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YALE JOHN A. PORTER PRIZE 
 FOR 1878 
 
 Communism in America 
 
 J A MKS 
 
Communism in America 
 
 BY 
 
 HENRY AMMON JAMES, B.A. 
 
 LAW DEPARTMENT OF YALE COLLEGE 
 
 THE YALE JOHN A. PORTER PRIZE ESSAY 
 
 Ach, da kommt der Meister ! — 
 
 Herr, die Noth ist gross ! 
 Die ich rief, die Geister, 
 
 Werd' ich nun nicht los." 
 
 Goethe. 
 
 UNIVERSITY I 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY 
 
 1879. 
 
\\'A 
 
 .1^ 
 
 Copyright 
 
 By henry holt & CO. 
 
 1879. 
 
 S. W. GREEN, 
 
 Printer ».nd Elkctbotypbb, 
 
 No. 18 Jacob Street, 
 
 New York. 
 
TEEMS OF FOXJlSrDATION 
 
 OF THE 
 
 JOHN A. PORTER UNIVERSITY PRIZE. 
 
 At a meeting of the President and Fellows of Yale 
 College, held in New Haven, March 13th, 1872, an offer 
 was received from the Kingsley Trust Association, dated 
 at New Haven, December loth, 1871, placing at the dis- 
 posal of the Corporation of Yale College, annually, the 
 sum of two hundred and fifty dollars, to constitute a prize 
 to be called the John A. Porter Prize, and to be awarded 
 for an English Essay, upon the following conditions, 
 viz. : — 
 
 " 1 . The Prize may be competed for by any member of 
 any department of the College, pursuing a regular course 
 for a degree, who shall have been a member for at least 
 one Academic year prior to the time when the Prize shall 
 be awarded. 
 
 "2. The Prize shall be awarded by three Judges, two to 
 be appointed by the President of the College, and one by 
 the Trustees of the Kingsley Trust Association ; such 
 Judges to be chosen or appointed on or before the first day 
 of the second Academic term. The award of the Prize 
 shall be announced on Commencement Day. 
 
 "3. Subjects shall be chosen, and the length and 
 character of the Essays may be specified by the Trustees 
 
 ~>fi059 
 
iv TERMS OF FOUNDATION. 
 
 of the Kingsley Trust Association. The subject shall be 
 publicly announced on or before the first day of the 
 second Academic term of the present collegiate year, and 
 hereafter within the first two weeks of the first Aca- 
 demic term. 
 
 " 4. If in any year, in the opinion of the Judges, none of 
 the competing essays be of sufiicient excellence, the Prize 
 shall not be awarded. 
 
 " 5. Competing essays shall be transmitted to the Judges 
 within one week after the opening of the third Academic 
 term, under cover, signed by a fictitious name, and accom- 
 panied by the real name of the writer in a sealed 
 enclosure. 
 
 " 6. The Trustees reserve the right to retain all com- 
 peting manuscripts, and the right of publication of the 
 same; each essay must therefore be accompanied by an 
 assignment of the right of copyright. 
 
 " 7. These terms and conditions may at any time be 
 altered by the Trustees of the Kingsley Trust Associa- 
 tion, with the consent of the President and Fellows of 
 the College." 
 
 Resolved, That the foregoing offer be accepted upon 
 the above-named conditions. 
 
 Attest, 
 
 Franklin B. Dexter, Secretary. 
 
Pursuant to the terms of the foregoing Foun- 
 dation, the following Judges were nominated and 
 appointed : — 
 
 The Rev. WILLIAM M. BARBOUR, D.D., 
 
 Professor in Yale College ; 
 
 TirE Rev. SAMUEL HARRIS, D.D., LL.D., 
 
 Professor in Yale College ; 
 
 HENRY B. HARRISON, Esq., M.A. 
 
 The Judges awarded the prize to the essayist 
 whose paper bore the signature of "Nabilac." 
 
 1878. 
 PRIZE ESSAYIST: 
 
 NABILAC, 
 
 HENRY AMMON JAMES, B.A., 
 
 Baltimore, Md., 
 
 of the Senior Class in the Law Department. 
 
OUTLIISrE. 
 
 I. Introductory — The Use of the Terms, Com- 
 munism, and Socialism, in America, ... 1-5 
 
 FAOB 
 
 II. The Old Communism. 
 
 {a). Colonial Communism — Massachusetts and Virginia, 6-8 
 
 (6). The Communistic Societies. 
 
 (1). The Religious Communities, 9-14 
 
 (2). The Owen and Fourier Movements 15-20 
 
 III. The New Communism (Socialism). 
 
 (a). As a Political Movement, 21-36 
 
 (1). Its Origin, 21-23. (2). Its Transportation to 
 and Growth in America, 24-30. (3). The So- ' 
 cialistic Labor Party — its Political Methods and * 
 Strength, 30-36. 
 
 (5). The Science of Socialism — its Standpoint, . , . 36- 
 (1). A Specimen Socialist, 36-38. (2). The Social- 
 ist's Starting Point, 38-45. (3). His Logical Posi- 
 tion, 45-47. (4). His Philosophical Attitude, 
 47-49. 
 
 (c). Its Purposes — Marx and Lassalle — their Social 
 
 Scheme, 49-54 
 
 id). Its Methods, 55-60 
 
 (e). Strength and Special Application in America, . 60-65 
 
 IV. The Meaning and Value of the New Communism 
 
 (Socialistic Movement), 
 
 (a). Underlying Misconceptions, 65-67 
 
 (&). The Real Difficulty it throws up, 68-74 
 
 (c). Influence on Political Economy, 74-78 
 
 V. Conclusion, 78-84 
 
The Author acknowledges special indebtedness 
 to the following works : 
 
 Le Socialisme dans le Passe. —Thonisson. (Bruxelles, 1859.) 
 
 Communistic Societies in the United States. — Charles Nordhoft. 
 
 History of American Socialisms. — Noyes. 
 
 Sur les Reformateurs. — Reybaud. ^ 
 
 Thornton on Labor. > 
 
 Arbeiter Frage. — Lange. 
 
 Die Quintessenz des Socialismus. — Schaffle. 
 
 Der Socialismus und seine Gonner. — Treitschke. 
 
 Emancipationskampf des vierten Standes. — Meyer. 
 
 Histoire de I'lnternationale. — Villetart. 
 
 Ferdinand Lassalle. — Georg Brandes. 
 
 Pauperism in England. — Fawcett. 
 
 Herr Bastiat-Schulze von Delitzsch. — Ferdinand Lassalle. 
 
 Arbeiter Lesebuch. — Ferdinand Lassalle. 
 
 History of the Commune. — Vesinier. 
 
 Les Publications Officielles de la Commune.— Pierotti. 
 
OF THE "^^ 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF 
 
 COMMUNISM IN AMERICA. 
 
 ^ I ^HE subject of Communism in America suggests / 
 -^ two widely divergent lines of treatment. The 
 one, following a stricter definition of tlie term, 
 would lead into an examination of the efforts which 
 have been made in this country to form social organ- 
 izations under the principle of a strict community of 
 goods. The other would apprehend Communism in its . 
 unscientific, popular sense, including under one vague 
 and inaccurate notion all organized attacks made . 
 by the dissatisfied classes upon fundamental social 
 institutions. It is the difference between Commun- 
 ism pure and simple, and the comprehensive Com- 
 munism of newspaper phrase. The one is practised 
 in the existing communistic societies, rfttrd" has no 
 ^oliticaLsignifi^afte^. The other expresses the rad- 
 ical aspiration of the uneasy portions of the lower 
 classes and their leaders, and reduces itself sooner 
 or later to the Labor Question., /" 
 
 As there can be little doubt, assuming that we 
 
2 COMMUNISM IN AMERICA. 
 
 shall before long learn as a nation certain elemen- 
 tary lessons in Political Economy and the Science 
 of Government, which at present absorb our na- 
 tional energies, that the Labor Question will assume 
 for us, as it has for England and for Germany, ur- 
 gent and threatening proportions, I have chosen 
 to take up my subject mainly in the latter sense. 
 It will be my aim, then, to examine, though it will 
 necessarily be inadequately, the nature and extent 
 of such active hostility as exists in America to- 
 ward the institution of private property; and to 
 catch, if possible, the spirit of that movement which is 
 fondly termed by its adherents the Struggle for the 
 Emancipation of the Working Classes. 
 \/^ In this sense, it might be suggested the subject 
 would be more properly treated under the more 
 comprehensive term Socialism, which leads to a 
 further word concerning these two expressions, 
 Communism and Socialism, partly in justification of 
 the title of the present essay, partly to avoid sub- 
 sequent confusion. The Socialists themselves dep- 
 recate the application of the term Communism to 
 their doctrines. While defending the word from 
 the unjust odium usually attaching to it, they main- 
 tain (on what slender grounds will ai3pear in the 
 sequel) that they do not advocate any extinction of 
 the right of private property in the communistic 
 sense. As for the meaning of the word in the 
 
THE POPULAR NOTION. 3 
 
 mouth of popular conservatism^ so far from cover- 
 ing any definite classification, its boundary-lines 
 are most vague and shadowy and exceedingly puz- 
 zling on nearer examination. Communism is, in 
 fact, found to be a convenient name for ultra-radi- 
 calism, containing a touch of condemnatory oppro- 
 brium; and the prevailing notion of a communist 
 is of a sort of irreconcilable, social Ishmaelite, who 
 would revel with delight in anarchy and destruc- 
 tion. There can be little doubt that this invidious 
 use of the word, connecting it inseparably with the 
 idea of burning and plundering, this habit of con- 
 founding all social radicals with persons of criminal 
 intent, has acquired* extensive prevalence, especially 
 since the events of March and May, 1871, in Paris. 
 And the generalization has been the result of a 
 course of reasoning not unintelligible, while contain- 
 ing much that is illogical and unjust. For, though 
 the Paris Revolution of March was in name, and 
 seemed at the time, essentially j^^litical, aiming 
 only at the acquisition of the " Franchises commu- 
 nales ;" ' yet, as subsequent developments have shown, 
 many of the men who w^ere prominent then as lead- 
 ers cherished plans of complete social reconstruc- 
 
 ^ " Paris n'aspire qu'^ fonder la Republique et k conquerir ses Fran- 
 chises comraunales, lieureux de fournir un exemple aux autres com- 
 munes de France." — Proclamation officielle, 6 Avril, in '^Publications offi- 
 cielles de la Commune," redigees par Pierotti, p. 128. 
 
4 COMMUNISM IN AMERICA. 
 
 tion, and the influence of the socialist clubs was 
 great and constantly widening.' The social aspect of 
 that revolution has been the one to make the great- 
 est impression abroad, where the peculiarities of 
 French political institutions are little understood : 
 and the confusion of terms has aided misconception. 
 It may be said, too, that the language and actions of 
 many of the refugees of that period, residing now 
 in America, have been sufficient to damn the mem- 
 ory of a cause which was not so wholly criminal as 
 its enemies have stamped it. These were the men 
 who murdered bishops and generals, and who 
 burned Paris. And with them are associated, in 
 the popular mind, all who harbor similar social 
 theories. 
 H^ The enthusiasts of the labor movement, on the 
 other hand, delight to call themselves Socialists. 
 Nevertheless, if we can disburden ourselves in the 
 beginning of unfair prejudices. Communism will 
 better designate the movement than Socialism, 
 which is in itself a wider, less distinctive term. 
 
 ^ The strongest official hint of communist tendencies, I find in a 
 " Manifesto of the Committee of Twenty of Arrondissements " (quoted by 
 Vesinier, Commune de Paris, 64), at the end of a long list of purely 
 political objects, as follows : " (The communal idea implies) constant 
 and a&siduous researches to find out the best mode of furnishing the 
 producer with capital, tools, markets, and credit, so as to settle forever 
 the question of wages and horrible pauperism, and to prevent the re- 
 turn of their fatal consequences, sanguinary revenge and civil war." 
 
THE VIROmiA COMPANY. 5 
 
 ^^ Whatever may be said to the contrary, the plans of 
 these reformers look to a direct, if partial applica- 
 tion of the principle of community of goods ; and 
 whoever examines carefully these plans will hardly 
 fail to be convinced that the fulfillment of their 
 hopes would lead inev^itably to a much more 
 thorough application of that principle than the 
 more moderate of the Socialists themselves contem- 
 plate.' 
 
 Before approaching the political agitations of to- L^ 
 day, it may not be unprofitable to cast a hasty, 
 general glance at some past communistic experi- 
 ments which are peculiarly American, and whose 
 history contains more or less that is interesting and 
 instructive in the present connection. Communism "^ 
 is sometimes assigned an earlier place in American 
 histor}^ than properly belongs to it. King James I., 
 in 1606, was graciously pleased to frame a code of 
 laws for '' his true and loyal subjects, certain gentle- 
 men of London," who had undertaken to settle his 
 Majesty's colony of Virginia under a charter for the 
 
 ^ " Eu un mot, nous voulions constituer la communaute de I'instru- 
 ment de travail : et corame rinstrument de travail dans la langue econo- 
 mique comprend les macliines, oiitils, capitaux mobiliers ou iinmobiliers, 
 nous tendions done bien positivement ^ la communaute de la propriete 
 generale ; notre tlieorie de la premiere lieure ne se distinguant de celle 
 des communistes purs qu'en ce sens seulement, que liors de I'atelier, 
 cliacun disposait a sa guise de son avoir." — M. Corbon, quoted 'by Vil- 
 letart, " Histoire del' Internationale." 
 
COMMUNISM m AMERICA. 
 
 strip of sea-coast lying between parallels 34 and 45. 
 In this product of royal leisure and royal learning 
 there is a provision that the members of the com- 
 pany " shall trade together in a common stock." ' The 
 inference has been made that this was the kernel of a 
 well-planned communistic scheme. But such an in- 
 ference seems hasty and unjustified. It was hardly 
 that, even in the mind of James himself ; certainly 
 not in the minds of the colonists. The association 
 was more strictly a copartnership, intended to last 
 only five years, a provisional arrangement suggested, 
 indeed forced upon them by circumstances, and 
 would have occurred to a duller imagination than 
 that of the "wisest fool in England." And we 
 find that the division of property, with the separa- 
 tion of private interests, took place before the ap-* 
 pointed time. Similarly with the community of 
 Plymouth Bay. The conditions of agreement 
 formed at Leyden, in 1620, between the Pilgrims 
 and "several merchant adventurers toward the 
 voyage," provide, in Article 3, that "the persons 
 transported and the adventurers shall continue their 
 joint stock and partnership the space of seven years, 
 except some unexpected impediment do cause the 
 whole company to agree otherwise ; during which 
 time all profits and benefits that are gotten by 
 
 ^ See the instrument in Stith's Virginia, 32-41, and Burk's Va., i., 
 86-92. 
 
THE COMMUNITY OF PLYMOUTH BAY. 7 
 
 trade, traffic, trucking, working, or any other means, 
 of any other person or persons, shall remain still in 
 the common stock until the division ; " ' and, in Arti- 
 cle 10, "that all such persons as are of the colony 
 are to have meat, drink, and apparel, and all provi- 
 sions out of the common stock and goods of the 
 said colony." ' This has also been represented to 
 have been a well-advised plan on the part of the 
 Pilgrims to devote the New World to a communis- 
 tic experiment. The Pilgrims, filled with their all- 
 absorbing religious faith, stern and uncompromising 
 in the application of Christian principles to prac- 
 tical living, and having in mind the supposed ex- 
 ample of the early Christian community,' wished 
 to break once for all from the traditions of a so- 
 ciety whose natural outcome was sin and suffering 
 and to initiate a new^ order. Such is the theory. 
 It seems, however, to be without sufficient founda- 
 tion. The Plymouth community, like that of Vir- 
 ginia, appears to have been in principle a copart- 
 nership. 
 ' Tl^e agreement with the Merchant Adventur- 
 ers was simply a hard bargain driven with men 
 
 ^ Chrouicles of the Pilgrims, edited by Young, 80-84. 
 
 2 Vide supra. See, also, Robertson's America, b. 9 ; Bancroft, i. (161), 
 123 ; Morton's New Eng. Mem., 93 ; Baylie's Hist. Mem., i., 120, 158. 
 
 2 Milman says : " Nothing like a community of goods ever appears 
 to have prevailed in the Christian community. Mosheim appears to 
 me to have proved this point conclusively." — Hist. Chr., i., 389. 
 
8 COMMUNISM IN AMERICA. 
 
 who were not generous enough to refrain from tak- 
 ing some advantage of the destitution of the other 
 party. The provisions of the articles which have 
 been quoted were plainly called for by the necessi- 
 ties of the situation. Close union was indispensa- 
 ble to carry this small family of pioneers through 
 an undertaking as fall of terrors for the imagina- 
 tion as of fatigues for the body. Only three years 
 after the landing at Plymouth what was commu- 
 nistic in their plan had been tested to their satisfac- 
 tion. The following is the homely, telling language 
 of the chronicler : " The month of April being 
 now come," he writes of the year 1623, "on all 
 
 hands we began to prepare for corn And 
 
 because there was small hope of doing good ia that 
 common course of labor that formerly we were in ; 
 .... especially considering that self-love where- 
 with every man in a measure more or less loveth 
 and preferreth his own good before his neighbor's, 
 and also the base disposition of some drones, that, 
 as at other times, so now especially would be most 
 burdensome to the rest ; it was therefore thought 
 best that every man should use the best diligence 
 he could for his own preservation," ' etc. Commu- 
 nity of labor proving a hindrance, the system was 
 changed at once, and without regret. Plainly 
 they had no cherished communistic scheme. Nor 
 
 1 Chron. Pil. Fathers, pp. 346 and 347. 
 
OF THE ^ 
 
 ^N^VERsiTY 
 
 OF 
 
 COMMUNISriG SOCIETIES PROPER. 9 
 
 is there further mention of any sucli scheme in the 
 subsequent history of the colony. 
 ^/J-^The true date of the importation of Communism 
 into America is much later than the settlement of 
 Virginia or the landing of the Pilgrims. The ori- 
 gins of those societies whose characteristic feature 
 is the practice of Communism, can be assigned to 
 periods of emotional excitement tolerably well as- 
 certained. vThey fall naturally into two classes, the 
 religious and the n on -religious or socialistic com- 
 munities. I All of them, however widely separate 
 in manner of appearance, or subsequent develop- 
 ment, have this one e^y element in common, that 
 they are all alike expressions of revolt against ever- 
 present, hardfelt evils, blind efforts to escape the in- 
 evitably burdensome in human life. i-r]]__,-^----" — ' 
 
 Charles Nordhoff, who made a tour of the com- 
 munistic societies in the United States in 1874, 
 reported eight only of sufficient importance to be 
 taken into consideration for purposes of study and 
 comparison. These eight societies have altogether 
 seventy-two communes. He estimates their aggre- 
 o-ate wealth at twelve millions of dollars ; number 
 of members, about five thousand, holding from one 
 hundred and fifty thousand to one hundred and 
 eighty thousand acres of land. VAmong them the 
 Shakers are the oldest-established (having existed 
 since 1782), and occupy a position of overwhelming 
 
10 COMMUNISM IN AMERICA. 
 
 pre-eminence, both as to wealtli and numbers. They 
 have a membership of 2415 persons, 49,335 acres 
 of land, and 58 communes. If with the Shakers 
 we subtract from the list given by Nordhoff the 
 Amana Inspirationists in Iowa (population, 1450 ; 
 acres, 25,000), it will be seen to what uniniposing 
 dimensions the remaining six dwindle. 
 
 I do not purpose to enter here into any lengthy 
 examination of these societies. The curiosity with 
 which one approaches them is soon sated, and finally 
 overburdened and disgusted with a weary, weary 
 story of trivial details. I desire only to point out 
 the utter vainness of all hopes which look to them 
 for practical help toward the solution of perplexing 
 social questions, and to show how groundless are the 
 fears of those, if there be any such, who look upon 
 them as a menace to existing institutions. All of 
 these associations, with one exception, are essentially 
 religious rather than socialistic movements. The 
 slender legacies of those periods of emotional dis- 
 turbance when the moral atmosphere of the masses 
 seems swept with electric storms of feeling, they 
 serve to remind us of long-forgotten times of excep- 
 tional religious excitement. And their sources lie 
 so deep in the hidden corners of human nature, whose 
 overflows are so governed by incalculable circum- 
 stance, that the prying eyes which would spy out 
 their secret are baffled. As religious creeds they 
 
RELIGIOUS AND PERSONAL CHARACTER. 11 
 
 possess no great intellectual interest. They are 
 crude excrescences or grotesque distortions of popu- 
 lar Christianity, such as have always been familiar 
 in the history of religious thought. The German 
 mysticism of the Rappists, and of the Aurora and 
 Bethel Communes, the modern spiritualism of the 
 Shakers, together with the painfully minute cere- 
 monial observances which mark them all to a more 
 or less repulsive degree, indicate how far they are 
 separated from the general course of modern 
 thought, 
 c/^ Their founders were from the lower classes, and 
 usually illiterate. Their following is, almost with- 
 out exception, from the same station in life — dull, 
 ordinary, uninteresting German and French peas- 
 ants and the like. Indeed, of the societies referred 
 to only two are properly American, the Shakers and 
 the Perfectionists (Oneida, Wallingford), the re- 
 mainder being importations more or less direct 
 from Germany, France, Sweden, and Kussia. jl^ 
 
 Most of them are linked with the fortunes of an 
 individual. The society at Harmony, since the 
 death of its founder, George Eapp, has been confes- 
 sedly aj>proaching with slow steps its final disap- 
 pearance. It is improbable that the Aurora and 
 Bethel Communes will long outlive the directing 
 influence of Dr. Keil. And I have been assured by 
 those who have had a nearer acquaintance with the 
 
12 COMMUNISM IN AMERICA. 
 
 Oneida and Wallingford communities than is al- 
 lowed a newspaper reporter, that only the predomi- 
 nating personal authority of Mr. Noyes can hold his 
 flock together in the peculiar discipline in which he 
 has trained it ; an opinion rendered the more plausi- 
 ble by what we already know of the difficulties at- 
 tending succession. The Shakers form an exception 
 to this rule of dependence upon an individual. 
 f These associations are not growing. They display 
 no active propagandist spirit. On the contrary, one 
 is struck, in reading, with their apparent indifference 
 to the chances of extension and perpetuation. All 
 of them, except perhaps the Oneida community, 
 have seen the period of their greatest prosperity. 
 They seem to have expanded temporarily at times 
 of unusual religious excitement.^ The years between 
 1820 and 1825, and those between 1840 and 1846 
 appear to have been marked by large accessions of 
 members. In 1823, Mount Lebanon, N. Y., the 
 largest of the Shaker communities, and a fair exam- 
 ple of all, had between five and six hundred mem- 
 bers, whereas the number had fallen in 1874 to 
 three hundred and eighty-three. 
 
 The suggestion which has' sometimes been made, 
 that these societies offer a practical refuge for the 
 dissatisfied and superfluous working population, is 
 hardly worthy of consideration. Most of them re- 
 semble close, thrifty, business corporations, devoted 
 
NOT ADAPTED FOR GENERAL IMITATION. 13 
 
 to amculture or manufacture. So far from beino^ 
 animated by any strong missionary spirit, the more 
 prosperous ones are rather jealous of the admission 
 of needy strangers. The Perfectionists are said to 
 be "unwilling to receive new members." Nor 
 should these communities be looked upon as living 
 models encouraging imitation. They are eccentrici- 
 ties in the fullest sense ; spontaneous, exceptional 
 outgrowths rather than artificial creations. No nor- 
 mal un embittered mind, with strong, healthy aspira- 
 tions, can contemplate their course of life without a 
 feeling of strong repugnance. Whether it be spiritu- 
 alism and celibacy among the Shakers, or the curious 
 public inquisition called '^criticism" and the scien- 
 tific regulation of sexual intercourse among the 
 Perfectionists, they are all alike linked too insep- 
 arably with religious oddity and unlovely supersti- 
 tion ; they all alike go too far in denying the most 
 fundamental impulses and longings of human nature 
 to be phenomena of much practical importance in 
 the study of social science. While individuality is 
 lost in them in the machine-like evenness of routine, 
 intellectual littleness leads into the eternal elabora- 
 tion of rule and ceremonial. " Not a single action 
 of life," says Elkins, speaking of the Shakers, 
 " whether spiritual or temporal, from the initiative 
 of confession, or cleansing the habitation of Christ, 
 to that of dressing the right side first, stepping first 
 
14 COMMUNISM IN AMERICA. 
 
 with the right foot as you ascend a flight of stairs, 
 folding the hands with the right-hand thumb and 
 fingers above those of the left, kneeling and rising 
 again with the right leg first, and harnessing first 
 the right-hand beast, but that has a rule for its per- 
 fect and strict performance." ' 
 
 These religious communities are indeed no more 
 than curious, isolated patterns in the checkered 
 mosaic of modern civilization. Their existence is 
 made possible only by the existence of the world 
 about them. Like little helpless whirlpools that 
 eddy and toss in forgotten nooks by the shores of a 
 rushing river, they only indicate the nearness of the 
 mighty current. 
 
 In the reference to the religious character of the 
 existing communistic societies one was specially 
 excepted. Far off, in a distant corner of Iowa, a 
 little band of French peasants is still struggling to 
 realize the social schemes of the dreamer Cabet. 
 Through poverty, debt, discouragement, they have 
 struggled with an enthusiastic resoluteness akin to 
 fanaticism. They call themselves Icarians, and 
 their mention leads us to the consideration of the 
 communistic movements of which they are the 
 remnant. 
 
 * Hervey Elkins, Fifteen Years in the Senior Order of the Shakers. 
 Hanover, N H., 1850. 
 
ROBERT OWEN. 15 
 
 Apart from the religious communities wliicli liave 
 been considered, and quite distinct from them in 
 spirit, were the associations which derived their 
 inspiration from Owen and Fourier. ^^These were 
 purely socialistic, formed to carry into practice the 
 designs of avowed social reformers. They divide 
 themselves naturally into two groups, referred to 
 two distinct periods of time about twenty years 
 asunder. Robert Owen came to this country in 1824. 
 The success of his experiment at New Lanark, and 
 the report of his great wealth, as well as the pure 
 philanthropy of his motives, had already given him 
 a reputation which removed him from the ordinary 
 catalogue of social dreamers. Well received by 
 prominent members of the Government, as well as 
 by numerous philanthropic individuals, his views 
 gained a speedy and wide dissemination, and abun- 
 dant and enthusiastic aid was proffered him from all 
 sides in furtherance of his experiment. Besides, the 
 man who advertised comfort and plenty without 
 cost, naturally did not want for applicants. But 
 the story of his colony at New Harmony, its bril- 
 liant opening, its pitiable failure, is the old story of 
 an exalted enthusiasm struggling with the sluggish 
 and commonplace. In such contests the victory in 
 the end is too often with the inert mass. 
 
 Noyes gives a list of eleven experiments made 
 under the influence of the Owen excitement, none 
 

 16 COMMUNISM IN AMERICA. 
 
 of which endured more than three years. Owen 
 and his movement are important now only in the 
 story of social curiosities.; The little society which 
 he had formed among the factory hands at Lanark, 
 strongly dominated by his personal influence, and 
 which he had fondly imagined to be a microcosm 
 fruitful of great results, proved to be no rule for the 
 great world ; and that " doctrine of circumstances " 
 which seized him with all the force and flattered 
 him with all the sweetness of originality, whose 
 truth brought home to men was to revolutionize 
 thought and reform the w^orld, fell flat and fruitless 
 upon ears that felt none of the mystic exaltation of 
 inspiration. 
 
 The Fourieristic movement, which followed the 
 Owen excitement after a lapse of some twenty years, 
 was more extended and more avowedly hostile to 
 existing social institutions. Many of those who had 
 good-naturedly assisted in the attempted realization 
 of Owen's plans, felt only that they were aiding in 
 a charitable effort to establish homes for the desti- 
 tute, dissatisfied classes, and did not pretend to be 
 applying a lever which should, in the fullness of 
 time, overturn the great boulder of private property 
 obstructing the path of progress. Fourierisni, on 
 the other hand'' records itself as perhaps, until the 
 modern labor movement, the most direct and best- 
 sustained attack that has been made upon the pres- 
 
FOURIERISM. 17 
 
 ent social order. Fourier himself belongs to that 
 band of dreamers, be they philosophers, poets, 
 statesmen, or merely sensitive natures pricked into 
 an agony of enthusiasm by the sight of wrong and 
 suffering, who have amused their leisure, delighted 
 their poetic sense, fed their hunger for some more 
 perfect justice, or labored with the true zeal of the 
 reformer in striving to depict an ideal state of soci- 
 ety where all the virtues should reign and all the 
 vices be banished. A large part of their inspiration 
 seems to have been handed down in a sort of apos 
 tolic succession from Plato on. There can be no 
 doubt that Fourier borrowed much of his theoretic 
 system from Morelly and Campanella ; while many 
 of the features of his Phalansteres show an evident 
 study of the Households of the Hernhuters, that 
 remnant of the followers of Huss who established 
 themselves in Bohemia, on the borders of Silesia and 
 Moravia, about the middle of the fifteenth century. 
 It is difficult for us now to realize either the wild 
 hopes or the bitter fear and aversion which Fourier's 
 writings at one time aroused. To a reader of to-day 
 the description of his Phalanx, with its dizzying 
 elaboration of detail, is at first entertaining, soon 
 tiresome, and always more or less absurd. Hard 
 above all is it to understand how the name of such 
 a harmless dreamer could have been so heaped with 
 obloquy by the respectable conservative classes. 
 
18 COMMUNISM IN AMERICA. 
 
 His motives were high. He at least assailed real 
 evils, if he offered no sure relief. And considerable 
 interest must alv^ays attach to the name of a man 
 whose schemes could attract the attention and the 
 hopes of so earnest and conscientious a student of 
 
 cial conditions as John Stuart Mill. 
 
 , In 1842 Albert Brisbane constituted himself the 
 apostle of Fourierism in America. He first pur- 
 chased a weekly column in the Tribune^ in which 
 translations of Fourier's writings were produced 
 from time to time^ 
 
 The venture proving a success, the weekly col- 
 umn soon became a daily one. Horace Greeley 
 himself became interested in the movement. The 
 seeds of the new philosophy seemed io fall upon 
 ground ready ploughed to receive it. ^\lt is a sug- 
 gestive fact that both the Ow^en and the Fourier 
 movements, like the communistic agitation of to- 
 day, followed not long after periods of commercial 
 disaster, when a profound dissatisfaction with all 
 surrounding facts would still be lingering in the 
 minds of actual sufferers. Whatever be the ex. 
 planation of the condition of the public mind, 
 the ideas of Fourier spread like an epidemic. 
 Many devout enthusiasts looked to the new revela- 
 tion for a final solution of the great problem — how 
 to make all men happy. Associations were quickly 
 formed in all parts of the North and West to put 
 
ITS FAILURE, 19 
 
 in practice the details of Fourier's scheme. Noyes 
 gives a list of no less than thirty-four societies as- 
 signable to the Fourier epoch. ' The plan of the 
 present essay does not lead me into more than a 
 mention of these efforts, and an indication of their 
 results. 
 X. Few of them held out more than four or five 
 years.^ ' Most of them perished in a shorter time. V 
 The only one now left is the little band of Ica- 
 rians in Iowa. The rest all shattered on the rock 
 of individual selfishness. Their story may be amus- 
 ing or saddening, according to the mood of the 
 reader. There is the same endless repetition of 
 hopes broken, illusions scattered ; disagreeable act- 
 ualities which no imagination could poetize ; shift- 
 less management, personal discomfort, discontent, 
 suspicion, disagreement, a painful exhibition of the 
 small, unlovely qualities of human nature, all result- 
 ing in the inevitable triumph of commonplace cir- 
 cumstance over ill-guided zeal. 
 
 So lost and gone are these experiments now, that 
 their story will hardly be read, save by him whom 
 curious studies lead into the paths of forgotten lit- 
 erature. Only one has a familiar sound ; and 
 Brook Farm owes all its interest to association with 
 the names of Channing, Hawthorne, Curtis, and 
 Margaret Fuller. But the brilliant inception of 
 Brook Farm seemed to insure it only a more bril- 
 
4^ 
 
 20 COMMUNISM IN AMERICA. 
 
 liant failure. And it is significant, that of all the 
 literary men whose youthful enthusiasm shared in 
 the undertaking, not one has seen fit to constitute 
 himself its historian. Hawthorne's charming story ' 
 is the only reminiscence of this "Romantic Epi- 
 sode." The few direct criticisms which he has 
 made upon his life at Brook Farm are exceedingly 
 interesting, both because of their raiity, and as sug- 
 gestive comments applicable to this whole class of 
 communistic experiments. " It struck me as rather 
 odd," he says in one place, 'Hhat one of the first 
 questions raised after our separation from the 
 greedy, struggling, self-seeking world, should relate 
 to the possibility of getting the advantage over the 
 outside barbarians in their own field of labor. But, 
 to own the truth, I very soon became sensible that, 
 as regarded society at large, we stood in a position 
 of new hostility rather than new brotherhood." 
 And again : " No sagacious man will long retain 
 his sagacity if he live exclusively among reformers 
 and progressive people without periodically re- 
 turning to the settled system of things, to correct 
 himself by a new observation from that old stand- 
 point." 
 
 The rise and decline of Fourierism may be used 
 to mark the transition from the old-school Commun- 
 ism to the new Socialism. The two, while inti- 
 
 ' " Blitliedale Romance, 
 
y 
 
 OF THE 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF 
 
 FIRST APPEARANCE OF SOCIALISM. 21 
 
 mately related so far as concerns their raison d'et/re 
 and their ultimate tendencies, are very different in 
 spirit and methods, /^he one was poetic, quasi- 
 religious, the toy of enthusiasts and dreamers ; 
 broken to pieces as soon as brought into the rough 
 field of practical experiment. The other is real 
 and rude, working with ugly, actual forces, using 
 without scruple the nearest material longings of 
 human nature and its most dangerous passions. 
 The one was unscientific and disdained political 
 economy. The other puts itself under the leader- 
 ship of men who boast of coming " equipped with 
 all the learning of the age," ' and boldly challenges 
 the economists to battle with theii* own weapons. \ 
 We pass at once from the domain of mere theory 
 into the field of political agitation. 
 
 Recognizing always the impossibility of fixing 
 with accuracy the exact date of any great social 
 phenomenon, we may, for the sake of convenience, as- 
 sign the first public advent of the movement we are 
 about to consider to the revolutionary period of 
 1848.'' The first French Revolution had witnessed 
 the rise of the bourgeoisie and the overthrow of the 
 politically privileged classes. After the waves of that 
 
 ^ Expression used by Lassalle of himself : " Bewaffnet mit der ganzen 
 Bildung des Jahrhunderts." 
 
 ^ Voa Sybel has shown that the earliest signs of the proletaire move- 
 ment appeared in the first Revolution. 
 
22 COMMUNISM IN AMERICA. 
 
 "uplieaYal had somewliat subsided, expectation set- 
 tled down witli relief into a restful assurance of a time 
 of peaceful, progressive development to come. The 
 easy, confident conservatism of the Bourgeois suc- 
 ceeded to the jealous, watchfal conservatism of the 
 Noble. But time soon brought disappointment to 
 flattering hopes. All the causes of social commo- 
 tions had not yet been finally removed. A new 
 class/ glibly baptized the Fonrth Estate^ ) stej)ped 
 quickly to the front with new demands;) as if soci- 
 ety having finally succeeded in throwing off an out- 
 grown political husk, new and nicer questions of 
 organization were now to occupy its energies. \ Be- 
 fore, it had been demand for political equality ; now, 
 it was to be demand for social equality^! The mid- 
 dle classes could not foresee that a free, constitution- 
 al government, while it would not be able to lighten 
 materially the burden of life to the unpropertied 
 classes, Vould awaken in them a political conscious- 
 ness which would give a tongue to dissatisfaction, 
 and might become uncomfortably self-assertive. The 
 labor legislation of the "Government of '48" is a 
 speaking monument to the first entrance of a new 
 difficulty, which was to rise up not only in France, 
 but in the face of every free government, and as 
 such it is heavy with meaning. I have ventured to 1 
 dwell the more at length upon the experience of 
 France, because of the foreign parentage of what- 
 
THE FRENCH SOCIALISM, 23 
 
 ever of active socialism exists in America, and the 
 necessity of bearing in mind the general circum- 
 stances of its birth in order to understand and esti- 
 mate it. If we hesitate to give ' France the title 
 *' Mother of Freedom," we may at least, with less 
 flattery and more truth, call her the mother of po- 
 litical agitation. It was from the other side of the 
 Rhine that the impulse came which first set the 
 German theorists actively to work. The conditions 
 in Germany were favorable enough. It is true the 
 pupils, especially considering the greater obstacles 
 in their way, soon, in all points, surpassed their mas- 
 ters. And it is almost wholly from Germany that Lr^ 
 the American agitators draw their immediate inspi- 
 ration. Of course in America, too, the heap of in- 
 flammable material was ready, waiting if perchance 
 the torch of socialism might kindle it into a flame. 
 
 ,^'Wide inequalities of wealth, pauperism, overcrowded 
 centres of population, protracted periods of suffer- 
 ing, induced by commercial disasters, all brought 
 with them their usual attendant strains upon the 
 social framework. , The unhappy antagonism be- 
 tween labor and capital was becoming well marked. 
 And organizations of labor followed eventually, 
 though later and more sluggishly, in imitation of 
 the trades-unions which developed so rapidly in Eng- 
 land after their legalization in 1824. 
 
 (^ This was the field for socialism. How socialism 
 
^4 COMMUNISM IN AMERICA. 
 
 has entered it, how it is working there, with what 
 spirit, purposes, and with what success, it will now 
 be my endeavor to examine. 
 
 \^ [The advent of socialism to our shores is not def- 
 initely assignable in time. It has dribbled in upon 
 us._^ Many of the refugees of the troubled times of 
 '48 doubtless brought with them their untested vis- 
 ions of the workingman's paradise, with the bril- 
 liant, though cheap promises of Proudhon and Louis 
 Blanc. Still more fervent spirits followed, after the 
 suppression of the Commune in 1871. There still 
 exists in New York a "Societe des Eefugies de la 
 Commune," of whose presence the reader of the 
 newspapers is reminded at yearly intervals on the 
 occasion of their annual banquet to' celebrate the 
 Proclamation of the Commune. At their reunions 
 they are accustomed to indulge in language of the 
 most extravagant kind known to irresponsible impo- 
 tence. They may occasionally cause a shock in the 
 breast of some quiet citizen at his comfortable 
 breakfast-table, or lend a hand in riotous demonstra- 
 tions, but their existence is otherv\dse of little im- 
 portance, as they have no particular influence out- 
 side of their own little circle. 
 
 / ) In New York, as early as the winter of 1865, not 
 six months after the death of Lassalle, was formed 
 a little society of Germans, devoted to the cultiva- 
 tion of the principles taught by that great prophet 
 
RECENT INFLUENCES FROM EUROPE. 25 
 
 of socialism. This, however, came to nothing, and 
 soon disappeared. Another attempt was made in 
 1868 to form a socialist party (Sociale Partei) under 
 the influence of the Marx school, but with no 
 greater success. These, however, were all merely 
 incipient, tentative movements, of hardly sufficient 
 importance to catch the notice of the daily press. 
 The first extensive initiation of the American la- 
 borer into the new aspirations of the working-classes 
 of Europe probably came through the International. 
 Though the International was not strictly a com- 
 munistic movement, it soon developed a strong com- 
 munistic tendency — a tendency whose increase it 
 favored, as is shown by the instructive story of the 
 progress of communistic ideas at its congresses. At 
 the first general congress, Geneva, 1866, no public 
 discussion of the right of private property took 
 place. The next year, at Lausanne, there was a sig-^ 
 nificant symptom in the recommendation of the 
 seizure and operation of all railroads by the state, 
 though in general there was observable a careful 
 avoidance of what was felt to be a dangerous sub- 
 ject. At Brussels, in the following year, formal 
 attacks began to be made upon the institution of 
 private property, while distinctions were beginning 
 to become more marked, in a new and unintelligi- 
 ble jargon, between Tnutualists^ coUectivists^ and in- 
 dividualists,. I 
 
26 COMMUNISM IN AMERICA. 
 
 In the last congress at B41e, tlie question of abol- 
 ishing the right to the inheritance of property 
 (I'heritage) received thirty-two votes in its favor, 
 while there were twenty-three against it, and seven- 
 teen abstained. The views of Marx and his school 
 were rapidly gaining the ascendant.' 
 
 The International found an organization ready at 
 hand in America. The National Labor Union of 
 the United States was said to contain, in 18^8, six 
 hundre;^ and forty thousand members (according 
 to some estimates as many as eight hundred thou- 
 sand). It had been formed in 1866, as an amalga- 
 mation of trades-unions, to concentrate the forces of 
 I'abor in array against capital, and to " work for the 
 freeing of the workingman from the slavery of the 
 wage-system." In 1869, Cameron appeared at Bale 
 as representative of this body, and a junction was 
 foionally effected. ^' iThe International system ot 
 
 * In a publication by a " Frencli .Positivist" (London, 1871), called 
 "Political Notes on the Present Situation in France," the author thus 
 sums up the International : " Their philosophy is atheism, materialism, 
 the negation of all religion ; their political programme is absolute indi- 
 vidual liberty, secured by the suppression of all government, and the 
 division of nationalities into communes more or less federative. Their 
 political economy consists essentially in the dispossession, with compen- 
 sation, of capitalists, and the transfer of their funds, of the instruments 
 of labor, and of the land to associations of working-men. Their theory 
 of history is that the nobility and bourgeoisie have had their time, and 
 now that of the proletariat is come. They exclude from society all that 
 which is outside of the working-class." 
 
GROWTH OF DISCONTENT. 27 
 
 organization was introduced into America, and an 
 active propagandist agitation begun. The ordina- 
 ry instruments of agitation were used — speeches ap- 
 pealing to the workingmen, cheap newspapers, and 
 numerous tracts chiefly from German and French 
 sources. The American workman received his first 
 lesson in the principles of the new, enlightened 
 communism. It was from this period that the ideas 
 of Marx and Lassalle began to obtain in this 
 country a wider currency, through direct importa- 
 tion of their pamphlets, popular translations and 
 genial interpretations by sympathetic followers. 
 
 With the dissipation of the International and its 
 terrors for the anxious conservatism of Europe, the 
 organization in America too faded and almost 
 entirely disappeared. Not that the cause of the 
 trouble and all occasion for further anxiety had 
 been removed. The same difficulties were to appear 
 in another and more outspoken form. Yet, while 
 in the succeeding years the socialist movement was 
 solidifying and slowly gaining in strength in Ger- 
 many under the leadership of such men as Bebel, 
 Liebknecht, and Hasenclever, until its principles 
 had been incorporated into a recognized political 
 party, and " das rothe Gespenst " had taken its place 
 in the Eeichstag as an orthodox and apparently per- 
 manent bugbear, the cause of socialism, strange to 
 say, seemed to languish in republican, democratic 
 
28 COMMUNISM IN AMERICA. 
 
 America, wli ether because of the absence of such 
 constant, available irritants as a king and a class 
 aristocracy, and a consequent inadequacy of persecu- 
 tion, or that the conditions here were more favorable 
 to the spread of happy content, or from all these 
 and other causes difficult of classification. But the 
 seeds v^hich had been planted in America were ger- 
 minating in secret, as was soon to appear. The 
 commercial reaction of 1873 brought suffering and 
 discontent., Expectation watched from year to year 
 with growing weariness and lessening patience for 
 the termination of a period of distress which had at 
 first been accepted with some popular resignation as 
 an inevitable cyclic disturbance. The insinuating 
 voice of socialism, preaching that all these troubles 
 could never be removed until a radical change 
 should be effected in the constitution of society, 
 found in such a time more heedful listeners. 
 ^ Signs of uneasiness among the classes most affect- 
 ed by the general suffering began to be visible. 
 Attempts were made to reorganize the International. 
 IThe incident of Tompkins Square, carelessly dis- 
 missed from most minds as an event quite to be 
 expected in a populous, cosmopolitan city suffering 
 from the effects of commercial stagnation, was 
 elevated into historical importance by the socialists 
 as the "first collision between the bourgeois police 
 and the newly-discovered American proletariat."' 
 
 1 Volksstaat, June 3, 1874. 
 
 ^ 
 
THE BI0T8 OF 1877. 29 
 
 Then came the riots of the summer of 1877. The 
 sudden disclosure of so much inflammable material 
 caused sober men of no alarmist tendencies to pause 
 and consider possibilities before unthought of. This 
 plundering, burning hatred of the rich fitted exactly 
 into the popular notion of communism. The rapid 
 spread of the infection, the mad fervor of the mob, 
 offered an alarming glimpse of the possibilities of 
 disorder in this country, while the spectacle of small 
 groups of men seizing the opportunity to drive in 
 and organize these wild forces under the banner of 
 radicalism, bore an unpleasant resemblance to some 
 of the methods of past revolutions in France. The 
 prompt and effective energy of the forces of law and 
 order, however, did much to reassure the public^ 
 and to enable it in a surprisingly short time to dis- 
 miss from mind a disagreeable and perhaps not 
 too significant episode. And this light-hearted for- 
 getfulness seems to have been justified by the easy 
 settling down of things into their old grooves. 
 /Nevertheless, the riots of the summer of 1877 will 
 always have a most important bearing upon the his- 
 tory of the progress of communism in the United 
 States. Beside the inevitable spread of radical 
 teaching incident to such a period of fermentation, 
 they had the direct effect of consolidating the social- 
 istic elements, forcing a more distinct declaration of 
 principles, and of bringing them into the political 
 
30 COMMUNISM IN AMERICA. 
 
 arena as a separate voting force, actively agitating 
 for extension. As late as July, 1876, at the " Union 
 Congress of the Workingmen's Party of the United 
 States," it had been voted that the workingraen 
 
 ' should " abstain from all political movement for the 
 present and turn their backs on the ballot-box," in 
 
 ^ order to spare themselves " bitter disappointment." ' 
 The trades-unions had alv^ays expressly disavowed 
 any tendencies of a political character. But the 
 disturbances of this summer awakened in the prole- 
 tariat (to make an ordinary though not strictly ac- 
 curate use of the word) a sense, indeed an overween- 
 ing sense, of its own strength. Those disturbances, 
 as is well known, were followed at the next ensuing 
 elections by extensive nominations of workingmen's 
 candidates, and numberless extravagant speeches in 
 which all sorts of unthinking threats and promises 
 were made, and all sorts of wild schemes advanced. 
 \ A congress of the workingmen's party of the 
 United States was held at Newark, in January, 1878. 
 At this meeting the direction of affairs fell more 
 
 ^ than ever into the hands of the avowed socialists, 
 whose plans did not stop short at trades-unions, and 
 agitation to raise wages and reduce the hours of 
 labor. Instead of the former title, the organization 
 was now to be called " The Socialistic Labor Party," 
 
 ^ See " Proceedings," etc., published by the Social Democratic Print- 
 ing Association, New York. 
 
THE SOCIALISTIC LABOR PARTY. 31 
 
 a significant change. As this party is at once the 
 expression and the depository of such communistic 
 tendencies in America as are sufficiently important 
 to deserve serious consideration, I shall attempt 
 here to give some notion of its workings. Ephem- 
 eral associations spring up from time to time ex- 
 pressive of radical tendencies more or less hostile to 
 existing social institutions ;. but this^ one contain^c 
 the men who aie working with a well-defined pur- 
 pose, which is the overthrow of the present system 
 of production on the basis of private capital, and 
 whose labors atre cast in a tolerably well-advised, 
 consistent plan. They are striving continually to 
 marshal under their banner all available material. 
 And however ready they might be upon occasion to 
 make use of the mob, they recognize fully the fact 
 that their only hope of ultimate success lies in the 
 conversion of the steady, working classes to the 
 cause. Toward this end, accordingly, all their efforts 
 are bent ; and the methods employed are simple and 
 to the point JA regularly organized system of agi- 
 tation obtains under the direction of a central, 
 executive committee whose seat appears to be at 
 Chicago.y Certain leaders of the movement, known 
 in the language of their class as "agitators," who 
 by reason of their personal influence and oratorical 
 ability are specially fitted for the work, make reg- 
 ular tours of the principal cities and manfacturing 
 
32 COMMUNISM IN AMERICA. 
 
 towns, haranguing the workingmen in public and 
 interviewing individuals personally. Wherever they 
 succeed in interesting a sufficient number, they leave 
 behind them loose organizations under the leader- 
 ship of a secretary, whose duty it is to keep alive 
 the connection with the other branches of the party. 
 These local organizations are called "Sections." 
 They usually have a place of meeting, where the 
 members, and any others who may desire, come to- 
 gether weekly for purposes of general discussion and 
 to listen to addresses. 
 
 They are the nurseries, the training schools of 
 socialism. Through them the devotees of the move- 
 ment strive to inoculate the laboring classes with 
 the spirit of their own faith, working with a patient 
 zeal of which the outside world has little suspicion. 
 \The agitators make the large manufacturing 
 centres their principal points of attack. A promi- 
 nent agitator once gave me an interesting account 
 of his experience with the Amoskeag Manufactur- 
 ing Company of New Hampshire, a corporation 
 which at one time employed as many as seven thou- 
 sand hands. When he first approached the village 
 of the company he was confounded with the emis- 
 saries of the trades-unions and warned off by the 
 authorities. His second trial was more successful. 
 It having become known that he had no connection 
 with the unions, but on the other hand preached 
 
"SECTIONS." 33 
 
 strongly the inadvisability of strikes, his entrance 
 was in every way encouraged,' the courtesies of the 
 village were extended to him, and the public hall 
 was opened for his use. In his public address then 
 he carefully avoided all violent or revolutionary 
 language, striving at the same time to interest the 
 men in his promises. At the end of his speech he 
 requested such of the men as wished to learn 
 further of his party and its plans to meet him at an 
 appointed place. Those who met him in pursuance 
 of this invitation were initiated more fully into the 
 purposes of socialism and encouraged to form them- 
 selves into a section. 
 
 He complained however that within the precincts 
 of these powerful manufacturing corporations the 
 men were so thoroughly dominated by fear of the 
 "bosses'' that, though often interested, they hesi- 
 tated to enter into any formal association ; and that 
 the better paid workmen, even where they were by 
 no means satisfied with their condition, yet evinced 
 a disposition to treat his promises with some suspi- 
 cion and cynicism. During the summer and winter 
 just past, sections were formed in more than fifty 
 different cities throughout the country. By far the 
 larger number of these, as well as the more flourish- 
 ing, are German. Their strength is mainly in the 
 West. In the eastern cities the English-speaking 
 sections seem to have great difficulty in keeping up 
 
34 COMMUNISM m AMERICA. 
 
 an existence. I found in January that the English- 
 speaking section in Baltimore had ceased to hold its 
 weekly meetings. And the secretary there, an active, 
 well-appearing man, employed in a shoe-factory, 
 who lived with his wife and four children in two 
 rooms, and who assured me that, owing to stoppage 
 of work in the factory, he had not for six weeks 
 been able to earn more than four dollars a week, 
 told me, in a plaintive description of the affair of his 
 Section, that he could not collect money enough to 
 pay for his correspondence. No Section has suc- 
 ceeded in Washington. In New Haven an English- 
 speaking Section, with weekly meetings, has been 
 kept up with some vigor. 
 
 I have been an occasional attendant at these 
 gatherings, and have watched with keen interest the 
 hard-featured faces turned eagerly to catch some ray 
 from the newly risen, doubtful light of socialism. 
 To judge from the general appearance of the men 
 present, most of them seemed to be from the class 
 of day-laborers. Only here and there could a face 
 be discerned which a certain indefinable touch of 
 intellectuality distinguished from the rest and 
 marked as belonging to a higher paid workman or 
 mechanic. They sat together in close, impressive 
 silence, listening with contagious attention to one 
 after another of their number, as they rose and told 
 their stories, of the tyranny of " bosses," of the hunger 
 
SOCIALISTIC MEETIJVGS. 35 
 
 and suffering of families, of truitless searches for 
 work. It was not a wise or well-informed discus- 
 sion of the labor question and of the proper means 
 of alleviating distress ; but only a blind, passionate 
 presentation by each of the severity of his own lot. 
 Now one would proclaim with indignation the name 
 of some comrade whom timidity or venality had 
 made a backslider. Now another would urge them 
 in wild, threatening language to revolt. The sharp- 
 faced, fierce-eyed man who stood with right hand 
 uplifted in unconscious eloquence and voice ringing 
 high and shrill with excitement, as he announced 
 that three fourths of the voters of this country were 
 workingmen, held in base subjection by the rest, 
 offered in himself a vivid picture of that simple 
 logic of numbers whose power with the masses it 
 seems impossible to undermine. 
 
 Then again I have seen the rough audience, its 
 energies already tried by a long day of physical 
 labor, grow weary and restless under the long-sus- 
 tained, high-pitched enthusiasm of some professional 
 agitator, who maintained a too persistent tone of 
 passionate appeal. One by one the listeners would 
 steal guiltily from the room with painfully hopeless 
 efforts to escape observation, often in the midst of 
 the pointed upbraidings of the speaker, whose fervid 
 oratory was suspended for the moment to admit a 
 parenthetical rebuke of the conscious truant for his 
 
36 COMMUNISM IN AMERICA. 
 
 faint-heartedness. It is at sucli times that one is im- 
 pressed with the hopelessness of the task of holding 
 such men up to the constant, patient, intelligent de- 
 votion necessary in the unequal struggle with vested 
 private interests. 
 
 Before entering more fully and more specifically 
 into the actual workings of this radical movement, 
 I wish to turn attention to what may be called the 
 science of socialism as it is cherished by the better- 
 informed of its leaders and by some men of acknowl- 
 edged learning and ability in Germany. Some 
 preliminary introduction will be necessary to obtain 
 a patient hearing and thoughtful consideration of 
 demands which most of us are in the habit of dis- 
 missing with little ceremony. 
 
 I have had an opportunity of making the personal 
 acquaintance of one of the leaders in the socialist 
 movement, a man who is widely influential among 
 the workingmen throughout the country, and whose 
 name acquired unpleasant notoriety among the 
 order-loving at the time of the Tompkins Square 
 troubles. No one could correspond less than he to 
 the popular notion of a communist. Small, modest, 
 inoffensive in appearance, his physique is as far from 
 suggesting brutal force as his character is removed 
 from violence. He was apprenticed when quite 
 young to the piano-making trade, and still works in 
 a shop. His interest in the socialist movement was 
 
A SOCIALIST. 37 
 
 first aroused by participation in the great eight- 
 hour strike of 1872, in New York, when, though 
 still very young, he was deputed by his comrades to 
 meet the masters in conference, and was completely 
 silenced by the arguments used by the latter to 
 prove that they could not possibly, in the then state 
 of trade, give the same pay for less work. It was 
 then that the meaning of competition began to dawn 
 upon him. While his sympathies justified the aspi- 
 rations of his companions to improve their condition, 
 his reason could not but admit the force of the mas- 
 ters' position. From that time he devoted himself 
 eagerly to study. He taught himself German. Un- 
 fortunately his first intellectual hunger was fed for 
 the most part upon newspapers, and socialist tracts 
 and pamphlets, which gave his mind in the begin- 
 ning a decided bias. He now delights to call him- 
 self a positivist, in imitation of most of the socialist 
 leaders. While studying with great interest the 
 curious, ill-assorted mass of half-knowledge which 
 makes up the sum of his intellectual acquisitions, 
 and the fitful, often confusing ramblings of a mind 
 naturally gifted with unusual acumen and initiative 
 activity, but lacking all systematic training, I have 
 learned to look upon his character with esteem, and 
 to recognize in him a disposition subject to the 
 purest impulses of affection. He has the virtues 
 which go to make up a valuable citizen. He is 
 
38 COMMUNISM IN AMERICA. 
 
 steady, industrious, honor-loving. He abstains en- 
 tirely from strong diink, and does not even treat 
 himself to those unsinful little indulgences which 
 are by common consent adjudged necessary to make 
 bearable the sharp edge of existence. His personal 
 moderation might indeed well be an example to 
 many a zealous but unsteady pillar of the existing 
 order of things. He does not seem to be discon- 
 tented vdth his individual lot, or ill-naturedly envi- 
 ous of his neighbors ; and I have failed to discover 
 in him any trace of that self-seeking spirit which is 
 so barefaced an element in the composition of the 
 ordinary demagogue. A sensitive nature stirred 
 into passionate sympathy by the sight of the misery 
 and degradation of his class, he has ardently adopted 
 a cause which also flatters his self-love with a sense 
 of high purpose and great ends. He has the sub- 
 lime, unconquerable confidence of enthusiasm. His 
 faith sees a never-dimmed vision of success in the 
 future. But it is with him as with almost every 
 one who pursues absorbingly one great end, how- 
 ever lofty the feeling which inspires him — he is not 
 nicely scrupulous about means. 
 
 I have rested here upon the character of this man 
 with special purpose. Intercourse with him has 
 done much to moderate my own view of a cause 
 which I had been in the habit of regarding with the 
 orthodox horror as a thing wholly unclean. He is 
 
THE SOCIAL BIAS. 39 
 
 not, to be sure, a fair sample of the ordinary Social, 
 ist. It would be safe to say that very few of the 
 participators in the movement are so high-strung. 
 But such men introduce us to one aspect of Social- 
 ism which is often overlooked. For with all this 
 empty noise, this loud display of fatuitous igno- 
 rance, which disgusts and repels the serious observer 
 at the outset, there is mingled a true voice of com- 
 plaint, telling a tale of no little meaning, and de- 
 serving at least thoughtful examination and per- 
 haps sympathy. It has been the almost universal 
 practice to meet the dissatisfied, questioning work- 
 ingman with a bristling array of economic laws, 
 driving him back into dogged resignation, full of 
 repressed but still smoldering fire. There can be 
 no hope of gaining a profitable understanding of the 
 true animus of modern Socialism unless it be ap- 
 proached in a totally different spirit. The habit 
 must be given up of simply dismissing with a sneer 
 him who hurls himself at an economic law as mad 
 or criminal. 
 
 The possession of private property, the hope of 
 its possession, or association in its benefits, no less 
 than its absolute deprivation, carries with it, it 
 should be remembered, a powerful and most insid- 
 ious bias. Each attack arouses a passionate instinct 
 of self-defense, and every questioner of its right to 
 existence is looked upon as a hateful enemy. He 
 
40 COMMUNISM IN AMERICA. 
 
 who wishes to approach conscientiously, as a stu- 
 dent, not eagerly as an opposing advocate, the ques- 
 tions propounded by Socialism, will be always sus- 
 picious of himself, lest his reasoning be lead, be it 
 ever so little, by interest. 
 
 The attainment, too, as far as possible, of a judicial 
 state of mind, will be the best promise of eifec- 
 tive contribution toward a permanent reconciliation 
 between the wage-taker and the wage-giver. In 
 order to value properly the demands of the Social- 
 ist, an effort must be made to gain his stand-point. 
 And to this end it will be necessary first of all to 
 consider the most unflattering side of the existing 
 social order, to reflect, not upon what it has accom- 
 plished, but upon w^hat it has failed to accomplish. 
 .j This is the starting-point of the Socialist. He 
 sits in judgment upon the experiment of society 
 built upon the foundation of private property and 
 pronounces it a failure. He calls attention to the 
 wide inequalities in the distribution of material and 
 intellectual good things. He points to the ignorant, 
 toiling thousands, and then to the hundreds who 
 harvest the products of their labor. He looks with 
 sceptical eye upon the much-lauded conquests of 
 civilization. He throws a doubt upon the good of 
 so-called progress. These things, he says — the ac- 
 quisitions of science, the cunning children of inven- 
 tion, the glorious creations of art, all that is written 
 
THE SOCIALIST STABTINO-POINT 41 
 
 in the proud list — may indeed widen the circle of 
 possible gratifications, sharpen sensibilities, and add 
 keenness to enjoyment for the few ; but as for rais- 
 ing the race, do not these same advances call into 
 being additional thousands of human creatures, 
 whose plodding task it is from birth till death to 
 satisfy the mere conditions of living, who swell the 
 ranks of paupers and criminals, who at frequent in- 
 tervals must be decimated by suffering in order to 
 accommodate an economic readjustment? What 
 reason have these to feel proud and grateful in the 
 contemplation of the wonderful gains of modern 
 science ? Is it for having created a reason for their 
 existence as its merely mechanical servitors ? ' Is 
 it a great end to look forward to — the enabling of 
 the earth's surface to support a larger population di- 
 vided into a small class of those who understand 
 and enter into the spiritual enjoyment of ever- widen- 
 ing knowledge, sharing the while in the material 
 benefits of each advance ; and on the other hand a 
 far larger class of those whose time and energies 
 must ever be solely taken up with benumbing phys- 
 ical labor in the service of this same progress. The 
 Socialist marshals the vices and follies of the rich 
 
 ^ " Es ist Thatsacbe, dass das Elend der arbeitenden Massen niclit 
 abgenommen bat wabrend der Periode 1848-1864. Und dennocb stebt 
 diese Periode mit ibrem Fortscbritt von Industrie und Handel beispiellos 
 da in den Annalen der Gescbicbte." — Karl Marx, ''An die Arheitende 
 Classe Europas." 
 
42 COMMUNISM IN AMERICA. 
 
 side by side with the wretchedness and degradation 
 of the poor in eloquent juxtaposition. Do not the 
 widest differences between luxury and squalor, he 
 asks, the greatest disproportion in number between 
 those who enjoy and those who want, exist in the 
 very centres where civilization is most intense.' He 
 will lead you from the spectacle of all the studied 
 appliances of wealth in a large city, to the contem- 
 plation of its tenement-houses, its hovels, where the 
 human working animal recuperates nightly for the 
 ever-returning toil of the morrow, or to some great 
 factory full of its dull, busy watchers, and dwell 
 upon the ever-present crying dualism in the human 
 lot. 
 
 It is hard to deny facts. There are indeed two 
 sides to progress. Few who have entered more 
 closely into the study of social conditions have pre- 
 
 ' The following figures are taken from the " Journal of the Statistical 
 Society," London, vol. XXXVIL, p. 253. 
 Years ending at 
 
 Lady-Day. Population (Eng.). Total No. Paupers. Ratio. 
 
 1866 21,100,000 916,152 43 
 
 1867 21,320,000 931,152 4.4 
 
 1868 21,540,000 992,640 4.6 
 
 1869 21,760,000 1,018,140 4.7 
 
 1870 21,980,000 1,032,800 4.7 
 
 Professor Schmoller, one of the most conscientious of modern investi- 
 gators, says : " In Bezug auf die Irren und die Selbstmorder zeigt die 
 Statistik eine regelmassige Zunahme in den Landern der intensivsten 
 modernen Cultur." — TIeber die HesuUate der Bevolkerungs u Moral- 
 Statistik, p. 13. 
 
A DARK SIDE. 43 
 
 served that easy optimism with regard to the social 
 order which belongs to absorption in immediate 
 personal occupations. " Hitherto it is questionable," 
 says Mr. Mill in a memorable passage, "if all the 
 mechanical inventions yet made have lightened the 
 day's toil of any human being. They have enabled 
 the same poj)ulation to live the same life of drudg- 
 ery and imprisonment, and an increased number of 
 manufacturers and others to make fortunes." ' And 
 an eminent German writer of no radical tendencies 
 expresses himself thus strongly at the prospect of- 
 fered to labor by the extension of the factory sys- 
 tem : " It is well written over the gates of Hell, 
 Lasciate ogni Speramctr^^Q^^j no one can deny 
 that these conditions are most pitiable. Labor is 
 indeed man's lot upon the earth, and every mortal 
 can and must learn to submit to manifold privations. 
 But if labor is to be purely mechanical, eternally 
 unchanging, dulling both mind and body, and in 
 return for it only such wage is to be given as will 
 barely furnish the necessities of existence, then in- 
 deed is much expected of human patience and power 
 of renunciation." ' / 
 
 Let me quote here, too, a passage from Mr. Fred- 
 eric Harrison, in which (not to accuse him of inten- 
 tionally furthering the schemes of Marx and Lassalle) 
 
 ^ Political Economy, bk. iv. , cli. 6, sec. 3. 
 2 Robert von Mohl, Politik, ii., 518. 
 
44 COMMUNISM IN AMERICA. 
 
 he has put the socialist complaint in his inimitable 
 language with such force that it has become a fav- 
 orite text with the Socialists themselves. "A so- 
 ciety in which generation after generation passes 
 away, consolidating vast and ever-increasing hoards 
 of wealth, opening to the wealthy enchanted realms 
 of idleness, luxury, and waste, laying on the laborer, 
 generation after generation, increasing burdens of 
 toil, destitution, and despair; a society in which 
 capital has created a gospel of its own, and claims, 
 for the good of society, the divine right of selfish- 
 ness, the right to exert its powers at will indefinitely 
 for the indulgence of its own desires, rebelling 
 against any social control, and offering up ' with a 
 light heart ' the misery and degradation of the poor, 
 as a sad but inevitable sacrifice on the altar of com- 
 petition — such a society these workmen of Paris will 
 not forever tolerate." ' 
 
 The Socialist seizes eagerly upon the fact, which 
 most observers and economists are ready to admit, 
 though trustworthy statistics directly to the point 
 are difficult of access, that in modern civilized States, 
 under the present industrial system, wealth tends to 
 accumulate in fewer hands, through the extinguish- 
 ment of the man of moderate means ; that small en- 
 terprises have less and less opportunity, and that, 
 consequently, the facilities for the existence of labor 
 
 ' The Re vol. of the Commune, Fortnightly Meview, May 1, 1871. 
 
SOCIALIST LOGIC. 45 
 
 and capital combined in the same person become 
 fewer and fewer. The result of this tendency, he 
 asserts, is to divide off more and more distinctly the 
 two classes of wage-givers and wage-receivers, and 
 to increase the dependence of the latter. 
 
 It must be borne in mind at the same time that 
 the Socialist does not think of ascribing the dis- 
 eases of the social body to inherent defects of human 
 nature. In most cases he will reject the idea with 
 scorn. The perfectibility of human nature is the 
 corner-stone of his faith. To him all faults are ex- 
 plained by a faulty social organization and the 
 abuse of the right of private property. " Le social- 
 isme," says Proudhon, "affirme Tanomalie de la 
 constitution presente de la societe et partant de 
 tous les etablissements anterieurs. II pretend et il 
 prouve que I'ordre civilise est facile, contradictoire, 
 inefficace ; qu'il engendre de lui meme I'oppression, 
 la misere et la crime : il accuse, pour ne pas dire la 
 calomnie, tout le passe de la vie sociale et pousse de 
 toutes ses forces k la refonte des moeurs et des in- 
 stitutions." ' This fundamental denial enables the 
 Socialist to avoid the usual arguments drawn from 
 economic laws arising out of existing social condi- 
 tions — and logically, from his stand-point. He would 
 change the conditions themselves. Thus he will 
 answer objections based upon the inevitable effects 
 
 ^ Systeme des Contradictions economiques, 1., 4. 
 
46 COMMUNISM IN AMERICA. 
 
 of competition by saying that competition is, above 
 all, tlie evil wliich he wishes to abolish ; in the sys- 
 tem he contemplates there will be no competition. 
 The reply at once springs to the lips : but it is as 
 sensible to talk of abolishing human nature itself as 
 to talk of abolishing competition ; all the advances 
 which man has made in the face of the forces of 
 brute and inanimate nature have been made by 
 virtue of this very principle. Here, it is evident, 
 the point of attack is changed. If your antagonist 
 be of the French school of Socialism, he will prob- 
 ably be willing to meet you upon this ground, and 
 assert that more worthy things yet might have been 
 accomplished had no such principle existed, had 
 men worked together like brothers, combining their 
 forces. But if he be of the more advanced German 
 type, he will shift the issue to still another ground, 
 and rejoin perhaps somewhat as follows : True ! 
 let us admit that all that has been accomplished 
 hitherto has bjeen through competition ; we do not 
 mean to undervalue the past ; we maintain only that 
 the time will come, nay, is already come, when, hav- 
 ing gained the vantage-ground which we occupy, and 
 yielding up none of it, we may throw aside the old 
 weapons necessary to its attainment and take up new 
 ones fitted for higher victories ; we must enter upon 
 a new course of higher and truer development, one 
 which need not and shall not build so much upon 
 
SCIENTIFIC ATTITUDE. 4^ 
 
 individual selfishness ; tlie old methods, too long re- 
 tained, are already retarding us; the socialistic 
 scheme is the only one which can lead all men alike 
 to higher perfection. 
 
 Thus it will appear the diiferences between the 
 Socialists and the Economists lie deeper down than 
 the laws of rent, profits, supply and demand, cost of 
 production, and the like, a fact the neglect of which 
 leads to much barren discussiorrr;)' The true matter 
 in controversy is the essential constitution of human 
 nature, and the fundamental relations of man to nat- 
 ural forces. Out of these are drawn the ultimate 
 justification of economic laws, and here are to be 
 found the facts over which the Socialist stumbles. 
 The intelligent defender of society as constructed 
 upon the assumption of private property can notx 
 contend that it is absolutely good, or even the best' 
 imaginable, but only that it is the best practicable. 
 
 This suggests the appropriateness of a word with 
 regard to the attitude of the new scientific Socialism 
 toward the most recent advances in science and in 
 philosophical thinking. The introduction general- 
 ly of historical comparative methods, and the appli- 
 cation of the theory of evolution to explain the 
 development of institutions, dealt a mortal blow to 
 the whole fabric of social philosophy built upon the 
 " compact and natural rights " theory, which culmi- 
 nated and became popularized in the latter half of 
 
48 COMMUmSM IN AMERICA. 
 
 the eighteenth century, and is usually and sufficient- 
 ly well designated by association with the name of 
 Kousseau. While it is true that raany fallacies as- 
 cribable to a lurking assumption of the existence of 
 natural rights, in the sense of the school of Eousseau, 
 appear strikingly still in the writings of the lead- 
 ing French Socialists — Cabet, Proudhon, and Louis 
 Blanc — and still, of course, taint the reasonings of 
 all the less carefully informed of the Socialists, the 
 more advanced German school, on the other hand, 
 have forsaken the old stand-point, and boast of being 
 abreast with the latest science. They reconcile their 
 position with the closest allegiance to Darwin. 
 The argument has in part been already suggested. 
 Lange takes up the two principles — the struggle for 
 existence and the survival of the fittest — and defends 
 from this position the struggle of the workingman 
 to change his condition. If the working-classes find 
 their situation intolerable and hopeless, their ejfforts 
 to bring a about social order in which their happiness 
 will be better assured are made but in fullfilment of 
 their own law of existence. The test of fitness is 
 survival. If the new order be the destruction of the 
 present social organization, it will be by virtue of 
 its own superior fitness. Lange's ingenious use of the 
 Darwinian hypothesis illustrates well the manner in 
 which the more advanced Socialists adapt the latest 
 methods of thought to their own ends. " But," he 
 
FATHERS OF SOCIALISM. 49 
 
 says, " as these advantages are dependent upon bet- 
 ter nourishment, bodily exercise, more leisure, and 
 more favorable opportunities for the development 
 of all the faculties, so it is just as certain, on the 
 other hand, that uniform and straining labor, or the 
 constant practice of a wearisome and difficult man- 
 ual art, exerts a lasting influence upon the individ- 
 ual ; and that the effects of this influence are per- 
 petuated by inheritance, and thus, by the union of 
 adaptation and transmission by inheritance, gradual- 
 ly types of working-classes are formed with ever- 
 increasing distinctness." ' From this he goes on to 
 point out the constantly threatening danger that 
 "the laborers in the industrial regime, under the do- 
 minion of capital, may sink to the condition of a race 
 physically and spiritually inferior." ' 
 
 The new Socialism begins, then, by arraigning the 
 existing social system ; points out with unsparing 
 finger its shortcomings, and, not content with being 
 merely destructive, proceeds to offer a practical sub- 
 stitute. It proposes to introduce an order of things 
 in theory more just and happier in effect. As it is 
 not indigenous in America, but strictly an importa- 
 tion, it will be necessary to go to the German foun- 
 tain-head in order to gain a clear comprehension of 
 its methods. 
 
 ^Friedricli Albert Lange, Die Arbeiterfrage. 55, Dritte Auflage. Win- 
 terthur, 1875. ^ ubi supra. 
 
50 COMMUNISM IN AMERICA. 
 
 Marx and Lassalle are familiar names in both con- 
 tinents. The influence, especially of Ferdinand Las- 
 salle, the great prophet of Socialism, exercises almost 
 undisputed sway over a large body of devout fol- 
 lowers scattered throughout Germany and America, 
 whose watchful zeal and missionary ardor make up 
 the main strength of the socialistic movement. This 
 position of dominance is hardly rivaled even by 
 that of Karl Marx.' The strange terminology of 
 the latter, and his abstruse encounters with the econ- 
 omists, make the reading of his longer treatises, such 
 as his famous " Kapital," a matter of painfal indus- 
 try, and remove him farther from the appreciation of 
 the ordinary man. His objects of attack and his 
 plans for the future organization of the State are, in 
 the main, co-ordinate with those of Lassalle ; the 
 principal differences between the two being in their 
 immediate introductory purposes. The features 
 which particularly distinguish the Marx movement 
 are — the emphasis which it lays upon the necessity 
 of international co-operation, uniting in an interna- 
 tional organization the efforts of the workingmen of 
 
 ^ Karl Marx, born May 3, 1818, at Trier ; the son of a royal Prussian 
 Oberbergrath ; studied law at Bonn ; married a sister of herr Von 
 Westpbalen, a member of the Manteuflfel Ministry. His studies led him 
 into extreme Socialism. He renounced the diplomatic career, which was 
 open to him, became a fugitive from Germany in 1849, and has since 
 resided in London. "Das Kapital," his most important work, was pub- 
 lished in 1867. 
 
LAS8ALLE. 51 
 
 all nations, and its encouragement of strikes and 
 trades-unions. Lassalle's movement was strictly na- 
 tional. It may be said, too, tliat there is more virus 
 in the unscrupulous revolutionary spirit of Marx 
 than in Lassalle's reliance upon a gradual recon- 
 struction. Since the union of the two sections of 
 the Social Democratic Party in Germany, at Gotha, 
 in 1875, however, the two schools have been rapidly 
 drawing together. 
 
 The personality of Lassalle is an exceedingly in- 
 teresting one. Its study is full of instruction for 
 the observer of modern ultra-radical tendencies. 
 The son of a wealthy Jew in Breslau, manifesting in 
 early years unusual intellectual activity, sent to the 
 University, where he soon gave proofs of uncom- 
 mon ability ; later, a shining member of a brilliant 
 circle in Berlin, iii which he was dubbed by Von 
 Humboldt ^' das Wunderkind," earning his iirst lau- 
 rels by the publication of an extensive treatise upon 
 the philosopher Heraclitus of Ephesus ; distin- 
 guished for his personal fastidiousness and the ex 
 cellence of his social entertainments, Lassalle, one 
 would think, judging from the circumstances of his 
 early life, ought to have been an intellectual aristo- 
 crat rather than a popular agitator. And then the 
 latter half of his life, so abruptly divided from the 
 former ; his strange association with the Countess 
 Hatzfeldt ; his short course of mad popularity, cul- 
 
52 COMMUNISM IN AMERICA. 
 
 minating in his triumphal progress through the 
 South German States in the summer of 1864, closing 
 forever at the end of that same summer in an igno- 
 minious death got in a duel arising out of an unedi- 
 fying love affair, in which his enormous vanity de- 
 veloped unsuspected littlenesses — all united with his 
 brighter student experience to make up a career in 
 which was curiously exhibited the union of mental 
 power with the frailties and excesses of that very 
 human nature upon whose sturdiness and self-con- 
 trol his ideal political system must above all base 
 itself/ 
 
 Lassalle takes up, first of all^Ricardo's law, that 
 wages can not -J^je^^-ermanentlv sustained aT>ove the 
 cost of ^subsistence^ above the figure which will 
 barely enable the laborer to support himself and to 
 multiply sufficiently to satisfy the demand for labor. 
 He calls this law '^ Das eherne Lohngesetz," and 
 maintaining stoutly its uncompromising application, 
 he demonstrates from it the utter hopelessness of 
 the situation of the laborer so long as the wage 
 system is retained. Upon this text he rings the 
 changes with insistent repetition and ingenuity. As 
 the wage system is the inevitable result of produc- 
 tion by the use of private capital, he proposes to 
 remove all the " means of labor" from the control 
 
 ^ He adopted as ^a motto tlie line from Virgil, 
 
 " Flectere si neqneo Superos, Acheronta movebo." 
 
THE SOCIALIST STATE. 53 
 
 of private individuals and to make them a common 
 possession. " Capitalism" (" private capital," " cap- 
 italistic production") has liad its day, and must 
 give way to community of production. Under tlie 
 expression " means of labor" seem to be included all 
 the instruments of production with the capital neces- 
 sary to employ them, and these are to be the prop- 
 erty of the community. The individual is to have 
 private property in his direct earnings only. There 
 is no time here to give an adequate description in 
 detail of the socialistic state. All contingencies are 
 provided for with a painful particularity that would 
 fill volumes. And one who has made himself at all 
 acquainted with the logically constructed, intricate 
 edifice of Rodbertus, Marx, and Lassalle, however 
 he may disagree with their fundamental assump- 
 tions, will feel that any attempt at partial represen- 
 tation would necessarily be unfair. Suffice it to say 
 that their scheme contemplates the assumption by 
 the State of the control of a network of industries, 
 embracing almost all the activities of life, whose in- 
 tricate vastness appals the imagination. All prod- 
 ucts would be stored in public storehouses ; all labor 
 would be paid in certificates issued upon a principle, 
 propounded by Marx, of the measure of value by 
 the "social working time" (gesellschaftliche Arbeits- 
 zeit). These certificates would be exchangeable for 
 commodities. Rent, interest on money, profits of 
 

 54 COMMUNISM IN AMERICA. 
 
 trade, all opportunities of personal enrichment, would 
 be forever put away. By the perfect system of su- 
 pervision to be introduced, by the mutual, harmoni- 
 ous relations of all industries and occupations, 
 working toward the same end, freed from the dis- 
 turbing influence of competition, production would 
 be adjusted with approximate accuracy to the wants 
 of consumption, and thus phenomena of over-pro- 
 duction, followed by periods of distress, whose pain- 
 ful consequences fall with such terrible weight upon 
 the lower classes, would be unknown. Of the indi- 
 rect benefits which are to result by reason of the re- 
 moval of the causes of many of the vices which now 
 afflict society, the Socialist draws an eloquent pic- 
 ture. It should be said, too, that the Socialists main- 
 tain that their scheme would not be inconsistent 
 with privacy in living and the sanctity of the fam- 
 ily ; indeed, that it would not abolish private prop- 
 erty, inasmuch as each would have full freedom in 
 disposing of his own earnings. It is the retention 
 of this faded specter of private property which jus- 
 tifies them, they think, in denying that their scheme 
 is communistic. 
 
 The carefully elaborated details of the ultimate 
 dream of Socialism have no great practical import- 
 ance, and are not of so much interest to the present 
 discussion as its more immediate purposes and the 
 steps proposed in order to realize them. 
 
FIRST STEPS. 55 
 
 Lassalle, a follower of Hegel, had imbibed to tte 
 full from his master his ideas of the function of the 
 State as a civilizer. All his hopes, all his schemes 
 center in the State. Not only did he look to the 
 State as the future, ideal dispenser of all that is 
 good, but he expected to make use of the State, 
 under its present imperfect construction, to initiate 
 and effect the proposed transformation. This dei- 
 fication of the State is the quintessence of the 
 Socialist's political aspirations. It is the proper, 
 antithesis of the old uncompromising laisser f aire J 
 laisser passer doctrine, which regarded the State 
 as a necessary evil, and reduced its functions to a 
 minimum. 
 
 But Lassalle took credit to himself for recog- 
 nizing society to be an organism of gradual growth, 
 and did not advise a sudden revolution. The 
 metamorphosis was to be accomplished by, what 
 seemed to him, gradual, wholesome changes. He 
 believed that two centuries would be necessary 
 for the complete suppression of the wage system. 
 The mention of the first step which he proposed 
 in his series of easy changes may provoke a smile. 
 It was no less than the establishment of a loan 
 fund by the German Government, to supply capi- 
 tal to co-operative associations of workingmen for 
 purposes of production. He asked for an initia- 
 tory fand of 100,000,000 thalers, to supply 400,000 
 
56 COMMUNISM IN AMERICA. 
 
 workingmen, at an annual interest of two per 
 cent. It may be said here that Lassalle discoun- 
 tenanced the formation of co-operative associations in 
 the manner at present in vogue, by lyrivate enter- 
 prise, for much the same reasons which led him to 
 discourage strikes. He thought them not only nec- 
 essarily ineifectual, but absolutely harmful, wast- 
 ing the strength of the workingmen, deluding 
 them with false hopes, turning them from the pur- 
 suit of proper measures, and in the end only 
 welding more firmly the chains of "capitalistic 
 despotism." His most bitter controversy was 
 with Schultz-Delitsch, the eminent German phil- 
 anthropist, so distinguished for his efforts in the 
 cause of co-operative production. 
 
 Such is a hasty description of the exotic at- 
 tempted to be transplanted to American soil, some 
 understanding of whose nature and growth is nec- 
 essary to an intelligent appreciation of the labor 
 legislation demanded by our working-classes. It 
 is at once seen the political object in view is, first, 
 the complete democratization of the State. Num- 
 /bers must rule, irrespective of all extraneous in- 
 fluences, whether of wealth or education. The 
 workingmen outnumber all the remaining classes 
 together, and by virtue of this advantage, made 
 available through universal suffrage, may they 
 hope to accomplish the overthrow of the " Nabobs 
 
OF THE ^ 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF 
 
 POLITICAL PROGRAMME. 57 
 
 of Industry." For, witli untiring perseverance, Social- 
 ism fans, in the workingman, the notion that cap- 
 ital is merely an oligarchic despotism ; that the 
 physical laborer is the true producer, and fairly 
 entitled to the proceeds of his labor, of which, as 
 it is, the capitalist doles out to him a mere pit- 
 tance, the fraction of his right, reserving to him- 
 self the lion's share, under the specious pretexts 
 called profits, insurance, wages of superintendence, 
 and the like. The laborers are the " disinherited 
 classes," "die expropriirte Masse;" while the cap- 
 italists are "die wenigen Expropriateurs." ' 
 
 This deep-settled conviction on the part of the 
 laborer that he is the only member of society 
 whose right to existence is unquestionable, gives 
 rise to that strong class pride which is so notice- 
 able at times, and which often has such a strange 
 self-contradictory ring in it. 
 
 Holding in view, then, the attitude of the labor- 
 er's mind, and the direction of the socialistic in- 
 struction to which he submits himself, we shall be 
 better prepared to inspect the following Declara- 
 ration of Principles, published by the Working- 
 men's Party after their Convention of 1876, which 
 
 ^ " Les Travailleurs, ceux qui produisent tout et qui ne jouissent de 
 rien, ceux qui souflfrent de la misere au milieu des produits accumules, 
 fruits de leurs labeurs et de leurs sueurs, devront-ils done sans cesse etre 
 en butte a I'outrage ? "— Jowrwa? Offlciel de la Rep. Fran., d Paris, March 
 20, 1871. 
 
58 COMMUNISM IN AMERICA. 
 
 is subjoined, as the best exposition of their imme- 
 diate purposes that can be offered : 
 
 ** 1. Eight hours, for the present,^ as a normal working- 
 day, and legal punishment of all violators. 
 
 " 2. Sanitary inspections of all conditions of labor, means 
 of subsistence and dwellings included. 
 
 " 3. Establishment of bureaus of labor statistics in all the 
 States, as well as by the national government ; the officers of 
 these bureaus to be taken from the ranks of the labor organ- 
 izations and elected by them. 
 
 " 4. Prohibition of the use of prison labor by private em- 
 ployers. 
 
 " 5. Prohibitory laws against the employment of children 
 under 14 years of age in industrial establishments. 
 
 " 6. Gratuitous instruction in all educational institutions. 
 
 " 7. Strict laws making employers liable for all accidents to 
 the injury of their employees. 
 
 " 8. Gratuitous administration of justice in all courts of 
 law. 
 
 " 9. Abolition of all conspiracy laws. 
 
 " 10. Railroads, telegraphs, and all means of transportation 
 to pass into the hands of, and to be operated by, the govern- 
 ment. 
 
 'Ml. All industrial enterprises to be placed under the con- 
 trol of the government as fast as practicable, and operated 
 by free co-operative trades-unions for the good of the 
 whole people." 
 
 A close examination of this programme is interest- 
 ing as giving a definite, practical idea of the aspira- 
 
 * The italics are my own. 
 
NEWSPAPERS. 59 
 
 tions of a not unimportant part of our working pop- 
 ulation. Joined with demands the reasonableness 
 of whose nature, if not extent, will hardly be ques- 
 tioned, the most significant Socialistic measures are 
 flaunted, culminating appropriately in the last 
 (11th) article. The immediate activity of the labor 
 agitators in the legislative assemblies of the various 
 States seems to be brought to bear upon the enact- 
 ment of eight-hour laws and the establishment of 
 labor bureaus. To the latter the Socialists attach 
 great importance. A Bureau of Labor Statistics 
 has existed successfully in Massachusetts since 1870, 
 and other States have since imitated her example.' 
 The results of these official investigations into the 
 condition of the laboring classes, showing up, as 
 they often do, the most pitiable spectacle, farnish 
 an excellent lever with which to move audiences of 
 workingmen. The professional agitator is usually 
 provided with a complete series of the Annual Re- 
 ports of the Massachusetts Bureau. 
 
 The newspaper strength of the party of So- 
 cialism is more considerable than would be expected. 
 Most of the papers, however, are German. It is 
 worthy of notice that although several efforts have 
 
 ^ A bill for the establishment of a labor bureau in Connecticut, 
 ■which was the special protege of the Socialist element in that State, 
 was recently defeated by a large majority in the Assembly, on the 
 score of economy. 
 
60 COMMUNISM IN AMERICA. 
 
 been made to establish an English organ in New 
 York, none have succeeded. The Labor Standard 
 published in that city, which was meant to be 
 the principal English ^exponent of the party, has 
 separated from the Socialists proper, and now de- 
 votes its energies to the cause of trades-unions, 
 vicious appeals to the masses, and the most indis- 
 criminate and scurrilous abuse of wealth/ In con- 
 nection with the mention of these newspapers, it 
 may be said that the lack of party discipline ap- 
 pears very strongly in the whole movement. Dis- 
 agreements are frequent, and there is a constant 
 jealousy between the English- and German-speak- 
 ing branches. 
 
 The Socialistic Labor Party claims to have polled 
 seventy thousand votes at the State elections in the 
 
 ^ A recent correspondent of the Berlin Stoats-Socialist counts up 11 
 German Socialistic newspapers published in the United States, 7 dailies 
 and 4 weeklies. Of these the leading ones are : Ar'beiter Stimme 
 (New York), Vorbote (Chicago), Arheiter von Ohio (Cincinnati), Iribune 
 (Buffalo), Vorwaerts (Milwaukee), Volksdimme des Westens (St. Louis). 
 
 There are at least seven English organs of Socialism in the United 
 States, as follows : The National Socialist, recently started in Cincin- 
 nati as chief English organ of the Socialistic Labor Party ; The Socialist 
 (weekly, Detroit) ; The Labor Standard (New York), which may be 
 reckoned in this connection; The American Socialist (Oneida), The 
 Voice of Labor (St. Louis), Emancipator (Cincinnati), The People (Pitts- 
 burg). 
 
 In addition to which may be mentioned a Bohemian paper published 
 in New York, the Delnicke Listy (daily and weekly), and a Scandinavian 
 weekly published in Chicago, Den Nye Tid. 
 
VOTING FORGE. 61 
 
 fall of 1877. Since then, if events in San Francisco, 
 Oaklan^d, Chicago, and other cities furnish a true 
 index, the party has increased rather than dimin- 
 ished. Withal the party does not become more im- 
 posing when it is approached more nearly. A 
 closer acquaintance with its men and its parapher- 
 nalia introduces one to an amount of ignorance and 
 shiftlessness inconsistent with the inspiration of rev- 
 erence or fear. It is exposed in an eminent degree 
 to the casualties which hasten the dissolution of 
 political parties. If it carried with it the fate of 
 Communism in America, then all alarm might be 
 easily pacified. But there is in fact no such de- 
 pendent connection, and the voting force of the 
 party can not be taken to indicate accurately either 
 the strength or weakness of the communistic ele- 
 ment in our midst. On the one hand, its voters 
 are for the most part ignorant laborers, and the 
 carefully elaborated systems of Marx and Las- 
 salle are not capable of full and intelligent com- 
 munication to their untrained minds. They can 
 not appreciate the meaning of the economical 
 change proposed. To them " the emancipation of 
 the working-classes" is simply a magic formula 
 which is to transform, in some way, present evil 
 into vaguely represented future good. It is impossi- 
 sible to say how far many of them would go with 
 their present leaders, should they become more en- 
 
62 COMMUNISM IN AMERICA. 
 
 lightened respecting their ultimate destination. On 
 the other hand, it may be safely asserted that all 
 the elements in our society favorable to the spread 
 of Socialism are not to be sought among the 
 formal connections of the Socialistic Labor Party. 
 Many conscious and unconscious contributors to the 
 advancement of communistic ideas stand in no direct 
 relation to the party. And while Socialism is not 
 coextensive with the labor question, yet it is inti- 
 mately bound up with it. The new philosophy of 
 renovation has a tolerably definite plan, the sum 
 and substance of which is the placing of labor upon 
 a footing totally different from that which it now 
 occupies. It takes hold of the awakening political 
 consciousness of the workingman, and leads it in 
 the desired direction. 
 
 It will thus be readily believed that the question 
 as to the actual strength of Socialism in America can 
 not be satisfactorily answered. It is sufficiently diffi- 
 cult to gather into some compact, intelligible form the 
 visionary schemes of the learned radical profession ; 
 but nothing could be more evasive of exact meas- 
 urement than the extent to which the dissatisfaction 
 among the working-classes is leavened with the 
 leaven of Socialism, and the influence generally of 
 ideas which are communistic in their essence and 
 in their legitimate fruits. Still more uncertain 
 would it be to attempt to predict the probabili- 
 
DANGERS PECULIAR TO AMERICA. 63 
 
 ties of j^ the future. The data necessary to be taken 
 into consideration in making such an estimate are 
 too diverse and minute. Innumerable little, seem- 
 ingly unimportant vanes which swing and point in 
 the direction of Socialism may be obeying merely 
 a fitful breeze, or indicating the approach of a 
 strong, growing current. 
 
 In the countries of the Old World, where social 
 distinctions are closer and more galling, class is ar- 
 rayed against class, proletariat against bourgeoisie. 
 In the United States the movement works more 
 subtly and none the less dangerously. It is a very 
 thoughtless confidence that points with self-congrat- 
 ulatory finger to the compact strength of the Sooial- 
 DemoJcraten in Germany.' The more democratic ^ 
 constitution of our society keeps the small man 
 more actively alive to his political possibilities, 
 makes him more impatient of the guidance of supe- 
 rior culture, gives, in a word, greater influence to ig- 
 norance. Nothing could be more favorable tcrtHe" 
 designs of Socialism than the widespread and ever- 
 
 ^ Tlie Berlin correspondent of the London limes writes (March 22d, 
 1878): "The Socialists in 1871 succeeded in collecting 120,000 votes 
 and returning two members to the German Parliament ; in 1874, 34,000 
 votes and nine members. In 1877 they registered 497,000 votes, deput- 
 ing twelve members to the National Legislature. In 1877 the total of 
 the enfranchised electors in the German Empire amounted to 8,943,000. 
 Of these, 5,557,700, or about 60 per cent, having voted, it follows that 
 nearly one tenth of all the votes given were Socialistic, an extraordi- 
 nary result for a movement not thirty years old." 
 
64 COMMUNISM IN AMERICA. 
 
 deepening belief in the supreme justice, the unerr- 
 ing efficacy, of the method of counting heads. The 
 prevalent political looseness is a tribute to the nu- 
 merical God. The strength of the politician is the 
 strength of the crowd. The growing sense of the 
 necessity of conciliating the workingman at the 
 polls is the strongest testimony to his political im- 
 portance. The Eight-hour Law of 1868 was a sig- 
 nificant exhibition of the strength of the laborer 
 even under a hasty, imperfect organization. On the 
 whole, it is to be feared that pernicious labor legis- 
 lation has many more chances of success in a Wash- 
 ington Congress than in the German Parliament. 
 
 Apart from the immediate evil effects of a pre- 
 dominance of popular errors in legislation, there is 
 cause for alarm in the intangible growth of disre- 
 gard for contractual obligations, and in the increas- 
 ing habit of looking upon the man of leisure who 
 lives upon his income as a creature whose existence 
 is entirely without justification, taking its extreme 
 form in a grotesquely exaggerated hatred of the 
 bondholder. Just as, likewise, the increasing tend- 
 ency to look to the state for help, and such popular 
 efforts to widen the sphere of government as the 
 Granger movement, are all more or less significant 
 steps in the general direction of Socialistic concep. 
 tions. 
 
 Fortunately the American laborer has hitherto 
 
FUNDAMENTAL ERRORS. 65 
 
 shown less receptivity for the specific doctrines of 
 Marx and Lassalle than was expected of him. That 
 he will remain always as deaf to the Socialist sirens 
 can not be counted upon. 
 
 Are there any practical lessons to be learned of 
 Socialism ? Men of undoubted ability, information, 
 and thorough study look to a solution of present 
 difiiculties by the application of remedies essentially 
 Socialistic. This consideration alone should induce 
 us to approach the subject in the spirit commended 
 by Mr. Spencer, "which is ever ready to suspect 
 that the convictions we entertain are not wholly 
 right, and the adverse convictions are not wholly 
 wrong." Truth is the outcome of the conflict of 
 many theories, and the final line of orderly progress 
 must be the resultant of many antagonistic forces. 
 Before searching, however for the "soul of good- 
 ness" which may be supposed to dwell also in 
 Socialism, I wish to point out briefly some funda- 
 mental misconceptions which characterize its teach- 
 ings. 
 
 With all the material available for drawing up a 
 heavy indictment against society in its present form, 
 there is still so much of exaggeration in the Social- 
 istic statement of the case, and such a presentation 
 of only one side, as to amount to virtual untruth 
 and cause a distortion of judgment to which the 
 poor man is especially liable. It is not true that all 
 
66 COMMUNISM IN AMERICA. 
 
 those wlio have wealth are wholly given over to 
 selfish indulgence, utterly careless of their less for- 
 tunate fellow-men, secure in a calm " unmarred by 
 sound of human sorrow." The reign of selfishness 
 is not all the Socialist paints it. It is not always 
 overlooked that riches bring with them great re- 
 sponsibilities. Sympathy and beneficence are power- 
 ful agents in alleviating the ills of life, in dulling 
 the sharp inequalities of existence. They are unceas- 
 ingly watchful, ingenious in devising, constant in 
 devotion. 
 
 It is not true that the State does leave, or ever 
 has left, the poor man improtected to the mercy of 
 economic laws. The alleviating hand of the State 
 is everywhere seen thrust in to save victims from 
 the effects of their own excesses, or to smooth the 
 path of untoward circumstance. Hospitals, alms- 
 houses, sanitary regulations, public provision for 
 popular entertainment, all mark the protecting in- 
 terference. 
 
 f It is not true, above all, that every human unit is 
 entitled merely as such to a proportional share of 
 the good things of life. The Socialist makes the 
 problem a merely mathematical one and offers a 
 mathematical solution. 
 
 And what standard is there by which a quantum 
 of happiness can be measured out ? It illustrates 
 the wide-reaching complexity of the subject that 
 
DIFFICULTIES. 67 
 
 the theory of happiness must enter so deeply into 
 any thorough discussion of Socialism; and it is to a 
 total omission to consider, or to a fallacious concep- 
 tion of, this very theory that many of the errors 
 of the Socialist philosophy are to be traced. It is a 
 great misfortune that many most important truths, 
 by dint of much repetition, should acquire a con- 
 temptible familiarity and be carelessly dismissed 
 into the realm of truism, where they lose their 
 proper, effective influence. After all, are not the 
 greatest ills of life common ills, from which wealth 
 grants no exemption ? Does not each new opportu- "7 
 nity add the possibility of a new disappointment, and \ 
 the more refined sensibility learn a new and keener 
 pang in sorrow ? The Socialist philosophers meas- ( 
 ure oif the happiness of class against class with rash 
 confidence. — ^ 
 
 Or who shall measure desert ? "A chacun selon 
 ses forces, k chacun selon ses besoins," says Cabet ; 
 A chacun suivant sa capacite, k chaque capacite sui- 
 vant ses oeuvres," says Saint-Simon. These are idle 
 phrases. Where is there a power to tell us which 
 has deserved most of humanity : a Newton, a 
 Harvey, or a Wilberforce ? Can society ever repay 
 Shakespeare, Goethe, and Dante? In the infinite, 
 imperceptible differences of individual and individ- 
 ual, is there any hope for the maker of categories ? 
 But Socialism, with all its assumption and sugges- 
 
68 COMMUNISM IN AMERICA. 
 
 tioii of untruth, has, first o' x, this good effect : it 
 keeps conscience alive and intelligence busy about 
 real difficulties, pushing them to the front with 
 ever-increasing insistenc<^. The problem of a labor 
 population, doing the hand-work of civilization, 
 while its bounteous results lie close around them in 
 tempting, unattainable proximity, and education 
 steals away the dull bliss of ignorance, must be the 
 peculiar Gordian knot of an age whose practice is 
 political equality and whose ideal is universal en- 
 lightenment. It is here that antiquity becomes 
 barren of instructive examples. The ancients could 
 conceive of no perfect state in which the necessary, 
 burdensome, disagreeable, physical duties of life 
 were not performed by slaves. It was quite in 
 keeping with the Greek contempt for the laboring 
 classes when Plato constituted a class of slaves in 
 his republic, and assigned to all artisans, laborers, 
 and merchants a position little worthier, excluding 
 them from political rights. "The manual arts," says 
 Aristotle, " are base and unworthy of a citizen. The 
 majority of them deform the body. They make it 
 necessary to sit in the shade or near a fire. They 
 leave time neither for the republic nor for one's 
 friends." 
 
 In Rome the number of the slave population rose 
 steadily as the simplicity of Roman life gave way to 
 
A LABOR POPULATION. 69 
 
 the multiplying innU. lions of progress;^ and in 
 Europe throughout the middle ages, and thereafter 
 until the great political awakening, the '^manual 
 arts" were performed by Classes politically subject. 
 This difference of itself cieates a gap between aD- 
 cient and modern democracies wide enough to inter- 
 fere with hasty inferences. 
 
 Under modern conditions, with the enormous 
 multiplication of industries to correspond with 
 the elaboration and multiplication of wants, it seems 
 probable that the number of those who are engaged 
 in performing the baser duties of life must continue 
 to bear a large, perhaps an increasing, proportion to 
 the number of those who enjoy extra opportunities 
 of leisure and self-indulgence ; while the tendency 
 of the introduction of machinery to reduce labor 
 more and more to a monotonous, mechanical task 
 gives some apparent foundation to the alarm lest, 
 in the natural course of events, the workman may 
 degenerate into an eating, sleeping automaton little 
 better than the machine he tends. 
 
 With regard to the proportion of laborers, nar- 
 rowly socalled, in a complex society where occu- 
 pations glide one into another through indistin- 
 guishable gradations, it is impossible, of course, to 
 obtain satisfactory statistics, any thing that will 
 give more than a general notion of the state of the 
 
 ' Mommsen, Rom. Geschichte, ii., 81, 396, and iii., 510, 511, 531. 
 
10 COMMUNISM m AMERICA. 
 
 case. It will be evident that accurate statistics 
 giving the distribution of wealth are still less avail- 
 able. Leone Levi, in 1867, estimated the working- 
 classes of England at twenty-two millions, earning 
 yearly £85 per family, and the middle and higher 
 classes at eight millions, earning j£193 per family.' 
 
 With regard to the United States I have been 
 unable to find even approximate figures; and it 
 should be borne in mind that the widely different 
 condition of land ownership in the two countries 
 must largely modify any reasoning from English to 
 American circumstances. But Prof Wagner has 
 certified that in Germany, where there is still a 
 sturdy peasant class of allodial proprietors, the 
 same tendencies as in England are to be clearly 
 traced ; tendencies which he is inclined to explain 
 by a reference to the rapid growth of large private 
 individual and corporate enterprises. The indus- 
 trial conditions in the United States being essenti- 
 ally the same with those of the highest-developed 
 
 ' Leone Levi, Wages and Earnings of the Working Classes. Lon- 
 don, 1867. 
 
 According to another calculation, taken from the results of the Eng- 
 lish income tax and combined with the labors of Baxter and Rodbertus, 
 there were in 1867 in England 8500 persons enjoying each an income of 
 over £5000. These 8500 made up .062 per cent of the total self-support- 
 ing population, their total income being 15.4 per cent of the total valued 
 income of the United Kingdom ; while (taking an estimate of an oppo- 
 nent of Socialism) 4,519,000 self-supporting persons had an income of 
 less than £30.— Prof. Ad. Wagner, in the Staats-Socialist, Feb. 3, 1878. 
 
EMIGRATION AND CO-OPERATION 71 
 
 modern countries, and in view of facts patent to the 
 observation of all, it can hardly be asserted that we 
 enjoy any peculiar dispensation from this same 
 movement, defining more and more sharply the con- 
 trast between wealth and poverty. Every year 
 makes dimmer with us the peculiar conditions 
 which render a new country less exposed to the 
 evils attendant upon a thickly settled population. 
 
 Emigration suggests itself as one mode of relief, 
 and in this direction we certainly possess unusual 
 advantages. But emigration, while always an ex- 
 ceedingly valuable safety-valve deserving of the 
 most careful attention on the part of the economist 
 and statesman, is but a temporary makeshift, and 
 does not contribute much, even temporarily, toward 
 the solution of the real labor question. It may 
 draw off the surplus population and give some 
 relief at times of great pressure, but the relief is in 
 a sense only a surface one. The same difficulties 
 are left behind ; the same industrial methods, the 
 same division into employers and employed, capital- 
 ists and laborers; the same social inequalities. 
 
 One remedy for this encroaching dualism seems 
 indeed to be less applicable in America than in 
 the countries of the Old World. The dream of co- 
 operative production and industrial partnership 
 dawned upon anxious students and philanthropists 
 with all the hope of a long-waited-for inspiration, 
 
72 COMMUNISM IN AMERICA. 
 
 promising in the fullness of time to accomplish 
 wonders toward dispersing the shadows which 
 hang over modern progress. The example of Mr. 
 Briggs, proprietor of the Methley Collieries, and of 
 M. LeClaire, house-decorator in Paris, seemed about 
 to become models for a most desirable transforma- 
 tion in the methods of industry. But already faith 
 in this supreme remedy is faltering. After the 
 first activity in the formation of co-operative associa- 
 tions, followed a corresponding lull which does not 
 seem to be often broken. Such associations, too, 
 where they have existed successfully have discov- 
 ered an irresistible tendency in almost all cases to 
 degenerate into joint-stock companies employing 
 their labor, thus leaving the kernel of the labor 
 question untouched. The familiar example of the 
 Rochdale Pioneers is an interesting case in point. 
 The story of those sturdy workingmen has been 
 told again and again, and its recital will never cease 
 to be full of stirring encouragement and instruction. 
 But they have now become virtually a joint-stock 
 company. Mr. Thornton laments that they have 
 fallen away from the principles of their foundation. 
 They are brilliant examples of workingmen who 
 have raised themselves out of their class : they have 
 not raised their class. An English economist, visit- 
 ing Bochdale after an absence of a number of years, 
 has described with some bitterness the sons of the 
 
THE TRUE PROBLEM. 73 
 
 Pioneers living in luxury and imitating the airs and 
 fashions of tlie wealthy of all times. ' This is why 
 the Socialist leaders drill their followers into un- 
 flinching opposition to all co-operation which is not 
 at once thorough, sweeping, and directed by the 
 State itself. It is easy to understand why Lassalle 
 should say of all private co-operative attempts that 
 they tended to create a " fifth estate." 
 
 If, then, the existence of a large working-class is 
 an inevitable fact, from which no theory save that 
 of the Socialist proposes an escape, and if at the 
 same time the political equalization of all classes 
 calls for the universal diffusion of education, the 
 difficulty is reduced to the question. How shall the 
 condition of labor be so ordered that its burdens 
 may be consistent with at least a moderate degree 
 of intellectual enlightenment ? The most sanguine 
 optimism can hardly look for any immediate satis- 
 
 ^ " In spite of these marked advantages, however, we have to note 
 that co-operation in mechanical industry has achieved a very slight and 
 even doubtful success." — Prof. Walker, The Wages Question, 272. 
 
 "Co-operation in this country has hitherto been seldom applied to the 
 production of wealth. Probably at least nine tenths of the existing co- 
 operative societies carry on those ordinary retail businesses, the function 
 of which is to distribute rather than produce wealth. These distrib- 
 utive societies, which are now generally known as co-operative stores, 
 are wanting in the most essential characteristics of co-operation, for they 
 do not necessarily establish a union — or as it has been described, a mar- 
 gin of capital and labor." — Prof. Fawcett, "Position and Prospects of 
 Co-operation," Fortnightly Review, Feb. 1, 1874. 
 
74 COMMUNISM IN AMERICA. 
 
 factory answer. Many thoughtful observers view 
 the situation with little hope, and, while they reject 
 the solution of the Socialist, see no promise of sub- 
 stantial improvement under the present methods. 
 
 Under these circumstances a heavy duty falls 
 upon those who make a special study of social and 
 economic conditions. And among the effects of the 
 ascitation of the workino^-classes under the leader- 
 ship of Socialism, this one is perhaps most no- 
 ticeable : that it provokes a continual proving and 
 remodeling of the results of politico-economic and 
 social science. The general movement at the head of 
 which are the Kotheder-Socialisten marks the influ- 
 ence. It is necessary to mention only such names 
 as Cliffe Leslie and Thornton in England, Laveleye 
 in Belgium, Leroy-Beaulieu in France, and Wagner, 
 Schmoller, and Schaffle in Germany, to sufficiently 
 designate the movement. The old school of politi- 
 cal economy, undei* the leadership of Adam Smith, 
 E-icardo, and J. B. Sa}', clung too closely, say these 
 new men, to abstract principles and natural econo- 
 mic laws. They trusted too implicitly to the de- 
 ductive method. The inductive method must be 
 more thoroughly introduced into this as into the 
 other sciences ; more attention must be given to 
 statistical and historical investigation. The psycho- 
 logical dependence of all economic phenomena must 
 be continually kept in mind, and the impossibility 
 
THE KATHEDEB-80CIALI8T8. 75 
 
 of deducing rigid, scientific laws from the uncertain,, 
 variable qualities of human nature must be recog-1 
 nized. 
 
 Marx starts with the law of Adam Smith that all 
 wealth is the result of labor, and leads the mind 
 from this dogma with faultless logic to the condem- 
 nation of private property. ' Lassalle demonstrates 
 the hopelessness of the prospect for labor, from 
 Malthus and Ricardo. But the economists of the 
 new school shake off the burden of defending old 
 dogmas ; and Laveleye, for example, denies the uni- 
 versal and uncompromising application of '^das 
 eherne Lohngesetz," as announced by Lassalle. He 
 maintains that increased well-being among the 
 working-classes does not lead inevitably to an in- 
 crease in the size of families. 
 
 " En eff et," he says, " la France est, avec la Suisse 
 et la Norwege, le pays ou la propriete se trouve 
 entre le plus grand nombre de mains, et ou le bien- 
 etre est le plus egalement reparti, et c'est aussi le 
 pays oil la population s'accroit le plus lentement. 
 Depuis vingt ans, malgre d'eifroyables crises, la 
 
 ^ Marx borrowed this, as most of his system, from Rodbertus, who 
 called his theory " eine consequente Durchfuhrung des von Smith in 
 die Wissenschaft eingefiihrten und von der Ricardo'schen Schule noch 
 tiefer begriindeten Satzes, dass alle Giiter wirthschaftlich nur als Pro- 
 duct der Arbeit anzusehen sind, nichts als Arbeit kosten." — R. Meyer, 
 Emancipationskampf des vierten Standes, i., 44. 
 
76 COMMUNISM IN AMERICA. 
 
 richesse y a augmentee plus que partout ailleurs, et 
 la population est restee presque stationnaire." ' 
 
 The influence of tlie Katheder-Socialists, whose 
 activity is, in a sense, due to the irritant Socialism, 
 appears especially in the struggle which they have 
 entered upon with the old, strict laisser-faire con- 
 ception of the proper functions of government. 
 While the Manchester men maintain that the inter- 
 ference of the State has been already carried too far, 
 that the happiness of all will be best served in the 
 end by allowing the individual the utmost possible 
 freedom in the pursuit of his own hapj)iness, these 
 new economists, on the other hand, assert that the pos- 
 sibilities of the State as a directing, moderating influ- 
 ence have not been sufficiently recognized, and that 
 the use of the governmental power to curb excesses 
 of private competition and to put some limit to pri- 
 vate accumulation of wealth would remove many 
 
 ^ Remie des Deux Mondes, Dec. 15, 1876, p. 882. In support of 
 Laveleye's assertion another authority may be quoted here. According 
 to a Report of the French Bureau of General Statistics (cited in Journal 
 of the Statistical Society, London, vol. xxxvii., 540), the average wages of 
 laborers in France, exclusive of Paris, amounted in 1853 to 96 centimes 
 a day ; this had risen in 18^ 1 to 1 franc 40 centimes, an increase of 
 somewhat more than 45 per cent ; and as during the same eighteen 
 years, it was estimated, the cost of necessaries rose about 33 per cent, the 
 result would indicate a considerable rise in real icages. 
 
 " Quand Arthur Young voyait en France le sol divise en un tres- 
 grand nombre de mains, il predisait que le pays se transformerait en une 
 garenne de Japins: c'est tout le contraire, qui a eu lieu." — Revue des 
 Deux Mondes, ib., 882. 
 
INDIRECT, BENEFICIAL RESULTS. 77 
 
 causes of danger by alleviating the present great 
 social inequalities. They would hardly indeed go 
 to the length of any thing approaching the Socialist 
 claim that capital loan funds should be established 
 by the State. The experience of the government 
 of '48 has warned all imitators from that ground.' 
 There is, it may be supposed, some happy point of 
 balance between the two extremes of ^' administra- 
 tive nihilism" and production under governmental 
 direction. Around this point the contest is pro- 
 gressing. 
 
 This will be perhaps sufficient to suggest the gen- 
 eral character of that movement in the field of 
 politico-economic science, whose existence indicates 
 
 ^ The Constituent Assembly (France) voted in July, 1848, to appropri- 
 ate tliree million francs to lend to workingmen who wished to form 
 productive associations. Sixty-one such associations were formed ; ten 
 years later there were but nine of them left altogether, only four of 
 which could be said in any sense to be prospering. — See Villetart, 
 Histoire de V Ldernationale, 26. 
 
 Even private attempts in the same direction proved equally disastrous. 
 The " Societe du Credit au Travail," formed by M. Beluze in 1863 at 
 Paris, perished before 1870, similarly with the celebrated effort of the 
 emperor to establish a " Caisse des Associations Cooperatives." — Ibid., 
 cli. ii., sec. 4. 
 
 All observers have remarked that outside aid, whether from the State 
 or from philanthropic individuals, has always exerted a rapidly demoral- 
 izing effect upon attempts at co-operative production. 
 
 Of the co-operative associations above referred to, established on the 
 credit voted by the Assembly in 1848, Laveleye has stated that only 
 one remained in 1875 {''Tsi\\\GVimAQ\ime^").—ltevue des Deux Mondes, 
 ub. sup., 890. 
 
78 COMMUNISM IN AMERICA. 
 
 the one great good which has come out of Socialism. 
 This good is seen in the unexampled activity with 
 which the study of social conditions has been pros- 
 ecuted during the past twenty-five years. Before 
 that, it seemed that the science of political economy 
 would settle down with unprogressive complacency 
 to the contemplation of its accomplished labors. 
 Now it is recognized that students of social phenom- 
 ena must not be content to formulate difficulties 
 logically and accurately ; they must be ever eagerly 
 seeking remedies and improved methods. This 
 activity is itself the safest promise of future ameli- 
 oration. 
 
 Recent investigations lead to the belief that in 
 primitive times property was held in common and 
 not in severalty. It would be indeed strange if 
 events were tending, as many assert, to a return to 
 a state of things characteristic of a cruder period. 
 Such a return is difficult to conceive of. To one 
 who looks upon the advance of the whole as a con- 
 stant process of differentiation, due to the several 
 struggles of individuals, the adoption of any system 
 whose inevitable principle would be the weighting 
 of the swift to accommodate the slow must seem in 
 the highest degree improbable. But it is character- 
 istic of the Socialist that he is blind to prosaic 
 facts. When actualities are repulsive to his theory, 
 he ignores them. He feeds upon exaggerations. 
 
VISIONARY OPTIMISM. 79 
 
 He makes bold offers to cure witli his patent reme- 
 dies the ills which beset the social body. To offset 
 these the sober student ventures but modest prom- 
 ises. The one seems to preach only patience, while 
 the other preaches emancipation. But if, bowing 
 before the invincible destroyers Disease and Death, 
 we study human nature in its weakness and degra- 
 dation as well as in its beauty and strength, not 
 forgetting its enthusiasm, its poetry, its self-devo- 
 tion, but remembering, too, its every-day vices, its 
 sordid aims, its petty passions, its impotence in the 
 midst of its greatest conquests ; if we see in the 
 history of institutions a record of imperfect devices 
 hammered out as well as may be through centuries 
 of hard experience — then we shall cherish no san- 
 guine visions of the final perfection of human soci- 
 ety, we shall resign with less regret the millennial 
 reign of peace, plenty, and universal happiness which 
 is so confidently promised by these would-be re- 
 formers with their self-satisfied wisdom and cheap 
 nostrums. Then, too, we shall be in a position to 
 maintain that, considering the unmeasured slowness 
 of all growth, it can not with truth be asserted that 
 the institution of private property has yet developed 
 to the utmost its capacity to cope with the difficul- 
 ties of social existence. Integral improvement must 
 be the sum of infinitesimal individual efforts, and 
 what abundant opportunities exist in the life of 
 
80 C0MMUNI8M IN AMERICA. 
 
 each citizen to increase Ms own contribution to the 
 general advance ! 
 
 To this end there will be necessary a wider-spread, 
 more intelligent sense of personal responsibility, 
 issuing in practical doing, affecting all the personal 
 relations of life, establishing more kindly sympathy 
 between employer and employed, introducing gen- 
 erosity and liberal-mindedness into the management 
 of great enterprises, giving, in a word, to education 
 more effective moral influence. And while so much 
 faith is put in as ort of half-education of the work- 
 ing masses which in many cases raises them no 
 higher than discontent, is there not great room for 
 hope that a wider, better-directed education of those 
 who already call themselves the educated classes 
 may do much to increase the general sense of the 
 responsibilities of existence, and thus weaken the 
 power of that selfishness whose grievous results are 
 undeniable ? 
 
 Meanwhile voices come to us with warnings that 
 democracies are peculiarly exposed to the dangers 
 arising out of inequality of social conditions. The 
 stories of the democracies of the past are told at 
 length in order to point the moral/ But there 
 
 ^ " In the autlior's opinion, modern democracies will only escape the 
 destiny of ancient democracies by adopting laws such as shall secure the 
 distribution of property among a large number of holders, and shall es- 
 tablish a very general equality of conditions." — Layeleye, Primitive 
 Property, xxxiii. 
 
AMERICAN CIRCUMSTANCES. 81 
 
 are considerations which would strengthen Ameri- 
 cans in the belief that they have less to fear than 
 the countries of the Old World from immediate Com- 
 munistic efforts, whether of the revolutionary or of 
 the insidious orderly type. Any one who comes into 
 personal contact with this ultra-radical movement 
 will hardly fail to be impressed with the fact that 
 there is no better cure for radical leanings in the 
 individual than a little worldly success. The 
 more able, active spirits among the Communists, 
 those who constitute the class of men under whose 
 leadership alone Communism could ever be danger- 
 ous, are being continually won from the cause by 
 the acquisition of property and social standing. It 
 is indeed more fitting that the merely physical 
 duties of society should be performed by those who 
 are intellectually less capable. And in the presence 
 of the difficulties arising out of social inequality, it 
 is the great advantage which democracies possess 
 over more aristocratic forms that they oifer superior 
 facilities for a constant sifting process, allowing the 
 less energetic to sink, the more energetic to rise to 
 
 " We should not forget this important lesson taught us by the history 
 of political and social institutions. Democracies which fail to preserve 
 equality of conditions, and in which two hostile classes, the rich and the 
 poor, find themselves face to face, are doomed to anarchy and subse- 
 quent despotism. The recent strikes in the United States show that the 
 danger there is already near the surface." — Ihid., xliii. 
 6 
 
82 COMMUNISM IN AMERICA. 
 
 the top. It will be well, then, to bear this continu- 
 ally in mind: the more complete the absence of 
 class barriers, the freer and more thorough and con- 
 stant the interchange between class and class, the 
 easier the exit of excellence from outgrown material 
 surroundings, the more sure will be the average 
 progress, and the less opportunity will there be of 
 the Communist disaffection becoming wide-spread, 
 deep-seated, and powerful. 
 
 An attempt has thus been made to suggest the 
 general features of a subject whose thorough treat- 
 ment would require much wider limits than those of 
 the present essay. I shall be satisfied if I have suc- 
 ceeded in giving a true impression of its importance. 
 An examination of the evidences of Communistic 
 tendencies in America has led me to the conclusion 
 that all such tendencies of sufficient importance to 
 merit serious consideration are to be associated 
 with the new Socialism. 
 
 I have, then, endeavored to suggest the circum- 
 stances of the birth of Socialism, to trace briefly its 
 rise in America, to describe its political mechanism, 
 and to give some notion of its political strength. I 
 have endeavored to convey a dispassionate idea of 
 its spirit and purposes, with a general outline of the 
 political system which it aims to establish. While 
 pointing out some of the misconceptions which 
 
CONCLUSION. 83 
 
 underlie the Socialist philosophy, I have endeav- 
 ored to elicit the practical lessons which are to be 
 learned of the movement. I have attempted to 
 show that it throws up a true difficulty, one which 
 will face us as it faces Europe, as it must face 
 every free, enlightened, thickly settled country. 
 
 It may not be out of place to add one word, in 
 conclusion, with reference generally to the temper 
 of Socialism. There is an undefined feeling, char- 
 acteristic of our age — characteristic more particular- 
 ly, perhaps, of our own people — which I can not bet- 
 ter designate than by calling it impatience of the 
 slowness of growih. Advances in physical discov- 
 ery, mechanical invention, and material comfort, fol- 
 lowing in bewildering succession, have a tendency 
 to promote the rise of a restless eagerness regarding 
 the future of the race ; to cultivate an overweening 
 confidence in man's power ; to awaken unfounded 
 hopes of the perfection of institutions and the gen- 
 eral diffusion of happiness. It is right to expect an 
 increase of general happiness from improvement in 
 social methods. But it is lost sight of that the con- 
 dition of the social body is more intimately and de- 
 pendently related with man's moral nature than 
 with his intellectual conquests or his mere material 
 status. Indeed, moral growth on the one hand and 
 material growth on the other, so far from proceeding 
 pari passu, seem, at times, to be in direct opposition. 
 
84 COMMUNISM IN AMERICA. 
 
 There has, it will be generally admitted, been no 
 moral advance to correspond with tremendous ma- 
 terial strides. The failure of happiness, then, to 
 meet expectation occasions a revolt, and this revolt 
 finds an expression in Socialism. Keenly aware of 
 the presence of ills, confident of their own power to 
 heal, disregarding the delicacy of the organism with 
 which they experiment, the Socialist physicians ap- 
 proach with easy assurance, nay, with criminal reck- 
 lessness, a disease which it is the life-task of the 
 world to understand and cure. In order to create 
 an opportunity for the application of their boasted 
 remedies, they dare to appeal without scruple to the 
 disorganizing forces of society. But let him who 
 would summon spirits beware lest, when they come, 
 he feel no power to govern their unforeseen willfulness, 
 and can find no magic formula to send them back to 
 their dark hiding-place. When the fiendish antics of 
 his strange guests fill him with terror and threaten him 
 with desolation, the ready-tongued apprentice may 
 be glad to call upon the slow, resistless, organizing 
 power of order, the power which builds and builds 
 through the patient ages, careless as well of the type 
 as of the single life. 
 
 THE END. 
 
 / OF THE *^ 
 
 ^ UNIVERSITY 
 
INDEX 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Agitators 31 
 
 Amana 10 
 
 Aristotle 68 
 
 Aurora 11 
 
 Bethel 11 
 
 Blanc, Louis 24- 
 
 Brisbane, Albert 18 
 
 Brook Farm 19 
 
 Cabet 14 
 
 Campanella 17 
 
 Channing 19 
 
 Communes in America. .9 et seq. 
 
 Commune, refugees of 24 
 
 Communism, different uses of 
 word, 1 ; how related to 
 Socialism, 4, 6 ; tendencies 
 
 communistic in spirit 64 
 
 Co-operation 72 
 
 Curtis, George William 19 
 
 Elkins, Hervey 13 
 
 Emigration 71 
 
 Fourier 15, 17, 18, 19 
 
 Fourth Estate 22 
 
 France, influences from. 21, 22, 23 
 
 Fuller, Margaret 19 
 
 Germany, influences from.. 23, 
 
 36, 49 
 
 Greeley, Horace 18 
 
 Greek conception of State 68 
 
 Harmony 11 
 
 Harrison, Frederic 43, 44 
 
 Hawthorne 19, 20 
 
 Hernhuters 17 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Huss 17 
 
 Icarians 14 
 
 Industrial Partnerships 71, 72 
 
 International, the 25, 26, 27 
 
 Inspirationists * . . 10 
 
 James 1 5 
 
 Katheder-Socialists..74, 75, 76, 77 
 
 Keil, Dr 11 
 
 Labor Question — relation to 
 
 Communism 1, 2 
 
 Labor legislation 22 
 
 Labor population 69, 70 
 
 Laisser faire 76, 77 
 
 Lanark 15, 16 
 
 Lange, Fried. Albert 48 
 
 Lassalle 24, 51, 52, 55, 56 
 
 Laveleye, Emile 75 
 
 Lej^den 6 
 
 Marx, Karl 50 
 
 Mill, John Stuart 18, 43 
 
 Mohl, Robert 43 
 
 Morelly 17 
 
 Mount Lebanon 12 
 
 National Labor Union 26 
 
 New Harmony 15 
 
 New Lanark 15 
 
 Newspapers, Socialist 59, 60 
 
 Nordhoflf, Charles 9 
 
 Noyes 12, 15 
 
 Owen, Robert 15, 16 
 
 Oneida 11, 12 
 
 Panic of '73 28 
 
 Paris, Revolution of '71 3, 4 
 
86 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Perfectionists 11, 13 
 
 Phalanst^res 17 
 
 Plato 17, 68 
 
 Plymouth Bay Colony 6, 7, 8 
 
 Proudhon 24 
 
 Rapp, George 11 
 
 Ricardo 52 
 
 Riots of '77 29 
 
 Rochdale Pioneers 72 
 
 Rome 68 
 
 Shakers 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14 
 
 Socialism — use of word, 1 ; 
 its complaint, 40-42 ; its 
 criticism of the present or- 
 der, 44, 45 ; its logical posi- 
 tion, 46 ; its scientific atti- 
 
 PAGE 
 
 tude, 47 ; conception of 
 State, 53, 55 ; difficulty of 
 estimating its strength, 61- 
 63; its misconceptions, 65 
 -67 ; beneficial effects, 68 ; 
 influence on political econ- 
 omy 74 
 
 Socialistic Labor Party 30, 31 
 
 Social Science 13 
 
 Tompkins Square 18 
 
 Trades Unions. ... 23 
 
 Tribune.. .. 18 
 
 Virginia Colony... , 5, 6 
 
 Wallingford 11. 12 
 
 Workingmen's Party of the 
 U. S 30, 31, 58, 59 
 
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