 that somebody shall be the city itself. . . . 
 
 " No less than 260 cities — Great Britain — supply 
 their whole population with gas-light and power. . . . 
 They charge on an average, taking large and small, 
 those distant from and those near to coal fields all to- 
 gether, sixty-four cents a thousand cubic feet for gas. 
 Therefore the consumer is benefited, for the private 
 companies, on an average, taken in the same way, 
 charge a little over seventy cents. What they would 
 charge were they not held in check by municipal com- 
 petition Cousin Jonathan could tell John Bull. 
 
 " Has the taxpayer been mulcted to make up ? No, 
 indeed. The net revenue has been 7 per cent on the 
 capital, and, if anything, the taxpayer had been too well 
 cared for. In Manchester he received $350,000 last 
 year to help to pay for the schools, etc., the price of 
 gas being sixty cents; in Leicester he got $190,000 
 with gas at fifty-six cents, and in the other places 
 lesser sums in proportion to their size and the success 
 of the management. 
 
 " And the workman ? He has not been forgotten ; 
 for everywhere he gets slightly higher wages than he 
 would from a private corporation and somewhat more 
 generous treatment with respect to hours and holidays. 
 
 " Electric lighting tells the same tale. While I am 
 writing this there comes a return compiled by the 
 London County Council showing that the fourteen 
 local authorities in the metropolitan district which 
 supply electric light, sell it at an average of slightly 
 less than eight cents a kilowatt hour, nearly 20 per
 
 I02 The Land of Living Men 
 
 cent less than corporations chars^e in adjacent districts, 
 and nearly half as much as submissive New Yorkers 
 pay. And yet, after paying- all expenses and the in- 
 terest on the debt they had a surplus of $1,244,515. 
 Clearly they understand the notion of thrift in pro- 
 duction ; they do not regard every city department as 
 a spending agency. 
 
 " Space fails me to tell the details of the electric 
 Hght works of the 323 local authorities in the United 
 Kingdom with their approximate capital of $150,- 
 000.000, and of the numerous similar examples in 
 Germany. 
 
 " Still more remarkable, especially to those belted 
 Spencerians who piously believe that a government is 
 congenitally incapable of managing a business enter- 
 prise, must be the record of the street railway achieve- 
 ments abroad. For a change of air, let us leap the 
 North Sea and travel to Berlin. . . . 
 
 " Berlin's most illuminating experience has been 
 with her street railways. In 1898, in order to get the 
 lines electrified, the city granted a charter for twenty- 
 one years, with these provisions included: i. Work- 
 men to have a ten-hour day. 2. Waiting-rooms at 
 transfer stations to be erected and to be kept warmed 
 and lighted. 3. Uniform fare for the whole length of 
 each line to be 2.38 cents. 4. Eight per cent of the 
 gross profits, plus half the net profits over 12 per cent 
 on the old capital and 6 per cent on the new capital, 
 to be paid to the city. 5. At the end of the lease all the 
 lines and the rolling stock to become the property of the 
 city.
 
 The Land of Living Men 103 
 
 " Berlin's bureaucracy is as able and honest as any 
 in the world, and it worked as well as officials ever can 
 to keep the corporation to the terms of its bargain. 
 In addition, an association of citizens was formed to 
 watch and fight. But even then the trouble involved 
 in protecting the citizens from the universal tendency 
 of franchise corporations to evade their obligations was 
 so harassing that after a few months this council of 
 taxpayers decided that no more franchises should be 
 granted, and that the city should enter the railway 
 business. A short strategic line which happened to be 
 obtainable was bought, other lines were built, and 
 now the government is an active competitor and is 
 ready to take advantage of every franchise as it 
 expires. ... 
 
 " No less than 162 localities in Britain have shown 
 ability, enterprise and foresight enough to take over 
 and manage their own street-car lines. Among them 
 are London, Liverpool, Manchester, Glasgow, Birm- 
 ingham, Hull, Newcastle, Nottingham, Halifax, 
 Leeds, Sheffield, Aberdeen, Brighton, Dundee, Yar- 
 mouth, Belfast and Rochdale. All of them are so well 
 satisfied with the results in lower fares for the pas- 
 senger, better conditions for the workman and profits 
 for the taxpayers, that no party is even in existence 
 which advocates the re-surrender of any system to a 
 private corporation. The mere whisper of such a pro- 
 posal would be a request for political execution and 
 burial. . . . 
 
 " London owns the surface hues both north and 
 south of the Thames. Those on the north side, in a fit
 
 I04 The Land of Living Men 
 
 of lukewarmness, when for one term the Progressive 
 and Moderate parties were evenly balanced, and to the 
 present regret of the population served by them, are 
 leased for operation to a corporation on terms remun- 
 erative to the government, but obstructive to improve- 
 ment. The city has electrified its lines; the corpora- 
 tion refuses to follow suit. So much for that superior 
 corporation enterprise of which we hear ad nauseam. 
 
 " During the eight years of municipal ownership 
 these returns have been secured. On lines worked by 
 the council, 44 per cent of the passengers pay one- 
 cent fares, 43 per cent pay two cents, 8 per cent three 
 cents, 4 per cent four cents, and, to compensate for the 
 99 per cent of the passengers who pay less than our 
 straight five-cent rate, just one poor soul, who wishes 
 to travel the whole length of the line, has to pay six 
 cents. 
 
 " In those years, despite the increases of wages, the 
 annual holidays and the day's rest per week given to 
 employees, the street railways have contributed $1,465,- 
 000 to the general city treasury, $1,670,000 in reduc- 
 tion of the debt on the lines, $330,000 as a renewal 
 and reserve fund for the southern system, $450,000 for 
 taxes on the southern system during the last six years, 
 and $630,000 in reduction of debt from proceeds of 
 sale of horses, etc." 
 
 In addition to the extremely low fares that are paid 
 in German cities for street-car service, and with far 
 better and cleaner and more up-to-date cars than we 
 have — with a rare exception here and there — there 
 is this noticeable difference. There the number of
 
 The Land of Lk'iiig Men 105 
 
 seats each car contains is posted in clear and artistic 
 form in the interior, and each seat has its number just 
 above it. As soon then as all seats are taken no more 
 passengers are permitted to enter, but a sufficient num- 
 ber of cars is run to provide a seat — that which the 
 payment of a fare always implies — for every man, 
 woman and child. It makes a difference whether a 
 matter is conducted for the comfort and convenience 
 of its patrons or for the deliberate purpose of extract- 
 ing- from them the last possible penny, giving many 
 times in return an accommodation that we, had we the 
 civic pride and the sense of justice that we — and I 
 had almost said, above all people — should have, 
 would not put up with more than the number of days 
 absolutely required to bring about the change. 
 
 Compare the German citizens' two-cent fare and his 
 guaranteed seat and clean and artistic accommoda- 
 tions with our five-cent fare, even if for half a dozen 
 blocks, with our many times rattling cars, sometimes 
 even junk when they are bought, and our almost equal 
 chances that for this excessive fare we will get in ex- 
 change a strap to hang onto in common with a number 
 of people standing equal to or sometimes greater than 
 the number that the management deigns to accommo- 
 date with seats, and all the discomfort this means on 
 entering or leaving the car. Many times merely room 
 to stand upon a platform is all they will permit us to 
 have, and for a fare that is at least twice as high as 
 it should be even for the best sitting accommodations. 
 
 They are thirsty leeches, these owners and managers 
 of our public service corporations. But it is because
 
 io6 The Land of Living Men 
 
 we permit it. Their blood-sucking propensities seem 
 never to be satisfied nor do they decrease, but by virtue 
 of a great natural law they are ever on the increase. 
 And again, because we permit and stand for it. 
 
 There, one finds almost without exception, vestibuled 
 cars for the protection and comfort of their motormen. 
 This portion of their citizenship is looked after the 
 same as all others. But here it is scarcely ever that 
 the management of the roads adopts this plan volun- 
 tarily, and when the demand of ordinary decency and 
 fairness takes a measure to the legislature compelling 
 it, the company's representatives are there with their 
 money and their lobby to defeat it in common with 
 practically every measure looking to the comfort and 
 welfare and safety of those the public service corpora- 
 tion is supposed to serve. 
 
 In the matter of the municipal ownership and man- 
 agement of public utilities, we have heard much of late 
 of Glasgow, and not without reason. The people of 
 Glasgow have stood among the most fearless and the 
 most successful in managing for themselves their pub- 
 lic utilities. It has been a long time since the franchise 
 grabber has been able to exploit the people there. The 
 people of Glasgow, strange to say, prefer to keep for 
 themselves the millions of dollars their public utilities 
 return each year, instead of handing them over to a 
 little group of capitalists, foreigners many times, and 
 whose only interest is to take from the city the largest 
 amount of tribute it can exact. For over forty years, 
 or since 1869, Glasgow has owned its own gas-works. 
 As a result, its people pay fifty-three cents per thou-
 
 The Land of Living Men 107 
 
 sand feet for gas. Its municipal electricity is sup- 
 plied at five and one-half cents per kilowatt hour. All 
 the markets are owned by the city. Private slaughter- 
 houses were abolished many years ago and the city is 
 now supplied by three central establishments. From 
 Lake Katrine in the Trossachs it brings its splendid 
 water supply. The Water Department also supplies 
 hydrauHc power. 
 
 In addition to its hospitals, its parks, its art galleries, 
 museums, libraries, botanic gardens, art schools, tech- 
 nical schools, etc., it has also its winter gardens, its free 
 concerts, facilities for golf and other games, gymnasia 
 and playgrounds for the children. It has also homes 
 for the children of widows and widowers ; it has 
 depots for the supply of sterilized milk to poor child- 
 ren. " It," says Robert Donald, editor of the London 
 Chronicle, " was the persistency of Glasgow that broke 
 down the private telephone monopoly in Great Britain, 
 encouraged other municipalities to establish their own 
 system, and has now led to the complete nationalization 
 of the whole service." 
 
 Speaking of Glasgow's municipal tramways, Mr. 
 Donald says : " It will be interesting to state the effect 
 of municipal ownership, and to explain the policy 
 which guided the City Council. The company — as 
 all private enterprises must do — kept mainly in view 
 immediate profits. Like most British companies, it 
 pursued a narrow policy. The keynote of the muni- 
 cipal system was service, giving the best possible to 
 the citizens. The municipality operated the roads in 
 the interest of all. It greatly lowered the fares, ban-
 
 io8 TJic Land of Living Men 
 
 ished all advertisements from the cars, made the names 
 of the routes and destinations conspicuous, opened up 
 new routes and linked up new districts. It also con- 
 sidered its employees. Without a contented staff there 
 cannot be a perfect service. So the drivers and con- 
 ductors were dressed in new uniforms, their wages 
 were increased, their hours reduced. The citizens had 
 the feeling of personal possession when they patron- 
 ized the cars, which display the city's arms and its 
 motto — ' Let Glasgow Flourish.' Civic patriotism 
 asserted itself later on, when the displaced franchise- 
 holders started a competing service of omnibuses, 
 which failed to get support and soon disappeared. . . . 
 
 " The fares in Glasgow are one cent for a stage of a 
 little over half a mile, and over 30 per cent of the pas- 
 sengers travel this short distance, and bring in nearly 
 17 per cent of the receipts. For an average of two 
 and a third miles, the fares are two cents, and close on 
 61 per cent of the passengers travel this distance and 
 contribute 66V2 per cent of the receipts, so that 91 
 per cent of the total number carried pay two-cent or 
 one-cent fares. Only 6.31 per cent travel for three 
 cents. . . . Less than one per cent of . the 189,- 
 000,000 passengers last year paid five cents or 
 more. . . . 
 
 " The Glasgow tramways are managed by a Com- 
 mittee of the City Corporation, which holds frequent 
 meetings and reports regularly to the City Council. 
 It consists of twenty-eight members, who appoint sub- 
 committees for supervisng different departments. It 
 obtains the sanction of the Council for its actions.
 
 The Land of Living Men 109 
 
 The Council might be regarded as the legislative 
 authority, and the Committee as the executive. 
 
 " From a financial point of view the Glasgow under- 
 taking has been remarkably successful. . . . Last 
 year's accounts indicate the healthy financial condition 
 of the tramways. The total receipts, for instance, 
 amounted to $3,624,255, the operating expenses to 
 $1,684,100 — 49 per cent of the revenue. The net re- 
 ceipts showed a gross return on the capital outlay of 
 17.46 per cent. . . . The accounts of the depart- 
 ment are examined and audited by independent pro- 
 fessional accountants. The accounts are published 
 with elaborate detail, showing the smallest item of ex- 
 penditure worked out to percentages and comparisons 
 with previous years. 
 
 " The Tramway Department, as I have indicated, 
 generates its own electric power, the total cost of 
 which is less than one cent per kilowatt hour. 
 
 " The Tramways Committee delegates considerable 
 power to its general manager, who is responsible for 
 the staff who form part of the permanent civil service 
 in the city. Politics does not influence appointments, 
 and promotion is by merit. . . . 
 
 " With liberal depreciation and reserve funds to 
 meet renewals and obsolescence, with a redemption 
 fund which liquidates the original capital of the under- 
 taking in thirty years, which is at the same time main- 
 tained in an efficient condition out of revenue, the City 
 Corporation is more than doing its duty to the next 
 generation. Lower fares for long distances should be 
 easily possible in the near future, and there is a pros-
 
 no The Land of Living Men 
 
 pect that the average fare will come down to one cent. 
 A universal one-cent fare irrespective of distance could 
 then be adopted." 
 
 Here then we have a municipal enterprise which 
 after paying its annual interest, making its payments 
 into the sinking fund for the redemption of its capital, 
 allowing for depreciation and reserve fund, paying its 
 local tax assessments — for it makes the same contri- 
 bution to local taxation as if it were a private concern 
 ■ — and which although carrying over nine-tenths of its 
 patrons for one-cent and two-cent fares, will at the 
 end of thirty years — about fifteen years now, pay for 
 itself entirely without one cent of cost to the people or 
 to the municipality. Moreover, from the very begin- 
 ning, it has been more up-to-date than any privately 
 owned system. 
 
 There is indeed quite a contrast between the sturdy 
 common-sense and business sagacity of our Scotch 
 brethren and the way we allow ourselves to be fleeced 
 in connection with practically all of our public utilities 
 and the type of service that even then we accept. 
 
 We could go into hundreds of other cities in Great 
 Britain, in Germany, in Belgium and other continental 
 countries, as well as into Australia and New Zealand ; 
 but in all we would find the same general facts and 
 conditions, varying slightly in detail simply by reason 
 of varying local conditions. 
 
 Now in all fairness I ask, if the people in the cities of 
 these countries can save for themselves the returns 
 from these wonderfully rich properties, aggregating 
 hundreds of millions annually, instead of allowing
 
 The Land of Living Men ill 
 
 these vast amounts to flow into the pockets of a few 
 already oi'erly rich individuals, why cannot we Amer- 
 ican people do the same? If we cannot then we must 
 admit that we are less capable in business management 
 and in the matter of self-government than they. This 
 we can scarcely believe, especially when in some re- 
 spects we have proved ourselves even more capable. 
 I cannot believe that in these matters we are any less 
 capable, or that we will show an inferior ability when 
 we are sufficiently alert and determined. 
 
 The reply is made, if we had the honesty in muni- 
 cipal administration that they have in England, in 
 Scotland, in Germany and the various other countries 
 where such splendid municipal ownership results are 
 obtained, then we could safely travel along the same 
 lines. True, but the municipalities in these countries 
 did not always have this characteristic, but they have 
 attained it by simply going about it to attain it. They 
 made the start which in a very definite way has led 
 them to such splendid results. This is the stock argu- 
 ment presented against the municipal ownership and 
 management of public utilities, and that it is a strong 
 argument is held, and very honestly held, by large 
 numbers of people. It is an argument, the only argu- 
 ment really worthy of consideration, but an argument 
 not without an answer. We had better keep as we 
 are lest we get into conditions still worse, it is said. 
 But this latter is no argument, and it has no truth 
 even as a statement ; for taking it all in all it is abso- 
 lutely impossible to have conditions in this respect 
 worse than they are when we consider the uniformly
 
 112 The Laud of Living Men 
 
 excessively high charges and the generally poor and 
 niadequate service, and the thousands of unnecessary 
 killings and maimings that form the total for each 
 year. With this must be combined the great amount 
 of political corruption and debauchery that passes 
 every year, and coupled with it all we must not refuse 
 to take account of the yearly additions of the millions to 
 the wealth of these little groups of already excessively 
 rich men, many of whom are thoroughly unscrupulous 
 in their dealings and in their entire outlook, as is all 
 too clearly evidenced by the methods they have been 
 and are continually using in furthering their ends, and 
 in getting control of still larger amounts of the people's 
 properties, so that they have become a menace to free 
 institutions and to the welfare of every man, woman 
 and child in the nation. Matters, I repeat, by no stretch 
 of the imagination, could be any worse than they are 
 unless in connection with the taking over of these 
 utilities for our common use, we cut loose from all 
 common-sense in our methods of procedure and busi- 
 ness management, which I am sure we are not liable 
 to do. 
 
 The present amount of political corruption and graft 
 in our city administration is, I am inclined to think, 
 one very great argument, when we look at it in an 
 all round way, for taking from private exploitation 
 the management of these public utilities ; for then the 
 responsibilities at City Hall will become so great that 
 we, the individual citizen, shall be compelled to give 
 the amount of time and study and attention to muni- 
 cipal affairs that we should be giving, for it is on
 
 The Land of Living Men 113 
 
 account of this lack that these pubHc service corpor- 
 ations have been able to have seated in our city coun- 
 cils the men that they have been able to make their 
 deals with, and who, for consideration, have been 
 handing over these public properties for their private 
 enrichment. This is the great evil that we must now 
 squarely face. It is the sore that has been gradually 
 rotting and festering and gradually enveloping the 
 very vitals of our entire social body. Men's abilities 
 and real qualities assert themselves in the degree that 
 responsibilities are placed upon them. So with some- 
 thing personal enough and large enough and inspiring 
 enough for our splendid common citizenship to work 
 for, as this great movement and all that it carries with 
 it must be, and especially if we strike for it at once 
 without delays or dickerings, and without any more 
 millions being handed over or any further alienation 
 of properties and rights, we should quickly make a 
 splendid beginning in purging our social body of this 
 rapidly growing and vigor-sapping disease. And 
 when we begin to experience the direct personal re- 
 sults that will follow, then I am sure that we shall 
 never stop until we have put by the old, and have put 
 into an eventually full operation the new. 
 
 Hand in hand with the extension of this movement 
 must go the continual extending and perfecting of our 
 Civil Service system, making it continually stronger 
 in its requirements for admission, with perhaps contin- 
 ually greater leeway along the lines of dismissals for 
 proven incompetency, and if the management in mak- 
 ing removals cannot appoint except from the duly
 
 114 ^^'<^ La)id of Living Men 
 
 qualified lists, there will be but little chance for the poli- 
 tical machine methods gaining control, or even extend- 
 ing themselves materially. 
 
 There can be no argument that the financial burden 
 in connection with these undertakings would be too 
 great for our cities to assume, because under wise and 
 judicious management no additional burdens need be 
 assumed, and these enterprises can be taken over and 
 improved and extended just as they have been in the 
 cities of Great Britain and of Germany already noted, 
 and can be made to pay for themselves out of their 
 own earnings without involving a burden of a single 
 dollar upon any individuals or upon any municipality. 
 
 But this entire matter of municipal ownership is 
 nothing new nor startling even with us ; it is in fact 
 merely an extension of the municipal ownership meth- 
 ods that we already have, including municipal water 
 supplies — practically all of which are now or soon 
 will be under complete municipal ownership and man- 
 agement. So our fire departments, our street-cleaning 
 departments, our parks, and our public schools. Are 
 these and many others that could be mentioned not 
 managed more economically and satisfactorily and 
 more uniformly for the public welfare than if they 
 were left to private enterprise? Who is there bold 
 enough to say at all seriously, that any of these public 
 utilities should be turned over to private enterprise? 
 
 But to be supplied at satisfactory rates and in an 
 all round satisfactory manner with lighting and heat- 
 ing facilities, gas and electricity, street car and 
 telephone facilities, etc., is just as important, for they
 
 The Land of Living Men 115 
 
 are just as much necessities as those already men- 
 tioned. 
 
 So far as the question of right in the people's taking 
 over and managing these utilities for their own ben- 
 efit is concerned, it is scarcely worthy of consideration, 
 for we all know that it exists. Almost a hundred 
 forms of private ownership in the form of tolls, etc., 
 have gone. We can proceed by way of direct pur- 
 chase, mutual agreement in regard to price, if it is 
 found advantageous to buy the private companies out. 
 The more that can be done in this w'ay the better. 
 Then we can proceed by way of condemnation pro- 
 ceedings, through the right of eminent domain. It 
 is a recognized principle in government that the right 
 or desire of the individual is always subservient to 
 the public good. If I own a particular piece of prop- 
 erty and though I may think very highly of it, if a 
 street is to be opened that will be for the public benefit, 
 or if a railroad owned even by private individuals is to 
 be constructed, or a public building erected, the portion 
 of the property required is taken, or all, if all is neces- 
 sary, and I am given compensation for it according to 
 its real value, and not in accordance with whatever esti- 
 mate of its value I may be pleased to place upon it. 
 Here is something to be noted when these public prop- 
 erties are taken over to be managed for all the people — 
 they will be taken at their real values, not at any fiat 
 values, and a shrinking in values to the tune -of many 
 millions will be witnessed. The people are always 
 pre-eminently fair in matters such as these. They 
 will want to pay for every dollar of real value taken,
 
 Ii6 The Land of Living Men 
 
 but they will not pay the prices that the companies, 
 almost without exception, will ask. The millions in 
 watered stocks will be of no value to the people as 
 they are of no value to them now, but on the contrary, 
 are the cause of their parting with many a hard- 
 earned dollar. We will pay and willingly every dol- 
 lar any property is worth, but we should not pay a 
 dollar more than its real value calls for. 
 
 It is purely a matter of justice, a clearly written 
 duty — that which is intended to serve all the people 
 in common should be so managed that all the people 
 are served. As it is, the millions are exploited by the 
 few hundreds, and worse, for in many cases they are 
 plainly plundered by them. And all these years we have 
 been quietly submitting to it and acting as if we knew 
 no better. We have been learning very rapidly of late, 
 however. 
 
 Sq conservative and able a business man as ex- 
 Governor Douglas of Massachusetts in one of his 
 later messages to the Massachusetts Legislature, had 
 this to say in regard to the matter we are considering : 
 " I recommend legislation giving to cities and towns 
 wider powers in the conduct of business which derives 
 its profit from the necessities of the community. The 
 powers already granted have proved the economy and 
 wisdom of the conduct of such business by the com- 
 munity itself. . . . 
 
 " In many cases of privately owned public service 
 corporations the rates, fares and prices charged are too 
 high. The public is entitled to reasonable charges for 
 the services of these monopolies. It will be far more
 
 The Land of Living Men iiy 
 
 likely to obtain service at reasonable prices if it has 
 the right to do business on its own account. 
 
 " When a public service corporation is giving good 
 service at fair rates it is not likely to be disturbed. 
 When its rates and prices are unreasonable, it should, 
 in the interest of the public welfare, be disturbed. 
 
 " It is not disputed that, as a rule, private corpor- 
 ations conduct their business more economically than 
 do public corporations. It is, however, disputed that 
 the public usually obtains the benefit of this economi- 
 cal management. In most cases, therefore, the publicly 
 owned and operated waterworks, sewers, gas and elec- 
 tric lighting plants have given the public cheaper and 
 better service than the privately owned concern. 
 
 " For these reasons, I ask the Legislature to give 
 every reasonable facility to those municipalities which 
 desire to conduct their own public service utilities. 
 
 " Appreciating the difficulties of obtaining good busi- 
 ness management and economical production by mun- 
 icipalities, I urge you, when making the laws for mun- 
 icipal ownership, to so frame them that the evils of 
 political management will, so far as possible, be elim- 
 inated. With proper legislation it should be possible 
 to obtain most of the benefits without any of the evils 
 of privately owned and operated public service cor- 
 porations." 
 
 Of course, it is not to be expected that at first the 
 results will in every case be all that are looked for 
 by the most sanguine. Some mistakes will be made. 
 But this is one of the ways in which greater ability 
 in the conduct of these enterprises will be grown. And
 
 ii8 Til c Land of Living Men 
 
 then we already have such splencUd examples to learn 
 from. It will undoubtedly require careful and wise 
 business management to obtain in all cases the highest 
 results. 
 
 I think another paragraph from ex-Governor Doug- 
 las's inaugural address may not be amiss here : " If, 
 when guarded by as careful and wise legislation as 
 is possible, certain municipalities should fail in their 
 attempt to give better and cheaper service to the public, 
 it will be because the citizens of these municipalities 
 do not insist upon having their municipal plants con- 
 ducted in a businesslike manner. The principle of 
 municipal ownership is sound. In cases where unsat- 
 isfactory results are produced the fault is usually to 
 be found in a laxity of administration. I believe that 
 every such franchise taken over by the public relieves 
 the people from possible exaction, practised for private 
 profit. With the low rates at which municipalities 
 can borrow and the elimination of dividends, the rates 
 must be inevitably lowered, and the people become 
 alone responsible for the efficiency of the service." 
 
 So far, in this part, we have dealt entirely with the 
 matter of the public ownership and management of 
 those utilities that pertain especially to our cities. The 
 number of people is rapidly growing among us who 
 are also asking why we should not have a national and 
 state ownership and management or control of those 
 public utilities that pertain to all the people, the same 
 as this principle is being extended in Great Britain and 
 various Continental countries, so as to include tele- 
 graph, express, telephone, railroad enterprises, and thus
 
 The Land of Liznng Men 119 
 
 secure for the people better service and lower rates 
 such as the people in these other countries are enjoying. 
 There is no reason why this should not to a judicious 
 extent come about, and that it will, is as certain as that 
 the principle of municipal ownership will eventually 
 so grow and extend itself as practically to include 
 every city in the nation. 
 
 The principle of state and national ownership and 
 control will grow and extend itself perhaps more tar- 
 dily, but its eventual growth and triumph is just as 
 certain. The beginnings will be made in connection 
 with the managing of the municipal utilities for the 
 benefit of the people, and as it is seen what gains will 
 result from these, the demand for its extension so as 
 to include all the " natural monopolies " that are now 
 operated purely for private gain will continually in- 
 crease. If this can be done in other countries and so 
 successfully, as is now being done, then it can be done 
 here, unless again in this, we are willing to be classed 
 as incompetents as compared with our British and Con- 
 tinental brethren. And if it can be done so successfully 
 and to the great gain of the people in one line, then it 
 can be done also successfully and to the gain of the 
 people in lines of a more or less kindred nature. 
 
 Here again, fortunately, we do not have to deal with 
 any matters of theory or speculation merely. For 
 years the United States Government has conducted 
 a great public utility for its people, and during all the 
 years it has been in operation it has given them a ser- 
 vice incomparably better than that of any private com- 
 pany or companies even by the wildest stretch of the
 
 120 TJic Land of Living Men 
 
 imagination would have been, and at prices a mere 
 fraction of what we would be now paying as a nec- 
 essary tribute to corporate greed. We can, through 
 this splendid government service, send a message by 
 postal card or a much longer one by letter to practi- 
 cally any portion of the entire world for a two-cent fee. 
 Now, in all fairness I ask, what would be exacted 
 for this service if this public necessity were under the 
 control of private companies? Judging from their 
 charges in other things — express, telegraph, freight, 
 can we reasonably expect that the one would be a fee 
 of less than five cents, or the other less than ten ? That 
 is, even for the shorter foreign services, with still an 
 additional fee for the longer distances. In addition 
 to the low fees we now pay, compared to what we 
 would pay under private management, we get a ser- 
 vice that is as prompt and efficient as it can reasonably 
 be made. Dependent upon private concerns, our mail 
 matter would be carried at their convenience. At 
 first competition in connection with some of the routes 
 would insure us against the worst of service, but later 
 on when the various concerns through mutual self- 
 interest had pooled their interests or had consolidated 
 into one huge monopoly, then we should be practically 
 at the mercy of this concern, the same as millions of 
 people all over the country are at this very hour at 
 the mercy of other concerns of a similar public nature. 
 We appreciate too much our one-cent and two-cent 
 fees for domestic postal card and letter, with the large 
 leeway wc have, so far as amount is concerned in con- 
 nection with the latter.
 
 The Land of Living Men 121 
 
 Then the conveniences we have for small merchan- 
 dise many times allows us to save ourselves from the 
 demands of the privately owned express companies 
 when the element of distance enters. We should be 
 paying them still more were it not for the benign and 
 restraining influences the Post-Office Department ex- 
 erts over their calculations. 
 
 How about the revelations in connection with the 
 irregularities and dishonesty in the Post-Office Depart- 
 ment that came to the public knowledge some time 
 ago, I hear it asked. There were irregularities and 
 there was corruption. The very fact, however, that we 
 heard so much of it and the fact that the perpetrators 
 of it were arraigned and brought to justice, argues 
 well for such government ownership and adminis- 
 tration. Moreoer, I venture this assertion, that the 
 aggregate of losses sustained by the public through this 
 agency, have not equalled one thousandth part of the 
 amount of debauchery and corruption that would have 
 resulted were this public service utility allowed to be 
 in the hands of private individuals or companies, and 
 therefore run from beginning to end for private gain. 
 I also venture this statement, that all the losses sus- 
 tained through dishonesty and fraud in our govern- 
 ment Post-Office Department, from the first year of 
 its operation down to the present time, have not 
 equalled — to be conservative — one five thousandth 
 part of the amounts that the profits of private man- 
 agement would have taken from us, to say nothing of 
 the uniformly inferior type of service furnished, com- 
 pared to that which we have been and are enjoying.
 
 122 The Land of Living Men 
 
 Can any one present what would be regarded as any 
 reasonable argument, and one that would be accepted 
 by any number of reasonable and thinking men, why 
 the government cannot carry for us our express pack- 
 ages through the medium of a parcels post, and attend 
 to our telegraph and telephone needs, as successfully 
 as it now attends to our postal needs, and the same 
 as other people through their central governments are 
 having done for them with a better service and at 
 much lower rates than they were able at any time to 
 get from their former private companies? Certainly 
 no one of these is as difficult and as complex as the 
 service the government is already performing for us. 
 And to take these over simply as extensions of the 
 department already in operation would be by no means 
 a difficult task. Those who are familiar with the 
 parcels post in Great Britain for example, and its nom- 
 inal " peoples " charges, compared to the tribute lev- 
 ied by our express companies, appreciate what this 
 change will mean. The absurdity of a minimum ex- 
 press charge here being twenty-five cents ! It would 
 make an Englishman's or a German's or a Belgian's 
 blood boil to have such a tribute levied upon him, 
 with no other reason than for the purpose of Hning 
 the pockets of a few already wealthy company owners. 
 What would they say to such as this for example : A 
 few weeks ago through the breaking of some minor 
 parts of a cultivator I was compelled to send to the 
 factory for new pieces. The cost of the parts was a 
 (k^llar and twenty-five cents. The bulk was less than 
 half a cubic foot, or perhaps equal to that of an ordi-
 
 The Land of Living Men 123 
 
 nary pasteboard shoe box. The distance was consid- 
 erably under a hundred and fifty miles. The tariff 
 levied by the express company was seventy-five cents. 
 The time taken to bring the parcel was considerably 
 more than twice the length of time it could have 
 been carried and delivered in. The company or 
 companies could have carried such a parcel for a 
 charge of twelve to twenty cents and made a handsome 
 profit. 
 
 And then when the service is poor or careless, in 
 addition to being excessively high in its charges, there 
 is no recourse for the people, for public service com- 
 panies have no ethical sense that would lead them to 
 any amicable settlement when the shipper suffers either 
 great inconvenience or loss. He has no recourse ex- 
 cept to take the matter into the courts, which does not 
 pay unless the amount involved is large, and even 
 then he is subjected to delays and dodges of almost 
 every conceivable type. It is the policy of such cor- 
 porations never to pay out a cent unless it is utterly 
 impossible for them to find any way of avoiding it. 
 
 Here is another concrete example of a frequent type 
 of private corporation methods. Some time ago I 
 had sixteen hundred young fruit trees shipped from 
 a point a few miles south of Rochester, New York, to 
 a point thirty-four miles from New York City to the 
 north. It was a lot of specially selected, high-grade 
 trees. The nature of the goods was known to the 
 railroad company. The cases were labelled " perish- 
 able, without delay, do not allow to freeze." It was 
 in early November. The time in which they could have
 
 124 '^^^^ Land of Living Men 
 
 been carried handily with a service organized for the 
 people's convenience and welfare would have been a 
 period of not more than five or six days. They were 
 on the way between fourteen and fifteen days. The 
 last two or three days of their transit they encount- 
 ered an intensely cold and stormy period. Though 
 ready to plant them so as to have them in readiness 
 for an early pushing out in the spring, I was com- 
 pelled to heal them into the ground for the winter, not 
 knowing until spring should tell, whether they would 
 come out of the ground in a normal or in a damaged 
 condition. Large numbers proved to be damaged and 
 a block of several hundred had to be thrown out en- 
 tirely. The various inconveniences and losses incident 
 upon this were, after the lapse of several months, put 
 into the form of a letter with an offer to accept a very 
 reasonable settlement, provided it were made promptly, 
 and sent to the claim agent of the railroad. The 
 amount was considerably less, taking all things into 
 consideration, than the damage really sustained. In 
 the course of several months several letters passed. I 
 finally received the announcement — final, the agent 
 indicated — that a careful and thorough examination 
 of the case had been made, and that they would de- 
 cline my oiTer as they found themselves not liable, for 
 another road into whose hands they had given the 
 freight, had carried it, they found, as long a period 
 as they. Though prefering otherwise, an effort to 
 secure justice can now be had only by taking the mat- 
 ter into the courts. But this is simply an example of 
 but one type of inconvenience and loss that thousands
 
 The Land of Living Men 125 
 
 upon thousands of people are being- put to every year, 
 in addition to charges in practically every case higher 
 than they should be, because we are sufficiently stupid 
 as to continue to allow private concerns to get posses- 
 sion of and create many times into a monopoly, the 
 public service that should be conducted by the people 
 through their agent, the government, for the benefit 
 of the people. • 
 
 Another concrete case by way of a personal experi- 
 ence was that of another road in taking seventeen days 
 to carry some goods from a point twelve miles out 
 of Boston to the same destination — thirty-four miles 
 north of New York City. I dare say there is scarcely 
 a reader of these lines who has not had similar experi- 
 ences with the privately owned corporations that 
 abound in the country. I suppose that if all could 
 be chronicled, especially with all the adjectives that es- 
 caped at the time, books could be quickly compiled 
 that would form a very large public library. 
 
 The people of other countries have for years been 
 taking these utilities, such as express, telegraph, tel- 
 ephone, railroads, etc., out of the hands of private con- 
 trol and monopoly and through their central govern- 
 ments are supplying themselves with these services in 
 practically every case greatly to their advantage. Out- 
 side of the United States over two-thirds of the rail- 
 road mileage of the world is owned and operated by 
 the governments of the various countries. Ours is 
 almost the only great country now in the world that 
 does not own and operate the telegraph lines. Those 
 who are acquainted with the telegraph service in Great
 
 126 TJic Land of Living Men 
 
 Britain know and appreciate the fact that there they 
 can send messages for twelve cents to any part of 
 Great Britain, for which the charges here would in 
 no case be less than twenty-five cents, and sometimes 
 would reach as high as forty and fifty cents for the 
 same distance covered. In addition to this, one is fur- 
 nished there with a much more convenient service 
 both al the point of sending and in the matter of deliv- 
 ery, for it has all the conveniences of the Postal De- 
 partment with which it is connected. The fact that 
 our minimum telegraph charge is twenty-five cents is 
 quite as ridiculous as that our minimum express charge 
 is also twenty-five cents. 
 
 In Great Britain the history of the telegraph under 
 government ownership has been one of continual en- 
 largement and development with the thought of the 
 widest and best possible service for all the people, 
 and with the least possible charges. The result is 
 that it has become a great public convenience serving 
 all classes of the people. The charges here under 
 private ownership are absolutely prohibitive for such 
 uses as are made of it there by all the people in 
 common. 
 
 There was a great fight made on the part of the pri- 
 vate companies to retain their grip upon it when the 
 telegraph service was taken over by the government. 
 Many arguments were used, and similar to many 
 encountered here, against the government doing the 
 same in connection with these same general utilities. 
 The private owners and those in any way allied with 
 them and influenced by them, were fairly bursting
 
 The Land of Living Men 127 
 
 with reasons why the government should not perform 
 these services. Among them — It was not the gov- 
 ernment's business to telegraph ; the rates would be 
 higher ; it would not be as progressive in its manage- 
 ment as the private companies ; there w^ould be a deficit 
 to be met ; the use of the telegraph would be less ; 
 there would be less of a stimulus to invention, and 
 hence, no new improvements ; it would be an arbitrary 
 and unjust interference with private rights for the gov- 
 ernment to invade the field of private business, etc., etc. 
 In spite of these and their arguments, and in spite of 
 every effort made by the private companies to impede 
 and to prevent the movement, the telegraph system of 
 England was bought by the government and made a 
 part of the postal system in 1870. 
 
 As to the results in this case, they have been formu- 
 lated by a very able authority as follows :* " The im- 
 mediate results of public ownership were: First, a re- 
 duction in rates of one-third to one-half ; second, a 
 vast increase of business and work done by the tele- 
 graph, doubling in the first year after the transfer ; 
 third, a great extension of lines into the less populous 
 districts, so as to give the whole people the benefit of 
 telegraphic communication ; fourth, large additional 
 facilities by opening more offices, locating offices more 
 conveniently, and making every post-office a place 
 where a telegram may be deposited ; fifth, a consider- 
 
 * The late ex-Governor Altgeld, of Illinois, was a most 
 competent and earnest advocate of the principle of public 
 ownership and management of all public service utilities and 
 " natural monopolies."
 
 128 The Land of Living Men 
 
 able economy by placing the telegraph service with the 
 mail service, under single control, thus avoiding use- 
 less duplications in offices, etc. ; sixth, a marked im- 
 provement in the service, the aim of the post-office 
 being good service, not dividends ; seventh, a decided 
 gain to employees in pay, in shorter hours and in tenure 
 of office ; eighth, in unprecedented advantages to the 
 press for . cheap and rapid transmission of news at 
 the same time freeing it from the pressure of a power 
 that claimed the right to dictate the views and opin- 
 ions it should express ; ninth, the development of busi- 
 ness and strengthening of social ties, such as ties of 
 kinship and friendship ; tenth, the removal of a great 
 antagonism and the cessation of the vexations and 
 costly conflict it had caused between the companies 
 and the people. 
 
 " These were the immediate results. Now, after over 
 a quarter of a century of use, the following further re- 
 sults are noticeable : First, a further reduction of nearly 
 one-half in the average cost of a message; second^ 
 while the population increased only 25 per cent, the 
 telegraph business has increased 1,000 per cent; third, 
 a six-fold extension of lines and a fifty-fold increase 
 of facilities ; fourth, a steady policy of expanding and 
 improving the service, adopting new inventions, put- 
 ting underground hundreds of miles of wire that for- 
 merly ran over houses and streets, etc. ; fifth, a system- 
 atic effort to elevate labor, resulting in a progressive 
 amelioration of the condition of employees in respect 
 to wages, hours, tenure, promotion, privileges, etc. ; 
 sixth, satisfaction with the telegraph service, even on
 
 The Land of Living Men 129 
 
 the part of conservatives who objected to the change 
 before it was made." 
 
 Gaining valuable knowledge and experience in con- 
 nection with this great national public utility, Great 
 Britain is taking under government ownership and 
 management her entire telephone system — a portion 
 of which was taken some years ago. The people are 
 already great gainers, and I dare say the government 
 will carry out the same plan of greatly extending and 
 making more convenient for the people this great pub- 
 lic utility also. 
 
 Can we not see a very great similarity between this 
 government-owped and administered utility — Great 
 Britain's telegraph system — and our own government- 
 owned and administered postal system? Are not the 
 constantly increasing facilities for the ever greater 
 convenience and accommodation of the people, the suc- 
 cessful business administration, the uniformly low 
 charges in our system closely akin to the above detail 
 of results in connection with Great Britain's national 
 telegraph system? 
 
 And as important even as are these results is the fact 
 that this makes one less great source of public bribery 
 and corruption and debauchery ; for the fact that pri- 
 vately owned companies have gained control of most 
 of our public service utilities, and their efforts to retain 
 and to continually increase the scope of their holdings 
 is the greatest source of our notorious political cor- 
 ruption. 
 
 As have been the history and results of our govern- 
 ment postal system, Great Britain's government tele-
 
 130 TJic Land of Living Men 
 
 graph system, so have been in a general way the history 
 and results of the government owned and controlled 
 railroads of Germany, Belgium, New Zealand, Aus- 
 tralia, and many other countries that have brought or 
 that are bringing under government ownership and 
 management their railroads. 
 
 So free have public service corporations been in the 
 use of money in bribing and corrupting public officials 
 to get the people's public property into their own hands, 
 that there comes a time when even they have to pay 
 the penalty in having to part with a greater amount of 
 their profits than they would voluntarily pay. They 
 have created such a debauched condition in some city 
 councils and state legislatures that their first offers of 
 two thousand or five thousand dollars for votes in con- 
 nection with some particular measures, have so em- 
 boldened the members as time has passed, that they 
 have demanded as high as fifty thousand and even 
 more, for votes in connection with other measures. 
 Sometimes we hear the managers of corporations com- 
 plaining that they are held up, blackmailed, by coun- 
 cilmen and legislators. Their methods have insti- 
 tuted such foulness and venality that sometimes in 
 the end it does amount to this. They have themselves 
 to blame. The more bold have been known at times 
 to pay with checks ; those more cautious and wary pay 
 with money ; the still more cautious and wary give 
 dividend-paying stocks in the company or some allied 
 company, and pledge in addition their continued politi- 
 cal safe-keeping to the member, and others adopt still 
 Other methods.
 
 The Land of Living Men 131 
 
 There are those who get elected to our city councils 
 and state legislatures for the sole purpose of making 
 deals with these corporations, and getting out of the 
 office in this way the largest amounts they can get. 
 Corporations then again, have their own particular men 
 elected, with whom they have made a deal before elec- 
 tion, or with whom there is the understanding that they 
 command their services after their election. 
 
 Some corporations are known to have in city coun- 
 cils and state legislatures a member whom they support 
 and pay to look regularly after their interests. Some- 
 times to disarm suspicion a very good type of citizen — 
 whom they judge weak on the itchy palm side — is 
 induced to accept nomination, his election is secured 
 by them, and he is then manipulated according to their 
 interests. Political machines do the same. Once in a 
 great while they get fooled by not rightly calculating 
 their man. Such was the case when the machine in St. 
 Louis promoted the selection of Joseph W. Folk for 
 the office of Circuit Attorney. Mr. Folk at the time said 
 substantially that if elected he must have a free hand, 
 and that he would conduct the affairs of the office in his 
 own way. They thought he was merely talking. Some, 
 for their error in calculation in this case, are now serv- 
 ing good penitentiary time."^ 
 
 Various public service corporations are known to 
 contribute very liberally to one or the other political 
 party in campaign funds. Usually it is the dominant 
 party in either state or city according as their needs 
 lie. Sometimes to be on the safe side they are large 
 
 * Supplementary, IV.
 
 132 The Laud of Living Men 
 
 contributors to the campaign funds of both parties. 
 Their profits taken directly from the people's pockets 
 arc generally so enormous that they can afford to do 
 this, in addition to maintaining large corruption funds 
 for definite action later on. 
 
 That there are others — and the numbers now are 
 very large — who realize these facts is evidenced by 
 the following expression from the editor of a leading 
 magazine : '' The chief agencies of corruption, bribery, 
 and debauchery of the legislative, executive and ju- 
 dicial departments of government, as has been shown 
 time and again, are found in the public service cor- 
 porations which operate natural monopolies or those 
 utilities in which all the people are interested. To des- 
 troy this fountain-head of political corruption and to 
 give to all the people all the benefits flowing from the 
 operation of public utilities or natural monopolies, the 
 city, state and nation, or the people, should own and 
 operate them for the good of the community at large." 
 
 The difference in the policies and the management 
 of the various public service utilities in those countries 
 where they are moving, and so successfully, along the 
 lines of public ownership and operation, or manage- 
 ment, and the prevailing policies and methods of 
 management among us should I think be noted. In 
 case of the former, the best* and the most up-to-date 
 service, with a minimum of cost to the people is the 
 policy. Not the making of large dividends, but using 
 what would otherwise be larger profits for the greater 
 convenience and better accommodation of the largest 
 number of people at the lowest reasonable cost.
 
 The Land of Living Men 133 
 
 In case of transit, for example, municipal or state, the 
 opening up of sections and properties in new and 
 outlying- districts, thus affording desirable and real 
 homes to large numbers of people who otherwise 
 would be compelled to remain as tenants in the already 
 densely populated portions, because unable economi- 
 cally to reach the districts where they can have real 
 homes of which they may become owners. It is the 
 welfare of the people, of the largest numbers of the 
 people, that is continually sought after. And what 
 do we find here? We find these utilities, with a minor 
 exception here and there, organized and managed with 
 an eye single to the largest dividends that can be ex- 
 tracted from the people, and many times large divi- 
 dends even on stock watered to two, three, and even 
 four times its real value, a proceeding, in my judg- 
 ment, criminal in its nature and that should not much 
 longer be permitted. Then on top of all this, after giv- 
 ing the vast sums we are continually giving to those 
 private individuals and companies by way of franchises 
 and privileges, the use of streets, highways, etc., we 
 are struggling continually to have them, deal not hon- 
 orably and fairly with us, but to be even decent in 
 their charges and service and general treatment of 
 their patrons. We have many times to fight legally 
 and against the ablest talent that our combined contri- 
 butions enable them to employ, to secure the most ele- 
 mental rights, and many times the most ordinary forms 
 of decency in treatment. The above is true in regard 
 to practically all public service corporations, true of 
 all natural monopolies of whatever nature. How much
 
 134 The Land of Living Men 
 
 better the public welfare would be served if these 
 utilities were in the hands of the people moving always 
 and directly along the lines of their own best interests. 
 There are exceptions. In numbers of our smaller 
 places, and occasionally in the larger, the service is all 
 that could be expected from the profits received, that 
 is under the present system. 
 
 It is not necessary that in all cases there be public 
 ownership and operation, in fact in probably the great 
 majority of cases at the present time this would be 
 unnecessary and in many inexpedient ; but that the 
 public service utility or the natural monopoly be owned 
 by the municipality, state, or nation and leased upon 
 mutually paying terms to responsible and wisely selected 
 operating companies, could not help but serve a great 
 and wide-spread public good. This method preserves 
 the rights — the franchises — to the people and the 
 terms of the lease can be so drawn that the public be 
 well protected as to quality of service, etc., and an 
 annual income be secured which in practically all cases 
 should increase in its proportions as time passes. 
 
 A very good concrete illustration of this point im- 
 mediately in hand, comes from Milan, Italy. Prior to 
 1897 the street railways were owned by a corporation 
 which paid to the city a lump sum of $200,000 a year. 
 " Fares were high, service was poor, employees were 
 overworked and underpaid ; and the public was treated 
 pretty much as the New York public is treated — like 
 cattle," lUit thanks to municipal ownership in con- 
 nection with this utility, the city owns the tracks and 
 has a supervising control over its entire railway system.
 
 The Land of Lk'iiig Men 135 
 
 It now receives an annnal income of $600,000, and 
 one of the most valuable lessons for us, perhaps, is the 
 following- : — During two hours each day the fare on 
 the street railways is the equivalent of one cent ; during 
 the balance of the day it is the equivalent of two cents. 
 And the operating company, which has a twenty year 
 contract, is able to declare right good dividends from its 
 share of the annual earnings of $1,500,000. Since the 
 city has owned its street railway line, fares have been 
 reduced as above, service has been vastly improved, 
 employees' hours have been reduced and their time 
 made more regular with a guaranteed rest of four days 
 in each month, while at the same time their wages 
 have been increased. Thus the people of Milan, the 
 second city in the country, have the satisfaction of 
 knowing that they have one of the best street railway 
 systems of any city in the country — this satisfaction 
 itself a valuable asset of the people. Is n't it really 
 about time that we " progressive " American people be- 
 gan to sit up and take note ? 
 
 The owners of these public service utilities find a way 
 in spite of all efforts against it to make them monop- 
 olies, and the people are then at their mercy. A 
 safe and sane principle and one that thoughtful men 
 everywhere are recognizing as thoroughly sound is 
 this, if in connection with anything there is a mo- 
 nopoly, or the possibility of a monopoly, then the 
 people should own and control that monopoly. It 
 then becomes a benefit to all alike and an injury to 
 none. It does n't enrich the few while it helps econ- 
 omically to enslave the many, as at the same time it
 
 136 The Land of Liz'iiig Men 
 
 abounds in corruption and helps undermine and par- 
 alyze republican institutions. In other words the prin- 
 ciple of public ownership is sound — the ownership of 
 those utilities, that from their nature become or may 
 become monopolies, or of those utilities that from 
 their nature derive 'their values from the common 
 needs of the people. 
 
 Whether now or as time passes it may be practicable 
 or advisable that all such utilities come under public 
 ownership and control, is something that can be deter- 
 mined only by the people in a reckoning with the con- 
 ditions in each particular locality and in each particu- 
 lar case. But there is a principle thoroughly safe as 
 well as sound that should be put into immediate oper- 
 ation in every state, namely, that each locality have the 
 right — by statute, as it has the natural moral right — 
 to purchase, or to construct and own, and to operate or 
 control such of its utilities, as at any time it may decide 
 upon. And any legislator who sees fit to record his 
 vote against any enabling measure of this nature, gives 
 evidence, with possibly a rare exception, of his sub- 
 serviency to certain agencies that do not represent the 
 people, or of his anticipation of such subserviency, and 
 these are the men who, as we get a little more stamina 
 in the recognition of and the performance of our duties 
 as citizens of a progressive and advancing nation, will 
 be quickly read out of public life. 
 
 If a private company is giving a good service at a 
 reasonable cost, and is decent and honourable in its 
 methods and in its dealings with the public, there may 
 be no reason, and in large numbers of cases there wdll
 
 The Land of Living Men 137 
 
 be found no reason for interfering with it. But, where 
 such is not the case the city should have the right even 
 for the protection, to say nothing of the welfare, of its 
 people, either to bring such concern to terms, or to 
 throw it out of business entirely. The fact of the city 
 having such right, will, of itself act as a tremendous 
 protection, and the chances are that such right would 
 have to be exercised only now and then as occasion 
 might demand. In regard to this principle all fair and 
 unbiassed minds certainly cannot fail to agree. 
 
 The fact that practically all of our cities, and even 
 our larger ones, as well as the nation itself, are still in 
 their infancy, shows how careful and how zealous their 
 people should be in the disposition of their public utili- 
 ties, for the values of these will, as time passes, in- 
 crease to tremendous proportions. 
 
 On account of these natural monopolies being 
 grabbed and monopolized for the enrichment of the few, 
 and therefore not administered for the common good of 
 all the people, the two greatest evils among us as a na- 
 tion have gradually come about. The one lies in the 
 great inequality in the distribution of the wealth of the 
 country in that we have the few thousands of the exces- 
 sively and sometimes criminally rich, over against the 
 millions of the poor, and resulting in the almost unbe- 
 lievable conditions we have already noted. If you will 
 search carefully you will find that practically all the 
 great fortunes now held by individuals or families have 
 been built up through the ownership and control, or the 
 monopoly, of these public service utilities or these great 
 natural monopolies. Look carefully and see if this is
 
 138 The Land of Living Men 
 
 not true. Once in a while you will find an exception, a 
 minor exception, but so rarely that the other becomes 
 pre-eminently the rule. 
 
 To these as the new generation comes along, we owe 
 our continually increasing numbers of the " idle rich," 
 some of whom — both men and women — have never 
 been known to do an honest day's work in their lives. 
 They live and fare sumptuously, they roll in wealth, 
 and all the time, as John Stuart Mill has pointed out, 
 they are being supported by the daily toil of others. 
 Gradually they come to believe that they are made of 
 a different type of clay from those about them, that 
 they Were made to be served and supported by others, 
 and so also their children. In this way many become 
 " smart " and foolish and gradually prepare the way for 
 their descendants either immediate or remote, to become 
 degenerates or linked with degenerates, through whom 
 the ability to live longer through the support of others, 
 becomes dissipated. It is they who lose the respect of 
 the great common people, and when this is once lost 
 something is lost that no amount of wealth or supposed 
 station will ever compensate for. This is true as every 
 sane person will realize, not of all, by any means, but 
 it is true of very many. 
 
 The second great evil lies in the vast amount of bri- 
 bery and corruption and debauchery that has come 
 about in public and political life, the riding over the 
 rights of the people that these agencies have brought 
 about. A detail of the political intrigues of the com- 
 panies and corporations in their manipulations of the 
 people's representatives in city councils and in state
 
 The Land of Living Men 139 
 
 and national legislatures for their own private busi- 
 ness ends, would fill volume after volume. Most people 
 are now familiar with it in some form or another. The 
 fact that great private wealth so dominates legislators 
 is proof in itself that it is not healthy. When, there- 
 fore, these great sources of private wealth that belong 
 by right to the people are managed in the interests of 
 the people, we shall then witness a gradual letting go 
 of the grip of this monster. 
 
 We are now, how'ever, beginning to make a more 
 rapid progress with things as they are. Within a 
 period of less than half a dozen years there has come 
 into being in connection with most of these public utili- 
 ties, an institution that is destined practically to revo- 
 lutionize our past and present lax methods — the Pub- 
 lic Service Commission, that has received its most 
 complete and successful embodiment up to the present, 
 perhaps, in the states of New York and Wisconsin. 
 Already the results accomplished are beyond the be- 
 liefs of the most sanguine. 
 
 They have been given practically complete control 
 of all public service utilities in these states. The laws 
 creating them seek to " protect the public against the 
 public service companies, the public service companies 
 against the public ; and, most important of all, it seeks 
 to protect both the public and the public corporations 
 against their common enemy, — ■ the speculator. It 
 aims, in short, to make the public service company 
 serve the public, which means the service of patrons 
 and stockholders alike and in equal degree." The 
 Commissions are guarded by such precautions that very
 
 140 The Land of Living Men 
 
 little of their work, and few if any of their orders, can 
 be overthrown or halted by adverse court decisions, or 
 even stays compelled through injunctions — the meth- 
 ods of the public service corporations are now pretty 
 well known and are being profited by ■ — and it is only 
 by giving the Commissions the widest authority of a 
 judicial-executive type, that will insure them the com- 
 plete fulfilment of their purpose. 
 
 The New York Commissions — in New York there 
 are two, one of five members for the state outside of 
 New York City, and one of five members whose juris- 
 diction extends over all public service companies in 
 and pertaining to New York City. The latter will 
 serve to point to some facts as regard its methods and 
 its results. The Commission has its own corps of ex- 
 perts and legal advisers and accountants. It has to 
 take the word of no company in regard to any values, 
 or terms, or charges, or as to whether any given thing 
 can or cannot be done. It is able to ascertain all these 
 facts for itself. It reviews and adjusts something over 
 10,000 complaints each twelve-month. It enables, for 
 the first time perhaps, " the small individual person to 
 treat with the great corporate person on something- 
 like equal terms." It not only reviews and investigates 
 complaints, but inaugurates all types of investigations 
 on its own initiative. It not only suggests, but when its 
 investigations and data are complete to the point of 
 issuing an order, its order is issued, and failure to 
 comply with any order, unless a stay is obtained from 
 the commission itself, is punishable by a fine that may 
 be as much as $5,000 a day for a transportation com-
 
 The Land of Living Men 141 
 
 pany, and $1,000 a day in the case of a gas or electri- 
 cal company. 
 
 It has already been the means of saving hundreds 
 of lives, through the compelling of safety devices se- 
 lected and tested by its experts, and through other 
 means, and will be the means of saving many thou- 
 sands more as time passes. It has insured a better, 
 more efficient, more honest service of many various 
 types to millions of people. It has already saved mil- 
 lions of dollars to the people and will unquestionably 
 be the agency for the saving of hundreds of millions 
 to come. It has been the means of protecting the in- 
 vestor in securities, both the modest — those who need 
 protection the most perhaps — and the large, from the 
 speculator and the stock jobber. Now, not a stock 
 or a bond of any description can be issued without its 
 approval. It seeks to protect the companies from the 
 same predatory speculator. It will also forever do 
 away with the granting by any supposed represen- 
 tatives of the people, either state or municipal, of any 
 more perpetual or even long term franchises which in 
 the aggregate have already amounted to many millions 
 of dollars in value. In brief, the Commission serves 
 the public — the individual user of any public utiHties, 
 commodity or service; it serves and protects the com- 
 pany itself ; it serves and protects the investor in se- 
 curities ; and not least perhaps, it serves to bring sys- 
 tem and order out of a state of practical chaos and 
 anarchy. 
 
 The plan of the Public Service Commission should 
 be carefully studied and instituted, and without delay,
 
 142 The Land of Living Men 
 
 in every state, and all public utilities, whether under 
 private or under public ownership, should be brought 
 under its supervision. The wonder is that we have 
 gone along- in the chaotic, unbusinesslike and expen- 
 sive manner that we have been going so long. 
 
 We must get away from the idea that we are to be 
 governed and our affairs managed for us. The people 
 must govern and manage their own affairs. It is not 
 only their right, but their duty. If the people do not, 
 then the exploitation of the many by and for the gain 
 of the few will inevitably follow even as it is going on 
 to-day, and as has always happened when the people 
 themselves have not ruled. Not only as a common- 
 sense principle of self-interest, but a sense of safety 
 for the commonwealth, pure patriotism itself, demands 
 that without undue delay these great public service 
 utilities and these great natural monopolies be man- 
 aged for the interests of all the people in common. 
 
 The wealth that is created by the common needs of 
 the people or by the continually growing life of all the 
 people should belong to all the people. By moral right 
 it belongs to them, and without undue delay, that 
 zvhich belongs to the people morally must he made to 
 belong to them legally and by cnstom.
 
 VII 
 
 LABOR AND ITS UNITING POWER — ITS 
 
 STRENGTH— ITS WEA KNESS — ITS 
 
 GREATER STRENGTH 
 
 ;i^^^^ GREAT people's movement is now the only 
 power that will save and redeem the nation. 
 I think there is no more significant factor 
 in the getting ready for this great pur- 
 pose than the splendid companies of men that are 
 bringing themselves together in our Labor Unions and 
 Brotherhoods and Federations. And among them is, 
 it must be said, some of our princely citizenship. 
 
 I know that there are various opinions held in re- 
 gard to the purposes and even the good of our labor 
 unions. This can be said, however, and without any 
 fear of successful contradiction, that those who know 
 most of them and what they have accomplished, and 
 most of the business and labor world in general, realize 
 the splendid results they have already achieved and the 
 equally important work that is yet before them. Cer- 
 tainly upon their ivisc and intelligent grozvth and devel- 
 opment depends much that will make for the highest 
 welfare of our coming institutions. 
 
 I know that there are those who have doubted even 
 the right of labor combining in this way, to say nothing 
 of the expediency of it. It is not only right and ex- 
 
 143
 
 144 The Land of Living Men 
 
 pcdient, as I view it, that labor should so organize, but 
 it is also absolutely necessary that it do so, necessary not 
 only for its own good and welfare, but also for the good 
 and the welfare of the very nation itself. 
 
 It has been the history of labor that what it has 
 gained for itself — and it has gained much — it has 
 gained entirely through its own efforts. 
 
 Those who are at all acquainted with the conditions 
 of labor in times past, and especially prior to the present 
 century, know out of what a condition of bondage it 
 has gradually lifted itself. It was at one time in that 
 condition in which it had literally no rights that were 
 considered as belonging to human beings. Before con- 
 sidering the matter further it is interesting to note that 
 in the industrial world, the captains of industry — the 
 employers — had this same fight for liberty and for jus- 
 tice, and they are now, mark you, not such a great ways 
 ahead of that larger class called wage-workers. 
 
 Concerning this an eminent authority has said : " In 
 ancient times, particularly in the Roman and the 
 mediaeval world, a manufacturer or merchant, though 
 his ships might cover the inland seas, though thousands 
 of men might be doing his bidding, yet he had no voice 
 in the government, was not considered fit for a gentle- 
 man and patrician to associate with, had no voice in 
 making the laws that should govern him, nor in deter- 
 mining what taxes he should pay ; he was plundered 
 indirectly by means of taxation, and when this did not 
 suit the purpose of dissipated and rapacious officialism, 
 he was plundered directly. To be born a patrician, to be 
 a member of the priesthood, or a successful military
 
 The Land of Living Men 145 
 
 chieftain, entitled a man to rule. The man who sup- 
 plied the world with necessaries had no social or 
 political standing, and this continued to be so through- 
 out the Middle Ages — continued to be so in almost all 
 Europe till toward the end of the last century, and is to 
 a great extent still the case in Russia and in the Turkish 
 provinces of Europe. ... In England the employer 
 acquired his rights earlier, and has for some time had a 
 voice in the government. But even in England the 
 much praised Magna Charta was not for the benefit of 
 either employer or workman, but simply of the nobility 
 — the idle, who, by reason of the accident of birth, were 
 enabled to appropriate the labor of others." 
 
 Continuing and speaking also of the early conditions 
 of the wage- workers, he says : " But, upon the whole, 
 the employer in his struggles for justice is not a century 
 in advance of the class we to-day call the wage- workers, 
 and they, the laborers, were in ancient and later times 
 practically all slaves. To be sure, we catch here and 
 there, in ancient literature, a phrase about the laborer 
 being worthy of his hire, but when we examine into the 
 actual condition of the toiling masses we are forced to 
 treat such utterances as the emanations of fancy, for 
 not only was the labor of the masses at the absolute dis- 
 posal of the master, but practically, and in every-day 
 experience, their lives were also. True, there was in 
 most countries a law providing that the master should 
 not kill his slave, but if the master did so he generally 
 went un whipped of justice. This continued to be the 
 condition, with slight exceptions, throughout all Europe 
 down to near the beginning of this century. For un-
 
 146 TJic Land of Living Men 
 
 numbered centuries they were absolute slaves, belong- 
 ing to individuals ; then they belonged, as it were, to the 
 soil, and were known as serfs and, in time, in England 
 they may be said to have belonged to the county or 
 shire. . . . 
 
 " In 1360, during the reign of Edward III, it was 
 provided by law that if a laborer refused to work for 
 the wages fixed by law or by the justices of the county, 
 or if he went outside of the county he was to be brought 
 back by the sheriff, was to be imprisoned, and was to 
 have the letter ' F ' branded with a hot iron upon his 
 forehead in token of his falsity. If he sought by any 
 manner to increase the rate of wages, he was to be im- 
 prisoned. . . . From that time on, for four cen- 
 turies, the legislation in England is of uniform kind, 
 prohibiting by imprisonment all meetings of workmen, 
 and providing that the justice should fix the wages to be 
 paid in their county ; that if any laborer refused to work 
 for the wages fixed by the justices, he was to be put in 
 the stocks ; if any laborer was found idle and did not 
 apply himself to work, he was to have the letter ' V ' 
 branded with a hot iron upon his cheek, and was to be 
 sold into slavery for two years, his children likewise to 
 be sold, and if cither he or they ran away they were to 
 have the letter ' S ' branded on the cheek with a hot 
 iron, and were to be sold into slavery for life, and were 
 to be fed on bread and water, and it was provided by 
 law that they were to be made to work by beating, by 
 chaining, etc., and if they ran away again they were to 
 suffer death. Children that had worked at husbandry 
 till they were twelve years old, were forbidden ever to
 
 The Land of Living Men 147 
 
 attempt to do anything else ; other children were re- 
 quired to follow the occupation of their parents or be 
 imprisoned. It is hard to conceive of a condition of the 
 laboring classes that could be much worse than that of 
 the English during these centuries." 
 
 And so far as the length of the work-day was con- 
 cerned, during the reign of Queen Elizabeth, in 1562, 
 the following statute was enacted : " All artificers and 
 laborers being hired for wages by the day or week shall 
 betwixt the midst of the months of March and Septem- 
 ber be and continue at their work at or before five of 
 the clock in the morning and continue at work and not 
 depart until betwixt seven and eight of the clock at 
 night, except it be in the time of breakfast, dinner, or 
 drinking ; and all such artificers and laborers between 
 the midst of September and the midst of March shall 
 be and continue at their work from the spring of the 
 day in the morning until the night of the same day, ex- 
 cept in the time of breakfast and dinner." 
 
 So much then for the early conditions of both em- 
 ployer and wage-worker. We come on down then to 
 our own time. As the employer class became fully 
 emancipated they began to take matters into their own 
 hands, and in their relations with those who worked 
 for them and who Were the absolutely essential factor 
 in their business and who helped make their profits, 
 they had the entire say. They paid the wages they 
 chose. They laid down the conditions under which 
 those working for them did their work. The laborer 
 had practically nothing to say regarding anything. 
 The employers were organizing among themselves ;
 
 148 The Land of Living Men 
 
 they were g^etting stronger, and as a rule, it can be truth- 
 fully said, more dictatorial. The wage-workers then 
 began to take heed. They began to see what was to be 
 gained through organization, through co-operation. 
 They realized that they had grievances of various types, 
 that they were not getting as a rule a fair share in the 
 profits of the enterprise in which they were as neces- 
 sary a factor as the element of capital and its man- 
 agement. They also realized that as individuals they 
 had absolutely no way of making any of their wants 
 or grievances known, and that for individuals to 
 act in these matters was not only futile but unsafe 
 for the one or ones so acting. Then organization 
 and the uniting of the wage-workers in the form of 
 the labor union came into being. 
 
 In reply to the question, " What originally were th< 
 conditions and facts which seemed to make necessary 
 the combinations of workmen called ' labor unions,' 
 and which justify their present existence?" an officer 
 of one of our larger labor organizations gave the fol- 
 lowing reply : " To describe accurately such conditions 
 and facts would require many volumes dealing with so- 
 cial conditions, social injustice, special privilege, all 
 ever the world. The specific fact which made labor 
 unions necessary was this : Wealth was produced as a 
 result of a combination of labor and of intelligent di- 
 rection. The direction, otherwise the employer, was in 
 absolute control, fixed wages, treated the employee a? 
 he saw fit. The employers were also united in their 
 social relationships, their mutual interests and in other 
 ways. The employees, the workers, were isolated ;
 
 The Land of Living Men 149 
 
 they had no union, working- from dawn till dark made 
 social intercourse impossible. The unions of workers 
 were formed for the same reason that the union of 
 states in this country was formed — namely, to give 
 to the individuals forming- the union the greater 
 strength that comes from united action, to give them 
 the dignity that comes with escape from a servile con- 
 dition, to give them the power enabling them to obtain 
 for themselves fair wages, involving comfort and educa- 
 tion for their families and leisure for mental improve- 
 ment for themselves." 
 
 Said the President of the American Federation of 
 Labor in a recent address before the New York Board 
 of Trade and Transportation : " The very concentration 
 of wealth and its possession is potent organization, and 
 unless the wage-earners, the workers, combined their 
 efforts in unions of labor, their condition to-day would 
 be such as to shock the mind even in contemplation. 
 That any hope for material improvement, moral ad- 
 vancement, or higher ethical consideration is possible 
 without the organizations of labor few now seriously 
 believe." 
 
 This is quite in keeping with an utterance of former 
 Governor Washburn, of Massachusetts, when he spoke 
 as follows : " The fact that there is unrest and dissatis- 
 faction when man is confined to unremitting toil is one 
 of the brightest and most healthy omens of the times. 
 It is an indication that his better nature is struggling 
 for emancipation ; it is a hopeful sign of finer and nobler 
 manhood in the future. Such efforts for improvenlent 
 should never be discouraged, but always encouraged."
 
 150 The Land of Living Men 
 
 So much then for the right, the expediency, and the 
 necessity of the wage-worker organizing and uniting 
 for protection and for mutual self-help. 
 
 The labor unions have committed errors of course ; 
 they are committing them to-day, and plenty of them. 
 Counts of many various types can be made against them. 
 Enemies of or those unfriendly to union labor could, 
 I dare say, compile very long lists of errors and ex- 
 cesses of various kinds. Friends of and those sympa- 
 thetic to union labor could compile also a similar list. 
 But this is only natural, for in the early and formative 
 days of any movement this is practically always true; 
 there is indeed scarcely an exception. No movement or 
 system, especially one involving such complex and such 
 difficult matters to deal with and men in such various 
 stages of development, can start in a fully perfected 
 form, nor is it to be expected. Once it was urged in 
 England that men should not be given their political 
 freedom until they were fully prepared to use it rightly, 
 and until there was no danger of their ever abusing it. 
 This course seemed plausible and reasonable to those 
 advocating it ; to it Lord Macaulay replied, "If men are 
 to wait for freedom until they have become good and 
 wise in slavery, they will wait forever." 
 
 In a similar vein and speaking directly of organized 
 labor, the Springfield Republican has said: "Viewed 
 philosophically, it is inevitable that a riot of inexperience 
 and inefficiency should characterize the early stages of 
 labor's organization. No state of society is ever inaugu- 
 ratcTl with people already perfected for its coming. . . . 
 Republican institutions were not deferred on earth until
 
 The Land of Living Men 151 
 
 a people were found entirely capable of running perfect 
 republics. Democracy did not await the advent of a 
 population already fully trained in the arts of self-gov- 
 ernment. All these things come, and the people most 
 concerned have to develop up to them. Such is the les- 
 son of history. Labor-unionism came also, and, in the 
 same way, its adherents have had to discipline them- 
 selves by experience in the best methods of organization 
 and conservative management. On the whole, taking 
 into consideration the enormous increase of unionism, 
 it is no more than fair to say that it is constantly gain- 
 ing in equilibrium and sanity." 
 
 The unions and their leaders have been learning 
 rapidly in these matters. Generally speaking, the older 
 the union the more conservative and quiet and at the 
 same time firm and effective is it in its methods and its 
 dealings. In other countries, in England for example, 
 where the unions are a great deal older, they have even 
 long ago worked through and out of the rash and tem- 
 pestuous stages, the stages where so many counts could 
 be made against them, and have reached the position 
 that the unions in America have been gradually working 
 their way towards. Here, as there, it has been a long, 
 hard road to travel, it has meant fight and defeat, and 
 at times apparent rout along with the battles won, the 
 experience gained, the advancement made — the pres- 
 ent priceless possession. It has meant brave sufferings 
 many times not only on the part of the wage-workers, 
 but also on the part of their families. It has meant, at 
 times, the facing of great uncertainty. 
 
 I think it should be said that from the managers of
 
 152 The Land of Living Men 
 
 capital, labor has learned some of its worst features 
 and excesses. I think it can be truthfully said that with 
 all the excesses and violations of law on the part of 
 union labor in times passed it has never, taking it all in 
 all, equalled the amount of disregard for and violation 
 of law that organized capital has been guilty of. It has 
 been more open and awkward in its methods, per- 
 haps, while organized capital in addition to being in 
 many cases also glaringly open, has worked in a sub- 
 tile and silent way under cover. The latter is more 
 skilled, it may be said, and hence more apt in these 
 matters. 
 
 But out of this long and at times apparently clumsy 
 struggle, union labor in this country is also attaining a 
 position where it is exerting a great and powerful good, 
 not only for its own and for the public welfare, but also 
 for organized capital, if the latter is wise enough to 
 openly and freely recognize its power and its purposes. 
 
 In connection with the final settlement of the great 
 strike in the anthracite fields some time ago, there were 
 among others two utterances to me very significant and 
 worthy of a wide reproduction. Judge Gray, chairman 
 of the Arbitration Commission, said, " Unless my judg- 
 ment is at fault and my faith unfounded, the labor 
 unions will soon have passed through their period of 
 trial and tribulation and will emerge on a bright and 
 sunlit plain, where true American character, the fruit of 
 American liberty, will illustrate the worth of our in- 
 stitutions. Purging themselves of every anti-social and 
 unworthy element, recognizing in others the rights they 
 claim for themselves, with malice towards none and
 
 The Land of Living Men 153 
 
 charity towards all, subordinate to law, with a full sense 
 of their appeal to the public opinion of the country, as 
 our fathers made their appeal, they will be upheld in 
 the time to come by employers, as powerful coadjusters, 
 in the maintenance of American ideals of free govern- 
 ment among men," 
 
 Much of the energy of labor unions up to the pres- 
 ent time has been directed towards the securing of a lar- 
 ger wage or of a shorter work-day, and in some cases 
 towards both. It is quite natural that at first this should 
 be true. But with this gained to a greater or less extent, 
 there comes a time and it has now come, when it must 
 push out into a larger and more general field. These 
 gained, and with more time for council and intercourse, 
 and with a greater recognition of its power and its 
 standing, it is more able now to move upon a broader 
 and still more telling plain. The union and the federa- 
 tion has also been an excellent means of training in rea- 
 son as against crankery, in moderation as against rash- 
 ness and hot-headedness. in short for a broader and 
 i::ore substantial and effective citizenship. A very dis- 
 criminating writer, in speaking along this line, has said : 
 "If we omit certain unions in the more corrupt cities, 
 Vv'here 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 influence 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.
 
 154 ^/'^ Land of Living Men 
 
 " But especially do these older and stronger unions 
 learn to check dangerous and revolutionary opinions. 
 ... As the trade union strengthens, its influence 
 against turbulent and revolutionary projects steadily 
 increases. The only agency that will prevent the spread 
 of this conservatism is the fatuous obstinancy which 
 insists upon defeating completer labor organization."* 
 
 The time has come it seems to me when organized 
 and federated labor must move, and move in a very ef- 
 fective and telling way along the lines of political action. 
 Not that the union or the federation as such, as an or- 
 ganization, must so act, for this all along it has steadily 
 avoided and undoubtedly most wisely. There would be 
 pitfalls innumerable for it, did it adopt or attempt to 
 adopt such a course. Nor would anyone of judgment 
 advocate the membership of the union or federation as 
 such affiliating with any particular party. To be inde- 
 pendent in party action, here as in the rest of our 
 citizenship should be, as it is getting more and more 
 to be, the great fact ; then for organized labor to work 
 along the lines of educating its membership in the lines 
 of policy and legislation that gives or that keeps for the 
 great common people, of which the wage- worker i.3 
 such a large and powerful factor, larger rights arid 
 fairer opportunities and more just conditions, as dis- 
 tinguished from the privileged classes by whom the 
 chief portion of the machinery of government is now 
 dominated and controlled, and in whose interests the 
 larger share of legislation is now enacted. And so far 
 
 * John Graham Brooks in " The Social Unrest," Chap. xii.
 
 The Land of Living Men 155 
 
 as the immediate demands and the welfare of organized 
 labor is concerned, it seems to me that the time has now 
 come when this is the effective and the telling method of 
 work, also the orderly and the peaceable, hence, the 
 most satisfactory. 
 
 It is undoubtedly in the matter of strikes and the 
 almost innumerable evils that accompany them that 
 union labor has suffered most in its reputation, and to a 
 greater or less extent in its standing. Whether this part 
 of its life could have been lived better or not is of no im- 
 portance so far as the present consideration is con- 
 cerned. The one concern at present is — the lessons 
 that are to be learned from the past use of this weapon. 
 Undoubtedly there are many and very important lessons 
 to be learned; undoubtedly many have been learned. 
 
 That strikes have been too frequently called, and 
 especially the sympathetic strike, that others have been 
 called rashly and without sufficient preparation, and 
 without a sufificient consideration of the chances of 
 success beforehand, that others have been too frequently 
 called under a poor or ineffective, or self-seeking leader- 
 ship, is undoubtedly true. The abler leaders and the 
 better and more intelligent members have now come to 
 the position where they recognize that the strike and its 
 attendant circumstances is to be considered only as a 
 weapon of last resort. The disposition, reached partly 
 through very great losses, is now to conciliate, to adjust 
 grievances and differences if any possible way can be 
 found without a resort to the strike. 
 
 The history of strikes, those lost as well as those won, 
 has brought home to the intelligent and capable and un-
 
 156 Tlic Land of Living Men 
 
 selfccntred leader and union member some very clear- 
 cut facts such as the following : that a strike should not 
 be allowed to be called by a walking-delegate, or by any 
 power outside of a full and complete vote of the union ; 
 that the union should move slowly and with every 
 possible degree of fairness ; that it should be thoroughly 
 organized and ready for the strike ; that it be under the 
 direction of a thoroughly able and honest and proven 
 leader ; that it be sure that its demands or its grievances 
 are thoroughly just and sufificiently important to pay 
 this price for their attainment or their adjustment; 
 that it has come to pass that public opinion is the court 
 or the power that finally decides whether the strike 
 be successful or whether it end in failure ; therefore, 
 in addition to the necessity that the demands be thor- 
 oughly just ones, that there be no violence or rioting. 
 True, owners and managers of capital — as well as sym- 
 pathizers — have provoked or have deliberately planned 
 and provoked violence and rioting, as they probably will 
 in other cases yet to come, but by forbearance and 
 patience the public can in practically all cases eventually 
 be shown its source, and it will render its verdict ac- 
 cordingly. The very fact that this method has some- 
 times been deliberately resorted to, to help weaken or 
 break a strike,, is itself a powerful and quiet commentary 
 upon the influence and the power of public opinion as 
 the determining factor in a strike. 
 
 How keen the really able labor leader is in regard 
 to the importance of no violence emanating from the 
 organization in time of strike is shown partly by the 
 following words of John Mitchell, spoken in connection
 
 The Land of Living Men 157 
 
 with the anthracite coal strike of several years ago, and 
 not for its effect upon the public but in earnest counsel 
 to the miners : " If you want to spoil your own cause 
 and lose every sacrifice you have made for yourself and 
 your families, give way to your temper 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." A leader of 
 the keen insight of John Mitchell, understands all too 
 thoroughly what the element of violence, emanating 
 from the organization at a critical period of the strike, 
 would mean in its effect upon public opinion. This, 
 however, is not exceptional counsel, but it has grown 
 to be that which is common on the part of the able, ex- 
 perienced, and efficient labor leaders. 
 
 The very large number of strikes that are prevented 
 through the influence and the clearer counsels of the 
 abler leader and his subordinates, is probably not 
 realized by the one not intimately acquainted with 
 organized labor. The following letter by a very able 
 general secretary of the Garment Worker's Union, 
 is also indicative of much that is going on at present : 
 
 " 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 incom- 
 petent work, and that even your business agent ad- 
 mitted that the work of the men was imperfect. 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 employer men 
 whose work is not suitable. It is just that sort of thing
 
 158 The Land of Living Men 
 
 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 careless, and the poor work- 
 man 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 discriminate 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." 
 
 I know there are employers who have become very 
 bitter against organized labor. I know also that some, 
 at times, have had to meet some very exasperating 
 things from the unions. This I think is owing in great 
 ])art to two causes : the feeling of power that has come 
 to labor since the unions have become a force that must 
 be reckoned with ; and again on account of the sort of 
 transitional period through which both employer and 
 worker have been passing, where we have reached the 
 end of the period where the employer has had practi- 
 cally everything to say in connection with the works and 
 the conditions of labor, and where he is now loath to 
 admit that the portion of his establishment, the portion 
 as necessary as his capital, his management, and his 
 machinery — the workmen — can have anything to say 
 regarding any feature of his works. But the day has 
 come when the wise owner or manager is he who openly
 
 The Land of Living Men 159 
 
 and even cheerfully recognizes this. There are those 
 who have taken this view of the matter, have acted 
 accordingly, and are even now glad that this changed 
 condition has come about. They are managing in such 
 a way that great good is resulting to them as well as to 
 their workmen. 
 
 The day of " my business " has passed ; the day of 
 " our business " has arrived. The new industrial era 
 that we are now entering upon is the one in which 
 there shall be more consultation and more friendly co- 
 operation between employer and employee ; and where 
 if this method is entered upon freely and with a fuller 
 and more sympathetic recognition of each other's rights, 
 and of the amenities due from each to the other, very 
 great mutual gains will be made. 
 
 The one important factor that must now be looked 
 for by owners of large enterprises and by companies, 
 is men as managers who are keen enough to recognize 
 the advent of this new era, and who are large enough to 
 meet and deal with labor upon this new basis. It is 
 after all but an indication of the possession of a good 
 degree of modern business ability. Speaking along this 
 line a very able Eastern railroad president said some 
 time ago : " To assume that we have got to go on spas- 
 modically fighting the unions, is tactless and unintelli- 
 gent. The truth is that the kind of man who is not 
 strong enough to work with organized labor has not the 
 qualification for his position. It is silly for powerful 
 corporations to say, ' We will deal with the individuals, 
 not with representatives of unions.' Organization of 
 labor has got to be recognized as such, and dealt with
 
 160 The Land of Liz'ing Men 
 
 as such, and the problem now is to get men with the 
 quahties and capacities to do this." 
 
 Mr. Darrow, one of the miners' counsel, in speaking 
 before the anthracite commission, spoke possibly more 
 strongly though not more truly in the following. Mr. 
 Henry D. Lloyd, also counsel, had just pointed out the 
 fact that the commission could hope to bring no peace 
 to the anthracite fields that could be in any way per- 
 manent unless it provided for agreements with the un- 
 ion. Mr. Darrow, speaking in regard to the recognition 
 of the union, said : " You can do just as you please about 
 recognizing the union. If you do not recognize it, it is 
 because you are blind and you want to bump up against 
 it some more ; that is all. It is here. It is here to stay, 
 and the burden is on you and not upon us. There is 
 neither the power nor the disposition in this court, I take 
 it, to destroy the union. It would not accomplish it if it 
 could, and certainly could not if it would. And if these 
 wise business men, with the combined wisdom of busi- 
 ness gentlemen and the agents of the Almighty, cannot 
 see the union, they had better blunder along still a few 
 more years, and possibly after a while they will know it 
 is here and recognize it themselves." 
 
 I know there is still a great deal of unsettled opinion 
 regarding strikes and lockouts, regarding arbitration, 
 and especially compulsory arbitration. All who are 
 familiar with it, however, are agreed that there is one 
 form of arbitration that is unique in that it leads all 
 other forms. It is what has come to be known as the 
 " joint agreement." It might be more accurately spoken 
 of as a form of conciliation than as a form of arbitra-
 
 The Land of Living Men i6i 
 
 tion ; or still more accurately, perhaps, as a form of 
 '■ working agreement " between employer and employed. 
 Its basis is, that once so often, according to agreement, 
 accredited representatives of both employer and work- 
 men meet in a joint session to consider, to discuss, and 
 to draw up a set of agreements that shall be the basis 
 of the year's or the period's work. The very fact 
 that labor is organized and is capable of sending re- 
 sponsible representatives to such a meeting makes the 
 "joint agreement " possible. Otherwise it would not 
 be possible. 
 
 The joint agreement is pre-eminently the highest 
 type of arbitration, for it is arbitration from within. 
 The features that mark its high value are many. First 
 are its educational features, in that it makes both em- 
 ployer and employed acquainted with each other's points 
 of view, with each other's needs as well as desires ; it 
 leads to a better understanding between employer and 
 workmen, probably the greatest need in our modern in- 
 dustrial -cvorld. And if entered into heartily it has the 
 tendency of creating an active sympathy between the 
 two. This in itself will lead in time to a continually 
 increasing mutual respect and mutual helpfulness. 
 Again, agreements thus voluntarily made are far more 
 apt to be kept, and more easily and conscientiously 
 than in case of conditions imposed from without, and 
 which in almost every case are bound to contain some 
 features distasteful and onerous to one party or the 
 other. Again, it is simply a recognition of a purely com- 
 mon-sense and practical method that is recognized and 
 used in practically every other avenue in the business
 
 i62 TJic Land of Living Men 
 
 world. Finally, I think it can be said, that there can be 
 no effective relations and no lasting peace between 
 employer and workmen until the agreement is recog- 
 nized as the common-sense and fair method of pro- 
 cedure, and is entered into in a whole-souled manner 
 and with the purpose and intention on the part of 
 both interested parties of living fully up to the 
 agreement. 
 
 The joint agreement is not a new method of con- 
 ciliation or a new method of procedure as between 
 employer and employed, but in some fields it has been 
 used for many years, and in almost all cases with thor- 
 oughly satisfactory results. It can therefore be spoken 
 of from the standpoint of its actual achievements. It is 
 of later years, however, that it has been coming into a 
 more general and into a continually increasing use. 
 This fact is undoubtedly an evidence of its effectiveness 
 and value. 
 
 There is so much testimony to be had in regard to its 
 effective and satisfactory results that it would be in- 
 teresting to consider much of it did space permit. The 
 manager of one of the largest stove manufactories in 
 the country has said of the agreement : " 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 conservative and it 
 • makes us more considerate." 
 
 Mr. John Graham Brooks, in " The Social Unrest " 
 has dealt with the joint agreement in a very effective 
 way. At one place he says : " To keep agreements volun-
 
 The Land of Living Men 163 
 
 tarily, 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 co- 
 operated 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 employers, 
 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 limitation of output and 
 apprentices, the use of the boycott, the conflicts be- 
 tween different unions, and the sympathetic strike, are 
 now so far understood as a result of this education that 
 they are no longer feared." 
 
 Mr. Sayward's testimony, in part, is as follows : " My 
 experience has convinced me that labor thoroughly or- 
 ganized and honestly recognized is even more impor- 
 tant for the employer than for the zvorkmen. It makes 
 possible a working method between the two parties 
 which removes one by one the most dangerous elements 
 of conflict and misunderstanding." Speaking further, 
 Mr. Sayward said : " that either for the building trades 
 or other lines of work, these intricate and involved 
 matters will not take care of themselve§ ; 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 community." 
 
 If at any time dififerences do arise under the joint
 
 164 The Land of Living Men 
 
 agreement, or if they arise when it is not in use and 
 trouble seems imminent, then concihation or voluntary 
 arbitration is the next sensible step. It is safe to say that 
 there is scarcely a case where the strike or the lockout 
 need be resorted to if there is an eminent spirit of fair- 
 ness on hotli sides. Conciliation and fairness. A look- 
 ing at the matter from the standpoint of the other, a 
 pocketing of pride to gain something larger and fairer 
 and more satisfactory in the end. A getting away from 
 pure fool obstinacy and allowing a spirit of openness 
 and fairness to assert itself and lead to what will prove 
 to be a wiser course and a better end. The workmen to 
 be fair and to be sure they are making no unjust de- 
 mands, not hasty but considerate of the probable dififi- 
 culties that lie in the employer's way. Employer to pass 
 rapidly beyond the foolish and inane period wdiere " this 
 is my business and I will conduct it absolutely to suit 
 myself ; " " I will not be dictated to ; " " there is nothing 
 to arbitrate." The public is pretty well tired now of 
 " there is nothing to arbitrate," and popular disapproval 
 will soon call a halt upon this puerile obstinacy unless 
 owner or manager finds sense enough to abandon it 
 himself. 
 
 All that is needed to prevent precipitated labor 
 troubles — strikes and lockouts — is for the men in 
 overalls and the owners or managers of industry to 
 grow sufficiently large as to enable them to throw away 
 their prejudices and meet as they meet in other things, 
 on the common-sense platform of fraternity and hu- 
 manity. Each must manifest the spirit of open fairness, 
 and the more fullv this is done the more smoothly and
 
 The Land of Living Men 165 
 
 pleasantly and satisfactorily will the negotiations run. 
 President John Mitchell has given this bit of testimony : 
 
 " I have never seen in my experience a strike that 
 could not have been averted if the employers and the 
 men who work had met in conference before the strike 
 was started. I have said on many occasions that I was 
 opposed to strikes, opposed to lockouts, opposed to in- 
 dustrial turmoil ; that I favoured peace, but always with 
 the qualification that it must be an honourable peace. 
 There will never be peace between the men who work 
 and those who employ men to work unless that peace 
 guarantees to each side that which is its proper due." 
 
 Herman Justi, Commissioner Illinois Coal Operators' 
 Association, has said : " With scarcely an exception, 
 every strike that has taken place in our time, even where 
 there has been bloodshed and destruction of property, 
 has finally been settled in friendly council." 
 
 Speaking then of the plan of the Coal Operators' As- 
 sociation in their method of joint agreements with their 
 men which have been in operation for a great many 
 years, Mr. Justi says : " Our plan is to prevent these 
 senseless and costly strikes, and the many differences 
 and disputes arising between master and men which 
 seem to place them in the attitude of enemies to each 
 other, are settled in the same manner in which the most 
 destructive strikes are finally settled, z'/.c. : by meeting in 
 friendly council, where we try self-control long enough 
 to enable us to say : ' Come, let us reason together.' 
 This is, practically, all there is of the plan pursued in the 
 coal mining industry of Illinois, and of this plan to pre- 
 vent strikes and to promote harmony and good feeling it
 
 i66 Tin- Land of Living Men 
 
 can be said, at least, that it is the fairest thus far 
 offered." " 
 
 But what a commentary upon the experience of the 
 past twenty-five or thirty years to know that finally 
 ]:)ractically all strikes are settled by the very means that 
 could have prevented their ever occurring had more 
 real ability or, to speak more plainly, more plain ordi- 
 nary common-sense prevailed on one side or the other, 
 or on both. 
 
 As soon as it becomes apparent that employer and 
 workmen are unable to adjust their differences through 
 conciliation or voluntary arbitration, then by the ordi- 
 nary course, the strike on the part of the one, or the 
 lockout on the part of the other, is resorted to. What 
 the results sometimes are, when this method assumes 
 control, is well-known to all. Upon the public the 
 chief burden is then thrown. It has always seemed 
 to me that right at this point it is the privilege and the 
 duty of the public to have its say. I know that many la- 
 bor men, and among them some eminent labor leaders, 
 hold a different view. To deprive labor of the power to 
 strike they believe, and honestly, would be to take from it 
 one of its most effective weapons. I would not deprive 
 labor of its power to strike ; and the more thoroughly 
 and closely labor is organized the greater does this 
 ability become. There is probably no one who believes 
 more thoroughly in the good that is to result both to 
 worker and employer, as well as to the public at large, 
 from a continually growing and developing organiza- 
 tion of labor. But the larger good must always be kept 
 in mind, and when the calling of a strike or the institut-
 
 The Land of Lk'iiig Men 167 
 
 mg of a lockout becomes the supreme necessity, then 
 the principle of compulsory arbitration is undoubtedly 
 a sound one, even as it has proven so completely to be, 
 much that we hear to the contrary notwithstanding, in 
 New Zealand, in Australia, for example. 
 
 Were emi)loyer and workmen the only ones concerned 
 in the matter of compulsory arbitration then it would 
 present a somewhat, in fact an entirely, different aspect. 
 But even then I should thoroughly believe in the prin- 
 ciple, when the strike or the lockout would appear the 
 only way of adjusting the differences. Men or groups 
 of men in the mad, fighting condition, are not as cap- 
 able of adjusting difficulties as fairly — and there can 
 be no lasting peace unless mutual fairness enters — as 
 an able and impartial body of men selected for this 
 purpose. And the enormous losses entailed upon both 
 sides when the strike is at all long drawn out, are, it 
 seems to me, thoroughly ill-advised. The ability to 
 strike enables the workers to bring their difficulties o^ 
 grievances to the point where, were they not strong 
 enough to possess this ability, they would be in a most 
 deplorable condition. 
 
 Two men have a difference. The time was when, 
 worked up by rage into a fury — thoroughly mad, 
 one species of temporary insanity — they took their 
 bludgeons and pounded away at the skulls of each other. 
 We have grown. When two men have a difference they 
 are not allowed to go into the street and bludgeon one 
 another, or deal with one another in the manner of even 
 the modern fisticuff manner. The public has long ago 
 decreed that they take their differences in an orderly
 
 i68 The Land of Livi)ig Men 
 
 and common-sense way before a man or a body of men, 
 more calm and reasoning, and hence more capal^le of 
 determining the right of the matter at issue. This is our 
 method, the method that We have found far better than 
 the former brute method. There is no one of average 
 intelHgence who would even think of appearing in 
 public to advocate a return to the earlier methods. In 
 this, however, the public is scarcely disturbed, or at 
 most but a few persons, and then for but a few moments 
 at most. Fisticuffs are ordinarily not lengthy affairs. Is 
 there not a thousand times more reason for compelling 
 this same sane, common-sense method when it comes to 
 the disputes not of two men, but of two groups of men 
 that may last for days or even for many weeks, and 
 Vv'here the entire community is endangered as to life or 
 limb, where it is inconvenienced, and all of its natural 
 and normal relations demoralized, where it is subjected 
 at times to tremendous losses, and where sometimes for 
 weeks it is compelled simply to remain quiet and look 
 on at these two groups struggling without reason be- 
 cause each is animated by the desire for the c[uestionable 
 glory of saying " we beat " ? I am not saying that " we 
 beat " is always the animating principle on the part of 
 the contending parties. That in some cases it is, that in 
 many cases it is, is all too evident, and sometimes when 
 a struggle of this kind has been entered upon, with the 
 greatest of reasons, it has frequently occurred that as 
 the conflict became extended the " we beat " business 
 became the controlling principle. The strike or the 
 lockout is too much a matter of vital public concern 
 to enable it to be used upon the slightest pretext on the
 
 The Land of Living Men 169 
 
 part of groups of hot-headed men. I say hot-headed 
 advisedly because, were it not true of one side or the 
 other or of both, then a less crude and bungling and a 
 more common-sense method of settlement not only 
 could, but would be found. 
 
 There was perhaps a justification, or at least a reason 
 for the bludgeon and the pommeling method of settle- 
 ment of differences between the two men. In order to 
 reach the period of the " reason method," this period 
 had to be passed through. There zvas also the same 
 justification or reason for the strike and lockout method 
 in the disputes between two groups of men. This crude 
 method was at first natural. We have too much com- 
 mon-sense in other matters, and in matters of a very 
 kindred nature to allow it further to be said that this 
 method is any longer necessary or even natural. We be- 
 come so accustomed to certain conditions that at times 
 we do not move on as rapidly as is well for us. 
 
 I beg to repeat the statement that when the strike or 
 the lockout is resorted to, there is a disinct threefold 
 loss, to the worker, to the employer, to the public. Am 
 I right ? Some time ago witnessed a strike in Chicago, 
 and it terminated rather to the disadvantage, if any- 
 thing, of the side that called it. Here are a few facts 
 taken at random from a general. summary made imme- 
 diately after by the Chicago Tribune : Duration in days, 
 a hundred and five ; number of garment workers origin- 
 ally involved, seventeen ; total number of teamsters 
 eventually involved, four thousand six hundred and 
 twenty ; persons killed in strike violence, twenty-one ; 
 persons injured (reported by police), four hundred and
 
 170 The Land of Living Men 
 
 fifteen ; police and deputy sheriffs on strike duty, five 
 thousand seven hundred ; cost to city and county for ex- 
 tra pohce and extra deputy sheriff protection, four hun- 
 dred and six thousand five hundred dollars ; loss to 
 teamsters in wages, and cost to unions for strike bene- 
 fits, one million fifty thousand dollars ; cost to employ- 
 ers (wages and lodging of strike-breakers and protec- 
 tion of wagons), two million dollars; shrinkage in 
 wholesale, retail and freight business (estimated), 
 six million dollars. Here then the cost to the unions 
 was a trifle over a million dollars, to the employers, two 
 million, while the public had to pay to the tune of be- 
 tween six and seven million dollars, besides shouldering 
 all the exasperating inconveniences and a compulsory 
 witnessing of all the diabolical happenings that were 
 thrown in its way. 
 
 If this virtual defeat for the unions was caused, as it 
 is claimed, by incompetent or self-seeking leadership, 
 so much the worse for the unions that permitted such 
 leadership to hold sway and to lead them into such 
 positions where defeat was almost a foregone conclu- 
 sion. How long will it take organized labor to learn its 
 lessons along this score ? 
 
 You will recall that in the summer of 1900 there was 
 a street-car strike in St. Louis. The side in error, the 
 side chiefly to blame in this strike, was the company, 
 and when it was ended the chief defeat was also on its 
 side. In this strike the loss to the men in wages was a 
 trifle less than a half million dollars; the loss to the 
 company in fares, in operating, and in damage to cars 
 and plant was two million dollars ; the loss to the city
 
 The Land of Living Men lyi 
 
 in business alone, to say nothing of loss in extra police 
 and deputy sheriff needs, was thirty million dollars ; 
 there were fourteen killed, seventy injured by bullets, 
 a hundred and fifty injured otherwise. Here then is a 
 loss — in money alone of thirty million dollars on the 
 part of the public compared to a combined loss of a little 
 less than two and a half million dollars on the part of 
 the company and its workmen. Who shall say that the 
 right or even the duty on the part of the public in this 
 case is not of a very clear-cut and certain nature. 
 Under the head " The St. Louis Strike Folly " an edi- 
 torial in the Boston Daily Globe at the conclusion of the 
 strike spoke as follows : " This strike was begun inno- 
 cently enough on May 8th. On that day 3,500 men 
 stopped work. It was a fight on the part of the com- 
 pany to destroy the labor union, and because the com- 
 pany has succeeded in compelling 300 union men to go 
 back to work and leave the union, and moreover suc- 
 ceeded in importing more than 3,000 men to run its cars 
 day and night, it calls this a ' victory.' A few such ' vic- 
 tories ' as this scattered over this continent would create 
 a general civil war, in which victory would finally poise 
 at the point of the federal bayonet. For a corporation to 
 call a settlement forced by such conditions ' victory ' is 
 a libel on the English language. Yet the unions, ani- 
 mated by the same spirit that possesses the company, 
 claim a ' victory,' too. 
 
 " No, this is not ' victory,' in this day when reason 
 and the moral sense are supposed to have superseded 
 the gun and the bludgeon. It is defeat, dismal defeat 
 for both the company and the men. The only victory is
 
 172 The Land of Living Men 
 
 found in the agreement of both sides to resume their 
 old relations, forgive and forget old scores and begin all 
 over again to be reasonable human beings. If anybody 
 can conceive a victory after such disgraceful proceed- 
 ings, where does it come in for the 700,000 people of 
 the town who have been inconvenienced for nearly two 
 months and whose losses in business are reckoned at 
 $30,000,000? How many taxpayers of St. Louis \\\\\ 
 feel like calling this a victory by and by, when the costs 
 have to be settled? 
 
 " This strike has had some features that are liable to 
 sadly demoralize the calculations of corporations who 
 fancy that the victory is won as soon as they succeed in 
 hiring men to take the places of the strikers. This was 
 the case in St. Louis. The company has ' broken the 
 back ' of the strike, but in breaking that back it was at 
 the same time depleting its treasury so rapidly that it 
 was forced to make an agreement with the strikers in 
 order to save itself from impending ruin. 
 
 " Such a strike as this ought never again to be pos- 
 sible in this country. It cost the company over 
 $1,500,000 in fares alone for its ' victory.' It cost the 
 men $500,000 in wages. It brought disgrace upon a 
 supposed civilized American city. The fierce boycott 
 has been the cause of cowardly murders and assaults 
 upon women. It has engendered bitterness among fam- 
 ilies and friends that will rankle for many years to 
 come. And all for what? In order that somebody 
 might finally be able to boast of a victory. Now both 
 parties have fought to a standstill, and both, maimed, 
 crippled and disgraced, have been forced to an agree-
 
 The Land of Living Men 173 
 
 ment which each calls a ' victory.' How childish and 
 how unworthy of intelligent men ! Arbitration could 
 have easily settled all this when it began. Now nothing 
 is settled, except the fact that both sides have virtually 
 been defeated. When will men ever learn anything 
 from these sad experiences ? " 
 
 To say that it is advisable longer to allow two groups 
 of men to engage in such a disruption of public order 
 and decency, throwing this enormous expense upon the 
 shoulders of the general public, simply because one 
 party or the other, and generally the one least in the 
 right, is so bull-headed, or so lacking in ordinary brain 
 capacity as well as in business insight as to be incapable 
 of adjusting these difficulties without a resort to such 
 clumsy and brutal methods, seems to me to be almost 
 an insult to the most ordinary degree of public intelli- 
 gence. I don't think there is an average of one person 
 in fifty who, cognizant of all the facts, really believes 
 that it is either advisable or possessing even the equali- 
 ties of the most rudimentary common-sense. What a 
 commentary then upon the lack of initiative or move- 
 ment on our part to allow this method with all its at- 
 tendant horrors, and with practically nothing in its jus- 
 tification, still to be employed. Especially is this true 
 when there is already a clearly demonstrated better 
 method. 
 
 When all other methods are exhausted, and it comes 
 to the strike on the one hand or the lockout on the 
 other, then compulsory arbitration in the form of an 
 industrial court should step in and take hold of the case 
 and render decision, and the contending parties should
 
 174 The Land of Living Men 
 
 renew their original relations as nearly as possible until 
 such decision is rendered. A State Board of Arbitra- 
 tion, with powers along its line of a nature somewhat 
 similar to those of the Public Service Commission, 
 along its line, and with powers to enforce its decisions 
 where such enforcement is necessary on its part, would 
 bring order and great good out of the present anarch- 
 istic and practically criminal conditions that now ordi- 
 narily prevail. Time would unquestionably demon- 
 strate the wisdom of the creation of such a board in 
 every state. 
 
 Sometime ago Carroll D. Wright, then United States 
 Commissioner of Labor, in an article in the North 
 American Reziew gave some of his findings in connec- 
 tion with an investigation of the matter of strikes in the 
 United States since 1880. Between 1881 and 1900 there 
 were about twenty-three thousand strikes, which would 
 be an average of more than a thousand a year. Nearly 
 fifty-one per cent of all these strikes were successful, 
 thirteen per cent succeeded partly, while the remaining 
 thirty-six per cent failed. Over six million employees 
 were involved and were out of work for a longer or a 
 shorter period. Their loss owing to idleness was nearly 
 two hundred and fifty-eight million dollars. The loss 
 to their employers was about a hundred and twenty- 
 three million dollars, or a little less than one-half the 
 loss to them. 
 
 I have given just the losses from a monetary stand- 
 point, and to the two parties engaged in these indus- 
 trial wars. The still greater losses to the public at 
 large, not only from a monetary standpoint, but in al-
 
 The Land of Living Men 175 
 
 most innumerable ways otherwise, can be imagined by 
 the aid of the detailed statistics relating to the two 
 strikes already mentioned. 
 
 One of the concluding observations by Mr. Wright 
 in this article is abundantly worthy of notice: " It is 
 recognized now, that labor conflicts grow out of in- 
 creasing intelligence. The avoidance or adjustment of 
 such conflicts must be the result of incr-eased intelli- 
 gence. Fools do not strike; it is only men who have 
 intelligence enough to recognize their condition that 
 make use of this last resort. With increased intelli- 
 gence they will look back upon the strike period as one 
 of development; and when they shall have accommo- 
 dated themselves to the new conditions, and when em- 
 ployers shall have recognized the increased intelligence 
 of their employees, these matters will be handled in 
 such a way as to prevent in the future a repetition of 
 incidents like those which are chronicled in the statis- 
 tical history of the strikes of the last twenty years." 
 
 It is generally the case in the majority of strikes, that 
 the loss to the workers, who are far less able to stand it, 
 .is considerably greater than that sustained by the em- 
 ployers. The latter, moreover, have a way of making 
 the public finally pay their losses, in addition to the still 
 heavier losses that are always thrown upon it. 
 
 Certainly the word dense is quite applicable to the 
 public unless we take some lessons from this great 
 array of happenings that has come to pass, and unless 
 we now move speedily along the path of an insistence 
 upon compulsory arbitration in that class of cases where 
 no other method of settlement but open industrial war-
 
 lyG The Land of Lk'ing Men 
 
 fare is able to be reached by employer and workmen. 
 It seems to me there can be no shadow of a doubt in 
 regard to this when it comes to strikes in connection 
 with any public service industry, or anything where 
 the inconvenience or loss to the public is specially great. 
 
 Organized labor stands at one of the most critical 
 periods in its history at the present time, in this country 
 at least. And, although I believe it is coming through 
 successfully, it nevertheless will receive some strong 
 knocks and will suffer some severe and entirely unnec- 
 essary set backs, unless some of its worst practices, or 
 rather those of some of its members and sections, are 
 quickly eradicated. 
 
 Flushed with pride undoubtedly in attaining to the 
 degree of power and recognition it has so far attained 
 to, the members of some groups of organized labor, 
 especially in the larger cities, are already showing 
 marked symptoms of severe attacks of the " swelled 
 head," and their conception of their rights is getting 
 so fine that the rights of those employing them and of 
 the general public, are now so minimized that they have 
 become of almost microscopic proportions. Especially 
 is this true in those lines of work where the public is 
 concerned rather than the employer of labor in works. 
 And, when organized labor, " The Union " becomes a 
 shield for incompetent or shirking workmen, or backs 
 them in giving a wholly inadequate day's work for a 
 good high wage, or in carelessness of the rights and 
 amenities due to others, or a reasonable care of their 
 belongings, or when it becomes too technical, or too 
 fine in its rules and its methods and its general pro-
 
 The Land of Living Men 177 
 
 gramme, then it will alienate an intelligent and other- 
 wise sympathetic public, so that its losses will quickly 
 begin to balance its gains, and it will by its own fool- 
 hardiness, set a limitation to its advance and progress, 
 that otherwise could not be set. 
 
 Wherever the teaching or the influence of the union 
 is for greater gain for the individual members — shorter 
 hours, higher wage, or whatever the gain, if it is not 
 accompanied by that of greater interest and a greater 
 degree of efficiency for the benefit of the employer, 
 whether company or individual employer, the union is 
 doing its members a distinct injury and also an injury 
 to the public, and such a union deserves not only the 
 condemnation but also the execration of all decent and 
 healthy-minded citizens ; not only does it deserve this 
 but this it will surely get. 
 
 If the animating motive is continual getting, with 
 thoughts only of " us " and " ours " without adequate 
 return, and no sense of its relationship with the great 
 public welfare, then it will soon fall into the pit of arro- 
 gance and pure self-seeking without due consideration 
 of the rights of others, rebellion against which was the 
 very thing that brought the labor organization into 
 existence. A permanent organization or institution 
 cannot be built upon any such basis. 
 
 A " labor trust " is just as obnoxious to the great 
 common people as is a capitalistic trust and they will 
 stand for one no more than they will stand for the 
 other, and moreover they will in time find a method of 
 putting down and out of business the one, the same as 
 they surely will the other. And again, if browbeating
 
 178 The Land of Living Men 
 
 becomes too dominant a factor, if terrorism, and mur- 
 der, and kindred villanous methods become too frequent 
 or habitual, and too fully condoned by organized labor 
 in efforts to coerce other equally honest and worthy men 
 who cannot see their way to sanction all their methods, 
 or still others who are too brave or too manly to sit 
 idly by and see their families driven and pinched by 
 want, then also a suicidal blow will be struck that will 
 be a tremendous hindrance to what would otherwise be 
 a more gradual but a permanent growth. The methods 
 of the brute are used only where brains are not equal 
 to the task it is desired to accomplish. In this way 
 many of the strongest and best men in the labor ranks 
 will be turned against it, and will in time become a most 
 powerful element backed by the great public sympathy 
 to be reckoned with. Better grow a little more slowly, 
 and in accordance with just and righteous laws, and 
 hence more surely and permanently, than to try the 
 short-cut methods, for in this way many get swamped 
 and tremendously delayed, while others never " arrive." 
 Those of the policies and methods above described be- 
 come a sore upon the great body of splendid, honour- 
 able labor, which can ill afford to condone or stand 
 for such methods ; and personally, I do not believe it 
 will very much longer, nor even countenance them. 
 
 Does this seem like plain speaking? The only excuse 
 to be offered, if indeed any excuse were necessary, is 
 that it is spoken by one of labor's truest friends, and 
 friends don't snivel, neither do they fawn, and having 
 no ulterior ends to gain, there is no need for reticence 
 in relation to plain truth.
 
 The Land of Living Men 179 
 
 I believe the time is rapidly approaching, and it may 
 be indeed immediately upon us as some signs seem to 
 indicate, when labor is going to push squarely into the 
 sphere of political action, even as the great masses of 
 the people are moving along the lines of political action, 
 unhampered as never before, because of more open 
 vision, by political machines, or dictated to by notorious 
 old hacks as party bosses. 
 
 The day has already arrived for this in England ; and 
 to-day — the results of a late election — we see a splen- 
 did body of nearly fifty labor members in Parliament, 
 and if even fairly wise and discreet in their actions, as 
 I fully believe they will be, their numbers will con- 
 tinue to increase, and there will be a strong party right 
 in Parliament thinking and w^orking directly for the 
 interests of the great common people, not so hopelessly 
 impotent, so far as actual accomplishment is concerned, 
 as have been most of the political parties there during 
 the last decade or more. I have long thought, looking 
 at the numbers of the one and of the other, that the 
 time had nearly come in Great Britain for the doing 
 away of the House of Lords, and substituting in its 
 place shall we say, a House of Labor. But, things 
 move sometimes in a most indirect way, and it may be 
 that through this the beginning of a long needed labor 
 and people's moverrfent, this result in effect would be 
 brought about. 
 
 Who knows but that one of its greatest needs, per- 
 haps the greatest need it has to-day, will be served by 
 this new movement — that England and Scotland and 
 Ireland will more rapidly be freed from the centuries
 
 i8o The Land of Living Men 
 
 old curse of landlordism, and that the land now so held 
 will in some wise method be brought back to the use of 
 the people. The Labor Party in co-operation with 
 the progressive wing of the Liberal Party, should be 
 able to bring about this sorely and long needed end. 
 
 And then if, speaking along general good lines, this 
 combination could give to Great Britain a new, a better 
 and broader universal public-school system, something, 
 I do not hesitate to say, akin to our own, or better still, 
 then they would at once be dealing with one of its great- 
 est delinquencies and one of its greatest and most press- 
 ing needs. In this way numbers of other ailments, 
 resulting directly from one or the other of these, or from 
 both, would begin to be healed without any other special 
 direct treatment. The excessive amount of drinking 
 among the working classes, and among both men and 
 women, the bane and the curse of this phase of British 
 life to-day, and now almost universally recognized as 
 such, would begin at once to be on the decrease. It 
 comes primarily from the vacancy, the hopelessness, the 
 want and the despair in the lives of these vast numbers 
 of Britain's population that have been induced directly 
 or indirectly by these two causes, probably as much or 
 more than by all other causes combined. And, speaking 
 along the same line, who knows but that the splendid 
 Socialist body in the German Parliament to-day, al- 
 ready numbering between seventy and eighty members, 
 and steadily increasing in numbers and in influence, will 
 have as its essential or primary mission, the freeing of 
 Germany of what royal and the i)rivileged classes have 
 evidently neither the brains nor the inclination to throw
 
 The Land of Living Men i8i 
 
 off, even for the relief of millions of people, the mon- 
 strous military system, under which it labors year 
 after year. 
 
 I think this new Labor Party in England as it grows 
 will give its aid also in dealing more humanely, hon- 
 ourably and hence in a more statesman-like manner 
 with India. 
 
 And to labor in politics in this country I would say, 
 remember a fact accentuated by the fact of Britain's 
 high and enviable position as regards cleanliness in 
 politics, that we of the United States, notwithstanding 
 oui; inclination to think otherwise, are among the lowest 
 of tlie low in this respect, especially in our municipal 
 politics. And remember that this condition has come 
 about because we as a people have so allowed commer- 
 cialism and large moneyed interests to take from us and 
 convert to themselves such valuable properties that their 
 greed for more has become so insatiable that no man 
 who fills public office to-day, municipal, state, or na- 
 tional, is sure to escape their blighting and benumbing 
 influences. Hence, be careful in your nominees and in 
 men to whom you give your political support. A direct 
 or an indirect gift, depending upon whether at any par- 
 ticular centre these agencies composed of our " success- 
 ful " and " respectable " fellow-citizens, are bold and 
 brazen in their methods, or very plausible and smooth 
 and cunning — a direct or an indirect gift, to repeat, 
 of fifty thousand or a hundred thousand or more dol- 
 lars, is a very sore temptation to a man in moderate cir- 
 cumstances, or to a poor man. The essential thing is 
 to have men of knoivn and proven integrity. Better
 
 i82 The Land of Living Men 
 
 a man of less culture, or even more liable to errors in 
 judgment, than one subject to the money bags of the 
 " successful " and " respectable " despoiler, the arch 
 enemy of American institutions and of American citi- 
 zenship to-day. 
 
 Another point — hoping it will be received in the 
 spirit in which it is given : Be not displeased or dissat- 
 isfied, if those you elect, or those to whom you give 
 your support, do not vote favourably for every labor 
 bill that is proposed. Labor's welfare, and the welfare 
 of any class or portion, must be always subservient to 
 the general welfare. Class legislation is always in ti^iie 
 unsatisfactory and destructive in its results. Class leg- 
 islation emanating from labor alone, would be but 
 slightly preferable if any to that emanating from capital 
 alone. Only as the general good is g^uarded and 
 fostered and advanced will that of any clkss or por- 
 tion be really and permanently conserved. Here is 
 an inestimable service that lies in the power, if it 
 lies in the heart, of labor to render itself and the 
 nation. 
 
 There is indeed a prophetic insight in the words of 
 the " Good Gray Bard of Democracy," words that were 
 written by Walt Whitman nearly forty years ago : 
 " I expect to see the day when the like of the present 
 personnel of the g'overnments — federal, state, muni- 
 cipal, military and naval — will be looked upon with 
 derision, and when qualified mechanics and young men 
 will reach Congress and other official stations, sent in 
 their working- costumes, fresh from their benches and 
 tools and returning to them again with dignity. The
 
 The Land of Living Men 183 
 
 young fellows must prepare to do credit to this destiny, 
 for the stuff is in them." 
 
 The following- are a few characteristic words from a 
 speech to his constituency by an able member of the 
 British Labor Party, who has served with great abil- 
 ity in Parliament before, and who in spite of much 
 strenuous opposition was re-elected at a recent elec- 
 tion by a majority of something upwards of ten thou- 
 sand votes. " The working class, professional men and 
 shopkeepers are all struggling — some few to make a 
 competence, but the great majority to earn a livelihood. 
 Millions are steeped in poverty whilst millions more 
 are but one degree removed from it. While the useful 
 classes toil and suffer, the owners of land and capital, 
 and the schemers and gamblers of the Stock Exchange, 
 are heaping up untold wealth. Whilst the poor die for 
 lack of the barest necessaries of life, the rich revel in a 
 riot of excess. Great accumulations of wealth menace 
 our liberties, control the great London organs of the 
 press, lead us into wars abroad, and poison the wells of 
 public life at home. Landlordism and capitalism are 
 the upper and nether millstones between which the life 
 of the common people is being ground to dust. 
 
 " My one object in politics is to aid in creating tlie 
 public opinion which will sweep away the causes zvhich 
 produce poverty, vice, crime, drunkenness and im- 
 morality, and introduce an era of freedom, fraternity 
 and equality. This ideal state cannot be reached at one 
 step, but much can be done to mitigate some of the 
 graver evils arising out of our present system of wealth 
 production. The immediate object of the Labor Party
 
 184 TJic Land of Liz-iiig Men 
 
 is to create a driving force in politics which will over- 
 come the inertia of politicians in regard to social re- 
 forms, and give the nation a strong, true lead along the 
 paths which make for national righteousness. To see 
 that children are properly fed and cared for, that the 
 able are given an opportunity to work, and that comfort 
 is brought into the life of the aged, are objects worth 
 striving for. These things lie outside the domain of 
 ordinary party politics, but they must be attended to 
 if the nation is to be saved from decay; and should I 
 again be returned as your representative, it will be ni}- 
 main concern to see that they are attended to. 
 
 " As a Democrat, I am opposed to every form of 
 hereditary rule, and in favour of conferring full and 
 unfettered powers upon the common people. In this 
 connection I include women as well as men." 
 
 I think it is peculiarly fitting that an utterance of 
 Lincoln close this part : * 
 
 " In my present position I could scarcely be justified 
 were I to omit raising a warning voice against the ap- 
 proach of returning despotisms. It is not needed nor 
 fitting here that a general argument should be made in 
 favour of popular institutions, but there is one point 
 not so hackneyed to which I ask a brief attention. It 
 is the efifort to place capital .on an equal footing with, 
 if not above, labor in the structure of government. It 
 is assumed that labor is available only in connection 
 with capital ; that nobody lal)ors unless somebody else 
 knowing capital somehow by the use of it induces hini 
 
 * In Message to Congress, December 3, ]^6\,
 
 The Land of Living Men 185 
 
 to labor. But capital is the fruit of labor and could 
 never have existed if labor had not first existed. La- 
 bor is the superior of capital and deserves much the 
 higher consideration. No men living are more worthy 
 to be trusted than those who toil up from poverty ; none 
 less inclined to take or touch aught which they have 
 not honestly earned. Let them beware of surrendering 
 a political power which they already possess, and which, 
 if surrendered, will surely be used to close the door of 
 advancement against such as they and to fix new dis- 
 abilities and burden upon them until all of liberty shall 
 be lost." 
 
 Prophetic words, spoken of all who labor, and also 
 words which show Lincoln's matchless faith in the 
 great common people. He came from them. He knew 
 them. He loved them. Can anyone have a doubt as to 
 where he would stand in connection with the great 
 and pressing questions that are immediately before us ?
 
 VIII 
 
 AGENCIES THROUGH WHICH WE SHALL SECURE 
 
 THE RETURN OF AN EFFICIENT PEOPLE'S 
 
 GOVERNMENT — AND THE RETURN 
 
 OF THEIR RIGHTS 
 
 f OW can we, as a people, get the machinery 
 of government back into our own hands? 
 How can we meet and battle with and de- 
 ^J^^jfyi feat the combination which great moneyed, 
 corporate interests have made with the political ma- 
 chine, the combination that has already well-nigh throt- 
 tled democratic or representative government in the 
 nation? We have seen, by illustrations perhaps almost 
 too prolific, how the people's will is thwarted, how their 
 desires are disregarded, and how they have literally to 
 fight their chosen representatives in order to prevent 
 them from selling out their interests completely to the 
 agencies already mentioned. 
 
 We need now a new and more comprehensive appli- 
 cation of the term traitor, so. that it shall include in its 
 scope the one who, as a chosen and su])posed represen- 
 tative of the people and hence of the country, for gold 
 or for whatever gain, conspires with the enemies of his 
 pco]jle, and sells to them his people's interests, as scores 
 of our representatives, nnmicipal, state, national, have 
 done in one form or another the past twelve months, the
 
 The Land of Living Men 187 
 
 same as for many years that are gone. They will- con- 
 tinue to do so and in greater numbers and to greater 
 extent as each year passes, unless we as a people begin 
 in some effective and common-sense way to' attend dili- 
 gently to our own affairs in government. This is not a 
 mere putting together of words, nor a false charge, nor 
 an idle, thoughtless statement, but a hard, cold, though 
 exceedingly unwelcome, fact. 
 
 We must take it out of the power of men to make 
 traitors in civil life, which are far more destructive and 
 disastrous to the people's and therefore to the nation's 
 welfare than the occasional traitor that appears in time 
 of war. I had almost said this tendency must be 
 checked, but the hard, cold facts demand one instead to 
 say, this condition that is actually among us, sucking 
 the very life-blood from the body of freemen, must be 
 speedily checked and driven from out the land, or the 
 dissolution of the nation is to be the inevitable result, 
 in addition to the humiliation attendant upon this con- 
 dition, and also the great losses we have already sus- 
 tained and will sustain to a continually increasing 
 degree. 
 
 Our governmental institutions to-day, not in theory 
 perhaps, but as they actually exist, are neither demo- 
 cratic nor representative. This no thoughtful, clear- 
 seeing man at all acquainted with existing conditions 
 will even attempt to deny, however great may be his 
 desire to do so. It is not necessary here to ask. Why is 
 t]:is so? This we have gone into, both directly and in- 
 directly, to almost a wearying extent already. The 
 question is. How shall we get back in fact, and in actual
 
 iS8 The Land of Living Men 
 
 practice and results, to what g-overnment among- us is in 
 theory — the government and institutions upon which 
 we so pride ourselves ? 
 
 A serious shortcoming in our institutions has de- 
 veloped itself, a shortcoming which could scarcely be 
 foreseen in the beginning. We must halt now to make 
 the necessary changes and repairs, or the entire machin- 
 ery will be wrecked, adding another huge junk pile to 
 the wrecked and worn-out machinery of nations that 
 once were great, but whose people were unable or illy 
 inclined to see and grasp the meaning- of new times and 
 conditions, and arouse themselves sufficiently to master 
 them instead of suffering themselves to be brought to 
 a gradual ruin by them. A change now is essential, a 
 repairing of the machinery. 
 
 We must take a long step and get back to, or move 
 forward to, actual representative government. Repre- 
 sentative is here a better word perhaps than democratic. 
 The New England town-meeting still in active opera- 
 tion in hundreds of New England towns and villages, 
 and a similar method in vogue in many of our newer 
 western states, is perhaps the best concrete example of 
 the latter. You who have had part in or who have at- 
 tended such a meeting or meetings know how each year 
 the voters of the town or village meet at the duly ap- 
 pointed time and place, and initiate, discuss, vote upon 
 and adopt such measures, make such appropriations, 
 select such men to carry out their programme as they 
 decide are necessary or advisable for the coming year. 
 You appreciate most fully how impossible it is with 
 such a method to sell out the interests of the people of
 
 The Land of Living Men 189 
 
 the village or town, because the people are there to at- 
 tend to their own business and to look after their own 
 interests. This method works just as effectively and as 
 safely now for the interests of the people as it did a 
 hundred years ago, or when it was first instituted, and 
 the reason is apparent on the face of it. Those who are 
 acquainted with its effective workings would like to 
 see it extended to all our villages and towns throughout 
 the country, the same as it is being adopted here and 
 there in various parts of our thriving newer western 
 states. Because it has such a thorough common-sense 
 basis, it works as well in practice as in theory. It is 
 better than representative government. It is pure dem- 
 ocratic government. 
 
 It is the principle upon which the institutions of a 
 great nation can most safely be built. But when it 
 comes to the larger units, the large city, the state, the 
 nation, then its application becomes more difficult, if 
 not entirely out of the question. As nearly as we can 
 approach to it, however, is the best government ; and 
 in these larger units we have in theory an ideal system, 
 in that we select men to represent its at seats of govern- 
 ment, municipal, state, and national. We, however, 
 have not completed the system. The result is that our 
 theoretical representative government has become in 
 practice thoroughly and notoriously — with a proper 
 allowance of exceptions of course — misrepresentative. 
 In other words our system has developed, or has given 
 evidence of some most serious shortcomings, and, I ad- 
 mit, shortcomings such as could not fully be foreseen 
 in the beginning. What we of this generation and
 
 IQO Tlic Land of Living Men 
 
 those of the g-encration rapidly coming upon the stage 
 of action are called upon to do, is to recognize the exi- 
 g-encies of the time and amend or complete what to-day 
 is far from what it must be made to be. 
 
 Let the State Legislature be an example of both 
 municipal and national legislative bodies. The chief 
 failure or weakness of any particular session of any leg- 
 islature is that it fails to do certain things that the in- 
 terests of the people require, and it does various other 
 things that arc diametrically opposed to the interests of 
 the people, whose representatives its members are cho- 
 sen nominally to be. Now the chief reason that is at the 
 bottom of this two-fold failure has been gone into so 
 fully in previous pages that it is unnecessary to make 
 useless repetition here. But the point is, that in connec- 
 tion with the acts of these nominal representatives of 
 the people, the people have practically no recourse, in 
 other words they are absolutely at the mercy of their 
 agents. We act in a way that no business man, even 
 for an instant, would think of acting in connection 
 with his agents, or in a way that if he did so act, his 
 business would be irrevocably ruined and in many cases 
 in less time than it would take to describe the process. 
 
 Now, one feature in connection with which it is es- 
 sential that we immediately repair the machinery of- our 
 government is, that we have the power, and the quick 
 and ready power to initiate whatever measures a suffi- 
 cient number of people feel the public interests require. 
 Another feature is, that we have the power to veto 
 whatever measures our chosen representatives, or sup- 
 posed representatives, may enact, that a sufficient num-
 
 The Land of Living Men 191 
 
 her of the people feel are opposed to the public welfare. 
 These are two principles, fundamentally common-sense 
 and essential in order to perfect the running machinery 
 of our government. 
 
 In our system of representative government as it has 
 worked out to the present time, the people — the source 
 of power and in whose hands all power should reside — 
 have lost, to all intents and purposes, the ability of 
 having their desires or wishes put into force. We dele- 
 gate power to men and hold them in no way responsible 
 to us for the use of that power, and with the tremen- 
 dous prices large corporations, many of them fattened 
 off of the people's properties, are able to and do pay, 
 we expect men, many of them entirely irresponsible be- 
 cause chosen by these interests for the direct further- 
 ance of their ends, to work for our interests and for the 
 public welfare. 
 
 We do what no business manager would consent 
 to or even think of doing, unless he were deliberately 
 inviting the disruption or the certain annihilation of his 
 business ; and it requires only the most ordinary course 
 of reasoning, and especially when reinforced by the 
 lessons that are in such vast numbers being thrust into 
 our faces, to know that the continuance of our repre- 
 sentative system without a safeguard for retention of 
 power on the part of the principals, will mean continued 
 unsatisfactory and humiliating conditions and tremen- 
 dous losses, and the eventual dissolution of every sem- 
 blance of desirable government. In other words, we 
 have come to a weakness, a breakdown in our machin- 
 ery of government, which could not be fully anticipated
 
 192 The Land of Living Men 
 
 by those who gave us our splendid beginnings of gov- 
 ernment ; and which, let it be said, if we have but half 
 the wisdom they displayed, we will, without delay and 
 at whatever cost, be about repairing or remodelling, 
 and we will bring it up to the development and to the 
 needs of the times. 
 
 Now in what simple practical manner can we bring 
 these two essential provisions into our respective 
 spheres of government? Fortunately we do not have 
 to theorize in regard to the matter at all ; a system has 
 already been initiated and has been in effective use for 
 many years already. From a nation that of all nations 
 has the most ideally representative government, because 
 the most democratic in its essence, Switzerland, we 
 have a system that has been in successful operation for 
 many years, hence thoroughly tested, and that has 
 worked equally well in other countries where it has 
 been put into operation, as also in several common- 
 wealths in our own country. 
 
 It is through the principle of Direct Legislation, by 
 means of the Initiative and Referendum, that we can 
 get the machinery of government back into our own 
 hands, and establish a truly representative system of 
 government among us. 
 
 " The Referendum started in 1830 in the Canton of 
 St. Gall, the Initiative in 1845 ""^ the Canton of Vaud. 
 Since those dates the two institutions have marched in 
 a triumphal tour through the Swiss Republic until they 
 have been adopted in the Federal Constitution. It is 
 not too much to say that within these few years Swit- 
 zerland has been converted from a nest of oligarchies.
 
 The Land of Living Men 193 
 
 entrenched behind vested interests, into the model 
 Democratic Republic." 
 
 The Initiative means the proposal of a law or statute 
 by the petition of a certain percentage of voters. 
 
 The Referendum means a vote by the people on any 
 law passed by the legislature, or on a law proposed by 
 the Initiative. 
 
 The two are referred to many times,under the term 
 Direct Legislation, or sometimes characterized as 
 " guarded representative government." 
 
 As a thoughtful writer has said : " Direct Legisla- 
 tion is simply an application of the fundamental prin- 
 ciples of agency recognized in every court of law in the 
 civilized world, via. : That an agent must hold himself 
 at all times subject to the command and approval of his 
 principal. One employing an agent to manage his busi- 
 ness expects him to do as he is directed in its conduct. 
 If he is not willing to do this he may be discharged by 
 the principal. The employer retains the power of in- 
 stant veto, not having to wait until the end of a speci- 
 fied term, during which his property might be mort- 
 gaged, sold, or given away." 
 
 Here is a simple, an effective, and a fully demon- 
 strated weapon with which we can strike the necessary 
 blows. It is a practicable and attainable method be- 
 cause it cannot be made an issue of parties and politics. 
 It cannot be made a football of political parties, because 
 it is something in connection with which all men really 
 agree. It is a principle that is almost axiomatic in its 
 truth, and such principles are not subject to dispute. 
 And moreover, so far as dominant parties at least are
 
 194 The Land of Liz'ing Men 
 
 concerned, no Republican who believes with Lincoln, 
 in " a government of the people, by the people, and for 
 the people," will dispute its wisdom or oppose its adop- 
 tion and use. And no Democrat who believes with 
 Jefiferson that " governments are Republican only in 
 proportion as they embody the will of the people and 
 execute it," and " government is more or less republi- 
 can in proportion as it has in its possession more or less 
 of this ingredient of the direct action of the citizens." 
 And as is evident, no new party that has arisen or that 
 may arise (working for the people's greater interests 
 than they are able to be persuaded the two dominant 
 parties as at present constituted are working for) will 
 oppose the adoption and application of such a principle. 
 Moreover, there is no leader (no party) sufficiently 
 foolish, however great his natural desire might be to do 
 otherwise, as to array himself against such an axiomat- 
 ically sound principle of truly representative govern- 
 ment as to oppose it, when its advocates once get it 
 squarely before the people as an issue to be acted upon. 
 
 It seems to me also that those who have various de- 
 sires and plans for the betterment of governmental in- 
 stitutions, however ideal their conceptions and plans 
 may be, can and will unite upon such a common-sense 
 and practical agency through which effective strides can 
 be made that will pave the way, and that in time will 
 lead to the realization of such hopes and such plans. 
 
 From the very nature of the principle of direct or 
 guarded legislation that wc are considering, it would 
 almost seem that sjKcific arguments in its favour were 
 unnecessary. It may not come amiss, however, to give
 
 The Land of Living Men 195 
 
 briefly an enumeration of some of those most evident, 
 or a sort of summary, of those suggested or hinted at 
 in the foregoing pages of this chapter. 
 
 First and foremost, as must be evident to all who have 
 more or less of an intimate knowledge of conditions as 
 they actually exist among us to-day, is the fact that as 
 a matter of pure self-preservation of our form of gov- 
 ernment, and thereby our interests, this amending, this 
 completing of our political system is necessary. It has 
 become essential to the proper working of representa- 
 tive government. Without this power held in reserve 
 by the people, we make our chosen representatives who 
 would otherwise be honourable men, intent and deter- 
 mined upon the people's interests, the prey of these 
 same nefarious influences for all time to come, or, on 
 the other hand, we make these supposed chosen repre- 
 sentatives whose candidacy is managed by these same 
 interests and who have us elect these, their own agents, 
 for them, practically masters of all our common pos- 
 sessions, with a free hand to betray our welfare into the 
 hands of these interests. In other words. Direct Legis- 
 lation is essential to representative government in com- 
 plex or large communities, essential to the realization of 
 anything approaching true democracy. "It is simply 
 a common-sense application of the principles of agency, 
 affording the principal his proper rights of veto, con- 
 struction, control, and discharge. Direct Legislation 
 means control of your servants instead of letting your 
 servants control you." 
 
 From this, then, follows naturally the fact that brib- 
 ery and the corrupt and venal lobby will, to a great ex-
 
 196 The Land of Living Men 
 
 tent, be done away with, or they will be so diluted that 
 the results will be practically the same. Where $50,000 
 \vould buy the necessary number of councilmen, or leg- 
 islators to buy the passage of a measure, the briber, the 
 agent of the " interests " could not with this amovmt or 
 any amount buy 50,000, or 5,000, or any large number 
 of citizen voters to vote for or to pass a measure against 
 their own interests. Such a thing is scarcely conceiv- 
 able. The " interests " then are not going to pay their 
 good money to men who cannot " deliver the goods," 
 and under this system they cannot deliver the goods, be- 
 cause they would not have the final say in regard to the 
 matter at issue. Rings and bosses will lose their hold 
 and their business. Franchise grabs as well as black- 
 mailing bills will in time disappear because in case of 
 the former the people will be able to see to it that their 
 properties are retained for their own use and welfare, 
 and in case of the latter the people can always be 
 appealed to with the assurance that justice will be 
 compelled. The following paragraphs from a former 
 distinguished Judge and a man who knew ' well the 
 methods of the boss, the machine, and the " interests," 
 are most appropriate here : 
 
 " The fierce commercialism of the age, which has 
 tended to enthrone the dollar and enslave the man, has 
 lowered the standards and has covered the land with 
 corruption until corrupt concentrations of money, 
 wielded by unscrupulous men, have acquired such a 
 complete control of the governments, national, state, 
 and munici])al, that the people are almost helpless. 
 Laws destructive to their interests are passed through
 
 The Land of Living Men 197 
 
 bribery, and laws necessary for tbeir protection are 
 kept off the statute book by bribery. To meet this new 
 and unfortunate condition it is necessary that the people 
 be given the power in certain emergencies to legislate 
 direct, either by a popular vote to put specific acts 
 upon the statute book, or to declare certain specific acts 
 already on the statute book to be null and void. This 
 would destroy the business of bribery, because it would 
 render the fruits of bribery worthless. No corporation 
 would buy a legislature or a city council if the acts of 
 that legislature or council could be nullified by the 
 people. 
 
 " This system has worked marvellously well where 
 it has been tried. ... It is not a question to speculate 
 about. It is not a chimerical idea. It is simply a ques- 
 tion of self-preservation." 
 
 And the following from Governor Folk when , the 
 people of Missouri were finally aroused and determined 
 to free themselves from most debasing and well-nigh 
 intolerable conditions, is more than suggestive : 
 
 " Vote for the Initiative and Referendum, a system 
 that will be the death blow to corruption and the only 
 true remedy for bribery. Why elect me unless I am 
 given the proper tools? " 
 
 While on the one hand the application of the Initia- 
 tive and Referendum would have a very telling effect 
 upon the party boss and the machine, upon the star 
 chamber, " arranging " methods through which almost 
 every phase of legislation must pass, it would also on 
 the other hand call into public life in many cases a 
 higher grade of men; for the higher the plane politics
 
 198 The Land of Living Men 
 
 is upon, the better the men that are naturally attracted 
 to it. This is the general rule ; the exception occurs in 
 case of the occasional brave and earnest man who sees 
 the well-nigh intolerable conditions in political affairs 
 around him, and who without thought of self and with- 
 out counting the cost, sets about in an endeavour to end 
 them. 
 
 It will promote thought and discussion and a greater 
 intelligence on the part of all people in connection with 
 all public measures. As it is, the average citizen, good 
 citizen if you please, has no part in the discussion nor 
 in the forming of conclusions in legislative matters ; he 
 has no method except in some cumbersome and round- 
 about and generally ineffective way of making his de- 
 sires or his protests regarding matters of legislation 
 known. With this simple and effective direct instru- 
 ment in the hands of good citizens, their interest in 
 good government and in all measures of public concern 
 and welfare would revive, and by reason of the healthy 
 stimulation it would receive, it would give birth to a 
 new type of patriotism that would redeem and carry our 
 institutions long strides towards what they are yet to 
 be. And its influence upon the youth of the land, as 
 they in turn come into the field of action, it is easy to 
 foresee. 
 
 It would strengthen our respect for law, instead of 
 our growing disrespect for it, because then its enact- 
 ment would emanate " from the mind, the conscience, 
 the aliiding will of the sovereign people," instead of 
 legislators, " some of whom," says an editorial in the 
 New York Independent, " are wise men, some of whom
 
 The Land of Living Men 199 
 
 are good men, many of whom are fools, and not a few 
 of whom are scoundrels." 
 
 It will separate issues from men, thereby fostering 
 intelligent discussion and keeping real issues fairly be- 
 fore the people. As important a feature as any in its 
 favour is the fact that it is the remedy, the reform, the 
 amending, the completing of our governmental institu- 
 tions along the lines of least resistance, which is a most 
 important feature in connection with practical politics 
 and in connection with political growth and continual 
 higher political attainment. 
 
 We have considered, though in very brief form, the 
 reasons or arguments in favour of direct or guarded 
 legislation. What are the arguments against .it ? I 
 have never seen more than two that are really worthy 
 of consideration. One is, that the people will make 
 mistakes. The other is, that they will abuse this power. 
 
 As to the former, we will readily grant the truth of 
 the assertion. The people will make occasional mis- 
 takes, and they will be apt to make more mistakes at 
 first than they will later on with more experience and 
 with such increased intelligence in connection with 
 matters of public policy as this educative process will 
 bring about. That no system is wholly perfect will be 
 most readily admitted by all. But the real, the vital 
 question is, will the people make as many mistakes 
 working directly for their own interests, as the mis- 
 takes made — and that mistakes are sometimes made 
 by the people's representatives will be admitted and 
 freely perhaps by all — by these representatives, com- 
 bined with the frightful wrongs and injustices that are
 
 200 The Land of Living Men 
 
 frequently perpetrated under our present irresponsible 
 representative system, where bribery and graft and 
 public debauchery have become so widespread and so 
 general on account of this weakness in our system, as 
 to make us the laughing stock of practically every other 
 civilized country in the world, Russia possibly excepted. 
 The people know their own desires and aims and their 
 OAvn business better than it can be known by any num- 
 ber of representatives, even though they might be uni- 
 formly wise and honest. 
 
 The man who is afraid to trust the people when it 
 comes to attending to their own affairs, has something 
 radically wrong in his mental make-up, or has some- 
 thing under cover that will not stand the scrutiny of 
 honest and honourable men. Watch him. 
 
 We must, moreover, get over the idea that matters 
 .of government are deep and intricate and complex 
 matters. When it comes to attending to their own 
 affairs on the part of the people, there is nothing intri-' 
 cate or complex, or there is nothing as intricate and 
 complex as would at first thought seem. But things 
 are made, or are made to seem, intricate or complex, by 
 the professional politician, by the paid agents, and at 
 times the paid attorneys of thieving or stock-juggling 
 corporations or privilege-seeking or law-defying corpo- 
 rations, combines and agencies of the various types that 
 are continually at work. 
 
 So much then for the argument that the people will 
 make mistakes. 
 
 As to the other argument above noted, that the 
 people will abuse this power, the testimony in an over-
 
 The Land of Liz'ing Men 2Cl 
 
 whelming abundance is, that it is entirely unfounded, 
 that it has no basis in actually demonstrated fact. This 
 argument that the people will abuse this power which 
 is not borne out by the facts, but which has on the 
 contrary been wholly disproved by such facts as we 
 have up to the present time, brings us to the enuncia- 
 tion of one of the strongest possible reasons for the 
 Initiative and Referendum, namely, that the very fact 
 of the people having this power reserved in their own 
 hands and without having to have recourse to it at all, 
 prevents in many cases questionable or baneful legisla- 
 tion, and on the other hand compels legislation that 
 would not many times be enacted were it not that the 
 people hold this compelling power. The holding of this 
 power indicates, and makes all too plainly evident to the 
 people's representatives and to those who would de- 
 bauch and buy them, that the people hold in their own 
 hands the final power, and their legislators cannot be 
 bought successfully without the buying of the people, 
 which on the very face of it is impossible. 
 
 Direct Legislation amendments have already become 
 a part of the constitutions of several of our progressive 
 newer western states. Where the proposal of Direct 
 Legislation has been brought squarely before the people 
 to receive their sanction or their veto, it has in almost 
 every case been adopted by an overwhelming vote. It 
 has been made part of the charter law already in a few 
 cities, and in every case so far — state and municipal — 
 it has given good results'; in many cases results that 
 could not possibly be accomplished in any other way, or 
 by any other at present known.
 
 202 The Land of Living Men 
 
 A Direct Legislation Amendment went before the 
 people of the State of Oregon at the general election of 
 1902 and was adopted by an overwhelming majority — 
 a vote of a little over ten to one. The essence of this 
 new provision may be said to be as follows, contained in 
 the opening sentence of Article IV, Section I : " The leg- 
 islative authority of the State shall be vested in a Legis- 
 lative Assembly, consisting of a Senate and a House 
 of Representatives, but the people reserve to themselves 
 power to propose laws and amendments to the constitu- 
 tion, and to enact or reject the same at the polls, inde- 
 pendent of the Legislative Assembly, and also reserve 
 at their option the power to approve or reject at the 
 polls any act of the Legislative Assembly." As to the 
 numbers required to make effective this power held in 
 reserve by the people, eight per cent of the legal voters 
 of the State have the power to propose or initiate laws, 
 constitutional amendments, etc., and five per cent may 
 demand a referendum on any act or acts passed by the 
 Legislature when their petitions are filed within ninety 
 days after the adjournment of the Session during which 
 they were enacted. The Legislature itself may refer 
 any act passed by it to the people. The Governor can- 
 not exercise the veto power in connection with any 
 measure referred to the people. 
 
 During even the comparatively short time that the 
 people of the State of Oregon have had this amendment 
 incorporated into their constitution, as has been well 
 said, " it has proved a field bf dragons teeth to the 
 Oregon machine politician." Through the possession 
 of this they have already secured that now essential
 
 The Land of Living Men 203 
 
 measure for political decency and political progress, a 
 Direct Primary Election Law, than which there is noth- 
 ing more effective to put political bosses and machine 
 politicians out of business. 
 
 On May 5 (1910), Hon. Jonathan Bourne, Jr., of 
 Oregon, delivered in the United States Senate a most 
 telling and illuminating exposition of the truly repre- 
 sentative government that now exists in that state, and 
 incidentally of the results that through the same agen- 
 cies can obtain in every state. Coming from so able an 
 authority, the following brief extracts, dealing with its 
 results only, will be most opportune here. After stating 
 his thorough belief in a real representative government 
 in distinction from the thoroughly misrepresentative 
 government that has come about so generally under 
 our present systems, he says : 
 
 " Since that amendment was adopted, the people of 
 Oregon have voted upon twenty-three measures sub- 
 mitted to them under the initiative, five submitted under 
 the referendum, and four referred to the people by the 
 legislature. . . . That the people acted intelligently is 
 evident from the fact that in no instance has there been 
 general dissatisfaction with the result of the vote. The 
 measures submitted presented almost every phase of 
 legislation, and some of them were bills of considerable 
 length. 
 
 " Results attained under direct legislation in Oregon 
 compare so favourably with the work of a legislative 
 assembly that an effort to repeal the initiative and refer- 
 endum would be overwhelmingly defeated. No effort 
 has ever been attempted.
 
 204 The Land of Living Men 
 
 " It has been asserted that the people will not study 
 a large number of measures, but will vote in the affirm- 
 ative, regardless of the merits of the measures sub- 
 mitted. Experience in Oregon has disproved this, for 
 the results show that the people have exercised discrim- 
 inating judgment.* They have enacted laws and have 
 adopted constitutional amendments in which they be- 
 lieve and have defeated those of which they did not 
 approve. . . . 
 
 " The people are not only intelligent, but fair and 
 honest. When the initiative and referendum was under 
 consideration it was freely predicted by enemies of pop- 
 ular government that the power would be abused and 
 that capitalists would not invest their money in a state 
 where property would be subject to attacks of popular 
 passion and temporary whims. Experience has ex- 
 ploded this argument. There has been no hasty or ill- 
 advised legislation. The people act calmly and delib- 
 erately and with that spirit of fairness which always 
 characterizes a body of men who earn their living and 
 acquire their property by legitimate means. Corpora- 
 
 * "In addition to the publicity incident to the circulation of 
 the petitions, the law provides that the Secretary of State 
 shall, at the expense of the State, mail to every registered 
 voter in the State a printed pamphlet containing a true copy 
 of the title and text of each measure to be submitted to the 
 people, and the proponents and opponents of the law have the 
 right to insert in said pamphlet, at the actual cost to them- 
 selves of paper and printing only, such arguments as they see 
 fit to make. These pamphlets must be mailed not later than 
 fifty-five days before a general election and twenty days before 
 a special election."
 
 The Land of Living Men _ 205 
 
 tions have not been held up and blackmailed by the 
 people, as they often have been by legislators. " Pinch 
 bills " are unknown. The people of Oregon were never 
 before more prosperous and contented than they are 
 to-day, and never before did the State offer such an in- 
 viting field for investment of capital. Not only are two 
 transcontinental railroads building across the State, but 
 several interurban electric lines are under construction, 
 and rights of way for others are in demand. 
 
 "I have mentioned all of these facts for the purpose 
 of showing that the people of my State, and, I believe, 
 the people of every other State, can be trusted to act 
 intelligently and honestly upon any question of legis- 
 lation submitted for their approval or disapproval. 
 
 " The initiative and referendum is the keystone of 
 the arch of popular government, for by means of this 
 the people may accomplish such other reforms as they 
 desire. The initiative develops the electorate because it 
 encourages study of principles and policies of govern- 
 ment, and affords the originator of new ideas in gov- 
 ernment an opportunity to secure popular judgment 
 upon his measures if 8 per cent of the voters of his 
 state deem the same worthy of submission to popular 
 vote. The referendum prevents misuse of the power 
 temporarily centralized in the legislature. . . . 
 
 " The next step after the adoption of the initiative 
 and referendum was the adoption, in 1904, by a vote of 
 56,205 to 16,354, of a direct primary law, which is de- 
 signed to supersede the old and unsatisfactory ' conven- 
 tion system.' . . . 
 
 " The final step in the establishment of popular gov-
 
 2o6 The Land of Living Men 
 
 ernment in Oregon was the adoption of the recall 
 amendment to the constitution, which was adopted in 
 1908 by a vote of 58,381 to 31,002.* 
 
 " The recall, to my mind, is rather an admonitory or 
 precautionary measure, the existence of which will pre- 
 vent the necessity for its use. At rare intervals there 
 may be occasion for exercise of the recall against mu- 
 nicipal or county officers, but I believe the fact of its 
 existence will prevent need for its use against the higher 
 officials. It is, however, an essential feature of a com- 
 plete system of popular government. 
 
 " Under the machine and political-boss system the 
 confidence of sincere partisans is often betrayed by 
 recreant leaders in political contests and by public ser- 
 vants who recognize the irresponsible machine instead 
 of the electorate as the source of power to which they 
 are responsible. If the enforcement of the Oregon laws 
 will right these wrongs, then they were conceived in 
 wisdom and born in justice to the people, in justice to 
 the public servant, and in justice to the partisan. 
 
 * " Under this amendment any public officer may be recalled 
 by the^ fding of a petition signed by 25 per cent of the number 
 of electors who voted in his district in the preceding election. 
 The petition must set forth the reasons for the recall, and 
 if the officer does not resign within five days after the petition 
 is filed a special election must be ordered to be held within 
 twenty days to determine whether the people will recall such 
 officer. On the ballot at such election the reasons for de- 
 manding the recall of said officer may be set forth in not 
 more than two hundred words. His justification of his course 
 in office may be set forth in like number of words. He retains 
 his office until the results of the special election have been 
 officially declared."
 
 The Land of Living Men 207 
 
 " Plainly stated, the aim and purpose of the laws is 
 to destroy the irresponsible political machine and to put 
 all elective offices in the State in direct touch with the 
 people as the real source of authority ; in short, to give 
 direct and full force to the ballot of every individual 
 elector in Oregon and to eliminate dominance of corpo- 
 rate and corrupt influences in the administration of 
 public affairs. The Oregon laws mark the course that 
 must be pursued before the wrongful use of corporate 
 power can be dethroned, the people restored to power, 
 and lasting reform secured. They insure absolute gov- 
 ernment by the people." 
 
 Additional testimony from a citizen of the same state, 
 as to the healthful influences at work under this system 
 of truly representative government is as follows : * 
 
 " The way in which this formidable list of subjects 
 was dealt with is highly creditable to the Oregon 
 electorate. ... In no case was there indifference ; 
 everything points to the fact that the ordinary voter 
 studied the questions proposed, made up his mind be- 
 fore going to the polls, and voted independently on all 
 the propositions placed before him. The measures have 
 provoked a vast deal of discussion ; indeed, it may be 
 said that for a number of months past the people of 
 Oregon have all been more or less actively engaged in 
 the business of legislation. The educational benefits 
 incident to the system are bound to be very important. 
 With a change in the initiative law perfecting the 
 method of distributing copies of proposed rneasures to 
 
 * " Oregon as a Political Experiment Station," by Joseph 
 Shafer, The Review of Reviews, August, 1906.
 
 2o8 llic Laud of Living Men 
 
 the voters, there is no reason why every farmers' club, 
 labor union, and lyceum in the State cannot become in 
 effect a miniature legislative assembly. In this way the 
 interests of all sections and all classes of the people are 
 bound to receive attention ; measures will be proposed 
 for submission to the local representatives and others to 
 go before the people at the general elections. 
 
 " But, with all this political activity, there is no evi- 
 dence of dangerously radical tendencies. The people 
 want to make their government as perfect as possible, 
 but are not disposed to hurry the process unduly. The 
 recent election, indeed, revealed in a striking manner 
 their conservative disposition. 
 
 " In conclusion, we remark among the Oregon people 
 a genuine joy at the discovery of their political capa- 
 bilities. Representative government is good, but there 
 is an exhilaration in direct participation in law-making, 
 the interest is sharpened, the intelligence is quickened, 
 moral susceptibilities are aroused. The Oregon people 
 are convinced that in the double form of government, 
 partly representative and partly direct, they have dis- 
 covered the true solution of the problem of self-govern- 
 ment in our American States." 
 
 Among the arguments on the part of those naturally 
 opposed to this method of changing our present misrep- 
 resentative into a truly representative government will 
 be that of expense — expense to the state, hence to 
 the tax-payer. If this objection were well founded it 
 would undoubtedly still be the source of a great saving. 
 The objection, however, does not bear investigation. 
 The submission of the total of thirty-two measures
 
 The Land of Living Men 209 
 
 to the people since the system has been in operation in 
 the state of Oregon has cost the state a total of some 
 $25,000, or an average of less than $800 for each meas- 
 ure. What the saving of a single one of these meas- 
 ures might mean to the people, and especially as time 
 passes, can well be left to the imagination of an intelli- 
 gent reader. The same cry was raised at first by its 
 opponents in Los Angeles, until through this power 
 in the hands of the people, the passage of a single 
 measure there was productive of a saving of over a 
 million dollars. This objection is no longer raised at 
 Los Angeles. 
 
 Another agency that is going to tell strongly in the 
 redemption of our present political methods is indepen- 
 dence in party action. The time has about passed when 
 a sort of blind, senseless, fanatical allegiance to party 
 is going to dominate men as it has in the past. 
 Thoughtful men everywhere are beginning to realize 
 the stupidity and low moral plane of such allegiance. 
 
 One reason that the low party machines, as well as 
 those of the higher grade, have been able to be built 
 up with all their damnable characteristics, is that 
 good men and thoughtful men and patriotic men have 
 not in sufficient numbers rebuked their party managers 
 and defeated them in their questionable and dishonour- 
 able doings, and have not rebuked the selection of ques- 
 tionable or venal or notoriously unfit men by defeating 
 them at the polls, thereby pushing home a lesson to the 
 party boss or party managers that would be of telling 
 efifect, that would be of real service to the party. And 
 when a sufficiently large numbei' of men make it clearly
 
 210 The Land of Living Men 
 
 understood that they will give unqualified support to 
 that party which in every case puts up the best man 
 for public office, and which stands honestly and 
 squarely for measures of the best public policy, then 
 we will see a great difference in the standards of men 
 nominated for public office, and in the methods of polit- 
 ical party management. 
 
 " In our country we fool the people with some pre- 
 tended differences between one party called the Re- 
 publican and another called the Democratic." So says 
 an American writer in dealing with the agencies that 
 have made the governments of Australia and New 
 Zealand so truly representative of the people's welfare. 
 
 This cry to loyalty to party is generally an emanation 
 from some old hack of a party boss many times disso- 
 lute and dishonest and criminal, both at heart and in 
 practice — an emanation, directly from him, or through 
 some of his equally dissolute lieutenants, to hoodwink 
 and to hold the members to the party under his or their 
 joint domination, in order that at the right time they 
 may deliver the goods — the people's interests — to 
 those with whom they are in league. That the people 
 have not seen through this method and have not rec- 
 ognized this fact in much larger numbers long before 
 this, is a most astounding fact. But eyes are now open, 
 and minds are now alert and discriminating, and the 
 death knell of these parasites upon the body politic, of 
 these scorpions in their deadly sting, and the methods 
 of the moneyed interests in their dealings with them, 
 are being understood more clearly every day and every 
 month.
 
 The Land of Living Men 211 
 
 Says a writer in The Springfield Republican: " In- 
 dependent voters, after all, are every year more numer- 
 ous in this country. In Massachusetts and Rhode 
 Island there were some 50,000 men who, after voting 
 for a Republican candidate for president, were capable 
 of voting- for a Democratic candidate for governor. In 
 Minnesota there were at least 50,000 more of the same 
 sort, and they did business on election day. It is dis- 
 crimination of this sort that will make the republic live 
 forever, if anything will." 
 
 Let us see how it sometimes works as it now exists. 
 An election is approaching and nominations for certain 
 offices are to be made. The directing officers or the 
 agents of certain leading public service corporations, 
 etc., want always to be on the safe side and want to be 
 sure that " safe, sane, and conservative " men are 
 nominated. At the appointed time and place a con- 
 ference is held between them and the party boss or the 
 party managers, — the party that is dominant or that 
 seems the more likely to carry the particular election. 
 Then, if there is doubt in regard to this, the party boss 
 or the party managers of both parties are " seen," and 
 arranged with. The " interests " care no more whether 
 the men to be elected are members of one party or 
 members of another party than they care whether they 
 belong to one or another religious denomination. 
 
 If the business interests that are liable to be affected 
 have nothing of special importance before them just 
 then, they in turn are " seen " by the party boss or party 
 managers to ascertain if the candidates about to be 
 selected are agreeable* to them, in order that the party
 
 212 The Land of Liziiig Men 
 
 have their support, etc., etc., and the ticket is made ac- 
 cordingly. If it is a locaUty where this kind of machine 
 poHtics has been in operation for some time and where 
 the party managers are of the ordinarily low type and 
 have a sufficiently certain hold on affairs, then men of 
 like character are the natural nominees, those whose 
 subserviency is a matter not open to question. If con- 
 ditions are different, then a very respectable sort of 
 man, but always " safe, sane, and conservative," such 
 as we find for some reason watching out most carefully 
 for the " interest's " business for them, is the natural 
 type of candidate. But whichever the type selected ac- 
 cording to the exigencies of the case, as the campaign 
 advances the " loyalty to party " cry is continually to 
 be heard through the various agencies and methods em- 
 ployed and with which we are now so familiar. Then 
 on election day we march up to the polls to be plucked 
 by this machine management that will sell us and our 
 interests out at the first opportunity, or by this con- 
 temptible combination of machine politics with the " in- 
 terests." I do not say this is true in every case. In 
 many of our smaller towns and villages there may be 
 simply traces of this, in some cases none at all. But 
 wherever it is of sufficient importance you may be sure 
 that matters are " taken care of." Moreover, there is 
 not a city of any considerable size in the country, and 
 there is not a state where this has not been, or is not 
 now going on. This is the combination that has 
 brought the corru])tion and bribery and debauchery into 
 politics that is now undermining our very institutions 
 of government,
 
 The Land of Living Men 213 
 
 And what are we going to do about it ? I '11 tell you 
 what we are going to do about it. 
 
 We are going to change our method of nominations, 
 and change it in such a way, that the boss, the machine, 
 in their combination with the " interests " are going to 
 have their feet knocked from under them. A system of 
 direct nominations by the people whereby they can bal- 
 lot for their own candidates after much the same plan 
 as they now ballot at regular elections, will soon enable 
 us to select our own candidates for public office, thus 
 making it harder for the combinations to be made 
 whereby we are continually being sold out, sometimes 
 so openly and so brazenly, or in cases where it is not 
 this, then making it harder for combines and trusts and 
 public service corporations to secure such favoring leg- 
 islation as enables them to become monopolies, stifling 
 all honest competition, ruining thousands of businesses, 
 moving up and keeping up prices of necessities to suit 
 their own advantage, and always in advance of what- 
 ever advance comes in wages to the wage-earner, the 
 professional man, and to all outside the combination. 
 
 The caucus and the nominating convention as it lias 
 become to-day is the starting point of all that is corrupt 
 and venal and vile in our American politics. 
 
 It is the stronghold of the boss, and with this in his 
 possession he controls elections and legislation, spreads 
 corruption as suits his ends, and makes merchandise of 
 government. Through it he has well-nigh destroyed 
 popular rule, and through him the people have at each 
 election, with an occasional exception here and there, 
 been given merely the choice of two evils. It is only
 
 214 The Land of Living Men 
 
 through the destruction of the present system that the 
 power of the boss and his machine can be destroyed, for 
 it is through it that he thrives and carries on his im- 
 pudent business. Several states have already enacted 
 more or less efifective primary election laws, not perfect 
 in all cases, but being amended and made better as each 
 opportunity for betterment manifests itself. 
 
 With such a system it is evident that no party boss 
 could dictate nominations, and without this power he 
 could control neither patronage nor subsequent legisla- 
 tive action, for he is able to dictate these solely through 
 the dependence of candidates upon him. Newly elected 
 ofBcers could then look to the people for their instruc- 
 tions and not be compelled to receive their directions 
 from the party boss and his machine. 
 
 And so far as the voters are concerned, " each voter 
 would have set up before him in every primary elec- 
 tion, and later at the general election, definite, intelli- 
 gent statements as to the policies which would be 
 carried out in this or that office by the candidates who 
 sought his suffrage. National, state, and local issues 
 would not be mixed together. If such a system were 
 in force no people would have to submit to the shame 
 of accepting the marionette of one boss or another. 
 No machine could fatten on officially protected vice, 
 or on the sale of legislation. The government would 
 be as good as the people, no better, no worse." 
 
 Here then is a simple, a practical, and an effective 
 way whereby we can battle with, undermine and wrest 
 the control of government from this combination that 
 has been steadily and systematically perverting all our 
 forms of government for years.
 
 The Land of Living Men- 215 
 
 Direct Nominations by the people, and direct legisla- 
 tion by the people through the Initiative and Referen- 
 dum, will give us back our government. 
 
 They are not ends, merely means to ends. But they 
 are the weapons, the strategic weapons, so to speak, 
 that must be gained in order to fight successfully the 
 great battles that are now on, for almost before we have 
 realized it the revolution has already begun. 
 
 As it is, fighting with these forces of mammon and 
 corruption, or this combination between the two, it is 
 like an army, a large army, if you please, moving out 
 with wooden swords and wooden guns against oppos- 
 ing forces, much smaller it is true and but a small frac- 
 tion in numerical strength when compared to the 
 greater army, but intrenched behind fortresses of great 
 strength and of systematic building, and every indi- 
 vidual armed with the most up-to-date patterns of ma- 
 chine guns, with which the entire larger army can be 
 mowed down before it can get even to their intrench- 
 ments. We must have these weapons or lose in the 
 great fight. How shall w^e secure them ? for they con- 
 stitute the key to the whole situation. Clearly they will 
 not come to us through the initiative action of any 
 political party as such, that is, until forced by the people. 
 We will secure these measures, these weapons, through 
 the action of groups of determined men throughout 
 all our states, who will band themselves together in 
 Leagues, known as Direct Nomination, Direct Legisla- 
 tion, People's Power Leagues, Public Welfare Leagues, 
 or whatever name or names they may see fit to work 
 under. They will formulate the issues, with no small
 
 2i6 The Land of Living Men 
 
 expense both as to time and as to means, they will carry 
 on an eckicational campaign, and later, reinforced by 
 the support of the people, they will take their bills to 
 the various legislatures. They will compel whatever 
 members may choose or whatever members may dare to 
 oppose them to show their colours, that the people may 
 know who their enemies, their betrayers, are. 
 
 If then a sufficient number of members is bought oft" 
 by the combination in the first meeting of the legis- 
 lature before which their bills are brought, they will 
 profit by the knowledge of the methods employed to 
 defeat them, they will go back to their campaigns and 
 to the people with a renewed energy until the voice of 
 the people will speak with such certain tones that even 
 the lowest of the combination tools will not dare do any- 
 thing but listen. Thus reinforced they will go back to 
 the next meeting of the legislature into which they 
 have in the meantime put men who will fight from 
 within, and after another hard fight, or possibly even 
 another in some cases, these weapons will be secured 
 and put into the hands of the people. 
 
 We can spend years in desultory warfare with in- 
 effective or inadequate weapons. With these weapons 
 we can make an effective, a telling, and a conquering 
 fight, taking one after another the citadels of the in- 
 trenched interests opposed to the public and the people's 
 welfare, the citadels of monopoly and of corporation 
 greed, all of them resulting from the combination of 
 the " interests " with the political boss and the political 
 machine. With these weapons we will be moving and 
 continually moving, not merely marking time. With
 
 The Land of Living Men 217 
 
 power in our own hands through the possession of these 
 weapons, instead of a much talked of and boasted 
 power that has become merely an empty shell, while 
 the real power is in the hands of the almost insignifi- 
 cantly small numbers who are using it for their own 
 purposes, we will stand as a body of freemen holding 
 the franchise in their own hands, should stand. 
 
 Now here is a programme, simple and effective it 
 seems to me, that we can begin at once to put into oper- 
 ation to bring to an end this intolerable situation that 
 has gradually come about among us. If anyone has a 
 better, simpler, more effective programme, I am willing 
 to yield at every point where its really superior features 
 can be established. I do not mean for some ideal state 
 in the by and by, but I mean as a force to set into 
 operation in a practical and telling way noiv, that we 
 may be up and doing those things that will lead to the 
 ideal state that will be established by our doing now, 
 to-day, what there is to do, and to-morrow the same, 
 and to-morrow. I am an " opportunist " in that I be- 
 lieve that the way to attain is to take hold with the 
 clearest insight we can command, of the thing that 
 needs to be done and that can be done to-day, letting 
 that lead to the next thing that will in turn develop itself 
 from it, and this into the next, until in time the foreseen 
 goal is reached. To see an ideal state, and to sit and do 
 nothing until that ideal state is developed and we are 
 in it, or because it cannot be attained all at once, is 
 entirely contrary to all natural law of which we, so far, 
 at least, have any tangible knowledge. 
 
 With these agencies of political power in our hands
 
 2i8 The Land of Living Men 
 
 we will then be in a position to move along the lines 
 of political and economic advancement untrammelled. 
 \\q can then take each step and secure each change for 
 political and economic betterment just as quickly as we 
 see such step or such change to be desirable. 
 
 We could then institute, as several of our progressive 
 states in keeping with some of the more progressive 
 European countries are instituting, or have instituted 
 — the Recall. By means of it when a public official 
 shows himself too subservient to the will or to the in- 
 terests of public-service corporations, trusts, combines, 
 etc., or shows too fully a disregard of the expressed will 
 of the people, or violates too fully his ante-election 
 pledges, he can, upon petition of a stipulated number 
 of voters, providing it is sustained by a majority of 
 voters when referred in a regular manner to them, be 
 recalled and retired and a true representative of the 
 people's interests be elected in his place. This is a 
 principle long recognized and long established in the 
 business world. No business man would against his 
 will continue in his employ an agent incompetent, or a 
 thieving, dishonest agent. We are certainly capable of 
 exhibiting as much ordinary common-sense in matters 
 of government where such tremendous interests are at 
 stake, as we are in matters of ordinary business. 
 
 It would end the public careers of men, quite a little 
 list in our New York state legislature, for example, 
 who have been there, some for years, in the direct 
 service and in the direct pay of corporations that arc 
 filching the people of the state for their own gain, and 
 whose methods, whose influence, and whose subser-
 
 The Land of Living Men 219 
 
 viency to these interests are more detrimental and more 
 destructive to the people's interest and the interests of 
 the state, than the acts of thousands whom we call 
 criminals in our state penitentiaries to-day. If this 
 volume were given to personalities, this list in the New 
 York legislature could be given. Those in the legis- 
 latures in other states as well as in the councils of 
 various large cities, will come to the minds of those at 
 all conversant with these matters. 
 
 Then the election of United States Senators by the 
 direct vote of the people, such as practically all are now 
 convinced is not only desirable but necessary, can be 
 brought about in a comparatively short time, and tJiis 
 stronghold of monopoly in our national government 
 can be taken. With it can be retired some of the vari- 
 ous members that will readily come to the mind of 
 every reader at all conversant with public afifairs, that 
 are very carefully watching and upholding even with 
 a grim defiance of the public the interests of the 
 " interests." 
 
 The possession of these agencies would enable us 
 to bring about more easily and more quickly a change 
 that the movement now world-wide along the lines of a 
 truer democracy, along the lines of an increasing power 
 in the hands of the sovereign people, is demanding, 
 namely, that all federal judges and all important offi- 
 cers now receiving their positions by appointment, be 
 made elective at the hands of the people. It is quite as 
 necessary that laws and statutes be construed by repre- 
 sentatives of the popular will of the people, as that the 
 laws and statutes be enacted in the beginning by this
 
 220 The Land of Living Men 
 
 same agencv. Here is a change in a feature of our 
 government that we will do wisely now in giving atten- 
 tion to. 
 
 The possession of these weapons would enable us to 
 bring about effective inheritance tax laws, or an effec- 
 tive act limiting, for the greater public good, the accu- 
 mulations, with constant additions thereto, the vast 
 private fortunes that will become in time as menacing 
 and as poisoning to the greater public welfare, as they 
 have proved to be in all times past. That we must be 
 about this matter in some statesmanlike and eminently 
 fair manner is now clearly evident to large portions, and 
 perhaps it is not too much to say, to the majority 
 of thinking men who are more interested in the public 
 welfare than they are in their own selfish personal 
 gain. 
 
 A wise measure along these lines, moreover, cannot 
 illy affect even the possessors of these vast accumula- 
 tions, for excessive zvcalth is of no advantage, or rather 
 of no real benefit, to any man nor to his descendants. 
 
 If we cannot, in all cases, get at a just basis in the 
 distribution of the products of labor, or in the gains 
 from those properties whose great increase in values is 
 caused by the life and the toil of all the people, then we 
 will have to get at the matter also from the other end. 
 Not the interests of a few individuals, able and shrewd 
 I admit, but the welfare of all the people, must be the 
 motto of a really great and continually progressive na- 
 tion. That we will be able to find a fair and a just 
 basis upon which we shall build such action, I am 
 confident.
 
 The Land of Living Men 221 
 
 It is perhaps not unwise to say that we must get the 
 agencies of government so into our own hands by these 
 direct methods that we can put an effective end to the 
 gambhng and predatory methods of Wall Street, not to 
 any methods that are honourable and legitimate and 
 commendable, but to those that are hellish in their 
 nature and whereby tribute is levied upon every man, 
 woman, and child in the nation in order that a few 
 buccaneers may add still more to their already enormous 
 and illegitimate gains. Their methods enable them to 
 reach out into every state and every city and every 
 hamlet in the nation to gather in their tribute and their 
 toll. 
 
 Many of our clearest thinking men are realizing that 
 the time has come that a Federal Bureau of Corpora- 
 tions be established, so that all companies, corporations, 
 trusts, etc., doing in any way an interstate business get 
 their charters and articles of incorporation from the 
 federal government, and be strictly subject to its scru- 
 tiny and regulations. On the basis of certain fair but 
 adequate requirements, those companies and corpora- 
 tions designing to do a business unfair, unlawful, and 
 illegitimate, could be weeded out. The present stock- 
 watering methods now used so freely, and so openly 
 employed by practically all large companies and corpo- 
 rations, and all methods designed to give inflated or 
 fictitious values to their stocks, could then be suppressed 
 and could be dealt with in a systematic and satisfactory 
 manner. 
 
 The possession of these weapons will enable us as an 
 intelligent and a determined people, to bring about such
 
 222 The Land of Living Men 
 
 regulations or limitations in the methods and aggres- 
 sions of our great modern trusts and combines as be- 
 come monopolistic in their methods or oppressive and 
 therefore destructive to the individual citizen's welfare. 
 We could then counterbalance in an effective way the 
 skilful work of the representatives of these agencies 
 that have become intrenched in our various halls of 
 legislation. We could counterbalance the efforts of 
 these representatives of the " interests," as they ob- 
 struct and fight from within every measure that is de- 
 signed to protect the people and the public from the 
 aggressions of such of these as are dishonourable and 
 law defying or law breaking in their practices, as well 
 as blighting and corrupting in their influences. We 
 could also in time, and quickly in some cases, cause a 
 complete political extinction to become the lot of the 
 representatives of these interests. 
 
 I would not be understood as opposed to any of those 
 interests that are honourable and above board in their 
 methods ; or opposed to the advancement of those in- 
 terests that are not opposed to the greater public in- 
 terests. Large corporations and large combinations of 
 capital can accomplish results that are of great public 
 benefit. Those that are honourable in their methods 
 should in no way be hampered. I do not believe on 
 the other hand that they should l)e unduly favoured, for 
 they are abundantly able to take care of themselves. 
 When, however, they secure their favours and their ad- 
 vantages at the terrific price that in the end must be 
 paid by the individual citizen and the public welfare, 
 then I say we cannot, without intelligent and effective
 
 The Land of Living Men 223 
 
 protest, sit by and complacently permit these blighting 
 agencies longer to ply their trade. 
 
 That a corporation is large and successful is no sign 
 that it is dishonourable or criminal in its methods. 
 Very many, however, are. Those that are honourable 
 in their methods should be given every respect and 
 every aid up to the point that this respect and this aid is 
 not detrimental to the interests of others and to the pub- 
 lic welfare. From those that are not we should not only 
 withhold respect and aids of every kind, but we should 
 find an orderly and effective method not only of check- 
 ing their aggressions, but if they persist in such methods 
 then of putting them out of business completely. Are 
 we as a people intelligent and determined enough to do 
 this ? Other people are. I believe we are also. When 
 the people are sufficiently united and determined, these 
 matters are not so complex and difficult of attainment, 
 as they in the ordinary course of events and under a 
 half-hearted method of procedure, appear. But before 
 a people of the right temper, these forces of corrup- 
 tion and privilege will listen and will seek cover, and 
 when they are once on the run they are among the 
 greatest of cowards. Ordinarily they will not stand 
 in a square and open fight, but when routed they are 
 liable to pop up again in the most unexpected ways. 
 They must be continually watched. 
 
 I think the author of the following paragraph, in 
 The Outlook, reads aright the signs and the temper of 
 tlie times : 
 
 " The people do not resent wealth, but they do resent 
 predatory wealth. They would not despoil their
 
 224 '^^'^ Loud of Living Men 
 
 neighbour of any property honestly acquired ; but they 
 would despoil him of the power to monopolize any of 
 the avenues of trade or to control any of the functions 
 of o;overnment. To compel plutocracy to act decently 
 is not enough ; they wish to destroy plutocracy and re- 
 establish democracy — perhaps I should say to estab- 
 lish, for the first time in the world's history, a democ- 
 racy of industry. And they are quietly but none the 
 less eagerly asking, What next? . . . Not the regula- 
 tion but the overthrow of monopoly is the popular 
 demand." 
 
 It should be the purpose of a wise and liberty-loving 
 people to afford every encouragement and protection 
 to each and every honest and legitimate business, be it 
 large or be it small. In this there should be no dis- 
 crimination. But when through bribery and the de- 
 bauchery of public servants, and when through the 
 securing of unwarranted favours they are detrimental 
 to practically every other interest, or when by technical 
 evasions or delays in the process of existing laws under 
 the guidance of skilled legal talent, or when through 
 contemptuous disregard or open and apparently fear- 
 less violations of existing laws, or when by virtue of 
 the confiscation of vast amounts of the people's prop- 
 erty, companies, corporations, vested interests, trusts, 
 and monopolies become so great, so contemptuous of 
 the people's rights, of the state, and of the entire public 
 welfare, then it is the plain duty of a worthy, fair- 
 minded and liberty-loving people who have or who can 
 have the full agencies of government in their own 
 hands, to come forward and as one man to cry out, —
 
 The Land of Living Men 225 
 
 thou thief, thou briber and debaucher, thou criminal 
 black in your law-defying and law-breaking methods, 
 thou despoiler of other men's goods, thou robber of 
 even widows and dependent children, thou traitor to 
 the public welfare, so far and no farther. 
 
 Let every vested interest be protected, but let every 
 smaller interest be protected also in like manner. Let 
 no favouritism be shown whereby one class of interests 
 is able to cripple, crush, and kill any other interest. 
 
 There is no danger of the American people, unless 
 trifled with too long and unless goaded to the last 
 ditches of desperation, manifesting any undue hostility 
 to any vested interests, and certainly none to any that 
 are honourable and straightforward in their methods ; 
 and is there a man living who would think or who 
 would be bold enough to proclaim that hostility should 
 not be shown to all that are not? It is only an igno- 
 rant, or a weakly or foolishly self-complacent, or an 
 already conquered people, though perchance ignorant 
 of the fact, that will not arouse itself to a sufficient 
 hostility to put an end to an economic slavery of such 
 type, and that unless ended will have as its final end a 
 complete economic and political slavery. 
 
 We have this interesting and farcical condition that 
 has come about among us, interesting were it not so 
 notoriously bold and brazen and so degrading and de- 
 structive in its results — A body of rich men individu- 
 ally and collectively conspire for their own greater and 
 quicker enrichment, deliberately to violate some fully 
 established law. Many times then through certain 
 other influences they set into operation they are not
 
 226 The Land of Living Men 
 
 even molested, or if so they many times go scot free. 
 If, however, they are tried and convicted they are let 
 off with a paltry fine — $5,000 or $10,000, or in rare 
 cases $25,000. 
 
 An employee of one of these corporations has filched 
 from his employers a few hundred or a few thousand 
 dollars, or another has filched from the city, or state. 
 He is promptly arrested, speedily tried and sentenced 
 to the penitentiary for a term ranging say from two to 
 twenty years. Now why not fine him a certain small 
 percentage of what he has filched ? Is it five thousand ? 
 Make him pay over five hundred of it and call the mat- 
 ter ended. In other words, what effect, or rather what 
 deterrent effect, has a fine of five thousand or twenty- 
 five thousand or a million dollars where millions are 
 gained on the part of the managers and proprietors of 
 certain trusts and corporations, through their criminal 
 violations of established law? If it is right that the 
 small filcher whom we call criminal be sent to state's 
 prison, then there is the same right and all the greater 
 reason that these criminals who filch under the most 
 cold-blooded and deliberate methods their millions, who 
 bam])cr or destroy thousands of businesses, who under- 
 mine the very foundations of law, of order, of free in- 
 stitutions, then I say there is the same right and all the 
 greater reason that these be sent to state's prison, or 
 that they be fined so heavily that it results in a virtual 
 confiscation of their entire business, or both. We 
 should not be at all chary about talking of " confisca- 
 tion " when it comes to dealing with criminals. We 
 must, as a people, speedily get the machinery of gov-
 
 The Land of Lk'ijig Men 227 
 
 ernment — the law making and interpreting power — 
 so into our own hands through the simple and direct 
 methods already enumerated, that we can put a speedy 
 end to this travesty on justice and order. 
 
 I do not believe in condemning any man. My own 
 errors and shortcomings forbid that. So to a greater 
 or less extent do those of every man. It is only an all- 
 wise and a faultless being that is capable of judging or 
 condemning; only on the part of such would it be at 
 all consistent. But such a being I believe would find 
 no place in his mind or in his heart for condemnation. 
 And understanding so well the frailties of human 
 nature, in all his judgments he would be most lenient. 
 But when a certain order of society is established that 
 men may live harmoniously and mutually advanta- 
 geously together, certain forms must be established and 
 obedience to them must be compelled. 
 
 We must drive the money-changers from the Temple 
 even as the Christ drove them in His day. In connec- 
 tion with all the frailties of human nature He was su- 
 premely charitable. The only ones He ever judged 
 harshly or ever really condemned, so far as we have 
 any record at least, were those who bound burdens on 
 other men's backs, who never raised even a finger to 
 make them lighter, who sought ever to gain advantage 
 at another's disadvantage, who oppressed or who 
 robbed the people. When we put forth the restraining 
 hand to hold in check or to drive completely out of 
 business men who rend and tear the flesh from other 
 men, simply that they may gorge themselves, — not 
 that they need food, — then we will manifest somewhat
 
 228 TJic Land of Living Men 
 
 the wisdom and insight that were manifested by Him, 
 who understood so fully our common human nature 
 that He was all compassion and forgiveness for all save 
 those who oppressed, who made burdens heavier, who 
 sought for advantage to another's disadvantage. 
 
 I know it is a fascinating game, this financial game. 
 I also know well that great law of life, that we grow 
 into the likeness of those things we habitually contem- 
 plate. As is one's dominating thought, so his Hfe be- 
 comes. As within, so without — simply the direct law 
 of cause and effect. I therefore know that the game 
 with some natures becomes so fascinating and so irre- 
 sistible that they are carried to depths and extremes 
 that they never even contemplated at the start. To 
 reach out and gain an additional million now and then 
 that he does not earn, but by hook and crook, by gain- 
 ing or taking some manifestly unfair advantage, by a 
 contemptuous defiance, or by a brazen, open violation 
 of law, or by a process of indirect murder, as many a 
 million among us has been gained — and the greater 
 shame upon us as a people — becomes fascinating and 
 well-nigh irresistible. But where men are absolutely 
 incapable of exercising self-restraint, but are given to 
 excesses and crimes that are not only detrimental to 
 society, but are destructive to the very forces that hold 
 society together, then it is clearly our duty to deal with 
 such by way of restraint the same as we restrain the 
 lesser criminal. 
 
 The point is simply this — we must stop recognizing 
 men and groups of men who are engaged in these prac- 
 tices as among our " successful and representative "
 
 The Land of Living Men 229 
 
 citizens. We must look upon these " rich men without 
 moral sense consumed by greed, devoid of scruples and 
 utterly contemptuous of the rights of the people," as 
 the oppressors, as the law-breakers, as the criminals 
 that they actually are. We must deal with them by 
 way of restraint in exactly the same manner as we deal 
 with all other types of criminals. It is only by treat- 
 ment such as this that we can hope to cope with this 
 type, this most dangerous type of criminal that has be- 
 come so rampant and so bold and so brazen among us. 
 Just as sensible to attempt to kill an elephant or retard 
 his progress with a pop-gun and its attendant paper 
 wads, as to try to head off or to keep even with the cor- 
 rupt and criminal practices that these men and feder- 
 ated groups of men are constantly operating under, by 
 meting out to them the penalty of a fine, either nominal 
 or heavy. 
 
 In addition to the possession of these weapons, one 
 of the most significant features of the way the people 
 will win out in the great battles that are now on for a 
 clean, a truly representative, and a continually advanc- 
 ing government, is the type of young men that are nozv 
 coming into the field of political action both as voters 
 and as men who will stand for and who will be elected 
 to public office. Here lies one of the most encouraging 
 and significant features or facts of the times. Already 
 in some sections they are throwing out their battle 
 lines, and some of the old-time and hitherto secure 
 bosses and machine managers are fighting with a des- 
 perate chance to retain their hold. Some are already 
 down and out, others are rapidly on the way. What
 
 230 The Land of Living Men 
 
 has occurred at a few points already is enough, as I 
 have heard it aptly put, to drive the old-time apostle of 
 " regularity " to drink or to suicide. Some of the old- 
 time bosses and machine managers as well as machine 
 wards are already believing in their vague superstitious 
 bewilderment that the methods of Hell have broken 
 loose and have crossed the border, and others that Hell 
 even is crazy. They are asking, what next? and won- 
 dering where the next blow will fall. 
 
 To the young man who will consent to stand for or 
 who will aspire to public office, I would say, be suffi- 
 ciently wise and far-sighted as not to aim for or not to 
 stop at the politician's stage. You will have to dirty 
 your fingers continually, and you will have to lower 
 your ideals and your whole trend of life if you do, you 
 will have to associate with and have as your constant 
 and many times unwelcome companions dirty and 
 selfish and scheming men. You will take your orders 
 from a boss, you will become subservient to him. He 
 will keep you as long as he and his like have use for 
 you. Association and like trends of thought will in 
 time mould you into his likeness. You may sink to his 
 level and in time become a boss — a parasite now rap- 
 idly becoming despicable in the public estimation ; but 
 the chances are that you will get so far and no farther. 
 You will thereby set your own limitations, and in latter 
 years you will confess that your life is a disappoint- 
 ment, as it will indeed be to your family and to all of 
 your tnte friends. 
 
 If the stufif is in you, then I beg of you to strike for 
 the higher ground. If the stuff is in you, you may
 
 The Land of Living Men 2t,i 
 
 reach the statesman stage, but you will reach it only 
 by never making a deal whereby honour is sacrificed, 
 and by being far-sighted enough and brave and reso- 
 lute enough to stand and to stand uncompromisingly 
 for such measures of public policy and such methods 
 of party management as are always for the people's 
 greatest good. 
 
 If then the stuff is in you, if you are wise and re- 
 sourceful, you need n't bother so much about retaining 
 the people's support, about retaining hold on your posi- 
 tion. The people will attend to that. We need more 
 such men. We need more such young men that the 
 people find it a pleasure and a duty to support. We 
 need more such young men to come from our farms, 
 which contain to-day one of the most interesting and 
 promising sets of young men in the entire world. We 
 need more such young men from our workshops and 
 from all the ranks of labor. We need more from the 
 ranks of the wealthy and economically independent. 
 We need more such young men to come from our col- 
 leges and universities. We are able to recognize such 
 men when they are really to be found. 
 
 There is nothing that so takes hold of men, that so 
 challenges their admiration, that so compels their re- 
 spect and their support as downright honesty of pur- 
 pose, as a courage that compels a man to stand firmly 
 or to drive on until he accomplishes what an upright 
 soul that will make no compromise with dishonour com- 
 pels. Such men compel the support of the people that 
 lesser and compromising and timid men continually 
 seek. Does this not give us hope for the futiire of our
 
 232 The Land of Living Men 
 
 country and institutions? Does it not give us renewed 
 faith in our old human nature that we have so many 
 times questioned ? Does it not give us a renewed faith 
 for the future of the race ? 
 
 Again to the young man entering or contemplating 
 entering political life — If you have contemplated em- 
 ploying the methods first enumerated and stopping at 
 the politician stage, then think again and be wise and 
 keep out altogether. Stay in the workshop, on the 
 farm, at your business, your profession, and have 
 thereby a more satisfactory life, and a life of more 
 value to your fellow-men than it would be if you en- 
 tered politics on this basis. If, however, you have the 
 material in you and a determination sufficient to meas- 
 ure up to the stature of the statesman, then, for God's 
 sake, go into political life, and stay in if you can, as 
 long as a well-rounded life will permit. You could do 
 no nobler thing. 
 
 The time has come, and it should have come long 
 ago, to put these machines and bosses, these crooks and 
 these traitors of the country out of business. We have 
 indeed come face to face with a crisis in our political 
 life as great as has ever existed from the days of the 
 Colonies to the present time. The call of the country 
 goes out to every decent man and woman as urgent as 
 has ever gone out. The call to service of great armies 
 of patriotic and determined men and women is loud 
 and insistent, and no service has ever been rendered of 
 greater import and of greater need than zve are called 
 upon to render. It is a service of a type different from 
 that that has called, and that has been nobly responded
 
 The Land of Living Men 233 
 
 to before, but it is just as sorely needed and just as 
 praiseworthy. 
 
 Leaders who have the insight to discern and to hunt 
 out, and the courage to battle against these agents of 
 political and business degradation are coming rapidly 
 to the front. They need our sympathy and our confi- 
 dence — they need our quick and active support and 
 co-operation. It is how the average citizen bears him- 
 self in this crisis that is to determine its outcome. 
 Therefore, after all is said and done, no man can longer 
 be a decent citizen — he may be a thoroughly good 
 man, but no longer a decent citisen — who does not 
 interest himself, inform himself, and join with or lead 
 in this great fight that is to rid our body politic of these 
 costly, degrading, damnable influences. 
 
 We of the East would do well to turn for instruction 
 and inspiration along these lines to many portions of 
 the great middle and far West. They are already 
 ahead of us in many things and in nothing, perhaps, 
 more than along these political and business regener- 
 ating lines. It is only those who come or who have 
 come in close contact with these portions of the nation, 
 and with the teeming, untrammelled, independently 
 thinking and acting life there, that realize at all ade- 
 quately this fact. The " decadent East " will truly 
 express the situation unless we here are quickly up and 
 doing. 
 
 Direct legislation through the Initiative and Refer- 
 endum, through the agency of Direct Nominations by 
 the people, and through that long-range rifle, the Re- 
 call, has already put down and out some of the most
 
 234 ^1^^ Land of Living Men 
 
 thoroughly intrenched and notorious political machines 
 and bosses and have brought the people's rule and busi- 
 ness affairs back into their own hands. In regard to 
 one of the most recent occurrences a leading New York 
 paper in an editorial hints that the smashing of the 
 bosses of one state by means of the weapon — The 
 Direct Primary — may help " to explain why the New 
 York bosses dread it as the devil does holy water."
 
 IX 
 
 TEE GREAT NATION — ITS PEOPLE, ITS 
 
 POWERS, ITS POSSIBILITIES — THE 
 
 GREATER NATION 
 
 ^^^^^M HERE never has been, and from the very 
 ' ■ ■/^■^^ nature of human nature there never can be, 
 ji:;||^I^P:[ a truly great and long-lived nation where 
 i^^^^^? one class of people rule, and another class 
 or the other classes are ruled. The great nation is that 
 alone in which the people rule, where through their 
 agent — the state or government — they attend to their 
 own affairs, and where they do not allow others to at- 
 tend to their affairs for them. Government must be 
 thoroughly and truly representative, or those in power 
 will gradually get the agents of administration and of 
 production so under their control, and will so use them 
 for their own gain and their continually increasing 
 powers, that in time the very liberties of the people will 
 be stolen away. 
 
 Of late, we have been having some very direct revela- 
 tions of the actual conditions of government in Russia, 
 where a group of eminently " respectable and high-born 
 gentlemen," among them no less than an august com- 
 pany of Grand Dukes, have for many years been direct- 
 ing the affairs, — in a sense, ruling this nation of con- 
 siderably over one hundred million people. Some own 
 
 235
 
 236 The Land of Lking Men 
 
 as high as a dozen or more palaces, all splendidly or 
 even sumptuously equipi)ed, with annual incomes reach- 
 ing into the millions. This all comes from the people of 
 Russia — chiefly the working people. What tlieir con- 
 dition is, late events have also revealed to the world, and 
 more clearly than ever before. The hopeless state of 
 inefficiency that this governing class has kept the nation 
 in, and has prevented it from rising out of, the whole 
 world now knows. 
 
 But the people of Russia, I hear it said, have not yet 
 attained their freedom, and so are not able to prevent 
 other men ruling over them, notwithstanding the state 
 of affairs that such a system means. Very true, but 
 there is another truth perhaps even more significant for 
 us. There have been nations where the people have 
 fought for and have won their freedom, but where 
 through lack of due vigilance, and by reason of the 
 growing and in time mastering greed of privileged and 
 excessive wealth, their liberties have been stolen away ; 
 and their covmtry, of which they were formerly proud, 
 has through the inevitable resultant internal decay fallen 
 into the hands of the despoiler. The greed for gain be- 
 comes so powerful that unless the great common people 
 find some way of checking or controlling it, those that 
 become mastered by it will pillage the very liberties of 
 their country as quickly as they will loot a hospital train. 
 
 Recent developments in our own nation, even within 
 the last twelvemonth, have clearly demonstrated that 
 there are among us, men of otherwise high standing, 
 eminently respectable, in learning, in church standing. 
 in society, but who have gotten so under the drunken
 
 The Land of Living Men 237 
 
 sway of the greed for gain that they would not only loot 
 a hospital train, but also a funeral train were the pro- 
 spective inducements sufficiently large, and were the 
 chances of not being discovered at it of a sufficiently 
 rosy hue. Plain speaking? But a man who will cause 
 or connive at death for gain, and many a death has been 
 caused by the scheming, the cunning and the depreda- 
 tions of some of those we term financiers, even within 
 the past few months, is indeed worse in his depreda- 
 tions than the one who will despoil the dead. 
 
 " The law of disintegration and destruction never 
 sleeps and only eternal vigilance can check it. Every 
 age brings its own dangers, and those that come 
 stealthily are frequently more fatal than those that come 
 with a mighty noise. . . . Instead of an armed foe that 
 we can meet on the field, there is to-day an enemy that 
 is invisible, but everywhere at work destroying our in- 
 stitutions ; that enemy is corruption. It seeks to direct 
 official action, it dictates legislation and endeavors to 
 control the construction of laws. . . . The flag has been 
 praised at champagne dinners, while the very pole from 
 which it floated was being eaten off by corruption, and 
 republican institutions were being stabbed to the vitals. 
 A new gospel has come among us, according to which 
 ' It is mean to rob a hen roost or a hen, but plundering 
 thousands makes us gentlemen.' " 
 
 As there can be no great nation without government 
 by the people, so there can be no great nation without a 
 continual vigilance on the part of the people. Vigilance 
 is the price that must ever be paid for continued Uberty.
 
 238 The Land of Living Men 
 
 Equal advantag-es and opportunities for all, which is 
 fundamental in any great nation, without active vigi- 
 lance on the part of the people will be quietly and 
 craftily changed into privilege for the few to be en- 
 riched through the toil of the many. And as wealth in- 
 creases wealth, and power increases power, we can 
 readily see how privilege and its concomitant, oppres- 
 sion, has in time spelled destruction to so many former 
 states. 
 
 The fact that we have so much to read from history, 
 and so clearly and so repeatedly, makes me so full of 
 hope that there is coming among us a people's move- 
 ment that is to redeem and save this nation. And cer- 
 tainly there is now no power of any other nature that 
 can do it. Moreover, this movement must not be un- 
 duly delayed, for concentrated wealth and privilege are 
 growing with such gigantic strides that every year, or 
 now, even every month of delay, on account of their 
 continually growing intrenchments, makes the people's 
 task more and more difficult. 
 
 The great nation, putting it in another form, is that 
 in which the people realize the fact that they are not 
 separate from or apart from government, but that they, 
 in a sense, are government. It is indeed strange, where 
 this is not a part of the active consciousness of the 
 people, what a little group of men and families is able 
 to do in gaining control of the agencies and necessities 
 upon which the welfare or even the very life of the 
 people depends. 
 
 And nothing has been more clearly and more repeat- 
 edly demonstrated in the history of nations than the fact
 
 The Land of Living Men 239 
 
 that he who owns or controls that upon which others 
 depend, owns or controls them also. It is possible for 
 there to be a nation of slaves without the word slave or 
 any word of a kindred nature ever being used. The 
 more shrewd and cunning the owners, the more careful 
 will they be to see that no word or sign or mark describ- 
 ing the actual condition of those owned or controlled be 
 used or even hinted. 
 
 Where the people are keen and alert as to who and 
 what they are in relation to government, or rather what 
 government is in relation to them, there will be found 
 a people who see to it that every opportunity is given to 
 those who aim to do right. Such a people will see that 
 among the great mass of their toilers, upon whose 
 sturdy welfare and good-keeping the very welfare and 
 ability of the nation to progress, or to continue even to 
 exist at all, depends, there are not untold thousands 
 who are working from early to late year in and year 
 out, getting merely or barely enough for each day's 
 work to provide them with food and clothing and shel- 
 ter that they may be on hand for to-morrow's work, 
 and to-morrow's and to-morrow's — lives devoid of all 
 learning and art and leisure and hope, and even rest — 
 those elements that are so essential to any life that is 
 not the life of the slave. This does not conduce to that 
 intelligent and progressive and happy citizenship that 
 makes for a real nation of freemen. 
 
 The great nation is, again, that in which the agencies 
 of production — and especially those that come under 
 the head of natural monopolies, those things upon which 
 all the people depend — are owned and administered as
 
 240 The Land of Living Men 
 
 nearly as is possible by their ag^ent, the state, and so 
 administered for the good and the welfare of all, and 
 are not permitted to be monopolized by the few for 
 their own enormous enrichment, and therefore, at the 
 expense of the great mass of the people. It is the pri- 
 vate ownership or control of these, as we have seen, that 
 has permitted the growth of our enormously rich men 
 and families that are becoming so intrenched that they 
 are now a menace to the very life of a nation of freemen. 
 
 The great nation is not that where through this un- 
 natural use of these common belongings we have a 
 small class of rich and powerful men living in their 
 castles and their villas with great hordes of hirelings or 
 dependents about them. This is something in regard 
 to which history's lesson is most clearly written. 
 
 The nation with which we are dealing is, again, the 
 one quick to see its weaknesses, also the danger of run- 
 ning into and working in ruts, or remaining in ways 
 that were once advisable and reasonable, but where the 
 time has long since passed for it to continue in these 
 ways, and where a continued growth and advancement, 
 to say nothing of its even holding its own, demands 
 that it keep up with the process of evolution and growth 
 that is ever working to lift. the minds and the hearts of 
 men, and hence their relations, to continually higher 
 planes. 
 
 It is also the nation that is alive and keen to the les- 
 sons that can be learned from other nations and peoples. 
 Many times the younger nations where great concen- 
 trations of wealth with its debauchery of the agencies of 
 government on the one hand, and its oppression on the
 
 The Land of Living Men 241 
 
 other, have not yet g-otten a foothold, and which there- 
 fore are filled with men and women of lofty purpose 
 and ambitions for a nation better than has yet been, 
 have commendable features that the older ones can 
 adopt and adapt to their own institutions with great 
 advantage. 
 
 The welfare of the great nation depends above all 
 things, perhaps, upon the general intelligence of its 
 people, and the more general and widespread this in- 
 telligence the greater, the happier and the more endur- 
 ing the nation. That it cannot be an intelligence and 
 education on the part of the few, while ignorance or a 
 lack of intelligence holds among the larger numbers, 
 has been shown most clearly in connection with nations 
 that were once among the great, but that are not now 
 known except in history, or that have fallen from their 
 place among the ablest to a position among the back- 
 ward and the unimportant. 
 
 Free and open educational opportunities for all, for 
 the poorest as well as the richest, is undoubtedly the 
 best road to a general diffusion of intelligence among 
 the people. It is possible to have widespread educa- 
 tional facilities and still for there to be whole armies of 
 children numbering into the thousands of thousands or 
 into the millions, who, on account of carelessness or 
 greed or incapacity on the part of parents, or other 
 causes, are deprived until it is too late, of what should 
 be the privilege, and more, the right, the sacred right, 
 of ez'ery child. 
 
 The state must see to it more carefully than it does, 
 that attendance at school, or some adequate means of
 
 242 The Land of Living Men 
 
 education, be made more carefully and more generally 
 compulsory than it now is. 
 
 That army of nearly two million child laborers from 
 five to fifteen years of age, who are this very day toil- 
 ing in our mills and sweat-shops and factories and 
 mines, must be relieved that they too may have the 
 equipment in mind and in body sufficient to enable them 
 to enter upon the plane of life's activities with oppor- 
 tunities somewhat equal to the other millions of the 
 same ages. 
 
 We have an excellent free educational system in the 
 United States ; but it is to a great extent, and far more 
 perhaps than we realize, offset by this denial of oppor- 
 tunity to this great army of rapidly coming citizens, 
 who most of all need these opportunities to enable them 
 to have anything like a fair chance in their struggles 
 for a self-supporting competency, or even for exist- 
 ence at all. 
 
 Greed for gain, and clearly illegitimate gain, will 
 prove triumphant and will stifle the higher promptings 
 of the nation's heart, unless we compel every man run- 
 ning a parasitic business or enterprise to be decent. 
 
 " To what purpose then is our ' age of invention ' ? 
 Why these machines at all, if they do not help to lift 
 care from the soul and burden from the back ? To what 
 purpose is our ' age of enlightenment,' if, just to cover 
 our nakedness, we establish among us a barbarism that 
 overshadows the barbarism of the savage cycle? Is 
 this the wisdom of the wise? Is this the Christianity 
 we boast of and parade in benighted Madagascar and 
 unsaved Malabar? Is this what our orators mean
 
 The Land of Living Men 243 
 
 when they jubilate over ' civiHzation ' and ' the prog- 
 ress of the species ' ? 
 
 " And why do these children know no rest, no play, 
 no learning, nothing but the grim grind of existence? 
 Is it because we are all naked and shivering? Is it be- 
 cause there is sudden destitution in the land? Is it be- 
 cause pestilence walks at noonday? Is it because war's 
 red hand is pillaging our storehouses and burning our 
 cities ? No, forsooth ! Never before were the store- 
 houses so crammed to bursting with bolts and bales of 
 every warp and woof. No, forsooth ! The children, 
 while yet in the gristle, are ground down that a few 
 more useless millions may be heaped up. We boast 
 that we are leading the commercialism of the world, 
 and we grind in our mills the bones of the little ones to 
 make good our boast. 
 
 " What avail our exports, our tariffs, our dividends, 
 if they rise out of these treasons against God? All 
 gains are losses, all riches are poverties, so long as the 
 soul is left to rot down." * 
 
 There are golden oportunities for earnest men and 
 women to enter upon a determined work in every one 
 of our states until conditions along these lines in every 
 one of them are what they should be. Magnificent 
 work has already been and is being done on the part of 
 many ; the help of more, those who have a singleness of 
 purpose that does not stop even in the face of defeats 
 until the thing is done, is solely needed. 
 
 But outside of this great army of children at work at 
 
 * " The Hoe-Man in the Making." Edwin Markham, in the 
 September (1906) Cosmopolitan.
 
 244 ^^^^ Land of Living Men 
 
 that important period when they should be getting 
 their equipment for Ufe's work and duties, many times 
 at the expense of great bodily injury as well as intellec- 
 tual and moral, there are almost unbelievingly large 
 numbers that are in school but very little, and still 
 others that are there none at all. Every child in school 
 until a certain age or until a sufficient equipment to meet 
 the ordinary duties of life is reached, should be the 
 nation's motto. 
 
 It is also eminently fitting that something be said of 
 the quality of the education it is proposed to make 
 compulsory attendance upon universal. To come at 
 once to the point in mind, and briefly — training of the 
 intellect alone is not sufficient ; we shall remain a long 
 way off from the ideal until we make moral, humane, 
 heart-training a far more important feature of our 
 educational systems than we have made it thus far. 
 We are advancing in this respect, but we have great 
 advances yet to make. Kindness and consideration, 
 sympathy and fraternity, love of justice — the full and 
 ready willingness to give it as well as to demand it, the 
 clear-cut comprehension of the majesty and beauty that 
 escapes into the life of the individual as he understands 
 and appropriates to himself the all-embracing contents 
 of the golden rule. 
 
 The training of the intellect alone at the expense of 
 the " humanities " has made or has enlarged the power 
 of many a criminal, many a usurper of other men's 
 homes and property, many an oppressor, and has 
 thereby added poison and desolation to his own life as 
 well as to the lives of those with whom he has come in
 
 The Land of Living Men 245 
 
 contact and who have felt his bhghting and withering 
 influence. It is also chiefly from those without this 
 training, that that great body of our fellow-creatures 
 which we term the animal world, receive their most 
 thoughtless and cruel treatment, and perhaps from 
 among none more than among the fashionable rich. 
 
 I think there is another feature in our educational 
 systems that we would do wisely to give more attention 
 to. In a nation of free institutions, more attention 
 could wisely be given to systematic and concrete in- 
 struction in connection with the institutions of govern- 
 ment, and in connection with this a training in civic 
 pride that sees to it that our public offices are filled with 
 men of at least ordinary honesty and integrity, men 
 who regard public office as a public trust worthy the 
 service of their highest manhood, rather than with those 
 whose eye is single to the largest amount of loot and 
 graft that comes within the range of their vision and the 
 reach of their hand. 
 
 Such a system would in time spell the end of Tam- 
 many Hall — a Democratic organization in New York 
 City, whose chief object is to make politics a cover to 
 divert the largest possible sums of money from the 
 people of the City of New York to line the pockets, and 
 in great abundance, of those in control of the body of 
 loot. It would in time spell the end of the Republican 
 rings and Halls whose object and purpose is identically 
 the same in every city where they have been able to gain 
 control, as well as the Democratic rings in cities other 
 than New York. The methods of the rings of the one 
 are equally black with the methods of the rings of the
 
 246 The Land of Living Men 
 
 other ; where the motives are the same the resultant 
 action is the same.* 
 
 Our educational methods are developing-. In edu- 
 cational work are some of our noblest, ablest, foremost 
 men and women. There is an element of the practical, 
 the useful, that is now sort of remodelling- our earlier 
 methods. It has always seemed to me that not only in 
 our public schools but in our colleges and universities, 
 it is possible to g-et as great a degree of " training "' 
 from branches that are in themselves useful, that will be 
 of actual use later on, as out of those that are used for 
 their training value only. The element of the useful, 
 not at the expense of the training, but combined with it, 
 should be, I think, and is coming to be, the marked 
 feature of our developing educational methods. 
 
 The bread and butter problem will be the problem of 
 practically all in our common or public schools to-day. 
 There probably will not be one in a thousand whose 
 problem it will not be. To make our educational sys- 
 ems so that they will be of the greatest practical aid to 
 all as they enter upon life's activities should be one of 
 our greatest aims. That our college courses can be im- 
 proved to at least from twenty to forty per cent, along 
 this same line I am fully persuaded, in addition to the 
 saving of considerable valuable time for those who, con- 
 
 * Of the difference between party bosses a writer in "The 
 Interpreter's House," in the American Maga::ine, says: "A 
 cynical old acquaintance of mine, whose large corporation 
 practice brought him into close contact -with, practical politi- 
 cians, once said that the only difference between the party 
 bosses was that the republican bosses were bolder and more 
 efficient and the democratic bosses came cheaper."
 
 The Laud of Living Men 247 
 
 templating professional careers, will afterwards have to 
 spend a considerable period in professional schools. 
 
 When we consider that not more than one tenth of 
 one per cent of those in our common schools ever get as 
 far as the college or university, we can see how impor- 
 tant it is that every child be guaranteed what the law of 
 the most ordinary justice demands, that he or she have 
 the benefit at least of what will enable him or her to 
 enter upon the stage of young manhood and young 
 womanhood free from such tremendous handicaps with 
 which so many are entering upon it to-day. 
 
 Our higher educational institutions especially must 
 be brought and must be kept in more intimate and more 
 sympathetic relations with the common Hfe. Here lies 
 their great opportunity. By this also will be determined 
 their continual growth and their real standing. The 
 tendency towards exclusiveness and even snobbishness 
 that is already plainh' manifesting itself in some of our 
 older and wealthier institutions must be checked or 
 driven completely from them for the good of those who 
 otherwise would become snobs as well as for the good 
 name and standing of the institution itself. For a col- 
 lege man or woman to get or to entertain the idea that 
 he or she is of a quality at all different from all other 
 ordinary intelligent people is a mental malady that occa- 
 sionally makes consummate asses of some. Most all 
 get over it in time, but it has a decidedly crippling in- 
 fluence while it lasts. 
 
 Sensible and to the point are the words in the follow- 
 ing brief extracts from a recent notable address by 
 President Woodrow Wilson. After expressing the
 
 248 The Land of Living Men 
 
 opinion that our churches of to-day are very far from 
 adequately serving the masses of the people he said : 
 
 " They have more regard for the pew rents than for 
 men's souls. They are depressing the level of Christian 
 endeavor. It is the same with the universities. We 
 look for the support of the wealthy and neglect our op- 
 portunities to serve the people. It is for this reason the 
 state university is held in popular approval, while the 
 privately supported institution to which we belong is 
 coming to suffer a corresponding loss of esteem. 
 
 " While attending a recent Lincoln celebration I 
 asked myself if Lincoln would have been as serviceable 
 to the people of this country had he been a college man 
 and I was obliged to say to myself that he would not. 
 
 " The processes to which the college man is subjected 
 do not render him serviceable to the country as a whole. 
 It is for this reason that I have dedicated every power 
 in me to a democratic regeneration. The American col- 
 lege must become saturated in the same sympathies as 
 the common people. The colleges of this country must 
 be reconstructed from the top to the bottom. The 
 American people will tolerate nothing that savours of 
 exclusiveness. Their political parties are going to 
 pieces. They are busy with their moral regeneration 
 and they want leaders who can help them to accom- 
 plish it." 
 
 The great nation is a religions nation. In order that 
 it be truly religious it is necessary that there be no rec- 
 ognized or established religion, that there be no rela- 
 tion, or rather connection between Church and State. 
 
 It is so easy to confound i)articulars with essentials.
 
 The Land of Living Men 249 
 
 The essential, fundamental principle, indeed the sum 
 and substance of all true religion is — The conscious- 
 ness of God in the soul of man. To come into the con- 
 scious living realization of the fact that the Spirit of 
 Infinite Life and Power that is back of all, working in 
 and through all, the life of all, is the life of our life, 
 that there is no life and no power outside of it, and that 
 in it " we live and move and have our being " — to live 
 and to act always in this thought and this realization, is 
 the religious life. Without it one may belong to a thou- 
 sand churches, or subscribe to the creeds of infinite 
 varieties of man-made religious systems, but without 
 this, one cannot be in the religious life. To dwell con- 
 sciously and continually in this Life, and thus allow it 
 to manifest through us, is love to God. To recognize 
 it as the life of every other being, manifesting in differ- 
 ent stages of Divine unfoldment, gives us the real basis 
 for love of the fellow-man. 
 
 This marks also the difference between the getting 
 and the giving religion, for it is true in religion that we 
 can get only as we give, the same as is the law in regard 
 to happiness. 
 
 The people of the great nation is a patriotic people ; 
 it is an intensely patriotic people. I read from the dic- 
 tionary a definition of patriot — " one who loves his 
 country, and supports its interests." Through lack of 
 discrimination we have done great violence to the word 
 patriotism in the past. In its name many foolish things 
 have been done. Most unpatriotic and most ungodly 
 things have been done in its name, though many times 
 innocently done.
 
 250 The Laud of Living Men 
 
 We have allowed ourselves to be swayed by the poli- 
 tician's patriotism, by the capitalist looter's patriotism, 
 by the demagogic, self-seeking, self-constituted labor 
 leader's patriotism. They all spring from the same 
 common ground — self-seeking at the expense of 
 everything that is conducive to the highest public wel- 
 fare. As a people, however, we are gaining wonder- 
 fully in discriminating power. As a consequence a new 
 order of patriotism is coming into being and among us. 
 
 What was at one time confined to the few brave, in- 
 dependent, advanced men, is now becoming common 
 among the people. We are finding that the elements of 
 justice and righteousness, fraternity and godliness, have 
 a very direct relation to, or rather, that patriotism has a 
 very direct relation to them. War, war and the flag, 
 were at one time supposed to be the only agents with 
 which patriotism was linked. To hurrah for the flag 
 and to be eager to go to the front when the war bugles 
 sounded, or were likely to sound, was for a long period 
 a prevailing idea of patriotism. It may still be a way in 
 which patriotism may be manifested. 
 
 The people are learning the real cause of many wars, 
 indeed the great majority of them — the bull-headed- 
 ness or pig-hcadedness, the. incapacity on the part of 
 those having to do with afl'airs ; and again, the throw- 
 ing of an entire nation into war by large and powerful 
 though unscrupulous financial interests solely for gain. 
 These two agents are responsible for the great bulk, in- 
 deed for nine out of every ten, of all modern wars, even 
 as they have been for all time past. Men are beginning 
 to realize that instead of having anything to do with
 
 The Land of Living Men 251 
 
 this type of war, patriotism lies in refusing absolutely 
 to aid or abet it and in using one's influence in a similar 
 way among one's neighbors more blunt and with less 
 power of discernment. When we reach a point where 
 the large body of citizens see to it that these men and 
 their agents — for the large financial interests of the 
 unscrupulous type almost invariably work through 
 agents many of whom they place or have the people 
 place in public positions — when, I repeat, the larger 
 body of citizens see to it that these men and their agents 
 are kept out of public office, and relegate them to the 
 subordinate place where they rightly belong, then we 
 will witness the full birth of an entirely new and a 
 higher order of patriotism that is soon to be dominant 
 among us. 
 
 The highest patriotism that I know is that which im- 
 pels a man to be honest, kind, hence thoughtful, in all 
 his business relations and in his daily life ; that impels 
 him to the primary and to give attention to those fea- 
 tures of our political institutions that are of even greater 
 consequence than his casting his vote on election day ; 
 that impels him to think, and to be discriminating in 
 his thought ; that enables him to be not afraid to point 
 out and denounce the pure self-seeker and his dema- 
 gogic ways, be he in public life, in the ranks of high 
 standing financiers, or in the ranks of organized labor, 
 or in the ranks of the common life. The man whose 
 motto is not " My country, be she right or be she 
 wrong, but always my counti-y " ; but, " My country, 
 be she always in the right, and if not in the right then 
 God g-ive me the wisdom and the courage to work as
 
 252 The Land of Living Men 
 
 a patriot to help bring her into the right, and then may 
 she have every God-given aid that she may prevail." 
 Such is the patriot. A continually and rapidly grow- 
 ing number of men of this stamp are appearing among 
 us. Thus patriotism is witnessing the new birth. 
 
 It is this patriotism in the common life that is of the 
 high quality. Men who are industrious and honest in 
 their work ; who are faithful to whatever tasks are 
 imposed upon them; who are as eager to give justice 
 as to demand it ; who are working industriously and 
 intelligently in order to take care of themselves and 
 those dependent upon them, and thus remain self- 
 supporting members of the community ; who remain 
 brave and sweet in their natures and who abide always 
 in faith in face of the hard or uncertain times that 
 come at some time or another and in some form or 
 another into the lives of every one of us ; who are 
 jealous of their country's honour, and of the adminis- 
 tration of its internal affairs, for in the life of the 
 nation as in the life of the individual, all life is from 
 within out, and as is the inner so always will be the 
 outer. These I repeat, are the men and these are the 
 conditions that are giving birth to that new and that 
 higher order of patriotism that is now coming among 
 us, and that is to take captive the hearts and that is to 
 animate the lives of men. 
 
 That wars in the past have been, and even at the 
 present time are, too frequent, all thinking men and 
 women are agreed. That they are in the great ma- 
 jority of cases entirely inexcusable, and that there is 
 and should be very little use for military forces, if any,
 
 The Land of Living Men 253 
 
 outside of purposes of defence, the highest and most 
 inteUigent portion of our citizenship thoroughly be- 
 Heves. And so far as effectiveness is concerned it has 
 been proven time and again, that a citicen soldiery is 
 the finest in the world. Neither vast bodies of men 
 drawn off from creative and productive enterprises 
 and made into a professional soldier class, nor bodies 
 of hirelings, but men who are citizens of intelligence 
 and training, and who stand with the ear ready for the 
 call to arms when there is just cause for their hearing 
 this call, such are the intelligent, such are the brave 
 and the daring, such are the most effective. 
 
 Men will not fight effectively for the little price in 
 money they are paid. They will not fight effectively 
 for the glory of another, nor will they fight effectively 
 for a mere tract of land. But where homes are, and 
 institutions that they love and revere and care for, 
 then men will fight with all that triumphant intelligence 
 and all that indomitable daring that it is possible to 
 call forth. With a citizen soldiery ready at the just 
 moment to come from the mine, the mill, the counting- 
 house, the farm, thousands of thousands or millions 
 strong, why should there be a vast professional sol- 
 diery, a great non-producing class kept primarily for 
 the glory and to do the bidding of a ruling class, but 
 supported almost entirely by the great common people, 
 that is true of the foolhardy military systems of various 
 European countries to-day? 
 
 Then think of the women and children bv the thou- 
 sands working in the fields by the side of horses and 
 oxen, and then these vast armies of non-producers,
 
 254 ^/'^' Lajid of Lk'iiig Men 
 
 and for whose benefit? Royalty, privilege, capitalism 
 in government always depend upon the military arm 
 for their support and, at times, even for their continued 
 existence. When their .demands become too great, 
 however, and too much dead or dead-beat timber 
 is thrown before the car of progress, then even the 
 soldiery itself throws down its arms and goes back to 
 the ranks and to the cause of the people whence they 
 came. 
 
 The only excuse for the present gigantic military 
 systems that are in existence to-day is that out of the 
 ruling classes there have not yet come men of sufficient 
 brains and wisdom to meet with similar men from 
 other nations, and come to a sane and common-sense 
 understanding regarding their relations. From the 
 people, as democracy grows, and whether it take the 
 name or not, are coming men and forces that wall yet 
 break this hellish monstrosity to a thousand pieces and 
 will send these millions of men back to the mills, to the 
 farms, back to the homes, that they may be as they 
 should be, producers and equal sharers in the support 
 of their country. 
 
 No it 's intelligence and something to fight for that 
 constitutes the effective in distinction from the ineffec- 
 tive army or navy. Reference has been made in this 
 part to Russia and the condition of her people — the 
 result of allowing one class to attend to the affairs of 
 the others in matters of government. This gives us the 
 basis for an observation regarding her army and navy 
 in view of somewhat recent events. 
 
 Her navy was larger and supposedly superior to
 
 Tlic Land of Living Men 255 
 
 that of her adversary ; but the larger portion of it soon 
 littered the bottom of the sea, and it went there be- 
 cause of the superior intehigence and hence abihty of 
 a people whose government aims to make intehigence 
 the common possession of the people. Her army was 
 virtually defeated in every engagement, chiefly through 
 the lack of ability on the part of its officers — for the 
 higher ability cannot be grown on such soil — and 
 through the lack of intelligent and hearty service on 
 the part of her common soldiery. And this because 
 men who are denied opportunities for the growth of 
 intelligence and who have no homes, but who pay ex- 
 cessive tolls and taxes and fees to others, can have 
 neither the power nor the spirit of those who have 
 such opportunities and who have homes. But the 
 deliverance of these, the patient Russian people, out 
 of the hell which results when the people allow them- 
 selves to be ruled instead of taking the management 
 of their affairs into their own hands, is near at hand. 
 
 There will now be no final settlement and no end, 
 until Bureaucracy, Czarism, and " Holy Synods " are 
 relegated to the place it is a wonder they were not 
 relegated to years ago, and a free and delivered people 
 will stand as the representatives of a new nation. The 
 same forces in power in government that would deny 
 freedom, or that would take freedom from the people, 
 strangle all vitality and life even from the church, so 
 that it becomes a curse and a drawback instead of a 
 blessing. 
 
 '' And the struggling masses must suffer through 
 the greed of their rulers, who talk patriotism, but
 
 256 The Land of Lh'uig Men 
 
 never draw a sword themselves in defence of their 
 country." But, it is said, suppose the ruler went to the 
 front and harm or death befell him, what then for the 
 country ? Nonsense, there is n't a King or an Em- 
 peror ruling to-day whose place could not be filled most 
 ablv were he to fall on the field of battle, by a hundred 
 or a thousand men from his own country, and in many 
 cases it must be truthfully said, more ably. 
 
 How often also do those that in legislative halls of 
 whatever nation talk and vote for war go to the front 
 themselves? Probably not one in 1,000. Were those 
 who instigate or who vote for it compelled to go, war 
 would be most infrequent. So often those that talk 
 the loudest of patriotism in its ordinary sense are the 
 greatest of cowards. Hasten the day, which should 
 have come long ago, when no war can be declared 
 except through a Plebiscite of the People. 
 
 So far then as the soldiery of a nation is concerned, 
 let the interests of all the people be equally taken care 
 of, let there be institutions founded upon justice, upon 
 equal opportunities for all and special privileges for no 
 man, let there be homes and sentiment encircling these 
 homes, and the keeping up of a large military system 
 becomes but a fool's dream. There will come from 
 such a people a citizen soldiery more intelligent, more 
 brave and determined, and therefore more effective, 
 than can ever come from any professional fighting 
 class, and at a cost not a hundredth part as great. 
 
 Take sentiment from the battlefield and you take its 
 chief source of heroism away. The people of homes 
 and of just institutions are a people of sentiment.
 
 The Land of Living Men 257 
 
 Upon every cartridge-box and upon every rifle and 
 upon every field piece of such a soldiery the word " In- 
 vincible " could most rightly be stamped. But of such 
 people and such soldiers let it be said to you, un- 
 scrupulous financial jugglers, rulers and grand dukes, 
 beware, for the people are now beginning to know your 
 tricks. They know that " me and mine," and the ever- 
 ready mockery of a trumped-up patriotism is written 
 all over you, and that had you your way, you would 
 continue to make dog soldiers out of great bodies of 
 your fellow-men, you would feed their bodies to the 
 vultures and leave their families to weep in sorrow 
 and cry for bread, that you might add to your already 
 excessive and dishonourable gain, and continue to live 
 in luxury even to your own and your descendants' 
 moral and physical deterioration and destruction. 
 
 The nations of the world present at the present time 
 the appearance of a vast armed camp. In addition to 
 the large armies there are the vast navies being added 
 to continually and at enormous expense. To the 
 former cruiser and battleship is added the dreadnaught, 
 and to the dreadnaught is added the super-dreadnaught. 
 One nation no sooner projects and lays the keel of a 
 monster engine of destruction of its type than another 
 announces one still larger and more costly. And in 
 this age of rapid and marvellous invention, when one 
 thing is superseded by another so rapidly, it is probably 
 not far from fact that nine-tenths of all these will be 
 antiquated and will become junk before they are ever 
 used for the purpose for which they are planned. 
 
 And why all this feverish preparation, this fear of
 
 258 The Land of Living Men 
 
 something, this monumental expenditure? Is it that 
 any one of these nations is planning attack upon any 
 other friendly nation? Is it that any nation is actually 
 fearing attack from any other friendly nation? All 
 sensible people know that neither condition really 
 exists. 
 
 There has never been a period in the entire world's 
 history when nations and people have understood 
 and known each other better and have been at heart 
 more thoroughly at peace with each other. There 
 has never been a time when trade and commerce 
 and business relations of all types between them have 
 been greater and more valuable, and when their dis- 
 ruption by war would be more costly, more senseless, 
 and more wicked. Never would a war between any 
 two nations be more deprecated and more bitterly op- 
 posed by the people of those nations. Why then is 
 this feverish and inexplicable increasing of armaments, 
 this enormous taxation of the people?* At the same 
 
 * But a short time ago, President William C. Brown, of the 
 New York Central lines, in an address before the Minnesota 
 State Bankers' Association, gave as his opinion, based upon 
 much careful investigation, that the chief cause of the greater 
 cost of living, the cause compared to which all others became 
 negligible factors, is " the alarming rapidity with which con- 
 sumption of the products- of the nation's farms is overtaking 
 production." In this connection he says : 
 
 " We are building great battle-ships, two of them each year, 
 costing, equipped and complete, about $10,000,000 each — and 
 it costs nearly $1,000,000 per annum to man and maintain 
 them. I am in favour of an adequate navy, but I wish the 
 money expended in building just one battle-ship could be de- 
 voted to this work of improved, intelligent agriculture. .
 
 The Land of Lk'ing Men 259 
 
 time there was never a period when the principle of 
 arbitration, of orderly and sensible court proceeding in 
 the adjusting- and settling of differences was more 
 thoroughly believed in and more rapidly growing. 
 
 In view of the above facts, why can we not have im- 
 mediately, — within the coming two or three years — 
 an International Court of Arbitration composed of rep- 
 resentatives, of judges duly appointed from the nations 
 of the world, with powers to pass upon and settle all 
 disputes or all differences that may arise between na- 
 tions, using the present joint military and naval forces, 
 greatly reduced, as the police force, to compel, if neces- 
 sary, the enforcement of its decisions? The fact of 
 there being such a force for such a purpose would in all 
 probability do away with the necessity of its being ever 
 called upon for action. We are coming to just such a 
 course. The question is — why not come to it now ? 
 Why not be emancipated from this enormous and thor- 
 oughly senseless expense that the people of practically 
 all nations are being constantly taxed to meet? Why 
 not now bring an end to this feverish, foundationless 
 bogy of fear or uncertainty that pervades the otherwise 
 peaceful status of this world? The people of all na- 
 tions would welcome such a deliverance. We wait 
 
 " What one battle-ship, costs would establish two splendid 
 agricultural experiment or demonstration farms in every State 
 in the Union, and I will guarantee if this is done and the work 
 intelligently and energetically carried on that, as a result of it, 
 the value of the increased product of the nation's farms will, 
 within ten years, buy and pay for every battle-ship of every 
 navy that floats on salt water to-day."
 
 26o TJic Land of Living Men 
 
 simply for the initiative of a leader in power progressive 
 enough, brave enough, devoted enough to take the nec- 
 essary steps. We are ready for such a leader, for such 
 a course. I venture that the people of no nation will 
 stand for the rejection of such a move on the part of 
 those in power, when the matter is wisely formulated 
 and presented. 
 
 The following splendid utterance of President Taft 
 was made at a recent memorable gathering, and it 
 shows how near we are getting to the landing: " Per- 
 sonally I do not see why matters of national honour 
 should not be referred to a court of arbitration than 
 matters of property or of natural proprietorship. I 
 know that is going further than most men are willing 
 to go, but I do not see why questions of honour may not 
 be submitted to a tribunal composed of men of honour 
 who understand questions of national honour, to abide 
 by their decision, as well as any other questions of dif- 
 ference arising between nations." 
 
 In a recent able article Mr. Andrew Carnegie says 
 of the above : " Here is the inspired deliverance before 
 the Peace and Arbitration Society in New York on the 
 22d of March, 1910, which we believe will remain 
 memorable for untold ages, and give the author rank 
 among the immortals as one of the foremost bene- 
 factors of his race." * While I cannot agree that the 
 above is quite true as regards the one who gives utter- 
 
 * There is probably no man whose efforts and whose influ- 
 ence in the advancement of this great cause have been greater 
 than have those of Mr. Carnegie. It is one of the three 
 things with which his name will always be Hnked.
 
 The Land of Living Men 261 
 
 ance to these thoughts, splendid and true as they are — 
 for they are after all the thoughts that the great major- 
 ity of clear thinking and sensible people everywhere are 
 now thinking — I can agree that it is pre-eminently 
 true of the man who has the insight, the inspiration, 
 the ability and the moral fibre sufficient to take the 
 necessary steps to bring about the material embodiment 
 of such thoughts, plainly speaking — the establishment 
 of a permanent International Court of Arbitration. 
 Has President Taft these qualities? We do not yet 
 know that he has not. The name of the one who has, 
 will be among the most memorable and beloved of the 
 entire world's history. 
 
 The great nation opens its ports and extends a wel- 
 coming hand to the poor, to the economically and 
 politically downtrodden, as well as to the more well-to- 
 do, from all the nations of the world. It just as care- 
 fully, on the other hand, closes its doors to the criminal, 
 and to all other types of the undesirables that seek 
 entrance, or that are dumped upon its shores by the 
 authorities of other communities and nations. 
 
 The emigration problem of this, our nation, is to-day 
 one of the most vital and one fraught with the gravest 
 possibilities of any problem that we are at present called 
 upon to face. At the present time there are coming into 
 our ports each twelve months over a million emigrants. 
 Large numbers of these are most desirable and will 
 prove of great value to the nation. Many again, are 
 not only thoroughly undesirable, but are a distinct 
 menace to our established institutions of law .and order 
 and a burden to the community and the state in which
 
 262 The Land of Living Men 
 
 they live. Many are also a menace to the lives and the 
 property of individual American citizens, and are cost- 
 ing us already vast sums annually. There are among- 
 these an increasingly large number that come for the 
 purpose of crime and plunder. 
 
 Then there are various steamship companies that 
 have their agents by the hundreds in the countries from 
 which many of these are coming, presenting every type 
 of inducement to those among whom they work to 
 come to America — their sole purpose being the pas- 
 sage money that w'ill come to the steamship company, 
 and without a single thought or care as to the detri- 
 ment and the cost that large numbers of them will be 
 to the nation. 
 
 We should extend the welcoming hand to the honest, 
 thrifty peasant wanting to better his condition, and 
 especially those wanting to find or to make homes here ; 
 but we should see to it, and at once, that the diseased, 
 the pauper, the criminal is not dumped upon our vari- 
 ous communities to be cared for or to be dealt with. 
 The proper federal authorities should, t^'ith the least 
 possible delay, adopt some well-defined policy looking 
 to the safeguarding of American citizenship and Amer- 
 ican institutions in the face of this now thoroughly well 
 recognized condition. In the meantime our existing 
 emigration laws should be enforced to the limit, — m 
 reference to these thoroughly undesirable types, that 
 either come of their own accord or that are sent to us. 
 
 The great nation again is the nation where that most 
 important, class in its make-up, that upon which it de- 
 pends more than upon any other, that that forms so to
 
 The Land of Living Men 263 
 
 speak the backbone of its org-anism — the farming com- 
 munity — grows and prospers, and has its interests 
 looked after and looks after its own interests more and 
 more. It is to my mind the most natural and normal 
 life there is, and the one — as a general statement — 
 that is or that can be made the most happy, and the 
 most satisfactory, and in honour second to none. 
 
 There has perhaps never been a better outlook for 
 a prosperous and interesting country life than at the 
 present time. The great advances that are being made 
 possible through the splendid work of our various 
 federal and state bureaus, as well as of the numerous 
 agricultural and horticultural schools and experiment 
 stations, the convenience and added comforts of con- 
 tinually better roads, the telephone, the free rural mail 
 delivery, the now rapidly coming parcels post, better 
 facilities for marketing, increasing possibilities of prod- 
 ucts as well as better prices for them — all are tending 
 to make its advantages very great. Many of these, 
 moreover, are still in their infancy, and the time is un- 
 questionably coming when the scientifically tilled and 
 managed farm of forty acres, will yield in profit what 
 is now yielded by the ordinary farm of a hundred and 
 sixty acres. The farmers of the future will also be 
 giving more attention to making their farms — espe- 
 cially the home, its grounds and immediate surround- 
 ings — more beautiful and attractive. Farms that 
 to-day are anything but attractive could be made so 
 thoroughly so with a little time and attention and with 
 but little actual outlay, that the boys and girls could 
 scarcely be driven from them. In addition to these
 
 264 The Land of Living Men. 
 
 greater gains, such a course would pay also abundantly 
 from the purely business standpoint. 
 
 The wiser among those on our farms will also see 
 to it that every labor saving device and convenience 
 is instituted in and about the home, the same as so many 
 others are on the farm itself, that the work and the life 
 of the wife and the daughter may be made as easy and 
 as attractive as possible, giving more abundant oppor- 
 tunities for variety, for rest, for recreation and for cul- 
 ture. It will pay a thousandfold in the end. 
 
 Then with more co-operation — no farm or rural 
 community should be without some strong co-operative 
 organization in its midst — for business, for social, for 
 educational, for civic purposes, the possibilities of farm 
 and country life will be continually increasing. The 
 influence that such a population can exert upon the 
 political life of the nation is indeed unmeasurable.* 
 
 * The three greatest general needs of country life, as dis- 
 covered by President Roosevelt's Country Life Commission, and 
 as summarized by him in a special message to Congress are : 
 
 " First, effective co-operation among farmers, to put them 
 on a level with the organized interests with which they do 
 business. 
 
 " Second, a new kind of schools in the country, which shall 
 teach the children as much outdoors as indoors, and perhaps 
 more, so that they will prepare for country life, and not, as at 
 present, mainly for life in town. 
 
 " Third, better means of communication, including good 
 roads and a parcels post, which the country people are every- 
 where, and rightly, unanimous in demanding. 
 
 " To these may well be added better sanitation ; for easily 
 preventable diseases hold several million country people in the 
 slavery of continuous ill health,"
 
 The Land of Living Men 265 
 
 There is already a growing- tendency, and I believe 
 that it will be and should be a continually increasing 
 tendency, for young men of ability and ambition to 
 remain on the farm, instead of leaving it for supposedly 
 superior callings — that is, unless the inclination or the 
 aptitude lies so pronouncedly along a different line as 
 to make another course abundantly advisable. 
 
 Go then to the school, the college, the university, the 
 agricultural, the horticultural school, and with this 
 superior equipment, go back to conduct a superior 
 type of farm. The outlet for your abilities will be equal 
 to those abilities, both there and as occasion may arise. 
 
 The possibilities of soil cultivation and all things al- 
 lied to it under more careful, more scientific, intensive 
 methods, are hardly even dreamed of to-day, notwith- 
 standing the great strides that have been made during 
 the past dozen years or so. 
 
 And our legislative halls, State and National, have 
 never called so loudly as they are calling to-day for 
 men of such make-up as will yet come to them from 
 these superior types of farms. Nothing, to my mind, 
 could contribute more abundantly to the welfare of the 
 country than the coming of increasingly large numbers 
 of these into our legislative halls. There is perhaps no 
 class that has suffered economically more from special 
 privilege and maladministration, in short — injustice — 
 during the past two or three decades. In no way 
 could these abuses be more effectively ended. In no 
 way could a better balance be secured and preserved in 
 all matters of legislative policy and in all matters of 
 national conduct,
 
 266 The Laud of Living Men 
 
 May there be more organization, an ever increasing 
 intelligence, more interest in public affairs, and an ever 
 greater determination to have a more equal share in the 
 latter, on the part of this, the most important of our 
 citizenship. 
 
 The great nation is again the nation in which the man 
 of great natural executive or financial ability finds con- 
 tentment in a smaller amount of possessions for him- 
 self, and the larger contentment and satisfaction and 
 joy in using that unusual ability in the service of, for 
 the benefit of, his city, his state, the nation. The wonder 
 is that more are not doing this already. What an in- 
 fluence a few such men could have, what results they 
 could accomplish, what real riches they could bring into 
 their lives through the riches they would bring into the 
 lives of multitudes — What gratitude would go to 
 them ! What names ! What memories ! 
 
 As men continue to see the small satisfaction there 
 is in the possession of great ability of this nature, and 
 in the possession of great wealth, when divorced from 
 an adequate or even from an abundant connection zvith 
 the interests and the zvclfare of their fclloiv-men, and 
 as they catch the undying truth of the great law of life 
 as enunciated by One who though He had not even 
 where to lay His head was greater than them all — He 
 that is greatest among you shall be your servant — 
 then they in company with all men will be the gainers. 
 Think what could be accomplished in the nation along 
 the lines we have been considering in this little volume 
 by a company of such men devoted to such ends. A 
 change is coming and very rapidly. The time has al-
 
 The Land of Living Men 267 
 
 ready arrived when we will no longer look upon the 
 possession of mere wealth or the ability to get it as de- 
 serving of any special distinction, and especially ivhen 
 the means adopted in its acquirement are other than 
 those of absolute honour and rectitude. 
 
 How significant are the following observations from 
 the New York Outlook: 
 
 " Those who have fallen most completely under the 
 spell of fortune-hunting, and have been consumed by 
 the fever of a pursuit which dries up the very sources 
 of spiritual life, can no longer be blind to the fact that 
 when great wealth ceases to be associated with char- 
 acter, honour, genius, or public respect, it is a very 
 shabby substitute for the thing men once held it to be. 
 There are hosts of honourable men of wealth, and 
 there are large fortunes which have been honourably 
 made ; but so much brutal indifference to the rights of 
 others, so much tyrannical use of power, so much arbi- 
 trary employment of privilege without a touch of 
 genius, so much cynical indifference to human ties of 
 all kinds, so much vulgar greed, have come to light, 
 . . . that the lustre has very largely gone and wealth, 
 as a supreme prize of life, has immensely lost in 
 attractive power. There are hosts of young men who 
 are ambitious to be rich, but who are not willing to 
 accept wealth on such terms ; the price is too great, 
 the bargain too hard." 
 
 Men of exceptional executive and financial ability, 
 raise yourselves to the standing-point of real great- 
 ness and use these abilities to noble purposes and to 
 undying ends instead of piling heaps of things together
 
 268 The Land of Living Men 
 
 that you '11 soon have to leave and that may do those 
 to whom they will go more harm than good. The 
 times are changing, mankind is advancing and as- 
 cending to higher standing places, and it will be but 
 a short time when your position if maintained as at 
 present will be a very ordinary one or even a very 
 low one in the public esteem — and so will be your 
 memories. 
 
 The Bishop of Exeter voices a well-nigh universal 
 human cry at present when he says: 
 
 Give us men ! 
 
 Strong and stalwart ones : 
 Men whom highest hope inspires. 
 Men whom purest honour fires, 
 Men who trample Self beneath them, 
 Men who make their country wreathe them 
 
 As her noble sons, 
 
 Worthy of their sires, 
 Men who never shame their mothers, 
 Men who never fail their brothers, 
 True, however false are others: 
 
 Give us Men — I say again, 
 Give us Men!
 
 X 
 
 THE LIFE OF THE HIGHER BEAUTY AND 
 POWER — INDIVIDUAL — NA TIONAL 
 
 ^^^^O be at peace. To be happy. To live in 
 ^iftf contentment. To have a satisfying and 
 ^mI^ : harmonious — a successful life. This echoes 
 i^^^^K the longing of perhaps every normal per- 
 son. The fact that it so echoes a universal longing, 
 indicates, to me at least, that it should be the natural, 
 the normal life. 
 
 In order to live a harmonious life there must be 
 something to be in harmony with ; and here as I view 
 it is the great secret of life and its successful and 
 satisfactory fulfilment. 
 
 That there is a Spirit of intelligence and of love in 
 the universe, no normally constituted mind, and one 
 that has lived at all near the higher revelations that 
 may have come to it, can for a moment doubt. There is 
 a Power, beneficent if worked in harmony with, that 
 pervades and through the channel of great and definite 
 systems of law governs the universe and all that is in 
 it. Every decade we are discovering new laws and 
 forces, and the latter seem to be all the time finer and 
 finer in their nature. This is perhaps on account of 
 the process of evolution, so developing, so unfolding 
 us, that we are getting nearer and nearer to the es- 
 sence, the inner nature — the soul of things. 
 
 269
 
 2/0 The Land of Living Men 
 
 What was the actual beginning of things no man 
 knows. Nor is it essential or important that we do 
 know. But in the beginning, as now, was Being, self- 
 existent and all-pervading — the Spirit of Infinite Life 
 and Power that is back of all, working in and through 
 all, the source, the Hfe of all. This seems to be a self- 
 evident fact — Infinite Being projecting itself into ex- 
 istence — therefore the spirit, the substance, the life of 
 all there is. 
 
 Various terms or names are used by different 
 minds ; but to me this Infinite Being is God. To know 
 this as our source, the very essence of our being, 
 and from which or from whom we can be cut off, can 
 separate ourselves, only to our detriment, is to recog- 
 nize ourselves as spiritual beings ; it is to be born into 
 the spiritual life, and the spiritual life is the life eternal. 
 Thus we come to know God in the degree that we 
 realize that in Him we live and move and have our 
 being. In the degree that we live in the realization 
 of this truth, does this spirit of Infinite Life and 
 Power reveal itself to our consciousness more and 
 more, and it is in this way that we grow and unfold 
 in the spiritual life. 
 
 It is through great systems of law, definite and im- 
 mutable, that God or Infinite Being works. To know 
 these laws, and to live, to work in harmony with them 
 brings peace and harmony ; wilfully to violate them 
 brings inharmony and struggle and suffering. They 
 all work together for good. To live in harmony with 
 them can bring us only good. To fail to recognize or" 
 wilfully to violate them brings necessarily the opposite
 
 TJic Land of Living Men 271 
 
 of good, namely evil. Evil has its origin properly 
 speaking not in God, but from a violation of the laws, 
 shall we say, the ordinances of God. 
 
 To realize that in essence, though not in degree, 
 we are one with the life of God, and then to open our- 
 selves, our minds and our hearts, so that a continually 
 increasing degree of the God life can manifest itself 
 to and through us, is to understand more and more 
 and to come into a continually greater harmony with, 
 the laws under which we live and which permeate and 
 rule in the universe with an unchangeable precision. 
 It is through our non-recognition of the life that is in 
 us and the laws by which all things are governed, in 
 other words, living out of harmony with the laws 
 under which it is decreed we must live, that inhar- 
 mony and evil with its consequent pain and suffering 
 and despair enters into our lives. There are those 
 who have lived so fully in the realization of their es- 
 sential oneness with the Divine Life, that their lives 
 here have been almost a continual song of peace and 
 thanksgiving. 
 
 As individuals — expressions of Being projected 
 into existence — we are given the power of choice. 
 We can choose to open ourselves so fully to the reali- 
 zation of the Source of our life, and open ourselves so 
 fully to its influx, that we will find the attributes of 
 this life manifesting, incarnating themselves more and 
 more in our lives, so that in time we take on more and 
 more the wisdom, the insight and the powers of this 
 Life. In this way we are gradually changed from the 
 natural to the spiritual, from earth-men to God-men,
 
 272 The Land of Living Men 
 
 thus fulfilling- the undoubted purpose of our being — 
 divine self-realization, and the returning to that from 
 which we came. 
 
 Coming as babes, returning as fully grown spiritual 
 beings, gaining our experience in contact with this 
 material world through the agency of the material 
 body, and for some purpose of which we do not yet 
 know but that shall be revealed to us in due process 
 of time. What it is, cannot concern us materially now. 
 This zvill come zvhen zve are ready for it. To know 
 the laws under which we are living and to bring our 
 lives into an ever completer harmony with them, is 
 what concerns us now. Step by step, in this, as in all 
 things. 
 
 But to know God's laws is first to know the life of 
 God in us. To live then in harmony with these laws 
 and thus to reap the results that follow naturally and 
 unerringly from this course, is the part of the wise. 
 To separate ourselves from the life of God, to lose 
 therefore the guiding wisdom that is its attribute, to 
 fail to live in harmony with these laws, and to be bat- 
 tered and buffeted about as is invariably the result of 
 the violation of law, until through this hard process 
 we are finally driven into harmony with the laws of 
 God, is the part of the unwise, the fool. 
 
 The laws will have obedience, and there has never 
 been a man or a woman powerful enough or rich 
 enough or unique enough to violate them without 
 suffering sooner or later the inevitable results. Many 
 have sought to do so but have learned their lesson in 
 sorrow, in anguish, in humiliation. We go voluntarily
 
 The Land of Living Men 273 
 
 and of our own accord, or we are pushed and taught 
 through suffering. God will have obedience. To know 
 God is to know His laws; for His laws are written 
 in the heart of man. 
 
 By dwelling continually in this life of God we come 
 into that condition where we are led more and more 
 by Divine guidance, where the Divine wisdom and 
 power and life so manifest and illumine our being, 
 and through this our understanding, that we know 
 more and more to do the right thing at the right time ; 
 and for such, to know is to do.* 
 
 While the end of life is not attained through intellec- 
 tual processes alone, the mind, the intellect neverthe- 
 less is a means to this end. It is through the mind that 
 the connection is made between the human and the 
 Divine. It is through thought operating through the 
 channel of the mind that we are able to realize and 
 keep our connection with Infinite Being, our source. 
 It is by virtue of the mind, working through the 
 brain, that we are connected with the material, physi- 
 cal universe. The body is material, physical. Every 
 particle of it, through the food we take, is from the 
 earth and the air, and to the earth and the air every 
 particle of it finally returns. 
 
 To realize that the body is not the self, but the in- 
 strument by which the self is temporarily related to 
 
 * For suggestions as to the method of entering into this 
 higher realization, as also for a much fuller portrayal of its 
 results in everyday life, the reader is directed to the volume 
 by the same author entitled, " In Tune with the Infinite, or, 
 Fullness of Peace, Power, and Plenty."
 
 274 The Land of Lk'ing Men 
 
 and made able to live in a material world for the pur- 
 pose of experience, growth, development, is a great aid 
 in arriving at the realities of life. The folly then of 
 giving supreme attention to it, and the things that 
 pertain to it. To give it sufficient attention to en- 
 able it to become the clearest, the soundest, the most 
 perfect instntment, that it can be made and kept for the 
 real self to use, is the part of wisdom, for it is the true 
 middle ground. 
 
 Now, why this, I hear it asked, in a book of this 
 nature? In order to get a basis in religion, in phi- 
 losophy, in reality, for life, for the individual life ; and 
 as is the individual life so is the national life, never 
 higher, never lower. As Dr. Patton, formerly presi- 
 dent of Princeton University, once said to a class of 
 young graduates: 
 
 " Religion is the goal of culture, and the educated 
 man must stand in some relation to God. He must 
 have some philosophy of human life, some theory of 
 society." And as Milton has said : " There is nothing 
 that makes men rich and strong but that which they 
 carry inside of them. Wealth is of the heart, not of the 
 hand." And as Mazzini once said : " Where there is 
 no vision the people perish." 
 
 The chase for the material has of late years become 
 so great and so absorbing, whether by fair means or 
 foul, that it has become one of the notorious features 
 or characteristics of the time. And while I believe the 
 heart of the people and the heart of the nation is sound, 
 by virtue of the vastly superior numbers of splendid, 
 honest, unpurchasable and high-minded men and
 
 The Land of Living Men 275 
 
 women among us, both old and young, a strong materi- 
 alistic tendency is nevertheless a marked characteristic 
 of the time. As there is perhaps no greater truth in 
 connection with human life than — As a man thinketh 
 in his heart so is he, and also, that we grow into the 
 likeness of those things we most habitually contem- 
 plate, also, that all Hfe is from within out, for as is the 
 inner, so always and necessarily will be the outer, it 
 becomes clearly apparent how essential it is that the 
 right centre or basis of Hfe be established. 
 
 We hear it often said, and said in the most well- 
 meaning way, that the physical, the material, is the 
 basis of life. Now I would put it in another way, a 
 safer and I think a truer way. The spiritual is the basis 
 and the end of life, and the physical, the material, is the 
 channel through which it manifests and works and un- 
 folds and masters. The latter is not to be despised or 
 slighted, but to be used, to be wisely used, but to be 
 subordinated to its proper place. Thus it becomes a 
 great blessing and helper rather than a hindrance and a 
 curse. 
 
 To have an abundance of the world's goods is good 
 if rightly used ; but to make the accumulation of ma- 
 terial things the chief object of life can end only in 
 disappointment. Such have but a pinched and stunted 
 life which is unsatisfactory and empty of joy to them- 
 selves, and, except by way of warning, is of but little if 
 any value to the world. 
 
 Each one must find a centre for life from which all 
 radiates, or, putting it in another way, a basis, a founda- 
 tion upon which all else is built. Such a centre or such
 
 276 The Land of Lk'ing Men 
 
 a basis, one that is true and satisfactory, is earnestly- 
 longed for by myriads of people. An instinct for the 
 religious life is born in practically every human soul. 
 
 So many great chunks, as the years have passed, have 
 fallen away from our theological systems, and so 
 many are still continually falling away from them, 
 that it is hard or well-nigh impossible for an earnest, 
 mentally honest man to find any satisfactory or even ac- 
 ceptable basis for the religious life there. Such in com- 
 mon with all others will find that the uniform teaching 
 of all the most inspired teachers in the world's history, 
 whatever the religion or system of belief has been, is 
 that the essence, the substance of all true religion is 
 the Consciousness of God in the soul of man. The ra- 
 tional basis for this I have endeavored to point out in 
 the early pages of this chapter. " In Him we live and 
 move and have our being." In what a homely, splen- 
 did way John Tauler has put it in the following : 
 
 " I have a power in my soul which enables me to 
 perceive God : I am as certain as that I live that nothing 
 is so near to me as God. He is nearer to me than I 
 am to myself. It is part of His very essence that He 
 should be nigh and present to me. . . . And a 
 man is more blessed or less blessed in the same measure 
 as he is aware of the presence of God." 
 
 " God made us for Himself, and our hearts are rest- 
 less until they repose in Him," was St. Augustine's 
 way of putting it. " The only death to be feared 
 is unconsciousness of the presence of God," said 
 Paracelsus. 
 
 " That the Divine Life and Energy actually lives in
 
 The Land of Living Men 277 
 
 us is inseparable from religion," was the keynote to 
 the philosophy of that most spiritual of philosophers, 
 Fichte. " An insight into the absolute unity of the Hu- 
 man Existence with the Divine is certainly the pro- 
 foundest knowledge that man can attain," said he 
 again. 
 
 It was the most inspired who has yet lived among 
 us who said : " Neither shall they say, Lo here ! or, 
 Lo there! for, behold the Kingdom of God is within 
 you." And again : " Seek ye first the Kingdom of 
 God, and His righteousness, and all these things shall 
 be added unto you." It was He who gave the sub- 
 stance of the moral law and therefore the essence of 
 religion as — Love to God and love to the fellow-man. 
 
 To me, love to Grod is this dwelling continually in the 
 conscious living realization of the essential oneness of 
 our life with the Divine Lifg — seeking to have no other 
 will than that the Divine will may manifest to and 
 may work through us. How significant then — " Thou 
 wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed 
 on Thee," and also, " In all thy ways acknowledge Him 
 and He shall direct thy paths." How truly in the light 
 of this truth does Fichte say that the expression of the 
 constant mind of the truly religious man is this prayer : 
 " Lord ! let but Thy will be done, then is mine also done ; 
 for I have no other will than this — that Thy will be 
 done." And how thoroughly in keeping with — " Thou 
 wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on 
 Thee," is his thought in the following: 
 
 " Whatever comes to pass around him, nothing ap- 
 pears to him strange or unaccountable — he knows
 
 2/8 The Land of Living Men 
 
 assuredly, whether he understand it or not, that it is in 
 God's World, and that there nothing can be that does 
 not directly tend to good. In him there is no fear for 
 the future, for the absolute fountain of all blessedness 
 eternally bears him on towards it ; no sorrow for the 
 past, for in so far as he was not in God he was nothing, 
 and this is now at an end, and since he has dwelt in God 
 he has been born into light ; while in so far as he was in 
 God, that which he has done is assuredly right and 
 good. . . . His whole outward existence flows forth, 
 softly and gently, from his Inward Being, and issues 
 out into Reality without difficulty or hindrance." 
 
 Love to the fellow-man is the realization of the fact 
 that we are all parts of the one great whole, that the 
 source and essence of life in each is essentially the same, 
 that love is the established law of life, and that the law 
 will have obedience or it wili strike its punishment upon 
 all who do violence to it. 
 
 ** He that loveth not his brother, abideth in death," 
 said the Master Teacher, and this is simply the enun- 
 ciation of the law that's written deep in the universe 
 and that is immutable in its workings. 
 
 " All beings are the fruits of one tree, the leaves of 
 one branch, the drops of one sea. Honour is for him 
 who loveth men, not for him who loveth his own," 
 says the Persian. 
 
 Truly we are all parts of the one great whole, and one 
 can't suffer or have injustice done him without all 
 sharing in that suffering and none more than the author 
 of that injustice. 
 
 It was by virtue of His perceiving so clearly the laws
 
 The Land of Living Men 279 
 
 in relation to human life that are so immutable in their 
 workings, that enabled and prompted Jesus to give 
 anew to the world an epitome of the laws relating to 
 all human relations when He said, " And as ye would 
 that men should do to you, do ye also to them likewise." 
 It is what is ordinarily termed the Golden Rule. I 
 have never seen any wiser or more suggestive com- 
 mentary upon it than the following, by the late Hon. 
 Samuel Milton Jones : * 
 
 " As I view it, the Gblden Rule is the supreme law of 
 life. It may be paraphrased this way : As you do unto 
 others, others will do unto you. What I give, I get. 
 If I love you really and truly and actively love you, 
 you are as sure to love me in return as the earth is sure 
 
 * Mayor Jones of Toledo was to my mind one of the most 
 significant men politically that our country has yet known. A 
 man who believed in actually adopting the law of life as enun- 
 ciated in the Golden Rule as a basis for personal action and 
 for the administration of public affairs. A man who used 
 public office only for the highest public good. A man whom 
 the people therefore so trusted that, running as an independ- 
 ent candidate against the candidates of the two dominant 
 political parties, he was able to poll a vote of nearly 17,000 
 out of a total voting number of 24,000. It is rather signifi- 
 cant, isn't it? — and this against the combined and determined 
 efforts of the machines of both political parties, both local and 
 state, and in face of the united opposition of all the news- 
 papers and corporations in the city, and not a few of the 
 " eminently respectable people." So far as his influence upon 
 the political future is concerned, as it will be, even as it is 
 being already, carried into activity by younger men who are 
 coming into the field of political action,- it is unquestionably 
 true that no greater or more valuable man has ever come from 
 or been associated with the State of Ohio.
 
 28o The Land of Living Men 
 
 to be warmed by the rays of the midsummer sun. If I 
 hate you, illtreat you and abuse you, I am equally cer- 
 tain to arouse the same kind of antagonism towards me, 
 unless the Divine nature is so developed that it is domi- 
 nant in you, and you have learned to love your enemies. 
 What can be plainer? The Golden Rule is the law of 
 action and reaction in the field of morals, just as defi- 
 nite, just as certain here as the law is definite and cer- 
 tain in the domain of physics. 
 
 " I think the confusion with respect to the Golden 
 Rule arises from the different conceptions that we have 
 of the word love. I use the word love as synonymous 
 with reason, and so when I speak of doing the loving 
 thing, I mean the reasonable thing. When I speak of 
 dealing with my fellow-men in an unreasonable way, I 
 mean an unloving way. The terms. are interchangeable 
 absolutely. The reason why we know so little about 
 the Golden Rule is because we have not practised it." 
 
 Yes, what we term the Golden Rule is an absolute 
 law of life, and it will have obedience through the joy, 
 and therefore the gain it brings into our lives if we 
 observe it, or it will have obedience by the pain and 
 the blankness it drives into our lives if we violate it. 
 
 As we give to the world so the world gives back to us. 
 Thoughts are forces, like inspires like and like creates 
 like. If I give love I inspire and receive love in re- 
 turn. If I give hatred I inspire and I receive hatred. 
 The wise man loves ; only the ignorant, the selfish, the 
 fool, hates. 
 
 It is the man who loves and serves who has solved 
 the riddle of life, for into his life comes the fulness,
 
 The Land of Living Men 281 
 
 the satisfaction, the peace and the joy that the Law 
 decrees. He it is who is the wise man. 
 
 The man who has no sense of service to his fellow- 
 man, whose idea is primarily gain for himself, whether 
 honourable or dishonourable, is the supreme fool in life, 
 by virtue of his ignorance leading him into the violation 
 of a law that condemns him to a pinched, a stunted, 
 sunless, joyless life. 
 
 " If the gatherer gathers too much," says Emerson, 
 " nature takes out of the man what she puts into his 
 chest; swells the state but kills the owner. Nature 
 hates m.onopolies and exceptions." 
 
 We do well when we remember this — one can 
 never do an injury to another without in some form 
 or another suffering for that injury himself. Why? It 
 is so written in the Law of the Universe, that's all. And 
 we likewise do well to remember — one can never do 
 a real loving, unselfish, kindly act without deriving a 
 benefit from such act himself ; and if at any time there 
 are apparent exceptions to this it is, I believe, because 
 our limited vision does not enable us to see the total 
 relationship of human actions. 
 
 " No man in the world ever attempted to wrong 
 another without being injured in return, — some way, 
 somehow, sometime. The only weapon of offence that 
 nature seems to recognize is the boomerang. Nature 
 keeps her books admirably ; she puts down every item, 
 she closes all accounts finally, but she does not always 
 balance them at the end of the month." * 
 
 * From that excellent little booklet " The Majesty of Calm- 
 ness," by William George Jordan.
 
 282 The Land of Living Men 
 
 As the life of a man is of more value to him than the 
 house in which he lives, so the possession and growth 
 of the faculties that enable him to enjoy the things that 
 pertain to and that spring from the inner life, are of 
 more value to him by way of bringing him happiness 
 and contentment than any possible accumulation of 
 material things. Wealth is good — as a means to com- 
 fort ; good as a servant, never as a master ; good as a 
 feature, never as the chief end of life. 
 
 One of the most pitiable sights that I know is the 
 way some very rich men die. Let the following serve 
 as the type of many. A man has made gain — money- 
 getting — the chief object of his life. In time, shall 
 we say through nature's abhorrence of abnormalities, 
 the greed for gain becomes his master and dries 
 up his very powers of enjoyment of the finer things 
 in life. He accumulates a hundred million, with all 
 the care and worry that keeping this invested to the 
 best advantage means. He is of but little use to the 
 world, and through the dwarfing of the finer qualities 
 of his life, and the drying up of his powers of enjoy- 
 ment, he has also become so to himself. He dies. Three 
 months after he has gone his name is scarcely ever 
 heard, except perhaps in some long-drawn-out or bit- 
 terly fought will contest. His end is like that of a dog. 
 In short, many a dog, faithful and intelligent and useful, 
 has been more genuinely mourned and longer and more 
 gratefully remembered. And then if it is true, as I be- 
 lieve it must be, that we commence in the other form of 
 life exactly where we leave ofif here, taking with us only 
 what wc have gained by way of soul growth and
 
 The Land of Living Men 283 
 
 spiritual unfoldment, but not one cent — not one cent — 
 and having-, moreover, no further control over any ma- 
 terial possessions, how poor, how pitiably poor is such 
 a life. Contrast it with the following as an ideal and a 
 purpose for a life : 
 
 " I am primarily engaged to myself to be a public 
 servant of all the Gods, to demonstrate to all men there 
 is good-will and intelligence at the heart of things and 
 ever higher and yet higher leadings. These are my 
 engagements. If there be power in good intentions, 
 in fidelity, and in toil, the north wind shall be purer, 
 the stars in heaven shall glow with a kindlier beam 
 that I have lived." 
 
 And what a life was the life of this man Emerson 
 who deliberately chose this as his part. And what an in- 
 fluence while he lived, and truly for all time to conic. 
 Not three months, nor three centuries can forget his 
 name or cease to bless his memory. 
 
 Another, in whom success in the sense of excessive 
 gain develops pride and an itchiness for ostentatious 
 show, builds a mansion — a home ? costing four million 
 dollars, thinking also that it will be a sort of monument 
 to, a reminder of, himself. Within fifty years, or within 
 even a much shorter period of time, it may be the pos- 
 session of a Barnum and the home of a good up-to-date 
 circus. Such is the security of a man's hold upon 
 material possessions. 
 
 And how few seem to be able to stand success 
 and remain good, healthy, sensible, normal men. It 
 seems strange that so seldom can a man become success- 
 ful as to either wealth or power without taking on,
 
 284 The Land of Living Men 
 
 mentally at least, the strut of the turkey-cock. A really 
 great man, however, is always immune from this affec- 
 tion. It is rather as Pope said : 
 
 Of all the causes which conspire to blind 
 Man's erring judgment, and mislead the mind, 
 What the weak head with strongest bias rules, 
 Is Pride — that never- failing vice of fools. 
 
 The law seems to be absolute in that " whosoever shall 
 exalt himself shall be abased ; and he that humbleth 
 himself shall be exalted." Nature seems to abhor an 
 abnormally developed pride, snobbery, too marked a 
 consciousness of superiority. And to the — I am holier 
 than thou — feeling, she applies always the brand. 
 Hypocrite, and she burns it deep. 
 
 Another makes the accumulation of material things 
 the chief object of his life, rising from humble circum- 
 stances, possessing unusual abilities, but giving but an 
 infinitesimal amount of these abilities to his city or 
 his state, both badly in need of such service ; but rather 
 conspiring with their enemies to make special privileges 
 for a few greater, to secure acts alienating valuable 
 properties from the people of his city and state, to avoid 
 a just share of taxation, thereby defrauding and throw- 
 ing greater and unjust burdens upon all of his fellow- 
 men, except upon those equally dishonest and contempt- 
 ible in this same practice of tax-evasion. His life here 
 closes considerably before a normal and well-rounded 
 life should close, and on quitting he directs that prac- 
 tically the entire results of his life work go to a couple 
 of young grandsons, not yet in their teens, in order
 
 The Land of Living Men 285 
 
 that the family name and business be preserved. 
 " Every man," said Marcus AureHus, " is worth 
 just so much as the things are worth about which 
 he busies himself." The business may be preserved 
 or it may tumble into ruin. Nature deals so in 
 mockery when a man fancies he can have a con- 
 trolling hand in the final actual disposition of his 
 material possessions. 
 
 The family name may be preserved and it may be 
 raised even to a higher esteem, or it may be preserved 
 in the records of an inebriate asylum. A man can 
 have an actual say only in regard to his own life, but 
 never in regard to the life of any other. Not by am- 
 bition and gain alone for self but, — 
 
 " By labor, incessant and devout, to raise earth to 
 heaven, to realize, in fact, the good that as yet exists 
 only in idea — that is the end and purpose of human 
 life ; and in fulfilling it we achieve and maintain our 
 unity each with every other, and all with the Divine." 
 
 Many a rich man's son has found the handicap of 
 great riches too great to allow his making even a decent 
 success of life ; the incentive which nature seems to have 
 decreed as a healthy and strength-developing stimulant 
 has been neutralized by the burden which an over-rich 
 father has dumped upon him. " Ungirt loins, unlit 
 lamps, unused talents, sink a man like lead. Doing 
 nothing is enough for ruin." 
 
 Many a daughter of the unduly rich has found her 
 associations, as also her training or lack of training, 
 of such a nature that undue pride or a false ambition 
 has taken possession of her, robbing her of one of the
 
 286 The Land of Living Men 
 
 chief charms of womanhood, and a designing or worse 
 than empty marriage has fallen to her portion. 
 
 Surely wealth is of the mind and the heart and not 
 of the hand. And the man who makes as his life work 
 only gain for self, and who fails to recognize his inexor- 
 able relations with his fellow-men, fails completely in 
 getting from life what he thinks he'll get ; for he finds 
 that what he gains turns to a greater or less extent to 
 ashes in his hands, and what he bequeaths to his de- 
 scendants is far below what it might be, — he or she 
 who is at all zvorthy of receiving such bequest would 
 rather it be a few millions less and be accompanied with 
 a name of honour and a memory to be revered, than 
 that it come with the tremendous handicap it many 
 times comes with. 
 
 As we come to a fuller appreciation of these facts 
 and of the laws of human life and relations that will 
 not be denied, then more and more will " we measure 
 the degree of civilization not by accumulation of the 
 means of living, but by the character and value of the 
 life lived." 
 
 Now I have said naught nor would I say aught, 
 against wealth. I believe in wealth — sufficient for all 
 the legitimate comforts of life ; and I believe in it so 
 thoroughly that I plead for a state wherein it can be- 
 come the portion of a much larger number than has 
 ever yet been known. And while I do not share in 
 the belief that our time is necessarily more materi- 
 alistic than other times have been, I do realize and most 
 keenly that the economic conditions during the past 
 few years have produced a class of men so material-
 
 The Land of Living Men 287 
 
 istic in their entire outlook, so insatiate in their greed 
 for ever larger gain, so drunk with opportunity and 
 power, that they would pull the very pillars of the 
 state to the ground, if a united and determined people 
 did not come forward and say, so far, and no farther. 
 
 It is against the aggressions of these and the abuses 
 we have permitted them to give birth to and fatten 
 upon, the aggressions of these against the welfare of 
 their fellows, against the economic and political insti- 
 tutions of the nation, that we must battle for some time 
 to come with an alertness, with a determination and a 
 bravery that can know no defeat. With a mind calm 
 and determined and with malice towards none, must 
 these great battles for the redemption of this nation be 
 fought. 
 
 And as excessive zuealth is of no real value to any 
 man nor to his descendants, but becomes more often a 
 veritable curse, and as it makes its possessors many 
 times a menace to the very welfare of the nation and 
 to the welfare of every man, woman and child in the 
 nation, we will be doing a twofold service through such 
 warfare and subsequent vigilance, in saving its pos- 
 sessors and ■ its would-be possessors from their own 
 folly, as well as conserving our own common interests. 
 It's the middle ground that carries with it the satis- 
 factory solution of life. Excesses have to be paid for 
 with heavy and sometimes with frightful interest. 
 
 Life, the life of everyone has its perplexities, its 
 problems, its struggles and its work to be done. Hu- 
 manity is brave, and there are but few who do not 
 stand up like men and women, some almost like very
 
 288 The Land of Living Men 
 
 Gods, to the end. It certainly should be the aim of 
 each to throw no hindrance in the path of any fellow- 
 being, to make no load heavier ; but rather to lend the 
 hand whenever we can. 
 
 Oh the skies are blue and a ribboned road 
 
 Shall the pilgrim's heart beguile : 
 Yet hurry not so fast with your load, 
 
 For there is many a mile. 
 
 And it 's here a friend and there a friend 
 
 To bear your hand a while : 
 But none will go to the journey's end, 
 
 And few will stay the mile. 
 
 And in connection with the problems and perplexities 
 and apparent losses that come and that must be met 
 as the days hurry away, I believe without the question 
 of a doubt, that the time will come when we will see the 
 part that each thing has had to play in our lives, and we 
 will give thanks that it came just as it came. I believe, 
 moreover, that a sort of an inborn universal feeling of 
 this nature is a reason why humanity is brave. 
 
 A hope that never wearies, a faith that defies defeat, 
 an attitude of mind that compels gladness, will help us 
 to stand like men until we realize this glad culmination. 
 And if one would find the easier way, it lies in the ever 
 conscious realization — " Thou wilt keep him in per- 
 fect peace whose mind is stayed on thee."
 
 SUPPLEMENTARY
 
 SUPPLEMENTARY 
 
 PART I 
 
 :SF the White Plague — tuberculosis — Mr. Hunter,* 
 who has had perhaps as great opportunities for 
 observing its growth and its methods as any- 
 one not directly connected with the medical 
 ^—i^ profession, says : " It is a needless plague, a 
 preventable plague. It is one of the results of our inhu- 
 mane tenements ; it follows in the train of our inhumane 
 sweat-shops; it fastens itself upon children and young people 
 because we forget that they need playgrounds and because we 
 are selfish and niggardly in providing breathing spaces ; it 
 comes where the hours of labor are long and the wages 
 small ; it afflicts the children who are sent to labor when they 
 should yet be in school ; the plague goes to meet them. It is 
 a brother to the anguish of poverty, and wherever food is 
 scant and bodies half clothed and rooms dark, this hard and 
 relentless brother of poverty finds a victim. . . . 
 
 " The extent of the White Plague is one of the best tests of 
 a high or low state of society; in many ways it is the truest 
 and most accurate of social tests. The number of its victims 
 will indicate the districts in which sweat-shops flourish, and 
 the streets in which the double-decker tenement, the scourge 
 of New York, is most often found. Where the death rate 
 from the plague is greatest there ignorance prevails; drunken- 
 ness is rife; poverty, hunger, and cold are the common 
 misfortune. . . . 
 
 " Tuberculosis is more common in the cities than in the 
 country. The death rate from this disease in the cities of over 
 
 * "Poverty," p. 164 (MacMillan & Co., N. Y,).
 
 IV Supplementary 
 
 twenty-five thousand inhabitants is about twice that of the 
 rural districts of the State. The tenement districts suffer 
 much more from the disease than do the well-to-do districts. 
 In Paris the death rate is three times as great in the poorest 
 quarters as it is in the well-to-do quarters. In Hamburg the 
 proportion is almost the same. In the First Ward, near the 
 Battery in New York City, fourteen times as many people die 
 from tuberculosis, in proportion to population, as in a certain 
 ward adjoining Central Park. Obviously it is a plague which 
 exists much more among the poor than among the rich. . . . 
 
 " The disease is one which afifects especially residents of 
 the tenements and the workers in certain trades, as, for in- 
 stance, printers, tailors, bookkeepers, dressmakers, bakers, 
 cigar-makers, potters, stone-cutters, file-grinders, dyers, wool- 
 carders, etc. 
 
 " To know why these classes of people are affected, let us 
 for a moment consider how the disease is spread. A person 
 having consumption can, it is said, expectorate in a day seven 
 billions of germs or bacilli. These germs or bacilli are the 
 only cause of the disease. The sputa or expectorations from 
 the diseased lungs dry and afterward become a pulverized 
 dust which is blown about through tenements, theatres, street 
 cars, railway trains, offices, and factories. In fact, the infec- 
 tion is disseminated wherever tuberculosis sputum becomes 
 dry and pulverized. The germ is killed by sunlight and lives 
 but a short time in the open air, but it will live for months in 
 darkness or in places artificially lighted. . . . 
 
 "This dry, pulverized dust is the most important of the 
 means of spreading tuberculosis throughout all parts of the 
 city, so that, I do not doubt, a consumptive of the sweat-shop, 
 spraying the garments he sews by sneezing or coughing, may 
 convey to some delicate lad or girl in a far-distant part of the 
 country or in a wealthy part of the city the disease which the 
 sweat-shop has given him. A virulent cause of consumption 
 is the spray discharged from the nose, lungs, or mouth of the 
 consumptive invalid. As before mentioned, those near the
 
 Supplementary v 
 
 person suffering from tuberculosis are very likely to contract 
 the disease. Children playing about on the floor, kissing or 
 embracing the diseased mother or father, taking the milk 
 from a tuberculosis mother, so often contract the disease that 
 the mass of people have an almost unshakable belief that it is 
 inherited. Eminent physicians, however, say that the disease 
 is not inherited. ... It is cheaper in every way to cure a con- 
 sumptive in a sanitarium than it is to let him die in a hospital 
 or in a public institution of some kind, but to let him die in a 
 hospital or institution of whatever kind is cheaper than to 
 let him die in his tenement. What we are doing now is just 
 the wrong thing. ... It is unquestionably the duty of society 
 to care for the victims of this disease. It is a social disease. 
 Society is responsible for its continuance. . . . 
 
 " It will be stamped out when the humane work of the Tene- 
 ment House Department and the Health Department of this 
 city, and of every other city, is victorious over opponents; 
 when there is established in the mind of everyone that vital 
 principle of an advanced civilization, namely, that the profits 
 of individuals are second in importance to the life, welfare, 
 and prosperity of the great masses of people. It will disap- 
 pear from that community which demands the destruction of 
 an insanitary tenement regardless of inconvenience to indi- 
 viduals and which also demands that there shall be no dark 
 and windowless rooms within its boundaries under any con- 
 dition whatsoever, as a result of any plea, or as a favour to 
 private interests great or small." 
 
 Certain tenements as well as workshops become infected 
 with the disease. We have heard of the " Lung Block " and 
 also of the " Ink Pot " in New York, both with their fright- 
 fully large numbers of deaths from tuberculosis. Mr. Ernest 
 Poole, in describing the conditions in this latter tenement, 
 says : " It has front and rear tenements five floors high, with 
 a foul, narrow court between. Here live one hundred and 
 forty people. Twenty-three are babies. Here I found one 
 man sick with the plague in the front house, two more in the
 
 vi Supplementary 
 
 rear — and one of these had a young wife and four children. 
 Here the plague lives in darkness and filth — filth in halls, 
 over walls and floors, in sinks and closets. Here in nine 
 years alone twenty-six cases have been reported. How many 
 besides these were kept secret? And behind these nine years 
 -^,'io\'' many cases more ? 
 
 ■' Kooms here have held death ready and waiting for years. 
 Up on the third floor, looking down into the court, is a room 
 with two little closets behind it. In one of these a blind 
 Scotchman slept and took the plague in '94. His wife and his 
 fifteen-year-old son both drank, and the home grew squalid as 
 the tenement itself. He died in the hospital. Only a few 
 months later the plague fastened again. Slowly his little 
 daughter grew used to the fever, the coughing, the long, 
 sleepless nights. The foul court was her only outlook. At 
 last she, too, died. The mother and son then moved away. 
 But in this room the germs lived on. They might all have 
 been killed in a day by sunlight ; they can live two years in 
 darkness. Here in darkness they lived, on grimy walls, in 
 dusky nooks, on dirty floors. Then one year later, in October, 
 a Jew rented this same room. He was taken, and died in the 
 summer. This room was rented again in the autumn by a 
 German and his wife. She had the plague already, and died. 
 Then an Irish family came in. The father was a hard, steady 
 worker, and loved his children. The home this time was win- 
 ning the fight. But six months later he took the plague. He 
 died in 1901. This is only the record of one room in seven 
 years." 
 
 Professor Koch, who a little over twenty-five years ago dis- 
 covered the cause of tuberculosis, says in an interview on the 
 subject: "In all other infectious diseases we attack infection 
 at its source ; cases of small-pox, of leprosy, of diphtheria, of 
 plague, are isolated, but cases of tuberculosis in their last 
 stages, the most deadly stage of the most deadly disease of 
 all, are still allowed throughout Europe to spread further in-
 
 Supplementary vii 
 
 fection broadcast in the midst of their already destitute fami- 
 lies. This fact does not yet seem to be learned. When it is, 
 and when we have these homes for the hopeless cases adjoin- 
 ing every city, then tuberculosis will pass from the midst of 
 us." Again, he says: " It is not cruelty to isolate these cases; 
 it is the truest and highest kindness." " ,
 
 •■.IS 
 
 viii Supplementary 
 
 PART II 
 
 ^>^^?'=±'.'% HE matter of the play life of the children (and 
 'ilw;^f^,> its attendant physical and moral influences), 
 especially in our cities, is now receiving some 
 ^„;| very careful attention on the part of many 
 St^^^^^^ thoughtful people; and some splendid begin- 
 nings are already made in this direction. Various Playground 
 Associations have been organized for studying into and devel- 
 oping sufficiently comprehensive plans to meet the great need, 
 and some centres have made most noteworthy accomplish- 
 ments already. 
 
 There is probably no city that has made such progress and 
 that has succeeded in bringing about such remarkable results, 
 and in a comparatively short time, as has Rochester, New 
 York. The following all to brief paragraphs from a recently 
 published article * in one of our progressive magazines, gives 
 some slight idea of what it is doing along this and kindred 
 lines : 
 
 " There are a great many reasons why parents are glad their 
 children are born in Rochester. One is that Rochester has no 
 real tenement evil, no real congested district. The factories 
 are being pushed into the suburbs, and the workman and his 
 family follow. Another is that Rochester leads the country 
 in its preventive municipal work. Typhoid fever is unknown 
 in this city. Its fight for pure milk is known the world over. 
 Its schoolroom clinics are the talk of the medical world. It 
 believes in keeping its boys and girls out of reform institutions 
 by making them so busy and contented that they do not get 
 into mischief. And finally in one sort of school or another it 
 teaches its people, grown-ups as well as children, not only how 
 * " Do It for Rochester," by Anna Steese Richardson, in 
 The Woman's Home Cotnpanion, September, 1910.
 
 Supplementary ix 
 
 to study, but how to prepare for wage-earning and how to 
 enjoy their earnings. 
 
 " Two agencies work to start Rochester children aright, to 
 insure them the boon of good health, and these are the Health 
 Bureau and the Rochester Public Health Association. While 
 they work along slightly different lines they co-operate, and 
 their common motto is : ' For the children, Justice not Char- 
 ity.' They make their appeal to politicians and voters by 
 proving that ill health makes of children public charges, either 
 as criminals or consumptives. 
 
 " In May, 1902, some true Rochesterites gathered in the 
 Brick Church Institute, of which you will hear more later, and 
 formed ' The Children's Playground League.' 
 
 " In seven years the Playground League secured the following 
 benefits for the children of Rochester : First : The playground 
 at Brown Square now under the Park Board. Second : The 
 playground at No. 26 School now under the Park Board. 
 Third : The playground at No. 14 School now under the 
 School Board. Fourth : The playground at No. 36 School now 
 under the School Board. Fifth: The fifty-thousand-dollar 
 playground and bath at No. 9 School under the School Board. 
 Sixth: The Hartford Street playground (Italian) under the 
 Park Board. Seventh : The playground and athletic fields in 
 the park system. Eighth : The annual appropriation for main- 
 tenance of playgrounds by the School and Park Boards. 
 Ninth : The charter amendment relating to future play centres 
 and their control by the Common Council and the Board of 
 Education, respectively. 
 
 " Doubtless you have playgrounds in your town, but with a 
 •difference. The members of your association may have 
 trouble raising funds, making both ends meet, securing co- 
 operation. Rochester solved these problems through its Play- 
 ground League by securing the co-operation of Park Board, 
 School Board, and City Council. In other words, the munic- 
 ipality of Rochester considers that supplying outdoor recrea- 
 tion for its growing children is a sacred duty which must be
 
 X Supplementary 
 
 performed. In operation the Rochester playground differs 
 sHghtly from the average recreation centre of this sort, inso- 
 much as it provides wading and swimming pools, and shower 
 baths in warm weather, and tobogganing, skating, and sliding 
 grounds for winter. 
 
 " Following close on the heels of the playground for children 
 comes the Rochester Physical Education Association whose 
 object is to provide for their older brothers and sisters, their 
 parents, their cousins, and their aunts the sort of recreation 
 and activities which will make better citizens for Rochester. 
 
 " Now, just to show you how Rochester pulls together in the 
 interests of its citizens, let me tell you that on the Advisory 
 Board of this society are men and women representing the fol- 
 lowing Rochester organizations." 
 
 Here follows an enumeration of thirty different organiza- 
 tions. 
 
 " Neither creed, colour, nor caste counts when the needs, the 
 health, the contentment of Rochester are at stake. And the 
 result of all this co-operation in Rochester means that every 
 man, woman, and child in that city believe the parks belong 
 to them, are to be used and protected by them. The real park 
 season opens there every spring with a carnival of sports and 
 rejoicing which is worth seeing, athletic events, field sports, 
 polo, automobile and boat racing by day, and illumination by 
 night. 
 
 " Do you think that in your town you could get thirty sep- 
 arate organizations to work for one common movement? Do 
 you think that the presidents or leaders of thirty such organi- 
 zations would be willing to be ' among those present ' for the 
 good of your town? Try it. For here lies one secret of 
 Rochester's municipal greatness — the willingness of its leaders 
 to ' mix ' and co-operate."
 
 Supplementary 
 
 XI 
 
 PART III 
 
 ^N view of these facts it is interesting to note the 
 following, a conversation between the well-known 
 author of that widely circulated little book, " Mer- 
 ^ rie England," and one of the subjects, a working- 
 man subject, of the King. The title of the chap- 
 ter in which it occurs is, " Who Makes the Wealth, and Who 
 Gets It?" 
 
 "Now, John, what are the evils of which we complain? 
 Lowness of wages, length of working hours, uncertainty of 
 employment, insecurity of the future, low standards of public 
 health and morality, prevalence of pauperism and crime, and 
 the existence of false ideals of life. 
 
 " I will give you a few examples of the things I mean. It is 
 estimated that in this country,with its population of thirty-six 
 millions, there are generally about 700,000 men out of work. 
 There are about 800,000 paupers. Of every thousand persons 
 who die in Merrie England over nine hundred die without 
 leaving any property at all. About eight millions of people 
 exist always on the borders of destitution. About twenty mil- 
 lions are poor. More than half the national income belongs 
 to about ten thousand people. About thirty thousand people 
 own fifty-five fifty-sixths of the land and capital of the king- 
 dom, but of thirty-six millions of people only one and one- 
 half millions get above $15 a week. The average income per 
 head of the working classes is about $85 a year, or less than 
 twenty-five cents a day. There are millions of our people 
 working under conditions and living in homes that are simply 
 disgraceful. The sum of crime, vice, drunkenness, gambling, 
 prostitution, idleness, ignorance, want, disease, and death is 
 appalling. . . . To what are the above evils due? They are
 
 xii Supplementary 
 
 due to the unequal distribution of wealth, and to the absence 
 of justice and order from our society. 
 
 " Political orators and newspaper editors are very fond of 
 talking to you about 'your country.' Now, Mr. Smith, it is a 
 hard practical fact that you have not got any country. The 
 British Islands do not belong to the British people; they be- 
 long to a few thousands — certainly not half a million — of 
 rich men."
 
 Supplementary xiii 
 
 PART IV 
 
 fJs^^^^^ig^'HlLE speaking of Mr. Folk, it may not be un- 
 interesting to note some of his findings when 
 ^ Y » \ ^ ^^ the bills of the old score were one day finally 
 |h_\f ^^i| presented for redemption. The following is 
 •kir-c^ -^^^.i^^ji;^ from a public address delivered at an important 
 centre of the State of which he was recently Governor : 
 
 " For another franchise $250,000 in bribes was paid to the 
 members of the preceding assembly. This franchise was after- 
 ward sold for $1,250,000, but the city received not a cent. 
 Twenty-three of the twenty-eight members of the House of 
 Delegates took bribes of $3,000 each for this franchise. Seven 
 members of the council obtained from $10,000 to $17,500 each 
 for their votes. One councilman was given $25,000 to vote 
 against the franchise and afterward accepted $50,000 to vote in 
 favour of it. He returned the $25,000 to the man who gave it 
 to him, saying he did not believe he could 'honestly' keep it 
 without ' earning ' it by giving his vote in accordance with the 
 terms of purchase. Upon reflection he likewise sent the $50,000 
 back, with the hope of getting more. He finally voted for the 
 ordinance with the expectation and under promise of obtaining 
 $100,000 for his vote. 
 
 " His friend, the promoter, disappointed him by leaving the 
 city early the next day without paying him. More in sorrow 
 than in anger the official tracked the promoter to New York, 
 and after much difficulty succeeded in obtaining $5,000, but not 
 until the promoter had him sign a certificate of character say- 
 ing, ' I have heard rumours in St. Louis that you paid members 
 of the assembly for their votes. I want to say that I am in a 
 position to know, and I do know that you are as far above 
 offering a bribe as I am above receiving one.' This was liter- 
 ally true, as the official had taken bribes right and left, and the
 
 xiv Supplementary 
 
 promoter had boodled on a gigantic scale in getting his bill 
 through the municipal assembly. 
 
 "Seven members of the council, elected to serve the people 
 at a salary of $300 a year, were paid a regular salary of $5,000 
 yearly to represent corporate interests. A lighting bill was 
 bribed through the House of Delegates for $47,500. The bar- 
 gain was made right on the floor of the House. The money 
 was given to one of the members, and after the meeting they 
 met in the home of one of their number, where the ' pie ' was 
 cut and the money divided. . . . Nineteen members of another 
 House of Delegates obtained $2,000 each as bribes for their 
 votes on still another franchise. 
 
 " Men would run for a seat in the municipal assembly with 
 the sole object of making money by the prostitution of their 
 position. The scheme of corruption was systematic and far- 
 reaching. The people were careless; the public conscience was 
 asleep. These city legislators went on without hindrance. 
 They devised a scheme of selling the water-works, which be- 
 longed to the city, for $15,000,000, the works being worth about 
 $40,000,000. They planned to get $100,000 apiece for their votes 
 on this. The proposed sale failed, because of a wise provision 
 of the city charter forbidding unconditional alienation. 
 
 " Then their gloating eyes fell on the old court house with 
 the gilded dome. They thought of selling that. They hoped 
 to obtain $100,000 apiece for their votes on this. Then they 
 concluded to sell the Union Market, but the market men had 
 considerable political influence. With this and the sum of 
 $20,000 they raised and paid the members they succeeded in 
 stopping the sale. Then came the exposure. Now some of 
 these representatives are fugitives from justice in foreign 
 countries ; others have turned State's evidence ; the remainder 
 have faced juries, and eighteen of these givers and takers of 
 bribes have received sentences ranging from two years to seven 
 years in the penitentiary. . . . These conditions are the out- 
 growth of the commercialism of our times."
 
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